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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/139-0.txt b/139-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d56daf1 --- /dev/null +++ b/139-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7991 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 139 *** + + THE LOST WORLD + + I have wrought my simple plan + If I give one hour of joy + To the boy who's half a man, + Or the man who's half a boy. + + + + The Lost World + + + By + + SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE + + COPYRIGHT, 1912 + + + + Foreword + + Mr. E. D. Malone desires to state that + both the injunction for restraint and the + libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly + by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being + satisfied that no criticism or comment in + this book is meant in an offensive spirit, + has guaranteed that he will place no + impediment to its publication and circulation. + + + + + + Contents + +CHAPTER + + I. "THERE ARE HEROISMS ALL ROUND US" + II. "TRY YOUR LUCK WITH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER" + III. "HE IS A PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE PERSON" + IV. "IT'S JUST THE VERY BIGGEST THING IN THE WORLD" + V. "QUESTION!" + VI. "I WAS THE FLAIL OF THE LORD" + VII. "TO-MORROW WE DISAPPEAR INTO THE UNKNOWN" + VIII. "THE OUTLYING PICKETS OF THE NEW WORLD" + IX. "WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN IT?" + X. "THE MOST WONDERFUL THINGS HAVE HAPPENED" + XI. "FOR ONCE I WAS THE HERO" + XII. "IT WAS DREADFUL IN THE FOREST" + XIII. "A SIGHT I SHALL NEVER FORGET" + XIV. "THOSE WERE THE REAL CONQUESTS" + XV. "OUR EYES HAVE SEEN GREAT WONDERS" + XVI. "A PROCESSION! A PROCESSION!" + + + + + THE LOST WORLD + + + + + The Lost World + + CHAPTER I + + "There Are Heroisms All Round Us" + +Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon +earth,--a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly +good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If +anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the +thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really +believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a +week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his +views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an +authority. + +For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup +about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the +depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange. + +"Suppose," he cried with feeble violence, "that all the debts in the +world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted +upon,--what under our present conditions would happen then?" + +I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon +which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, +which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in +my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic +meeting. + +At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! All +that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which +will send him on a forlorn hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse +alternating in his mind. + +She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the +red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been +friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same +comradeship which I might have established with one of my +fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,--perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, +and perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too +frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where +the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, +heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in +hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing +figure--these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the +true signals of passion. Even in my short life I had learned as much +as that--or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct. + +Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be cold +and hard; but such a thought was treason. That delicately bronzed +skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large +liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,--all the stigmata of passion +were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found +the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should +have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She +could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted +brother. + +So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long +and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, +and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof. "I have a +presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you +wouldn't; for things are so much nicer as they are." + +I drew my chair a little nearer. "Now, how did you know that I was +going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder. + +"Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was +ever taken unawares? But--oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and +so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don't you feel how splendid it +is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to +face as we have talked?" + +"I don't know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with--with the +station-master." I can't imagine how that official came into the +matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing. "That does not +satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you, and your head on my +breast, and--oh, Gladys, I want----" + +She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to +demonstrate some of my wants. "You've spoiled everything, Ned," she +said. "It's all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing +comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you control yourself?" + +"I didn't invent it," I pleaded. "It's nature. It's love." + +"Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never felt +it." + +"But you must--you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you +were made for love! You must love!" + +"One must wait till it comes." + +"But why can't you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?" + +She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand--such a gracious, +stooping attitude it was--and she pressed back my head. Then she +looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile. + +"No it isn't that," she said at last. "You're not a conceited boy by +nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. It's deeper." + +"My character?" + +She nodded severely. + +"What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. No, really, +I won't if you'll only sit down!" + +She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my +mind than her whole-hearted confidence. How primitive and bestial it +looks when you put it down in black and white!--and perhaps after all +it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat down. + +"Now tell me what's amiss with me?" + +"I'm in love with somebody else," said she. + +It was my turn to jump out of my chair. + +"It's nobody in particular," she explained, laughing at the expression +of my face: "only an ideal. I've never met the kind of man I mean." + +"Tell me about him. What does he look like?" + +"Oh, he might look very much like you." + +"How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I +don't do? Just say the word,--teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, +theosophist, superman. I'll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only +give me an idea what would please you." + +She laughed at the elasticity of my character. "Well, in the first +place, I don't think my ideal would speak like that," said she. "He +would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a +silly girl's whim. But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who +could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a +man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I +should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be +reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! When I read his wife's +life of him I could so understand her love! And Lady Stanley! Did you +ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? +These are the sort of men that a woman could worship with all her soul, +and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honored +by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds." + +She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down +the whole level of the interview. I gripped myself hard, and went on +with the argument. + +"We can't all be Stanleys and Burtons," said I; "besides, we don't get +the chance,--at least, I never had the chance. If I did, I should try +to take it." + +"But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I +mean that he makes his own chances. You can't hold him back. I've +never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There are heroisms +all round us waiting to be done. It's for men to do them, and for +women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. Look at that +young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. It was blowing a +gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on +starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four +hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I +mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have +envied her! That's what I should like to be,--envied for my man." + +"I'd have done it to please you." + +"But you shouldn't do it merely to please me. You should do it because +you can't help yourself, because it's natural to you, because the man +in you is crying out for heroic expression. Now, when you described +the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and +helped those people, in spite of the choke-damp?" + +"I did." + +"You never said so." + +"There was nothing worth bucking about." + +"I didn't know." She looked at me with rather more interest. "That +was brave of you." + +"I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the +things are." + +"What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. +But, still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that +mine." She gave me her hand; but with such sweetness and dignity that +I could only stoop and kiss it. "I dare say I am merely a foolish +woman with a young girl's fancies. And yet it is so real with me, so +entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I +marry, I do want to marry a famous man!" + +"Why should you not?" I cried. "It is women like you who brace men up. +Give me a chance, and see if I will take it! Besides, as you say, men +ought to MAKE their own chances, and not wait until they are given. +Look at Clive--just a clerk, and he conquered India! By George! I'll +do something in the world yet!" + +She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. "Why not?" she said. +"You have everything a man could have,--youth, health, strength, +education, energy. I was sorry you spoke. And now I am glad--so +glad--if it wakens these thoughts in you!" + +"And if I do----" + +Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. "Not another word, +Sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour +ago; only I hadn't the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when +you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again." + +And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing +the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager +determination that not another day should elapse before I should find +some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who--who in all this wide +world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was +to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it? + +And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have +nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no +narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world +with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the +desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight +of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and +ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the +great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the office +of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant +unit, with the settled determination that very night, if possible, to +find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness, +was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own +glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to +ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + "Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger" + +I always liked McArdle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, red-headed news +editor, and I rather hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was +the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian +height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an +international crisis or a split in the Cabinet. Sometimes we saw him +passing in lonely majesty to his inner sanctum, with his eyes staring +vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He +was above and beyond us. But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it +was he that we knew. The old man nodded as I entered the room, and he +pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead. + +"Well, Mr. Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very well," +said he in his kindly Scotch accent. + +I thanked him. + +"The colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwark fire. You +have the true descreeptive touch. What did you want to see me about?" + +"To ask a favor." + +He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine. "Tut, tut! What is it?" + +"Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for +the paper? I would do my best to put it through and get you some good +copy." + +"What sort of meesion had you in your mind, Mr. Malone?" + +"Well, Sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. I really +would do my very best. The more difficult it was, the better it would +suit me." + +"You seem very anxious to lose your life." + +"To justify my life, Sir." + +"Dear me, Mr. Malone, this is very--very exalted. I'm afraid the day +for this sort of thing is rather past. The expense of the 'special +meesion' business hardly justifies the result, and, of course, in any +case it would only be an experienced man with a name that would command +public confidence who would get such an order. The big blank spaces in +the map are all being filled in, and there's no room for romance +anywhere. Wait a bit, though!" he added, with a sudden smile upon his +face. "Talking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea. What +about exposing a fraud--a modern Munchausen--and making him +rideeculous? You could show him up as the liar that he is! Eh, man, +it would be fine. How does it appeal to you?" + +"Anything--anywhere--I care nothing." + +McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes. + +"I wonder whether you could get on friendly--or at least on talking +terms with the fellow," he said, at last. "You seem to have a sort of +genius for establishing relations with people--seempathy, I suppose, or +animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something. I am conscious +of it myself." + +"You are very good, sir." + +"So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger, of +Enmore Park?" + +I dare say I looked a little startled. + +"Challenger!" I cried. "Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist! +Wasn't he the man who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph?" + +The news editor smiled grimly. + +"Do you mind? Didn't you say it was adventures you were after?" + +"It is all in the way of business, sir," I answered. + +"Exactly. I don't suppose he can always be so violent as that. I'm +thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the +wrong fashion. You may have better luck, or more tact in handling him. +There's something in your line there, I am sure, and the Gazette should +work it." + +"I really know nothing about him," said I. "I only remember his name +in connection with the police-court proceedings, for striking Blundell." + +"I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr. Malone. I've had my eye on +the Professor for some little time." He took a paper from a drawer. +"Here is a summary of his record. I give it you briefly:-- + +"'Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863. Educ.: Largs +Academy; Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. +Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. +Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year. Winner of +Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign Member of'--well, +quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type--'Societe Belge, +American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc. Ex-President +Palaeontological Society. Section H, British Association'--so on, so +on!--'Publications: "Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuck +Skulls"; "Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution"; and numerous papers, +including "The underlying fallacy of Weissmannism," which caused heated +discussion at the Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations: Walking, +Alpine climbing. Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.' + +"There, take it with you. I've nothing more for you to-night." + +I pocketed the slip of paper. + +"One moment, sir," I said, as I realized that it was a pink bald head, +and not a red face, which was fronting me. "I am not very clear yet +why I am to interview this gentleman. What has he done?" + +The face flashed back again. + +"Went to South America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago. Came +back last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to +say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a vague way, but +somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. +Something wonderful happened--or the man's a champion liar, which is +the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to +be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, +and heaves reporters down the stairs. In my opinion he's just a +homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. +Malone. Now, off you run, and see what you can make of him. You're +big enough to look after yourself. Anyway, you are all safe. +Employers' Liability Act, you know." + +A grinning red face turned once more into a pink oval, fringed with +gingery fluff; the interview was at an end. + +I walked across to the Savage Club, but instead of turning into it I +leaned upon the railings of Adelphi Terrace and gazed thoughtfully for +a long time at the brown, oily river. I can always think most sanely +and clearly in the open air. I took out the list of Professor +Challenger's exploits, and I read it over under the electric lamp. +Then I had what I can only regard as an inspiration. As a Pressman, I +felt sure from what I had been told that I could never hope to get into +touch with this cantankerous Professor. But these recriminations, +twice mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean that he was +a fanatic in science. Was there not an exposed margin there upon which +he might be accessible? I would try. + +I entered the club. It was just after eleven, and the big room was +fairly full, though the rush had not yet set in. I noticed a tall, +thin, angular man seated in an arm-chair by the fire. He turned as I +drew my chair up to him. It was the man of all others whom I should +have chosen--Tarp Henry, of the staff of Nature, a thin, dry, leathery +creature, who was full, to those who knew him, of kindly humanity. I +plunged instantly into my subject. + +"What do you know of Professor Challenger?" + +"Challenger?" He gathered his brows in scientific disapproval. +"Challenger was the man who came with some cock-and-bull story from +South America." + +"What story?" + +"Oh, it was rank nonsense about some queer animals he had discovered. +I believe he has retracted since. Anyhow, he has suppressed it all. +He gave an interview to Reuter's, and there was such a howl that he saw +it wouldn't do. It was a discreditable business. There were one or +two folk who were inclined to take him seriously, but he soon choked +them off." + +"How?" + +"Well, by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior. There was +poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent a message: +'The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments to +Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favor if he would +do them the honor to come to their next meeting.' The answer was +unprintable." + +"You don't say?" + +"Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: 'Professor Challenger +presents his compliments to the President of the Zoological Institute, +and would take it as a personal favor if he would go to the devil.'" + +"Good Lord!" + +"Yes, I expect that's what old Wadley said. I remember his wail at the +meeting, which began: 'In fifty years experience of scientific +intercourse----' It quite broke the old man up." + +"Anything more about Challenger?" + +"Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a +nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take serious +notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye. I'm a +frontiersman from the extreme edge of the Knowable, and I feel quite +out of place when I leave my study and come into touch with all you +great, rough, hulking creatures. I'm too detached to talk scandal, and +yet at scientific conversaziones I HAVE heard something of Challenger, +for he is one of those men whom nobody can ignore. He's as clever as +they make 'em--a full-charged battery of force and vitality, but a +quarrelsome, ill-conditioned faddist, and unscrupulous at that. He had +gone the length of faking some photographs over the South American +business." + +"You say he is a faddist. What is his particular fad?" + +"He has a thousand, but the latest is something about Weissmann and +Evolution. He had a fearful row about it in Vienna, I believe." + +"Can't you tell me the point?" + +"Not at the moment, but a translation of the proceedings exists. We +have it filed at the office. Would you care to come?" + +"It's just what I want. I have to interview the fellow, and I need +some lead up to him. It's really awfully good of you to give me a +lift. I'll go with you now, if it is not too late." + + +Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a huge +tome in front of me, which had been opened at the article "Weissmann +versus Darwin," with the sub heading, "Spirited Protest at Vienna. +Lively Proceedings." My scientific education having been somewhat +neglected, I was unable to follow the whole argument, but it was +evident that the English Professor had handled his subject in a very +aggressive fashion, and had thoroughly annoyed his Continental +colleagues. "Protests," "Uproar," and "General appeal to the Chairman" +were three of the first brackets which caught my eye. Most of the +matter might have been written in Chinese for any definite meaning that +it conveyed to my brain. + +"I wish you could translate it into English for me," I said, +pathetically, to my help-mate. + +"Well, it is a translation." + +"Then I'd better try my luck with the original." + +"It is certainly rather deep for a layman." + +"If I could only get a single good, meaty sentence which seemed to +convey some sort of definite human idea, it would serve my turn. Ah, +yes, this one will do. I seem in a vague way almost to understand it. +I'll copy it out. This shall be my link with the terrible Professor." + +"Nothing else I can do?" + +"Well, yes; I propose to write to him. If I could frame the letter +here, and use your address it would give atmosphere." + +"We'll have the fellow round here making a row and breaking the +furniture." + +"No, no; you'll see the letter--nothing contentious, I assure you." + +"Well, that's my chair and desk. You'll find paper there. I'd like to +censor it before it goes." + +It took some doing, but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a bad job +when it was finished. I read it aloud to the critical bacteriologist +with some pride in my handiwork. + + +"DEAR PROFESSOR CHALLENGER," it said, "As a humble student of Nature, I +have always taken the most profound interest in your speculations as to +the differences between Darwin and Weissmann. I have recently had +occasion to refresh my memory by re-reading----" + + +"You infernal liar!" murmured Tarp Henry. + + +--"by re-reading your masterly address at Vienna. That lucid and +admirable statement seems to be the last word in the matter. There is +one sentence in it, however--namely: 'I protest strongly against the +insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that each separate id is a +microcosm possessed of an historical architecture elaborated slowly +through the series of generations.' Have you no desire, in view of +later research, to modify this statement? Do you not think that it is +over-accentuated? With your permission, I would ask the favor of an +interview, as I feel strongly upon the subject, and have certain +suggestions which I could only elaborate in a personal conversation. +With your consent, I trust to have the honor of calling at eleven +o'clock the day after to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. + +"I remain, Sir, with assurances of profound respect, yours very truly, + +EDWARD D. MALONE." + + +"How's that?" I asked, triumphantly. + +"Well if your conscience can stand it----" + +"It has never failed me yet." + +"But what do you mean to do?" + +"To get there. Once I am in his room I may see some opening. I may +even go the length of open confession. If he is a sportsman he will be +tickled." + +"Tickled, indeed! He's much more likely to do the tickling. Chain +mail, or an American football suit--that's what you'll want. Well, +good-bye. I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning--if +he ever deigns to answer you. He is a violent, dangerous, cantankerous +character, hated by everyone who comes across him, and the butt of the +students, so far as they dare take a liberty with him. Perhaps it +would be best for you if you never heard from the fellow at all." + + + + + CHAPTER III + + "He is a Perfectly Impossible Person" + +My friend's fear or hope was not destined to be realized. When I +called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington +postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a +handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing. The contents were +as follows:-- + + + "ENMORE PARK, W. + +"SIR,--I have duly received your note, in which you claim to endorse my +views, although I am not aware that they are dependent upon endorsement +either from you or anyone else. You have ventured to use the word +'speculation' with regard to my statement upon the subject of +Darwinism, and I would call your attention to the fact that such a word +in such a connection is offensive to a degree. The context convinces +me, however, that you have sinned rather through ignorance and +tactlessness than through malice, so I am content to pass the matter +by. You quote an isolated sentence from my lecture, and appear to have +some difficulty in understanding it. I should have thought that only a +sub-human intelligence could have failed to grasp the point, but if it +really needs amplification I shall consent to see you at the hour +named, though visits and visitors of every sort are exceeding +distasteful to me. As to your suggestion that I may modify my opinion, +I would have you know that it is not my habit to do so after a +deliberate expression of my mature views. You will kindly show the +envelope of this letter to my man, Austin, when you call, as he has to +take every precaution to shield me from the intrusive rascals who call +themselves 'journalists.' + + "Yours faithfully, + "GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER." + + +This was the letter that I read aloud to Tarp Henry, who had come down +early to hear the result of my venture. His only remark was, "There's +some new stuff, cuticura or something, which is better than arnica." +Some people have such extraordinary notions of humor. + +It was nearly half-past ten before I had received my message, but a +taxicab took me round in good time for my appointment. It was an +imposing porticoed house at which we stopped, and the heavily-curtained +windows gave every indication of wealth upon the part of this +formidable Professor. The door was opened by an odd, swarthy, dried-up +person of uncertain age, with a dark pilot jacket and brown leather +gaiters. I found afterwards that he was the chauffeur, who filled the +gaps left by a succession of fugitive butlers. He looked me up and +down with a searching light blue eye. + +"Expected?" he asked. + +"An appointment." + +"Got your letter?" + +I produced the envelope. + +"Right!" He seemed to be a person of few words. Following him down +the passage I was suddenly interrupted by a small woman, who stepped +out from what proved to be the dining-room door. She was a bright, +vivacious, dark-eyed lady, more French than English in her type. + +"One moment," she said. "You can wait, Austin. Step in here, sir. +May I ask if you have met my husband before?" + +"No, madam, I have not had the honor." + +"Then I apologize to you in advance. I must tell you that he is a +perfectly impossible person--absolutely impossible. If you are +forewarned you will be the more ready to make allowances." + +"It is most considerate of you, madam." + +"Get quickly out of the room if he seems inclined to be violent. Don't +wait to argue with him. Several people have been injured through doing +that. Afterwards there is a public scandal and it reflects upon me and +all of us. I suppose it wasn't about South America you wanted to see +him?" + +I could not lie to a lady. + +"Dear me! That is his most dangerous subject. You won't believe a +word he says--I'm sure I don't wonder. But don't tell him so, for it +makes him very violent. Pretend to believe him, and you may get +through all right. Remember he believes it himself. Of that you may +be assured. A more honest man never lived. Don't wait any longer or +he may suspect. If you find him dangerous--really dangerous--ring the +bell and hold him off until I come. Even at his worst I can usually +control him." + +With these encouraging words the lady handed me over to the taciturn +Austin, who had waited like a bronze statue of discretion during our +short interview, and I was conducted to the end of the passage. There +was a tap at a door, a bull's bellow from within, and I was face to +face with the Professor. + +He sat in a rotating chair behind a broad table, which was covered with +books, maps, and diagrams. As I entered, his seat spun round to face +me. His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something +strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his +size which took one's breath away--his size and his imposing presence. +His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. +I am sure that his top-hat, had I ever ventured to don it, would have +slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face +and beard which I associate with an Assyrian bull; the former florid, +the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped +and rippling down over his chest. The hair was peculiar, plastered +down in front in a long, curving wisp over his massive forehead. The +eyes were blue-gray under great black tufts, very clear, very critical, +and very masterful. A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a +barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table, save +for two enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a +bellowing, roaring, rumbling voice made up my first impression of the +notorious Professor Challenger. + +"Well?" said he, with a most insolent stare. "What now?" + +I must keep up my deception for at least a little time longer, +otherwise here was evidently an end of the interview. + +"You were good enough to give me an appointment, sir," said I, humbly, +producing his envelope. + +He took my letter from his desk and laid it out before him. + +"Oh, you are the young person who cannot understand plain English, are +you? My general conclusions you are good enough to approve, as I +understand?" + +"Entirely, sir--entirely!" I was very emphatic. + +"Dear me! That strengthens my position very much, does it not? Your +age and appearance make your support doubly valuable. Well, at least +you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna, whose gregarious +grunt is, however, not more offensive than the isolated effort of the +British hog." He glared at me as the present representative of the +beast. + +"They seem to have behaved abominably," said I. + +"I assure you that I can fight my own battles, and that I have no +possible need of your sympathy. Put me alone, sir, and with my back to +the wall. G. E. C. is happiest then. Well, sir, let us do what we can +to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is +inexpressibly irksome to me. You had, as I have been led to believe, +some comments to make upon the proposition which I advanced in my +thesis." + +There was a brutal directness about his methods which made evasion +difficult. I must still make play and wait for a better opening. It +had seemed simple enough at a distance. Oh, my Irish wits, could they +not help me now, when I needed help so sorely? He transfixed me with +two sharp, steely eyes. "Come, come!" he rumbled. + +"I am, of course, a mere student," said I, with a fatuous smile, +"hardly more, I might say, than an earnest inquirer. At the same time, +it seemed to me that you were a little severe upon Weissmann in this +matter. Has not the general evidence since that date tended to--well, +to strengthen his position?" + +"What evidence?" He spoke with a menacing calm. + +"Well, of course, I am aware that there is not any what you might call +DEFINITE evidence. I alluded merely to the trend of modern thought and +the general scientific point of view, if I might so express it." + +He leaned forward with great earnestness. + +"I suppose you are aware," said he, checking off points upon his +fingers, "that the cranial index is a constant factor?" + +"Naturally," said I. + +"And that telegony is still sub judice?" + +"Undoubtedly." + +"And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?" + +"Why, surely!" I cried, and gloried in my own audacity. + +"But what does that prove?" he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice. + +"Ah, what indeed?" I murmured. "What does it prove?" + +"Shall I tell you?" he cooed. + +"Pray do." + +"It proves," he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, "that you are the +damnedest imposter in London--a vile, crawling journalist, who has no +more science than he has decency in his composition!" + +He had sprung to his feet with a mad rage in his eyes. Even at that +moment of tension I found time for amazement at the discovery that he +was quite a short man, his head not higher than my shoulder--a stunted +Hercules whose tremendous vitality had all run to depth, breadth, and +brain. + +"Gibberish!" he cried, leaning forward, with his fingers on the table +and his face projecting. "That's what I have been talking to you, +sir--scientific gibberish! Did you think you could match cunning with +me--you with your walnut of a brain? You think you are omnipotent, you +infernal scribblers, don't you? That your praise can make a man and +your blame can break him? We must all bow to you, and try to get a +favorable word, must we? This man shall have a leg up, and this man +shall have a dressing down! Creeping vermin, I know you! You've got +out of your station. Time was when your ears were clipped. You've +lost your sense of proportion. Swollen gas-bags! I'll keep you in +your proper place. Yes, sir, you haven't got over G. E. C. There's +one man who is still your master. He warned you off, but if you WILL +come, by the Lord you do it at your own risk. Forfeit, my good Mr. +Malone, I claim forfeit! You have played a rather dangerous game, and +it strikes me that you have lost it." + +"Look here, sir," said I, backing to the door and opening it; "you can +be as abusive as you like. But there is a limit. You shall not +assault me." + +"Shall I not?" He was slowly advancing in a peculiarly menacing way, +but he stopped now and put his big hands into the side-pockets of a +rather boyish short jacket which he wore. "I have thrown several of +you out of the house. You will be the fourth or fifth. Three pound +fifteen each--that is how it averaged. Expensive, but very necessary. +Now, sir, why should you not follow your brethren? I rather think you +must." He resumed his unpleasant and stealthy advance, pointing his +toes as he walked, like a dancing master. + +I could have bolted for the hall door, but it would have been too +ignominious. Besides, a little glow of righteous anger was springing +up within me. I had been hopelessly in the wrong before, but this +man's menaces were putting me in the right. + +"I'll trouble you to keep your hands off, sir. I'll not stand it." + +"Dear me!" His black moustache lifted and a white fang twinkled in a +sneer. "You won't stand it, eh?" + +"Don't be such a fool, Professor!" I cried. "What can you hope for? +I'm fifteen stone, as hard as nails, and play center three-quarter +every Saturday for the London Irish. I'm not the man----" + +It was at that moment that he rushed me. It was lucky that I had +opened the door, or we should have gone through it. We did a +Catharine-wheel together down the passage. Somehow we gathered up a +chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street. My +mouth was full of his beard, our arms were locked, our bodies +intertwined, and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us. +The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went with a back +somersault down the front steps. I have seen the two Macs attempt +something of the kind at the halls, but it appears to take some +practise to do it without hurting oneself. The chair went to matchwood +at the bottom, and we rolled apart into the gutter. He sprang to his +feet, waving his fists and wheezing like an asthmatic. + +"Had enough?" he panted. + +"You infernal bully!" I cried, as I gathered myself together. + +Then and there we should have tried the thing out, for he was +effervescing with fight, but fortunately I was rescued from an odious +situation. A policeman was beside us, his notebook in his hand. + +"What's all this? You ought to be ashamed" said the policeman. It was +the most rational remark which I had heard in Enmore Park. "Well," he +insisted, turning to me, "what is it, then?" + +"This man attacked me," said I. + +"Did you attack him?" asked the policeman. + +The Professor breathed hard and said nothing. + +"It's not the first time, either," said the policeman, severely, +shaking his head. "You were in trouble last month for the same thing. +You've blackened this young man's eye. Do you give him in charge, sir?" + +I relented. + +"No," said I, "I do not." + +"What's that?" said the policeman. + +"I was to blame myself. I intruded upon him. He gave me fair warning." + +The policeman snapped up his notebook. + +"Don't let us have any more such goings-on," said he. "Now, then! +Move on, there, move on!" This to a butcher's boy, a maid, and one or +two loafers who had collected. He clumped heavily down the street, +driving this little flock before him. The Professor looked at me, and +there was something humorous at the back of his eyes. + +"Come in!" said he. "I've not done with you yet." + +The speech had a sinister sound, but I followed him none the less into +the house. The man-servant, Austin, like a wooden image, closed the +door behind us. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + "It's Just the very Biggest Thing in the World" + +Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger darted out from the +dining-room. The small woman was in a furious temper. She barred her +husband's way like an enraged chicken in front of a bulldog. It was +evident that she had seen my exit, but had not observed my return. + +"You brute, George!" she screamed. "You've hurt that nice young man." + +He jerked backwards with his thumb. + +"Here he is, safe and sound behind me." + +She was confused, but not unduly so. + +"I am so sorry, I didn't see you." + +"I assure you, madam, that it is all right." + +"He has marked your poor face! Oh, George, what a brute you are! +Nothing but scandals from one end of the week to the other. Everyone +hating and making fun of you. You've finished my patience. This ends +it." + +"Dirty linen," he rumbled. + +"It's not a secret," she cried. "Do you suppose that the whole +street--the whole of London, for that matter---- Get away, Austin, we +don't want you here. Do you suppose they don't all talk about you? +Where is your dignity? You, a man who should have been Regius +Professor at a great University with a thousand students all revering +you. Where is your dignity, George?" + +"How about yours, my dear?" + +"You try me too much. A ruffian--a common brawling ruffian--that's +what you have become." + +"Be good, Jessie." + +"A roaring, raging bully!" + +"That's done it! Stool of penance!" said he. + +To my amazement he stooped, picked her up, and placed her sitting upon +a high pedestal of black marble in the angle of the hall. It was at +least seven feet high, and so thin that she could hardly balance upon +it. A more absurd object than she presented cocked up there with her +face convulsed with anger, her feet dangling, and her body rigid for +fear of an upset, I could not imagine. + +"Let me down!" she wailed. + +"Say 'please.'" + +"You brute, George! Let me down this instant!" + +"Come into the study, Mr. Malone." + +"Really, sir----!" said I, looking at the lady. + +"Here's Mr. Malone pleading for you, Jessie. Say 'please,' and down +you come." + +"Oh, you brute! Please! please!" + +He took her down as if she had been a canary. + +"You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. He will +have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra dozen among our +neighbors. 'Strange story of high life'--you felt fairly high on that +pedestal, did you not? Then a sub-title, 'Glimpse of a singular +menage.' He's a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone, a carrion eater, like all +of his kind--porcus ex grege diaboli--a swine from the devil's herd. +That's it, Malone--what?" + +"You are really intolerable!" said I, hotly. + +He bellowed with laughter. + +"We shall have a coalition presently," he boomed, looking from his wife +to me and puffing out his enormous chest. Then, suddenly altering his +tone, "Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone. I called you +back for some more serious purpose than to mix you up with our little +domestic pleasantries. Run away, little woman, and don't fret." He +placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders. "All that you say is +perfectly true. I should be a better man if I did what you advise, but +I shouldn't be quite George Edward Challenger. There are plenty of +better men, my dear, but only one G. E. C. So make the best of him." +He suddenly gave her a resounding kiss, which embarrassed me even more +than his violence had done. "Now, Mr. Malone," he continued, with a +great accession of dignity, "this way, if YOU please." + +We re-entered the room which we had left so tumultuously ten minutes +before. The Professor closed the door carefully behind us, motioned me +into an arm-chair, and pushed a cigar-box under my nose. + +"Real San Juan Colorado," he said. "Excitable people like you are the +better for narcotics. Heavens! don't bite it! Cut--and cut with +reverence! Now lean back, and listen attentively to whatever I may +care to say to you. If any remark should occur to you, you can reserve +it for some more opportune time. + +"First of all, as to your return to my house after your most +justifiable expulsion"--he protruded his beard, and stared at me as one +who challenges and invites contradiction--"after, as I say, your +well-merited expulsion. The reason lay in your answer to that most +officious policeman, in which I seemed to discern some glimmering of +good feeling upon your part--more, at any rate, than I am accustomed to +associate with your profession. In admitting that the fault of the +incident lay with you, you gave some evidence of a certain mental +detachment and breadth of view which attracted my favorable notice. +The sub-species of the human race to which you unfortunately belong has +always been below my mental horizon. Your words brought you suddenly +above it. You swam up into my serious notice. For this reason I asked +you to return with me, as I was minded to make your further +acquaintance. You will kindly deposit your ash in the small Japanese +tray on the bamboo table which stands at your left elbow." + +All this he boomed forth like a professor addressing his class. He had +swung round his revolving chair so as to face me, and he sat all puffed +out like an enormous bull-frog, his head laid back and his eyes +half-covered by supercilious lids. Now he suddenly turned himself +sideways, and all I could see of him was tangled hair with a red, +protruding ear. He was scratching about among the litter of papers +upon his desk. He faced me presently with what looked like a very +tattered sketch-book in his hand. + +"I am going to talk to you about South America," said he. "No comments +if you please. First of all, I wish you to understand that nothing I +tell you now is to be repeated in any public way unless you have my +express permission. That permission will, in all human probability, +never be given. Is that clear?" + +"It is very hard," said I. "Surely a judicious account----" + +He replaced the notebook upon the table. + +"That ends it," said he. "I wish you a very good morning." + +"No, no!" I cried. "I submit to any conditions. So far as I can see, +I have no choice." + +"None in the world," said he. + +"Well, then, I promise." + +"Word of honor?" + +"Word of honor." + +He looked at me with doubt in his insolent eyes. + +"After all, what do I know about your honor?" said he. + +"Upon my word, sir," I cried, angrily, "you take very great liberties! +I have never been so insulted in my life." + +He seemed more interested than annoyed at my outbreak. + +"Round-headed," he muttered. "Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, black-haired, +with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume?" + +"I am an Irishman, sir." + +"Irish Irish?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"That, of course, explains it. Let me see; you have given me your +promise that my confidence will be respected? That confidence, I may +say, will be far from complete. But I am prepared to give you a few +indications which will be of interest. In the first place, you are +probably aware that two years ago I made a journey to South +America--one which will be classical in the scientific history of the +world? The object of my journey was to verify some conclusions of +Wallace and of Bates, which could only be done by observing their +reported facts under the same conditions in which they had themselves +noted them. If my expedition had no other results it would still have +been noteworthy, but a curious incident occurred to me while there +which opened up an entirely fresh line of inquiry. + +"You are aware--or probably, in this half-educated age, you are not +aware--that the country round some parts of the Amazon is still only +partially explored, and that a great number of tributaries, some of +them entirely uncharted, run into the main river. It was my business +to visit this little-known back-country and to examine its fauna, which +furnished me with the materials for several chapters for that great and +monumental work upon zoology which will be my life's justification. I +was returning, my work accomplished, when I had occasion to spend a +night at a small Indian village at a point where a certain +tributary--the name and position of which I withhold--opens into the +main river. The natives were Cucama Indians, an amiable but degraded +race, with mental powers hardly superior to the average Londoner. I +had effected some cures among them upon my way up the river, and had +impressed them considerably with my personality, so that I was not +surprised to find myself eagerly awaited upon my return. I gathered +from their signs that someone had urgent need of my medical services, +and I followed the chief to one of his huts. When I entered I found +that the sufferer to whose aid I had been summoned had that instant +expired. He was, to my surprise, no Indian, but a white man; indeed, I +may say a very white man, for he was flaxen-haired and had some +characteristics of an albino. He was clad in rags, was very emaciated, +and bore every trace of prolonged hardship. So far as I could +understand the account of the natives, he was a complete stranger to +them, and had come upon their village through the woods alone and in +the last stage of exhaustion. + +"The man's knapsack lay beside the couch, and I examined the contents. +His name was written upon a tab within it--Maple White, Lake Avenue, +Detroit, Michigan. It is a name to which I am prepared always to lift +my hat. It is not too much to say that it will rank level with my own +when the final credit of this business comes to be apportioned. + +"From the contents of the knapsack it was evident that this man had +been an artist and poet in search of effects. There were scraps of +verse. I do not profess to be a judge of such things, but they +appeared to me to be singularly wanting in merit. There were also some +rather commonplace pictures of river scenery, a paint-box, a box of +colored chalks, some brushes, that curved bone which lies upon my +inkstand, a volume of Baxter's 'Moths and Butterflies,' a cheap +revolver, and a few cartridges. Of personal equipment he either had +none or he had lost it in his journey. Such were the total effects of +this strange American Bohemian. + +"I was turning away from him when I observed that something projected +from the front of his ragged jacket. It was this sketch-book, which +was as dilapidated then as you see it now. Indeed, I can assure you +that a first folio of Shakespeare could not be treated with greater +reverence than this relic has been since it came into my possession. I +hand it to you now, and I ask you to take it page by page and to +examine the contents." + +He helped himself to a cigar and leaned back with a fiercely critical +pair of eyes, taking note of the effect which this document would +produce. + +I had opened the volume with some expectation of a revelation, though +of what nature I could not imagine. The first page was disappointing, +however, as it contained nothing but the picture of a very fat man in a +pea-jacket, with the legend, "Jimmy Colver on the Mail-boat," written +beneath it. There followed several pages which were filled with small +sketches of Indians and their ways. Then came a picture of a cheerful +and corpulent ecclesiastic in a shovel hat, sitting opposite a very +thin European, and the inscription: "Lunch with Fra Cristofero at +Rosario." Studies of women and babies accounted for several more +pages, and then there was an unbroken series of animal drawings with +such explanations as "Manatee upon Sandbank," "Turtles and Their Eggs," +"Black Ajouti under a Miriti Palm"--the matter disclosing some sort of +pig-like animal; and finally came a double page of studies of +long-snouted and very unpleasant saurians. I could make nothing of it, +and said so to the Professor. + +"Surely these are only crocodiles?" + +"Alligators! Alligators! There is hardly such a thing as a true +crocodile in South America. The distinction between them----" + +"I meant that I could see nothing unusual--nothing to justify what you +have said." + +He smiled serenely. + +"Try the next page," said he. + +I was still unable to sympathize. It was a full-page sketch of a +landscape roughly tinted in color--the kind of painting which an +open-air artist takes as a guide to a future more elaborate effort. +There was a pale-green foreground of feathery vegetation, which sloped +upwards and ended in a line of cliffs dark red in color, and curiously +ribbed like some basaltic formations which I have seen. They extended +in an unbroken wall right across the background. At one point was an +isolated pyramidal rock, crowned by a great tree, which appeared to be +separated by a cleft from the main crag. Behind it all, a blue +tropical sky. A thin green line of vegetation fringed the summit of +the ruddy cliff. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"It is no doubt a curious formation," said I "but I am not geologist +enough to say that it is wonderful." + +"Wonderful!" he repeated. "It is unique. It is incredible. No one on +earth has ever dreamed of such a possibility. Now the next." + +I turned it over, and gave an exclamation of surprise. There was a +full-page picture of the most extraordinary creature that I had ever +seen. It was the wild dream of an opium smoker, a vision of delirium. +The head was like that of a fowl, the body that of a bloated lizard, +the trailing tail was furnished with upward-turned spikes, and the +curved back was edged with a high serrated fringe, which looked like a +dozen cocks' wattles placed behind each other. In front of this +creature was an absurd mannikin, or dwarf, in human form, who stood +staring at it. + +"Well, what do you think of that?" cried the Professor, rubbing his +hands with an air of triumph. + +"It is monstrous--grotesque." + +"But what made him draw such an animal?" + +"Trade gin, I should think." + +"Oh, that's the best explanation you can give, is it?" + +"Well, sir, what is yours?" + +"The obvious one that the creature exists. That is actually sketched +from the life." + +I should have laughed only that I had a vision of our doing another +Catharine-wheel down the passage. + +"No doubt," said I, "no doubt," as one humors an imbecile. "I confess, +however," I added, "that this tiny human figure puzzles me. If it were +an Indian we could set it down as evidence of some pigmy race in +America, but it appears to be a European in a sun-hat." + +The Professor snorted like an angry buffalo. "You really touch the +limit," said he. "You enlarge my view of the possible. Cerebral +paresis! Mental inertia! Wonderful!" + +He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of energy, +for if you were going to be angry with this man you would be angry all +the time. I contented myself with smiling wearily. "It struck me that +the man was small," said I. + +"Look here!" he cried, leaning forward and dabbing a great hairy +sausage of a finger on to the picture. "You see that plant behind the +animal; I suppose you thought it was a dandelion or a Brussels +sprout--what? Well, it is a vegetable ivory palm, and they run to +about fifty or sixty feet. Don't you see that the man is put in for a +purpose? He couldn't really have stood in front of that brute and +lived to draw it. He sketched himself in to give a scale of heights. +He was, we will say, over five feet high. The tree is ten times +bigger, which is what one would expect." + +"Good heavens!" I cried. "Then you think the beast was---- Why, +Charing Cross station would hardly make a kennel for such a brute!" + +"Apart from exaggeration, he is certainly a well-grown specimen," said +the Professor, complacently. + +"But," I cried, "surely the whole experience of the human race is not +to be set aside on account of a single sketch"--I had turned over the +leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more in the book--"a +single sketch by a wandering American artist who may have done it under +hashish, or in the delirium of fever, or simply in order to gratify a +freakish imagination. You can't, as a man of science, defend such a +position as that." + +For answer the Professor took a book down from a shelf. + +"This is an excellent monograph by my gifted friend, Ray Lankester!" +said he. "There is an illustration here which would interest you. Ah, +yes, here it is! The inscription beneath it runs: 'Probable +appearance in life of the Jurassic Dinosaur Stegosaurus. The hind leg +alone is twice as tall as a full-grown man.' Well, what do you make of +that?" + +He handed me the open book. I started as I looked at the picture. In +this reconstructed animal of a dead world there was certainly a very +great resemblance to the sketch of the unknown artist. + +"That is certainly remarkable," said I. + +"But you won't admit that it is final?" + +"Surely it might be a coincidence, or this American may have seen a +picture of the kind and carried it in his memory. It would be likely +to recur to a man in a delirium." + +"Very good," said the Professor, indulgently; "we leave it at that. I +will now ask you to look at this bone." He handed over the one which he +had already described as part of the dead man's possessions. It was +about six inches long, and thicker than my thumb, with some indications +of dried cartilage at one end of it. + +"To what known creature does that bone belong?" asked the Professor. + +I examined it with care and tried to recall some half-forgotten +knowledge. + +"It might be a very thick human collar-bone," I said. + +My companion waved his hand in contemptuous deprecation. + +"The human collar-bone is curved. This is straight. There is a groove +upon its surface showing that a great tendon played across it, which +could not be the case with a clavicle." + +"Then I must confess that I don't know what it is." + +"You need not be ashamed to expose your ignorance, for I don't suppose +the whole South Kensington staff could give a name to it." He took a +little bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box. "So far as I am a +judge this human bone is the analogue of the one which you hold in your +hand. That will give you some idea of the size of the creature. You +will observe from the cartilage that this is no fossil specimen, but +recent. What do you say to that?" + +"Surely in an elephant----" + +He winced as if in pain. + +"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these days +of Board schools----" + +"Well," I interrupted, "any large South American animal--a tapir, for +example." + +"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of my +business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of any +other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very large, a very +strong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animal which exists upon the +face of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science. +You are still unconvinced?" + +"I am at least deeply interested." + +"Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason lurking +in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. We will now +leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imagine +that I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeper +into the matter. There were indications as to the direction from which +the dead traveler had come. Indian legends would alone have been my +guide, for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among all +the riverine tribes. You have heard, no doubt, of Curupuri?" + +"Never." + +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods, something terrible, something +malevolent, something to be avoided. None can describe its shape or +nature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. Now all tribes +agree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives. It was the same +direction from which the American had come. Something terrible lay +that way. It was my business to find out what it was." + +"What did you do?" My flippancy was all gone. This massive man +compelled one's attention and respect. + +"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives--a reluctance which +extends even to talk upon the subject--and by judicious persuasion and +gifts, aided, I will admit, by some threats of coercion, I got two of +them to act as guides. After many adventures which I need not +describe, and after traveling a distance which I will not mention, in a +direction which I withhold, we came at last to a tract of country which +has never been described, nor, indeed, visited save by my unfortunate +predecessor. Would you kindly look at this?" + +He handed me a photograph--half-plate size. + +"The unsatisfactory appearance of it is due to the fact," said he, +"that on descending the river the boat was upset and the case which +contained the undeveloped films was broken, with disastrous results. +Nearly all of them were totally ruined--an irreparable loss. This is +one of the few which partially escaped. This explanation of +deficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept. There was talk +of faking. I am not in a mood to argue such a point." + +The photograph was certainly very off-colored. An unkind critic might +easily have misinterpreted that dim surface. It was a dull gray +landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realized +that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactly +like an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping, +tree-clad plain in the foreground. + +"I believe it is the same place as the painted picture," said I. + +"It is the same place," the Professor answered. "I found traces of the +fellow's camp. Now look at this." + +It was a nearer view of the same scene, though the photograph was +extremely defective. I could distinctly see the isolated, tree-crowned +pinnacle of rock which was detached from the crag. + +"I have no doubt of it at all," said I. + +"Well, that is something gained," said he. "We progress, do we not? +Now, will you please look at the top of that rocky pinnacle? Do you +observe something there?" + +"An enormous tree." + +"But on the tree?" + +"A large bird," said I. + +He handed me a lens. + +"Yes," I said, peering through it, "a large bird stands on the tree. +It appears to have a considerable beak. I should say it was a pelican." + +"I cannot congratulate you upon your eyesight," said the Professor. +"It is not a pelican, nor, indeed, is it a bird. It may interest you +to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen. It was +the only absolute proof of my experiences which I was able to bring +away with me." + +"You have it, then?" Here at last was tangible corroboration. + +"I had it. It was unfortunately lost with so much else in the same +boat accident which ruined my photographs. I clutched at it as it +disappeared in the swirl of the rapids, and part of its wing was left +in my hand. I was insensible when washed ashore, but the miserable +remnant of my superb specimen was still intact; I now lay it before +you." + +From a drawer he produced what seemed to me to be the upper portion of +the wing of a large bat. It was at least two feet in length, a curved +bone, with a membranous veil beneath it. + +"A monstrous bat!" I suggested. + +"Nothing of the sort," said the Professor, severely. "Living, as I do, +in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have conceived +that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it +possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative +anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the forearm, while the wing +of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between? +Now, in this case, the bone is certainly not the forearm, and you can +see for yourself that this is a single membrane hanging upon a single +bone, and therefore that it cannot belong to a bat. But if it is +neither bird nor bat, what is it?" + +My small stock of knowledge was exhausted. + +"I really do not know," said I. + +He opened the standard work to which he had already referred me. + +"Here," said he, pointing to the picture of an extraordinary flying +monster, "is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon, or +pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Jurassic period. On the next page +is a diagram of the mechanism of its wing. Kindly compare it with the +specimen in your hand." + +A wave of amazement passed over me as I looked. I was convinced. +There could be no getting away from it. The cumulative proof was +overwhelming. The sketch, the photographs, the narrative, and now the +actual specimen--the evidence was complete. I said so--I said so +warmly, for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man. He leaned +back in his chair with drooping eyelids and a tolerant smile, basking +in this sudden gleam of sunshine. + +"It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of!" said I, though +it was my journalistic rather than my scientific enthusiasm that was +roused. "It is colossal. You are a Columbus of science who has +discovered a lost world. I'm awfully sorry if I seemed to doubt you. +It was all so unthinkable. But I understand evidence when I see it, +and this should be good enough for anyone." + +The Professor purred with satisfaction. + +"And then, sir, what did you do next?" + +"It was the wet season, Mr. Malone, and my stores were exhausted. I +explored some portion of this huge cliff, but I was unable to find any +way to scale it. The pyramidal rock upon which I saw and shot the +pterodactyl was more accessible. Being something of a cragsman, I did +manage to get half way to the top of that. From that height I had a +better idea of the plateau upon the top of the crags. It appeared to +be very large; neither to east nor to west could I see any end to the +vista of green-capped cliffs. Below, it is a swampy, jungly region, +full of snakes, insects, and fever. It is a natural protection to this +singular country." + +"Did you see any other trace of life?" + +"No, sir, I did not; but during the week that we lay encamped at the +base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above." + +"But the creature that the American drew? How do you account for that?" + +"We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summit and +seen it there. We know, therefore, that there is a way up. We know +equally that it must be a very difficult one, otherwise the creatures +would have come down and overrun the surrounding country. Surely that +is clear?" + +"But how did they come to be there?" + +"I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one," said the +Professor; "there can only be one explanation. South America is, as +you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single point in the +interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great, sudden +volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, are basaltic, and +therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps as Sussex, has been +lifted up en bloc with all its living contents, and cut off by +perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all +the rest of the continent. What is the result? Why, the ordinary laws +of Nature are suspended. The various checks which influence the +struggle for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or +altered. Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear. You will +observe that both the pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic, and +therefore of a great age in the order of life. They have been +artificially conserved by those strange accidental conditions." + +"But surely your evidence is conclusive. You have only to lay it +before the proper authorities." + +"So in my simplicity, I had imagined," said the Professor, bitterly. +"I can only tell you that it was not so, that I was met at every turn +by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. It is +not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man, or to seek to prove a fact if +my word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to +show such corroborative proofs as I possess. The subject became +hateful to me--I would not speak of it. When men like yourself, who +represent the foolish curiosity of the public, came to disturb my +privacy I was unable to meet them with dignified reserve. By nature I +am, I admit, somewhat fiery, and under provocation I am inclined to be +violent. I fear you may have remarked it." + +I nursed my eye and was silent. + +"My wife has frequently remonstrated with me upon the subject, and yet +I fancy that any man of honor would feel the same. To-night, however, +I propose to give an extreme example of the control of the will over +the emotions. I invite you to be present at the exhibition." He +handed me a card from his desk. "You will perceive that Mr. Percival +Waldron, a naturalist of some popular repute, is announced to lecture +at eight-thirty at the Zoological Institute's Hall upon 'The Record of +the Ages.' I have been specially invited to be present upon the +platform, and to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing +so, I shall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, to +throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the audience +and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply into the matter. +Nothing contentious, you understand, but only an indication that there +are greater deeps beyond. I shall hold myself strongly in leash, and +see whether by this self-restraint I attain a more favorable result." + +"And I may come?" I asked eagerly. + +"Why, surely," he answered, cordially. He had an enormously massive +genial manner, which was almost as overpowering as his violence. His +smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing, when his cheeks would +suddenly bunch into two red apples, between his half-closed eyes and +his great black beard. "By all means, come. It will be a comfort to +me to know that I have one ally in the hall, however inefficient and +ignorant of the subject he may be. I fancy there will be a large +audience, for Waldron, though an absolute charlatan, has a considerable +popular following. Now, Mr. Malone, I have given you rather more of my +time than I had intended. The individual must not monopolize what is +meant for the world. I shall be pleased to see you at the lecture +to-night. In the meantime, you will understand that no public use is +to be made of any of the material that I have given you." + +"But Mr. McArdle--my news editor, you know--will want to know what I +have done." + +"Tell him what you like. You can say, among other things, that if he +sends anyone else to intrude upon me I shall call upon him with a +riding-whip. But I leave it to you that nothing of all this appears in +print. Very good. Then the Zoological Institute's Hall at +eight-thirty to-night." I had a last impression of red cheeks, blue +rippling beard, and intolerant eyes, as he waved me out of the room. