yet as galbanum drew his knife , the toad at last perceived the strife ; it quickly scanned a canny line , a cobbled block of foot and sign , and with a belching , metric flow spake a shield to stop the blow : `` it was before the lime-slaked fossils , when flagellates were the lone apostles of a churchyard sea awash with life , newly forged and not yet rife , but sparsely spread upon the deep in pseudopods that snake and creep ; it was in times of ancient power that there were forms most grim and dour who sought advantage in the gain of causing protoplasmic pain ; when first the movement of the tide was a tolling bell to chide those chronic marks on the sublime .