I was sure that not one of us felt the slightest fear in thus pushing on
toward dangers of whose nature we could form no idea. The steps,
precisely like those above, wound round and round and led us down I
should say as much as three hundred feet before we entered another
cavern, larger and loftier than the first.

And there we found them!

There was never another such sight! It made our blood run cold once more,
rather with surprise than fear, though the latter quickly followed.

Ranged along the farther side of the cavern, and visible in the light of
another glowing heap in the center, were as many as thirty of those huge
hairy creatures, standing shoulder to shoulder, their great eyes glaring
like bull's-eye lanterns. But the thing that filled us with terror was
their motions.

You have read, with thrilling nerves, how a huge cobra, reared on his
coils, sways his terrible head from side to side before striking. Well,
all those black heads before us were swaying in unison, but with a
sickening circular movement, which was regularly reversed in direction.
Three times by the right and then three times by the left those heads
circled, in rhythmic cadence, while the luminous eyes seemed to leave
phosphorescent rings in the air, intersecting one another in consequence
of the rapidity of the motion.

It was such a spectacle as I had never beheld in the wildest dream. It
was baleful. It was the charm of the serpent fascinating his terrified
prey. In an instant I felt my brain turning, and I staggered in spite of
my utmost efforts. A kind of paralysis stiffened my limbs.