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + "Question!" + +What with the physical shocks incidental to my first interview with +Professor Challenger and the mental ones which accompanied the second, +I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I found myself in +Enmore Park once more. In my aching head the one thought was throbbing +that there really was truth in this man's story, that it was of +tremendous consequence, and that it would work up into inconceivable +copy for the Gazette when I could obtain permission to use it. A +taxicab was waiting at the end of the road, so I sprang into it and +drove down to the office. McArdle was at his post as usual. + +"Well," he cried, expectantly, "what may it run to? I'm thinking, +young man, you have been in the wars. Don't tell me that he assaulted +you." + +"We had a little difference at first." + +"What a man it is! What did you do?" + +"Well, he became more reasonable and we had a chat. But I got nothing +out of him--nothing for publication." + +"I'm not so sure about that. You got a black eye out of him, and +that's for publication. We can't have this reign of terror, Mr. +Malone. We must bring the man to his bearings. I'll have a leaderette +on him to-morrow that will raise a blister. Just give me the material +and I will engage to brand the fellow for ever. Professor +Munchausen--how's that for an inset headline? Sir John Mandeville +redivivus--Cagliostro--all the imposters and bullies in history. I'll +show him up for the fraud he is." + +"I wouldn't do that, sir." + +"Why not?" + +"Because he is not a fraud at all." + +"What!" roared McArdle. "You don't mean to say you really believe this +stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great sea sairpents?" + +"Well, I don't know about that. I don't think he makes any claims of +that kind. But I do believe he has got something new." + +"Then for Heaven's sake, man, write it up!" + +"I'm longing to, but all I know he gave me in confidence and on +condition that I didn't." I condensed into a few sentences the +Professor's narrative. "That's how it stands." + +McArdle looked deeply incredulous. + +"Well, Mr. Malone," he said at last, "about this scientific meeting +to-night; there can be no privacy about that, anyhow. I don't suppose +any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has been reported already +a dozen times, and no one is aware that Challenger will speak. We may +get a scoop, if we are lucky. You'll be there in any case, so you'll +just give us a pretty full report. I'll keep space up to midnight." + +My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the Savage Club +with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. He +listened with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared with +laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me. + +"My dear chap, things don't happen like that in real life. People +don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence. +Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as full of tricks as the +monkey-house at the Zoo. It's all bosh." + +"But the American poet?" + +"He never existed." + +"I saw his sketch-book." + +"Challenger's sketch-book." + +"You think he drew that animal?" + +"Of course he did. Who else?" + +"Well, then, the photographs?" + +"There was nothing in the photographs. By your own admission you only +saw a bird." + +"A pterodactyl." + +"That's what HE says. He put the pterodactyl into your head." + +"Well, then, the bones?" + +"First one out of an Irish stew. Second one vamped up for the +occasion. If you are clever and know your business you can fake a bone +as easily as you can a photograph." + +I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps, after all, I had been premature in my +acquiescence. Then I had a sudden happy thought. + +"Will you come to the meeting?" I asked. + +Tarp Henry looked thoughtful. + +"He is not a popular person, the genial Challenger," said he. "A lot +of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he is about +the best-hated man in London. If the medical students turn out there +will be no end of a rag. I don't want to get into a bear-garden." + +"You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case." + +"Well, perhaps it's only fair. All right. I'm your man for the +evening." + +When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than I +had expected. A line of electric broughams discharged their little +cargoes of white-bearded professors, while the dark stream of humbler +pedestrians, who crowded through the arched door-way, showed that the +audience would be popular as well as scientific. Indeed, it became +evident to us as soon as we had taken our seats that a youthful and +even boyish spirit was abroad in the gallery and the back portions of +the hall. Looking behind me, I could see rows of faces of the familiar +medical student type. Apparently the great hospitals had each sent +down their contingent. The behavior of the audience at present was +good-humored, but mischievous. Scraps of popular songs were chorused +with an enthusiasm which was a strange prelude to a scientific lecture, +and there was already a tendency to personal chaff which promised a +jovial evening to others, however embarrassing it might be to the +recipients of these dubious honors. + +Thus, when old Doctor Meldrum, with his well-known curly-brimmed +opera-hat, appeared upon the platform, there was such a universal query +of "Where DID you get that tile?" that he hurriedly removed it, and +concealed it furtively under his chair. When gouty Professor Wadley +limped down to his seat there were general affectionate inquiries from +all parts of the hall as to the exact state of his poor toe, which +caused him obvious embarrassment. The greatest demonstration of all, +however, was at the entrance of my new acquaintance, Professor +Challenger, when he passed down to take his place at the extreme end of +the front row of the platform. Such a yell of welcome broke forth when +his black beard first protruded round the corner that I began to +suspect Tarp Henry was right in his surmise, and that this assemblage +was there not merely for the sake of the lecture, but because it had +got rumored abroad that the famous Professor would take part in the +proceedings. + +There was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance among the front +benches of well-dressed spectators, as though the demonstration of the +students in this instance was not unwelcome to them. That greeting +was, indeed, a frightful outburst of sound, the uproar of the carnivora +cage when the step of the bucket-bearing keeper is heard in the +distance. There was an offensive tone in it, perhaps, and yet in the +main it struck me as mere riotous outcry, the noisy reception of one +who amused and interested them, rather than of one they disliked or +despised. Challenger smiled with weary and tolerant contempt, as a +kindly man would meet the yapping of a litter of puppies. He sat +slowly down, blew out his chest, passed his hand caressingly down his +beard, and looked with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at the +crowded hall before him. The uproar of his advent had not yet died +away when Professor Ronald Murray, the chairman, and Mr. Waldron, the +lecturer, threaded their way to the front, and the proceedings began. + +Professor Murray will, I am sure, excuse me if I say that he has the +common fault of most Englishmen of being inaudible. Why on earth +people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take +the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange +mysteries of modern life. Their methods are as reasonable as to try to +pour some precious stuff from the spring to the reservoir through a +non-conducting pipe, which could by the least effort be opened. +Professor Murray made several profound remarks to his white tie and to +the water-carafe upon the table, with a humorous, twinkling aside to +the silver candlestick upon his right. Then he sat down, and Mr. +Waldron, the famous popular lecturer, rose amid a general murmur of +applause. He was a stern, gaunt man, with a harsh voice, and an +aggressive manner, but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate +the ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was +intelligible and even interesting to the lay public, with a happy knack +of being funny about the most unlikely objects, so that the precession +of the Equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly +humorous process as treated by him. + +It was a bird's-eye view of creation, as interpreted by science, which, +in language always clear and sometimes picturesque, he unfolded before +us. He told us of the globe, a huge mass of flaming gas, flaring +through the heavens. Then he pictured the solidification, the cooling, +the wrinkling which formed the mountains, the steam which turned to +water, the slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played +the inexplicable drama of life. On the origin of life itself he was +discreetly vague. That the germs of it could hardly have survived the +original roasting was, he declared, fairly certain. Therefore it had +come later. Had it built itself out of the cooling, inorganic elements +of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived from outside +upon a meteor? It was hardly conceivable. On the whole, the wisest +man was the least dogmatic upon the point. We could not--or at least +we had not succeeded up to date in making organic life in our +laboratories out of inorganic materials. The gulf between the dead and +the living was something which our chemistry could not as yet bridge. +But there was a higher and subtler chemistry of Nature, which, working +with great forces over long epochs, might well produce results which +were impossible for us. There the matter must be left. + +This brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, beginning +low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures, then up rung by rung +through reptiles and fishes, till at last we came to a kangaroo-rat, a +creature which brought forth its young alive, the direct ancestor of +all mammals, and presumably, therefore, of everyone in the audience. +("No, no," from a sceptical student in the back row.) If the young +gentleman in the red tie who cried "No, no," and who presumably claimed +to have been hatched out of an egg, would wait upon him after the +lecture, he would be glad to see such a curiosity. (Laughter.) It was +strange to think that the climax of all the age-long process of Nature +had been the creation of that gentleman in the red tie. But had the +process stopped? Was this gentleman to be taken as the final type--the +be-all and end-all of development? He hoped that he would not hurt the +feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that, +whatever virtues that gentleman might possess in private life, still +the vast processes of the universe were not fully justified if they +were to end entirely in his production. Evolution was not a spent +force, but one still working, and even greater achievements were in +store. + +Having thus, amid a general titter, played very prettily with his +interrupter, the lecturer went back to his picture of the past, the +drying of the seas, the emergence of the sand-bank, the sluggish, +viscous life which lay upon their margins, the overcrowded lagoons, the +tendency of the sea creatures to take refuge upon the mud-flats, the +abundance of food awaiting them, their consequent enormous growth. +"Hence, ladies and gentlemen," he added, "that frightful brood of +saurians which still affright our eyes when seen in the Wealden or in +the Solenhofen slates, but which were fortunately extinct long before +the first appearance of mankind upon this planet." + +"Question!" boomed a voice from the platform. + +Mr. Waldron was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid humor, as +exemplified upon the gentleman with the red tie, which made it perilous +to interrupt him. But this interjection appeared to him so absurd that +he was at a loss how to deal with it. So looks the Shakespearean who +is confronted by a rancid Baconian, or the astronomer who is assailed +by a flat-earth fanatic. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his +voice, repeated slowly the words: "Which were extinct before the +coming of man." + +"Question!" boomed the voice once more. + +Waldron looked with amazement along the line of professors upon the +platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, who leaned +back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused expression, as if he +were smiling in his sleep. + +"I see!" said Waldron, with a shrug. "It is my friend Professor +Challenger," and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this was a +final explanation and no more need be said. + +But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever path the lecturer +took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably to lead him to some +assertion as to extinct or prehistoric life which instantly brought the +same bulls' bellow from the Professor. The audience began to +anticipate it and to roar with delight when it came. The packed +benches of students joined in, and every time Challenger's beard +opened, before any sound could come forth, there was a yell of +"Question!" from a hundred voices, and an answering counter cry of +"Order!" and "Shame!" from as many more. Waldron, though a hardened +lecturer and a strong man, became rattled. He hesitated, stammered, +repeated himself, got snarled in a long sentence, and finally turned +furiously upon the cause of his troubles. + +"This is really intolerable!" he cried, glaring across the platform. +"I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to cease these ignorant and +unmannerly interruptions." + +There was a hush over the hall, the students rigid with delight at +seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves. +Challenger levered his bulky figure slowly out of his chair. + +"I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldron," he said, "to cease to make +assertions which are not in strict accordance with scientific fact." + +The words unloosed a tempest. "Shame! Shame!" "Give him a hearing!" +"Put him out!" "Shove him off the platform!" "Fair play!" emerged +from a general roar of amusement or execration. The chairman was on +his feet flapping both his hands and bleating excitedly. "Professor +Challenger--personal--views--later," were the solid peaks above his +clouds of inaudible mutter. The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his +beard, and relapsed into his chair. Waldron, very flushed and warlike, +continued his observations. Now and then, as he made an assertion, he +shot a venomous glance at his opponent, who seemed to be slumbering +deeply, with the same broad, happy smile upon his face. + +At last the lecture came to an end--I am inclined to think that it was +a premature one, as the peroration was hurried and disconnected. The +thread of the argument had been rudely broken, and the audience was +restless and expectant. Waldron sat down, and, after a chirrup from +the chairman, Professor Challenger rose and advanced to the edge of the +platform. In the interests of my paper I took down his speech verbatim. + +"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, amid a sustained interruption from +the back. "I beg pardon--Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children--I must +apologize, I had inadvertently omitted a considerable section of this +audience" (tumult, during which the Professor stood with one hand +raised and his enormous head nodding sympathetically, as if he were +bestowing a pontifical blessing upon the crowd), "I have been selected +to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and +imaginative address to which we have just listened. There are points +in it with which I disagree, and it has been my duty to indicate them +as they arose, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished his +object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting account +of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. Popular +lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron" (here he beamed +and blinked at the lecturer) "will excuse me when I say that they are +necessarily both superficial and misleading, since they have to be +graded to the comprehension of an ignorant audience." (Ironical +cheering.) "Popular lecturers are in their nature parasitic." (Angry +gesture of protest from Mr. Waldron.) "They exploit for fame or cash +the work which has been done by their indigent and unknown brethren. +One smallest new fact obtained in the laboratory, one brick built into +the temple of science, far outweighs any second-hand exposition which +passes an idle hour, but can leave no useful result behind it. I put +forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to disparage Mr. +Waldron in particular, but that you may not lose your sense of +proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest." (At this point +Mr. Waldron whispered to the chairman, who half rose and said something +severely to his water-carafe.) "But enough of this!" (Loud and +prolonged cheers.) "Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. +What is the particular point upon which I, as an original investigator, +have challenged our lecturer's accuracy? It is upon the permanence of +certain types of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this +subject as an amateur, nor, I may add, as a popular lecturer, but I +speak as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely +to facts, when I say that Mr. Waldron is very wrong in supposing that +because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric animal, +therefore these creatures no longer exist. They are indeed, as he has +said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use the expression, our +contemporary ancestors, who can still be found with all their hideous +and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and hardihood +to seek their haunts. Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic, +monsters who would hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest +mammals, still exist." (Cries of "Bosh!" "Prove it!" "How do YOU know?" +"Question!") "How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited +their secret haunts. I know because I have seen some of them." +(Applause, uproar, and a voice, "Liar!") "Am I a liar?" (General +hearty and noisy assent.) "Did I hear someone say that I was a liar? +Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up that I may know +him?" (A voice, "Here he is, sir!" and an inoffensive little person in +spectacles, struggling violently, was held up among a group of +students.) "Did you venture to call me a liar?" ("No, sir, no!" +shouted the accused, and disappeared like a jack-in-the-box.) "If any +person in this hall dares to doubt my veracity, I shall be glad to have +a few words with him after the lecture." ("Liar!") "Who said that?" +(Again the inoffensive one plunging desperately, was elevated high into +the air.) "If I come down among you----" (General chorus of "Come, +love, come!" which interrupted the proceedings for some moments, while +the chairman, standing up and waving both his arms, seemed to be +conducting the music. The Professor, with his face flushed, his +nostrils dilated, and his beard bristling, was now in a proper Berserk +mood.) "Every great discoverer has been met with the same +incredulity--the sure brand of a generation of fools. When great facts +are laid before you, you have not the intuition, the imagination which +would help you to understand them. You can only throw mud at the men +who have risked their lives to open new fields to science. You +persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin, and I----" (Prolonged +cheering and complete interruption.) + +All this is from my hurried notes taken at the time, which give little +notion of the absolute chaos to which the assembly had by this time +been reduced. So terrific was the uproar that several ladies had +already beaten a hurried retreat. Grave and reverend seniors seemed to +have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as the students, and I saw +white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate +Professor. The whole great audience seethed and simmered like a +boiling pot. The Professor took a step forward and raised both his +hands. There was something so big and arresting and virile in the man +that the clatter and shouting died gradually away before his commanding +gesture and his masterful eyes. He seemed to have a definite message. +They hushed to hear it. + +"I will not detain you," he said. "It is not worth it. Truth is +truth, and the noise of a number of foolish young men--and, I fear I +must add, of their equally foolish seniors--cannot affect the matter. +I claim that I have opened a new field of science. You dispute it." +(Cheers.) "Then I put you to the test. Will you accredit one or more +of your own number to go out as your representatives and test my +statement in your name?" + +Mr. Summerlee, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose among +the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man, with the withered aspect of a +theologian. He wished, he said, to ask Professor Challenger whether +the results to which he had alluded in his remarks had been obtained +during a journey to the headwaters of the Amazon made by him two years +before. + +Professor Challenger answered that they had. + +Mr. Summerlee desired to know how it was that Professor Challenger +claimed to have made discoveries in those regions which had been +overlooked by Wallace, Bates, and other previous explorers of +established scientific repute. + +Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerlee appeared to be +confusing the Amazon with the Thames; that it was in reality a somewhat +larger river; that Mr. Summerlee might be interested to know that with +the Orinoco, which communicated with it, some fifty thousand miles of +country were opened up, and that in so vast a space it was not +impossible for one person to find what another had missed. + +Mr. Summerlee declared, with an acid smile, that he fully appreciated +the difference between the Thames and the Amazon, which lay in the fact +that any assertion about the former could be tested, while about the +latter it could not. He would be obliged if Professor Challenger would +give the latitude and the longitude of the country in which prehistoric +animals were to be found. + +Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information for good +reasons of his own, but would be prepared to give it with proper +precautions to a committee chosen from the audience. Would Mr. +Summerlee serve on such a committee and test his story in person? + +Mr. Summerlee: "Yes, I will." (Great cheering.) + +Professor Challenger: "Then I guarantee that I will place in your +hands such material as will enable you to find your way. It is only +right, however, since Mr. Summerlee goes to check my statement that I +should have one or more with him who may check his. I will not +disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers. Mr. +Summerlee will need a younger colleague. May I ask for volunteers?" + +It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him. +Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to +pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in my +dreams? But Gladys--was it not the very opportunity of which she +spoke? Gladys would have told me to go. I had sprung to my feet. I +was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my +companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, "Sit +down, Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself." At the same time I +was aware that a tall, thin man, with dark gingery hair, a few seats in +front of me, was also upon his feet. He glared back at me with hard +angry eyes, but I refused to give way. + +"I will go, Mr. Chairman," I kept repeating over and over again. + +"Name! Name!" cried the audience. + +"My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily +Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness." + +"What is YOUR name, sir?" the chairman asked of my tall rival. + +"I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon, I know all +the ground, and have special qualifications for this investigation." + +"Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveler is, of +course, world-famous," said the chairman; "at the same time it would +certainly be as well to have a member of the Press upon such an +expedition." + +"Then I move," said Professor Challenger, "that both these gentlemen be +elected, as representatives of this meeting, to accompany Professor +Summerlee upon his journey to investigate and to report upon the truth +of my statements." + +And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided, and I found +myself borne away in the human current which swirled towards the door, +with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so +suddenly before it. As I emerged from the hall I was conscious for a +moment of a rush of laughing students--down the pavement, and of an arm +wielding a heavy umbrella, which rose and fell in the midst of them. +Then, amid a mixture of groans and cheers, Professor Challenger's +electric brougham slid from the curb, and I found myself walking under +the silvery lights of Regent Street, full of thoughts of Gladys and of +wonder as to my future. + +Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow. I turned, and found myself +looking into the humorous, masterful eyes of the tall, thin man who had +volunteered to be my companion on this strange quest. + +"Mr. Malone, I understand," said he. "We are to be companions--what? +My rooms are just over the road, in the Albany. Perhaps you would have +the kindness to spare me half an hour, for there are one or two things +that I badly want to say to you." + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + "I was the Flail of the Lord" + +Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the +dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery. At the end of a long +drab passage my new acquaintance pushed open a door and turned on an +electric switch. A number of lamps shining through tinted shades +bathed the whole great room before us in a ruddy radiance. Standing in +the doorway and glancing round me, I had a general impression of +extraordinary comfort and elegance combined with an atmosphere of +masculine virility. Everywhere there were mingled the luxury of the +wealthy man of taste and the careless untidiness of the bachelor. Rich +furs and strange iridescent mats from some Oriental bazaar were +scattered upon the floor. Pictures and prints which even my +unpractised eyes could recognize as being of great price and rarity +hung thick upon the walls. Sketches of boxers, of ballet-girls, and of +racehorses alternated with a sensuous Fragonard, a martial Girardet, +and a dreamy Turner. But amid these varied ornaments there were +scattered the trophies which brought back strongly to my recollection +the fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great all-round sportsmen +and athletes of his day. A dark-blue oar crossed with a cherry-pink +one above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man, +while the foils and boxing-gloves above and below them were the tools +of a man who had won supremacy with each. Like a dado round the room +was the jutting line of splendid heavy game-heads, the best of their +sort from every quarter of the world, with the rare white rhinoceros of +the Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all. + +In the center of the rich red carpet was a black and gold Louis Quinze +table, a lovely antique, now sacrilegiously desecrated with marks of +glasses and the scars of cigar-stumps. On it stood a silver tray of +smokables and a burnished spirit-stand, from which and an adjacent +siphon my silent host proceeded to charge two high glasses. Having +indicated an arm-chair to me and placed my refreshment near it, he +handed me a long, smooth Havana. Then, seating himself opposite to me, +he looked at me long and fixedly with his strange, twinkling, reckless +eyes--eyes of a cold light blue, the color of a glacier lake. + +Through the thin haze of my cigar-smoke I noted the details of a face +which was already familiar to me from many photographs--the +strongly-curved nose, the hollow, worn cheeks, the dark, ruddy hair, +thin at the top, the crisp, virile moustaches, the small, aggressive +tuft upon his projecting chin. Something there was of Napoleon III., +something of Don Quixote, and yet again something which was the essence +of the English country gentleman, the keen, alert, open-air lover of +dogs and of horses. His skin was of a rich flower-pot red from sun and +wind. His eyebrows were tufted and overhanging, which gave those +naturally cold eyes an almost ferocious aspect, an impression which was +increased by his strong and furrowed brow. In figure he was spare, but +very strongly built--indeed, he had often proved that there were few +men in England capable of such sustained exertions. His height was a +little over six feet, but he seemed shorter on account of a peculiar +rounding of the shoulders. Such was the famous Lord John Roxton as he +sat opposite to me, biting hard upon his cigar and watching me steadily +in a long and embarrassing silence. + +"Well," said he, at last, "we've gone and done it, young fellah my +lad." (This curious phrase he pronounced as if it were all one +word--"young-fellah-me-lad.") "Yes, we've taken a jump, you an' me. I +suppose, now, when you went into that room there was no such notion in +your head--what?" + +"No thought of it." + +"The same here. No thought of it. And here we are, up to our necks in +the tureen. Why, I've only been back three weeks from Uganda, and +taken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. Pretty goin's +on--what? How does it hit you?" + +"Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a journalist on +the Gazette." + +"Of course--you said so when you took it on. By the way, I've got a +small job for you, if you'll help me." + +"With pleasure." + +"Don't mind takin' a risk, do you?" + +"What is the risk?" + +"Well, it's Ballinger--he's the risk. You've heard of him?" + +"No." + +"Why, young fellah, where HAVE you lived? Sir John Ballinger is the +best gentleman jock in the north country. I could hold him on the flat +at my best, but over jumps he's my master. Well, it's an open secret +that when he's out of trainin' he drinks hard--strikin' an average, he +calls it. He got delirium on Toosday, and has been ragin' like a devil +ever since. His room is above this. The doctors say that it is all up +with the old dear unless some food is got into him, but as he lies in +bed with a revolver on his coverlet, and swears he will put six of the +best through anyone that comes near him, there's been a bit of a strike +among the serving-men. He's a hard nail, is Jack, and a dead shot, +too, but you can't leave a Grand National winner to die like +that--what?" + +"What do you mean to do, then?" I asked. + +"Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be dozin', +and at the worst he can only wing one of us, and the other should have +him. If we can get his bolster-cover round his arms and then 'phone up +a stomach-pump, we'll give the old dear the supper of his life." + +It was a rather desperate business to come suddenly into one's day's +work. I don't think that I am a particularly brave man. I have an +Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terrible +than they are. On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror of +cowardice and with a terror of such a stigma. I dare say that I could +throw myself over a precipice, like the Hun in the history books, if my +courage to do it were questioned, and yet it would surely be pride and +fear, rather than courage, which would be my inspiration. Therefore, +although every nerve in my body shrank from the whisky-maddened figure +which I pictured in the room above, I still answered, in as careless a +voice as I could command, that I was ready to go. Some further remark +of Lord Roxton's about the danger only made me irritable. + +"Talking won't make it any better," said I. "Come on." + +I rose from my chair and he from his. Then with a little confidential +chuckle of laughter, he patted me two or three times on the chest, +finally pushing me back into my chair. + +"All right, sonny my lad--you'll do," said he. I looked up in surprise. + +"I saw after Jack Ballinger myself this mornin'. He blew a hole in the +skirt of my kimono, bless his shaky old hand, but we got a jacket on +him, and he's to be all right in a week. I say, young fellah, I hope +you don't mind--what? You see, between you an' me close-tiled, I look +on this South American business as a mighty serious thing, and if I +have a pal with me I want a man I can bank on. So I sized you down, +and I'm bound to say that you came well out of it. You see, it's all +up to you and me, for this old Summerlee man will want dry-nursin' from +the first. By the way, are you by any chance the Malone who is +expected to get his Rugby cap for Ireland?" + +"A reserve, perhaps." + +"I thought I remembered your face. Why, I was there when you got that +try against Richmond--as fine a swervin' run as I saw the whole season. +I never miss a Rugby match if I can help it, for it is the manliest +game we have left. Well, I didn't ask you in here just to talk sport. +We've got to fix our business. Here are the sailin's, on the first +page of the Times. There's a Booth boat for Para next Wednesday week, +and if the Professor and you can work it, I think we should take +it--what? Very good, I'll fix it with him. What about your outfit?" + +"My paper will see to that." + +"Can you shoot?" + +"About average Territorial standard." + +"Good Lord! as bad as that? It's the last thing you young fellahs +think of learnin'. You're all bees without stings, so far as lookin' +after the hive goes. You'll look silly, some o' these days, when +someone comes along an' sneaks the honey. But you'll need to hold your +gun straight in South America, for, unless our friend the Professor is +a madman or a liar, we may see some queer things before we get back. +What gun have you?" + +He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught a +glimpse of glistening rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes of an +organ. + +"I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery," said he. + +One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening and +shutting them with a snap and a clang, and then patting them as he put +them back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would fondle her +children. + +"This is a Bland's .577 axite express," said he. "I got that big +fellow with it." He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. "Ten more +yards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection. + + 'On that conical bullet his one chance hangs, + 'Tis the weak one's advantage fair.' + +Hope you know your Gordon, for he's the poet of the horse and the gun +and the man that handles both. Now, here's a useful tool--.470, +telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to three-fifty. +That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave-drivers three years +ago. I was the flail of the Lord up in those parts, I may tell you, +though you won't find it in any Blue-book. There are times, young +fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and +justice, or you never feel clean again. That's why I made a little war +on my own. Declared it myself, waged it myself, ended it myself. Each +of those nicks is for a slave murderer--a good row of them--what? That +big one is for Pedro Lopez, the king of them all, that I killed in a +backwater of the Putomayo River. Now, here's something that would do +for you." He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle. "Well +rubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip. +You can trust your life to that." He handed it to me and closed the +door of his oak cabinet. + +"By the way," he continued, coming back to his chair, "what do you know +of this Professor Challenger?" + +"I never saw him till to-day." + +"Well, neither did I. It's funny we should both sail under sealed +orders from a man we don't know. He seemed an uppish old bird. His +brothers of science don't seem too fond of him, either. How came you +to take an interest in the affair?" + +I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he listened +intently. Then he drew out a map of South America and laid it on the +table. + +"I believe every single word he said to you was the truth," said he, +earnestly, "and, mind you, I have something to go on when I speak like +that. South America is a place I love, and I think, if you take it +right through from Darien to Fuego, it's the grandest, richest, most +wonderful bit of earth upon this planet. People don't know it yet, and +don't realize what it may become. I've been up an' down it from end to +end, and had two dry seasons in those very parts, as I told you when I +spoke of the war I made on the slave-dealers. Well, when I was up +there I heard some yarns of the same kind--traditions of Indians and +the like, but with somethin' behind them, no doubt. The more you knew +of that country, young fellah, the more you would understand that +anythin' was possible--ANYTHIN'! There are just some narrow +water-lanes along which folk travel, and outside that it is all +darkness. Now, down here in the Matto Grande"--he swept his cigar over +a part of the map--"or up in this corner where three countries meet, +nothin' would surprise me. As that chap said to-night, there are +fifty-thousand miles of water-way runnin' through a forest that is very +near the size of Europe. You and I could be as far away from each +other as Scotland is from Constantinople, and yet each of us be in the +same great Brazilian forest. Man has just made a track here and a +scrape there in the maze. Why, the river rises and falls the best part +of forty feet, and half the country is a morass that you can't pass +over. Why shouldn't somethin' new and wonderful lie in such a country? +And why shouldn't we be the men to find it out? Besides," he added, +his queer, gaunt face shining with delight, "there's a sportin' risk in +every mile of it. I'm like an old golf-ball--I've had all the white +paint knocked off me long ago. Life can whack me about now, and it +can't leave a mark. But a sportin' risk, young fellah, that's the salt +of existence. Then it's worth livin' again. We're all gettin' a deal +too soft and dull and comfy. Give me the great waste lands and the +wide spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin' to look for that's +worth findin'. I've tried war and steeplechasin' and aeroplanes, but +this huntin' of beasts that look like a lobster-supper dream is a +brand-new sensation." He chuckled with glee at the prospect. + +Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this new acquaintance, but he is to +be my comrade for many a day, and so I have tried to set him down as I +first saw him, with his quaint personality and his queer little tricks +of speech and of thought. It was only the need of getting in the +account of my meeting which drew me at last from his company. I left +him seated amid his pink radiance, oiling the lock of his favorite +rifle, while he still chuckled to himself at the thought of the +adventures which awaited us. It was very clear to me that if dangers +lay before us I could not in all England have found a cooler head or a +braver spirit with which to share them. + +That night, wearied as I was after the wonderful happenings of the day, +I sat late with McArdle, the news editor, explaining to him the whole +situation, which he thought important enough to bring next morning +before the notice of Sir George Beaumont, the chief. It was agreed +that I should write home full accounts of my adventures in the shape of +successive letters to McArdle, and that these should either be edited +for the Gazette as they arrived, or held back to be published later, +according to the wishes of Professor Challenger, since we could not yet +know what conditions he might attach to those directions which should +guide us to the unknown land. In response to a telephone inquiry, we +received nothing more definite than a fulmination against the Press, +ending up with the remark that if we would notify our boat he would +hand us any directions which he might think it proper to give us at the +moment of starting. A second question from us failed to elicit any +answer at all, save a plaintive bleat from his wife to the effect that +her husband was in a very violent temper already, and that she hoped we +would do nothing to make it worse. A third attempt, later in the day, +provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent message from the Central +Exchange that Professor Challenger's receiver had been shattered. +After that we abandoned all attempt at communication. + +And now my patient readers, I can address you directly no longer. From +now onwards (if, indeed, any continuation of this narrative should ever +reach you) it can only be through the paper which I represent. In the +hands of the editor I leave this account of the events which have led +up to one of the most remarkable expeditions of all time, so that if I +never return to England there shall be some record as to how the affair +came about. I am writing these last lines in the saloon of the Booth +liner Francisca, and they will go back by the pilot to the keeping of +Mr. McArdle. Let me draw one last picture before I close the +notebook--a picture which is the last memory of the old country which I +bear away with me. It is a wet, foggy morning in the late spring; a +thin, cold rain is falling. Three shining mackintoshed figures are +walking down the quay, making for the gang-plank of the great liner +from which the blue-peter is flying. In front of them a porter pushes +a trolley piled high with trunks, wraps, and gun-cases. Professor +Summerlee, a long, melancholy figure, walks with dragging steps and +drooping head, as one who is already profoundly sorry for himself. +Lord John Roxton steps briskly, and his thin, eager face beams forth +between his hunting-cap and his muffler. As for myself, I am glad to +have got the bustling days of preparation and the pangs of leave-taking +behind me, and I have no doubt that I show it in my bearing. Suddenly, +just as we reach the vessel, there is a shout behind us. It is +Professor Challenger, who had promised to see us off. He runs after +us, a puffing, red-faced, irascible figure. + +"No thank you," says he; "I should much prefer not to go aboard. I +have only a few words to say to you, and they can very well be said +where we are. I beg you not to imagine that I am in any way indebted +to you for making this journey. I would have you to understand that it +is a matter of perfect indifference to me, and I refuse to entertain +the most remote sense of personal obligation. Truth is truth, and +nothing which you can report can affect it in any way, though it may +excite the emotions and allay the curiosity of a number of very +ineffectual people. My directions for your instruction and guidance +are in this sealed envelope. You will open it when you reach a town +upon the Amazon which is called Manaos, but not until the date and hour +which is marked upon the outside. Have I made myself clear? I leave +the strict observance of my conditions entirely to your honor. No, Mr. +Malone, I will place no restriction upon your correspondence, since the +ventilation of the facts is the object of your journey; but I demand +that you shall give no particulars as to your exact destination, and +that nothing be actually published until your return. Good-bye, sir. +You have done something to mitigate my feelings for the loathsome +profession to which you unhappily belong. Good-bye, Lord John. +Science is, as I understand, a sealed book to you; but you may +congratulate yourself upon the hunting-field which awaits you. You +will, no doubt, have the opportunity of describing in the Field how you +brought down the rocketing dimorphodon. And good-bye to you also, +Professor Summerlee. If you are still capable of self-improvement, of +which I am frankly unconvinced, you will surely return to London a +wiser man." + +So he turned upon his heel, and a minute later from the deck I could +see his short, squat figure bobbing about in the distance as he made +his way back to his train. Well, we are well down Channel now. +There's the last bell for letters, and it's good-bye to the pilot. +We'll be "down, hull-down, on the old trail" from now on. God bless +all we leave behind us, and send us safely back. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + "To-morrow we Disappear into the Unknown" + +I will not bore those whom this narrative may reach by an account of +our luxurious voyage upon the Booth liner, nor will I tell of our +week's stay at Para (save that I should wish to acknowledge the great +kindness of the Pereira da Pinta Company in helping us to get together +our equipment). I will also allude very briefly to our river journey, +up a wide, slow-moving, clay-tinted stream, in a steamer which was +little smaller than that which had carried us across the Atlantic. +Eventually we found ourselves through the narrows of Obidos and reached +the town of Manaos. Here we were rescued from the limited attractions +of the local inn by Mr. Shortman, the representative of the British and +Brazilian Trading Company. In his hospitable Fazenda we spent our time +until the day when we were empowered to open the letter of instructions +given to us by Professor Challenger. Before I reach the surprising +events of that date I would desire to give a clearer sketch of my +comrades in this enterprise, and of the associates whom we had already +gathered together in South America. I speak freely, and I leave the +use of my material to your own discretion, Mr. McArdle, since it is +through your hands that this report must pass before it reaches the +world. + +The scientific attainments of Professor Summerlee are too well known +for me to trouble to recapitulate them. He is better equipped for a +rough expedition of this sort than one would imagine at first sight. +His tall, gaunt, stringy figure is insensible to fatigue, and his dry, +half-sarcastic, and often wholly unsympathetic manner is uninfluenced +by any change in his surroundings. Though in his sixty-sixth year, I +have never heard him express any dissatisfaction at the occasional +hardships which we have had to encounter. I had regarded his presence +as an encumbrance to the expedition, but, as a matter of fact, I am now +well convinced that his power of endurance is as great as my own. In +temper he is naturally acid and sceptical. From the beginning he has +never concealed his belief that Professor Challenger is an absolute +fraud, that we are all embarked upon an absurd wild-goose chase and +that we are likely to reap nothing but disappointment and danger in +South America, and corresponding ridicule in England. Such are the +views which, with much passionate distortion of his thin features and +wagging of his thin, goat-like beard, he poured into our ears all the +way from Southampton to Manaos. Since landing from the boat he has +obtained some consolation from the beauty and variety of the insect and +bird life around him, for he is absolutely whole-hearted in his +devotion to science. He spends his days flitting through the woods +with his shot-gun and his butterfly-net, and his evenings in mounting +the many specimens he has acquired. Among his minor peculiarities are +that he is careless as to his attire, unclean in his person, +exceedingly absent-minded in his habits, and addicted to smoking a +short briar pipe, which is seldom out of his mouth. He has been upon +several scientific expeditions in his youth (he was with Robertson in +Papua), and the life of the camp and the canoe is nothing fresh to him. + +Lord John Roxton has some points in common with Professor Summerlee, +and others in which they are the very antithesis to each other. He is +twenty years younger, but has something of the same spare, scraggy +physique. As to his appearance, I have, as I recollect, described it +in that portion of my narrative which I have left behind me in London. +He is exceedingly neat and prim in his ways, dresses always with great +care in white drill suits and high brown mosquito-boots, and shaves at +least once a day. Like most men of action, he is laconic in speech, +and sinks readily into his own thoughts, but he is always quick to +answer a question or join in a conversation, talking in a queer, jerky, +half-humorous fashion. His knowledge of the world, and very especially +of South America, is surprising, and he has a whole-hearted belief in +the possibilities of our journey which is not to be dashed by the +sneers of Professor Summerlee. He has a gentle voice and a quiet +manner, but behind his twinkling blue eyes there lurks a capacity for +furious wrath and implacable resolution, the more dangerous because +they are held in leash. He spoke little of his own exploits in Brazil +and Peru, but it was a revelation to me to find the excitement which +was caused by his presence among the riverine natives, who looked upon +him as their champion and protector. The exploits of the Red Chief, as +they called him, had become legends among them, but the real facts, as +far as I could learn them, were amazing enough. + +These were that Lord John had found himself some years before in that +no-man's-land which is formed by the half-defined frontiers between +Peru, Brazil, and Columbia. In this great district the wild rubber +tree flourishes, and has become, as in the Congo, a curse to the +natives which can only be compared to their forced labor under the +Spaniards upon the old silver mines of Darien. A handful of villainous +half-breeds dominated the country, armed such Indians as would support +them, and turned the rest into slaves, terrorizing them with the most +inhuman tortures in order to force them to gather the india-rubber, +which was then floated down the river to Para. Lord John Roxton +expostulated on behalf of the wretched victims, and received nothing +but threats and insults for his pains. He then formally declared war +against Pedro Lopez, the leader of the slave-drivers, enrolled a band +of runaway slaves in his service, armed them, and conducted a campaign, +which ended by his killing with his own hands the notorious half-breed +and breaking down the system which he represented. + +No wonder that the ginger-headed man with the silky voice and the free +and easy manners was now looked upon with deep interest upon the banks +of the great South American river, though the feelings he inspired were +naturally mixed, since the gratitude of the natives was equaled by the +resentment of those who desired to exploit them. One useful result of +his former experiences was that he could talk fluently in the Lingoa +Geral, which is the peculiar talk, one-third Portuguese and two-thirds +Indian, which is current all over Brazil. + +I have said before that Lord John Roxton was a South Americomaniac. He +could not speak of that great country without ardor, and this ardor was +infectious, for, ignorant as I was, he fixed my attention and +stimulated my curiosity. How I wish I could reproduce the glamour of +his discourses, the peculiar mixture of accurate knowledge and of racy +imagination which gave them their fascination, until even the +Professor's cynical and sceptical smile would gradually vanish from his +thin face as he listened. He would tell the history of the mighty +river so rapidly explored (for some of the first conquerors of Peru +actually crossed the entire continent upon its waters), and yet so +unknown in regard to all that lay behind its ever-changing banks. + +"What is there?" he would cry, pointing to the north. "Wood and marsh +and unpenetrated jungle. Who knows what it may shelter? And there to +the south? A wilderness of swampy forest, where no white man has ever +been. The unknown is up against us on every side. Outside the narrow +lines of the rivers what does anyone know? Who will say what is +possible in such a country? Why should old man Challenger not be +right?" At which direct defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear +upon Professor Summerlee's face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic +head in unsympathetic silence, behind the cloud of his briar-root pipe. + + +So much, for the moment, for my two white companions, whose characters +and limitations will be further exposed, as surely as my own, as this +narrative proceeds. But already we have enrolled certain retainers who +may play no small part in what is to come. The first is a gigantic +negro named Zambo, who is a black Hercules, as willing as any horse, +and about as intelligent. Him we enlisted at Para, on the +recommendation of the steamship company, on whose vessels he had +learned to speak a halting English. + +It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two half-breeds +from up the river, just come down with a cargo of redwood. They were +swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce, as active and wiry as panthers. +Both of them had spent their lives in those upper waters of the Amazon +which we were about to explore, and it was this recommendation which +had caused Lord John to engage them. One of them, Gomez, had the +further advantage that he could speak excellent English. These men +were willing to act as our personal servants, to cook, to row, or to +make themselves useful in any way at a payment of fifteen dollars a +month. Besides these, we had engaged three Mojo Indians from Bolivia, +who are the most skilful at fishing and boat work of all the river +tribes. The chief of these we called Mojo, after his tribe, and the +others are known as Jose and Fernando. Three white men, then, two +half-breeds, one negro, and three Indians made up the personnel of the +little expedition which lay waiting for its instructions at Manaos +before starting upon its singular quest. + +At last, after a weary week, the day had come and the hour. I ask you +to picture the shaded sitting-room of the Fazenda St. Ignatio, two +miles inland from the town of Manaos. Outside lay the yellow, brassy +glare of the sunshine, with the shadows of the palm trees as black and +definite as the trees themselves. The air was calm, full of the +eternal hum of insects, a tropical chorus of many octaves, from the +deep drone of the bee to the high, keen pipe of the mosquito. Beyond +the veranda was a small cleared garden, bounded with cactus hedges and +adorned with clumps of flowering shrubs, round which the great blue +butterflies and the tiny humming-birds fluttered and darted in +crescents of sparkling light. Within we were seated round the cane +table, on which lay a sealed envelope. Inscribed upon it, in the +jagged handwriting of Professor Challenger, were the words:-- + + +"Instructions to Lord John Roxton and party. To be opened at Manaos +upon July 15th, at 12 o'clock precisely." + + +Lord John had placed his watch upon the table beside him. + +"We have seven more minutes," said he. "The old dear is very precise." + +Professor Summerlee gave an acid smile as he picked up the envelope in +his gaunt hand. + +"What can it possibly matter whether we open it now or in seven +minutes?" said he. "It is all part and parcel of the same system of +quackery and nonsense, for which I regret to say that the writer is +notorious." + +"Oh, come, we must play the game accordin' to rules," said Lord John. +"It's old man Challenger's show and we are here by his good will, so it +would be rotten bad form if we didn't follow his instructions to the +letter." + +"A pretty business it is!" cried the Professor, bitterly. "It struck +me as preposterous in London, but I'm bound to say that it seems even +more so upon closer acquaintance. I don't know what is inside this +envelope, but, unless it is something pretty definite, I shall be much +tempted to take the next down-river boat and catch the Bolivia at Para. +After all, I have some more responsible work in the world than to run +about disproving the assertions of a lunatic. Now, Roxton, surely it +is time." + +"Time it is," said Lord John. "You can blow the whistle." He took up +the envelope and cut it with his penknife. From it he drew a folded +sheet of paper. This he carefully opened out and flattened on the +table. It was a blank sheet. He turned it over. Again it was blank. +We looked at each other in a bewildered silence, which was broken by a +discordant burst of derisive laughter from Professor Summerlee. + +"It is an open admission," he cried. "What more do you want? The +fellow is a self-confessed humbug. We have only to return home and +report him as the brazen imposter that he is." + +"Invisible ink!" I suggested. + +"I don't think!" said Lord Roxton, holding the paper to the light. +"No, young fellah my lad, there is no use deceiving yourself. I'll go +bail for it that nothing has ever been written upon this paper." + +"May I come in?" boomed a voice from the veranda. + +The shadow of a squat figure had stolen across the patch of sunlight. +That voice! That monstrous breadth of shoulder! We sprang to our feet +with a gasp of astonishment as Challenger, in a round, boyish straw-hat +with a colored ribbon--Challenger, with his hands in his jacket-pockets +and his canvas shoes daintily pointing as he walked--appeared in the +open space before us. He threw back his head, and there he stood in +the golden glow with all his old Assyrian luxuriance of beard, all his +native insolence of drooping eyelids and intolerant eyes. + +"I fear," said he, taking out his watch, "that I am a few minutes too +late. When I gave you this envelope I must confess that I had never +intended that you should open it, for it had been my fixed intention to +be with you before the hour. The unfortunate delay can be apportioned +between a blundering pilot and an intrusive sandbank. I fear that it +has given my colleague, Professor Summerlee, occasion to blaspheme." + +"I am bound to say, sir," said Lord John, with some sternness of voice, +"that your turning up is a considerable relief to us, for our mission +seemed to have come to a premature end. Even now I can't for the life +of me understand why you should have worked it in so extraordinary a +manner." + +Instead of answering, Professor Challenger entered, shook hands with +myself and Lord John, bowed with ponderous insolence to Professor +Summerlee, and sank back into a basket-chair, which creaked and swayed +beneath his weight. + +"Is all ready for your journey?" he asked. + +"We can start to-morrow." + +"Then so you shall. You need no chart of directions now, since you +will have the inestimable advantage of my own guidance. From the first +I had determined that I would myself preside over your investigation. +The most elaborate charts would, as you will readily admit, be a poor +substitute for my own intelligence and advice. As to the small ruse +which I played upon you in the matter of the envelope, it is clear +that, had I told you all my intentions, I should have been forced to +resist unwelcome pressure to travel out with you." + +"Not from me, sir!" exclaimed Professor Summerlee, heartily. "So long +as there was another ship upon the Atlantic." + +Challenger waved him away with his great hairy hand. + +"Your common sense will, I am sure, sustain my objection and realize +that it was better that I should direct my own movements and appear +only at the exact moment when my presence was needed. That moment has +now arrived. You are in safe hands. You will not now fail to reach +your destination. From henceforth I take command of this expedition, +and I must ask you to complete your preparations to-night, so that we +may be able to make an early start in the morning. My time is of +value, and the same thing may be said, no doubt, in a lesser degree of +your own. I propose, therefore, that we push on as rapidly as +possible, until I have demonstrated what you have come to see." + +Lord John Roxton has chartered a large steam launch, the Esmeralda, +which was to carry us up the river. So far as climate goes, it was +immaterial what time we chose for our expedition, as the temperature +ranges from seventy-five to ninety degrees both summer and winter, with +no appreciable difference in heat. In moisture, however, it is +otherwise; from December to May is the period of the rains, and during +this time the river slowly rises until it attains a height of nearly +forty feet above its low-water mark. It floods the banks, extends in +great lagoons over a monstrous waste of country, and forms a huge +district, called locally the Gapo, which is for the most part too +marshy for foot-travel and too shallow for boating. About June the +waters begin to fall, and are at their lowest at October or November. +Thus our expedition was at the time of the dry season, when the great +river and its tributaries were more or less in a normal condition. + +The current of the river is a slight one, the drop being not greater +than eight inches in a mile. No stream could be more convenient for +navigation, since the prevailing wind is south-east, and sailing boats +may make a continuous progress to the Peruvian frontier, dropping down +again with the current. In our own case the excellent engines of the +Esmeralda could disregard the sluggish flow of the stream, and we made +as rapid progress as if we were navigating a stagnant lake. For three +days we steamed north-westwards up a stream which even here, a thousand +miles from its mouth, was still so enormous that from its center the +two banks were mere shadows upon the distant skyline. On the fourth +day after leaving Manaos we turned into a tributary which at its mouth +was little smaller than the main stream. It narrowed rapidly, however, +and after two more days' steaming we reached an Indian village, where +the Professor insisted that we should land, and that the Esmeralda +should be sent back to Manaos. We should soon come upon rapids, he +explained, which would make its further use impossible. He added +privately that we were now approaching the door of the unknown country, +and that the fewer whom we took into our confidence the better it would +be. To this end also he made each of us give our word of honor that we +would publish or say nothing which would give any exact clue as to the +whereabouts of our travels, while the servants were all solemnly sworn +to the same effect. It is for this reason that I am compelled to be +vague in my narrative, and I would warn my readers that in any map or +diagram which I may give the relation of places to each other may be +correct, but the points of the compass are carefully confused, so that +in no way can it be taken as an actual guide to the country. Professor +Challenger's reasons for secrecy may be valid or not, but we had no +choice but to adopt them, for he was prepared to abandon the whole +expedition rather than modify the conditions upon which he would guide +us. + +It was August 2nd when we snapped our last link with the outer world by +bidding farewell to the Esmeralda. Since then four days have passed, +during which we have engaged two large canoes from the Indians, made of +so light a material (skins over a bamboo framework) that we should be +able to carry them round any obstacle. These we have loaded with all +our effects, and have engaged two additional Indians to help us in the +navigation. I understand that they are the very two--Ataca and Ipetu +by name--who accompanied Professor Challenger upon his previous +journey. They appeared to be terrified at the prospect of repeating +it, but the chief has patriarchal powers in these countries, and if the +bargain is good in his eyes the clansman has little choice in the +matter. + +So to-morrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am +transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to +those who are interested in our fate. I have, according to our +arrangement, addressed it to you, my dear Mr. McArdle, and I leave it +to your discretion to delete, alter, or do what you like with it. From +the assurance of Professor Challenger's manner--and in spite of the +continued scepticism of Professor Summerlee--I have no doubt that our +leader will make good his statement, and that we are really on the eve +of some most remarkable experiences. