The eyes, dead and turned to stone, were even now regarding him.

It was one of the early crustaceans called Trilobites.

Separated by millions of years in their lives, Knight and this underling seemed to have met in their death.

It was the single instance within reach of his vision of anything that had ever been alive and had had a body to save, as he himself had now.
The creature represented but a low type of animal existence, for never in their vernal years had the plains indicated by those numberless slaty layers been traversed by an intelligence worthy of the name.

Zoophytes, mollusca, shell-fish, were the highest developments of those ancient dates.