There were great red deer , sloths, enormous primitive cattle with shaggy coats; and near clumps of bamboo that bordered a river was a herd of mammoths. There were other animals, too, that von Horst was unable to classify. Presently they flew above low hills, leaving the plain behind, and then over a rough, volcanic country of barren, black, cone-shaped hills. Between the cones and part way up their sides rioted the inevitable tropical verdure of Pellucidar. Only where no root could find a foothold was there no growth. One peculiar feature of these cones attracted von Horst's attention; there was an opening in the top of many of them, giving them the appearance of miniature extinct volcanoes. They ranged in size from a hundred feet to several hundred in height. As he was contemplating them, his captor commenced to circle directly above one of the larger cones; then it dropped rapidly directly into the yawning crater, alighting on the floor in the shaft of light from the sun hanging perpetually at zenith.

As the creature dragged him from its pouch, von Horst could, at first, see little of the interior of the crater; but as his eyes quickly became accustomed to the surrounding gloom he saw what appeared to be the dead bodies of many animals and men laid in a great circle around the periphery of the hollow cone, their heads outward from the center. The circle was not entirely completed, there being a single gap of several yards. Between the heads of the bodies and the wall of the cone was stacked a quantity of ivory colored spheres about two feet in diameter.

These things von Horst observed in a brief glance; then he was interrupted by being lifted into the air. The creature raised him, faced out, until his head was about on a level with its own; then the man felt a sharp, sickening pain in the back of his neck at the base of the brain. There was just an instant of pain and momentary nausea; then a sudden fading of all feeling. It was as though he had died from the neck down. Now he was aware of being carried toward the wall of the cone and of being deposited upon the floor. He could still see; and when he tried to turn his head, he found that he could do so. He watched the creature that had brought him there leap into the air, spread its wings, and flap dismally away through the mouth of the crater.