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + "The Outlying Pickets of the New World" + +Our friends at home may well rejoice with us, for we are at our goal, +and up to a point, at least, we have shown that the statement of +Professor Challenger can be verified. We have not, it is true, +ascended the plateau, but it lies before us, and even Professor +Summerlee is in a more chastened mood. Not that he will for an instant +admit that his rival could be right, but he is less persistent in his +incessant objections, and has sunk for the most part into an observant +silence. I must hark back, however, and continue my narrative from +where I dropped it. We are sending home one of our local Indians who +is injured, and I am committing this letter to his charge, with +considerable doubts in my mind as to whether it will ever come to hand. + +When I wrote last we were about to leave the Indian village where we +had been deposited by the Esmeralda. I have to begin my report by bad +news, for the first serious personal trouble (I pass over the incessant +bickerings between the Professors) occurred this evening, and might +have had a tragic ending. I have spoken of our English-speaking +half-breed, Gomez--a fine worker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, I +fancy, with the vice of curiosity, which is common enough among such +men. On the last evening he seems to have hid himself near the hut in +which we were discussing our plans, and, being observed by our huge +negro Zambo, who is as faithful as a dog and has the hatred which all +his race bear to the half-breeds, he was dragged out and carried into +our presence. Gomez whipped out his knife, however, and but for the +huge strength of his captor, which enabled him to disarm him with one +hand, he would certainly have stabbed him. The matter has ended in +reprimands, the opponents have been compelled to shake hands, and there +is every hope that all will be well. As to the feuds of the two +learned men, they are continuous and bitter. It must be admitted that +Challenger is provocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acid +tongue, which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that he +never cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river, as +it was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He is convinced, of +course, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. Summerlee rejoined, +however, with a sour smile, by saying that he understood that Millbank +Prison had been pulled down. Challenger's conceit is too colossal to +allow him to be really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and +repeated "Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a +child. Indeed, they are children both--the one wizened and +cantankerous, the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a +brain which has put him in the front rank of his scientific age. +Brain, character, soul--only as one sees more of life does one +understand how distinct is each. + +The very next day we did actually make our start upon this remarkable +expedition. We found that all our possessions fitted very easily into +the two canoes, and we divided our personnel, six in each, taking the +obvious precaution in the interests of peace of putting one Professor +into each canoe. Personally, I was with Challenger, who was in a +beatific humor, moving about as one in a silent ecstasy and beaming +benevolence from every feature. I have had some experience of him in +other moods, however, and shall be the less surprised when the +thunderstorms suddenly come up amidst the sunshine. If it is +impossible to be at your ease, it is equally impossible to be dull in +his company, for one is always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as to +what sudden turn his formidable temper may take. + +For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundreds of +yards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that one could +usually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are, half of them, +of this nature, while the other half are whitish and opaque, the +difference depending upon the class of country through which they have +flowed. The dark indicate vegetable decay, while the others point to +clayey soil. Twice we came across rapids, and in each case made a +portage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either side +were primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of the +second growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes +through them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The +height of the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything +which I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards in +magnificent columns until, at an enormous distance above our heads, we +could dimly discern the spot where they threw out their side-branches +into Gothic upward curves which coalesced to form one great matted roof +of verdure, through which only an occasional golden ray of sunshine +shot downwards to trace a thin dazzling line of light amidst the +majestic obscurity. As we walked noiselessly amid the thick, soft +carpet of decaying vegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comes +upon us in the twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger's +full-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should have been +ignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men of science +pointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, and the redwood +trees, with all that profusion of various plants which has made this +continent the chief supplier to the human race of those gifts of Nature +which depend upon the vegetable world, while it is the most backward in +those products which come from animal life. Vivid orchids and +wonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and +where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, +the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of +ipomaea, the effect was as a dream of fairyland. In these great wastes +of forest, life, which abhors darkness, struggles ever upwards to the +light. Every plant, even the smaller ones, curls and writhes to the +green surface, twining itself round its stronger and taller brethren in +the effort. Climbing plants are monstrous and luxuriant, but others +which have never been known to climb elsewhere learn the art as an +escape from that somber shadow, so that the common nettle, the jasmine, +and even the jacitara palm tree can be seen circling the stems of the +cedars and striving to reach their crowns. Of animal life there was no +movement amid the majestic vaulted aisles which stretched from us as we +walked, but a constant movement far above our heads told of that +multitudinous world of snake and monkey, bird and sloth, which lived in +the sunshine, and looked down in wonder at our tiny, dark, stumbling +figures in the obscure depths immeasurably below them. At dawn and at +sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parrakeets broke +into shrill chatter, but during the hot hours of the day only the full +drone of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear, +while nothing moved amid the solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading +away into the darkness which held us in. Once some bandy-legged, +lurching creature, an ant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid the +shadows. It was the only sign of earth life which I saw in this great +Amazonian forest. + +And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not far +from us in those mysterious recesses. On the third day out we were +aware of a singular deep throbbing in the air, rhythmic and solemn, +coming and going fitfully throughout the morning. The two boats were +paddling within a few yards of each other when first we heard it, and +our Indians remained motionless, as if they had been turned to bronze, +listening intently with expressions of terror upon their faces. + +"What is it, then?" I asked. + +"Drums," said Lord John, carelessly; "war drums. I have heard them +before." + +"Yes, sir, war drums," said Gomez, the half-breed. "Wild Indians, +bravos, not mansos; they watch us every mile of the way; kill us if +they can." + +"How can they watch us?" I asked, gazing into the dark, motionless void. + +The half-breed shrugged his broad shoulders. + +"The Indians know. They have their own way. They watch us. They talk +the drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can." + +By the afternoon of that day--my pocket diary shows me that it was +Tuesday, August 18th--at least six or seven drums were throbbing from +various points. Sometimes they beat quickly, sometimes slowly, +sometimes in obvious question and answer, one far to the east breaking +out in a high staccato rattle, and being followed after a pause by a +deep roll from the north. There was something indescribably +nerve-shaking and menacing in that constant mutter, which seemed to +shape itself into the very syllables of the half-breed, endlessly +repeated, "We will kill you if we can. We will kill you if we can." +No one ever moved in the silent woods. All the peace and soothing of +quiet Nature lay in that dark curtain of vegetation, but away from +behind there came ever the one message from our fellow-man. "We will +kill you if we can," said the men in the east. "We will kill you if we +can," said the men in the north. + +All day the drums rumbled and whispered, while their menace reflected +itself in the faces of our colored companions. Even the hardy, +swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however, that day once +for all that both Summerlee and Challenger possessed that highest type +of bravery, the bravery of the scientific mind. Theirs was the spirit +which upheld Darwin among the gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace among +the head-hunters of Malaya. It is decreed by a merciful Nature that +the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if +it be steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merely +personal considerations. All day amid that incessant and mysterious +menace our two Professors watched every bird upon the wing, and every +shrub upon the bank, with many a sharp wordy contention, when the snarl +of Summerlee came quick upon the deep growl of Challenger, but with no +more sense of danger and no more reference to drum-beating Indians than +if they were seated together in the smoking-room of the Royal Society's +Club in St. James's Street. Once only did they condescend to discuss +them. + +"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking his thumb +towards the reverberating wood. + +"No doubt, sir," Summerlee answered. "Like all such tribes, I shall +expect to find them of poly-synthetic speech and of Mongolian type." + +"Polysynthetic certainly," said Challenger, indulgently. "I am not +aware that any other type of language exists in this continent, and I +have notes of more than a hundred. The Mongolian theory I regard with +deep suspicion." + +"I should have thought that even a limited knowledge of comparative +anatomy would have helped to verify it," said Summerlee, bitterly. + +Challenger thrust out his aggressive chin until he was all beard and +hat-rim. "No doubt, sir, a limited knowledge would have that effect. +When one's knowledge is exhaustive, one comes to other conclusions." +They glared at each other in mutual defiance, while all round rose the +distant whisper, "We will kill you--we will kill you if we can." + +That night we moored our canoes with heavy stones for anchors in the +center of the stream, and made every preparation for a possible attack. +Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we pushed upon our way, the +drum-beating dying out behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoon +we came to a very steep rapid, more than a mile long--the very one in +which Professor Challenger had suffered disaster upon his first +journey. I confess that the sight of it consoled me, for it was really +the first direct corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his +story. The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores +through the brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we four +whites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and any danger +coming from the woods. Before evening we had successfully passed the +rapids, and made our way some ten miles above them, where we anchored +for the night. At this point I reckoned that we had come not less than +a hundred miles up the tributary from the main stream. + +It was in the early forenoon of the next day that we made the great +departure. Since dawn Professor Challenger had been acutely uneasy, +continually scanning each bank of the river. Suddenly he gave an +exclamation of satisfaction and pointed to a single tree, which +projected at a peculiar angle over the side of the stream. + +"What do you make of that?" he asked. + +"It is surely an Assai palm," said Summerlee. + +"Exactly. It was an Assai palm which I took for my landmark. The +secret opening is half a mile onwards upon the other side of the river. +There is no break in the trees. That is the wonder and the mystery of +it. There where you see light-green rushes instead of dark-green +undergrowth, there between the great cotton woods, that is my private +gate into the unknown. Push through, and you will understand." + +It was indeed a wonderful place. Having reached the spot marked by a +line of light-green rushes, we poled out two canoes through them for +some hundreds of yards, and eventually emerged into a placid and +shallow stream, running clear and transparent over a sandy bottom. It +may have been twenty yards across, and was banked in on each side by +most luxuriant vegetation. No one who had not observed that for a +short distance reeds had taken the place of shrubs, could possibly have +guessed the existence of such a stream or dreamed of the fairyland +beyond. + +For a fairyland it was--the most wonderful that the imagination of man +could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a +natural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a golden +twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but +marvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above +filtered and tempered in its fall. Clear as crystal, motionless as a +sheet of glass, green as the edge of an iceberg, it stretched in front +of us under its leafy archway, every stroke of our paddles sending a +thousand ripples across its shining surface. It was a fitting avenue +to a land of wonders. All sign of the Indians had passed away, but +animal life was more frequent, and the tameness of the creatures showed +that they knew nothing of the hunter. Fuzzy little black-velvet +monkeys, with snow-white teeth and gleaming, mocking eyes, chattered at +us as we passed. With a dull, heavy splash an occasional cayman +plunged in from the bank. Once a dark, clumsy tapir stared at us from +a gap in the bushes, and then lumbered away through the forest; once, +too, the yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid the +brushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over its +tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds, +stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and +white, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the +crystal water was alive with fish of every shape and color. + +For three days we made our way up this tunnel of hazy green sunshine. +On the longer stretches one could hardly tell as one looked ahead where +the distant green water ended and the distant green archway began. The +deep peace of this strange waterway was unbroken by any sign of man. + +"No Indian here. Too much afraid. Curupuri," said Gomez. + +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods," Lord John explained. "It's a +name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think that there is +something fearsome in this direction, and therefore they avoid it." + +On the third day it became evident that our journey in the canoes could +not last much longer, for the stream was rapidly growing more shallow. +Twice in as many hours we stuck upon the bottom. Finally we pulled the +boats up among the brushwood and spent the night on the bank of the +river. In the morning Lord John and I made our way for a couple of +miles through the forest, keeping parallel with the stream; but as it +grew ever shallower we returned and reported, what Professor Challenger +had already suspected, that we had reached the highest point to which +the canoes could be brought. We drew them up, therefore, and concealed +them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so that we should +find them again. Then we distributed the various burdens among +us--guns, ammunition, food, a tent, blankets, and the rest--and, +shouldering our packages, we set forth upon the more laborious stage of +our journey. + +An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outset of our +new stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining us issued +directions to the whole party, much to the evident discontent of +Summerlee. Now, upon his assigning some duty to his fellow-Professor +(it was only the carrying of an aneroid barometer), the matter suddenly +came to a head. + +"May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in what capacity +you take it upon yourself to issue these orders?" + +Challenger glared and bristled. + +"I do it, Professor Summerlee, as leader of this expedition." + +"I am compelled to tell you, sir, that I do not recognize you in that +capacity." + +"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm. "Perhaps you would +define my exact position." + +"Yes, sir. You are a man whose veracity is upon trial, and this +committee is here to try it. You walk, sir, with your judges." + +"Dear me!" said Challenger, seating himself on the side of one of the +canoes. "In that case you will, of course, go on your way, and I will +follow at my leisure. If I am not the leader you cannot expect me to +lead." + +Thank heaven that there were two sane men--Lord John Roxton and +myself--to prevent the petulance and folly of our learned Professors +from sending us back empty-handed to London. Such arguing and pleading +and explaining before we could get them mollified! Then at last +Summerlee, with his sneer and his pipe, would move forwards, and +Challenger would come rolling and grumbling after. By some good +fortune we discovered about this time that both our savants had the +very poorest opinion of Dr. Illingworth of Edinburgh. Thenceforward +that was our one safety, and every strained situation was relieved by +our introducing the name of the Scotch zoologist, when both our +Professors would form a temporary alliance and friendship in their +detestation and abuse of this common rival. + +Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soon found +that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it lost itself +in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into which we sank up to +our knees. The place was horribly haunted by clouds of mosquitoes and +every form of flying pest, so we were glad to find solid ground again +and to make a circuit among the trees, which enabled us to outflank +this pestilent morass, which droned like an organ in the distance, so +loud was it with insect life. + +On the second day after leaving our canoes we found that the whole +character of the country changed. Our road was persistently upwards, +and as we ascended the woods became thinner and lost their tropical +luxuriance. The huge trees of the alluvial Amazonian plain gave place +to the Phoenix and coco palms, growing in scattered clumps, with thick +brushwood between. In the damper hollows the Mauritia palms threw out +their graceful drooping fronds. We traveled entirely by compass, and +once or twice there were differences of opinion between Challenger and +the two Indians, when, to quote the Professor's indignant words, the +whole party agreed to "trust the fallacious instincts of undeveloped +savages rather than the highest product of modern European culture." +That we were justified in doing so was shown upon the third day, when +Challenger admitted that he recognized several landmarks of his former +journey, and in one spot we actually came upon four fire-blackened +stones, which must have marked a camping-place. + +The road still ascended, and we crossed a rock-studded slope which took +two days to traverse. The vegetation had again changed, and only the +vegetable ivory tree remained, with a great profusion of wonderful +orchids, among which I learned to recognize the rare Nuttonia +Vexillaria and the glorious pink and scarlet blossoms of Cattleya and +odontoglossum. Occasional brooks with pebbly bottoms and fern-draped +banks gurgled down the shallow gorges in the hill, and offered good +camping-grounds every evening on the banks of some rock-studded pool, +where swarms of little blue-backed fish, about the size and shape of +English trout, gave us a delicious supper. + +On the ninth day after leaving the canoes, having done, as I reckon, +about a hundred and twenty miles, we began to emerge from the trees, +which had grown smaller until they were mere shrubs. Their place was +taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which grew so thickly that we +could only penetrate it by cutting a pathway with the machetes and +billhooks of the Indians. It took us a long day, traveling from seven +in the morning till eight at night, with only two breaks of one hour +each, to get through this obstacle. Anything more monotonous and +wearying could not be imagined, for, even at the most open places, I +could not see more than ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision +was limited to the back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me, +and to the yellow wall within a foot of me on either side. From above +came one thin knife-edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our heads +one saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky. I do +not know what kind of creatures inhabit such a thicket, but several +times we heard the plunging of large, heavy animals quite close to us. +From their sounds Lord John judged them to be some form of wild cattle. +Just as night fell we cleared the belt of bamboos, and at once formed +our camp, exhausted by the interminable day. + +Early next morning we were again afoot, and found that the character of +the country had changed once again. Behind us was the wall of bamboo, +as definite as if it marked the course of a river. In front was an +open plain, sloping slightly upwards and dotted with clumps of +tree-ferns, the whole curving before us until it ended in a long, +whale-backed ridge. This we reached about midday, only to find a +shallow valley beyond, rising once again into a gentle incline which +led to a low, rounded sky-line. It was here, while we crossed the +first of these hills, that an incident occurred which may or may not +have been important. + +Professor Challenger, who with the two local Indians was in the van of +the party, stopped suddenly and pointed excitedly to the right. As he +did so we saw, at the distance of a mile or so, something which +appeared to be a huge gray bird flap slowly up from the ground and skim +smoothly off, flying very low and straight, until it was lost among the +tree-ferns. + +"Did you see it?" cried Challenger, in exultation. "Summerlee, did you +see it?" + +His colleague was staring at the spot where the creature had +disappeared. + +"What do you claim that it was?" he asked. + +"To the best of my belief, a pterodactyl." + +Summerlee burst into derisive laughter "A pter-fiddlestick!" said he. +"It was a stork, if ever I saw one." + +Challenger was too furious to speak. He simply swung his pack upon his +back and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreast of me, +however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. He had his +Zeiss glasses in his hand. + +"I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won't +undertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as a +sportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes on in my +life." + +So there the matter stands. Are we really just at the edge of the +unknown, encountering the outlying pickets of this lost world of which +our leader speaks? I give you the incident as it occurred and you will +know as much as I do. It stands alone, for we saw nothing more which +could be called remarkable. + +And now, my readers, if ever I have any, I have brought you up the +broad river, and through the screen of rushes, and down the green +tunnel, and up the long slope of palm trees, and through the bamboo +brake, and across the plain of tree-ferns. At last our destination lay +in full sight of us. When we had crossed the second ridge we saw +before us an irregular, palm-studded plain, and then the line of high +red cliffs which I have seen in the picture. There it lies, even as I +write, and there can be no question that it is the same. At the +nearest point it is about seven miles from our present camp, and it +curves away, stretching as far as I can see. Challenger struts about +like a prize peacock, and Summerlee is silent, but still sceptical. +Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. Meanwhile, as +Jose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, insists upon returning, +I send this letter back in his charge, and only hope that it may +eventually come to hand. I will write again as the occasion serves. I +have enclosed with this a rough chart of our journey, which may have +the effect of making the account rather easier to understand. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + "Who could have Foreseen it?" + +A dreadful thing has happened to us. Who could have foreseen it? I +cannot foresee any end to our troubles. It may be that we are +condemned to spend our whole lives in this strange, inaccessible place. +I am still so confused that I can hardly think clearly of the facts of +the present or of the chances of the future. To my astounded senses +the one seems most terrible and the other as black as night. + +No men have ever found themselves in a worse position; nor is there any +use in disclosing to you our exact geographical situation and asking +our friends for a relief party. Even if they could send one, our fate +will in all human probability be decided long before it could arrive in +South America. + +We are, in truth, as far from any human aid as if we were in the moon. +If we are to win through, it is only our own qualities which can save +us. I have as companions three remarkable men, men of great +brain-power and of unshaken courage. There lies our one and only hope. +It is only when I look upon the untroubled faces of my comrades that I +see some glimmer through the darkness. Outwardly I trust that I appear +as unconcerned as they. Inwardly I am filled with apprehension. + +Let me give you, with as much detail as I can, the sequence of events +which have led us to this catastrophe. + +When I finished my last letter I stated that we were within seven miles +from an enormous line of ruddy cliffs, which encircled, beyond all +doubt, the plateau of which Professor Challenger spoke. Their height, +as we approached them, seemed to me in some places to be greater than +he had stated--running up in parts to at least a thousand feet--and +they were curiously striated, in a manner which is, I believe, +characteristic of basaltic upheavals. Something of the sort is to be +seen in Salisbury Crags at Edinburgh. The summit showed every sign of +a luxuriant vegetation, with bushes near the edge, and farther back +many high trees. There was no indication of any life that we could see. + +That night we pitched our camp immediately under the cliff--a most wild +and desolate spot. The crags above us were not merely perpendicular, +but curved outwards at the top, so that ascent was out of the question. +Close to us was the high thin pinnacle of rock which I believe I +mentioned earlier in this narrative. It is like a broad red church +spire, the top of it being level with the plateau, but a great chasm +gaping between. On the summit of it there grew one high tree. Both +pinnacle and cliff were comparatively low--some five or six hundred +feet, I should think. + +"It was on that," said Professor Challenger, pointing to this tree, +"that the pterodactyl was perched. I climbed half-way up the rock +before I shot him. I am inclined to think that a good mountaineer like +myself could ascend the rock to the top, though he would, of course, be +no nearer to the plateau when he had done so." + +As Challenger spoke of his pterodactyl I glanced at Professor +Summerlee, and for the first time I seemed to see some signs of a +dawning credulity and repentance. There was no sneer upon his thin +lips, but, on the contrary, a gray, drawn look of excitement and +amazement. Challenger saw it, too, and reveled in the first taste of +victory. + +"Of course," said he, with his clumsy and ponderous sarcasm, +"Professor Summerlee will understand that when I speak of a pterodactyl +I mean a stork--only it is the kind of stork which has no feathers, a +leathery skin, membranous wings, and teeth in its jaws." He grinned +and blinked and bowed until his colleague turned and walked away. + +In the morning, after a frugal breakfast of coffee and manioc--we had +to be economical of our stores--we held a council of war as to the best +method of ascending to the plateau above us. + +Challenger presided with a solemnity as if he were the Lord Chief +Justice on the Bench. Picture him seated upon a rock, his absurd +boyish straw hat tilted on the back of his head, his supercilious eyes +dominating us from under his drooping lids, his great black beard +wagging as he slowly defined our present situation and our future +movements. + +Beneath him you might have seen the three of us--myself, sunburnt, +young, and vigorous after our open-air tramp; Summerlee, solemn but +still critical, behind his eternal pipe; Lord John, as keen as a +razor-edge, with his supple, alert figure leaning upon his rifle, and +his eager eyes fixed eagerly upon the speaker. Behind us were grouped +the two swarthy half-breeds and the little knot of Indians, while in +front and above us towered those huge, ruddy ribs of rocks which kept +us from our goal. + +"I need not say," said our leader, "that on the occasion of my last +visit I exhausted every means of climbing the cliff, and where I failed +I do not think that anyone else is likely to succeed, for I am +something of a mountaineer. I had none of the appliances of a +rock-climber with me, but I have taken the precaution to bring them +now. With their aid I am positive I could climb that detached pinnacle +to the summit; but so long as the main cliff overhangs, it is vain to +attempt ascending that. I was hurried upon my last visit by the +approach of the rainy season and by the exhaustion of my supplies. +These considerations limited my time, and I can only claim that I have +surveyed about six miles of the cliff to the east of us, finding no +possible way up. What, then, shall we now do?" + +"There seems to be only one reasonable course," said Professor +Summerlee. "If you have explored the east, we should travel along the +base of the cliff to the west, and seek for a practicable point for our +ascent." + +"That's it," said Lord John. "The odds are that this plateau is of no +great size, and we shall travel round it until we either find an easy +way up it, or come back to the point from which we started." + +"I have already explained to our young friend here," said Challenger +(he has a way of alluding to me as if I were a school child ten years +old), "that it is quite impossible that there should be an easy way up +anywhere, for the simple reason that if there were the summit would not +be isolated, and those conditions would not obtain which have effected +so singular an interference with the general laws of survival. Yet I +admit that there may very well be places where an expert human climber +may reach the summit, and yet a cumbrous and heavy animal be unable to +descend. It is certain that there is a point where an ascent is +possible." + +"How do you know that, sir?" asked Summerlee, sharply. + +"Because my predecessor, the American Maple White, actually made such +an ascent. How otherwise could he have seen the monster which he +sketched in his notebook?" + +"There you reason somewhat ahead of the proved facts," said the +stubborn Summerlee. "I admit your plateau, because I have seen it; but +I have not as yet satisfied myself that it contains any form of life +whatever." + +"What you admit, sir, or what you do not admit, is really of +inconceivably small importance. I am glad to perceive that the plateau +itself has actually obtruded itself upon your intelligence." He glanced +up at it, and then, to our amazement, he sprang from his rock, and, +seizing Summerlee by the neck, he tilted his face into the air. "Now +sir!" he shouted, hoarse with excitement. "Do I help you to realize +that the plateau contains some animal life?" + +I have said that a thick fringe of green overhung the edge of the +cliff. Out of this there had emerged a black, glistening object. As +it came slowly forth and overhung the chasm, we saw that it was a very +large snake with a peculiar flat, spade-like head. It wavered and +quivered above us for a minute, the morning sun gleaming upon its +sleek, sinuous coils. Then it slowly drew inwards and disappeared. + +Summerlee had been so interested that he had stood unresisting while +Challenger tilted his head into the air. Now he shook his colleague +off and came back to his dignity. + +"I should be glad, Professor Challenger," said he, "if you could see +your way to make any remarks which may occur to you without seizing me +by the chin. Even the appearance of a very ordinary rock python does +not appear to justify such a liberty." + +"But there is life upon the plateau all the same," his colleague +replied in triumph. "And now, having demonstrated this important +conclusion so that it is clear to anyone, however prejudiced or obtuse, +I am of opinion that we cannot do better than break up our camp and +travel to westward until we find some means of ascent." + +The ground at the foot of the cliff was rocky and broken so that the +going was slow and difficult. Suddenly we came, however, upon +something which cheered our hearts. It was the site of an old +encampment, with several empty Chicago meat tins, a bottle labeled +"Brandy," a broken tin-opener, and a quantity of other travelers' +debris. A crumpled, disintegrated newspaper revealed itself as the +Chicago Democrat, though the date had been obliterated. + +"Not mine," said Challenger. "It must be Maple White's." + +Lord John had been gazing curiously at a great tree-fern which +overshadowed the encampment. "I say, look at this," said he. "I +believe it is meant for a sign-post." + +A slip of hard wood had been nailed to the tree in such a way as to +point to the westward. + +"Most certainly a sign-post," said Challenger. "What else? Finding +himself upon a dangerous errand, our pioneer has left this sign so that +any party which follows him may know the way he has taken. Perhaps we +shall come upon some other indications as we proceed." + +We did indeed, but they were of a terrible and most unexpected nature. +Immediately beneath the cliff there grew a considerable patch of high +bamboo, like that which we had traversed in our journey. Many of these +stems were twenty feet high, with sharp, strong tops, so that even as +they stood they made formidable spears. We were passing along the edge +of this cover when my eye was caught by the gleam of something white +within it. Thrusting in my head between the stems, I found myself +gazing at a fleshless skull. The whole skeleton was there, but the +skull had detached itself and lay some feet nearer to the open. + +With a few blows from the machetes of our Indians we cleared the spot +and were able to study the details of this old tragedy. Only a few +shreds of clothes could still be distinguished, but there were the +remains of boots upon the bony feet, and it was very clear that the +dead man was a European. A gold watch by Hudson, of New York, and a +chain which held a stylographic pen, lay among the bones. There was +also a silver cigarette-case, with "J. C., from A. E. S.," upon the +lid. The state of the metal seemed to show that the catastrophe had +occurred no great time before. + +"Who can he be?" asked Lord John. "Poor devil! every bone in his body +seems to be broken." + +"And the bamboo grows through his smashed ribs," said Summerlee. "It +is a fast-growing plant, but it is surely inconceivable that this body +could have been here while the canes grew to be twenty feet in length." + +"As to the man's identity," said Professor Challenger, "I have no doubt +whatever upon that point. As I made my way up the river before I +reached you at the fazenda I instituted very particular inquiries about +Maple White. At Para they knew nothing. Fortunately, I had a definite +clew, for there was a particular picture in his sketch-book which +showed him taking lunch with a certain ecclesiastic at Rosario. This +priest I was able to find, and though he proved a very argumentative +fellow, who took it absurdly amiss that I should point out to him the +corrosive effect which modern science must have upon his beliefs, he +none the less gave me some positive information. Maple White passed +Rosario four years ago, or two years before I saw his dead body. He +was not alone at the time, but there was a friend, an American named +James Colver, who remained in the boat and did not meet this +ecclesiastic. I think, therefore, that there can be no doubt that we +are now looking upon the remains of this James Colver." + +"Nor," said Lord John, "is there much doubt as to how he met his death. +He has fallen or been chucked from the top, and so been impaled. How +else could he come by his broken bones, and how could he have been +stuck through by these canes with their points so high above our heads?" + +A hush came over us as we stood round these shattered remains and +realized the truth of Lord John Roxton's words. The beetling head of +the cliff projected over the cane-brake. Undoubtedly he had fallen +from above. But had he fallen? Had it been an accident? Or--already +ominous and terrible possibilities began to form round that unknown +land. + +We moved off in silence, and continued to coast round the line of +cliffs, which were as even and unbroken as some of those monstrous +Antarctic ice-fields which I have seen depicted as stretching from +horizon to horizon and towering high above the mast-heads of the +exploring vessel. + +In five miles we saw no rift or break. And then suddenly we perceived +something which filled us with new hope. In a hollow of the rock, +protected from rain, there was drawn a rough arrow in chalk, pointing +still to the westwards. + +"Maple White again," said Professor Challenger. "He had some +presentiment that worthy footsteps would follow close behind him." + +"He had chalk, then?" + +"A box of colored chalks was among the effects I found in his knapsack. +I remember that the white one was worn to a stump." + +"That is certainly good evidence," said Summerlee. "We can only accept +his guidance and follow on to the westward." + +We had proceeded some five more miles when again we saw a white arrow +upon the rocks. It was at a point where the face of the cliff was for +the first time split into a narrow cleft. Inside the cleft was a +second guidance mark, which pointed right up it with the tip somewhat +elevated, as if the spot indicated were above the level of the ground. + +It was a solemn place, for the walls were so gigantic and the slit of +blue sky so narrow and so obscured by a double fringe of verdure, that +only a dim and shadowy light penetrated to the bottom. We had had no +food for many hours, and were very weary with the stony and irregular +journey, but our nerves were too strung to allow us to halt. We +ordered the camp to be pitched, however, and, leaving the Indians to +arrange it, we four, with the two half-breeds, proceeded up the narrow +gorge. + +It was not more than forty feet across at the mouth, but it rapidly +closed until it ended in an acute angle, too straight and smooth for an +ascent. Certainly it was not this which our pioneer had attempted to +indicate. We made our way back--the whole gorge was not more than a +quarter of a mile deep--and then suddenly the quick eyes of Lord John +fell upon what we were seeking. High up above our heads, amid the dark +shadows, there was one circle of deeper gloom. Surely it could only be +the opening of a cave. + +The base of the cliff was heaped with loose stones at the spot, and it +was not difficult to clamber up. When we reached it, all doubt was +removed. Not only was it an opening into the rock, but on the side of +it there was marked once again the sign of the arrow. Here was the +point, and this the means by which Maple White and his ill-fated +comrade had made their ascent. + +We were too excited to return to the camp, but must make our first +exploration at once. Lord John had an electric torch in his knapsack, +and this had to serve us as light. He advanced, throwing his little +clear circlet of yellow radiance before him, while in single file we +followed at his heels. + +The cave had evidently been water-worn, the sides being smooth and the +floor covered with rounded stones. It was of such a size that a single +man could just fit through by stooping. For fifty yards it ran almost +straight into the rock, and then it ascended at an angle of forty-five. +Presently this incline became even steeper, and we found ourselves +climbing upon hands and knees among loose rubble which slid from +beneath us. Suddenly an exclamation broke from Lord Roxton. + +"It's blocked!" said he. + +Clustering behind him we saw in the yellow field of light a wall of +broken basalt which extended to the ceiling. + +"The roof has fallen in!" + +In vain we dragged out some of the pieces. The only effect was that +the larger ones became detached and threatened to roll down the +gradient and crush us. It was evident that the obstacle was far beyond +any efforts which we could make to remove it. The road by which Maple +White had ascended was no longer available. + +Too much cast down to speak, we stumbled down the dark tunnel and made +our way back to the camp. + +One incident occurred, however, before we left the gorge, which is of +importance in view of what came afterwards. + +We had gathered in a little group at the bottom of the chasm, some +forty feet beneath the mouth of the cave, when a huge rock rolled +suddenly downwards--and shot past us with tremendous force. It was the +narrowest escape for one or all of us. We could not ourselves see +whence the rock had come, but our half-breed servants, who were still +at the opening of the cave, said that it had flown past them, and must +therefore have fallen from the summit. Looking upwards, we could see +no sign of movement above us amidst the green jungle which topped the +cliff. There could be little doubt, however, that the stone was aimed +at us, so the incident surely pointed to humanity--and malevolent +humanity--upon the plateau. + +We withdrew hurriedly from the chasm, our minds full of this new +development and its bearing upon our plans. The situation was +difficult enough before, but if the obstructions of Nature were +increased by the deliberate opposition of man, then our case was indeed +a hopeless one. And yet, as we looked up at that beautiful fringe of +verdure only a few hundreds of feet above our heads, there was not one +of us who could conceive the idea of returning to London until we had +explored it to its depths. + +On discussing the situation, we determined that our best course was to +continue to coast round the plateau in the hope of finding some other +means of reaching the top. The line of cliffs, which had decreased +considerably in height, had already begun to trend from west to north, +and if we could take this as representing the arc of a circle, the +whole circumference could not be very great. At the worst, then, we +should be back in a few days at our starting-point. + +We made a march that day which totaled some two-and-twenty miles, +without any change in our prospects. I may mention that our aneroid +shows us that in the continual incline which we have ascended since we +abandoned our canoes we have risen to no less than three thousand feet +above sea-level. Hence there is a considerable change both in the +temperature and in the vegetation. We have shaken off some of that +horrible insect life which is the bane of tropical travel. A few palms +still survive, and many tree-ferns, but the Amazonian trees have been +all left behind. It was pleasant to see the convolvulus, the +passion-flower, and the begonia, all reminding me of home, here among +these inhospitable rocks. There was a red begonia just the same color +as one that is kept in a pot in the window of a certain villa in +Streatham--but I am drifting into private reminiscence. + +That night--I am still speaking of the first day of our +circumnavigation of the plateau--a great experience awaited us, and one +which for ever set at rest any doubt which we could have had as to the +wonders so near us. + +You will realize as you read it, my dear Mr. McArdle, and possibly for +the first time that the paper has not sent me on a wild-goose chase, +and that there is inconceivably fine copy waiting for the world +whenever we have the Professor's leave to make use of it. I shall not +dare to publish these articles unless I can bring back my proofs to +England, or I shall be hailed as the journalistic Munchausen of all +time. I have no doubt that you feel the same way yourself, and that +you would not care to stake the whole credit of the Gazette upon this +adventure until we can meet the chorus of criticism and scepticism +which such articles must of necessity elicit. So this wonderful +incident, which would make such a headline for the old paper, must +still wait its turn in the editorial drawer. + +And yet it was all over in a flash, and there was no sequel to it, save +in our own convictions. + +What occurred was this. Lord John had shot an ajouti--which is a +small, pig-like animal--and, half of it having been given to the +Indians, we were cooking the other half upon our fire. There is a +chill in the air after dark, and we had all drawn close to the blaze. +The night was moonless, but there were some stars, and one could see +for a little distance across the plain. Well, suddenly out of the +darkness, out of the night, there swooped something with a swish like +an aeroplane. The whole group of us were covered for an instant by a +canopy of leathery wings, and I had a momentary vision of a long, +snake-like neck, a fierce, red, greedy eye, and a great snapping beak, +filled, to my amazement, with little, gleaming teeth. The next instant +it was gone--and so was our dinner. A huge black shadow, twenty feet +across, skimmed up into the air; for an instant the monster wings +blotted out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliff +above us. We all sat in amazed silence round the fire, like the heroes +of Virgil when the Harpies came down upon them. It was Summerlee who +was the first to speak. + +"Professor Challenger," said he, in a solemn voice, which quavered with +emotion, "I owe you an apology. Sir, I am very much in the wrong, and +I beg that you will forget what is past." + +It was handsomely said, and the two men for the first time shook hands. +So much we have gained by this clear vision of our first pterodactyl. +It was worth a stolen supper to bring two such men together. + +But if prehistoric life existed upon the plateau it was not +superabundant, for we had no further glimpse of it during the next +three days. During this time we traversed a barren and forbidding +country, which alternated between stony desert and desolate marshes +full of many wild-fowl, upon the north and east of the cliffs. From +that direction the place is really inaccessible, and, were it not for a +hardish ledge which runs at the very base of the precipice, we should +have had to turn back. Many times we were up to our waists in the +slime and blubber of an old, semi-tropical swamp. To make matters +worse, the place seemed to be a favorite breeding-place of the Jaracaca +snake, the most venomous and aggressive in South America. Again and +again these horrible creatures came writhing and springing towards us +across the surface of this putrid bog, and it was only by keeping our +shot-guns for ever ready that we could feel safe from them. One +funnel-shaped depression in the morass, of a livid green in color from +some lichen which festered in it, will always remain as a nightmare +memory in my mind. It seems to have been a special nest of these +vermins, and the slopes were alive with them, all writhing in our +direction, for it is a peculiarity of the Jaracaca that he will always +attack man at first sight. There were too many for us to shoot, so we +fairly took to our heels and ran until we were exhausted. I shall +always remember as we looked back how far behind we could see the heads +and necks of our horrible pursuers rising and falling amid the reeds. +Jaracaca Swamp we named it in the map which we are constructing. + +The cliffs upon the farther side had lost their ruddy tint, being +chocolate-brown in color; the vegetation was more scattered along the +top of them, and they had sunk to three or four hundred feet in height, +but in no place did we find any point where they could be ascended. If +anything, they were more impossible than at the first point where we +had met them. Their absolute steepness is indicated in the photograph +which I took over the stony desert. + +"Surely," said I, as we discussed the situation, "the rain must find +its way down somehow. There are bound to be water-channels in the +rocks." + +"Our young friend has glimpses of lucidity," said Professor Challenger, +patting me upon the shoulder. + +"The rain must go somewhere," I repeated. + +"He keeps a firm grip upon actuality. The only drawback is that we +have conclusively proved by ocular demonstration that there are no +water channels down the rocks." + +"Where, then, does it go?" I persisted. + +"I think it may be fairly assumed that if it does not come outwards it +must run inwards." + +"Then there is a lake in the center." + +"So I should suppose." + +"It is more than likely that the lake may be an old crater," said +Summerlee. "The whole formation is, of course, highly volcanic. But, +however that may be, I should expect to find the surface of the plateau +slope inwards with a considerable sheet of water in the center, which +may drain off, by some subterranean channel, into the marshes of the +Jaracaca Swamp." + +"Or evaporation might preserve an equilibrium," remarked Challenger, +and the two learned men wandered off into one of their usual scientific +arguments, which were as comprehensible as Chinese to the layman. + +On the sixth day we completed our first circuit of the cliffs, and +found ourselves back at the first camp, beside the isolated pinnacle of +rock. We were a disconsolate party, for nothing could have been more +minute than our investigation, and it was absolutely certain that there +was no single point where the most active human being could possibly +hope to scale the cliff. The place which Maple White's chalk-marks had +indicated as his own means of access was now entirely impassable. + +What were we to do now? Our stores of provisions, supplemented by our +guns, were holding out well, but the day must come when they would need +replenishment. In a couple of months the rains might be expected, and +we should be washed out of our camp. The rock was harder than marble, +and any attempt at cutting a path for so great a height was more than +our time or resources would admit. No wonder that we looked gloomily +at each other that night, and sought our blankets with hardly a word +exchanged. I remember that as I dropped off to sleep my last +recollection was that Challenger was squatting, like a monstrous +bull-frog, by the fire, his huge head in his hands, sunk apparently in +the deepest thought, and entirely oblivious to the good-night which I +wished him. + +But it was a very different Challenger who greeted us in the morning--a +Challenger with contentment and self-congratulation shining from his +whole person. He faced us as we assembled for breakfast with a +deprecating false modesty in his eyes, as who should say, "I know that +I deserve all that you can say, but I pray you to spare my blushes by +not saying it." His beard bristled exultantly, his chest was thrown +out, and his hand was thrust into the front of his jacket. So, in his +fancy, may he see himself sometimes, gracing the vacant pedestal in +Trafalgar Square, and adding one more to the horrors of the London +streets. + +"Eureka!" he cried, his teeth shining through his beard. "Gentlemen, +you may congratulate me and we may congratulate each other. The +problem is solved." + +"You have found a way up?" + +"I venture to think so." + +"And where?" + +For answer he pointed to the spire-like pinnacle upon our right. + +Our faces--or mine, at least--fell as we surveyed it. That it could be +climbed we had our companion's assurance. But a horrible abyss lay +between it and the plateau. + +"We can never get across," I gasped. + +"We can at least all reach the summit," said he. "When we are up I may +be able to show you that the resources of an inventive mind are not yet +exhausted." + +After breakfast we unpacked the bundle in which our leader had brought +his climbing accessories. From it he took a coil of the strongest and +lightest rope, a hundred and fifty feet in length, with climbing irons, +clamps, and other devices. Lord John was an experienced mountaineer, +and Summerlee had done some rough climbing at various times, so that I +was really the novice at rock-work of the party; but my strength and +activity may have made up for my want of experience. + +It was not in reality a very stiff task, though there were moments +which made my hair bristle upon my head. The first half was perfectly +easy, but from there upwards it became continually steeper until, for +the last fifty feet, we were literally clinging with our fingers and +toes to tiny ledges and crevices in the rock. I could not have +accomplished it, nor could Summerlee, if Challenger had not gained the +summit (it was extraordinary to see such activity in so unwieldy a +creature) and there fixed the rope round the trunk of the considerable +tree which grew there. With this as our support, we were soon able to +scramble up the jagged wall until we found ourselves upon the small +grassy platform, some twenty-five feet each way, which formed the +summit. + +The first impression which I received when I had recovered my breath +was of the extraordinary view over the country which we had traversed. +The whole Brazilian plain seemed to lie beneath us, extending away and +away until it ended in dim blue mists upon the farthest sky-line. In +the foreground was the long slope, strewn with rocks and dotted with +tree-ferns; farther off in the middle distance, looking over the +saddle-back hill, I could just see the yellow and green mass of bamboos +through which we had passed; and then, gradually, the vegetation +increased until it formed the huge forest which extended as far as the +eyes could reach, and for a good two thousand miles beyond. + +I was still drinking in this wonderful panorama when the heavy hand of +the Professor fell upon my shoulder. + +"This way, my young friend," said he; "vestigia nulla retrorsum. Never +look rearwards, but always to our glorious goal." + +The level of the plateau, when I turned, was exactly that on which we +stood, and the green bank of bushes, with occasional trees, was so near +that it was difficult to realize how inaccessible it remained. At a +rough guess the gulf was forty feet across, but, so far as I could see, +it might as well have been forty miles. I placed one arm round the +trunk of the tree and leaned over the abyss. Far down were the small +dark figures of our servants, looking up at us. The wall was +absolutely precipitous, as was that which faced me. + +"This is indeed curious," said the creaking voice of Professor +Summerlee. + +I turned, and found that he was examining with great interest the tree +to which I clung. That smooth bark and those small, ribbed leaves +seemed familiar to my eyes. "Why," I cried, "it's a beech!" + +"Exactly," said Summerlee. "A fellow-countryman in a far land." + +"Not only a fellow-countryman, my good sir," said Challenger, "but +also, if I may be allowed to enlarge your simile, an ally of the first +value. This beech tree will be our saviour." + +"By George!" cried Lord John, "a bridge!" + +"Exactly, my friends, a bridge! It is not for nothing that I expended +an hour last night in focusing my mind upon the situation. I have some +recollection of once remarking to our young friend here that G. E. C. +is at his best when his back is to the wall. Last night you will admit +that all our backs were to the wall. But where will-power and +intellect go together, there is always a way out. A drawbridge had to +be found which could be dropped across the abyss. Behold it!" + +It was certainly a brilliant idea. The tree was a good sixty feet in +height, and if it only fell the right way it would easily cross the +chasm. Challenger had slung the camp axe over his shoulder when he +ascended. Now he handed it to me. + +"Our young friend has the thews and sinews," said he. "I think he will +be the most useful at this task. I must beg, however, that you will +kindly refrain from thinking for yourself, and that you will do exactly +what you are told." + +Under his direction I cut such gashes in the sides of the trees as +would ensure that it should fall as we desired. It had already a +strong, natural tilt in the direction of the plateau, so that the +matter was not difficult. Finally I set to work in earnest upon the +trunk, taking turn and turn with Lord John. In a little over an hour +there was a loud crack, the tree swayed forward, and then crashed over, +burying its branches among the bushes on the farther side. The severed +trunk rolled to the very edge of our platform, and for one terrible +second we all thought it was over. It balanced itself, however, a few +inches from the edge, and there was our bridge to the unknown. + +All of us, without a word, shook hands with Professor Challenger, who +raised his straw hat and bowed deeply to each in turn. + +"I claim the honor," said he, "to be the first to cross to the unknown +land--a fitting subject, no doubt, for some future historical painting." + +He had approached the bridge when Lord John laid his hand upon his coat. + +"My dear chap," said he, "I really cannot allow it." + +"Cannot allow it, sir!" The head went back and the beard forward. + +"When it is a matter of science, don't you know, I follow your lead +because you are by way of bein' a man of science. But it's up to you +to follow me when you come into my department." + +"Your department, sir?" + +"We all have our professions, and soldierin' is mine. We are, +accordin' to my ideas, invadin' a new country, which may or may not be +chock-full of enemies of sorts. To barge blindly into it for want of a +little common sense and patience isn't my notion of management." + +The remonstrance was too reasonable to be disregarded. Challenger +tossed his head and shrugged his heavy shoulders. + +"Well, sir, what do you propose?" + +"For all I know there may be a tribe of cannibals waitin' for +lunch-time among those very bushes," said Lord John, looking across the +bridge. "It's better to learn wisdom before you get into a +cookin'-pot; so we will content ourselves with hopin' that there is no +trouble waitin' for us, and at the same time we will act as if there +were. Malone and I will go down again, therefore, and we will fetch up +the four rifles, together with Gomez and the other. One man can then +go across and the rest will cover him with guns, until he sees that it +is safe for the whole crowd to come along." + +Challenger sat down upon the cut stump and groaned his impatience; but +Summerlee and I were of one mind that Lord John was our leader when +such practical details were in question. The climb was a more simple +thing now that the rope dangled down the face of the worst part of the +ascent. Within an hour we had brought up the rifles and a shot-gun. +The half-breeds had ascended also, and under Lord John's orders they +had carried up a bale of provisions in case our first exploration +should be a long one. We had each bandoliers of cartridges. + +"Now, Challenger, if you really insist upon being the first man in," +said Lord John, when every preparation was complete. + +"I am much indebted to you for your gracious permission," said the +angry Professor; for never was a man so intolerant of every form of +authority. "Since you are good enough to allow it, I shall most +certainly take it upon myself to act as pioneer upon this occasion." + +Seating himself with a leg overhanging the abyss on each side, and his +hatchet slung upon his back, Challenger hopped his way across the trunk +and was soon at the other side. He clambered up and waved his arms in +the air. + +"At last!" he cried; "at last!" + +I gazed anxiously at him, with a vague expectation that some terrible +fate would dart at him from the curtain of green behind him. But all +was quiet, save that a strange, many-colored bird flew up from under +his feet and vanished among the trees. + +Summerlee was the second. His wiry energy is wonderful in so frail a +frame. He insisted upon having two rifles slung upon his back, so that +both Professors were armed when he had made his transit. I came next, +and tried hard not to look down into the horrible gulf over which I was +passing. Summerlee held out the butt-end of his rifle, and an instant +later I was able to grasp his hand. As to Lord John, he walked +across--actually walked without support! He must have nerves of iron. + +And there we were, the four of us, upon the dreamland, the lost world, +of Maple White. To all of us it seemed the moment of our supreme +triumph. Who could have guessed that it was the prelude to our supreme +disaster? Let me say in a few words how the crushing blow fell upon us. + +We had turned away from the edge, and had penetrated about fifty yards +of close brushwood, when there came a frightful rending crash from +behind us. With one impulse we rushed back the way that we had come. +The bridge was gone! + +Far down at the base of the cliff I saw, as I looked over, a tangled +mass of branches and splintered trunk. It was our beech tree. Had the +edge of the platform crumbled and let it through? For a moment this +explanation was in all our minds. The next, from the farther side of +the rocky pinnacle before us a swarthy face, the face of Gomez the +half-breed, was slowly protruded. Yes, it was Gomez, but no longer the +Gomez of the demure smile and the mask-like expression. Here was a +face with flashing eyes and distorted features, a face convulsed with +hatred and with the mad joy of gratified revenge. + +"Lord Roxton!" he shouted. "Lord John Roxton!" + +"Well," said our companion, "here I am." + +A shriek of laughter came across the abyss. + +"Yes, there you are, you English dog, and there you will remain! I +have waited and waited, and now has come my chance. You found it hard +to get up; you will find it harder to get down. You cursed fools, you +are trapped, every one of you!" + +We were too astounded to speak. We could only stand there staring in +amazement. A great broken bough upon the grass showed whence he had +gained his leverage to tilt over our bridge. The face had vanished, +but presently it was up again, more frantic than before. + +"We nearly killed you with a stone at the cave," he cried; "but this is +better. It is slower and more terrible. Your bones will whiten up +there, and none will know where you lie or come to cover them. As you +lie dying, think of Lopez, whom you shot five years ago on the Putomayo +River. I am his brother, and, come what will I will die happy now, for +his memory has been avenged." A furious hand was shaken at us, and then +all was quiet. + +Had the half-breed simply wrought his vengeance and then escaped, all +might have been well with him. It was that foolish, irresistible Latin +impulse to be dramatic which brought his own downfall. Roxton, the man +who had earned himself the name of the Flail of the Lord through three +countries, was not one who could be safely taunted. The half-breed was +descending on the farther side of the pinnacle; but before he could +reach the ground Lord John had run along the edge of the plateau and +gained a point from which he could see his man. There was a single +crack of his rifle, and, though we saw nothing, we heard the scream and +then the distant thud of the falling body. Roxton came back to us with +a face of granite. + +"I have been a blind simpleton," said he, bitterly, "It's my folly +that has brought you all into this trouble. I should have remembered +that these people have long memories for blood-feuds, and have been +more upon my guard." + +"What about the other one? It took two of them to lever that tree over +the edge." + +"I could have shot him, but I let him go. He may have had no part in +it. Perhaps it would have been better if I had killed him, for he +must, as you say, have lent a hand." + +Now that we had the clue to his action, each of us could cast back and +remember some sinister act upon the part of the half-breed--his +constant desire to know our plans, his arrest outside our tent when he +was over-hearing them, the furtive looks of hatred which from time to +time one or other of us had surprised. We were still discussing it, +endeavoring to adjust our minds to these new conditions, when a +singular scene in the plain below arrested our attention. + +A man in white clothes, who could only be the surviving half-breed, was +running as one does run when Death is the pacemaker. Behind him, only +a few yards in his rear, bounded the huge ebony figure of Zambo, our +devoted negro. Even as we looked, he sprang upon the back of the +fugitive and flung his arms round his neck. They rolled on the ground +together. An instant afterwards Zambo rose, looked at the prostrate +man, and then, waving his hand joyously to us, came running in our +direction. The white figure lay motionless in the middle of the great +plain. + +Our two traitors had been destroyed, but the mischief that they had +done lived after them. By no possible means could we get back to the +pinnacle. We had been natives of the world; now we were natives of the +plateau. The two things were separate and apart. There was the plain +which led to the canoes. Yonder, beyond the violet, hazy horizon, was +the stream which led back to civilization. But the link between was +missing. No human ingenuity could suggest a means of bridging the +chasm which yawned between ourselves and our past lives. One instant +had altered the whole conditions of our existence. + +It was at such a moment that I learned the stuff of which my three +comrades were composed. They were grave, it is true, and thoughtful, +but of an invincible serenity. For the moment we could only sit among +the bushes in patience and wait the coming of Zambo. Presently his +honest black face topped the rocks and his Herculean figure emerged +upon the top of the pinnacle. + +"What I do now?" he cried. "You tell me and I do it." + +It was a question which it was easier to ask than to answer. One thing +only was clear. He was our one trusty link with the outside world. On +no account must he leave us. + +"No no!" he cried. "I not leave you. Whatever come, you always find +me here. But no able to keep Indians. Already they say too much +Curupuri live on this place, and they go home. Now you leave them me +no able to keep them." + +It was a fact that our Indians had shown in many ways of late that they +were weary of their journey and anxious to return. We realized that +Zambo spoke the truth, and that it would be impossible for him to keep +them. + +"Make them wait till to-morrow, Zambo," I shouted; "then I can send +letter back by them." + +"Very good, sarr! I promise they wait till to-morrow," said the negro. +"But what I do for you now?" + +There was plenty for him to do, and admirably the faithful fellow did +it. First of all, under our directions, he undid the rope from the +tree-stump and threw one end of it across to us. It was not thicker +than a clothes-line, but it was of great strength, and though we could +not make a bridge of it, we might well find it invaluable if we had any +climbing to do. He then fastened his end of the rope to the package of +supplies which had been carried up, and we were able to drag it across. +This gave us the means of life for at least a week, even if we found +nothing else. Finally he descended and carried up two other packets of +mixed goods--a box of ammunition and a number of other things, all of +which we got across by throwing our rope to him and hauling it back. +It was evening when he at last climbed down, with a final assurance +that he would keep the Indians till next morning. + +And so it is that I have spent nearly the whole of this our first night +upon the plateau writing up our experiences by the light of a single +candle-lantern. + +We supped and camped at the very edge of the cliff, quenching our +thirst with two bottles of Apollinaris which were in one of the cases. +It is vital to us to find water, but I think even Lord John himself had +had adventures enough for one day, and none of us felt inclined to make +the first push into the unknown. We forbore to light a fire or to make +any unnecessary sound. + +To-morrow (or to-day, rather, for it is already dawn as I write) we +shall make our first venture into this strange land. When I shall be +able to write again--or if I ever shall write again--I know not. +Meanwhile, I can see that the Indians are still in their place, and I +am sure that the faithful Zambo will be here presently to get my +letter. I only trust that it will come to hand. + + +P.S.--The more I think the more desperate does our position seem. I +see no possible hope of our return. If there were a high tree near the +edge of the plateau we might drop a return bridge across, but there is +none within fifty yards. Our united strength could not carry a trunk +which would serve our purpose. The rope, of course, is far too short +that we could descend by it. No, our position is hopeless--hopeless! + + + + + CHAPTER X + + "The most Wonderful Things have Happened" + +The most wonderful things have happened and are continually happening +to us. All the paper that I possess consists of five old note-books +and a lot of scraps, and I have only the one stylographic pencil; but +so long as I can move my hand I will continue to set down our +experiences and impressions, for, since we are the only men of the +whole human race to see such things, it is of enormous importance that +I should record them whilst they are fresh in my memory and before that +fate which seems to be constantly impending does actually overtake us. +Whether Zambo can at last take these letters to the river, or whether I +shall myself in some miraculous way carry them back with me, or, +finally, whether some daring explorer, coming upon our tracks with the +advantage, perhaps, of a perfected monoplane, should find this bundle +of manuscript, in any case I can see that what I am writing is destined +to immortality as a classic of true adventure. + +On the morning after our being trapped upon the plateau by the +villainous Gomez we began a new stage in our experiences. The first +incident in it was not such as to give me a very favorable opinion of +the place to which we had wandered. As I roused myself from a short +nap after day had dawned, my eyes fell upon a most singular appearance +upon my own leg. My trouser had slipped up, exposing a few inches of +my skin above my sock. On this there rested a large, purplish grape. +Astonished at the sight, I leaned forward to pick it off, when, to my +horror, it burst between my finger and thumb, squirting blood in every +direction. My cry of disgust had brought the two professors to my side. + +"Most interesting," said Summerlee, bending over my shin. "An enormous +blood-tick, as yet, I believe, unclassified." + +"The first-fruits of our labors," said Challenger in his booming, +pedantic fashion. "We cannot do less than call it Ixodes Maloni. The +very small inconvenience of being bitten, my young friend, cannot, I am +sure, weigh with you as against the glorious privilege of having your +name inscribed in the deathless roll of zoology. Unhappily you have +crushed this fine specimen at the moment of satiation." + +"Filthy vermin!" I cried. + +Professor Challenger raised his great eyebrows in protest, and placed a +soothing paw upon my shoulder. + +"You should cultivate the scientific eye and the detached scientific +mind," said he. "To a man of philosophic temperament like myself the +blood-tick, with its lancet-like proboscis and its distending stomach, +is as beautiful a work of Nature as the peacock or, for that matter, +the aurora borealis. It pains me to hear you speak of it in so +unappreciative a fashion. No doubt, with due diligence, we can secure +some other specimen." + +"There can be no doubt of that," said Summerlee, grimly, "for one has +just disappeared behind your shirt-collar." + +Challenger sprang into the air bellowing like a bull, and tore +frantically at his coat and shirt to get them off. Summerlee and I +laughed so that we could hardly help him. At last we exposed that +monstrous torso (fifty-four inches, by the tailor's tape). His body +was all matted with black hair, out of which jungle we picked the +wandering tick before it had bitten him. But the bushes round were +full of the horrible pests, and it was clear that we must shift our +camp. + +But first of all it was necessary to make our arrangements with the +faithful negro, who appeared presently on the pinnacle with a number of +tins of cocoa and biscuits, which he tossed over to us. Of the stores +which remained below he was ordered to retain as much as would keep him +for two months. The Indians were to have the remainder as a reward for +their services and as payment for taking our letters back to the +Amazon. Some hours later we saw them in single file far out upon the +plain, each with a bundle on his head, making their way back along the +path we had come. Zambo occupied our little tent at the base of the +pinnacle, and there he remained, our one link with the world below. + +And now we had to decide upon our immediate movements. We shifted our +position from among the tick-laden bushes until we came to a small +clearing thickly surrounded by trees upon all sides. There were some +flat slabs of rock in the center, with an excellent well close by, and +there we sat in cleanly comfort while we made our first plans for the +invasion of this new country. Birds were calling among the +foliage--especially one with a peculiar whooping cry which was new to +us--but beyond these sounds there were no signs of life. + +Our first care was to make some sort of list of our own stores, so that +we might know what we had to rely upon. What with the things we had +ourselves brought up and those which Zambo had sent across on the rope, +we were fairly well supplied. Most important of all, in view of the +dangers which might surround us, we had our four rifles and one +thousand three hundred rounds, also a shot-gun, but not more than a +hundred and fifty medium pellet cartridges. In the matter of +provisions we had enough to last for several weeks, with a sufficiency +of tobacco and a few scientific implements, including a large telescope +and a good field-glass. All these things we collected together in the +clearing, and as a first precaution, we cut down with our hatchet and +knives a number of thorny bushes, which we piled round in a circle some +fifteen yards in diameter. This was to be our headquarters for the +time--our place of refuge against sudden danger and the guard-house for +our stores. Fort Challenger, we called it. + +It was midday before we had made ourselves secure, but the heat was not +oppressive, and the general character of the plateau, both in its +temperature and in its vegetation, was almost temperate. The beech, +the oak, and even the birch were to be found among the tangle of trees +which girt us in. One huge gingko tree, topping all the others, shot +its great limbs and maidenhair foliage over the fort which we had +constructed. In its shade we continued our discussion, while Lord +John, who had quickly taken command in the hour of action, gave us his +views. + +"So long as neither man nor beast has seen or heard us, we are safe," +said he. "From the time they know we are here our troubles begin. +There are no signs that they have found us out as yet. So our game +surely is to lie low for a time and spy out the land. We want to have +a good look at our neighbors before we get on visitin' terms." + +"But we must advance," I ventured to remark. + +"By all means, sonny my boy! We will advance. But with common sense. +We must never go so far that we can't get back to our base. Above all, +we must never, unless it is life or death, fire off our guns." + +"But YOU fired yesterday," said Summerlee. + +"Well, it couldn't be helped. However, the wind was strong and blew +outwards. It is not likely that the sound could have traveled far into +the plateau. By the way, what shall we call this place? I suppose it +is up to us to give it a name?" + +There were several suggestions, more or less happy, but Challenger's +was final. + +"It can only have one name," said he. "It is called after the pioneer +who discovered it. It is Maple White Land." + +Maple White Land it became, and so it is named in that chart which has +become my special task. So it will, I trust, appear in the atlas of +the future. + +The peaceful penetration of Maple White Land was the pressing subject +before us. We had the evidence of our own eyes that the place was +inhabited by some unknown creatures, and there was that of Maple +White's sketch-book to show that more dreadful and more dangerous +monsters might still appear. That there might also prove to be human +occupants and that they were of a malevolent character was suggested by +the skeleton impaled upon the bamboos, which could not have got there +had it not been dropped from above. Our situation, stranded without +possibility of escape in such a land, was clearly full of danger, and +our reasons endorsed every measure of caution which Lord John's +experience could suggest. Yet it was surely impossible that we should +halt on the edge of this world of mystery when our very souls were +tingling with impatience to push forward and to pluck the heart from it. + +We therefore blocked the entrance to our zareba by filling it up with +several thorny bushes, and left our camp with the stores entirely +surrounded by this protecting hedge. We then slowly and cautiously set +forth into the unknown, following the course of the little stream which +flowed from our spring, as it should always serve us as a guide on our +return. + +Hardly had we started when we came across signs that there were indeed +wonders awaiting us. After a few hundred yards of thick forest, +containing many trees which were quite unknown to me, but which +Summerlee, who was the botanist of the party, recognized as forms of +conifera and of cycadaceous plants which have long passed away in the +world below, we entered a region where the stream widened out and +formed a considerable bog. High reeds of a peculiar type grew thickly +before us, which were pronounced to be equisetacea, or mare's-tails, +with tree-ferns scattered amongst them, all of them swaying in a brisk +wind. Suddenly Lord John, who was walking first, halted with uplifted +hand. + +"Look at this!" said he. "By George, this must be the trail of the +father of all birds!" + +An enormous three-toed track was imprinted in the soft mud before us. +The creature, whatever it was, had crossed the swamp and had passed on +into the forest. We all stopped to examine that monstrous spoor. If +it were indeed a bird--and what animal could leave such a mark?--its +foot was so much larger than an ostrich's that its height upon the same +scale must be enormous. Lord John looked eagerly round him and slipped +two cartridges into his elephant-gun. + +"I'll stake my good name as a shikarree," said he, "that the track is a +fresh one. The creature has not passed ten minutes. Look how the +water is still oozing into that deeper print! By Jove! See, here is +the mark of a little one!" + +Sure enough, smaller tracks of the same general form were running +parallel to the large ones. + +"But what do you make of this?" cried Professor Summerlee, +triumphantly, pointing to what looked like the huge print of a +five-fingered human hand appearing among the three-toed marks. + +"Wealden!" cried Challenger, in an ecstasy. "I've seen them in the +Wealden clay. It is a creature walking erect upon three-toed feet, and +occasionally putting one of its five-fingered forepaws upon the ground. +Not a bird, my dear Roxton--not a bird." + +"A beast?" + +"No; a reptile--a dinosaur. Nothing else could have left such a track. +They puzzled a worthy Sussex doctor some ninety years ago; but who in +the world could have hoped--hoped--to have seen a sight like that?" + +His words died away into a whisper, and we all stood in motionless +amazement. Following the tracks, we had left the morass and passed +through a screen of brushwood and trees. Beyond was an open glade, and +in this were five of the most extraordinary creatures that I have ever +seen. Crouching down among the bushes, we observed them at our leisure. + +There were, as I say, five of them, two being adults and three young +ones. In size they were enormous. Even the babies were as big as +elephants, while the two large ones were far beyond all creatures I +have ever seen. They had slate-colored skin, which was scaled like a +lizard's and shimmered where the sun shone upon it. All five were +sitting up, balancing themselves upon their broad, powerful tails and +their huge three-toed hind-feet, while with their small five-fingered +front-feet they pulled down the branches upon which they browsed. I do +not know that I can bring their appearance home to you better than by +saying that they looked like monstrous kangaroos, twenty feet in +length, and with skins like black crocodiles. + +I do not know how long we stayed motionless gazing at this marvelous +spectacle. A strong wind blew towards us and we were well concealed, +so there was no chance of discovery. From time to time the little ones +played round their parents in unwieldy gambols, the great beasts +bounding into the air and falling with dull thuds upon the earth. The +strength of the parents seemed to be limitless, for one of them, having +some difficulty in reaching a bunch of foliage which grew upon a +considerable-sized tree, put his fore-legs round the trunk and tore it +down as if it had been a sapling. The action seemed, as I thought, to +show not only the great development of its muscles, but also the small +one of its brain, for the whole weight came crashing down upon the top +of it, and it uttered a series of shrill yelps to show that, big as it +was, there was a limit to what it could endure. The incident made it +think, apparently, that the neighborhood was dangerous, for it slowly +lurched off through the wood, followed by its mate and its three +enormous infants. We saw the shimmering slaty gleam of their skins +between the tree-trunks, and their heads undulating high above the +brush-wood. Then they vanished from our sight. + +I looked at my comrades. Lord John was standing at gaze with his +finger on the trigger of his elephant-gun, his eager hunter's soul +shining from his fierce eyes. What would he not give for one such head +to place between the two crossed oars above the mantelpiece in his +snuggery at the Albany! And yet his reason held him in, for all our +exploration of the wonders of this unknown land depended upon our +presence being concealed from its inhabitants. The two professors were +in silent ecstasy. In their excitement they had unconsciously seized +each other by the hand, and stood like two little children in the +presence of a marvel, Challenger's cheeks bunched up into a seraphic +smile, and Summerlee's sardonic face softening for the moment into +wonder and reverence. + +"Nunc dimittis!" he cried at last. "What will they say in England of +this?" + +"My dear Summerlee, I will tell you with great confidence exactly what +they will say in England," said Challenger. "They will say that you +are an infernal liar and a scientific charlatan, exactly as you and +others said of me." + +"In the face of photographs?" + +"Faked, Summerlee! Clumsily faked!" + +"In the face of specimens?" + +"Ah, there we may have them! Malone and his filthy Fleet Street crew +may be all yelping our praises yet. August the twenty-eighth--the day +we saw five live iguanodons in a glade of Maple White Land. Put it +down in your diary, my young friend, and send it to your rag." + +"And be ready to get the toe-end of the editorial boot in return," said +Lord John. "Things look a bit different from the latitude of London, +young fellah my lad. There's many a man who never tells his +adventures, for he can't hope to be believed. Who's to blame them? +For this will seem a bit of a dream to ourselves in a month or two. +WHAT did you say they were?" + +"Iguanodons," said Summerlee. "You'll find their footmarks all over +the Hastings sands, in Kent, and in Sussex. The South of England was +alive with them when there was plenty of good lush green-stuff to keep +them going. Conditions have changed, and the beasts died. Here it +seems that the conditions have not changed, and the beasts have lived." + +"If ever we get out of this alive, I must have a head with me," said +Lord John. "Lord, how some of that Somaliland-Uganda crowd would turn +a beautiful pea-green if they saw it! I don't know what you chaps +think, but it strikes me that we are on mighty thin ice all this time." + +I had the same feeling of mystery and danger around us. In the gloom +of the trees there seemed a constant menace and as we looked up into +their shadowy foliage vague terrors crept into one's heart. It is true +that these monstrous creatures which we had seen were lumbering, +inoffensive brutes which were unlikely to hurt anyone, but in this +world of wonders what other survivals might there not be--what fierce, +active horrors ready to pounce upon us from their lair among the rocks +or brushwood? I knew little of prehistoric life, but I had a clear +remembrance of one book which I had read in which it spoke of creatures +who would live upon our lions and tigers as a cat lives upon mice. +What if these also were to be found in the woods of Maple White Land! + +It was destined that on this very morning--our first in the new +country--we were to find out what strange hazards lay around us. It +was a loathsome adventure, and one of which I hate to think. If, as +Lord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will remain with us as a +dream, then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will forever be our +nightmare. Let me set down exactly what occurred. + +We passed very slowly through the woods, partly because Lord Roxton +acted as scout before he would let us advance, and partly because at +every second step one or other of our professors would fall, with a cry +of wonder, before some flower or insect which presented him with a new +type. We may have traveled two or three miles in all, keeping to the +right of the line of the stream, when we came upon a considerable +opening in the trees. A belt of brushwood led up to a tangle of +rocks--the whole plateau was strewn with boulders. We were walking +slowly towards these rocks, among bushes which reached over our waists, +when we became aware of a strange low gabbling and whistling sound, +which filled the air with a constant clamor and appeared to come from +some spot immediately before us. Lord John held up his hand as a +signal for us to stop, and he made his way swiftly, stooping and +running, to the line of rocks. We saw him peep over them and give a +gesture of amazement. Then he stood staring as if forgetting us, so +utterly entranced was he by what he saw. Finally he waved us to come +on, holding up his hand as a signal for caution. His whole bearing +made me feel that something wonderful but dangerous lay before us. + +Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into which +we gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been one of the +smaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped and at +the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of +green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes. It was a weird +place in itself, but its occupants made it seem like a scene from the +Seven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of pterodactyls. +There were hundreds of them congregated within view. All the bottom +area round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with +hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. From +this crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shocking +clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odor +which turned us sick. But above, perched each upon its own stone, +tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than +actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless +save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their +rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge, membranous +wings were closed by folding their fore-arms, so that they sat like +gigantic old women, wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and with +their ferocious heads protruding above them. Large and small, not less +than a thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us. + +Our professors would gladly have stayed there all day, so entranced +were they by this opportunity of studying the life of a prehistoric +age. They pointed out the fish and dead birds lying about among the +rocks as proving the nature of the food of these creatures, and I heard +them congratulating each other on having cleared up the point why the +bones of this flying dragon are found in such great numbers in certain +well-defined areas, as in the Cambridge Green-sand, since it was now +seen that, like penguins, they lived in gregarious fashion. + +Finally, however, Challenger, bent upon proving some point which +Summerlee had contested, thrust his head over the rock and nearly +brought destruction upon us all. In an instant the nearest male gave a +shrill, whistling cry, and flapped its twenty-foot span of leathery +wings as it soared up into the air. The females and young ones huddled +together beside the water, while the whole circle of sentinels rose one +after the other and sailed off into the sky. It was a wonderful sight +to see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideous +appearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes +above us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could +afford to linger. At first the great brutes flew round in a huge ring, +as if to make sure what the exact extent of the danger might be. Then, +the flight grew lower and the circle narrower, until they were whizzing +round and round us, the dry, rustling flap of their huge slate-colored +wings filling the air with a volume of sound that made me think of +Hendon aerodrome upon a race day. + +"Make for the wood and keep together," cried Lord John, clubbing his +rifle. "The brutes mean mischief." + +The moment we attempted to retreat the circle closed in upon us, until +the tips of the wings of those nearest to us nearly touched our faces. +We beat at them with the stocks of our guns, but there was nothing +solid or vulnerable to strike. Then suddenly out of the whizzing, +slate-colored circle a long neck shot out, and a fierce beak made a +thrust at us. Another and another followed. Summerlee gave a cry and +put his hand to his face, from which the blood was streaming. I felt a +prod at the back of my neck, and turned dizzy with the shock. +Challenger fell, and as I stooped to pick him up I was again struck +from behind and dropped on the top of him. At the same instant I heard +the crash of Lord John's elephant-gun, and, looking up, saw one of the +creatures with a broken wing struggling upon the ground, spitting and +gurgling at us with a wide-opened beak and blood-shot, goggled eyes, +like some devil in a medieval picture. Its comrades had flown higher +at the sudden sound, and were circling above our heads. + +"Now," cried Lord John, "now for our lives!" + +We staggered through the brushwood, and even as we reached the trees +the harpies were on us again. Summerlee was knocked down, but we tore +him up and rushed among the trunks. Once there we were safe, for those +huge wings had no space for their sweep beneath the branches. As we +limped homewards, sadly mauled and discomfited, we saw them for a long +time flying at a great height against the deep blue sky above our +heads, soaring round and round, no bigger than wood-pigeons, with their +eyes no doubt still following our progress. At last, however, as we +reached the thicker woods they gave up the chase, and we saw them no +more. + +"A most interesting and convincing experience," said Challenger, as we +halted beside the brook and he bathed a swollen knee. "We are +exceptionally well informed, Summerlee, as to the habits of the enraged +pterodactyl." + +Summerlee was wiping the blood from a cut in his forehead, while I was +tying up a nasty stab in the muscle of the neck. Lord John had the +shoulder of his coat torn away, but the creature's teeth had only +grazed the flesh. + +"It is worth noting," Challenger continued, "that our young friend has +received an undoubted stab, while Lord John's coat could only have been +torn by a bite. In my own case, I was beaten about the head by their +wings, so we have had a remarkable exhibition of their various methods +of offence." + +"It has been touch and go for our lives," said Lord John, gravely, "and +I could not think of a more rotten sort of death than to be outed by +such filthy vermin. I was sorry to fire my rifle, but, by Jove! there +was no great choice." + +"We should not be here if you hadn't," said I, with conviction. + +"It may do no harm," said he. "Among these woods there must be many +loud cracks from splitting or falling trees which would be just like +the sound of a gun. But now, if you are of my opinion, we have had +thrills enough for one day, and had best get back to the surgical box +at the camp for some carbolic. Who knows what venom these beasts may +have in their hideous jaws?" + +But surely no men ever had just such a day since the world began. Some +fresh surprise was ever in store for us. When, following the course of +our brook, we at last reached our glade and saw the thorny barricade of +our camp, we thought that our adventures were at an end. But we had +something more to think of before we could rest. The gate of Fort +Challenger had been untouched, the walls were unbroken, and yet it had +been visited by some strange and powerful creature in our absence. No +foot-mark showed a trace of its nature, and only the overhanging branch +of the enormous ginko tree suggested how it might have come and gone; +but of its malevolent strength there was ample evidence in the +condition of our stores. They were strewn at random all over the +ground, and one tin of meat had been crushed into pieces so as to +extract the contents. A case of cartridges had been shattered into +matchwood, and one of the brass shells lay shredded into pieces beside +it. Again the feeling of vague horror came upon our souls, and we +gazed round with frightened eyes at the dark shadows which lay around +us, in all of which some fearsome shape might be lurking. How good it +was when we were hailed by the voice of Zambo, and, going to the edge +of the plateau, saw him sitting grinning at us upon the top of the +opposite pinnacle. + +"All well, Massa Challenger, all well!" he cried. "Me stay here. No +fear. You always find me when you want." + +His honest black face, and the immense view before us, which carried us +half-way back to the affluent of the Amazon, helped us to remember that +we really were upon this earth in the twentieth century, and had not by +some magic been conveyed to some raw planet in its earliest and wildest +state. How difficult it was to realize that the violet line upon the +far horizon was well advanced to that great river upon which huge +steamers ran, and folk talked of the small affairs of life, while we, +marooned among the creatures of a bygone age, could but gaze towards it +and yearn for all that it meant! + +One other memory remains with me of this wonderful day, and with it I +will close this letter. The two professors, their tempers aggravated +no doubt by their injuries, had fallen out as to whether our assailants +were of the genus pterodactylus or dimorphodon, and high words had +ensued. To avoid their wrangling I moved some little way apart, and +was seated smoking upon the trunk of a fallen tree, when Lord John +strolled over in my direction. + +"I say, Malone," said he, "do you remember that place where those +beasts were?" + +"Very clearly." + +"A sort of volcanic pit, was it not?" + +"Exactly," said I. + +"Did you notice the soil?" + +"Rocks." + +"But round the water--where the reeds were?" + +"It was a bluish soil. It looked like clay." + +"Exactly. A volcanic tube full of blue clay." + +"What of that?" I asked. + +"Oh, nothing, nothing," said he, and strolled back to where the voices +of the contending men of science rose in a prolonged duet, the high, +strident note of Summerlee rising and falling to the sonorous bass of +Challenger. I should have thought no more of Lord John's remark were +it not that once again that night I heard him mutter to himself: "Blue +clay--clay in a volcanic tube!" They were the last words I heard before +I dropped into an exhausted sleep. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + "For once I was the Hero" + +Lord John Roxton was right when he thought that some specially toxic +quality might lie in the bite of the horrible creatures which had +attacked us. On the morning after our first adventure upon the +plateau, both Summerlee and I were in great pain and fever, while +Challenger's knee was so bruised that he could hardly limp. We kept to +our camp all day, therefore, Lord John busying himself, with such help +as we could give him, in raising the height and thickness of the thorny +walls which were our only defense. I remember that during the whole +long day I was haunted by the feeling that we were closely observed, +though by whom or whence I could give no guess. + +So strong was the impression that I told Professor Challenger of it, +who put it down to the cerebral excitement caused by my fever. Again +and again I glanced round swiftly, with the conviction that I was about +to see something, but only to meet the dark tangle of our hedge or the +solemn and cavernous gloom of the great trees which arched above our +heads. And yet the feeling grew ever stronger in my own mind that +something observant and something malevolent was at our very elbow. I +thought of the Indian superstition of the Curupuri--the dreadful, +lurking spirit of the woods--and I could have imagined that his +terrible presence haunted those who had invaded his most remote and +sacred retreat. + +That night (our third in Maple White Land) we had an experience which +left a fearful impression upon our minds, and made us thankful that +Lord John had worked so hard in making our retreat impregnable. We +were all sleeping round our dying fire when we were aroused--or, +rather, I should say, shot out of our slumbers--by a succession of the +most frightful cries and screams to which I have ever listened. I know +no sound to which I could compare this amazing tumult, which seemed to +come from some spot within a few hundred yards of our camp. It was as +ear-splitting as any whistle of a railway-engine; but whereas the +whistle is a clear, mechanical, sharp-edged sound, this was far deeper +in volume and vibrant with the uttermost strain of agony and horror. +We clapped our hands to our ears to shut out that nerve-shaking appeal. +A cold sweat broke out over my body, and my heart turned sick at the +misery of it. All the woes of tortured life, all its stupendous +indictment of high heaven, its innumerable sorrows, seemed to be +centered and condensed into that one dreadful, agonized cry. And then, +under this high-pitched, ringing sound there was another, more +intermittent, a low, deep-chested laugh, a growling, throaty gurgle of +merriment which formed a grotesque accompaniment to the shriek with +which it was blended. For three or four minutes on end the fearsome +duet continued, while all the foliage rustled with the rising of +startled birds. Then it shut off as suddenly as it began. For a long +time we sat in horrified silence. Then Lord John threw a bundle of +twigs upon the fire, and their red glare lit up the intent faces of my +companions and flickered over the great boughs above our heads. + +"What was it?" I whispered. + +"We shall know in the morning," said Lord John. "It was close to +us--not farther than the glade." + +"We have been privileged to overhear a prehistoric tragedy, the sort of +drama which occurred among the reeds upon the border of some Jurassic +lagoon, when the greater dragon pinned the lesser among the slime," +said Challenger, with more solemnity than I had ever heard in his +voice. "It was surely well for man that he came late in the order of +creation. There were powers abroad in earlier days which no courage +and no mechanism of his could have met. What could his sling, his +throwing-stick, or his arrow avail him against such forces as have been +loose to-night? Even with a modern rifle it would be all odds on the +monster." + +"I think I should back my little friend," said Lord John, caressing his +Express. "But the beast would certainly have a good sporting chance." + +Summerlee raised his hand. + +"Hush!" he cried. "Surely I hear something?" + +From the utter silence there emerged a deep, regular pat-pat. It was +the tread of some animal--the rhythm of soft but heavy pads placed +cautiously upon the ground. It stole slowly round the camp, and then +halted near our gateway. There was a low, sibilant rise and fall--the +breathing of the creature. Only our feeble hedge separated us from +this horror of the night. Each of us had seized his rifle, and Lord +John had pulled out a small bush to make an embrasure in the hedge. + +"By George!" he whispered. "I think I can see it!" + +I stooped and peered over his shoulder through the gap. Yes, I could +see it, too. In the deep shadow of the tree there was a deeper shadow +yet, black, inchoate, vague--a crouching form full of savage vigor and +menace. It was no higher than a horse, but the dim outline suggested +vast bulk and strength. That hissing pant, as regular and full-volumed +as the exhaust of an engine, spoke of a monstrous organism. Once, as +it moved, I thought I saw the glint of two terrible, greenish eyes. +There was an uneasy rustling, as if it were crawling slowly forward. + +"I believe it is going to spring!" said I, cocking my rifle. + +"Don't fire! Don't fire!" whispered Lord John. "The crash of a gun in +this silent night would be heard for miles. Keep it as a last card." + +"If it gets over the hedge we're done," said Summerlee, and his voice +crackled into a nervous laugh as he spoke. + +"No, it must not get over," cried Lord John; "but hold your fire to the +last. Perhaps I can make something of the fellow. I'll chance it, +anyhow." + +It was as brave an act as ever I saw a man do. He stooped to the fire, +picked up a blazing branch, and slipped in an instant through a +sallyport which he had made in our gateway. The thing moved forward +with a dreadful snarl. Lord John never hesitated, but, running towards +it with a quick, light step, he dashed the flaming wood into the +brute's face. For one moment I had a vision of a horrible mask like a +giant toad's, of a warty, leprous skin, and of a loose mouth all +beslobbered with fresh blood. The next, there was a crash in the +underwood and our dreadful visitor was gone. + +"I thought he wouldn't face the fire," said Lord John, laughing, as he +came back and threw his branch among the faggots. + +"You should not have taken such a risk!" we all cried. + +"There was nothin' else to be done. If he had got among us we should +have shot each other in tryin' to down him. On the other hand, if we +had fired through the hedge and wounded him he would soon have been on +the top of us--to say nothin' of giving ourselves away. On the whole, +I think that we are jolly well out of it. What was he, then?" + +Our learned men looked at each other with some hesitation. + +"Personally, I am unable to classify the creature with any certainty," +said Summerlee, lighting his pipe from the fire. + +"In refusing to commit yourself you are but showing a proper scientific +reserve," said Challenger, with massive condescension. "I am not +myself prepared to go farther than to say in general terms that we have +almost certainly been in contact to-night with some form of carnivorous +dinosaur. I have already expressed my anticipation that something of +the sort might exist upon this plateau." + +"We have to bear in mind," remarked Summerlee, "that there are many +prehistoric forms which have never come down to us. It would be rash +to suppose that we can give a name to all that we are likely to meet." + +"Exactly. A rough classification may be the best that we can attempt. +To-morrow some further evidence may help us to an identification. +Meantime we can only renew our interrupted slumbers." + +"But not without a sentinel," said Lord John, with decision. "We can't +afford to take chances in a country like this. Two-hour spells in the +future, for each of us." + +"Then I'll just finish my pipe in starting the first one," said +Professor Summerlee; and from that time onwards we never trusted +ourselves again without a watchman. + +In the morning it was not long before we discovered the source of the +hideous uproar which had aroused us in the night. The iguanodon glade +was the scene of a horrible butchery. From the pools of blood and the +enormous lumps of flesh scattered in every direction over the green +sward we imagined at first that a number of animals had been killed, +but on examining the remains more closely we discovered that all this +carnage came from one of these unwieldy monsters, which had been +literally torn to pieces by some creature not larger, perhaps, but far +more ferocious, than itself. + +Our two professors sat in absorbed argument, examining piece after +piece, which showed the marks of savage teeth and of enormous claws. + +"Our judgment must still be in abeyance," said Professor Challenger, +with a huge slab of whitish-colored flesh across his knee. "The +indications would be consistent with the presence of a saber-toothed +tiger, such as are still found among the breccia of our caverns; but +the creature actually seen was undoubtedly of a larger and more +reptilian character. Personally, I should pronounce for allosaurus." + +"Or megalosaurus," said Summerlee. + +"Exactly. Any one of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs would meet the +case. Among them are to be found all the most terrible types of animal +life that have ever cursed the earth or blessed a museum." He laughed +sonorously at his own conceit, for, though he had little sense of +humor, the crudest pleasantry from his own lips moved him always to +roars of appreciation. + +"The less noise the better," said Lord Roxton, curtly. "We don't know +who or what may be near us. If this fellah comes back for his +breakfast and catches us here we won't have so much to laugh at. By +the way, what is this mark upon the iguanodon's hide?" + +On the dull, scaly, slate-colored skin somewhere above the shoulder, +there was a singular black circle of some substance which looked like +asphalt. None of us could suggest what it meant, though Summerlee was +of opinion that he had seen something similar upon one of the young +ones two days before. Challenger said nothing, but looked pompous and +puffy, as if he could if he would, so that finally Lord John asked his +opinion direct. + +"If your lordship will graciously permit me to open my mouth, I shall +be happy to express my sentiments," said he, with elaborate sarcasm. +"I am not in the habit of being taken to task in the fashion which +seems to be customary with your lordship. I was not aware that it was +necessary to ask your permission before smiling at a harmless +pleasantry." + +It was not until he had received his apology that our touchy friend +would suffer himself to be appeased. When at last his ruffled feelings +were at ease, he addressed us at some length from his seat upon a +fallen tree, speaking, as his habit was, as if he were imparting most +precious information to a class of a thousand. + +"With regard to the marking," said he, "I am inclined to agree with my +friend and colleague, Professor Summerlee, that the stains are from +asphalt. As this plateau is, in its very nature, highly volcanic, and +as asphalt is a substance which one associates with Plutonic forces, I +cannot doubt that it exists in the free liquid state, and that the +creatures may have come in contact with it. A much more important +problem is the question as to the existence of the carnivorous monster +which has left its traces in this glade. We know roughly that this +plateau is not larger than an average English county. Within this +confined space a certain number of creatures, mostly types which have +passed away in the world below, have lived together for innumerable +years. Now, it is very clear to me that in so long a period one would +have expected that the carnivorous creatures, multiplying unchecked, +would have exhausted their food supply and have been compelled to +either modify their flesh-eating habits or die of hunger. This we see +has not been so. We can only imagine, therefore, that the balance of +Nature is preserved by some check which limits the numbers of these +ferocious creatures. One of the many interesting problems, therefore, +which await our solution is to discover what that check may be and how +it operates. I venture to trust that we may have some future +opportunity for the closer study of the carnivorous dinosaurs." + +"And I venture to trust we may not," I observed. + +The Professor only raised his great eyebrows, as the schoolmaster meets +the irrelevant observation of the naughty boy. + +"Perhaps Professor Summerlee may have an observation to make," he said, +and the two savants ascended together into some rarefied scientific +atmosphere, where the possibilities of a modification of the birth-rate +were weighed against the decline of the food supply as a check in the +struggle for existence. + +That morning we mapped out a small portion of the plateau, avoiding the +swamp of the pterodactyls, and keeping to the east of our brook instead +of to the west. In that direction the country was still thickly +wooded, with so much undergrowth that our progress was very slow. + +I have dwelt up to now upon the terrors of Maple White Land; but there +was another side to the subject, for all that morning we wandered among +lovely flowers--mostly, as I observed, white or yellow in color, these +being, as our professors explained, the primitive flower-shades. In +many places the ground was absolutely covered with them, and as we +walked ankle-deep on that wonderful yielding carpet, the scent was +almost intoxicating in its sweetness and intensity. The homely English +bee buzzed everywhere around us. Many of the trees under which we +passed had their branches bowed down with fruit, some of which were of +familiar sorts, while other varieties were new. By observing which of +them were pecked by the birds we avoided all danger of poison and added +a delicious variety to our food reserve. In the jungle which we +traversed were numerous hard-trodden paths made by the wild beasts, and +in the more marshy places we saw a profusion of strange footmarks, +including many of the iguanodon. Once in a grove we observed several +of these great creatures grazing, and Lord John, with his glass, was +able to report that they also were spotted with asphalt, though in a +different place to the one which we had examined in the morning. What +this phenomenon meant we could not imagine. + +We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, and a +wild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks. Once, through a +break in the trees, we saw a clear shoulder of green hill some distance +away, and across this a large dun-colored animal was traveling at a +considerable pace. It passed so swiftly that we were unable to say +what it was; but if it were a deer, as was claimed by Lord John, it +must have been as large as those monstrous Irish elk which are still +dug up from time to time in the bogs of my native land. + +Ever since the mysterious visit which had been paid to our camp we +always returned to it with some misgivings. However, on this occasion +we found everything in order. + +That evening we had a grand discussion upon our present situation and +future plans, which I must describe at some length, as it led to a new +departure by which we were enabled to gain a more complete knowledge of +Maple White Land than might have come in many weeks of exploring. It +was Summerlee who opened the debate. All day he had been querulous in +manner, and now some remark of Lord John's as to what we should do on +the morrow brought all his bitterness to a head. + +"What we ought to be doing to-day, to-morrow, and all the time," said +he, "is finding some way out of the trap into which we have fallen. +You are all turning your brains towards getting into this country. I +say that we should be scheming how to get out of it." + +"I am surprised, sir," boomed Challenger, stroking his majestic beard, +"that any man of science should commit himself to so ignoble a +sentiment. You are in a land which offers such an inducement to the +ambitious naturalist as none ever has since the world began, and you +suggest leaving it before we have acquired more than the most +superficial knowledge of it or of its contents. I expected better +things of you, Professor Summerlee." + +"You must remember," said Summerlee, sourly, "that I have a large class +in London who are at present at the mercy of an extremely inefficient +locum tenens. This makes my situation different from yours, Professor +Challenger, since, so far as I know, you have never been entrusted with +any responsible educational work." + +"Quite so," said Challenger. "I have felt it to be a sacrilege to +divert a brain which is capable of the highest original research to any +lesser object. That is why I have sternly set my face against any +proffered scholastic appointment." + +"For example?" asked Summerlee, with a sneer; but Lord John hastened to +change the conversation. + +"I must say," said he, "that I think it would be a mighty poor thing to +go back to London before I know a great deal more of this place than I +do at present." + +"I could never dare to walk into the back office of my paper and face +old McArdle," said I. (You will excuse the frankness of this report, +will you not, sir?) "He'd never forgive me for leaving such +unexhausted copy behind me. Besides, so far as I can see it is not +worth discussing, since we can't get down, even if we wanted." + +"Our young friend makes up for many obvious mental lacunae by some +measure of primitive common sense," remarked Challenger. "The +interests of his deplorable profession are immaterial to us; but, as he +observes, we cannot get down in any case, so it is a waste of energy to +discuss it." + +"It is a waste of energy to do anything else," growled Summerlee from +behind his pipe. "Let me remind you that we came here upon a perfectly +definite mission, entrusted to us at the meeting of the Zoological +Institute in London. That mission was to test the truth of Professor +Challenger's statements. Those statements, as I am bound to admit, we +are now in a position to endorse. Our ostensible work is therefore +done. As to the detail which remains to be worked out upon this +plateau, it is so enormous that only a large expedition, with a very +special equipment, could hope to cope with it. Should we attempt to do +so ourselves, the only possible result must be that we shall never +return with the important contribution to science which we have already +gained. Professor Challenger has devised means for getting us on to +this plateau when it appeared to be inaccessible; I think that we +should now call upon him to use the same ingenuity in getting us back +to the world from which we came." + +I confess that as Summerlee stated his view it struck me as altogether +reasonable. Even Challenger was affected by the consideration that his +enemies would never stand confuted if the confirmation of his +statements should never reach those who had doubted them. + +"The problem of the descent is at first sight a formidable one," said +he, "and yet I cannot doubt that the intellect can solve it. I am +prepared to agree with our colleague that a protracted stay in Maple +White Land is at present inadvisable, and that the question of our +return will soon have to be faced. I absolutely refuse to leave, +however, until we have made at least a superficial examination of this +country, and are able to take back with us something in the nature of a +chart." + +Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience. + +"We have spent two long days in exploration," said he, "and we are no +wiser as to the actual geography of the place than when we started. It +is clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it would take months to +penetrate it and to learn the relations of one part to another. If +there were some central peak it would be different, but it all slopes +downwards, so far as we can see. The farther we go the less likely it +is that we will get any general view." + +It was at that moment that I had my inspiration. My eyes chanced to +light upon the enormous gnarled trunk of the gingko tree which cast its +huge branches over us. Surely, if its bole exceeded that of all +others, its height must do the same. If the rim of the plateau was +indeed the highest point, then why should this mighty tree not prove to +be a watchtower which commanded the whole country? Now, ever since I +ran wild as a lad in Ireland I have been a bold and skilled +tree-climber. My comrades might be my masters on the rocks, but I knew +that I would be supreme among those branches. Could I only get my legs +on to the lowest of the giant off-shoots, then it would be strange +indeed if I could not make my way to the top. My comrades were +delighted at my idea. + +"Our young friend," said Challenger, bunching up the red apples of his +cheeks, "is capable of acrobatic exertions which would be impossible to +a man of a more solid, though possibly of a more commanding, +appearance. I applaud his resolution." + +"By George, young fellah, you've put your hand on it!" said Lord John, +clapping me on the back. "How we never came to think of it before I +can't imagine! There's not more than an hour of daylight left, but if +you take your notebook you may be able to get some rough sketch of the +place. If we put these three ammunition cases under the branch, I will +soon hoist you on to it." + +He stood on the boxes while I faced the trunk, and was gently raising +me when Challenger sprang forward and gave me such a thrust with his +huge hand that he fairly shot me into the tree. With both arms +clasping the branch, I scrambled hard with my feet until I had worked, +first my body, and then my knees, onto it. There were three excellent +off-shoots, like huge rungs of a ladder, above my head, and a tangle of +convenient branches beyond, so that I clambered onwards with such speed +that I soon lost sight of the ground and had nothing but foliage +beneath me. Now and then I encountered a check, and once I had to shin +up a creeper for eight or ten feet, but I made excellent progress, and +the booming of Challenger's voice seemed to be a great distance beneath +me. The tree was, however, enormous, and, looking upwards, I could see +no thinning of the leaves above my head. There was some thick, +bush-like clump which seemed to be a parasite upon a branch up which I +was swarming. I leaned my head round it in order to see what was +beyond, and I nearly fell out of the tree in my surprise and horror at +what I saw. + +A face was gazing into mine--at the distance of only a foot or two. +The creature that owned it had been crouching behind the parasite, and +had looked round it at the same instant that I did. It was a human +face--or at least it was far more human than any monkey's that I have +ever seen. It was long, whitish, and blotched with pimples, the nose +flattened, and the lower jaw projecting, with a bristle of coarse +whiskers round the chin. The eyes, which were under thick and heavy +brows, were bestial and ferocious, and as it opened its mouth to snarl +what sounded like a curse at me I observed that it had curved, sharp +canine teeth. For an instant I read hatred and menace in the evil +eyes. Then, as quick as a flash, came an expression of overpowering +fear. There was a crash of broken boughs as it dived wildly down into +the tangle of green. I caught a glimpse of a hairy body like that of a +reddish pig, and then it was gone amid a swirl of leaves and branches. + +"What's the matter?" shouted Roxton from below. "Anything wrong with +you?" + +"Did you see it?" I cried, with my arms round the branch and all my +nerves tingling. + +"We heard a row, as if your foot had slipped. What was it?" + +I was so shocked at the sudden and strange appearance of this ape-man +that I hesitated whether I should not climb down again and tell my +experience to my companions. But I was already so far up the great +tree that it seemed a humiliation to return without having carried out +my mission. + +After a long pause, therefore, to recover my breath and my courage, I +continued my ascent. Once I put my weight upon a rotten branch and +swung for a few seconds by my hands, but in the main it was all easy +climbing. Gradually the leaves thinned around me, and I was aware, +from the wind upon my face, that I had topped all the trees of the +forest. I was determined, however, not to look about me before I had +reached the very highest point, so I scrambled on until I had got so +far that the topmost branch was bending beneath my weight. There I +settled into a convenient fork, and, balancing myself securely, I found +myself looking down at a most wonderful panorama of this strange +country in which we found ourselves. + +The sun was just above the western sky-line, and the evening was a +particularly bright and clear one, so that the whole extent of the +plateau was visible beneath me. It was, as seen from this height, of +an oval contour, with a breadth of about thirty miles and a width of +twenty. Its general shape was that of a shallow funnel, all the sides +sloping down to a considerable lake in the center. This lake may have +been ten miles in circumference, and lay very green and beautiful in +the evening light, with a thick fringe of reeds at its edges, and with +its surface broken by several yellow sandbanks, which gleamed golden in +the mellow sunshine. A number of long dark objects, which were too +large for alligators and too long for canoes, lay upon the edges of +these patches of sand. With my glass I could clearly see that they +were alive, but what their nature might be I could not imagine. + +From the side of the plateau on which we were, slopes of woodland, with +occasional glades, stretched down for five or six miles to the central +lake. I could see at my very feet the glade of the iguanodons, and +farther off was a round opening in the trees which marked the swamp of +the pterodactyls. On the side facing me, however, the plateau +presented a very different aspect. There the basalt cliffs of the +outside were reproduced upon the inside, forming an escarpment about +two hundred feet high, with a woody slope beneath it. Along the base +of these red cliffs, some distance above the ground, I could see a +number of dark holes through the glass, which I conjectured to be the +mouths of caves. At the opening of one of these something white was +shimmering, but I was unable to make out what it was. I sat charting +the country until the sun had set and it was so dark that I could no +longer distinguish details. Then I climbed down to my companions +waiting for me so eagerly at the bottom of the great tree. For once I +was the hero of the expedition. Alone I had thought of it, and alone I +had done it; and here was the chart which would save us a month's blind +groping among unknown dangers. Each of them shook me solemnly by the +hand. + +But before they discussed the details of my map I had to tell them of +my encounter with the ape-man among the branches. + +"He has been there all the time," said I. + +"How do you know that?" asked Lord John. + +"Because I have never been without that feeling that something +malevolent was watching us. I mentioned it to you, Professor +Challenger." + +"Our young friend certainly said something of the kind. He is also the +one among us who is endowed with that Celtic temperament which would +make him sensitive to such impressions." + +"The whole theory of telepathy----" began Summerlee, filling his pipe. + +"Is too vast to be now discussed," said Challenger, with decision. +"Tell me, now," he added, with the air of a bishop addressing a +Sunday-school, "did you happen to observe whether the creature could +cross its thumb over its palm?" + +"No, indeed." + +"Had it a tail?" + +"No." + +"Was the foot prehensile?" + +"I do not think it could have made off so fast among the branches if it +could not get a grip with its feet." + +"In South America there are, if my memory serves me--you will check the +observation, Professor Summerlee--some thirty-six species of monkeys, +but the anthropoid ape is unknown. It is clear, however, that he +exists in this country, and that he is not the hairy, gorilla-like +variety, which is never seen out of Africa or the East." (I was +inclined to interpolate, as I looked at him, that I had seen his first +cousin in Kensington.) "This is a whiskered and colorless type, the +latter characteristic pointing to the fact that he spends his days in +arboreal seclusion. The question which we have to face is whether he +approaches more closely to the ape or the man. In the latter case, he +may well approximate to what the vulgar have called the 'missing link.' +The solution of this problem is our immediate duty." + +"It is nothing of the sort," said Summerlee, abruptly. "Now that, +through the intelligence and activity of Mr. Malone" (I cannot help +quoting the words), "we have got our chart, our one and only immediate +duty is to get ourselves safe and sound out of this awful place." + +"The flesh-pots of civilization," groaned Challenger. + +"The ink-pots of civilization, sir. It is our task to put on record +what we have seen, and to leave the further exploration to others. You +all agreed as much before Mr. Malone got us the chart." + +"Well," said Challenger, "I admit that my mind will be more at ease +when I am assured that the result of our expedition has been conveyed +to our friends. How we are to get down from this place I have not as +yet an idea. I have never yet encountered any problem, however, which +my inventive brain was unable to solve, and I promise you that +to-morrow I will turn my attention to the question of our descent." +And so the matter was allowed to rest. + +But that evening, by the light of the fire and of a single candle, the +first map of the lost world was elaborated. Every detail which I had +roughly noted from my watch-tower was drawn out in its relative place. +Challenger's pencil hovered over the great blank which marked the lake. + +"What shall we call it?" he asked. + +"Why should you not take the chance of perpetuating your own name?" +said Summerlee, with his usual touch of acidity. + +"I trust, sir, that my name will have other and more personal claims +upon posterity," said Challenger, severely. "Any ignoramus can hand +down his worthless memory by imposing it upon a mountain or a river. I +need no such monument." + +Summerlee, with a twisted smile, was about to make some fresh assault +when Lord John hastened to intervene. + +"It's up to you, young fellah, to name the lake," said he. "You saw it +first, and, by George, if you choose to put 'Lake Malone' on it, no one +has a better right." + +"By all means. Let our young friend give it a name," said Challenger. + +"Then," said I, blushing, I dare say, as I said it, "let it be named +Lake Gladys." + +"Don't you think the Central Lake would be more descriptive?" remarked +Summerlee. + +"I should prefer Lake Gladys." + +Challenger looked at me sympathetically, and shook his great head in +mock disapproval. "Boys will be boys," said he. "Lake Gladys let it +be." + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + "It was Dreadful in the Forest" + +I have said--or perhaps I have not said, for my memory plays me sad +tricks these days--that I glowed with pride when three such men as my +comrades thanked me for having saved, or at least greatly helped, the +situation. As the youngster of the party, not merely in years, but in +experience, character, knowledge, and all that goes to make a man, I +had been overshadowed from the first. And now I was coming into my +own. I warmed at the thought. Alas! for the pride which goes before a +fall! That little glow of self-satisfaction, that added measure of +self-confidence, were to lead me on that very night to the most +dreadful experience of my life, ending with a shock which turns my +heart sick when I think of it. + +It came about in this way. I had been unduly excited by the adventure +of the tree, and sleep seemed to be impossible. Summerlee was on +guard, sitting hunched over our small fire, a quaint, angular figure, +his rifle across his knees and his pointed, goat-like beard wagging +with each weary nod of his head. Lord John lay silent, wrapped in the +South American poncho which he wore, while Challenger snored with a +roll and rattle which reverberated through the woods. The full moon +was shining brightly, and the air was crisply cold. What a night for a +walk! And then suddenly came the thought, "Why not?" Suppose I stole +softly away, suppose I made my way down to the central lake, suppose I +was back at breakfast with some record of the place--would I not in +that case be thought an even more worthy associate? Then, if Summerlee +carried the day and some means of escape were found, we should return +to London with first-hand knowledge of the central mystery of the +plateau, to which I alone, of all men, would have penetrated. I thought +of Gladys, with her "There are heroisms all round us." I seemed to hear +her voice as she said it. I thought also of McArdle. What a three +column article for the paper! What a foundation for a career! A +correspondentship in the next great war might be within my reach. I +clutched at a gun--my pockets were full of cartridges--and, parting the +thorn bushes at the gate of our zareba, quickly slipped out. My last +glance showed me the unconscious Summerlee, most futile of sentinels, +still nodding away like a queer mechanical toy in front of the +smouldering fire. + +I had not gone a hundred yards before I deeply repented my rashness. I +may have said somewhere in this chronicle that I am too imaginative to +be a really courageous man, but that I have an overpowering fear of +seeming afraid. This was the power which now carried me onwards. I +simply could not slink back with nothing done. Even if my comrades +should not have missed me, and should never know of my weakness, there +would still remain some intolerable self-shame in my own soul. And yet +I shuddered at the position in which I found myself, and would have +given all I possessed at that moment to have been honorably free of the +whole business. + +It was dreadful in the forest. The trees grew so thickly and their +foliage spread so widely that I could see nothing of the moon-light +save that here and there the high branches made a tangled filigree +against the starry sky. As the eyes became more used to the obscurity +one learned that there were different degrees of darkness among the +trees--that some were dimly visible, while between and among them there +were coal-black shadowed patches, like the mouths of caves, from which +I shrank in horror as I passed. I thought of the despairing yell of +the tortured iguanodon--that dreadful cry which had echoed through the +woods. I thought, too, of the glimpse I had in the light of Lord +John's torch of that bloated, warty, blood-slavering muzzle. Even now +I was on its hunting-ground. At any instant it might spring upon me +from the shadows--this nameless and horrible monster. I stopped, and, +picking a cartridge from my pocket, I opened the breech of my gun. As +I touched the lever my heart leaped within me. It was the shot-gun, +not the rifle, which I had taken! + +Again the impulse to return swept over me. Here, surely, was a most +excellent reason for my failure--one for which no one would think the +less of me. But again the foolish pride fought against that very word. +I could not--must not--fail. After all, my rifle would probably have +been as useless as a shot-gun against such dangers as I might meet. If +I were to go back to camp to change my weapon I could hardly expect to +enter and to leave again without being seen. In that case there would +be explanations, and my attempt would no longer be all my own. After a +little hesitation, then, I screwed up my courage and continued upon my +way, my useless gun under my arm. + +The darkness of the forest had been alarming, but even worse was the +white, still flood of moonlight in the open glade of the iguanodons. +Hid among the bushes, I looked out at it. None of the great brutes +were in sight. Perhaps the tragedy which had befallen one of them had +driven them from their feeding-ground. In the misty, silvery night I +could see no sign of any living thing. Taking courage, therefore, I +slipped rapidly across it, and among the jungle on the farther side I +picked up once again the brook which was my guide. It was a cheery +companion, gurgling and chuckling as it ran, like the dear old +trout-stream in the West Country where I have fished at night in my +boyhood. So long as I followed it down I must come to the lake, and so +long as I followed it back I must come to the camp. Often I had to +lose sight of it on account of the tangled brush-wood, but I was always +within earshot of its tinkle and splash. + +As one descended the slope the woods became thinner, and bushes, with +occasional high trees, took the place of the forest. I could make good +progress, therefore, and I could see without being seen. I passed +close to the pterodactyl swamp, and as I did so, with a dry, crisp, +leathery rattle of wings, one of these great creatures--it was twenty +feet at least from tip to tip--rose up from somewhere near me and +soared into the air. As it passed across the face of the moon the +light shone clearly through the membranous wings, and it looked like a +flying skeleton against the white, tropical radiance. I crouched low +among the bushes, for I knew from past experience that with a single +cry the creature could bring a hundred of its loathsome mates about my +ears. It was not until it had settled again that I dared to steal +onwards upon my journey. + +The night had been exceedingly still, but as I advanced I became +conscious of a low, rumbling sound, a continuous murmur, somewhere in +front of me. This grew louder as I proceeded, until at last it was +clearly quite close to me. When I stood still the sound was constant, +so that it seemed to come from some stationary cause. It was like a +boiling kettle or the bubbling of some great pot. Soon I came upon the +source of it, for in the center of a small clearing I found a lake--or +a pool, rather, for it was not larger than the basin of the Trafalgar +Square fountain--of some black, pitch-like stuff, the surface of which +rose and fell in great blisters of bursting gas. The air above it was +shimmering with heat, and the ground round was so hot that I could +hardly bear to lay my hand on it. It was clear that the great volcanic +outburst which had raised this strange plateau so many years ago had +not yet entirely spent its forces. Blackened rocks and mounds of lava +I had already seen everywhere peeping out from amid the luxuriant +vegetation which draped them, but this asphalt pool in the jungle was +the first sign that we had of actual existing activity on the slopes of +the ancient crater. I had no time to examine it further for I had need +to hurry if I were to be back in camp in the morning. + +It was a fearsome walk, and one which will be with me so long as memory +holds. In the great moonlight clearings I slunk along among the +shadows on the margin. In the jungle I crept forward, stopping with a +beating heart whenever I heard, as I often did, the crash of breaking +branches as some wild beast went past. Now and then great shadows +loomed up for an instant and were gone--great, silent shadows which +seemed to prowl upon padded feet. How often I stopped with the +intention of returning, and yet every time my pride conquered my fear, +and sent me on again until my object should be attained. + +At last (my watch showed that it was one in the morning) I saw the +gleam of water amid the openings of the jungle, and ten minutes later I +was among the reeds upon the borders of the central lake. I was +exceedingly dry, so I lay down and took a long draught of its waters, +which were fresh and cold. There was a broad pathway with many tracks +upon it at the spot which I had found, so that it was clearly one of +the drinking-places of the animals. Close to the water's edge there +was a huge isolated block of lava. Up this I climbed, and, lying on +the top, I had an excellent view in every direction. + +The first thing which I saw filled me with amazement. When I described +the view from the summit of the great tree, I said that on the farther +cliff I could see a number of dark spots, which appeared to be the +mouths of caves. Now, as I looked up at the same cliffs, I saw discs +of light in every direction, ruddy, clearly-defined patches, like the +port-holes of a liner in the darkness. For a moment I thought it was +the lava-glow from some volcanic action; but this could not be so. Any +volcanic action would surely be down in the hollow and not high among +the rocks. What, then, was the alternative? It was wonderful, and yet +it must surely be. These ruddy spots must be the reflection of fires +within the caves--fires which could only be lit by the hand of man. +There were human beings, then, upon the plateau. How gloriously my +expedition was justified! Here was news indeed for us to bear back +with us to London! + +For a long time I lay and watched these red, quivering blotches of +light. I suppose they were ten miles off from me, yet even at that +distance one could observe how, from time to time, they twinkled or +were obscured as someone passed before them. What would I not have +given to be able to crawl up to them, to peep in, and to take back some +word to my comrades as to the appearance and character of the race who +lived in so strange a place! It was out of the question for the +moment, and yet surely we could not leave the plateau until we had some +definite knowledge upon the point. + +Lake Gladys--my own lake--lay like a sheet of quicksilver before me, +with a reflected moon shining brightly in the center of it. It was +shallow, for in many places I saw low sandbanks protruding above the +water. Everywhere upon the still surface I could see signs of life, +sometimes mere rings and ripples in the water, sometimes the gleam of a +great silver-sided fish in the air, sometimes the arched, slate-colored +back of some passing monster. Once upon a yellow sandbank I saw a +creature like a huge swan, with a clumsy body and a high, flexible +neck, shuffling about upon the margin. Presently it plunged in, and +for some time I could see the arched neck and darting head undulating +over the water. Then it dived, and I saw it no more. + +My attention was soon drawn away from these distant sights and brought +back to what was going on at my very feet. Two creatures like large +armadillos had come down to the drinking-place, and were squatting at +the edge of the water, their long, flexible tongues like red ribbons +shooting in and out as they lapped. A huge deer, with branching horns, +a magnificent creature which carried itself like a king, came down with +its doe and two fawns and drank beside the armadillos. No such deer +exist anywhere else upon earth, for the moose or elks which I have seen +would hardly have reached its shoulders. Presently it gave a warning +snort, and was off with its family among the reeds, while the +armadillos also scuttled for shelter. A new-comer, a most monstrous +animal, was coming down the path. + +For a moment I wondered where I could have seen that ungainly shape, +that arched back with triangular fringes along it, that strange +bird-like head held close to the ground. Then it came back, to me. It +was the stegosaurus--the very creature which Maple White had preserved +in his sketch-book, and which had been the first object which arrested +the attention of Challenger! There he was--perhaps the very specimen +which the American artist had encountered. The ground shook beneath +his tremendous weight, and his gulpings of water resounded through the +still night. For five minutes he was so close to my rock that by +stretching out my hand I could have touched the hideous waving hackles +upon his back. Then he lumbered away and was lost among the boulders. + +Looking at my watch, I saw that it was half-past two o'clock, and high +time, therefore, that I started upon my homeward journey. There was no +difficulty about the direction in which I should return for all along I +had kept the little brook upon my left, and it opened into the central +lake within a stone's-throw of the boulder upon which I had been lying. +I set off, therefore, in high spirits, for I felt that I had done good +work and was bringing back a fine budget of news for my companions. +Foremost of all, of course, were the sight of the fiery caves and the +certainty that some troglodytic race inhabited them. But besides that +I could speak from experience of the central lake. I could testify +that it was full of strange creatures, and I had seen several land +forms of primeval life which we had not before encountered. I +reflected as I walked that few men in the world could have spent a +stranger night or added more to human knowledge in the course of it. + +I was plodding up the slope, turning these thoughts over in my mind, +and had reached a point which may have been half-way to home, when my +mind was brought back to my own position by a strange noise behind me. +It was something between a snore and a growl, low, deep, and +exceedingly menacing. Some strange creature was evidently near me, but +nothing could be seen, so I hastened more rapidly upon my way. I had +traversed half a mile or so when suddenly the sound was repeated, still +behind me, but louder and more menacing than before. My heart stood +still within me as it flashed across me that the beast, whatever it +was, must surely be after ME. My skin grew cold and my hair rose at +the thought. That these monsters should tear each other to pieces was +a part of the strange struggle for existence, but that they should turn +upon modern man, that they should deliberately track and hunt down the +predominant human, was a staggering and fearsome thought. I remembered +again the blood-beslobbered face which we had seen in the glare of Lord +John's torch, like some horrible vision from the deepest circle of +Dante's hell. With my knees shaking beneath me, I stood and glared +with starting eyes down the moonlit path which lay behind me. All was +quiet as in a dream landscape. Silver clearings and the black patches +of the bushes--nothing else could I see. Then from out of the silence, +imminent and threatening, there came once more that low, throaty +croaking, far louder and closer than before. There could no longer be +a doubt. Something was on my trail, and was closing in upon me every +minute. + +I stood like a man paralyzed, still staring at the ground which I had +traversed. Then suddenly I saw it. There was movement among the +bushes at the far end of the clearing which I had just traversed. A +great dark shadow disengaged itself and hopped out into the clear +moonlight. I say "hopped" advisedly, for the beast moved like a +kangaroo, springing along in an erect position upon its powerful hind +legs, while its front ones were held bent in front of it. It was of +enormous size and power, like an erect elephant, but its movements, in +spite of its bulk, were exceedingly alert. For a moment, as I saw its +shape, I hoped that it was an iguanodon, which I knew to be harmless, +but, ignorant as I was, I soon saw that this was a very different +creature. Instead of the gentle, deer-shaped head of the great +three-toed leaf-eater, this beast had a broad, squat, toad-like face +like that which had alarmed us in our camp. His ferocious cry and the +horrible energy of his pursuit both assured me that this was surely one +of the great flesh-eating dinosaurs, the most terrible beasts which +have ever walked this earth. As the huge brute loped along it dropped +forward upon its fore-paws and brought its nose to the ground every +twenty yards or so. It was smelling out my trail. Sometimes, for an +instant, it was at fault. Then it would catch it up again and come +bounding swiftly along the path I had taken. + +Even now when I think of that nightmare the sweat breaks out upon my +brow. What could I do? My useless fowling-piece was in my hand. What +help could I get from that? I looked desperately round for some rock +or tree, but I was in a bushy jungle with nothing higher than a sapling +within sight, while I knew that the creature behind me could tear down +an ordinary tree as though it were a reed. My only possible chance lay +in flight. I could not move swiftly over the rough, broken ground, but +as I looked round me in despair I saw a well-marked, hard-beaten path +which ran across in front of me. We had seen several of the sort, the +runs of various wild beasts, during our expeditions. Along this I +could perhaps hold my own, for I was a fast runner, and in excellent +condition. Flinging away my useless gun, I set myself to do such a +half-mile as I have never done before or since. My limbs ached, my +chest heaved, I felt that my throat would burst for want of air, and +yet with that horror behind me I ran and I ran and ran. At last I +paused, hardly able to move. For a moment I thought that I had thrown +him off. The path lay still behind me. And then suddenly, with a +crashing and a rending, a thudding of giant feet and a panting of +monster lungs the beast was upon me once more. He was at my very +heels. I was lost. + +Madman that I was to linger so long before I fled! Up to then he had +hunted by scent, and his movement was slow. But he had actually seen +me as I started to run. From then onwards he had hunted by sight, for +the path showed him where I had gone. Now, as he came round the curve, +he was springing in great bounds. The moonlight shone upon his huge +projecting eyes, the row of enormous teeth in his open mouth, and the +gleaming fringe of claws upon his short, powerful forearms. With a +scream of terror I turned and rushed wildly down the path. Behind me +the thick, gasping breathing of the creature sounded louder and louder. +His heavy footfall was beside me. Every instant I expected to feel his +grip upon my back. And then suddenly there came a crash--I was falling +through space, and everything beyond was darkness and rest. + +As I emerged from my unconsciousness--which could not, I think, have +lasted more than a few minutes--I was aware of a most dreadful and +penetrating smell. Putting out my hand in the darkness I came upon +something which felt like a huge lump of meat, while my other hand +closed upon a large bone. Up above me there was a circle of starlit +sky, which showed me that I was lying at the bottom of a deep pit. +Slowly I staggered to my feet and felt myself all over. I was stiff +and sore from head to foot, but there was no limb which would not move, +no joint which would not bend. As the circumstances of my fall came +back into my confused brain, I looked up in terror, expecting to see +that dreadful head silhouetted against the paling sky. There was no +sign of the monster, however, nor could I hear any sound from above. I +began to walk slowly round, therefore, feeling in every direction to +find out what this strange place could be into which I had been so +opportunely precipitated. + +It was, as I have said, a pit, with sharply-sloping walls and a level +bottom about twenty feet across. This bottom was littered with great +gobbets of flesh, most of which was in the last state of putridity. +The atmosphere was poisonous and horrible. After tripping and +stumbling over these lumps of decay, I came suddenly against something +hard, and I found that an upright post was firmly fixed in the center +of the hollow. It was so high that I could not reach the top of it +with my hand, and it appeared to be covered with grease. + +Suddenly I remembered that I had a tin box of wax-vestas in my pocket. +Striking one of them, I was able at last to form some opinion of this +place into which I had fallen. There could be no question as to its +nature. It was a trap--made by the hand of man. The post in the +center, some nine feet long, was sharpened at the upper end, and was +black with the stale blood of the creatures who had been impaled upon +it. The remains scattered about were fragments of the victims, which +had been cut away in order to clear the stake for the next who might +blunder in. I remembered that Challenger had declared that man could +not exist upon the plateau, since with his feeble weapons he could not +hold his own against the monsters who roamed over it. But now it was +clear enough how it could be done. In their narrow-mouthed caves the +natives, whoever they might be, had refuges into which the huge +saurians could not penetrate, while with their developed brains they +were capable of setting such traps, covered with branches, across the +paths which marked the run of the animals as would destroy them in +spite of all their strength and activity. Man was always the master. + +The sloping wall of the pit was not difficult for an active man to +climb, but I hesitated long before I trusted myself within reach of the +dreadful creature which had so nearly destroyed me. How did I know +that he was not lurking in the nearest clump of bushes, waiting for my +reappearance? I took heart, however, as I recalled a conversation +between Challenger and Summerlee upon the habits of the great saurians. +Both were agreed that the monsters were practically brainless, that +there was no room for reason in their tiny cranial cavities, and that +if they have disappeared from the rest of the world it was assuredly on +account of their own stupidity, which made it impossible for them to +adapt themselves to changing conditions. + +To lie in wait for me now would mean that the creature had appreciated +what had happened to me, and this in turn would argue some power +connecting cause and effect. Surely it was more likely that a +brainless creature, acting solely by vague predatory instinct, would +give up the chase when I disappeared, and, after a pause of +astonishment, would wander away in search of some other prey? I +clambered to the edge of the pit and looked over. The stars were +fading, the sky was whitening, and the cold wind of morning blew +pleasantly upon my face. I could see or hear nothing of my enemy. +Slowly I climbed out and sat for a while upon the ground, ready to +spring back into my refuge if any danger should appear. Then, +reassured by the absolute stillness and by the growing light, I took my +courage in both hands and stole back along the path which I had come. +Some distance down it I picked up my gun, and shortly afterwards struck +the brook which was my guide. So, with many a frightened backward +glance, I made for home. + +And suddenly there came something to remind me of my absent companions. +In the clear, still morning air there sounded far away the sharp, hard +note of a single rifle-shot. I paused and listened, but there was +nothing more. For a moment I was shocked at the thought that some +sudden danger might have befallen them. But then a simpler and more +natural explanation came to my mind. It was now broad daylight. No +doubt my absence had been noticed. They had imagined, that I was lost +in the woods, and had fired this shot to guide me home. It is true +that we had made a strict resolution against firing, but if it seemed +to them that I might be in danger they would not hesitate. It was for +me now to hurry on as fast as possible, and so to reassure them. + +I was weary and spent, so my progress was not so fast as I wished; but +at last I came into regions which I knew. There was the swamp of the +pterodactyls upon my left; there in front of me was the glade of the +iguanodons. Now I was in the last belt of trees which separated me +from Fort Challenger. I raised my voice in a cheery shout to allay +their fears. No answering greeting came back to me. My heart sank at +that ominous stillness. I quickened my pace into a run. The zareba +rose before me, even as I had left it, but the gate was open. I rushed +in. In the cold, morning light it was a fearful sight which met my +eyes. Our effects were scattered in wild confusion over the ground; my +comrades had disappeared, and close to the smouldering ashes of our +fire the grass was stained crimson with a hideous pool of blood. + +I was so stunned by this sudden shock that for a time I must have +nearly lost my reason. I have a vague recollection, as one remembers a +bad dream, of rushing about through the woods all round the empty camp, +calling wildly for my companions. No answer came back from the silent +shadows. The horrible thought that I might never see them again, that +I might find myself abandoned all alone in that dreadful place, with no +possible way of descending into the world below, that I might live and +die in that nightmare country, drove me to desperation. I could have +torn my hair and beaten my head in my despair. Only now did I realize +how I had learned to lean upon my companions, upon the serene +self-confidence of Challenger, and upon the masterful, humorous +coolness of Lord John Roxton. Without them I was like a child in the +dark, helpless and powerless. I did not know which way to turn or what +I should do first. + +After a period, during which I sat in bewilderment, I set myself to try +and discover what sudden misfortune could have befallen my companions. +The whole disordered appearance of the camp showed that there had been +some sort of attack, and the rifle-shot no doubt marked the time when +it had occurred. That there should have been only one shot showed that +it had been all over in an instant. The rifles still lay upon the +ground, and one of them--Lord John's--had the empty cartridge in the +breech. The blankets of Challenger and of Summerlee beside the fire +suggested that they had been asleep at the time. The cases of +ammunition and of food were scattered about in a wild litter, together +with our unfortunate cameras and plate-carriers, but none of them were +missing. On the other hand, all the exposed provisions--and I +remembered that there were a considerable quantity of them--were gone. +They were animals, then, and not natives, who had made the inroad, for +surely the latter would have left nothing behind. + +But if animals, or some single terrible animal, then what had become of +my comrades? A ferocious beast would surely have destroyed them and +left their remains. It is true that there was that one hideous pool of +blood, which told of violence. Such a monster as had pursued me during +the night could have carried away a victim as easily as a cat would a +mouse. In that case the others would have followed in pursuit. But +then they would assuredly have taken their rifles with them. The more +I tried to think it out with my confused and weary brain the less could +I find any plausible explanation. I searched round in the forest, but +could see no tracks which could help me to a conclusion. Once I lost +myself, and it was only by good luck, and after an hour of wandering, +that I found the camp once more. + +Suddenly a thought came to me and brought some little comfort to my +heart. I was not absolutely alone in the world. Down at the bottom of +the cliff, and within call of me, was waiting the faithful Zambo. I +went to the edge of the plateau and looked over. Sure enough, he was +squatting among his blankets beside his fire in his little camp. But, +to my amazement, a second man was seated in front of him. For an +instant my heart leaped for joy, as I thought that one of my comrades +had made his way safely down. But a second glance dispelled the hope. +The rising sun shone red upon the man's skin. He was an Indian. I +shouted loudly and waved my handkerchief. Presently Zambo looked up, +waved his hand, and turned to ascend the pinnacle. In a short time he +was standing close to me and listening with deep distress to the story +which I told him. + +"Devil got them for sure, Massa Malone," said he. "You got into the +devil's country, sah, and he take you all to himself. You take advice, +Massa Malone, and come down quick, else he get you as well." + +"How can I come down, Zambo?" + +"You get creepers from trees, Massa Malone. Throw them over here. I +make fast to this stump, and so you have bridge." + +"We have thought of that. There are no creepers here which could bear +us." + +"Send for ropes, Massa Malone." + +"Who can I send, and where?" + +"Send to Indian villages, sah. Plenty hide rope in Indian village. +Indian down below; send him." + +"Who is he? + +"One of our Indians. Other ones beat him and take away his pay. He +come back to us. Ready now to take letter, bring rope,--anything." + +To take a letter! Why not? Perhaps he might bring help; but in any +case he would ensure that our lives were not spent for nothing, and +that news of all that we had won for Science should reach our friends +at home. I had two completed letters already waiting. I would spend +the day in writing a third, which would bring my experiences absolutely +up to date. The Indian could bear this back to the world. I ordered +Zambo, therefore, to come again in the evening, and I spent my +miserable and lonely day in recording my own adventures of the night +before. I also drew up a note, to be given to any white merchant or +captain of a steam-boat whom the Indian could find, imploring them to +see that ropes were sent to us, since our lives must depend upon it. +These documents I threw to Zambo in the evening, and also my purse, +which contained three English sovereigns. These were to be given to +the Indian, and he was promised twice as much if he returned with the +ropes. + +So now you will understand, my dear Mr. McArdle, how this communication +reaches you, and you will also know the truth, in case you never hear +again from your unfortunate correspondent. To-night I am too weary and +too depressed to make my plans. To-morrow I must think out some way by +which I shall keep in touch with this camp, and yet search round for +any traces of my unhappy friends. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + "A Sight which I shall Never Forget" + +Just as the sun was setting upon that melancholy night I saw the lonely +figure of the Indian upon the vast plain beneath me, and I watched him, +our one faint hope of salvation, until he disappeared in the rising +mists of evening which lay, rose-tinted from the setting sun, between +the far-off river and me. + +It was quite dark when I at last turned back to our stricken camp, and +my last vision as I went was the red gleam of Zambo's fire, the one +point of light in the wide world below, as was his faithful presence in +my own shadowed soul. And yet I felt happier than I had done since +this crushing blow had fallen upon me, for it was good to think that +the world should know what we had done, so that at the worst our names +should not perish with our bodies, but should go down to posterity +associated with the result of our labors. + +It was an awesome thing to sleep in that ill-fated camp; and yet it was +even more unnerving to do so in the jungle. One or the other it must +be. Prudence, on the one hand, warned me that I should remain on +guard, but exhausted Nature, on the other, declared that I should do +nothing of the kind. I climbed up on to a limb of the great gingko +tree, but there was no secure perch on its rounded surface, and I +should certainly have fallen off and broken my neck the moment I began +to doze. I got down, therefore, and pondered over what I should do. +Finally, I closed the door of the zareba, lit three separate fires in a +triangle, and having eaten a hearty supper dropped off into a profound +sleep, from which I had a strange and most welcome awakening. In the +early morning, just as day was breaking, a hand was laid upon my arm, +and starting up, with all my nerves in a tingle and my hand feeling for +a rifle, I gave a cry of joy as in the cold gray light I saw Lord John +Roxton kneeling beside me. + +It was he--and yet it was not he. I had left him calm in his bearing, +correct in his person, prim in his dress. Now he was pale and +wild-eyed, gasping as he breathed like one who has run far and fast. +His gaunt face was scratched and bloody, his clothes were hanging in +rags, and his hat was gone. I stared in amazement, but he gave me no +chance for questions. He was grabbing at our stores all the time he +spoke. + +"Quick, young fellah! Quick!" he cried. "Every moment counts. Get +the rifles, both of them. I have the other two. Now, all the +cartridges you can gather. Fill up your pockets. Now, some food. +Half a dozen tins will do. That's all right! Don't wait to talk or +think. Get a move on, or we are done!" + +Still half-awake, and unable to imagine what it all might mean, I found +myself hurrying madly after him through the wood, a rifle under each +arm and a pile of various stores in my hands. He dodged in and out +through the thickest of the scrub until he came to a dense clump of +brush-wood. Into this he rushed, regardless of thorns, and threw +himself into the heart of it, pulling me down by his side. + +"There!" he panted. "I think we are safe here. They'll make for the +camp as sure as fate. It will be their first idea. But this should +puzzle 'em." + +"What is it all?" I asked, when I had got my breath. "Where are the +professors? And who is it that is after us?" + +"The ape-men," he cried. "My God, what brutes! Don't raise your +voice, for they have long ears--sharp eyes, too, but no power of scent, +so far as I could judge, so I don't think they can sniff us out. Where +have you been, young fellah? You were well out of it." + +In a few sentences I whispered what I had done. + +"Pretty bad," said he, when he had heard of the dinosaur and the pit. +"It isn't quite the place for a rest cure. What? But I had no idea +what its possibilities were until those devils got hold of us. The +man-eatin' Papuans had me once, but they are Chesterfields compared to +this crowd." + +"How did it happen?" I asked. + +"It was in the early mornin'. Our learned friends were just stirrin'. +Hadn't even begun to argue yet. Suddenly it rained apes. They came +down as thick as apples out of a tree. They had been assemblin' in the +dark, I suppose, until that great tree over our heads was heavy with +them. I shot one of them through the belly, but before we knew where +we were they had us spread-eagled on our backs. I call them apes, but +they carried sticks and stones in their hands and jabbered talk to each +other, and ended up by tyin' our hands with creepers, so they are ahead +of any beast that I have seen in my wanderin's. Ape-men--that's what +they are--Missin' Links, and I wish they had stayed missin'. They +carried off their wounded comrade--he was bleedin' like a pig--and then +they sat around us, and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in their +faces. They were big fellows, as big as a man and a deal stronger. +Curious glassy gray eyes they have, under red tufts, and they just sat +and gloated and gloated. Challenger is no chicken, but even he was +cowed. He managed to struggle to his feet, and yelled out at them to +have done with it and get it over. I think he had gone a bit off his +head at the suddenness of it, for he raged and cursed at them like a +lunatic. If they had been a row of his favorite Pressmen he could not +have slanged them worse." + +"Well, what did they do?" I was enthralled by the strange story which +my companion was whispering into my ear, while all the time his keen +eyes were shooting in every direction and his hand grasping his cocked +rifle. + +"I thought it was the end of us, but instead of that it started them on +a new line. They all jabbered and chattered together. Then one of +them stood out beside Challenger. You'll smile, young fellah, but 'pon +my word they might have been kinsmen. I couldn't have believed it if I +hadn't seen it with my own eyes. This old ape-man--he was their +chief--was a sort of red Challenger, with every one of our friend's +beauty points, only just a trifle more so. He had the short body, the +big shoulders, the round chest, no neck, a great ruddy frill of a +beard, the tufted eyebrows, the 'What do you want, damn you!' look +about the eyes, and the whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood by +Challenger and put his paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete. +Summerlee was a bit hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. The +ape-men laughed too--or at least they put up the devil of a +cacklin'--and they set to work to drag us off through the forest. They +wouldn't touch the guns and things--thought them dangerous, I +expect--but they carried away all our loose food. Summerlee and I got +some rough handlin' on the way--there's my skin and my clothes to prove +it--for they took us a bee-line through the brambles, and their own +hides are like leather. But Challenger was all right. Four of them +carried him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor. What's +that?" + +It was a strange clicking noise in the distance not unlike castanets. + +"There they go!" said my companion, slipping cartridges into the second +double barrelled "Express." "Load them all up, young fellah my lad, +for we're not going to be taken alive, and don't you think it! That's +the row they make when they are excited. By George! they'll have +something to excite them if they put us up. The 'Last Stand of the +Grays' won't be in it. 'With their rifles grasped in their stiffened +hands, mid a ring of the dead and dyin',' as some fathead sings. Can +you hear them now?" + +"Very far away." + +"That little lot will do no good, but I expect their search parties are +all over the wood. Well, I was telling you my tale of woe. They got +us soon to this town of theirs--about a thousand huts of branches and +leaves in a great grove of trees near the edge of the cliff. It's +three or four miles from here. The filthy beasts fingered me all over, +and I feel as if I should never be clean again. They tied us up--the +fellow who handled me could tie like a bosun--and there we lay with our +toes up, beneath a tree, while a great brute stood guard over us with a +club in his hand. When I say 'we' I mean Summerlee and myself. Old +Challenger was up a tree, eatin' pines and havin' the time of his life. +I'm bound to say that he managed to get some fruit to us, and with his +own hands he loosened our bonds. If you'd seen him sitting up in that +tree hob-nobbin' with his twin brother--and singin' in that rollin' +bass of his, 'Ring out, wild bells,' cause music of any kind seemed to +put 'em in a good humor, you'd have smiled; but we weren't in much mood +for laughin', as you can guess. They were inclined, within limits, to +let him do what he liked, but they drew the line pretty sharply at us. +It was a mighty consolation to us all to know that you were runnin' +loose and had the archives in your keepin'. + +"Well, now, young fellah, I'll tell you what will surprise you. You +say you saw signs of men, and fires, traps, and the like. Well, we +have seen the natives themselves. Poor devils they were, down-faced +little chaps, and had enough to make them so. It seems that the humans +hold one side of this plateau--over yonder, where you saw the +caves--and the ape-men hold this side, and there is bloody war between +them all the time. That's the situation, so far as I could follow it. +Well, yesterday the ape-men got hold of a dozen of the humans and +brought them in as prisoners. You never heard such a jabberin' and +shriekin' in your life. The men were little red fellows, and had been +bitten and clawed so that they could hardly walk. The ape-men put two +of them to death there and then--fairly pulled the arm off one of +them--it was perfectly beastly. Plucky little chaps they are, and +hardly gave a squeak. But it turned us absolutely sick. Summerlee +fainted, and even Challenger had as much as he could stand. I think +they have cleared, don't you?" + +We listened intently, but nothing save the calling of the birds broke +the deep peace of the forest. Lord Roxton went on with his story. + +"I think you have had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad. It +was catchin' those Indians that put you clean out of their heads, else +they would have been back to the camp for you as sure as fate and +gathered you in. Of course, as you said, they have been watchin' us +from the beginnin' out of that tree, and they knew perfectly well that +we were one short. However, they could think only of this new haul; so +it was I, and not a bunch of apes, that dropped in on you in the +morning. Well, we had a horrid business afterwards. My God! what a +nightmare the whole thing is! You remember the great bristle of sharp +canes down below where we found the skeleton of the American? Well, +that is just under ape-town, and that's the jumpin'-off place of their +prisoners. I expect there's heaps of skeletons there, if we looked for +'em. They have a sort of clear parade-ground on the top, and they make +a proper ceremony about it. One by one the poor devils have to jump, +and the game is to see whether they are merely dashed to pieces or +whether they get skewered on the canes. They took us out to see it, +and the whole tribe lined up on the edge. Four of the Indians jumped, +and the canes went through 'em like knittin' needles through a pat of +butter. No wonder we found that poor Yankee's skeleton with the canes +growin' between his ribs. It was horrible--but it was doocedly +interestin' too. We were all fascinated to see them take the dive, +even when we thought it would be our turn next on the spring-board. + +"Well, it wasn't. They kept six of the Indians up for to-day--that's +how I understood it--but I fancy we were to be the star performers in +the show. Challenger might get off, but Summerlee and I were in the +bill. Their language is more than half signs, and it was not hard to +follow them. So I thought it was time we made a break for it. I had +been plottin' it out a bit, and had one or two things clear in my mind. +It was all on me, for Summerlee was useless and Challenger not much +better. The only time they got together they got slangin' because they +couldn't agree upon the scientific classification of these red-headed +devils that had got hold of us. One said it was the dryopithecus of +Java, the other said it was pithecanthropus. Madness, I call +it--Loonies, both. But, as I say, I had thought out one or two points +that were helpful. One was that these brutes could not run as fast as +a man in the open. They have short, bandy legs, you see, and heavy +bodies. Even Challenger could give a few yards in a hundred to the +best of them, and you or I would be a perfect Shrubb. Another point +was that they knew nothin' about guns. I don't believe they ever +understood how the fellow I shot came by his hurt. If we could get at +our guns there was no sayin' what we could do. + +"So I broke away early this mornin', gave my guard a kick in the tummy +that laid him out, and sprinted for the camp. There I got you and the +guns, and here we are." + +"But the professors!" I cried, in consternation. + +"Well, we must just go back and fetch 'em. I couldn't bring 'em with +me. Challenger was up the tree, and Summerlee was not fit for the +effort. The only chance was to get the guns and try a rescue. Of +course they may scupper them at once in revenge. I don't think they +would touch Challenger, but I wouldn't answer for Summerlee. But they +would have had him in any case. Of that I am certain. So I haven't +made matters any worse by boltin'. But we are honor bound to go back +and have them out or see it through with them. So you can make up your +soul, young fellah my lad, for it will be one way or the other before +evenin'." + +I have tried to imitate here Lord Roxton's jerky talk, his short, +strong sentences, the half-humorous, half-reckless tone that ran +through it all. But he was a born leader. As danger thickened his +jaunty manner would increase, his speech become more racy, his cold +eyes glitter into ardent life, and his Don Quixote moustache bristle +with joyous excitement. His love of danger, his intense appreciation +of the drama of an adventure--all the more intense for being held +tightly in--his consistent view that every peril in life is a form of +sport, a fierce game betwixt you and Fate, with Death as a forfeit, +made him a wonderful companion at such hours. If it were not for our +fears as to the fate of our companions, it would have been a positive +joy to throw myself with such a man into such an affair. We were +rising from our brushwood hiding-place when suddenly I felt his grip +upon my arm. + +"By George!" he whispered, "here they come!" + +From where we lay we could look down a brown aisle, arched with green, +formed by the trunks and branches. Along this a party of the ape-men +were passing. They went in single file, with bent legs and rounded +backs, their hands occasionally touching the ground, their heads +turning to left and right as they trotted along. Their crouching gait +took away from their height, but I should put them at five feet or so, +with long arms and enormous chests. Many of them carried sticks, and +at the distance they looked like a line of very hairy and deformed +human beings. For a moment I caught this clear glimpse of them. Then +they were lost among the bushes. + +"Not this time," said Lord John, who had caught up his rifle. "Our +best chance is to lie quiet until they have given up the search. Then +we shall see whether we can't get back to their town and hit 'em where +it hurts most. Give 'em an hour and we'll march." + +We filled in the time by opening one of our food tins and making sure +of our breakfast. Lord Roxton had had nothing but some fruit since the +morning before and ate like a starving man. Then, at last, our pockets +bulging with cartridges and a rifle in each hand, we started off upon +our mission of rescue. Before leaving it we carefully marked our +little hiding-place among the brush-wood and its bearing to Fort +Challenger, that we might find it again if we needed it. We slunk +through the bushes in silence until we came to the very edge of the +cliff, close to the old camp. There we halted, and Lord John gave me +some idea of his plans. + +"So long as we are among the thick trees these swine are our masters," +said he. "They can see us and we cannot see them. But in the open it +is different. There we can move faster than they. So we must stick to +the open all we can. The edge of the plateau has fewer large trees +than further inland. So that's our line of advance. Go slowly, keep +your eyes open and your rifle ready. Above all, never let them get you +prisoner while there is a cartridge left--that's my last word to you, +young fellah." + +When we reached the edge of the cliff I looked over and saw our good +old black Zambo sitting smoking on a rock below us. I would have given +a great deal to have hailed him and told him how we were placed, but it +was too dangerous, lest we should be heard. The woods seemed to be +full of the ape-men; again and again we heard their curious clicking +chatter. At such times we plunged into the nearest clump of bushes and +lay still until the sound had passed away. Our advance, therefore, was +very slow, and two hours at least must have passed before I saw by Lord +John's cautious movements that we must be close to our destination. He +motioned to me to lie still, and he crawled forward himself. In a +minute he was back again, his face quivering with eagerness. + +"Come!" said he. "Come quick! I hope to the Lord we are not too late +already!" + +I found myself shaking with nervous excitement as I scrambled forward +and lay down beside him, looking out through the bushes at a clearing +which stretched before us. + +It was a sight which I shall never forget until my dying day--so weird, +so impossible, that I do not know how I am to make you realize it, or +how in a few years I shall bring myself to believe in it if I live to +sit once more on a lounge in the Savage Club and look out on the drab +solidity of the Embankment. I know that it will seem then to be some +wild nightmare, some delirium of fever. Yet I will set it down now, +while it is still fresh in my memory, and one at least, the man who lay +in the damp grasses by my side, will know if I have lied. + +A wide, open space lay before us--some hundreds of yards across--all +green turf and low bracken growing to the very edge of the cliff. +Round this clearing there was a semi-circle of trees with curious huts +built of foliage piled one above the other among the branches. A +rookery, with every nest a little house, would best convey the idea. +The openings of these huts and the branches of the trees were thronged +with a dense mob of ape-people, whom from their size I took to be the +females and infants of the tribe. They formed the background of the +picture, and were all looking out with eager interest at the same scene +which fascinated and bewildered us. + +In the open, and near the edge of the cliff, there had assembled a +crowd of some hundred of these shaggy, red-haired creatures, many of +them of immense size, and all of them horrible to look upon. There was +a certain discipline among them, for none of them attempted to break +the line which had been formed. In front there stood a small group of +Indians--little, clean-limbed, red fellows, whose skins glowed like +polished bronze in the strong sunlight. A tall, thin white man was +standing beside them, his head bowed, his arms folded, his whole +attitude expressive of his horror and dejection. There was no +mistaking the angular form of Professor Summerlee. + +In front of and around this dejected group of prisoners were several +ape-men, who watched them closely and made all escape impossible. +Then, right out from all the others and close to the edge of the cliff, +were two figures, so strange, and under other circumstances so +ludicrous, that they absorbed my attention. The one was our comrade, +Professor Challenger. The remains of his coat still hung in strips +from his shoulders, but his shirt had been all torn out, and his great +beard merged itself in the black tangle which covered his mighty chest. +He had lost his hat, and his hair, which had grown long in our +wanderings, was flying in wild disorder. A single day seemed to have +changed him from the highest product of modern civilization to the most +desperate savage in South America. Beside him stood his master, the +king of the ape-men. In all things he was, as Lord John had said, the +very image of our Professor, save that his coloring was red instead of +black. The same short, broad figure, the same heavy shoulders, the +same forward hang of the arms, the same bristling beard merging itself +in the hairy chest. Only above the eyebrows, where the sloping +forehead and low, curved skull of the ape-man were in sharp contrast to +the broad brow and magnificent cranium of the European, could one see +any marked difference. At every other point the king was an absurd +parody of the Professor. + +All this, which takes me so long to describe, impressed itself upon me +in a few seconds. Then we had very different things to think of, for +an active drama was in progress. Two of the ape-men had seized one of +the Indians out of the group and dragged him forward to the edge of the +cliff. The king raised his hand as a signal. They caught the man by +his leg and arm, and swung him three times backwards and forwards with +tremendous violence. Then, with a frightful heave they shot the poor +wretch over the precipice. With such force did they throw him that he +curved high in the air before beginning to drop. As he vanished from +sight, the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to the +edge of the precipice, and there was a long pause of absolute silence, +broken by a mad yell of delight. They sprang about, tossing their +long, hairy arms in the air and howling with exultation. Then they +fell back from the edge, formed themselves again into line, and waited +for the next victim. + +This time it was Summerlee. Two of his guards caught him by the wrists +and pulled him brutally to the front. His thin figure and long limbs +struggled and fluttered like a chicken being dragged from a coop. +Challenger had turned to the king and waved his hands frantically +before him. He was begging, pleading, imploring for his comrade's +life. The ape-man pushed him roughly aside and shook his head. It was +the last conscious movement he was to make upon earth. Lord John's +rifle cracked, and the king sank down, a tangled red sprawling thing, +upon the ground. + +"Shoot into the thick of them! Shoot! sonny, shoot!" cried my +companion. + +There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man. +I am tenderhearted by nature, and have found my eyes moist many a time +over the scream of a wounded hare. Yet the blood lust was on me now. +I found myself on my feet emptying one magazine, then the other, +clicking open the breech to re-load, snapping it to again, while +cheering and yelling with pure ferocity and joy of slaughter as I did +so. With our four guns the two of us made a horrible havoc. Both the +guards who held Summerlee were down, and he was staggering about like a +drunken man in his amazement, unable to realize that he was a free man. +The dense mob of ape-men ran about in bewilderment, marveling whence +this storm of death was coming or what it might mean. They waved, +gesticulated, screamed, and tripped up over those who had fallen. +Then, with a sudden impulse, they all rushed in a howling crowd to the +trees for shelter, leaving the ground behind them spotted with their +stricken comrades. The prisoners were left for the moment standing +alone in the middle of the clearing. + +Challenger's quick brain had grasped the situation. He seized the +bewildered Summerlee by the arm, and they both ran towards us. Two of +their guards bounded after them and fell to two bullets from Lord John. +We ran forward into the open to meet our friends, and pressed a loaded +rifle into the hands of each. But Summerlee was at the end of his +strength. He could hardly totter. Already the ape-men were recovering +from their panic. They were coming through the brushwood and +threatening to cut us off. Challenger and I ran Summerlee along, one +at each of his elbows, while Lord John covered our retreat, firing +again and again as savage heads snarled at us out of the bushes. For a +mile or more the chattering brutes were at our very heels. Then the +pursuit slackened, for they learned our power and would no longer face +that unerring rifle. When we had at last reached the camp, we looked +back and found ourselves alone. + +So it seemed to us; and yet we were mistaken. We had hardly closed the +thornbush door of our zareba, clasped each other's hands, and thrown +ourselves panting upon the ground beside our spring, when we heard a +patter of feet and then a gentle, plaintive crying from outside our +entrance. Lord Roxton rushed forward, rifle in hand, and threw it +open. There, prostrate upon their faces, lay the little red figures of +the four surviving Indians, trembling with fear of us and yet imploring +our protection. With an expressive sweep of his hands one of them +pointed to the woods around them, and indicated that they were full of +danger. Then, darting forward, he threw his arms round Lord John's +legs, and rested his face upon them. + +"By George!" cried our peer, pulling at his moustache in great +perplexity, "I say--what the deuce are we to do with these people? Get +up, little chappie, and take your face off my boots." + +Summerlee was sitting up and stuffing some tobacco into his old briar. + +"We've got to see them safe," said he. "You've pulled us all out of +the jaws of death. My word! it was a good bit of work!" + +"Admirable!" cried Challenger. "Admirable! Not only we as +individuals, but European science collectively, owe you a deep debt of +gratitude for what you have done. I do not hesitate to say that the +disappearance of Professor Summerlee and myself would have left an +appreciable gap in modern zoological history. Our young friend here +and you have done most excellently well." + +He beamed at us with the old paternal smile, but European science would +have been somewhat amazed could they have seen their chosen child, the +hope of the future, with his tangled, unkempt head, his bare chest, and +his tattered clothes. He had one of the meat-tins between his knees, +and sat with a large piece of cold Australian mutton between his +fingers. The Indian looked up at him, and then, with a little yelp, +cringed to the ground and clung to Lord John's leg. + +"Don't you be scared, my bonnie boy," said Lord John, patting the +matted head in front of him. "He can't stick your appearance, +Challenger; and, by George! I don't wonder. All right, little chap, +he's only a human, just the same as the rest of us." + +"Really, sir!" cried the Professor. + +"Well, it's lucky for you, Challenger, that you ARE a little out of the +ordinary. If you hadn't been so like the king----" + +"Upon my word, Lord John, you allow yourself great latitude." + +"Well, it's a fact." + +"I beg, sir, that you will change the subject. Your remarks are +irrelevant and unintelligible. The question before us is what are we +to do with these Indians? The obvious thing is to escort them home, if +we knew where their home was." + +"There is no difficulty about that," said I. "They live in the caves +on the other side of the central lake." + +"Our young friend here knows where they live. I gather that it is some +distance." + +"A good twenty miles," said I. + +Summerlee gave a groan. + +"I, for one, could never get there. Surely I hear those brutes still +howling upon our track." + +As he spoke, from the dark recesses of the woods we heard far away the +jabbering cry of the ape-men. The Indians once more set up a feeble +wail of fear. + +"We must move, and move quick!" said Lord John. "You help Summerlee, +young fellah. These Indians will carry stores. Now, then, come along +before they can see us." + +In less than half-an-hour we had reached our brushwood retreat and +concealed ourselves. All day we heard the excited calling of the +ape-men in the direction of our old camp, but none of them came our +way, and the tired fugitives, red and white, had a long, deep sleep. I +was dozing myself in the evening when someone plucked my sleeve, and I +found Challenger kneeling beside me. + +"You keep a diary of these events, and you expect eventually to publish +it, Mr. Malone," said he, with solemnity. + +"I am only here as a Press reporter," I answered. + +"Exactly. You may have heard some rather fatuous remarks of Lord John +Roxton's which seemed to imply that there was some--some +resemblance----" + +"Yes, I heard them." + +"I need not say that any publicity given to such an idea--any levity in +your narrative of what occurred--would be exceedingly offensive to me." + +"I will keep well within the truth." + +"Lord John's observations are frequently exceedingly fanciful, and he +is capable of attributing the most absurd reasons to the respect which +is always shown by the most undeveloped races to dignity and character. +You follow my meaning?" + +"Entirely." + +"I leave the matter to your discretion." Then, after a long pause, he +added: "The king of the ape-men was really a creature of great +distinction--a most remarkably handsome and intelligent personality. +Did it not strike you?" + +"A most remarkable creature," said I. + +And the Professor, much eased in his mind, settled down to his slumber +once more. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + "Those Were the Real Conquests" + +We had imagined that our pursuers, the ape-men, knew nothing of our +brush-wood hiding-place, but we were soon to find out our mistake. +There was no sound in the woods--not a leaf moved upon the trees, and +all was peace around us--but we should have been warned by our first +experience how cunningly and how patiently these creatures can watch +and wait until their chance comes. Whatever fate may be mine through +life, I am very sure that I shall never be nearer death than I was that +morning. But I will tell you the thing in its due order. + +We all awoke exhausted after the terrific emotions and scanty food of +yesterday. Summerlee was still so weak that it was an effort for him +to stand; but the old man was full of a sort of surly courage which +would never admit defeat. A council was held, and it was agreed that +we should wait quietly for an hour or two where we were, have our +much-needed breakfast, and then make our way across the plateau and +round the central lake to the caves where my observations had shown +that the Indians lived. We relied upon the fact that we could count +upon the good word of those whom we had rescued to ensure a warm +welcome from their fellows. Then, with our mission accomplished and +possessing a fuller knowledge of the secrets of Maple White Land, we +should turn our whole thoughts to the vital problem of our escape and +return. Even Challenger was ready to admit that we should then have +done all for which we had come, and that our first duty from that time +onwards was to carry back to civilization the amazing discoveries we +had made. + +We were able now to take a more leisurely view of the Indians whom we +had rescued. They were small men, wiry, active, and well-built, with +lank black hair tied up in a bunch behind their heads with a leathern +thong, and leathern also were their loin-clothes. Their faces were +hairless, well formed, and good-humored. The lobes of their ears, +hanging ragged and bloody, showed that they had been pierced for some +ornaments which their captors had torn out. Their speech, though +unintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as they pointed +to each other and uttered the word "Accala" many times over, we +gathered that this was the name of the nation. Occasionally, with +faces which were convulsed with fear and hatred, they shook their +clenched hands at the woods round and cried: "Doda! Doda!" which was +surely their term for their enemies. + +"What do you make of them, Challenger?" asked Lord John. "One thing is +very clear to me, and that is that the little chap with the front of +his head shaved is a chief among them." + +It was indeed evident that this man stood apart from the others, and +that they never ventured to address him without every sign of deep +respect. He seemed to be the youngest of them all, and yet, so proud +and high was his spirit that, upon Challenger laying his great hand +upon his head, he started like a spurred horse and, with a quick flash +of his dark eyes, moved further away from the Professor. Then, placing +his hand upon his breast and holding himself with great dignity, he +uttered the word "Maretas" several times. The Professor, unabashed, +seized the nearest Indian by the shoulder and proceeded to lecture upon +him as if he were a potted specimen in a class-room. + +"The type of these people," said he in his sonorous fashion, "whether +judged by cranial capacity, facial angle, or any other test, cannot be +regarded as a low one; on the contrary, we must place it as +considerably higher in the scale than many South American tribes which +I can mention. On no possible supposition can we explain the evolution +of such a race in this place. For that matter, so great a gap +separates these ape-men from the primitive animals which have survived +upon this plateau, that it is inadmissible to think that they could +have developed where we find them." + +"Then where the dooce did they drop from?" asked Lord John. + +"A question which will, no doubt, be eagerly discussed in every +scientific society in Europe and America," the Professor answered. "My +own reading of the situation for what it is worth--" he inflated his +chest enormously and looked insolently around him at the words--"is +that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions of this +country up to the vertebrate stage, the old types surviving and living +on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find such modern creatures +as the tapir--an animal with quite a respectable length of +pedigree--the great deer, and the ant-eater in the companionship of +reptilian forms of jurassic type. So much is clear. And now come the +ape-men and the Indian. What is the scientific mind to think of their +presence? I can only account for it by an invasion from outside. It +is probable that there existed an anthropoid ape in South America, who +in past ages found his way to this place, and that he developed into +the creatures we have seen, some of which"--here he looked hard at +me--"were of an appearance and shape which, if it had been accompanied +by corresponding intelligence, would, I do not hesitate to say, have +reflected credit upon any living race. As to the Indians I cannot +doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. Under the +stress of famine or of conquest they have made their way up here. +Faced by ferocious creatures which they had never before seen, they +took refuge in the caves which our young friend has described, but they +have no doubt had a bitter fight to hold their own against wild beasts, +and especially against the ape-men who would regard them as intruders, +and wage a merciless war upon them with a cunning which the larger +beasts would lack. Hence the fact that their numbers appear to be +limited. Well, gentlemen, have I read you the riddle aright, or is +there any point which you would query?" + +Professor Summerlee for once was too depressed to argue, though he +shook his head violently as a token of general disagreement. Lord John +merely scratched his scanty locks with the remark that he couldn't put +up a fight as he wasn't in the same weight or class. For my own part I +performed my usual role of bringing things down to a strictly prosaic +and practical level by the remark that one of the Indians was missing. + +"He has gone to fetch some water," said Lord Roxton. "We fitted him up +with an empty beef tin and he is off." + +"To the old camp?" I asked. + +"No, to the brook. It's among the trees there. It can't be more than +a couple of hundred yards. But the beggar is certainly taking his +time." + +"I'll go and look after him," said I. I picked up my rifle and +strolled in the direction of the brook, leaving my friends to lay out +the scanty breakfast. It may seem to you rash that even for so short a +distance I should quit the shelter of our friendly thicket, but you +will remember that we were many miles from Ape-town, that so far as we +knew the creatures had not discovered our retreat, and that in any case +with a rifle in my hands I had no fear of them. I had not yet learned +their cunning or their strength. + +I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, but there +was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it. I was making my +way through this at a point which was just out of sight of my +companions, when, under one of the trees, I noticed something red +huddled among the bushes. As I approached it, I was shocked to see +that it was the dead body of the missing Indian. He lay upon his side, +his limbs drawn up, and his head screwed round at a most unnatural +angle, so that he seemed to be looking straight over his own shoulder. +I gave a cry to warn my friends that something was amiss, and running +forwards I stooped over the body. Surely my guardian angel was very +near me then, for some instinct of fear, or it may have been some faint +rustle of leaves, made me glance upwards. Out of the thick green +foliage which hung low over my head, two long muscular arms covered +with reddish hair were slowly descending. Another instant and the +great stealthy hands would have been round my throat. I sprang +backwards, but quick as I was, those hands were quicker still. Through +my sudden spring they missed a fatal grip, but one of them caught the +back of my neck and the other one my face. I threw my hands up to +protect my throat, and the next moment the huge paw had slid down my +face and closed over them. I was lifted lightly from the ground, and I +felt an intolerable pressure forcing my head back and back until the +strain upon the cervical spine was more than I could bear. My senses +swam, but I still tore at the hand and forced it out from my chin. +Looking up I saw a frightful face with cold inexorable light blue eyes +looking down into mine. There was something hypnotic in those terrible +eyes. I could struggle no longer. As the creature felt me grow limp +in his grasp, two white canines gleamed for a moment at each side of +the vile mouth, and the grip tightened still more upon my chin, forcing +it always upwards and back. A thin, oval-tinted mist formed before my +eyes and little silvery bells tinkled in my ears. Dully and far off I +heard the crack of a rifle and was feebly aware of the shock as I was +dropped to the earth, where I lay without sense or motion. + +I awoke to find myself on my back upon the grass in our lair within the +thicket. Someone had brought the water from the brook, and Lord John +was sprinkling my head with it, while Challenger and Summerlee were +propping me up, with concern in their faces. For a moment I had a +glimpse of the human spirits behind their scientific masks. It was +really shock, rather than any injury, which had prostrated me, and in +half-an-hour, in spite of aching head and stiff neck, I was sitting up +and ready for anything. + +"But you've had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad," said +Lord Roxton. "When I heard your cry and ran forward, and saw your head +twisted half-off and your stohwassers kickin' in the air, I thought we +were one short. I missed the beast in my flurry, but he dropped you +all right and was off like a streak. By George! I wish I had fifty +men with rifles. I'd clear out the whole infernal gang of them and +leave this country a bit cleaner than we found it." + +It was clear now that the ape-men had in some way marked us down, and +that we were watched on every side. We had not so much to fear from +them during the day, but they would be very likely to rush us by night; +so the sooner we got away from their neighborhood the better. On three +sides of us was absolute forest, and there we might find ourselves in +an ambush. But on the fourth side--that which sloped down in the +direction of the lake--there was only low scrub, with scattered trees +and occasional open glades. It was, in fact, the route which I had +myself taken in my solitary journey, and it led us straight for the +Indian caves. This then must for every reason be our road. + +One great regret we had, and that was to leave our old camp behind us, +not only for the sake of the stores which remained there, but even more +because we were losing touch with Zambo, our link with the outside +world. However, we had a fair supply of cartridges and all our guns, +so, for a time at least, we could look after ourselves, and we hoped +soon to have a chance of returning and restoring our communications +with our negro. He had faithfully promised to stay where he was, and +we had not a doubt that he would be as good as his word. + +It was in the early afternoon that we started upon our journey. The +young chief walked at our head as our guide, but refused indignantly to +carry any burden. Behind him came the two surviving Indians with our +scanty possessions upon their backs. We four white men walked in the +rear with rifles loaded and ready. As we started there broke from the +thick silent woods behind us a sudden great ululation of the ape-men, +which may have been a cheer of triumph at our departure or a jeer of +contempt at our flight. Looking back we saw only the dense screen of +trees, but that long-drawn yell told us how many of our enemies lurked +among them. We saw no sign of pursuit, however, and soon we had got +into more open country and beyond their power. + +As I tramped along, the rearmost of the four, I could not help smiling +at the appearance of my three companions in front. Was this the +luxurious Lord John Roxton who had sat that evening in the Albany +amidst his Persian rugs and his pictures in the pink radiance of the +tinted lights? And was this the imposing Professor who had swelled +behind the great desk in his massive study at Enmore Park? And, +finally, could this be the austere and prim figure which had risen +before the meeting at the Zoological Institute? No three tramps that +one could have met in a Surrey lane could have looked more hopeless and +bedraggled. We had, it is true, been only a week or so upon the top of +the plateau, but all our spare clothing was in our camp below, and the +one week had been a severe one upon us all, though least to me who had +not to endure the handling of the ape-men. My three friends had all +lost their hats, and had now bound handkerchiefs round their heads, +their clothes hung in ribbons about them, and their unshaven grimy +faces were hardly to be recognized. Both Summerlee and Challenger were +limping heavily, while I still dragged my feet from weakness after the +shock of the morning, and my neck was as stiff as a board from the +murderous grip that held it. We were indeed a sorry crew, and I did +not wonder to see our Indian companions glance back at us occasionally +with horror and amazement on their faces. + +In the late afternoon we reached the margin of the lake, and as we +emerged from the bush and saw the sheet of water stretching before us +our native friends set up a shrill cry of joy and pointed eagerly in +front of them. It was indeed a wonderful sight which lay before us. +Sweeping over the glassy surface was a great flotilla of canoes coming +straight for the shore upon which we stood. They were some miles out +when we first saw them, but they shot forward with great swiftness, and +were soon so near that the rowers could distinguish our persons. +Instantly a thunderous shout of delight burst from them, and we saw +them rise from their seats, waving their paddles and spears madly in +the air. Then bending to their work once more, they flew across the +intervening water, beached their boats upon the sloping sand, and +rushed up to us, prostrating themselves with loud cries of greeting +before the young chief. Finally one of them, an elderly man, with a +necklace and bracelet of great lustrous glass beads and the skin of +some beautiful mottled amber-colored animal slung over his shoulders, +ran forward and embraced most tenderly the youth whom we had saved. He +then looked at us and asked some questions, after which he stepped up +with much dignity and embraced us also each in turn. Then, at his +order, the whole tribe lay down upon the ground before us in homage. +Personally I felt shy and uncomfortable at this obsequious adoration, +and I read the same feeling in the faces of Roxton and Summerlee, but +Challenger expanded like a flower in the sun. + +"They may be undeveloped types," said he, stroking his beard and +looking round at them, "but their deportment in the presence of their +superiors might be a lesson to some of our more advanced Europeans. +Strange how correct are the instincts of the natural man!" + +It was clear that the natives had come out upon the war-path, for every +man carried his spear--a long bamboo tipped with bone--his bow and +arrows, and some sort of club or stone battle-axe slung at his side. +Their dark, angry glances at the woods from which we had come, and the +frequent repetition of the word "Doda," made it clear enough that this +was a rescue party who had set forth to save or revenge the old chief's +son, for such we gathered that the youth must be. A council was now +held by the whole tribe squatting in a circle, whilst we sat near on a +slab of basalt and watched their proceedings. Two or three warriors +spoke, and finally our young friend made a spirited harangue with such +eloquent features and gestures that we could understand it all as +clearly as if we had known his language. + +"What is the use of returning?" he said. "Sooner or later the thing +must be done. Your comrades have been murdered. What if I have +returned safe? These others have been done to death. There is no +safety for any of us. We are assembled now and ready." Then he pointed +to us. "These strange men are our friends. They are great fighters, +and they hate the ape-men even as we do. They command," here he +pointed up to heaven, "the thunder and the lightning. When shall we +have such a chance again? Let us go forward, and either die now or +live for the future in safety. How else shall we go back unashamed to +our women?" + +The little red warriors hung upon the words of the speaker, and when he +had finished they burst into a roar of applause, waving their rude +weapons in the air. The old chief stepped forward to us, and asked us +some questions, pointing at the same time to the woods. Lord John made +a sign to him that he should wait for an answer and then he turned to +us. + +"Well, it's up to you to say what you will do," said he; "for my part I +have a score to settle with these monkey-folk, and if it ends by wiping +them off the face of the earth I don't see that the earth need fret +about it. I'm goin' with our little red pals and I mean to see them +through the scrap. What do you say, young fellah?" + +"Of course I will come." + +"And you, Challenger?" + +"I will assuredly co-operate." + +"And you, Summerlee?" + +"We seem to be drifting very far from the object of this expedition, +Lord John. I assure you that I little thought when I left my +professional chair in London that it was for the purpose of heading a +raid of savages upon a colony of anthropoid apes." + +"To such base uses do we come," said Lord John, smiling. "But we are +up against it, so what's the decision?" + +"It seems a most questionable step," said Summerlee, argumentative to +the last, "but if you are all going, I hardly see how I can remain +behind." + +"Then it is settled," said Lord John, and turning to the chief he +nodded and slapped his rifle. + +The old fellow clasped our hands, each in turn, while his men cheered +louder than ever. It was too late to advance that night, so the +Indians settled down into a rude bivouac. On all sides their fires +began to glimmer and smoke. Some of them who had disappeared into the +jungle came back presently driving a young iguanodon before them. Like +the others, it had a daub of asphalt upon its shoulder, and it was only +when we saw one of the natives step forward with the air of an owner +and give his consent to the beast's slaughter that we understood at +last that these great creatures were as much private property as a herd +of cattle, and that these symbols which had so perplexed us were +nothing more than the marks of the owner. Helpless, torpid, and +vegetarian, with great limbs but a minute brain, they could be rounded +up and driven by a child. In a few minutes the huge beast had been cut +up and slabs of him were hanging over a dozen camp fires, together with +great scaly ganoid fish which had been speared in the lake. + +Summerlee had lain down and slept upon the sand, but we others roamed +round the edge of the water, seeking to learn something more of this +strange country. Twice we found pits of blue clay, such as we had +already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls. These were old volcanic +vents, and for some reason excited the greatest interest in Lord John. +What attracted Challenger, on the other hand, was a bubbling, gurgling +mud geyser, where some strange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon +the surface. He thrust a hollow reed into it and cried out with +delight like a schoolboy then he was able, on touching it with a +lighted match, to cause a sharp explosion and a blue flame at the far +end of the tube. Still more pleased was he when, inverting a leathern +pouch over the end of the reed, and so filling it with the gas, he was +able to send it soaring up into the air. + +"An inflammable gas, and one markedly lighter than the atmosphere. I +should say beyond doubt that it contained a considerable proportion of +free hydrogen. The resources of G. E. C. are not yet exhausted, my +young friend. I may yet show you how a great mind molds all Nature to +its use." He swelled with some secret purpose, but would say no more. + +There was nothing which we could see upon the shore which seemed to me +so wonderful as the great sheet of water before us. Our numbers and +our noise had frightened all living creatures away, and save for a few +pterodactyls, which soared round high above our heads while they waited +for the carrion, all was still around the camp. But it was different +out upon the rose-tinted waters of the central lake. It boiled and +heaved with strange life. Great slate-colored backs and high serrated +dorsal fins shot up with a fringe of silver, and then rolled down into +the depths again. The sand-banks far out were spotted with uncouth +crawling forms, huge turtles, strange saurians, and one great flat +creature like a writhing, palpitating mat of black greasy leather, +which flopped its way slowly to the lake. Here and there high serpent +heads projected out of the water, cutting swiftly through it with a +little collar of foam in front, and a long swirling wake behind, rising +and falling in graceful, swan-like undulations as they went. It was +not until one of these creatures wriggled on to a sand-bank within a +few hundred yards of us, and exposed a barrel-shaped body and huge +flippers behind the long serpent neck, that Challenger, and Summerlee, +who had joined us, broke out into their duet of wonder and admiration. + +"Plesiosaurus! A fresh-water plesiosaurus!" cried Summerlee. "That I +should have lived to see such a sight! We are blessed, my dear +Challenger, above all zoologists since the world began!" + +It was not until the night had fallen, and the fires of our savage +allies glowed red in the shadows, that our two men of science could be +dragged away from the fascinations of that primeval lake. Even in the +darkness as we lay upon the strand, we heard from time to time the +snort and plunge of the huge creatures who lived therein. + +At earliest dawn our camp was astir and an hour later we had started +upon our memorable expedition. Often in my dreams have I thought that +I might live to be a war correspondent. In what wildest one could I +have conceived the nature of the campaign which it should be my lot to +report! Here then is my first despatch from a field of battle: + +Our numbers had been reinforced during the night by a fresh batch of +natives from the caves, and we may have been four or five hundred +strong when we made our advance. A fringe of scouts was thrown out in +front, and behind them the whole force in a solid column made their way +up the long slope of the bush country until we were near the edge of +the forest. Here they spread out into a long straggling line of +spearmen and bowmen. Roxton and Summerlee took their position upon the +right flank, while Challenger and I were on the left. It was a host of +the stone age that we were accompanying to battle--we with the last +word of the gunsmith's art from St. James' Street and the Strand. + +We had not long to wait for our enemy. A wild shrill clamor rose from +the edge of the wood and suddenly a body of ape-men rushed out with +clubs and stones, and made for the center of the Indian line. It was a +valiant move but a foolish one, for the great bandy-legged creatures +were slow of foot, while their opponents were as active as cats. It +was horrible to see the fierce brutes with foaming mouths and glaring +eyes, rushing and grasping, but forever missing their elusive enemies, +while arrow after arrow buried itself in their hides. One great fellow +ran past me roaring with pain, with a dozen darts sticking from his +chest and ribs. In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, and he fell +sprawling among the aloes. But this was the only shot fired, for the +attack had been on the center of the line, and the Indians there had +needed no help of ours in repulsing it. Of all the ape-men who had +rushed out into the open, I do not think that one got back to cover. + +But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. For an +hour or more after we entered the wood, there was a desperate struggle +in which for a time we hardly held our own. Springing out from among +the scrub the ape-men with huge clubs broke in upon the Indians and +often felled three or four of them before they could be speared. Their +frightful blows shattered everything upon which they fell. One of them +knocked Summerlee's rifle to matchwood and the next would have crushed +his skull had an Indian not stabbed the beast to the heart. Other +ape-men in the trees above us hurled down stones and logs of wood, +occasionally dropping bodily on to our ranks and fighting furiously +until they were felled. Once our allies broke under the pressure, and +had it not been for the execution done by our rifles they would +certainly have taken to their heels. But they were gallantly rallied +by their old chief and came on with such a rush that the ape-men began +in turn to give way. Summerlee was weaponless, but I was emptying my +magazine as quick as I could fire, and on the further flank we heard +the continuous cracking of our companion's rifles. + +Then in a moment came the panic and the collapse. Screaming and +howling, the great creatures rushed away in all directions through the +brushwood, while our allies yelled in their savage delight, following +swiftly after their flying enemies. All the feuds of countless +generations, all the hatreds and cruelties of their narrow history, all +the memories of ill-usage and persecution were to be purged that day. +At last man was to be supreme and the man-beast to find forever his +allotted place. Fly as they would the fugitives were too slow to +escape from the active savages, and from every side in the tangled +woods we heard the exultant yells, the twanging of bows, and the crash +and thud as ape-men were brought down from their hiding-places in the +trees. + +I was following the others, when I found that Lord John and Challenger +had come across to join us. + +"It's over," said Lord John. "I think we can leave the tidying up to +them. Perhaps the less we see of it the better we shall sleep." + +Challenger's eyes were shining with the lust of slaughter. + +"We have been privileged," he cried, strutting about like a gamecock, +"to be present at one of the typical decisive battles of history--the +battles which have determined the fate of the world. What, my friends, +is the conquest of one nation by another? It is meaningless. Each +produces the same result. But those fierce fights, when in the dawn of +the ages the cave-dwellers held their own against the tiger folk, or +the elephants first found that they had a master, those were the real +conquests--the victories that count. By this strange turn of fate we +have seen and helped to decide even such a contest. Now upon this +plateau the future must ever be for man." + +It needed a robust faith in the end to justify such tragic means. As +we advanced together through the woods we found the ape-men lying +thick, transfixed with spears or arrows. Here and there a little group +of shattered Indians marked where one of the anthropoids had turned to +bay, and sold his life dearly. Always in front of us we heard the +yelling and roaring which showed the direction of the pursuit. The +ape-men had been driven back to their city, they had made a last stand +there, once again they had been broken, and now we were in time to see +the final fearful scene of all. Some eighty or a hundred males, the +last survivors, had been driven across that same little clearing which +led to the edge of the cliff, the scene of our own exploit two days +before. As we arrived the Indians, a semicircle of spearmen, had +closed in on them, and in a minute it was over, Thirty or forty died +where they stood. The others, screaming and clawing, were thrust over +the precipice, and went hurtling down, as their prisoners had of old, +on to the sharp bamboos six hundred feet below. It was as Challenger +had said, and the reign of man was assured forever in Maple White Land. +The males were exterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and +young were driven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of +untold centuries had reached its bloody end. + +For us the victory brought much advantage. Once again we were able to +visit our camp and get at our stores. Once more also we were able to +communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified by the spectacle from +afar of an avalanche of apes falling from the edge of the cliff. + +"Come away, Massas, come away!" he cried, his eyes starting from his +head. "The debbil get you sure if you stay up there." + +"It is the voice of sanity!" said Summerlee with conviction. "We have +had adventures enough and they are neither suitable to our character or +our position. I hold you to your word, Challenger. From now onwards +you devote your energies to getting us out of this horrible country and +back once more to civilization." + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + "Our Eyes have seen Great Wonders" + +I write this from day to day, but I trust that before I come to the end +of it, I may be able to say that the light shines, at last, through our +clouds. We are held here with no clear means of making our escape, and +bitterly we chafe against it. Yet, I can well imagine that the day may +come when we may be glad that we were kept, against our will, to see +something more of the wonders of this singular place, and of the +creatures who inhabit it. + +The victory of the Indians and the annihilation of the ape-men, marked +the turning point of our fortunes. From then onwards, we were in truth +masters of the plateau, for the natives looked upon us with a mixture +of fear and gratitude, since by our strange powers we had aided them to +destroy their hereditary foe. For their own sakes they would, perhaps, +be glad to see the departure of such formidable and incalculable +people, but they have not themselves suggested any way by which we may +reach the plains below. There had been, so far as we could follow +their signs, a tunnel by which the place could be approached, the lower +exit of which we had seen from below. By this, no doubt, both ape-men +and Indians had at different epochs reached the top, and Maple White +with his companion had taken the same way. Only the year before, +however, there had been a terrific earthquake, and the upper end of the +tunnel had fallen in and completely disappeared. The Indians now could +only shake their heads and shrug their shoulders when we expressed by +signs our desire to descend. It may be that they cannot, but it may +also be that they will not, help us to get away. + +At the end of the victorious campaign the surviving ape-folk were +driven across the plateau (their wailings were horrible) and +established in the neighborhood of the Indian caves, where they would, +from now onwards, be a servile race under the eyes of their masters. +It was a rude, raw, primeval version of the Jews in Babylon or the +Israelites in Egypt. At night we could hear from amid the trees the +long-drawn cry, as some primitive Ezekiel mourned for fallen greatness +and recalled the departed glories of Ape Town. Hewers of wood and +drawers of water, such were they from now onwards. + +We had returned across the plateau with our allies two days after the +battle, and made our camp at the foot of their cliffs. They would have +had us share their caves with them, but Lord John would by no means +consent to it considering that to do so would put us in their power if +they were treacherously disposed. We kept our independence, therefore, +and had our weapons ready for any emergency, while preserving the most +friendly relations. We also continually visited their caves, which +were most remarkable places, though whether made by man or by Nature we +have never been able to determine. They were all on the one stratum, +hollowed out of some soft rock which lay between the volcanic basalt +forming the ruddy cliffs above them, and the hard granite which formed +their base. + +The openings were about eighty feet above the ground, and were led up +to by long stone stairs, so narrow and steep that no large animal could +mount them. Inside they were warm and dry, running in straight +passages of varying length into the side of the hill, with smooth gray +walls decorated with many excellent pictures done with charred sticks +and representing the various animals of the plateau. If every living +thing were swept from the country the future explorer would find upon +the walls of these caves ample evidence of the strange fauna--the +dinosaurs, iguanodons, and fish lizards--which had lived so recently +upon earth. + +Since we had learned that the huge iguanodons were kept as tame herds +by their owners, and were simply walking meat-stores, we had conceived +that man, even with his primitive weapons, had established his +ascendancy upon the plateau. We were soon to discover that it was not +so, and that he was still there upon tolerance. + +It was on the third day after our forming our camp near the Indian +caves that the tragedy occurred. Challenger and Summerlee had gone off +together that day to the lake where some of the natives, under their +direction, were engaged in harpooning specimens of the great lizards. +Lord John and I had remained in our camp, while a number of the Indians +were scattered about upon the grassy slope in front of the caves +engaged in different ways. Suddenly there was a shrill cry of alarm, +with the word "Stoa" resounding from a hundred tongues. From every +side men, women, and children were rushing wildly for shelter, swarming +up the staircases and into the caves in a mad stampede. + +Looking up, we could see them waving their arms from the rocks above +and beckoning to us to join them in their refuge. We had both seized +our magazine rifles and ran out to see what the danger could be. +Suddenly from the near belt of trees there broke forth a group of +twelve or fifteen Indians, running for their lives, and at their very +heels two of those frightful monsters which had disturbed our camp and +pursued me upon my solitary journey. In shape they were like horrible +toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of +an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant. We had never +before seen them save at night, and indeed they are nocturnal animals +save when disturbed in their lairs, as these had been. We now stood +amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty skins were of a +curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight struck them with an +ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved. + +We had little time to watch them, however, for in an instant they had +overtaken the fugitives and were making a dire slaughter among them. +Their method was to fall forward with their full weight upon each in +turn, leaving him crushed and mangled, to bound on after the others. +The wretched Indians screamed with terror, but were helpless, run as +they would, before the relentless purpose and horrible activity of +these monstrous creatures. One after another they went down, and there +were not half-a-dozen surviving by the time my companion and I could +come to their help. But our aid was of little avail and only involved +us in the same peril. At the range of a couple of hundred yards we +emptied our magazines, firing bullet after bullet into the beasts, but +with no more effect than if we were pelting them with pellets of paper. +Their slow reptilian natures cared nothing for wounds, and the springs +of their lives, with no special brain center but scattered throughout +their spinal cords, could not be tapped by any modern weapons. The +most that we could do was to check their progress by distracting their +attention with the flash and roar of our guns, and so to give both the +natives and ourselves time to reach the steps which led to safety. But +where the conical explosive bullets of the twentieth century were of no +avail, the poisoned arrows of the natives, dipped in the juice of +strophanthus and steeped afterwards in decayed carrion, could succeed. +Such arrows were of little avail to the hunter who attacked the beast, +because their action in that torpid circulation was slow, and before +its powers failed it could certainly overtake and slay its assailant. +But now, as the two monsters hounded us to the very foot of the stairs, +a drift of darts came whistling from every chink in the cliff above +them. In a minute they were feathered with them, and yet with no sign +of pain they clawed and slobbered with impotent rage at the steps which +would lead them to their victims, mounting clumsily up for a few yards +and then sliding down again to the ground. But at last the poison +worked. One of them gave a deep rumbling groan and dropped his huge +squat head on to the earth. The other bounded round in an eccentric +circle with shrill, wailing cries, and then lying down writhed in agony +for some minutes before it also stiffened and lay still. With yells of +triumph the Indians came flocking down from their caves and danced a +frenzied dance of victory round the dead bodies, in mad joy that two +more of the most dangerous of all their enemies had been slain. That +night they cut up and removed the bodies, not to eat--for the poison +was still active--but lest they should breed a pestilence. The great +reptilian hearts, however, each as large as a cushion, still lay there, +beating slowly and steadily, with a gentle rise and fall, in horrible +independent life. It was only upon the third day that the ganglia ran +down and the dreadful things were still. + +Some day, when I have a better desk than a meat-tin and more helpful +tools than a worn stub of pencil and a last, tattered note-book, I will +write some fuller account of the Accala Indians--of our life amongst +them, and of the glimpses which we had of the strange conditions of +wondrous Maple White Land. Memory, at least, will never fail me, for +so long as the breath of life is in me, every hour and every action of +that period will stand out as hard and clear as do the first strange +happenings of our childhood. No new impressions could efface those +which are so deeply cut. When the time comes I will describe that +wondrous moonlit night upon the great lake when a young +ichthyosaurus--a strange creature, half seal, half fish, to look at, +with bone-covered eyes on each side of his snout, and a third eye fixed +upon the top of his head--was entangled in an Indian net, and nearly +upset our canoe before we towed it ashore; the same night that a green +water-snake shot out from the rushes and carried off in its coils the +steersman of Challenger's canoe. I will tell, too, of the great +nocturnal white thing--to this day we do not know whether it was beast +or reptile--which lived in a vile swamp to the east of the lake, and +flitted about with a faint phosphorescent glimmer in the darkness. The +Indians were so terrified at it that they would not go near the place, +and, though we twice made expeditions and saw it each time, we could +not make our way through the deep marsh in which it lived. I can only +say that it seemed to be larger than a cow and had the strangest musky +odor. I will tell also of the huge bird which chased Challenger to the +shelter of the rocks one day--a great running bird, far taller than an +ostrich, with a vulture-like neck and cruel head which made it a +walking death. As Challenger climbed to safety one dart of that savage +curving beak shore off the heel of his boot as if it had been cut with +a chisel. This time at least modern weapons prevailed and the great +creature, twelve feet from head to foot--phororachus its name, +according to our panting but exultant Professor--went down before Lord +Roxton's rifle in a flurry of waving feathers and kicking limbs, with +two remorseless yellow eyes glaring up from the midst of it. May I +live to see that flattened vicious skull in its own niche amid the +trophies of the Albany. Finally, I will assuredly give some account of +the toxodon, the giant ten-foot guinea pig, with projecting chisel +teeth, which we killed as it drank in the gray of the morning by the +side of the lake. + +All this I shall some day write at fuller length, and amidst these more +stirring days I would tenderly sketch in these lovely summer evenings, +when with the deep blue sky above us we lay in good comradeship among +the long grasses by the wood and marveled at the strange fowl that +swept over us and the quaint new creatures which crept from their +burrows to watch us, while above us the boughs of the bushes were heavy +with luscious fruit, and below us strange and lovely flowers peeped at +us from among the herbage; or those long moonlit nights when we lay out +upon the shimmering surface of the great lake and watched with wonder +and awe the huge circles rippling out from the sudden splash of some +fantastic monster; or the greenish gleam, far down in the deep water, +of some strange creature upon the confines of darkness. These are the +scenes which my mind and my pen will dwell upon in every detail at some +future day. + +But, you will ask, why these experiences and why this delay, when you +and your comrades should have been occupied day and night in the +devising of some means by which you could return to the outer world? +My answer is, that there was not one of us who was not working for this +end, but that our work had been in vain. One fact we had very speedily +discovered: The Indians would do nothing to help us. In every other +way they were our friends--one might almost say our devoted slaves--but +when it was suggested that they should help us to make and carry a +plank which would bridge the chasm, or when we wished to get from them +thongs of leather or liana to weave ropes which might help us, we were +met by a good-humored, but an invincible, refusal. They would smile, +twinkle their eyes, shake their heads, and there was the end of it. +Even the old chief met us with the same obstinate denial, and it was +only Maretas, the youngster whom we had saved, who looked wistfully at +us and told us by his gestures that he was grieved for our thwarted +wishes. Ever since their crowning triumph with the ape-men they looked +upon us as supermen, who bore victory in the tubes of strange weapons, +and they believed that so long as we remained with them good fortune +would be theirs. A little red-skinned wife and a cave of our own were +freely offered to each of us if we would but forget our own people and +dwell forever upon the plateau. So far all had been kindly, however +far apart our desires might be; but we felt well assured that our +actual plans of a descent must be kept secret, for we had reason to +fear that at the last they might try to hold us by force. + +In spite of the danger from dinosaurs (which is not great save at +night, for, as I may have said before, they are mostly nocturnal in +their habits) I have twice in the last three weeks been over to our old +camp in order to see our negro who still kept watch and ward below the +cliff. My eyes strained eagerly across the great plain in the hope of +seeing afar off the help for which we had prayed. But the long +cactus-strewn levels still stretched away, empty and bare, to the +distant line of the cane-brake. + +"They will soon come now, Massa Malone. Before another week pass +Indian come back and bring rope and fetch you down." Such was the +cheery cry of our excellent Zambo. + +I had one strange experience as I came from this second visit which had +involved my being away for a night from my companions. I was returning +along the well-remembered route, and had reached a spot within a mile +or so of the marsh of the pterodactyls, when I saw an extraordinary +object approaching me. It was a man who walked inside a framework made +of bent canes so that he was enclosed on all sides in a bell-shaped +cage. As I drew nearer I was more amazed still to see that it was Lord +John Roxton. When he saw me he slipped from under his curious +protection and came towards me laughing, and yet, as I thought, with +some confusion in his manner. + +"Well, young fellah," said he, "who would have thought of meetin' you +up here?" + +"What in the world are you doing?" I asked. + +"Visitin' my friends, the pterodactyls," said he. + +"But why?" + +"Interestin' beasts, don't you think? But unsociable! Nasty rude ways +with strangers, as you may remember. So I rigged this framework which +keeps them from bein' too pressin' in their attentions." + +"But what do you want in the swamp?" + +He looked at me with a very questioning eye, and I read hesitation in +his face. + +"Don't you think other people besides Professors can want to know +things?" he said at last. "I'm studyin' the pretty dears. That's +enough for you." + +"No offense," said I. + +His good-humor returned and he laughed. + +"No offense, young fellah. I'm goin' to get a young devil chick for +Challenger. That's one of my jobs. No, I don't want your company. +I'm safe in this cage, and you are not. So long, and I'll be back in +camp by night-fall." + +He turned away and I left him wandering on through the wood with his +extraordinary cage around him. + +If Lord John's behavior at this time was strange, that of Challenger +was more so. I may say that he seemed to possess an extraordinary +fascination for the Indian women, and that he always carried a large +spreading palm branch with which he beat them off as if they were +flies, when their attentions became too pressing. To see him walking +like a comic opera Sultan, with this badge of authority in his hand, +his black beard bristling in front of him, his toes pointing at each +step, and a train of wide-eyed Indian girls behind him, clad in their +slender drapery of bark cloth, is one of the most grotesque of all the +pictures which I will carry back with me. As to Summerlee, he was +absorbed in the insect and bird life of the plateau, and spent his +whole time (save that considerable portion which was devoted to abusing +Challenger for not getting us out of our difficulties) in cleaning and +mounting his specimens. + +Challenger had been in the habit of walking off by himself every +morning and returning from time to time with looks of portentous +solemnity, as one who bears the full weight of a great enterprise upon +his shoulders. One day, palm branch in hand, and his crowd of adoring +devotees behind him, he led us down to his hidden work-shop and took us +into the secret of his plans. + +The place was a small clearing in the center of a palm grove. In this +was one of those boiling mud geysers which I have already described. +Around its edge were scattered a number of leathern thongs cut from +iguanodon hide, and a large collapsed membrane which proved to be the +dried and scraped stomach of one of the great fish lizards from the +lake. This huge sack had been sewn up at one end and only a small +orifice left at the other. Into this opening several bamboo canes had +been inserted and the other ends of these canes were in contact with +conical clay funnels which collected the gas bubbling up through the +mud of the geyser. Soon the flaccid organ began to slowly expand and +show such a tendency to upward movements that Challenger fastened the +cords which held it to the trunks of the surrounding trees. In half an +hour a good-sized gas-bag had been formed, and the jerking and +straining upon the thongs showed that it was capable of considerable +lift. Challenger, like a glad father in the presence of his +first-born, stood smiling and stroking his beard, in silent, +self-satisfied content as he gazed at the creation of his brain. It +was Summerlee who first broke the silence. + +"You don't mean us to go up in that thing, Challenger?" said he, in an +acid voice. + +"I mean, my dear Summerlee, to give you such a demonstration of its +powers that after seeing it you will, I am sure, have no hesitation in +trusting yourself to it." + +"You can put it right out of your head now, at once," said Summerlee +with decision, "nothing on earth would induce me to commit such a +folly. Lord John, I trust that you will not countenance such madness?" + +"Dooced ingenious, I call it," said our peer. "I'd like to see how it +works." + +"So you shall," said Challenger. "For some days I have exerted my +whole brain force upon the problem of how we shall descend from these +cliffs. We have satisfied ourselves that we cannot climb down and that +there is no tunnel. We are also unable to construct any kind of bridge +which may take us back to the pinnacle from which we came. How then +shall I find a means to convey us? Some little time ago I had remarked +to our young friend here that free hydrogen was evolved from the +geyser. The idea of a balloon naturally followed. I was, I will +admit, somewhat baffled by the difficulty of discovering an envelope to +contain the gas, but the contemplation of the immense entrails of these +reptiles supplied me with a solution to the problem. Behold the +result!" + +He put one hand in the front of his ragged jacket and pointed proudly +with the other. + +By this time the gas-bag had swollen to a goodly rotundity and was +jerking strongly upon its lashings. + +"Midsummer madness!" snorted Summerlee. + +Lord John was delighted with the whole idea. "Clever old dear, ain't +he?" he whispered to me, and then louder to Challenger. "What about a +car?" + +"The car will be my next care. I have already planned how it is to be +made and attached. Meanwhile I will simply show you how capable my +apparatus is of supporting the weight of each of us." + +"All of us, surely?" + +"No, it is part of my plan that each in turn shall descend as in a +parachute, and the balloon be drawn back by means which I shall have no +difficulty in perfecting. If it will support the weight of one and let +him gently down, it will have done all that is required of it. I will +now show you its capacity in that direction." + +He brought out a lump of basalt of a considerable size, constructed in +the middle so that a cord could be easily attached to it. This cord +was the one which we had brought with us on to the plateau after we had +used it for climbing the pinnacle. It was over a hundred feet long, +and though it was thin it was very strong. He had prepared a sort of +collar of leather with many straps depending from it. This collar was +placed over the dome of the balloon, and the hanging thongs were +gathered together below, so that the pressure of any weight would be +diffused over a considerable surface. Then the lump of basalt was +fastened to the thongs, and the rope was allowed to hang from the end +of it, being passed three times round the Professor's arm. + +"I will now," said Challenger, with a smile of pleased anticipation, +"demonstrate the carrying power of my balloon." As he said so he cut +with a knife the various lashings that held it. + +Never was our expedition in more imminent danger of complete +annihilation. The inflated membrane shot up with frightful velocity +into the air. In an instant Challenger was pulled off his feet and +dragged after it. I had just time to throw my arms round his ascending +waist when I was myself whipped up into the air. Lord John had me with +a rat-trap grip round the legs, but I felt that he also was coming off +the ground. For a moment I had a vision of four adventurers floating +like a string of sausages over the land that they had explored. But, +happily, there were limits to the strain which the rope would stand, +though none apparently to the lifting powers of this infernal machine. +There was a sharp crack, and we were in a heap upon the ground with +coils of rope all over us. When we were able to stagger to our feet we +saw far off in the deep blue sky one dark spot where the lump of basalt +was speeding upon its way. + +"Splendid!" cried the undaunted Challenger, rubbing his injured arm. +"A most thorough and satisfactory demonstration! I could not have +anticipated such a success. Within a week, gentlemen, I promise that a +second balloon will be prepared, and that you can count upon taking in +safety and comfort the first stage of our homeward journey." So far I +have written each of the foregoing events as it occurred. Now I am +rounding off my narrative from the old camp, where Zambo has waited so +long, with all our difficulties and dangers left like a dream behind us +upon the summit of those vast ruddy crags which tower above our heads. +We have descended in safety, though in a most unexpected fashion, and +all is well with us. In six weeks or two months we shall be in London, +and it is possible that this letter may not reach you much earlier than +we do ourselves. Already our hearts yearn and our spirits fly towards +the great mother city which holds so much that is dear to us. + +It was on the very evening of our perilous adventure with Challenger's +home-made balloon that the change came in our fortunes. I have said +that the one person from whom we had had some sign of sympathy in our +attempts to get away was the young chief whom we had rescued. He alone +had no desire to hold us against our will in a strange land. He had +told us as much by his expressive language of signs. That evening, +after dusk, he came down to our little camp, handed me (for some reason +he had always shown his attentions to me, perhaps because I was the one +who was nearest his age) a small roll of the bark of a tree, and then +pointing solemnly up at the row of caves above him, he had put his +finger to his lips as a sign of secrecy and had stolen back again to +his people. + +I took the slip of bark to the firelight and we examined it together. +It was about a foot square, and on the inner side there was a singular +arrangement of lines, which I here reproduce: + + +They were neatly done in charcoal upon the white surface, and looked to +me at first sight like some sort of rough musical score. + +"Whatever it is, I can swear that it is of importance to us," said I. +"I could read that on his face as he gave it." + +"Unless we have come upon a primitive practical joker," Summerlee +suggested, "which I should think would be one of the most elementary +developments of man." + +"It is clearly some sort of script," said Challenger. + +"Looks like a guinea puzzle competition," remarked Lord John, craning +his neck to have a look at it. Then suddenly he stretched out his hand +and seized the puzzle. + +"By George!" he cried, "I believe I've got it. The boy guessed right +the very first time. See here! How many marks are on that paper? +Eighteen. Well, if you come to think of it there are eighteen cave +openings on the hill-side above us." + +"He pointed up to the caves when he gave it to me," said I. + +"Well, that settles it. This is a chart of the caves. What! Eighteen +of them all in a row, some short, some deep, some branching, same as we +saw them. It's a map, and here's a cross on it. What's the cross for? +It is placed to mark one that is much deeper than the others." + +"One that goes through," I cried. + +"I believe our young friend has read the riddle," said Challenger. "If +the cave does not go through I do not understand why this person, who +has every reason to mean us well, should have drawn our attention to +it. But if it does go through and comes out at the corresponding point +on the other side, we should not have more than a hundred feet to +descend." + +"A hundred feet!" grumbled Summerlee. + +"Well, our rope is still more than a hundred feet long," I cried. +"Surely we could get down." + +"How about the Indians in the cave?" Summerlee objected. + +"There are no Indians in any of the caves above our heads," said I. +"They are all used as barns and store-houses. Why should we not go up +now at once and spy out the land?" + +There is a dry bituminous wood upon the plateau--a species of +araucaria, according to our botanist--which is always used by the +Indians for torches. Each of us picked up a faggot of this, and we +made our way up weed-covered steps to the particular cave which was +marked in the drawing. It was, as I had said, empty, save for a great +number of enormous bats, which flapped round our heads as we advanced +into it. As we had no desire to draw the attention of the Indians to +our proceedings, we stumbled along in the dark until we had gone round +several curves and penetrated a considerable distance into the cavern. +Then, at last, we lit our torches. It was a beautiful dry tunnel with +smooth gray walls covered with native symbols, a curved roof which +arched over our heads, and white glistening sand beneath our feet. We +hurried eagerly along it until, with a deep groan of bitter +disappointment, we were brought to a halt. A sheer wall of rock had +appeared before us, with no chink through which a mouse could have +slipped. There was no escape for us there. + +We stood with bitter hearts staring at this unexpected obstacle. It +was not the result of any convulsion, as in the case of the ascending +tunnel. The end wall was exactly like the side ones. It was, and had +always been, a cul-de-sac. + +"Never mind, my friends," said the indomitable Challenger. "You have +still my firm promise of a balloon." + +Summerlee groaned. + +"Can we be in the wrong cave?" I suggested. + +"No use, young fellah," said Lord John, with his finger on the chart. +"Seventeen from the right and second from the left. This is the cave +sure enough." + +I looked at the mark to which his finger pointed, and I gave a sudden +cry of joy. + +"I believe I have it! Follow me! Follow me!" + +I hurried back along the way we had come, my torch in my hand. "Here," +said I, pointing to some matches upon the ground, "is where we lit up." + +"Exactly." + +"Well, it is marked as a forked cave, and in the darkness we passed the +fork before the torches were lit. On the right side as we go out we +should find the longer arm." + +It was as I had said. We had not gone thirty yards before a great +black opening loomed in the wall. We turned into it to find that we +were in a much larger passage than before. Along it we hurried in +breathless impatience for many hundreds of yards. Then, suddenly, in +the black darkness of the arch in front of us we saw a gleam of dark +red light. We stared in amazement. A sheet of steady flame seemed to +cross the passage and to bar our way. We hastened towards it. No +sound, no heat, no movement came from it, but still the great luminous +curtain glowed before us, silvering all the cave and turning the sand +to powdered jewels, until as we drew closer it discovered a circular +edge. + +"The moon, by George!" cried Lord John. "We are through, boys! We are +through!" + +It was indeed the full moon which shone straight down the aperture +which opened upon the cliffs. It was a small rift, not larger than a +window, but it was enough for all our purposes. As we craned our necks +through it we could see that the descent was not a very difficult one, +and that the level ground was no very great way below us. It was no +wonder that from below we had not observed the place, as the cliffs +curved overhead and an ascent at the spot would have seemed so +impossible as to discourage close inspection. We satisfied ourselves +that with the help of our rope we could find our way down, and then +returned, rejoicing, to our camp to make our preparations for the next +evening. + +What we did we had to do quickly and secretly, since even at this last +hour the Indians might hold us back. Our stores we would leave behind +us, save only our guns and cartridges. But Challenger had some +unwieldy stuff which he ardently desired to take with him, and one +particular package, of which I may not speak, which gave us more labor +than any. Slowly the day passed, but when the darkness fell we were +ready for our departure. With much labor we got our things up the +steps, and then, looking back, took one last long survey of that +strange land, soon I fear to be vulgarized, the prey of hunter and +prospector, but to each of us a dreamland of glamour and romance, a +land where we had dared much, suffered much, and learned much--OUR +land, as we shall ever fondly call it. Along upon our left the +neighboring caves each threw out its ruddy cheery firelight into the +gloom. From the slope below us rose the voices of the Indians as they +laughed and sang. Beyond was the long sweep of the woods, and in the +center, shimmering vaguely through the gloom, was the great lake, the +mother of strange monsters. Even as we looked a high whickering cry, +the call of some weird animal, rang clear out of the darkness. It was +the very voice of Maple White Land bidding us good-bye. We turned and +plunged into the cave which led to home. + +Two hours later, we, our packages, and all we owned, were at the foot +of the cliff. Save for Challenger's luggage we had never a difficulty. +Leaving it all where we descended, we started at once for Zambo's camp. +In the early morning we approached it, but only to find, to our +amazement, not one fire but a dozen upon the plain. The rescue party +had arrived. There were twenty Indians from the river, with stakes, +ropes, and all that could be useful for bridging the chasm. At least +we shall have no difficulty now in carrying our packages, when +to-morrow we begin to make our way back to the Amazon. + +And so, in humble and thankful mood, I close this account. Our eyes +have seen great wonders and our souls are chastened by what we have +endured. Each is in his own way a better and deeper man. It may be +that when we reach Para we shall stop to refit. If we do, this letter +will be a mail ahead. If not, it will reach London on the very day +that I do. In either case, my dear Mr. McArdle, I hope very soon to +shake you by the hand. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + "A Procession! A Procession!" + +I should wish to place upon record here our gratitude to all our +friends upon the Amazon for the very great kindness and hospitality +which was shown to us upon our return journey. Very particularly would +I thank Senhor Penalosa and other officials of the Brazilian Government +for the special arrangements by which we were helped upon our way, and +Senhor Pereira of Para, to whose forethought we owe the complete outfit +for a decent appearance in the civilized world which we found ready for +us at that town. It seemed a poor return for all the courtesy which we +encountered that we should deceive our hosts and benefactors, but under +the circumstances we had really no alternative, and I hereby tell them +that they will only waste their time and their money if they attempt to +follow upon our traces. Even the names have been altered in our +accounts, and I am very sure that no one, from the most careful study +of them, could come within a thousand miles of our unknown land. + +The excitement which had been caused through those parts of South +America which we had to traverse was imagined by us to be purely local, +and I can assure our friends in England that we had no notion of the +uproar which the mere rumor of our experiences had caused through +Europe. It was not until the Ivernia was within five hundred miles of +Southampton that the wireless messages from paper after paper and +agency after agency, offering huge prices for a short return message as +to our actual results, showed us how strained was the attention not +only of the scientific world but of the general public. It was agreed +among us, however, that no definite statement should be given to the +Press until we had met the members of the Zoological Institute, since +as delegates it was our clear duty to give our first report to the body +from which we had received our commission of investigation. Thus, +although we found Southampton full of Pressmen, we absolutely refused +to give any information, which had the natural effect of focussing +public attention upon the meeting which was advertised for the evening +of November 7th. For this gathering, the Zoological Hall which had +been the scene of the inception of our task was found to be far too +small, and it was only in the Queen's Hall in Regent Street that +accommodation could be found. It is now common knowledge the promoters +might have ventured upon the Albert Hall and still found their space +too scanty. + +It was for the second evening after our arrival that the great meeting +had been fixed. For the first, we had each, no doubt, our own pressing +personal affairs to absorb us. Of mine I cannot yet speak. It may be +that as it stands further from me I may think of it, and even speak of +it, with less emotion. I have shown the reader in the beginning of +this narrative where lay the springs of my action. It is but right, +perhaps, that I should carry on the tale and show also the results. +And yet the day may come when I would not have it otherwise. At least +I have been driven forth to take part in a wondrous adventure, and I +cannot but be thankful to the force that drove me. + +And now I turn to the last supreme eventful moment of our adventure. +As I was racking my brain as to how I should best describe it, my eyes +fell upon the issue of my own Journal for the morning of the 8th of +November with the full and excellent account of my friend and +fellow-reporter Macdona. What can I do better than transcribe his +narrative--head-lines and all? I admit that the paper was exuberant in +the matter, out of compliment to its own enterprise in sending a +correspondent, but the other great dailies were hardly less full in +their account. Thus, then, friend Mac in his report: + + + THE NEW WORLD + GREAT MEETING AT THE QUEEN'S HALL + SCENES OF UPROAR + EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT + WHAT WAS IT? + NOCTURNAL RIOT IN REGENT STREET + (Special) + + +"The much-discussed meeting of the Zoological Institute, convened to +hear the report of the Committee of Investigation sent out last year to +South America to test the assertions made by Professor Challenger as to +the continued existence of prehistoric life upon that Continent, was +held last night in the greater Queen's Hall, and it is safe to say that +it is likely to be a red letter date in the history of Science, for the +proceedings were of so remarkable and sensational a character that no +one present is ever likely to forget them." (Oh, brother scribe +Macdona, what a monstrous opening sentence!) "The tickets were +theoretically confined to members and their friends, but the latter is +an elastic term, and long before eight o'clock, the hour fixed for the +commencement of the proceedings, all parts of the Great Hall were +tightly packed. The general public, however, which most unreasonably +entertained a grievance at having been excluded, stormed the doors at a +quarter to eight, after a prolonged melee in which several people were +injured, including Inspector Scoble of H. Division, whose leg was +unfortunately broken. After this unwarrantable invasion, which not +only filled every passage, but even intruded upon the space set apart +for the Press, it is estimated that nearly five thousand people awaited +the arrival of the travelers. When they eventually appeared, they took +their places in the front of a platform which already contained all the +leading scientific men, not only of this country, but of France and of +Germany. Sweden was also represented, in the person of Professor +Sergius, the famous Zoologist of the University of Upsala. The +entrance of the four heroes of the occasion was the signal for a +remarkable demonstration of welcome, the whole audience rising and +cheering for some minutes. An acute observer might, however, have +detected some signs of dissent amid the applause, and gathered that the +proceedings were likely to become more lively than harmonious. It may +safely be prophesied, however, that no one could have foreseen the +extraordinary turn which they were actually to take. + +"Of the appearance of the four wanderers little need be said, since +their photographs have for some time been appearing in all the papers. +They bear few traces of the hardships which they are said to have +undergone. Professor Challenger's beard may be more shaggy, Professor +Summerlee's features more ascetic, Lord John Roxton's figure more +gaunt, and all three may be burned to a darker tint than when they left +our shores, but each appeared to be in most excellent health. As to +our own representative, the well-known athlete and international Rugby +football player, E. D. Malone, he looks trained to a hair, and as he +surveyed the crowd a smile of good-humored contentment pervaded his +honest but homely face." (All right, Mac, wait till I get you alone!) + +"When quiet had been restored and the audience resumed their seats +after the ovation which they had given to the travelers, the chairman, +the Duke of Durham, addressed the meeting. 'He would not,' he said, +'stand for more than a moment between that vast assembly and the treat +which lay before them. It was not for him to anticipate what Professor +Summerlee, who was the spokesman of the committee, had to say to them, +but it was common rumor that their expedition had been crowned by +extraordinary success.' (Applause.) 'Apparently the age of romance +was not dead, and there was common ground upon which the wildest +imaginings of the novelist could meet the actual scientific +investigations of the searcher for truth. He would only add, before he +sat down, that he rejoiced--and all of them would rejoice--that these +gentlemen had returned safe and sound from their difficult and +dangerous task, for it cannot be denied that any disaster to such an +expedition would have inflicted a well-nigh irreparable loss to the +cause of Zoological science.' (Great applause, in which Professor +Challenger was observed to join.) + +"Professor Summerlee's rising was the signal for another extraordinary +outbreak of enthusiasm, which broke out again at intervals throughout +his address. That address will not be given in extenso in these +columns, for the reason that a full account of the whole adventures of +the expedition is being published as a supplement from the pen of our +own special correspondent. Some general indications will therefore +suffice. Having described the genesis of their journey, and paid a +handsome tribute to his friend Professor Challenger, coupled with an +apology for the incredulity with which his assertions, now fully +vindicated, had been received, he gave the actual course of their +journey, carefully withholding such information as would aid the public +in any attempt to locate this remarkable plateau. Having described, in +general terms, their course from the main river up to the time that +they actually reached the base of the cliffs, he enthralled his hearers +by his account of the difficulties encountered by the expedition in +their repeated attempts to mount them, and finally described how they +succeeded in their desperate endeavors, which cost the lives of their +two devoted half-breed servants." (This amazing reading of the affair +was the result of Summerlee's endeavors to avoid raising any +questionable matter at the meeting.) + +"Having conducted his audience in fancy to the summit, and marooned +them there by reason of the fall of their bridge, the Professor +proceeded to describe both the horrors and the attractions of that +remarkable land. Of personal adventures he said little, but laid +stress upon the rich harvest reaped by Science in the observations of +the wonderful beast, bird, insect, and plant life of the plateau. +Peculiarly rich in the coleoptera and in the lepidoptera, forty-six new +species of the one and ninety-four of the other had been secured in the +course of a few weeks. It was, however, in the larger animals, and +especially in the larger animals supposed to have been long extinct, +that the interest of the public was naturally centered. Of these he +was able to give a goodly list, but had little doubt that it would be +largely extended when the place had been more thoroughly investigated. +He and his companions had seen at least a dozen creatures, most of them +at a distance, which corresponded with nothing at present known to +Science. These would in time be duly classified and examined. He +instanced a snake, the cast skin of which, deep purple in color, was +fifty-one feet in length, and mentioned a white creature, supposed to +be mammalian, which gave forth well-marked phosphorescence in the +darkness; also a large black moth, the bite of which was supposed by +the Indians to be highly poisonous. Setting aside these entirely new +forms of life, the plateau was very rich in known prehistoric forms, +dating back in some cases to early Jurassic times. Among these he +mentioned the gigantic and grotesque stegosaurus, seen once by Mr. +Malone at a drinking-place by the lake, and drawn in the sketch-book of +that adventurous American who had first penetrated this unknown world. +He described also the iguanodon and the pterodactyl--two of the first +of the wonders which they had encountered. He then thrilled the +assembly by some account of the terrible carnivorous dinosaurs, which +had on more than one occasion pursued members of the party, and which +were the most formidable of all the creatures which they had +encountered. Thence he passed to the huge and ferocious bird, the +phororachus, and to the great elk which still roams upon this upland. +It was not, however, until he sketched the mysteries of the central +lake that the full interest and enthusiasm of the audience were +aroused. One had to pinch oneself to be sure that one was awake as one +heard this sane and practical Professor in cold measured tones +describing the monstrous three-eyed fish-lizards and the huge +water-snakes which inhabit this enchanted sheet of water. Next he +touched upon the Indians, and upon the extraordinary colony of +anthropoid apes, which might be looked upon as an advance upon the +pithecanthropus of Java, and as coming therefore nearer than any known +form to that hypothetical creation, the missing link. Finally he +described, amongst some merriment, the ingenious but highly dangerous +aeronautic invention of Professor Challenger, and wound up a most +memorable address by an account of the methods by which the committee +did at last find their way back to civilization. + +"It had been hoped that the proceedings would end there, and that a +vote of thanks and congratulation, moved by Professor Sergius, of +Upsala University, would be duly seconded and carried; but it was soon +evident that the course of events was not destined to flow so smoothly. +Symptoms of opposition had been evident from time to time during the +evening, and now Dr. James Illingworth, of Edinburgh, rose in the +center of the hall. Dr. Illingworth asked whether an amendment should +not be taken before a resolution. + +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Yes, sir, if there must be an amendment.' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Your Grace, there must be an amendment.' + +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Then let us take it at once.' + +"PROFESSOR SUMMERLEE (springing to his feet): 'Might I explain, your +Grace, that this man is my personal enemy ever since our controversy in +the Quarterly Journal of Science as to the true nature of Bathybius?' + +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'I fear I cannot go into personal matters. Proceed.' + +"Dr. Illingworth was imperfectly heard in part of his remarks on +account of the strenuous opposition of the friends of the explorers. +Some attempts were also made to pull him down. Being a man of enormous +physique, however, and possessed of a very powerful voice, he dominated +the tumult and succeeded in finishing his speech. It was clear, from +the moment of his rising, that he had a number of friends and +sympathizers in the hall, though they formed a minority in the +audience. The attitude of the greater part of the public might be +described as one of attentive neutrality. + +"Dr. Illingworth began his remarks by expressing his high appreciation +of the scientific work both of Professor Challenger and of Professor +Summerlee. He much regretted that any personal bias should have been +read into his remarks, which were entirely dictated by his desire for +scientific truth. His position, in fact, was substantially the same as +that taken up by Professor Summerlee at the last meeting. At that last +meeting Professor Challenger had made certain assertions which had been +queried by his colleague. Now this colleague came forward himself with +the same assertions and expected them to remain unquestioned. Was this +reasonable? ('Yes,' 'No,' and prolonged interruption, during which +Professor Challenger was heard from the Press box to ask leave from the +chairman to put Dr. Illingworth into the street.) A year ago one man +said certain things. Now four men said other and more startling ones. +Was this to constitute a final proof where the matters in question were +of the most revolutionary and incredible character? There had been +recent examples of travelers arriving from the unknown with certain +tales which had been too readily accepted. Was the London Zoological +Institute to place itself in this position? He admitted that the +members of the committee were men of character. But human nature was +very complex. Even Professors might be misled by the desire for +notoriety. Like moths, we all love best to flutter in the light. +Heavy-game shots liked to be in a position to cap the tales of their +rivals, and journalists were not averse from sensational coups, even +when imagination had to aid fact in the process. Each member of the +committee had his own motive for making the most of his results. +('Shame! shame!') He had no desire to be offensive. ('You are!' and +interruption.) The corroboration of these wondrous tales was really of +the most slender description. What did it amount to? Some +photographs. {Was it possible that in this age of ingenious +manipulation photographs could be accepted as evidence?} What more? +We have a story of a flight and a descent by ropes which precluded the +production of larger specimens. It was ingenious, but not convincing. +It was understood that Lord John Roxton claimed to have the skull of a +phororachus. He could only say that he would like to see that skull. + +"LORD JOHN ROXTON: 'Is this fellow calling me a liar?' (Uproar.) + +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Order! order! Dr. Illingworth, I must direct you to +bring your remarks to a conclusion and to move your amendment.' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Your Grace, I have more to say, but I bow to your +ruling. I move, then, that, while Professor Summerlee be thanked for +his interesting address, the whole matter shall be regarded as +'non-proven,' and shall be referred back to a larger, and possibly more +reliable Committee of Investigation.' + +"It is difficult to describe the confusion caused by this amendment. A +large section of the audience expressed their indignation at such a +slur upon the travelers by noisy shouts of dissent and cries of, 'Don't +put it!' 'Withdraw!' 'Turn him out!' On the other hand, the +malcontents--and it cannot be denied that they were fairly +numerous--cheered for the amendment, with cries of 'Order!' 'Chair!' +and 'Fair play!' A scuffle broke out in the back benches, and blows +were freely exchanged among the medical students who crowded that part +of the hall. It was only the moderating influence of the presence of +large numbers of ladies which prevented an absolute riot. Suddenly, +however, there was a pause, a hush, and then complete silence. +Professor Challenger was on his feet. His appearance and manner are +peculiarly arresting, and as he raised his hand for order the whole +audience settled down expectantly to give him a hearing. + +"'It will be within the recollection of many present,' said Professor +Challenger, 'that similar foolish and unmannerly scenes marked the last +meeting at which I have been able to address them. On that occasion +Professor Summerlee was the chief offender, and though he is now +chastened and contrite, the matter could not be entirely forgotten. I +have heard to-night similar, but even more offensive, sentiments from +the person who has just sat down, and though it is a conscious effort +of self-effacement to come down to that person's mental level, I will +endeavor to do so, in order to allay any reasonable doubt which could +possibly exist in the minds of anyone.' (Laughter and interruption.) +'I need not remind this audience that, though Professor Summerlee, as +the head of the Committee of Investigation, has been put up to speak +to-night, still it is I who am the real prime mover in this business, +and that it is mainly to me that any successful result must be +ascribed. I have safely conducted these three gentlemen to the spot +mentioned, and I have, as you have heard, convinced them of the +accuracy of my previous account. We had hoped that we should find upon +our return that no one was so dense as to dispute our joint +conclusions. Warned, however, by my previous experience, I have not +come without such proofs as may convince a reasonable man. As +explained by Professor Summerlee, our cameras have been tampered with +by the ape-men when they ransacked our camp, and most of our negatives +ruined.' (Jeers, laughter, and 'Tell us another!' from the back.) 'I +have mentioned the ape-men, and I cannot forbear from saying that some +of the sounds which now meet my ears bring back most vividly to my +recollection my experiences with those interesting creatures.' +(Laughter.) 'In spite of the destruction of so many invaluable +negatives, there still remains in our collection a certain number of +corroborative photographs showing the conditions of life upon the +plateau. Did they accuse them of having forged these photographs?' (A +voice, 'Yes,' and considerable interruption which ended in several men +being put out of the hall.) 'The negatives were open to the inspection +of experts. But what other evidence had they? Under the conditions of +their escape it was naturally impossible to bring a large amount of +baggage, but they had rescued Professor Summerlee's collections of +butterflies and beetles, containing many new species. Was this not +evidence?' (Several voices, 'No.') 'Who said no?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (rising): 'Our point is that such a collection might +have been made in other places than a prehistoric plateau.' (Applause.) + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'No doubt, sir, we have to bow to your +scientific authority, although I must admit that the name is +unfamiliar. Passing, then, both the photographs and the entomological +collection, I come to the varied and accurate information which we +bring with us upon points which have never before been elucidated. For +example, upon the domestic habits of the pterodactyl--'(A voice: +'Bosh,' and uproar)--'I say, that upon the domestic habits of the +pterodactyl we can throw a flood of light. I can exhibit to you from +my portfolio a picture of that creature taken from life which would +convince you----' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'No picture could convince us of anything.' + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'You would require to see the thing itself?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Undoubtedly.' + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'And you would accept that?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (laughing): 'Beyond a doubt.' + +"It was at this point that the sensation of the evening arose--a +sensation so dramatic that it can never have been paralleled in the +history of scientific gatherings. Professor Challenger raised his hand +in the air as a signal, and at once our colleague, Mr. E. D. Malone, +was observed to rise and to make his way to the back of the platform. +An instant later he re-appeared in company of a gigantic negro, the two +of them bearing between them a large square packing-case. It was +evidently of great weight, and was slowly carried forward and placed in +front of the Professor's chair. All sound had hushed in the audience +and everyone was absorbed in the spectacle before them. Professor +Challenger drew off the top of the case, which formed a sliding lid. +Peering down into the box he snapped his fingers several times and was +heard from the Press seat to say, 'Come, then, pretty, pretty!' in a +coaxing voice. An instant later, with a scratching, rattling sound, a +most horrible and loathsome creature appeared from below and perched +itself upon the side of the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke +of Durham into the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not +distract the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the +creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad +medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, +with two small red eyes as bright as points of burning coal. Its long, +savage mouth, which was held half-open, was full of a double row of +shark-like teeth. Its shoulders were humped, and round them were +draped what appeared to be a faded gray shawl. It was the devil of our +childhood in person. There was a turmoil in the audience--someone +screamed, two ladies in the front row fell senseless from their chairs, +and there was a general movement upon the platform to follow their +chairman into the orchestra. For a moment there was danger of a +general panic. Professor Challenger threw up his hands to still the +commotion, but the movement alarmed the creature beside him. Its +strange shawl suddenly unfurled, spread, and fluttered as a pair of +leathery wings. Its owner grabbed at its legs, but too late to hold +it. It had sprung from the perch and was circling slowly round the +Queen's Hall with a dry, leathery flapping of its ten-foot wings, while +a putrid and insidious odor pervaded the room. The cries of the people +in the galleries, who were alarmed at the near approach of those +glowing eyes and that murderous beak, excited the creature to a frenzy. +Faster and faster it flew, beating against walls and chandeliers in a +blind frenzy of alarm. 'The window! For heaven's sake shut that +window!' roared the Professor from the platform, dancing and wringing +his hands in an agony of apprehension. Alas, his warning was too late! +In a moment the creature, beating and bumping along the wall like a +huge moth within a gas-shade, came upon the opening, squeezed its +hideous bulk through it, and was gone. Professor Challenger fell back +into his chair with his face buried in his hands, while the audience +gave one long, deep sigh of relief as they realized that the incident +was over. + +"Then--oh! how shall one describe what took place then--when the full +exuberance of the majority and the full reaction of the minority united +to make one great wave of enthusiasm, which rolled from the back of the +hall, gathering volume as it came, swept over the orchestra, submerged +the platform, and carried the four heroes away upon its crest?" (Good +for you, Mac!) "If the audience had done less than justice, surely it +made ample amends. Every one was on his feet. Every one was moving, +shouting, gesticulating. A dense crowd of cheering men were round the +four travelers. 'Up with them! up with them!' cried a hundred voices. +In a moment four figures shot up above the crowd. In vain they strove +to break loose. They were held in their lofty places of honor. It +would have been hard to let them down if it had been wished, so dense +was the crowd around them. 'Regent Street! Regent Street!' sounded +the voices. There was a swirl in the packed multitude, and a slow +current, bearing the four upon their shoulders, made for the door. Out +in the street the scene was extraordinary. An assemblage of not less +than a hundred thousand people was waiting. The close-packed throng +extended from the other side of the Langham Hotel to Oxford Circus. A +roar of acclamation greeted the four adventurers as they appeared, high +above the heads of the people, under the vivid electric lamps outside +the hall. 'A procession! A procession!' was the cry. In a dense +phalanx, blocking the streets from side to side, the crowd set forth, +taking the route of Regent Street, Pall Mall, St. James's Street, and +Piccadilly. The whole central traffic of London was held up, and many +collisions were reported between the demonstrators upon the one side +and the police and taxi-cabmen upon the other. Finally, it was not +until after midnight that the four travelers were released at the +entrance to Lord John Roxton's chambers in the Albany, and that the +exuberant crowd, having sung 'They are Jolly Good Fellows' in chorus, +concluded their program with 'God Save the King.' So ended one of the +most remarkable evenings that London has seen for a considerable time." + +So far my friend Macdona; and it may be taken as a fairly accurate, if +florid, account of the proceedings. As to the main incident, it was a +bewildering surprise to the audience, but not, I need hardly say, to +us. The reader will remember how I met Lord John Roxton upon the very +occasion when, in his protective crinoline, he had gone to bring the +"Devil's chick" as he called it, for Professor Challenger. I have +hinted also at the trouble which the Professor's baggage gave us when +we left the plateau, and had I described our voyage I might have said a +good deal of the worry we had to coax with putrid fish the appetite of +our filthy companion. If I have not said much about it before, it was, +of course, that the Professor's earnest desire was that no possible +rumor of the unanswerable argument which we carried should be allowed +to leak out until the moment came when his enemies were to be confuted. + +One word as to the fate of the London pterodactyl. Nothing can be said +to be certain upon this point. There is the evidence of two frightened +women that it perched upon the roof of the Queen's Hall and remained +there like a diabolical statue for some hours. The next day it came +out in the evening papers that Private Miles, of the Coldstream Guards, +on duty outside Marlborough House, had deserted his post without leave, +and was therefore courtmartialed. Private Miles' account, that he +dropped his rifle and took to his heels down the Mall because on +looking up he had suddenly seen the devil between him and the moon, was +not accepted by the Court, and yet it may have a direct bearing upon +the point at issue. The only other evidence which I can adduce is from +the log of the SS. Friesland, a Dutch-American liner, which asserts +that at nine next morning, Start Point being at the time ten miles upon +their starboard quarter, they were passed by something between a flying +goat and a monstrous bat, which was heading at a prodigious pace south +and west. If its homing instinct led it upon the right line, there can +be no doubt that somewhere out in the wastes of the Atlantic the last +European pterodactyl found its end. + +And Gladys--oh, my Gladys!--Gladys of the mystic lake, now to be +re-named the Central, for never shall she have immortality through me. +Did I not always see some hard fiber in her nature? Did I not, even at +the time when I was proud to obey her behest, feel that it was surely a +poor love which could drive a lover to his death or the danger of it? +Did I not, in my truest thoughts, always recurring and always +dismissed, see past the beauty of the face, and, peering into the soul, +discern the twin shadows of selfishness and of fickleness glooming at +the back of it? Did she love the heroic and the spectacular for its +own noble sake, or was it for the glory which might, without effort or +sacrifice, be reflected upon herself? Or are these thoughts the vain +wisdom which comes after the event? It was the shock of my life. For +a moment it had turned me to a cynic. But already, as I write, a week +has passed, and we have had our momentous interview with Lord John +Roxton and--well, perhaps things might be worse. + +Let me tell it in a few words. No letter or telegram had come to me at +Southampton, and I reached the little villa at Streatham about ten +o'clock that night in a fever of alarm. Was she dead or alive? Where +were all my nightly dreams of the open arms, the smiling face, the +words of praise for her man who had risked his life to humor her whim? +Already I was down from the high peaks and standing flat-footed upon +earth. Yet some good reasons given might still lift me to the clouds +once more. I rushed down the garden path, hammered at the door, heard +the voice of Gladys within, pushed past the staring maid, and strode +into the sitting-room. She was seated in a low settee under the shaded +standard lamp by the piano. In three steps I was across the room and +had both her hands in mine. + +"Gladys!" I cried, "Gladys!" + +She looked up with amazement in her face. She was altered in some +subtle way. The expression of her eyes, the hard upward stare, the set +of the lips, was new to me. She drew back her hands. + +"What do you mean?" she said. + +"Gladys!" I cried. "What is the matter? You are my Gladys, are you +not--little Gladys Hungerton?" + +"No," said she, "I am Gladys Potts. Let me introduce you to my +husband." + +How absurd life is! I found myself mechanically bowing and shaking +hands with a little ginger-haired man who was coiled up in the deep +arm-chair which had once been sacred to my own use. We bobbed and +grinned in front of each other. + +"Father lets us stay here. We are getting our house ready," said +Gladys. + +"Oh, yes," said I. + +"You didn't get my letter at Para, then?" + +"No, I got no letter." + +"Oh, what a pity! It would have made all clear." + +"It is quite clear," said I. + +"I've told William all about you," said she. "We have no secrets. I +am so sorry about it. But it couldn't have been so very deep, could +it, if you could go off to the other end of the world and leave me here +alone. You're not crabby, are you?" + +"No, no, not at all. I think I'll go." + +"Have some refreshment," said the little man, and he added, in a +confidential way, "It's always like this, ain't it? And must be unless +you had polygamy, only the other way round; you understand." He laughed +like an idiot, while I made for the door. + +I was through it, when a sudden fantastic impulse came upon me, and I +went back to my successful rival, who looked nervously at the electric +push. + +"Will you answer a question?" I asked. + +"Well, within reason," said he. + +"How did you do it? Have you searched for hidden treasure, or +discovered a pole, or done time on a pirate, or flown the Channel, or +what? Where is the glamour of romance? How did you get it?" + +He stared at me with a hopeless expression upon his vacuous, +good-natured, scrubby little face. + +"Don't you think all this is a little too personal?" he said. + +"Well, just one question," I cried. "What are you? What is your +profession?" + +"I am a solicitor's clerk," said he. "Second man at Johnson and +Merivale's, 41 Chancery Lane." + +"Good-night!" said I, and vanished, like all disconsolate and +broken-hearted heroes, into the darkness, with grief and rage and +laughter all simmering within me like a boiling pot. + +One more little scene, and I have done. Last night we all supped at +Lord John Roxton's rooms, and sitting together afterwards we smoked in +good comradeship and talked our adventures over. It was strange under +these altered surroundings to see the old, well-known faces and +figures. There was Challenger, with his smile of condescension, his +drooping eyelids, his intolerant eyes, his aggressive beard, his huge +chest, swelling and puffing as he laid down the law to Summerlee. And +Summerlee, too, there he was with his short briar between his thin +moustache and his gray goat's-beard, his worn face protruded in eager +debate as he queried all Challenger's propositions. Finally, there was +our host, with his rugged, eagle face, and his cold, blue, glacier eyes +with always a shimmer of devilment and of humor down in the depths of +them. Such is the last picture of them that I have carried away. + +It was after supper, in his own sanctum--the room of the pink radiance +and the innumerable trophies--that Lord John Roxton had something to +say to us. From a cupboard he had brought an old cigar-box, and this +he laid before him on the table. + +"There's one thing," said he, "that maybe I should have spoken about +before this, but I wanted to know a little more clearly where I was. +No use to raise hopes and let them down again. But it's facts, not +hopes, with us now. You may remember that day we found the pterodactyl +rookery in the swamp--what? Well, somethin' in the lie of the land +took my notice. Perhaps it has escaped you, so I will tell you. It +was a volcanic vent full of blue clay." The Professors nodded. + +"Well, now, in the whole world I've only had to do with one place that +was a volcanic vent of blue clay. That was the great De Beers Diamond +Mine of Kimberley--what? So you see I got diamonds into my head. I +rigged up a contraption to hold off those stinking beasts, and I spent +a happy day there with a spud. This is what I got." + +He opened his cigar-box, and tilting it over he poured about twenty or +thirty rough stones, varying from the size of beans to that of +chestnuts, on the table. + +"Perhaps you think I should have told you then. Well, so I should, +only I know there are a lot of traps for the unwary, and that stones +may be of any size and yet of little value where color and consistency +are clean off. Therefore, I brought them back, and on the first day at +home I took one round to Spink's, and asked him to have it roughly cut +and valued." + +He took a pill-box from his pocket, and spilled out of it a beautiful +glittering diamond, one of the finest stones that I have ever seen. + +"There's the result," said he. "He prices the lot at a minimum of two +hundred thousand pounds. Of course it is fair shares between us. I +won't hear of anythin' else. Well, Challenger, what will you do with +your fifty thousand?" + +"If you really persist in your generous view," said the Professor, "I +should found a private museum, which has long been one of my dreams." + +"And you, Summerlee?" + +"I would retire from teaching, and so find time for my final +classification of the chalk fossils." + +"I'll use my own," said Lord John Roxton, "in fitting a well-formed +expedition and having another look at the dear old plateau. As to you, +young fellah, you, of course, will spend yours in gettin' married." + +"Not just yet," said I, with a rueful smile. "I think, if you will +have me, that I would rather go with you." + +Lord Roxton said nothing, but a brown hand was stretched out to me +across the table. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 139 *** diff --git a/139-h/139-h.htm b/139-h/139-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7dbbd9f --- /dev/null +++ b/139-h/139-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10606 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle. +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: medium; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 139 ***</div> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE LOST WORLD +</H1> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I have wrought my simple plan<BR> + If I give one hour of joy<BR> +To the boy who's half a man,<BR> + Or the man who's half a boy. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +The Lost World +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE +</H2> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1912 +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Foreword +</H3> + +<P> +Mr. E. D. Malone desires to state that +both the injunction for restraint and the +libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly +by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being +satisfied that no criticism or comment in +this book is meant in an offensive spirit, +has guaranteed that he will place no +impediment to its publication and circulation. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Contents +</H2> + +<BR> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">"THERE ARE HEROISMS ALL ROUND US"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">"TRY YOUR LUCK WITH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">"HE IS A PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE PERSON"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">"IT'S JUST THE VERY BIGGEST THING IN THE WORLD"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">"QUESTION!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">"I WAS THE FLAIL OF THE LORD"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">"TO-MORROW WE DISAPPEAR INTO THE UNKNOWN"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">"THE OUTLYING PICKETS OF THE NEW WORLD"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">"WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN IT?"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">"THE MOST WONDERFUL THINGS HAVE HAPPENED"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">"FOR ONCE I WAS THE HERO"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">"IT WAS DREADFUL IN THE FOREST"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">"A SIGHT I SHALL NEVER FORGET"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">"THOSE WERE THE REAL CONQUESTS"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">"OUR EYES HAVE SEEN GREAT WONDERS"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">"A PROCESSION! A PROCESSION!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE LOST WORLD +</H1> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +The Lost World +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "There Are Heroisms All Round Us" +</H3> + +<P> +Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon +earth,—a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly +good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If +anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the +thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really +believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a +week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his +views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an +authority. +</P> + +<P> +For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup +about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the +depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange. +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose," he cried with feeble violence, "that all the debts in the +world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted +upon,—what under our present conditions would happen then?" +</P> + +<P> +I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon +which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, +which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in +my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic +meeting. +</P> + +<P> +At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! All +that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which +will send him on a forlorn hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse +alternating in his mind. +</P> + +<P> +She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the +red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been +friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same +comradeship which I might have established with one of my +fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,—perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, +and perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too +frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where +the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, +heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in +hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing +figure—these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the +true signals of passion. Even in my short life I had learned as much +as that—or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct. +</P> + +<P> +Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be cold +and hard; but such a thought was treason. That delicately bronzed +skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large +liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,—all the stigmata of passion +were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found +the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should +have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She +could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted +brother. +</P> + +<P> +So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long +and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, +and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof. "I have a +presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you +wouldn't; for things are so much nicer as they are." +</P> + +<P> +I drew my chair a little nearer. "Now, how did you know that I was +going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was +ever taken unawares? But—oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and +so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don't you feel how splendid it +is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to +face as we have talked?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with—with the +station-master." I can't imagine how that official came into the +matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing. "That does not +satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you, and your head on my +breast, and—oh, Gladys, I want——" +</P> + +<P> +She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to +demonstrate some of my wants. "You've spoiled everything, Ned," she +said. "It's all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing +comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you control yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't invent it," I pleaded. "It's nature. It's love." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never felt +it." +</P> + +<P> +"But you must—you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you +were made for love! You must love!" +</P> + +<P> +"One must wait till it comes." +</P> + +<P> +"But why can't you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?" +</P> + +<P> +She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand—such a gracious, +stooping attitude it was—and she pressed back my head. Then she +looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile. +</P> + +<P> +"No it isn't that," she said at last. "You're not a conceited boy by +nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. It's deeper." +</P> + +<P> +"My character?" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded severely. +</P> + +<P> +"What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. No, really, +I won't if you'll only sit down!" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my +mind than her whole-hearted confidence. How primitive and bestial it +looks when you put it down in black and white!—and perhaps after all +it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat down. +</P> + +<P> +"Now tell me what's amiss with me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm in love with somebody else," said she. +</P> + +<P> +It was my turn to jump out of my chair. +</P> + +<P> +"It's nobody in particular," she explained, laughing at the expression +of my face: "only an ideal. I've never met the kind of man I mean." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me about him. What does he look like?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he might look very much like you." +</P> + +<P> +"How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I +don't do? Just say the word,—teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, +theosophist, superman. I'll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only +give me an idea what would please you." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed at the elasticity of my character. "Well, in the first +place, I don't think my ideal would speak like that," said she. "He +would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a +silly girl's whim. But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who +could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a +man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I +should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be +reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! When I read his wife's +life of him I could so understand her love! And Lady Stanley! Did you +ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? +These are the sort of men that a woman could worship with all her soul, +and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honored +by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds." +</P> + +<P> +She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down +the whole level of the interview. I gripped myself hard, and went on +with the argument. +</P> + +<P> +"We can't all be Stanleys and Burtons," said I; "besides, we don't get +the chance,—at least, I never had the chance. If I did, I should try +to take it." +</P> + +<P> +"But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I +mean that he makes his own chances. You can't hold him back. I've +never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There are heroisms +all round us waiting to be done. It's for men to do them, and for +women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. Look at that +young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. It was blowing a +gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on +starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four +hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I +mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have +envied her! That's what I should like to be,—envied for my man." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd have done it to please you." +</P> + +<P> +"But you shouldn't do it merely to please me. You should do it because +you can't help yourself, because it's natural to you, because the man +in you is crying out for heroic expression. Now, when you described +the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and +helped those people, in spite of the choke-damp?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did." +</P> + +<P> +"You never said so." +</P> + +<P> +"There was nothing worth bucking about." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know." She looked at me with rather more interest. "That +was brave of you." +</P> + +<P> +"I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the +things are." +</P> + +<P> +"What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. +But, still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that +mine." She gave me her hand; but with such sweetness and dignity that +I could only stoop and kiss it. "I dare say I am merely a foolish +woman with a young girl's fancies. And yet it is so real with me, so +entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I +marry, I do want to marry a famous man!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you not?" I cried. "It is women like you who brace men up. +Give me a chance, and see if I will take it! Besides, as you say, men +ought to MAKE their own chances, and not wait until they are given. +Look at Clive—just a clerk, and he conquered India! By George! I'll +do something in the world yet!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. "Why not?" she said. +"You have everything a man could have,—youth, health, strength, +education, energy. I was sorry you spoke. And now I am glad—so +glad—if it wakens these thoughts in you!" +</P> + +<P> +"And if I do——" +</P> + +<P> +Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. "Not another word, +Sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour +ago; only I hadn't the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when +you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again." +</P> + +<P> +And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing +the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager +determination that not another day should elapse before I should find +some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who—who in all this wide +world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was +to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it? +</P> + +<P> +And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have +nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no +narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world +with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the +desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight +of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and +ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the +great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the office +of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant +unit, with the settled determination that very night, if possible, to +find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness, +was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own +glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to +ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger" +</H3> + +<P> +I always liked McArdle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, red-headed news +editor, and I rather hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was +the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian +height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an +international crisis or a split in the Cabinet. Sometimes we saw him +passing in lonely majesty to his inner sanctum, with his eyes staring +vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He +was above and beyond us. But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it +was he that we knew. The old man nodded as I entered the room, and he +pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mr. Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very well," +said he in his kindly Scotch accent. +</P> + +<P> +I thanked him. +</P> + +<P> +"The colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwark fire. You +have the true descreeptive touch. What did you want to see me about?" +</P> + +<P> +"To ask a favor." +</P> + +<P> +He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine. "Tut, tut! What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for +the paper? I would do my best to put it through and get you some good +copy." +</P> + +<P> +"What sort of meesion had you in your mind, Mr. Malone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. I really +would do my very best. The more difficult it was, the better it would +suit me." +</P> + +<P> +"You seem very anxious to lose your life." +</P> + +<P> +"To justify my life, Sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me, Mr. Malone, this is very—very exalted. I'm afraid the day +for this sort of thing is rather past. The expense of the 'special +meesion' business hardly justifies the result, and, of course, in any +case it would only be an experienced man with a name that would command +public confidence who would get such an order. The big blank spaces in +the map are all being filled in, and there's no room for romance +anywhere. Wait a bit, though!" he added, with a sudden smile upon his +face. "Talking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea. What +about exposing a fraud—a modern Munchausen—and making him +rideeculous? You could show him up as the liar that he is! Eh, man, +it would be fine. How does it appeal to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Anything—anywhere—I care nothing." +</P> + +<P> +McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder whether you could get on friendly—or at least on talking +terms with the fellow," he said, at last. "You seem to have a sort of +genius for establishing relations with people—seempathy, I suppose, or +animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something. I am conscious +of it myself." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very good, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger, of +Enmore Park?" +</P> + +<P> +I dare say I looked a little startled. +</P> + +<P> +"Challenger!" I cried. "Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist! +Wasn't he the man who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph?" +</P> + +<P> +The news editor smiled grimly. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mind? Didn't you say it was adventures you were after?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is all in the way of business, sir," I answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. I don't suppose he can always be so violent as that. I'm +thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the +wrong fashion. You may have better luck, or more tact in handling him. +There's something in your line there, I am sure, and the Gazette should +work it." +</P> + +<P> +"I really know nothing about him," said I. "I only remember his name +in connection with the police-court proceedings, for striking Blundell." +</P> + +<P> +"I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr. Malone. I've had my eye on +the Professor for some little time." He took a paper from a drawer. +"Here is a summary of his record. I give it you briefly:— +</P> + +<P> +"'Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863. Educ.: Largs +Academy; Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. +Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. +Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year. Winner of +Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign Member of'—well, +quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type—'Societe Belge, +American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc. Ex-President +Palaeontological Society. Section H, British Association'—so on, so +on!—'Publications: "Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuck +Skulls"; "Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution"; and numerous papers, +including "The underlying fallacy of Weissmannism," which caused heated +discussion at the Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations: Walking, +Alpine climbing. Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.' +</P> + +<P> +"There, take it with you. I've nothing more for you to-night." +</P> + +<P> +I pocketed the slip of paper. +</P> + +<P> +"One moment, sir," I said, as I realized that it was a pink bald head, +and not a red face, which was fronting me. "I am not very clear yet +why I am to interview this gentleman. What has he done?" +</P> + +<P> +The face flashed back again. +</P> + +<P> +"Went to South America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago. Came +back last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to +say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a vague way, but +somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. +Something wonderful happened—or the man's a champion liar, which is +the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to +be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, +and heaves reporters down the stairs. In my opinion he's just a +homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. +Malone. Now, off you run, and see what you can make of him. You're +big enough to look after yourself. Anyway, you are all safe. +Employers' Liability Act, you know." +</P> + +<P> +A grinning red face turned once more into a pink oval, fringed with +gingery fluff; the interview was at an end. +</P> + +<P> +I walked across to the Savage Club, but instead of turning into it I +leaned upon the railings of Adelphi Terrace and gazed thoughtfully for +a long time at the brown, oily river. I can always think most sanely +and clearly in the open air. I took out the list of Professor +Challenger's exploits, and I read it over under the electric lamp. +Then I had what I can only regard as an inspiration. As a Pressman, I +felt sure from what I had been told that I could never hope to get into +touch with this cantankerous Professor. But these recriminations, +twice mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean that he was +a fanatic in science. Was there not an exposed margin there upon which +he might be accessible? I would try. +</P> + +<P> +I entered the club. It was just after eleven, and the big room was +fairly full, though the rush had not yet set in. I noticed a tall, +thin, angular man seated in an arm-chair by the fire. He turned as I +drew my chair up to him. It was the man of all others whom I should +have chosen—Tarp Henry, of the staff of Nature, a thin, dry, leathery +creature, who was full, to those who knew him, of kindly humanity. I +plunged instantly into my subject. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you know of Professor Challenger?" +</P> + +<P> +"Challenger?" He gathered his brows in scientific disapproval. +"Challenger was the man who came with some cock-and-bull story from +South America." +</P> + +<P> +"What story?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it was rank nonsense about some queer animals he had discovered. +I believe he has retracted since. Anyhow, he has suppressed it all. +He gave an interview to Reuter's, and there was such a howl that he saw +it wouldn't do. It was a discreditable business. There were one or +two folk who were inclined to take him seriously, but he soon choked +them off." +</P> + +<P> +"How?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior. There was +poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent a message: +'The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments to +Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favor if he would +do them the honor to come to their next meeting.' The answer was +unprintable." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: 'Professor Challenger +presents his compliments to the President of the Zoological Institute, +and would take it as a personal favor if he would go to the devil.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I expect that's what old Wadley said. I remember his wail at the +meeting, which began: 'In fifty years experience of scientific +intercourse——' It quite broke the old man up." +</P> + +<P> +"Anything more about Challenger?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a +nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take serious +notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye. I'm a +frontiersman from the extreme edge of the Knowable, and I feel quite +out of place when I leave my study and come into touch with all you +great, rough, hulking creatures. I'm too detached to talk scandal, and +yet at scientific conversaziones I HAVE heard something of Challenger, +for he is one of those men whom nobody can ignore. He's as clever as +they make 'em—a full-charged battery of force and vitality, but a +quarrelsome, ill-conditioned faddist, and unscrupulous at that. He had +gone the length of faking some photographs over the South American +business." +</P> + +<P> +"You say he is a faddist. What is his particular fad?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has a thousand, but the latest is something about Weissmann and +Evolution. He had a fearful row about it in Vienna, I believe." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you tell me the point?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not at the moment, but a translation of the proceedings exists. We +have it filed at the office. Would you care to come?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's just what I want. I have to interview the fellow, and I need +some lead up to him. It's really awfully good of you to give me a +lift. I'll go with you now, if it is not too late." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a huge +tome in front of me, which had been opened at the article "Weissmann +versus Darwin," with the sub heading, "Spirited Protest at Vienna. +Lively Proceedings." My scientific education having been somewhat +neglected, I was unable to follow the whole argument, but it was +evident that the English Professor had handled his subject in a very +aggressive fashion, and had thoroughly annoyed his Continental +colleagues. "Protests," "Uproar," and "General appeal to the Chairman" +were three of the first brackets which caught my eye. Most of the +matter might have been written in Chinese for any definite meaning that +it conveyed to my brain. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you could translate it into English for me," I said, +pathetically, to my help-mate. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is a translation." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'd better try my luck with the original." +</P> + +<P> +"It is certainly rather deep for a layman." +</P> + +<P> +"If I could only get a single good, meaty sentence which seemed to +convey some sort of definite human idea, it would serve my turn. Ah, +yes, this one will do. I seem in a vague way almost to understand it. +I'll copy it out. This shall be my link with the terrible Professor." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing else I can do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, yes; I propose to write to him. If I could frame the letter +here, and use your address it would give atmosphere." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll have the fellow round here making a row and breaking the +furniture." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no; you'll see the letter—nothing contentious, I assure you." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's my chair and desk. You'll find paper there. I'd like to +censor it before it goes." +</P> + +<P> +It took some doing, but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a bad job +when it was finished. I read it aloud to the critical bacteriologist +with some pride in my handiwork. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"DEAR PROFESSOR CHALLENGER," it said, "As a humble student of Nature, I +have always taken the most profound interest in your speculations as to +the differences between Darwin and Weissmann. I have recently had +occasion to refresh my memory by re-reading——" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"You infernal liar!" murmured Tarp Henry. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +—"by re-reading your masterly address at Vienna. That lucid and +admirable statement seems to be the last word in the matter. There is +one sentence in it, however—namely: 'I protest strongly against the +insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that each separate id is a +microcosm possessed of an historical architecture elaborated slowly +through the series of generations.' Have you no desire, in view of +later research, to modify this statement? Do you not think that it is +over-accentuated? With your permission, I would ask the favor of an +interview, as I feel strongly upon the subject, and have certain +suggestions which I could only elaborate in a personal conversation. +With your consent, I trust to have the honor of calling at eleven +o'clock the day after to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"I remain, Sir, with assurances of profound respect, yours very truly, +<BR> +EDWARD D. MALONE." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"How's that?" I asked, triumphantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well if your conscience can stand it——" +</P> + +<P> +"It has never failed me yet." +</P> + +<P> +"But what do you mean to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"To get there. Once I am in his room I may see some opening. I may +even go the length of open confession. If he is a sportsman he will be +tickled." +</P> + +<P> +"Tickled, indeed! He's much more likely to do the tickling. Chain +mail, or an American football suit—that's what you'll want. Well, +good-bye. I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning—if +he ever deigns to answer you. He is a violent, dangerous, cantankerous +character, hated by everyone who comes across him, and the butt of the +students, so far as they dare take a liberty with him. Perhaps it +would be best for you if you never heard from the fellow at all." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "He is a Perfectly Impossible Person" +</H3> + +<P> +My friend's fear or hope was not destined to be realized. When I +called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington +postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a +handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing. The contents were +as follows:— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"ENMORE PARK, W. +</P> + +<P> +"SIR,—I have duly received your note, in which you claim to endorse my +views, although I am not aware that they are dependent upon endorsement +either from you or anyone else. You have ventured to use the word +'speculation' with regard to my statement upon the subject of +Darwinism, and I would call your attention to the fact that such a word +in such a connection is offensive to a degree. The context convinces +me, however, that you have sinned rather through ignorance and +tactlessness than through malice, so I am content to pass the matter +by. You quote an isolated sentence from my lecture, and appear to have +some difficulty in understanding it. I should have thought that only a +sub-human intelligence could have failed to grasp the point, but if it +really needs amplification I shall consent to see you at the hour +named, though visits and visitors of every sort are exceeding +distasteful to me. As to your suggestion that I may modify my opinion, +I would have you know that it is not my habit to do so after a +deliberate expression of my mature views. You will kindly show the +envelope of this letter to my man, Austin, when you call, as he has to +take every precaution to shield me from the intrusive rascals who call +themselves 'journalists.' +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"Yours faithfully,<BR> + "GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This was the letter that I read aloud to Tarp Henry, who had come down +early to hear the result of my venture. His only remark was, "There's +some new stuff, cuticura or something, which is better than arnica." +Some people have such extraordinary notions of humor. +</P> + +<P> +It was nearly half-past ten before I had received my message, but a +taxicab took me round in good time for my appointment. It was an +imposing porticoed house at which we stopped, and the heavily-curtained +windows gave every indication of wealth upon the part of this +formidable Professor. The door was opened by an odd, swarthy, dried-up +person of uncertain age, with a dark pilot jacket and brown leather +gaiters. I found afterwards that he was the chauffeur, who filled the +gaps left by a succession of fugitive butlers. He looked me up and +down with a searching light blue eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Expected?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"An appointment." +</P> + +<P> +"Got your letter?" +</P> + +<P> +I produced the envelope. +</P> + +<P> +"Right!" He seemed to be a person of few words. Following him down +the passage I was suddenly interrupted by a small woman, who stepped +out from what proved to be the dining-room door. She was a bright, +vivacious, dark-eyed lady, more French than English in her type. +</P> + +<P> +"One moment," she said. "You can wait, Austin. Step in here, sir. +May I ask if you have met my husband before?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, madam, I have not had the honor." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I apologize to you in advance. I must tell you that he is a +perfectly impossible person—absolutely impossible. If you are +forewarned you will be the more ready to make allowances." +</P> + +<P> +"It is most considerate of you, madam." +</P> + +<P> +"Get quickly out of the room if he seems inclined to be violent. Don't +wait to argue with him. Several people have been injured through doing +that. Afterwards there is a public scandal and it reflects upon me and +all of us. I suppose it wasn't about South America you wanted to see +him?" +</P> + +<P> +I could not lie to a lady. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me! That is his most dangerous subject. You won't believe a +word he says—I'm sure I don't wonder. But don't tell him so, for it +makes him very violent. Pretend to believe him, and you may get +through all right. Remember he believes it himself. Of that you may +be assured. A more honest man never lived. Don't wait any longer or +he may suspect. If you find him dangerous—really dangerous—ring the +bell and hold him off until I come. Even at his worst I can usually +control him." +</P> + +<P> +With these encouraging words the lady handed me over to the taciturn +Austin, who had waited like a bronze statue of discretion during our +short interview, and I was conducted to the end of the passage. There +was a tap at a door, a bull's bellow from within, and I was face to +face with the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +He sat in a rotating chair behind a broad table, which was covered with +books, maps, and diagrams. As I entered, his seat spun round to face +me. His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something +strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his +size which took one's breath away—his size and his imposing presence. +His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. +I am sure that his top-hat, had I ever ventured to don it, would have +slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face +and beard which I associate with an Assyrian bull; the former florid, +the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped +and rippling down over his chest. The hair was peculiar, plastered +down in front in a long, curving wisp over his massive forehead. The +eyes were blue-gray under great black tufts, very clear, very critical, +and very masterful. A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a +barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table, save +for two enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a +bellowing, roaring, rumbling voice made up my first impression of the +notorious Professor Challenger. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" said he, with a most insolent stare. "What now?" +</P> + +<P> +I must keep up my deception for at least a little time longer, +otherwise here was evidently an end of the interview. +</P> + +<P> +"You were good enough to give me an appointment, sir," said I, humbly, +producing his envelope. +</P> + +<P> +He took my letter from his desk and laid it out before him. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you are the young person who cannot understand plain English, are +you? My general conclusions you are good enough to approve, as I +understand?" +</P> + +<P> +"Entirely, sir—entirely!" I was very emphatic. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me! That strengthens my position very much, does it not? Your +age and appearance make your support doubly valuable. Well, at least +you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna, whose gregarious +grunt is, however, not more offensive than the isolated effort of the +British hog." He glared at me as the present representative of the +beast. +</P> + +<P> +"They seem to have behaved abominably," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"I assure you that I can fight my own battles, and that I have no +possible need of your sympathy. Put me alone, sir, and with my back to +the wall. G. E. C. is happiest then. Well, sir, let us do what we can +to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is +inexpressibly irksome to me. You had, as I have been led to believe, +some comments to make upon the proposition which I advanced in my +thesis." +</P> + +<P> +There was a brutal directness about his methods which made evasion +difficult. I must still make play and wait for a better opening. It +had seemed simple enough at a distance. Oh, my Irish wits, could they +not help me now, when I needed help so sorely? He transfixed me with +two sharp, steely eyes. "Come, come!" he rumbled. +</P> + +<P> +"I am, of course, a mere student," said I, with a fatuous smile, +"hardly more, I might say, than an earnest inquirer. At the same time, +it seemed to me that you were a little severe upon Weissmann in this +matter. Has not the general evidence since that date tended to—well, +to strengthen his position?" +</P> + +<P> +"What evidence?" He spoke with a menacing calm. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, of course, I am aware that there is not any what you might call +DEFINITE evidence. I alluded merely to the trend of modern thought and +the general scientific point of view, if I might so express it." +</P> + +<P> +He leaned forward with great earnestness. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you are aware," said he, checking off points upon his +fingers, "that the cranial index is a constant factor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"And that telegony is still sub judice?" +</P> + +<P> +"Undoubtedly." +</P> + +<P> +"And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, surely!" I cried, and gloried in my own audacity. +</P> + +<P> +"But what does that prove?" he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, what indeed?" I murmured. "What does it prove?" +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I tell you?" he cooed. +</P> + +<P> +"Pray do." +</P> + +<P> +"It proves," he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, "that you are the +damnedest imposter in London—a vile, crawling journalist, who has no +more science than he has decency in his composition!" +</P> + +<P> +He had sprung to his feet with a mad rage in his eyes. Even at that +moment of tension I found time for amazement at the discovery that he +was quite a short man, his head not higher than my shoulder—a stunted +Hercules whose tremendous vitality had all run to depth, breadth, and +brain. +</P> + +<P> +"Gibberish!" he cried, leaning forward, with his fingers on the table +and his face projecting. "That's what I have been talking to you, +sir—scientific gibberish! Did you think you could match cunning with +me—you with your walnut of a brain? You think you are omnipotent, you +infernal scribblers, don't you? That your praise can make a man and +your blame can break him? We must all bow to you, and try to get a +favorable word, must we? This man shall have a leg up, and this man +shall have a dressing down! Creeping vermin, I know you! You've got +out of your station. Time was when your ears were clipped. You've +lost your sense of proportion. Swollen gas-bags! I'll keep you in +your proper place. Yes, sir, you haven't got over G. E. C. There's +one man who is still your master. He warned you off, but if you WILL +come, by the Lord you do it at your own risk. Forfeit, my good Mr. +Malone, I claim forfeit! You have played a rather dangerous game, and +it strikes me that you have lost it." +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, sir," said I, backing to the door and opening it; "you can +be as abusive as you like. But there is a limit. You shall not +assault me." +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I not?" He was slowly advancing in a peculiarly menacing way, +but he stopped now and put his big hands into the side-pockets of a +rather boyish short jacket which he wore. "I have thrown several of +you out of the house. You will be the fourth or fifth. Three pound +fifteen each—that is how it averaged. Expensive, but very necessary. +Now, sir, why should you not follow your brethren? I rather think you +must." He resumed his unpleasant and stealthy advance, pointing his +toes as he walked, like a dancing master. +</P> + +<P> +I could have bolted for the hall door, but it would have been too +ignominious. Besides, a little glow of righteous anger was springing +up within me. I had been hopelessly in the wrong before, but this +man's menaces were putting me in the right. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll trouble you to keep your hands off, sir. I'll not stand it." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me!" His black moustache lifted and a white fang twinkled in a +sneer. "You won't stand it, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be such a fool, Professor!" I cried. "What can you hope for? +I'm fifteen stone, as hard as nails, and play center three-quarter +every Saturday for the London Irish. I'm not the man——" +</P> + +<P> +It was at that moment that he rushed me. It was lucky that I had +opened the door, or we should have gone through it. We did a +Catharine-wheel together down the passage. Somehow we gathered up a +chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street. My +mouth was full of his beard, our arms were locked, our bodies +intertwined, and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us. +The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went with a back +somersault down the front steps. I have seen the two Macs attempt +something of the kind at the halls, but it appears to take some +practise to do it without hurting oneself. The chair went to matchwood +at the bottom, and we rolled apart into the gutter. He sprang to his +feet, waving his fists and wheezing like an asthmatic. +</P> + +<P> +"Had enough?" he panted. +</P> + +<P> +"You infernal bully!" I cried, as I gathered myself together. +</P> + +<P> +Then and there we should have tried the thing out, for he was +effervescing with fight, but fortunately I was rescued from an odious +situation. A policeman was beside us, his notebook in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"What's all this? You ought to be ashamed" said the policeman. It was +the most rational remark which I had heard in Enmore Park. "Well," he +insisted, turning to me, "what is it, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"This man attacked me," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you attack him?" asked the policeman. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor breathed hard and said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not the first time, either," said the policeman, severely, +shaking his head. "You were in trouble last month for the same thing. +You've blackened this young man's eye. Do you give him in charge, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +I relented. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said I, "I do not." +</P> + +<P> +"What's that?" said the policeman. +</P> + +<P> +"I was to blame myself. I intruded upon him. He gave me fair warning." +</P> + +<P> +The policeman snapped up his notebook. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't let us have any more such goings-on," said he. "Now, then! +Move on, there, move on!" This to a butcher's boy, a maid, and one or +two loafers who had collected. He clumped heavily down the street, +driving this little flock before him. The Professor looked at me, and +there was something humorous at the back of his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Come in!" said he. "I've not done with you yet." +</P> + +<P> +The speech had a sinister sound, but I followed him none the less into +the house. The man-servant, Austin, like a wooden image, closed the +door behind us. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "It's Just the very Biggest Thing in the World" +</H3> + +<P> +Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger darted out from the +dining-room. The small woman was in a furious temper. She barred her +husband's way like an enraged chicken in front of a bulldog. It was +evident that she had seen my exit, but had not observed my return. +</P> + +<P> +"You brute, George!" she screamed. "You've hurt that nice young man." +</P> + +<P> +He jerked backwards with his thumb. +</P> + +<P> +"Here he is, safe and sound behind me." +</P> + +<P> +She was confused, but not unduly so. +</P> + +<P> +"I am so sorry, I didn't see you." +</P> + +<P> +"I assure you, madam, that it is all right." +</P> + +<P> +"He has marked your poor face! Oh, George, what a brute you are! +Nothing but scandals from one end of the week to the other. Everyone +hating and making fun of you. You've finished my patience. This ends +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Dirty linen," he rumbled. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not a secret," she cried. "Do you suppose that the whole +street—the whole of London, for that matter—— Get away, Austin, we +don't want you here. Do you suppose they don't all talk about you? +Where is your dignity? You, a man who should have been Regius +Professor at a great University with a thousand students all revering +you. Where is your dignity, George?" +</P> + +<P> +"How about yours, my dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"You try me too much. A ruffian—a common brawling ruffian—that's +what you have become." +</P> + +<P> +"Be good, Jessie." +</P> + +<P> +"A roaring, raging bully!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's done it! Stool of penance!" said he. +</P> + +<P> +To my amazement he stooped, picked her up, and placed her sitting upon +a high pedestal of black marble in the angle of the hall. It was at +least seven feet high, and so thin that she could hardly balance upon +it. A more absurd object than she presented cocked up there with her +face convulsed with anger, her feet dangling, and her body rigid for +fear of an upset, I could not imagine. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me down!" she wailed. +</P> + +<P> +"Say 'please.'" +</P> + +<P> +"You brute, George! Let me down this instant!" +</P> + +<P> +"Come into the study, Mr. Malone." +</P> + +<P> +"Really, sir——!" said I, looking at the lady. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's Mr. Malone pleading for you, Jessie. Say 'please,' and down +you come." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you brute! Please! please!" +</P> + +<P> +He took her down as if she had been a canary. +</P> + +<P> +"You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. He will +have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra dozen among our +neighbors. 'Strange story of high life'—you felt fairly high on that +pedestal, did you not? Then a sub-title, 'Glimpse of a singular +menage.' He's a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone, a carrion eater, like all +of his kind—porcus ex grege diaboli—a swine from the devil's herd. +That's it, Malone—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are really intolerable!" said I, hotly. +</P> + +<P> +He bellowed with laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"We shall have a coalition presently," he boomed, looking from his wife +to me and puffing out his enormous chest. Then, suddenly altering his +tone, "Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone. I called you +back for some more serious purpose than to mix you up with our little +domestic pleasantries. Run away, little woman, and don't fret." He +placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders. "All that you say is +perfectly true. I should be a better man if I did what you advise, but +I shouldn't be quite George Edward Challenger. There are plenty of +better men, my dear, but only one G. E. C. So make the best of him." +He suddenly gave her a resounding kiss, which embarrassed me even more +than his violence had done. "Now, Mr. Malone," he continued, with a +great accession of dignity, "this way, if YOU please." +</P> + +<P> +We re-entered the room which we had left so tumultuously ten minutes +before. The Professor closed the door carefully behind us, motioned me +into an arm-chair, and pushed a cigar-box under my nose. +</P> + +<P> +"Real San Juan Colorado," he said. "Excitable people like you are the +better for narcotics. Heavens! don't bite it! Cut—and cut with +reverence! Now lean back, and listen attentively to whatever I may +care to say to you. If any remark should occur to you, you can reserve +it for some more opportune time. +</P> + +<P> +"First of all, as to your return to my house after your most +justifiable expulsion"—he protruded his beard, and stared at me as one +who challenges and invites contradiction—"after, as I say, your +well-merited expulsion. The reason lay in your answer to that most +officious policeman, in which I seemed to discern some glimmering of +good feeling upon your part—more, at any rate, than I am accustomed to +associate with your profession. In admitting that the fault of the +incident lay with you, you gave some evidence of a certain mental +detachment and breadth of view which attracted my favorable notice. +The sub-species of the human race to which you unfortunately belong has +always been below my mental horizon. Your words brought you suddenly +above it. You swam up into my serious notice. For this reason I asked +you to return with me, as I was minded to make your further +acquaintance. You will kindly deposit your ash in the small Japanese +tray on the bamboo table which stands at your left elbow." +</P> + +<P> +All this he boomed forth like a professor addressing his class. He had +swung round his revolving chair so as to face me, and he sat all puffed +out like an enormous bull-frog, his head laid back and his eyes +half-covered by supercilious lids. Now he suddenly turned himself +sideways, and all I could see of him was tangled hair with a red, +protruding ear. He was scratching about among the litter of papers +upon his desk. He faced me presently with what looked like a very +tattered sketch-book in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to talk to you about South America," said he. "No comments +if you please. First of all, I wish you to understand that nothing I +tell you now is to be repeated in any public way unless you have my +express permission. That permission will, in all human probability, +never be given. Is that clear?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is very hard," said I. "Surely a judicious account——" +</P> + +<P> +He replaced the notebook upon the table. +</P> + +<P> +"That ends it," said he. "I wish you a very good morning." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no!" I cried. "I submit to any conditions. So far as I can see, +I have no choice." +</P> + +<P> +"None in the world," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, I promise." +</P> + +<P> +"Word of honor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Word of honor." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at me with doubt in his insolent eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"After all, what do I know about your honor?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Upon my word, sir," I cried, angrily, "you take very great liberties! +I have never been so insulted in my life." +</P> + +<P> +He seemed more interested than annoyed at my outbreak. +</P> + +<P> +"Round-headed," he muttered. "Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, black-haired, +with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am an Irishman, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Irish Irish?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"That, of course, explains it. Let me see; you have given me your +promise that my confidence will be respected? That confidence, I may +say, will be far from complete. But I am prepared to give you a few +indications which will be of interest. In the first place, you are +probably aware that two years ago I made a journey to South +America—one which will be classical in the scientific history of the +world? The object of my journey was to verify some conclusions of +Wallace and of Bates, which could only be done by observing their +reported facts under the same conditions in which they had themselves +noted them. If my expedition had no other results it would still have +been noteworthy, but a curious incident occurred to me while there +which opened up an entirely fresh line of inquiry. +</P> + +<P> +"You are aware—or probably, in this half-educated age, you are not +aware—that the country round some parts of the Amazon is still only +partially explored, and that a great number of tributaries, some of +them entirely uncharted, run into the main river. It was my business +to visit this little-known back-country and to examine its fauna, which +furnished me with the materials for several chapters for that great and +monumental work upon zoology which will be my life's justification. I +was returning, my work accomplished, when I had occasion to spend a +night at a small Indian village at a point where a certain +tributary—the name and position of which I withhold—opens into the +main river. The natives were Cucama Indians, an amiable but degraded +race, with mental powers hardly superior to the average Londoner. I +had effected some cures among them upon my way up the river, and had +impressed them considerably with my personality, so that I was not +surprised to find myself eagerly awaited upon my return. I gathered +from their signs that someone had urgent need of my medical services, +and I followed the chief to one of his huts. When I entered I found +that the sufferer to whose aid I had been summoned had that instant +expired. He was, to my surprise, no Indian, but a white man; indeed, I +may say a very white man, for he was flaxen-haired and had some +characteristics of an albino. He was clad in rags, was very emaciated, +and bore every trace of prolonged hardship. So far as I could +understand the account of the natives, he was a complete stranger to +them, and had come upon their village through the woods alone and in +the last stage of exhaustion. +</P> + +<P> +"The man's knapsack lay beside the couch, and I examined the contents. +His name was written upon a tab within it—Maple White, Lake Avenue, +Detroit, Michigan. It is a name to which I am prepared always to lift +my hat. It is not too much to say that it will rank level with my own +when the final credit of this business comes to be apportioned. +</P> + +<P> +"From the contents of the knapsack it was evident that this man had +been an artist and poet in search of effects. There were scraps of +verse. I do not profess to be a judge of such things, but they +appeared to me to be singularly wanting in merit. There were also some +rather commonplace pictures of river scenery, a paint-box, a box of +colored chalks, some brushes, that curved bone which lies upon my +inkstand, a volume of Baxter's 'Moths and Butterflies,' a cheap +revolver, and a few cartridges. Of personal equipment he either had +none or he had lost it in his journey. Such were the total effects of +this strange American Bohemian. +</P> + +<P> +"I was turning away from him when I observed that something projected +from the front of his ragged jacket. It was this sketch-book, which +was as dilapidated then as you see it now. Indeed, I can assure you +that a first folio of Shakespeare could not be treated with greater +reverence than this relic has been since it came into my possession. I +hand it to you now, and I ask you to take it page by page and to +examine the contents." +</P> + +<P> +He helped himself to a cigar and leaned back with a fiercely critical +pair of eyes, taking note of the effect which this document would +produce. +</P> + +<P> +I had opened the volume with some expectation of a revelation, though +of what nature I could not imagine. The first page was disappointing, +however, as it contained nothing but the picture of a very fat man in a +pea-jacket, with the legend, "Jimmy Colver on the Mail-boat," written +beneath it. There followed several pages which were filled with small +sketches of Indians and their ways. Then came a picture of a cheerful +and corpulent ecclesiastic in a shovel hat, sitting opposite a very +thin European, and the inscription: "Lunch with Fra Cristofero at +Rosario." Studies of women and babies accounted for several more +pages, and then there was an unbroken series of animal drawings with +such explanations as "Manatee upon Sandbank," "Turtles and Their Eggs," +"Black Ajouti under a Miriti Palm"—the matter disclosing some sort of +pig-like animal; and finally came a double page of studies of +long-snouted and very unpleasant saurians. I could make nothing of it, +and said so to the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely these are only crocodiles?" +</P> + +<P> +"Alligators! Alligators! There is hardly such a thing as a true +crocodile in South America. The distinction between them——" +</P> + +<P> +"I meant that I could see nothing unusual—nothing to justify what you +have said." +</P> + +<P> +He smiled serenely. +</P> + +<P> +"Try the next page," said he. +</P> + +<P> +I was still unable to sympathize. It was a full-page sketch of a +landscape roughly tinted in color—the kind of painting which an +open-air artist takes as a guide to a future more elaborate effort. +There was a pale-green foreground of feathery vegetation, which sloped +upwards and ended in a line of cliffs dark red in color, and curiously +ribbed like some basaltic formations which I have seen. They extended +in an unbroken wall right across the background. At one point was an +isolated pyramidal rock, crowned by a great tree, which appeared to be +separated by a cleft from the main crag. Behind it all, a blue +tropical sky. A thin green line of vegetation fringed the summit of +the ruddy cliff. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It is no doubt a curious formation," said I "but I am not geologist +enough to say that it is wonderful." +</P> + +<P> +"Wonderful!" he repeated. "It is unique. It is incredible. No one on +earth has ever dreamed of such a possibility. Now the next." +</P> + +<P> +I turned it over, and gave an exclamation of surprise. There was a +full-page picture of the most extraordinary creature that I had ever +seen. It was the wild dream of an opium smoker, a vision of delirium. +The head was like that of a fowl, the body that of a bloated lizard, +the trailing tail was furnished with upward-turned spikes, and the +curved back was edged with a high serrated fringe, which looked like a +dozen cocks' wattles placed behind each other. In front of this +creature was an absurd mannikin, or dwarf, in human form, who stood +staring at it. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what do you think of that?" cried the Professor, rubbing his +hands with an air of triumph. +</P> + +<P> +"It is monstrous—grotesque." +</P> + +<P> +"But what made him draw such an animal?" +</P> + +<P> +"Trade gin, I should think." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's the best explanation you can give, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, what is yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"The obvious one that the creature exists. That is actually sketched +from the life." +</P> + +<P> +I should have laughed only that I had a vision of our doing another +Catharine-wheel down the passage. +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt," said I, "no doubt," as one humors an imbecile. "I confess, +however," I added, "that this tiny human figure puzzles me. If it were +an Indian we could set it down as evidence of some pigmy race in +America, but it appears to be a European in a sun-hat." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor snorted like an angry buffalo. "You really touch the +limit," said he. "You enlarge my view of the possible. Cerebral +paresis! Mental inertia! Wonderful!" +</P> + +<P> +He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of energy, +for if you were going to be angry with this man you would be angry all +the time. I contented myself with smiling wearily. "It struck me that +the man was small," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here!" he cried, leaning forward and dabbing a great hairy +sausage of a finger on to the picture. "You see that plant behind the +animal; I suppose you thought it was a dandelion or a Brussels +sprout—what? Well, it is a vegetable ivory palm, and they run to +about fifty or sixty feet. Don't you see that the man is put in for a +purpose? He couldn't really have stood in front of that brute and +lived to draw it. He sketched himself in to give a scale of heights. +He was, we will say, over five feet high. The tree is ten times +bigger, which is what one would expect." +</P> + +<P> +"Good heavens!" I cried. "Then you think the beast was—— Why, +Charing Cross station would hardly make a kennel for such a brute!" +</P> + +<P> +"Apart from exaggeration, he is certainly a well-grown specimen," said +the Professor, complacently. +</P> + +<P> +"But," I cried, "surely the whole experience of the human race is not +to be set aside on account of a single sketch"—I had turned over the +leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more in the book—"a +single sketch by a wandering American artist who may have done it under +hashish, or in the delirium of fever, or simply in order to gratify a +freakish imagination. You can't, as a man of science, defend such a +position as that." +</P> + +<P> +For answer the Professor took a book down from a shelf. +</P> + +<P> +"This is an excellent monograph by my gifted friend, Ray Lankester!" +said he. "There is an illustration here which would interest you. Ah, +yes, here it is! The inscription beneath it runs: 'Probable +appearance in life of the Jurassic Dinosaur Stegosaurus. The hind leg +alone is twice as tall as a full-grown man.' Well, what do you make of +that?" +</P> + +<P> +He handed me the open book. I started as I looked at the picture. In +this reconstructed animal of a dead world there was certainly a very +great resemblance to the sketch of the unknown artist. +</P> + +<P> +"That is certainly remarkable," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"But you won't admit that it is final?" +</P> + +<P> +"Surely it might be a coincidence, or this American may have seen a +picture of the kind and carried it in his memory. It would be likely +to recur to a man in a delirium." +</P> + +<P> +"Very good," said the Professor, indulgently; "we leave it at that. I +will now ask you to look at this bone." He handed over the one which he +had already described as part of the dead man's possessions. It was +about six inches long, and thicker than my thumb, with some indications +of dried cartilage at one end of it. +</P> + +<P> +"To what known creature does that bone belong?" asked the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +I examined it with care and tried to recall some half-forgotten +knowledge. +</P> + +<P> +"It might be a very thick human collar-bone," I said. +</P> + +<P> +My companion waved his hand in contemptuous deprecation. +</P> + +<P> +"The human collar-bone is curved. This is straight. There is a groove +upon its surface showing that a great tendon played across it, which +could not be the case with a clavicle." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I must confess that I don't know what it is." +</P> + +<P> +"You need not be ashamed to expose your ignorance, for I don't suppose +the whole South Kensington staff could give a name to it." He took a +little bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box. "So far as I am a +judge this human bone is the analogue of the one which you hold in your +hand. That will give you some idea of the size of the creature. You +will observe from the cartilage that this is no fossil specimen, but +recent. What do you say to that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Surely in an elephant——" +</P> + +<P> +He winced as if in pain. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these days +of Board schools——" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," I interrupted, "any large South American animal—a tapir, for +example." +</P> + +<P> +"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of my +business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of any +other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very large, a very +strong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animal which exists upon the +face of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science. +You are still unconvinced?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am at least deeply interested." +</P> + +<P> +"Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason lurking +in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. We will now +leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imagine +that I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeper +into the matter. There were indications as to the direction from which +the dead traveler had come. Indian legends would alone have been my +guide, for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among all +the riverine tribes. You have heard, no doubt, of Curupuri?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never." +</P> + +<P> +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods, something terrible, something +malevolent, something to be avoided. None can describe its shape or +nature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. Now all tribes +agree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives. It was the same +direction from which the American had come. Something terrible lay +that way. It was my business to find out what it was." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you do?" My flippancy was all gone. This massive man +compelled one's attention and respect. +</P> + +<P> +"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives—a reluctance which +extends even to talk upon the subject—and by judicious persuasion and +gifts, aided, I will admit, by some threats of coercion, I got two of +them to act as guides. After many adventures which I need not +describe, and after traveling a distance which I will not mention, in a +direction which I withhold, we came at last to a tract of country which +has never been described, nor, indeed, visited save by my unfortunate +predecessor. Would you kindly look at this?" +</P> + +<P> +He handed me a photograph—half-plate size. +</P> + +<P> +"The unsatisfactory appearance of it is due to the fact," said he, +"that on descending the river the boat was upset and the case which +contained the undeveloped films was broken, with disastrous results. +Nearly all of them were totally ruined—an irreparable loss. This is +one of the few which partially escaped. This explanation of +deficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept. There was talk +of faking. I am not in a mood to argue such a point." +</P> + +<P> +The photograph was certainly very off-colored. An unkind critic might +easily have misinterpreted that dim surface. It was a dull gray +landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realized +that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactly +like an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping, +tree-clad plain in the foreground. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe it is the same place as the painted picture," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"It is the same place," the Professor answered. "I found traces of the +fellow's camp. Now look at this." +</P> + +<P> +It was a nearer view of the same scene, though the photograph was +extremely defective. I could distinctly see the isolated, tree-crowned +pinnacle of rock which was detached from the crag. +</P> + +<P> +"I have no doubt of it at all," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that is something gained," said he. "We progress, do we not? +Now, will you please look at the top of that rocky pinnacle? Do you +observe something there?" +</P> + +<P> +"An enormous tree." +</P> + +<P> +"But on the tree?" +</P> + +<P> +"A large bird," said I. +</P> + +<P> +He handed me a lens. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I said, peering through it, "a large bird stands on the tree. +It appears to have a considerable beak. I should say it was a pelican." +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot congratulate you upon your eyesight," said the Professor. +"It is not a pelican, nor, indeed, is it a bird. It may interest you +to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen. It was +the only absolute proof of my experiences which I was able to bring +away with me." +</P> + +<P> +"You have it, then?" Here at last was tangible corroboration. +</P> + +<P> +"I had it. It was unfortunately lost with so much else in the same +boat accident which ruined my photographs. I clutched at it as it +disappeared in the swirl of the rapids, and part of its wing was left +in my hand. I was insensible when washed ashore, but the miserable +remnant of my superb specimen was still intact; I now lay it before +you." +</P> + +<P> +From a drawer he produced what seemed to me to be the upper portion of +the wing of a large bat. It was at least two feet in length, a curved +bone, with a membranous veil beneath it. +</P> + +<P> +"A monstrous bat!" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing of the sort," said the Professor, severely. "Living, as I do, +in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have conceived +that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it +possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative +anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the forearm, while the wing +of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between? +Now, in this case, the bone is certainly not the forearm, and you can +see for yourself that this is a single membrane hanging upon a single +bone, and therefore that it cannot belong to a bat. But if it is +neither bird nor bat, what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +My small stock of knowledge was exhausted. +</P> + +<P> +"I really do not know," said I. +</P> + +<P> +He opened the standard work to which he had already referred me. +</P> + +<P> +"Here," said he, pointing to the picture of an extraordinary flying +monster, "is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon, or +pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Jurassic period. On the next page +is a diagram of the mechanism of its wing. Kindly compare it with the +specimen in your hand." +</P> + +<P> +A wave of amazement passed over me as I looked. I was convinced. +There could be no getting away from it. The cumulative proof was +overwhelming. The sketch, the photographs, the narrative, and now the +actual specimen—the evidence was complete. I said so—I said so +warmly, for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man. He leaned +back in his chair with drooping eyelids and a tolerant smile, basking +in this sudden gleam of sunshine. +</P> + +<P> +"It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of!" said I, though +it was my journalistic rather than my scientific enthusiasm that was +roused. "It is colossal. You are a Columbus of science who has +discovered a lost world. I'm awfully sorry if I seemed to doubt you. +It was all so unthinkable. But I understand evidence when I see it, +and this should be good enough for anyone." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor purred with satisfaction. +</P> + +<P> +"And then, sir, what did you do next?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was the wet season, Mr. Malone, and my stores were exhausted. I +explored some portion of this huge cliff, but I was unable to find any +way to scale it. The pyramidal rock upon which I saw and shot the +pterodactyl was more accessible. Being something of a cragsman, I did +manage to get half way to the top of that. From that height I had a +better idea of the plateau upon the top of the crags. It appeared to +be very large; neither to east nor to west could I see any end to the +vista of green-capped cliffs. Below, it is a swampy, jungly region, +full of snakes, insects, and fever. It is a natural protection to this +singular country." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you see any other trace of life?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir, I did not; but during the week that we lay encamped at the +base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above." +</P> + +<P> +"But the creature that the American drew? How do you account for that?" +</P> + +<P> +"We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summit and +seen it there. We know, therefore, that there is a way up. We know +equally that it must be a very difficult one, otherwise the creatures +would have come down and overrun the surrounding country. Surely that +is clear?" +</P> + +<P> +"But how did they come to be there?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one," said the +Professor; "there can only be one explanation. South America is, as +you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single point in the +interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great, sudden +volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, are basaltic, and +therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps as Sussex, has been +lifted up en bloc with all its living contents, and cut off by +perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all +the rest of the continent. What is the result? Why, the ordinary laws +of Nature are suspended. The various checks which influence the +struggle for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or +altered. Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear. You will +observe that both the pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic, and +therefore of a great age in the order of life. They have been +artificially conserved by those strange accidental conditions." +</P> + +<P> +"But surely your evidence is conclusive. You have only to lay it +before the proper authorities." +</P> + +<P> +"So in my simplicity, I had imagined," said the Professor, bitterly. +"I can only tell you that it was not so, that I was met at every turn +by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. It is +not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man, or to seek to prove a fact if +my word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to +show such corroborative proofs as I possess. The subject became +hateful to me—I would not speak of it. When men like yourself, who +represent the foolish curiosity of the public, came to disturb my +privacy I was unable to meet them with dignified reserve. By nature I +am, I admit, somewhat fiery, and under provocation I am inclined to be +violent. I fear you may have remarked it." +</P> + +<P> +I nursed my eye and was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"My wife has frequently remonstrated with me upon the subject, and yet +I fancy that any man of honor would feel the same. To-night, however, +I propose to give an extreme example of the control of the will over +the emotions. I invite you to be present at the exhibition." He +handed me a card from his desk. "You will perceive that Mr. Percival +Waldron, a naturalist of some popular repute, is announced to lecture +at eight-thirty at the Zoological Institute's Hall upon 'The Record of +the Ages.' I have been specially invited to be present upon the +platform, and to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing +so, I shall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, to +throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the audience +and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply into the matter. +Nothing contentious, you understand, but only an indication that there +are greater deeps beyond. I shall hold myself strongly in leash, and +see whether by this self-restraint I attain a more favorable result." +</P> + +<P> +"And I may come?" I asked eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, surely," he answered, cordially. He had an enormously massive +genial manner, which was almost as overpowering as his violence. His +smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing, when his cheeks would +suddenly bunch into two red apples, between his half-closed eyes and +his great black beard. "By all means, come. It will be a comfort to +me to know that I have one ally in the hall, however inefficient and +ignorant of the subject he may be. I fancy there will be a large +audience, for Waldron, though an absolute charlatan, has a considerable +popular following. Now, Mr. Malone, I have given you rather more of my +time than I had intended. The individual must not monopolize what is +meant for the world. I shall be pleased to see you at the lecture +to-night. In the meantime, you will understand that no public use is +to be made of any of the material that I have given you." +</P> + +<P> +"But Mr. McArdle—my news editor, you know—will want to know what I +have done." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell him what you like. You can say, among other things, that if he +sends anyone else to intrude upon me I shall call upon him with a +riding-whip. But I leave it to you that nothing of all this appears in +print. Very good. Then the Zoological Institute's Hall at +eight-thirty to-night." I had a last impression of red cheeks, blue +rippling beard, and intolerant eyes, as he waved me out of the room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Question!" +</H3> + +<P> +What with the physical shocks incidental to my first interview with +Professor Challenger and the mental ones which accompanied the second, +I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I found myself in +Enmore Park once more. In my aching head the one thought was throbbing +that there really was truth in this man's story, that it was of +tremendous consequence, and that it would work up into inconceivable +copy for the Gazette when I could obtain permission to use it. A +taxicab was waiting at the end of the road, so I sprang into it and +drove down to the office. McArdle was at his post as usual. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he cried, expectantly, "what may it run to? I'm thinking, +young man, you have been in the wars. Don't tell me that he assaulted +you." +</P> + +<P> +"We had a little difference at first." +</P> + +<P> +"What a man it is! What did you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, he became more reasonable and we had a chat. But I got nothing +out of him—nothing for publication." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not so sure about that. You got a black eye out of him, and +that's for publication. We can't have this reign of terror, Mr. +Malone. We must bring the man to his bearings. I'll have a leaderette +on him to-morrow that will raise a blister. Just give me the material +and I will engage to brand the fellow for ever. Professor +Munchausen—how's that for an inset headline? Sir John Mandeville +redivivus—Cagliostro—all the imposters and bullies in history. I'll +show him up for the fraud he is." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't do that, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because he is not a fraud at all." +</P> + +<P> +"What!" roared McArdle. "You don't mean to say you really believe this +stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great sea sairpents?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't know about that. I don't think he makes any claims of +that kind. But I do believe he has got something new." +</P> + +<P> +"Then for Heaven's sake, man, write it up!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm longing to, but all I know he gave me in confidence and on +condition that I didn't." I condensed into a few sentences the +Professor's narrative. "That's how it stands." +</P> + +<P> +McArdle looked deeply incredulous. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mr. Malone," he said at last, "about this scientific meeting +to-night; there can be no privacy about that, anyhow. I don't suppose +any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has been reported already +a dozen times, and no one is aware that Challenger will speak. We may +get a scoop, if we are lucky. You'll be there in any case, so you'll +just give us a pretty full report. I'll keep space up to midnight." +</P> + +<P> +My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the Savage Club +with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. He +listened with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared with +laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear chap, things don't happen like that in real life. People +don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence. +Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as full of tricks as the +monkey-house at the Zoo. It's all bosh." +</P> + +<P> +"But the American poet?" +</P> + +<P> +"He never existed." +</P> + +<P> +"I saw his sketch-book." +</P> + +<P> +"Challenger's sketch-book." +</P> + +<P> +"You think he drew that animal?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course he did. Who else?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, the photographs?" +</P> + +<P> +"There was nothing in the photographs. By your own admission you only +saw a bird." +</P> + +<P> +"A pterodactyl." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what HE says. He put the pterodactyl into your head." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, the bones?" +</P> + +<P> +"First one out of an Irish stew. Second one vamped up for the +occasion. If you are clever and know your business you can fake a bone +as easily as you can a photograph." +</P> + +<P> +I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps, after all, I had been premature in my +acquiescence. Then I had a sudden happy thought. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you come to the meeting?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +Tarp Henry looked thoughtful. +</P> + +<P> +"He is not a popular person, the genial Challenger," said he. "A lot +of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he is about +the best-hated man in London. If the medical students turn out there +will be no end of a rag. I don't want to get into a bear-garden." +</P> + +<P> +"You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, perhaps it's only fair. All right. I'm your man for the +evening." +</P> + +<P> +When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than I +had expected. A line of electric broughams discharged their little +cargoes of white-bearded professors, while the dark stream of humbler +pedestrians, who crowded through the arched door-way, showed that the +audience would be popular as well as scientific. Indeed, it became +evident to us as soon as we had taken our seats that a youthful and +even boyish spirit was abroad in the gallery and the back portions of +the hall. Looking behind me, I could see rows of faces of the familiar +medical student type. Apparently the great hospitals had each sent +down their contingent. The behavior of the audience at present was +good-humored, but mischievous. Scraps of popular songs were chorused +with an enthusiasm which was a strange prelude to a scientific lecture, +and there was already a tendency to personal chaff which promised a +jovial evening to others, however embarrassing it might be to the +recipients of these dubious honors. +</P> + +<P> +Thus, when old Doctor Meldrum, with his well-known curly-brimmed +opera-hat, appeared upon the platform, there was such a universal query +of "Where DID you get that tile?" that he hurriedly removed it, and +concealed it furtively under his chair. When gouty Professor Wadley +limped down to his seat there were general affectionate inquiries from +all parts of the hall as to the exact state of his poor toe, which +caused him obvious embarrassment. The greatest demonstration of all, +however, was at the entrance of my new acquaintance, Professor +Challenger, when he passed down to take his place at the extreme end of +the front row of the platform. Such a yell of welcome broke forth when +his black beard first protruded round the corner that I began to +suspect Tarp Henry was right in his surmise, and that this assemblage +was there not merely for the sake of the lecture, but because it had +got rumored abroad that the famous Professor would take part in the +proceedings. +</P> + +<P> +There was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance among the front +benches of well-dressed spectators, as though the demonstration of the +students in this instance was not unwelcome to them. That greeting +was, indeed, a frightful outburst of sound, the uproar of the carnivora +cage when the step of the bucket-bearing keeper is heard in the +distance. There was an offensive tone in it, perhaps, and yet in the +main it struck me as mere riotous outcry, the noisy reception of one +who amused and interested them, rather than of one they disliked or +despised. Challenger smiled with weary and tolerant contempt, as a +kindly man would meet the yapping of a litter of puppies. He sat +slowly down, blew out his chest, passed his hand caressingly down his +beard, and looked with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at the +crowded hall before him. The uproar of his advent had not yet died +away when Professor Ronald Murray, the chairman, and Mr. Waldron, the +lecturer, threaded their way to the front, and the proceedings began. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Murray will, I am sure, excuse me if I say that he has the +common fault of most Englishmen of being inaudible. Why on earth +people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take +the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange +mysteries of modern life. Their methods are as reasonable as to try to +pour some precious stuff from the spring to the reservoir through a +non-conducting pipe, which could by the least effort be opened. +Professor Murray made several profound remarks to his white tie and to +the water-carafe upon the table, with a humorous, twinkling aside to +the silver candlestick upon his right. Then he sat down, and Mr. +Waldron, the famous popular lecturer, rose amid a general murmur of +applause. He was a stern, gaunt man, with a harsh voice, and an +aggressive manner, but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate +the ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was +intelligible and even interesting to the lay public, with a happy knack +of being funny about the most unlikely objects, so that the precession +of the Equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly +humorous process as treated by him. +</P> + +<P> +It was a bird's-eye view of creation, as interpreted by science, which, +in language always clear and sometimes picturesque, he unfolded before +us. He told us of the globe, a huge mass of flaming gas, flaring +through the heavens. Then he pictured the solidification, the cooling, +the wrinkling which formed the mountains, the steam which turned to +water, the slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played +the inexplicable drama of life. On the origin of life itself he was +discreetly vague. That the germs of it could hardly have survived the +original roasting was, he declared, fairly certain. Therefore it had +come later. Had it built itself out of the cooling, inorganic elements +of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived from outside +upon a meteor? It was hardly conceivable. On the whole, the wisest +man was the least dogmatic upon the point. We could not—or at least +we had not succeeded up to date in making organic life in our +laboratories out of inorganic materials. The gulf between the dead and +the living was something which our chemistry could not as yet bridge. +But there was a higher and subtler chemistry of Nature, which, working +with great forces over long epochs, might well produce results which +were impossible for us. There the matter must be left. +</P> + +<P> +This brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, beginning +low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures, then up rung by rung +through reptiles and fishes, till at last we came to a kangaroo-rat, a +creature which brought forth its young alive, the direct ancestor of +all mammals, and presumably, therefore, of everyone in the audience. +("No, no," from a sceptical student in the back row.) If the young +gentleman in the red tie who cried "No, no," and who presumably claimed +to have been hatched out of an egg, would wait upon him after the +lecture, he would be glad to see such a curiosity. (Laughter.) It was +strange to think that the climax of all the age-long process of Nature +had been the creation of that gentleman in the red tie. But had the +process stopped? Was this gentleman to be taken as the final type—the +be-all and end-all of development? He hoped that he would not hurt the +feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that, +whatever virtues that gentleman might possess in private life, still +the vast processes of the universe were not fully justified if they +were to end entirely in his production. Evolution was not a spent +force, but one still working, and even greater achievements were in +store. +</P> + +<P> +Having thus, amid a general titter, played very prettily with his +interrupter, the lecturer went back to his picture of the past, the +drying of the seas, the emergence of the sand-bank, the sluggish, +viscous life which lay upon their margins, the overcrowded lagoons, the +tendency of the sea creatures to take refuge upon the mud-flats, the +abundance of food awaiting them, their consequent enormous growth. +"Hence, ladies and gentlemen," he added, "that frightful brood of +saurians which still affright our eyes when seen in the Wealden or in +the Solenhofen slates, but which were fortunately extinct long before +the first appearance of mankind upon this planet." +</P> + +<P> +"Question!" boomed a voice from the platform. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Waldron was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid humor, as +exemplified upon the gentleman with the red tie, which made it perilous +to interrupt him. But this interjection appeared to him so absurd that +he was at a loss how to deal with it. So looks the Shakespearean who +is confronted by a rancid Baconian, or the astronomer who is assailed +by a flat-earth fanatic. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his +voice, repeated slowly the words: "Which were extinct before the +coming of man." +</P> + +<P> +"Question!" boomed the voice once more. +</P> + +<P> +Waldron looked with amazement along the line of professors upon the +platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, who leaned +back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused expression, as if he +were smiling in his sleep. +</P> + +<P> +"I see!" said Waldron, with a shrug. "It is my friend Professor +Challenger," and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this was a +final explanation and no more need be said. +</P> + +<P> +But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever path the lecturer +took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably to lead him to some +assertion as to extinct or prehistoric life which instantly brought the +same bulls' bellow from the Professor. The audience began to +anticipate it and to roar with delight when it came. The packed +benches of students joined in, and every time Challenger's beard +opened, before any sound could come forth, there was a yell of +"Question!" from a hundred voices, and an answering counter cry of +"Order!" and "Shame!" from as many more. Waldron, though a hardened +lecturer and a strong man, became rattled. He hesitated, stammered, +repeated himself, got snarled in a long sentence, and finally turned +furiously upon the cause of his troubles. +</P> + +<P> +"This is really intolerable!" he cried, glaring across the platform. +"I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to cease these ignorant and +unmannerly interruptions." +</P> + +<P> +There was a hush over the hall, the students rigid with delight at +seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves. +Challenger levered his bulky figure slowly out of his chair. +</P> + +<P> +"I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldron," he said, "to cease to make +assertions which are not in strict accordance with scientific fact." +</P> + +<P> +The words unloosed a tempest. "Shame! Shame!" "Give him a hearing!" +"Put him out!" "Shove him off the platform!" "Fair play!" emerged +from a general roar of amusement or execration. The chairman was on +his feet flapping both his hands and bleating excitedly. "Professor +Challenger—personal—views—later," were the solid peaks above his +clouds of inaudible mutter. The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his +beard, and relapsed into his chair. Waldron, very flushed and warlike, +continued his observations. Now and then, as he made an assertion, he +shot a venomous glance at his opponent, who seemed to be slumbering +deeply, with the same broad, happy smile upon his face. +</P> + +<P> +At last the lecture came to an end—I am inclined to think that it was +a premature one, as the peroration was hurried and disconnected. The +thread of the argument had been rudely broken, and the audience was +restless and expectant. Waldron sat down, and, after a chirrup from +the chairman, Professor Challenger rose and advanced to the edge of the +platform. In the interests of my paper I took down his speech verbatim. +</P> + +<P> +"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, amid a sustained interruption from +the back. "I beg pardon—Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children—I must +apologize, I had inadvertently omitted a considerable section of this +audience" (tumult, during which the Professor stood with one hand +raised and his enormous head nodding sympathetically, as if he were +bestowing a pontifical blessing upon the crowd), "I have been selected +to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and +imaginative address to which we have just listened. There are points +in it with which I disagree, and it has been my duty to indicate them +as they arose, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished his +object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting account +of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. Popular +lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron" (here he beamed +and blinked at the lecturer) "will excuse me when I say that they are +necessarily both superficial and misleading, since they have to be +graded to the comprehension of an ignorant audience." (Ironical +cheering.) "Popular lecturers are in their nature parasitic." (Angry +gesture of protest from Mr. Waldron.) "They exploit for fame or cash +the work which has been done by their indigent and unknown brethren. +One smallest new fact obtained in the laboratory, one brick built into +the temple of science, far outweighs any second-hand exposition which +passes an idle hour, but can leave no useful result behind it. I put +forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to disparage Mr. +Waldron in particular, but that you may not lose your sense of +proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest." (At this point +Mr. Waldron whispered to the chairman, who half rose and said something +severely to his water-carafe.) "But enough of this!" (Loud and +prolonged cheers.) "Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. +What is the particular point upon which I, as an original investigator, +have challenged our lecturer's accuracy? It is upon the permanence of +certain types of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this +subject as an amateur, nor, I may add, as a popular lecturer, but I +speak as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely +to facts, when I say that Mr. Waldron is very wrong in supposing that +because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric animal, +therefore these creatures no longer exist. They are indeed, as he has +said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use the expression, our +contemporary ancestors, who can still be found with all their hideous +and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and hardihood +to seek their haunts. Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic, +monsters who would hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest +mammals, still exist." (Cries of "Bosh!" "Prove it!" "How do YOU know?" +"Question!") "How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited +their secret haunts. I know because I have seen some of them." +(Applause, uproar, and a voice, "Liar!") "Am I a liar?" (General +hearty and noisy assent.) "Did I hear someone say that I was a liar? +Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up that I may know +him?" (A voice, "Here he is, sir!" and an inoffensive little person in +spectacles, struggling violently, was held up among a group of +students.) "Did you venture to call me a liar?" ("No, sir, no!" +shouted the accused, and disappeared like a jack-in-the-box.) "If any +person in this hall dares to doubt my veracity, I shall be glad to have +a few words with him after the lecture." ("Liar!") "Who said that?" +(Again the inoffensive one plunging desperately, was elevated high into +the air.) "If I come down among you——" (General chorus of "Come, +love, come!" which interrupted the proceedings for some moments, while +the chairman, standing up and waving both his arms, seemed to be +conducting the music. The Professor, with his face flushed, his +nostrils dilated, and his beard bristling, was now in a proper Berserk +mood.) "Every great discoverer has been met with the same +incredulity—the sure brand of a generation of fools. When great facts +are laid before you, you have not the intuition, the imagination which +would help you to understand them. You can only throw mud at the men +who have risked their lives to open new fields to science. You +persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin, and I——" (Prolonged +cheering and complete interruption.) +</P> + +<P> +All this is from my hurried notes taken at the time, which give little +notion of the absolute chaos to which the assembly had by this time +been reduced. So terrific was the uproar that several ladies had +already beaten a hurried retreat. Grave and reverend seniors seemed to +have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as the students, and I saw +white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate +Professor. The whole great audience seethed and simmered like a +boiling pot. The Professor took a step forward and raised both his +hands. There was something so big and arresting and virile in the man +that the clatter and shouting died gradually away before his commanding +gesture and his masterful eyes. He seemed to have a definite message. +They hushed to hear it. +</P> + +<P> +"I will not detain you," he said. "It is not worth it. Truth is +truth, and the noise of a number of foolish young men—and, I fear I +must add, of their equally foolish seniors—cannot affect the matter. +I claim that I have opened a new field of science. You dispute it." +(Cheers.) "Then I put you to the test. Will you accredit one or more +of your own number to go out as your representatives and test my +statement in your name?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Summerlee, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose among +the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man, with the withered aspect of a +theologian. He wished, he said, to ask Professor Challenger whether +the results to which he had alluded in his remarks had been obtained +during a journey to the headwaters of the Amazon made by him two years +before. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger answered that they had. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Summerlee desired to know how it was that Professor Challenger +claimed to have made discoveries in those regions which had been +overlooked by Wallace, Bates, and other previous explorers of +established scientific repute. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerlee appeared to be +confusing the Amazon with the Thames; that it was in reality a somewhat +larger river; that Mr. Summerlee might be interested to know that with +the Orinoco, which communicated with it, some fifty thousand miles of +country were opened up, and that in so vast a space it was not +impossible for one person to find what another had missed. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Summerlee declared, with an acid smile, that he fully appreciated +the difference between the Thames and the Amazon, which lay in the fact +that any assertion about the former could be tested, while about the +latter it could not. He would be obliged if Professor Challenger would +give the latitude and the longitude of the country in which prehistoric +animals were to be found. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information for good +reasons of his own, but would be prepared to give it with proper +precautions to a committee chosen from the audience. Would Mr. +Summerlee serve on such a committee and test his story in person? +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Summerlee: "Yes, I will." (Great cheering.) +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger: "Then I guarantee that I will place in your +hands such material as will enable you to find your way. It is only +right, however, since Mr. Summerlee goes to check my statement that I +should have one or more with him who may check his. I will not +disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers. Mr. +Summerlee will need a younger colleague. May I ask for volunteers?" +</P> + +<P> +It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him. +Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to +pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in my +dreams? But Gladys—was it not the very opportunity of which she +spoke? Gladys would have told me to go. I had sprung to my feet. I +was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my +companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, "Sit +down, Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself." At the same time I +was aware that a tall, thin man, with dark gingery hair, a few seats in +front of me, was also upon his feet. He glared back at me with hard +angry eyes, but I refused to give way. +</P> + +<P> +"I will go, Mr. Chairman," I kept repeating over and over again. +</P> + +<P> +"Name! Name!" cried the audience. +</P> + +<P> +"My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily +Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness." +</P> + +<P> +"What is YOUR name, sir?" the chairman asked of my tall rival. +</P> + +<P> +"I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon, I know all +the ground, and have special qualifications for this investigation." +</P> + +<P> +"Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveler is, of +course, world-famous," said the chairman; "at the same time it would +certainly be as well to have a member of the Press upon such an +expedition." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I move," said Professor Challenger, "that both these gentlemen be +elected, as representatives of this meeting, to accompany Professor +Summerlee upon his journey to investigate and to report upon the truth +of my statements." +</P> + +<P> +And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided, and I found +myself borne away in the human current which swirled towards the door, +with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so +suddenly before it. As I emerged from the hall I was conscious for a +moment of a rush of laughing students—down the pavement, and of an arm +wielding a heavy umbrella, which rose and fell in the midst of them. +Then, amid a mixture of groans and cheers, Professor Challenger's +electric brougham slid from the curb, and I found myself walking under +the silvery lights of Regent Street, full of thoughts of Gladys and of +wonder as to my future. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow. I turned, and found myself +looking into the humorous, masterful eyes of the tall, thin man who had +volunteered to be my companion on this strange quest. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Malone, I understand," said he. "We are to be companions—what? +My rooms are just over the road, in the Albany. Perhaps you would have +the kindness to spare me half an hour, for there are one or two things +that I badly want to say to you." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "I was the Flail of the Lord" +</H3> + +<P> +Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the +dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery. At the end of a long +drab passage my new acquaintance pushed open a door and turned on an +electric switch. A number of lamps shining through tinted shades +bathed the whole great room before us in a ruddy radiance. Standing in +the doorway and glancing round me, I had a general impression of +extraordinary comfort and elegance combined with an atmosphere of +masculine virility. Everywhere there were mingled the luxury of the +wealthy man of taste and the careless untidiness of the bachelor. Rich +furs and strange iridescent mats from some Oriental bazaar were +scattered upon the floor. Pictures and prints which even my +unpractised eyes could recognize as being of great price and rarity +hung thick upon the walls. Sketches of boxers, of ballet-girls, and of +racehorses alternated with a sensuous Fragonard, a martial Girardet, +and a dreamy Turner. But amid these varied ornaments there were +scattered the trophies which brought back strongly to my recollection +the fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great all-round sportsmen +and athletes of his day. A dark-blue oar crossed with a cherry-pink +one above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man, +while the foils and boxing-gloves above and below them were the tools +of a man who had won supremacy with each. Like a dado round the room +was the jutting line of splendid heavy game-heads, the best of their +sort from every quarter of the world, with the rare white rhinoceros of +the Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all. +</P> + +<P> +In the center of the rich red carpet was a black and gold Louis Quinze +table, a lovely antique, now sacrilegiously desecrated with marks of +glasses and the scars of cigar-stumps. On it stood a silver tray of +smokables and a burnished spirit-stand, from which and an adjacent +siphon my silent host proceeded to charge two high glasses. Having +indicated an arm-chair to me and placed my refreshment near it, he +handed me a long, smooth Havana. Then, seating himself opposite to me, +he looked at me long and fixedly with his strange, twinkling, reckless +eyes—eyes of a cold light blue, the color of a glacier lake. +</P> + +<P> +Through the thin haze of my cigar-smoke I noted the details of a face +which was already familiar to me from many photographs—the +strongly-curved nose, the hollow, worn cheeks, the dark, ruddy hair, +thin at the top, the crisp, virile moustaches, the small, aggressive +tuft upon his projecting chin. Something there was of Napoleon III., +something of Don Quixote, and yet again something which was the essence +of the English country gentleman, the keen, alert, open-air lover of +dogs and of horses. His skin was of a rich flower-pot red from sun and +wind. His eyebrows were tufted and overhanging, which gave those +naturally cold eyes an almost ferocious aspect, an impression which was +increased by his strong and furrowed brow. In figure he was spare, but +very strongly built—indeed, he had often proved that there were few +men in England capable of such sustained exertions. His height was a +little over six feet, but he seemed shorter on account of a peculiar +rounding of the shoulders. Such was the famous Lord John Roxton as he +sat opposite to me, biting hard upon his cigar and watching me steadily +in a long and embarrassing silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said he, at last, "we've gone and done it, young fellah my +lad." (This curious phrase he pronounced as if it were all one +word—"young-fellah-me-lad.") "Yes, we've taken a jump, you an' me. I +suppose, now, when you went into that room there was no such notion in +your head—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"No thought of it." +</P> + +<P> +"The same here. No thought of it. And here we are, up to our necks in +the tureen. Why, I've only been back three weeks from Uganda, and +taken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. Pretty goin's +on—what? How does it hit you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a journalist on +the Gazette." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course—you said so when you took it on. By the way, I've got a +small job for you, if you'll help me." +</P> + +<P> +"With pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't mind takin' a risk, do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"What is the risk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's Ballinger—he's the risk. You've heard of him?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, young fellah, where HAVE you lived? Sir John Ballinger is the +best gentleman jock in the north country. I could hold him on the flat +at my best, but over jumps he's my master. Well, it's an open secret +that when he's out of trainin' he drinks hard—strikin' an average, he +calls it. He got delirium on Toosday, and has been ragin' like a devil +ever since. His room is above this. The doctors say that it is all up +with the old dear unless some food is got into him, but as he lies in +bed with a revolver on his coverlet, and swears he will put six of the +best through anyone that comes near him, there's been a bit of a strike +among the serving-men. He's a hard nail, is Jack, and a dead shot, +too, but you can't leave a Grand National winner to die like +that—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean to do, then?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be dozin', +and at the worst he can only wing one of us, and the other should have +him. If we can get his bolster-cover round his arms and then 'phone up +a stomach-pump, we'll give the old dear the supper of his life." +</P> + +<P> +It was a rather desperate business to come suddenly into one's day's +work. I don't think that I am a particularly brave man. I have an +Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terrible +than they are. On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror of +cowardice and with a terror of such a stigma. I dare say that I could +throw myself over a precipice, like the Hun in the history books, if my +courage to do it were questioned, and yet it would surely be pride and +fear, rather than courage, which would be my inspiration. Therefore, +although every nerve in my body shrank from the whisky-maddened figure +which I pictured in the room above, I still answered, in as careless a +voice as I could command, that I was ready to go. Some further remark +of Lord Roxton's about the danger only made me irritable. +</P> + +<P> +"Talking won't make it any better," said I. "Come on." +</P> + +<P> +I rose from my chair and he from his. Then with a little confidential +chuckle of laughter, he patted me two or three times on the chest, +finally pushing me back into my chair. +</P> + +<P> +"All right, sonny my lad—you'll do," said he. I looked up in surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw after Jack Ballinger myself this mornin'. He blew a hole in the +skirt of my kimono, bless his shaky old hand, but we got a jacket on +him, and he's to be all right in a week. I say, young fellah, I hope +you don't mind—what? You see, between you an' me close-tiled, I look +on this South American business as a mighty serious thing, and if I +have a pal with me I want a man I can bank on. So I sized you down, +and I'm bound to say that you came well out of it. You see, it's all +up to you and me, for this old Summerlee man will want dry-nursin' from +the first. By the way, are you by any chance the Malone who is +expected to get his Rugby cap for Ireland?" +</P> + +<P> +"A reserve, perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I remembered your face. Why, I was there when you got that +try against Richmond—as fine a swervin' run as I saw the whole season. +I never miss a Rugby match if I can help it, for it is the manliest +game we have left. Well, I didn't ask you in here just to talk sport. +We've got to fix our business. Here are the sailin's, on the first +page of the Times. There's a Booth boat for Para next Wednesday week, +and if the Professor and you can work it, I think we should take +it—what? Very good, I'll fix it with him. What about your outfit?" +</P> + +<P> +"My paper will see to that." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you shoot?" +</P> + +<P> +"About average Territorial standard." +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord! as bad as that? It's the last thing you young fellahs +think of learnin'. You're all bees without stings, so far as lookin' +after the hive goes. You'll look silly, some o' these days, when +someone comes along an' sneaks the honey. But you'll need to hold your +gun straight in South America, for, unless our friend the Professor is +a madman or a liar, we may see some queer things before we get back. +What gun have you?" +</P> + +<P> +He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught a +glimpse of glistening rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes of an +organ. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery," said he. +</P> + +<P> +One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening and +shutting them with a snap and a clang, and then patting them as he put +them back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would fondle her +children. +</P> + +<P> +"This is a Bland's .577 axite express," said he. "I got that big +fellow with it." He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. "Ten more +yards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection. +</P> + +<P> +'On that conical bullet his one chance hangs, +'Tis the weak one's advantage fair.' +</P> + +<P> +Hope you know your Gordon, for he's the poet of the horse and the gun +and the man that handles both. Now, here's a useful tool—.470, +telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to three-fifty. +That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave-drivers three years +ago. I was the flail of the Lord up in those parts, I may tell you, +though you won't find it in any Blue-book. There are times, young +fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and +justice, or you never feel clean again. That's why I made a little war +on my own. Declared it myself, waged it myself, ended it myself. Each +of those nicks is for a slave murderer—a good row of them—what? That +big one is for Pedro Lopez, the king of them all, that I killed in a +backwater of the Putomayo River. Now, here's something that would do +for you." He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle. "Well +rubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip. +You can trust your life to that." He handed it to me and closed the +door of his oak cabinet. +</P> + +<P> +"By the way," he continued, coming back to his chair, "what do you know +of this Professor Challenger?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never saw him till to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, neither did I. It's funny we should both sail under sealed +orders from a man we don't know. He seemed an uppish old bird. His +brothers of science don't seem too fond of him, either. How came you +to take an interest in the affair?" +</P> + +<P> +I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he listened +intently. Then he drew out a map of South America and laid it on the +table. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe every single word he said to you was the truth," said he, +earnestly, "and, mind you, I have something to go on when I speak like +that. South America is a place I love, and I think, if you take it +right through from Darien to Fuego, it's the grandest, richest, most +wonderful bit of earth upon this planet. People don't know it yet, and +don't realize what it may become. I've been up an' down it from end to +end, and had two dry seasons in those very parts, as I told you when I +spoke of the war I made on the slave-dealers. Well, when I was up +there I heard some yarns of the same kind—traditions of Indians and +the like, but with somethin' behind them, no doubt. The more you knew +of that country, young fellah, the more you would understand that +anythin' was possible—ANYTHIN'! There are just some narrow +water-lanes along which folk travel, and outside that it is all +darkness. Now, down here in the Matto Grande"—he swept his cigar over +a part of the map—"or up in this corner where three countries meet, +nothin' would surprise me. As that chap said to-night, there are +fifty-thousand miles of water-way runnin' through a forest that is very +near the size of Europe. You and I could be as far away from each +other as Scotland is from Constantinople, and yet each of us be in the +same great Brazilian forest. Man has just made a track here and a +scrape there in the maze. Why, the river rises and falls the best part +of forty feet, and half the country is a morass that you can't pass +over. Why shouldn't somethin' new and wonderful lie in such a country? +And why shouldn't we be the men to find it out? Besides," he added, +his queer, gaunt face shining with delight, "there's a sportin' risk in +every mile of it. I'm like an old golf-ball—I've had all the white +paint knocked off me long ago. Life can whack me about now, and it +can't leave a mark. But a sportin' risk, young fellah, that's the salt +of existence. Then it's worth livin' again. We're all gettin' a deal +too soft and dull and comfy. Give me the great waste lands and the +wide spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin' to look for that's +worth findin'. I've tried war and steeplechasin' and aeroplanes, but +this huntin' of beasts that look like a lobster-supper dream is a +brand-new sensation." He chuckled with glee at the prospect. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this new acquaintance, but he is to +be my comrade for many a day, and so I have tried to set him down as I +first saw him, with his quaint personality and his queer little tricks +of speech and of thought. It was only the need of getting in the +account of my meeting which drew me at last from his company. I left +him seated amid his pink radiance, oiling the lock of his favorite +rifle, while he still chuckled to himself at the thought of the +adventures which awaited us. It was very clear to me that if dangers +lay before us I could not in all England have found a cooler head or a +braver spirit with which to share them. +</P> + +<P> +That night, wearied as I was after the wonderful happenings of the day, +I sat late with McArdle, the news editor, explaining to him the whole +situation, which he thought important enough to bring next morning +before the notice of Sir George Beaumont, the chief. It was agreed +that I should write home full accounts of my adventures in the shape of +successive letters to McArdle, and that these should either be edited +for the Gazette as they arrived, or held back to be published later, +according to the wishes of Professor Challenger, since we could not yet +know what conditions he might attach to those directions which should +guide us to the unknown land. In response to a telephone inquiry, we +received nothing more definite than a fulmination against the Press, +ending up with the remark that if we would notify our boat he would +hand us any directions which he might think it proper to give us at the +moment of starting. A second question from us failed to elicit any +answer at all, save a plaintive bleat from his wife to the effect that +her husband was in a very violent temper already, and that she hoped we +would do nothing to make it worse. A third attempt, later in the day, +provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent message from the Central +Exchange that Professor Challenger's receiver had been shattered. +After that we abandoned all attempt at communication. +</P> + +<P> +And now my patient readers, I can address you directly no longer. From +now onwards (if, indeed, any continuation of this narrative should ever +reach you) it can only be through the paper which I represent. In the +hands of the editor I leave this account of the events which have led +up to one of the most remarkable expeditions of all time, so that if I +never return to England there shall be some record as to how the affair +came about. I am writing these last lines in the saloon of the Booth +liner Francisca, and they will go back by the pilot to the keeping of +Mr. McArdle. Let me draw one last picture before I close the +notebook—a picture which is the last memory of the old country which I +bear away with me. It is a wet, foggy morning in the late spring; a +thin, cold rain is falling. Three shining mackintoshed figures are +walking down the quay, making for the gang-plank of the great liner +from which the blue-peter is flying. In front of them a porter pushes +a trolley piled high with trunks, wraps, and gun-cases. Professor +Summerlee, a long, melancholy figure, walks with dragging steps and +drooping head, as one who is already profoundly sorry for himself. +Lord John Roxton steps briskly, and his thin, eager face beams forth +between his hunting-cap and his muffler. As for myself, I am glad to +have got the bustling days of preparation and the pangs of leave-taking +behind me, and I have no doubt that I show it in my bearing. Suddenly, +just as we reach the vessel, there is a shout behind us. It is +Professor Challenger, who had promised to see us off. He runs after +us, a puffing, red-faced, irascible figure. +</P> + +<P> +"No thank you," says he; "I should much prefer not to go aboard. I +have only a few words to say to you, and they can very well be said +where we are. I beg you not to imagine that I am in any way indebted +to you for making this journey. I would have you to understand that it +is a matter of perfect indifference to me, and I refuse to entertain +the most remote sense of personal obligation. Truth is truth, and +nothing which you can report can affect it in any way, though it may +excite the emotions and allay the curiosity of a number of very +ineffectual people. My directions for your instruction and guidance +are in this sealed envelope. You will open it when you reach a town +upon the Amazon which is called Manaos, but not until the date and hour +which is marked upon the outside. Have I made myself clear? I leave +the strict observance of my conditions entirely to your honor. No, Mr. +Malone, I will place no restriction upon your correspondence, since the +ventilation of the facts is the object of your journey; but I demand +that you shall give no particulars as to your exact destination, and +that nothing be actually published until your return. Good-bye, sir. +You have done something to mitigate my feelings for the loathsome +profession to which you unhappily belong. Good-bye, Lord John. +Science is, as I understand, a sealed book to you; but you may +congratulate yourself upon the hunting-field which awaits you. You +will, no doubt, have the opportunity of describing in the Field how you +brought down the rocketing dimorphodon. And good-bye to you also, +Professor Summerlee. If you are still capable of self-improvement, of +which I am frankly unconvinced, you will surely return to London a +wiser man." +</P> + +<P> +So he turned upon his heel, and a minute later from the deck I could +see his short, squat figure bobbing about in the distance as he made +his way back to his train. Well, we are well down Channel now. +There's the last bell for letters, and it's good-bye to the pilot. +We'll be "down, hull-down, on the old trail" from now on. God bless +all we leave behind us, and send us safely back. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "To-morrow we Disappear into the Unknown" +</H3> + +<P> +I will not bore those whom this narrative may reach by an account of +our luxurious voyage upon the Booth liner, nor will I tell of our +week's stay at Para (save that I should wish to acknowledge the great +kindness of the Pereira da Pinta Company in helping us to get together +our equipment). I will also allude very briefly to our river journey, +up a wide, slow-moving, clay-tinted stream, in a steamer which was +little smaller than that which had carried us across the Atlantic. +Eventually we found ourselves through the narrows of Obidos and reached +the town of Manaos. Here we were rescued from the limited attractions +of the local inn by Mr. Shortman, the representative of the British and +Brazilian Trading Company. In his hospitable Fazenda we spent our time +until the day when we were empowered to open the letter of instructions +given to us by Professor Challenger. Before I reach the surprising +events of that date I would desire to give a clearer sketch of my +comrades in this enterprise, and of the associates whom we had already +gathered together in South America. I speak freely, and I leave the +use of my material to your own discretion, Mr. McArdle, since it is +through your hands that this report must pass before it reaches the +world. +</P> + +<P> +The scientific attainments of Professor Summerlee are too well known +for me to trouble to recapitulate them. He is better equipped for a +rough expedition of this sort than one would imagine at first sight. +His tall, gaunt, stringy figure is insensible to fatigue, and his dry, +half-sarcastic, and often wholly unsympathetic manner is uninfluenced +by any change in his surroundings. Though in his sixty-sixth year, I +have never heard him express any dissatisfaction at the occasional +hardships which we have had to encounter. I had regarded his presence +as an encumbrance to the expedition, but, as a matter of fact, I am now +well convinced that his power of endurance is as great as my own. In +temper he is naturally acid and sceptical. From the beginning he has +never concealed his belief that Professor Challenger is an absolute +fraud, that we are all embarked upon an absurd wild-goose chase and +that we are likely to reap nothing but disappointment and danger in +South America, and corresponding ridicule in England. Such are the +views which, with much passionate distortion of his thin features and +wagging of his thin, goat-like beard, he poured into our ears all the +way from Southampton to Manaos. Since landing from the boat he has +obtained some consolation from the beauty and variety of the insect and +bird life around him, for he is absolutely whole-hearted in his +devotion to science. He spends his days flitting through the woods +with his shot-gun and his butterfly-net, and his evenings in mounting +the many specimens he has acquired. Among his minor peculiarities are +that he is careless as to his attire, unclean in his person, +exceedingly absent-minded in his habits, and addicted to smoking a +short briar pipe, which is seldom out of his mouth. He has been upon +several scientific expeditions in his youth (he was with Robertson in +Papua), and the life of the camp and the canoe is nothing fresh to him. +</P> + +<P> +Lord John Roxton has some points in common with Professor Summerlee, +and others in which they are the very antithesis to each other. He is +twenty years younger, but has something of the same spare, scraggy +physique. As to his appearance, I have, as I recollect, described it +in that portion of my narrative which I have left behind me in London. +He is exceedingly neat and prim in his ways, dresses always with great +care in white drill suits and high brown mosquito-boots, and shaves at +least once a day. Like most men of action, he is laconic in speech, +and sinks readily into his own thoughts, but he is always quick to +answer a question or join in a conversation, talking in a queer, jerky, +half-humorous fashion. His knowledge of the world, and very especially +of South America, is surprising, and he has a whole-hearted belief in +the possibilities of our journey which is not to be dashed by the +sneers of Professor Summerlee. He has a gentle voice and a quiet +manner, but behind his twinkling blue eyes there lurks a capacity for +furious wrath and implacable resolution, the more dangerous because +they are held in leash. He spoke little of his own exploits in Brazil +and Peru, but it was a revelation to me to find the excitement which +was caused by his presence among the riverine natives, who looked upon +him as their champion and protector. The exploits of the Red Chief, as +they called him, had become legends among them, but the real facts, as +far as I could learn them, were amazing enough. +</P> + +<P> +These were that Lord John had found himself some years before in that +no-man's-land which is formed by the half-defined frontiers between +Peru, Brazil, and Columbia. In this great district the wild rubber +tree flourishes, and has become, as in the Congo, a curse to the +natives which can only be compared to their forced labor under the +Spaniards upon the old silver mines of Darien. A handful of villainous +half-breeds dominated the country, armed such Indians as would support +them, and turned the rest into slaves, terrorizing them with the most +inhuman tortures in order to force them to gather the india-rubber, +which was then floated down the river to Para. Lord John Roxton +expostulated on behalf of the wretched victims, and received nothing +but threats and insults for his pains. He then formally declared war +against Pedro Lopez, the leader of the slave-drivers, enrolled a band +of runaway slaves in his service, armed them, and conducted a campaign, +which ended by his killing with his own hands the notorious half-breed +and breaking down the system which he represented. +</P> + +<P> +No wonder that the ginger-headed man with the silky voice and the free +and easy manners was now looked upon with deep interest upon the banks +of the great South American river, though the feelings he inspired were +naturally mixed, since the gratitude of the natives was equaled by the +resentment of those who desired to exploit them. One useful result of +his former experiences was that he could talk fluently in the Lingoa +Geral, which is the peculiar talk, one-third Portuguese and two-thirds +Indian, which is current all over Brazil. +</P> + +<P> +I have said before that Lord John Roxton was a South Americomaniac. He +could not speak of that great country without ardor, and this ardor was +infectious, for, ignorant as I was, he fixed my attention and +stimulated my curiosity. How I wish I could reproduce the glamour of +his discourses, the peculiar mixture of accurate knowledge and of racy +imagination which gave them their fascination, until even the +Professor's cynical and sceptical smile would gradually vanish from his +thin face as he listened. He would tell the history of the mighty +river so rapidly explored (for some of the first conquerors of Peru +actually crossed the entire continent upon its waters), and yet so +unknown in regard to all that lay behind its ever-changing banks. +</P> + +<P> +"What is there?" he would cry, pointing to the north. "Wood and marsh +and unpenetrated jungle. Who knows what it may shelter? And there to +the south? A wilderness of swampy forest, where no white man has ever +been. The unknown is up against us on every side. Outside the narrow +lines of the rivers what does anyone know? Who will say what is +possible in such a country? Why should old man Challenger not be +right?" At which direct defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear +upon Professor Summerlee's face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic +head in unsympathetic silence, behind the cloud of his briar-root pipe. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +So much, for the moment, for my two white companions, whose characters +and limitations will be further exposed, as surely as my own, as this +narrative proceeds. But already we have enrolled certain retainers who +may play no small part in what is to come. The first is a gigantic +negro named Zambo, who is a black Hercules, as willing as any horse, +and about as intelligent. Him we enlisted at Para, on the +recommendation of the steamship company, on whose vessels he had +learned to speak a halting English. +</P> + +<P> +It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two half-breeds +from up the river, just come down with a cargo of redwood. They were +swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce, as active and wiry as panthers. +Both of them had spent their lives in those upper waters of the Amazon +which we were about to explore, and it was this recommendation which +had caused Lord John to engage them. One of them, Gomez, had the +further advantage that he could speak excellent English. These men +were willing to act as our personal servants, to cook, to row, or to +make themselves useful in any way at a payment of fifteen dollars a +month. Besides these, we had engaged three Mojo Indians from Bolivia, +who are the most skilful at fishing and boat work of all the river +tribes. The chief of these we called Mojo, after his tribe, and the +others are known as Jose and Fernando. Three white men, then, two +half-breeds, one negro, and three Indians made up the personnel of the +little expedition which lay waiting for its instructions at Manaos +before starting upon its singular quest. +</P> + +<P> +At last, after a weary week, the day had come and the hour. I ask you +to picture the shaded sitting-room of the Fazenda St. Ignatio, two +miles inland from the town of Manaos. Outside lay the yellow, brassy +glare of the sunshine, with the shadows of the palm trees as black and +definite as the trees themselves. The air was calm, full of the +eternal hum of insects, a tropical chorus of many octaves, from the +deep drone of the bee to the high, keen pipe of the mosquito. Beyond +the veranda was a small cleared garden, bounded with cactus hedges and +adorned with clumps of flowering shrubs, round which the great blue +butterflies and the tiny humming-birds fluttered and darted in +crescents of sparkling light. Within we were seated round the cane +table, on which lay a sealed envelope. Inscribed upon it, in the +jagged handwriting of Professor Challenger, were the words:— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Instructions to Lord John Roxton and party. To be opened at Manaos +upon July 15th, at 12 o'clock precisely." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Lord John had placed his watch upon the table beside him. +</P> + +<P> +"We have seven more minutes," said he. "The old dear is very precise." +</P> + +<P> +Professor Summerlee gave an acid smile as he picked up the envelope in +his gaunt hand. +</P> + +<P> +"What can it possibly matter whether we open it now or in seven +minutes?" said he. "It is all part and parcel of the same system of +quackery and nonsense, for which I regret to say that the writer is +notorious." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, come, we must play the game accordin' to rules," said Lord John. +"It's old man Challenger's show and we are here by his good will, so it +would be rotten bad form if we didn't follow his instructions to the +letter." +</P> + +<P> +"A pretty business it is!" cried the Professor, bitterly. "It struck +me as preposterous in London, but I'm bound to say that it seems even +more so upon closer acquaintance. I don't know what is inside this +envelope, but, unless it is something pretty definite, I shall be much +tempted to take the next down-river boat and catch the Bolivia at Para. +After all, I have some more responsible work in the world than to run +about disproving the assertions of a lunatic. Now, Roxton, surely it +is time." +</P> + +<P> +"Time it is," said Lord John. "You can blow the whistle." He took up +the envelope and cut it with his penknife. From it he drew a folded +sheet of paper. This he carefully opened out and flattened on the +table. It was a blank sheet. He turned it over. Again it was blank. +We looked at each other in a bewildered silence, which was broken by a +discordant burst of derisive laughter from Professor Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"It is an open admission," he cried. "What more do you want? The +fellow is a self-confessed humbug. We have only to return home and +report him as the brazen imposter that he is." +</P> + +<P> +"Invisible ink!" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think!" said Lord Roxton, holding the paper to the light. +"No, young fellah my lad, there is no use deceiving yourself. I'll go +bail for it that nothing has ever been written upon this paper." +</P> + +<P> +"May I come in?" boomed a voice from the veranda. +</P> + +<P> +The shadow of a squat figure had stolen across the patch of sunlight. +That voice! That monstrous breadth of shoulder! We sprang to our feet +with a gasp of astonishment as Challenger, in a round, boyish straw-hat +with a colored ribbon—Challenger, with his hands in his jacket-pockets +and his canvas shoes daintily pointing as he walked—appeared in the +open space before us. He threw back his head, and there he stood in +the golden glow with all his old Assyrian luxuriance of beard, all his +native insolence of drooping eyelids and intolerant eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I fear," said he, taking out his watch, "that I am a few minutes too +late. When I gave you this envelope I must confess that I had never +intended that you should open it, for it had been my fixed intention to +be with you before the hour. The unfortunate delay can be apportioned +between a blundering pilot and an intrusive sandbank. I fear that it +has given my colleague, Professor Summerlee, occasion to blaspheme." +</P> + +<P> +"I am bound to say, sir," said Lord John, with some sternness of voice, +"that your turning up is a considerable relief to us, for our mission +seemed to have come to a premature end. Even now I can't for the life +of me understand why you should have worked it in so extraordinary a +manner." +</P> + +<P> +Instead of answering, Professor Challenger entered, shook hands with +myself and Lord John, bowed with ponderous insolence to Professor +Summerlee, and sank back into a basket-chair, which creaked and swayed +beneath his weight. +</P> + +<P> +"Is all ready for your journey?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"We can start to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Then so you shall. You need no chart of directions now, since you +will have the inestimable advantage of my own guidance. From the first +I had determined that I would myself preside over your investigation. +The most elaborate charts would, as you will readily admit, be a poor +substitute for my own intelligence and advice. As to the small ruse +which I played upon you in the matter of the envelope, it is clear +that, had I told you all my intentions, I should have been forced to +resist unwelcome pressure to travel out with you." +</P> + +<P> +"Not from me, sir!" exclaimed Professor Summerlee, heartily. "So long +as there was another ship upon the Atlantic." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger waved him away with his great hairy hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Your common sense will, I am sure, sustain my objection and realize +that it was better that I should direct my own movements and appear +only at the exact moment when my presence was needed. That moment has +now arrived. You are in safe hands. You will not now fail to reach +your destination. From henceforth I take command of this expedition, +and I must ask you to complete your preparations to-night, so that we +may be able to make an early start in the morning. My time is of +value, and the same thing may be said, no doubt, in a lesser degree of +your own. I propose, therefore, that we push on as rapidly as +possible, until I have demonstrated what you have come to see." +</P> + +<P> +Lord John Roxton has chartered a large steam launch, the Esmeralda, +which was to carry us up the river. So far as climate goes, it was +immaterial what time we chose for our expedition, as the temperature +ranges from seventy-five to ninety degrees both summer and winter, with +no appreciable difference in heat. In moisture, however, it is +otherwise; from December to May is the period of the rains, and during +this time the river slowly rises until it attains a height of nearly +forty feet above its low-water mark. It floods the banks, extends in +great lagoons over a monstrous waste of country, and forms a huge +district, called locally the Gapo, which is for the most part too +marshy for foot-travel and too shallow for boating. About June the +waters begin to fall, and are at their lowest at October or November. +Thus our expedition was at the time of the dry season, when the great +river and its tributaries were more or less in a normal condition. +</P> + +<P> +The current of the river is a slight one, the drop being not greater +than eight inches in a mile. No stream could be more convenient for +navigation, since the prevailing wind is south-east, and sailing boats +may make a continuous progress to the Peruvian frontier, dropping down +again with the current. In our own case the excellent engines of the +Esmeralda could disregard the sluggish flow of the stream, and we made +as rapid progress as if we were navigating a stagnant lake. For three +days we steamed north-westwards up a stream which even here, a thousand +miles from its mouth, was still so enormous that from its center the +two banks were mere shadows upon the distant skyline. On the fourth +day after leaving Manaos we turned into a tributary which at its mouth +was little smaller than the main stream. It narrowed rapidly, however, +and after two more days' steaming we reached an Indian village, where +the Professor insisted that we should land, and that the Esmeralda +should be sent back to Manaos. We should soon come upon rapids, he +explained, which would make its further use impossible. He added +privately that we were now approaching the door of the unknown country, +and that the fewer whom we took into our confidence the better it would +be. To this end also he made each of us give our word of honor that we +would publish or say nothing which would give any exact clue as to the +whereabouts of our travels, while the servants were all solemnly sworn +to the same effect. It is for this reason that I am compelled to be +vague in my narrative, and I would warn my readers that in any map or +diagram which I may give the relation of places to each other may be +correct, but the points of the compass are carefully confused, so that +in no way can it be taken as an actual guide to the country. Professor +Challenger's reasons for secrecy may be valid or not, but we had no +choice but to adopt them, for he was prepared to abandon the whole +expedition rather than modify the conditions upon which he would guide +us. +</P> + +<P> +It was August 2nd when we snapped our last link with the outer world by +bidding farewell to the Esmeralda. Since then four days have passed, +during which we have engaged two large canoes from the Indians, made of +so light a material (skins over a bamboo framework) that we should be +able to carry them round any obstacle. These we have loaded with all +our effects, and have engaged two additional Indians to help us in the +navigation. I understand that they are the very two—Ataca and Ipetu +by name—who accompanied Professor Challenger upon his previous +journey. They appeared to be terrified at the prospect of repeating +it, but the chief has patriarchal powers in these countries, and if the +bargain is good in his eyes the clansman has little choice in the +matter. +</P> + +<P> +So to-morrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am +transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to +those who are interested in our fate. I have, according to our +arrangement, addressed it to you, my dear Mr. McArdle, and I leave it +to your discretion to delete, alter, or do what you like with it. From +the assurance of Professor Challenger's manner—and in spite of the +continued scepticism of Professor Summerlee—I have no doubt that our +leader will make good his statement, and that we are really on the eve +of some most remarkable experiences. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "The Outlying Pickets of the New World" +</H3> + +<P> +Our friends at home may well rejoice with us, for we are at our goal, +and up to a point, at least, we have shown that the statement of +Professor Challenger can be verified. We have not, it is true, +ascended the plateau, but it lies before us, and even Professor +Summerlee is in a more chastened mood. Not that he will for an instant +admit that his rival could be right, but he is less persistent in his +incessant objections, and has sunk for the most part into an observant +silence. I must hark back, however, and continue my narrative from +where I dropped it. We are sending home one of our local Indians who +is injured, and I am committing this letter to his charge, with +considerable doubts in my mind as to whether it will ever come to hand. +</P> + +<P> +When I wrote last we were about to leave the Indian village where we +had been deposited by the Esmeralda. I have to begin my report by bad +news, for the first serious personal trouble (I pass over the incessant +bickerings between the Professors) occurred this evening, and might +have had a tragic ending. I have spoken of our English-speaking +half-breed, Gomez—a fine worker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, I +fancy, with the vice of curiosity, which is common enough among such +men. On the last evening he seems to have hid himself near the hut in +which we were discussing our plans, and, being observed by our huge +negro Zambo, who is as faithful as a dog and has the hatred which all +his race bear to the half-breeds, he was dragged out and carried into +our presence. Gomez whipped out his knife, however, and but for the +huge strength of his captor, which enabled him to disarm him with one +hand, he would certainly have stabbed him. The matter has ended in +reprimands, the opponents have been compelled to shake hands, and there +is every hope that all will be well. As to the feuds of the two +learned men, they are continuous and bitter. It must be admitted that +Challenger is provocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acid +tongue, which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that he +never cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river, as +it was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He is convinced, of +course, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. Summerlee rejoined, +however, with a sour smile, by saying that he understood that Millbank +Prison had been pulled down. Challenger's conceit is too colossal to +allow him to be really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and +repeated "Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a +child. Indeed, they are children both—the one wizened and +cantankerous, the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a +brain which has put him in the front rank of his scientific age. +Brain, character, soul—only as one sees more of life does one +understand how distinct is each. +</P> + +<P> +The very next day we did actually make our start upon this remarkable +expedition. We found that all our possessions fitted very easily into +the two canoes, and we divided our personnel, six in each, taking the +obvious precaution in the interests of peace of putting one Professor +into each canoe. Personally, I was with Challenger, who was in a +beatific humor, moving about as one in a silent ecstasy and beaming +benevolence from every feature. I have had some experience of him in +other moods, however, and shall be the less surprised when the +thunderstorms suddenly come up amidst the sunshine. If it is +impossible to be at your ease, it is equally impossible to be dull in +his company, for one is always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as to +what sudden turn his formidable temper may take. +</P> + +<P> +For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundreds of +yards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that one could +usually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are, half of them, +of this nature, while the other half are whitish and opaque, the +difference depending upon the class of country through which they have +flowed. The dark indicate vegetable decay, while the others point to +clayey soil. Twice we came across rapids, and in each case made a +portage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either side +were primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of the +second growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes +through them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The +height of the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything +which I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards in +magnificent columns until, at an enormous distance above our heads, we +could dimly discern the spot where they threw out their side-branches +into Gothic upward curves which coalesced to form one great matted roof +of verdure, through which only an occasional golden ray of sunshine +shot downwards to trace a thin dazzling line of light amidst the +majestic obscurity. As we walked noiselessly amid the thick, soft +carpet of decaying vegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comes +upon us in the twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger's +full-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should have been +ignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men of science +pointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, and the redwood +trees, with all that profusion of various plants which has made this +continent the chief supplier to the human race of those gifts of Nature +which depend upon the vegetable world, while it is the most backward in +those products which come from animal life. Vivid orchids and +wonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and +where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, +the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of +ipomaea, the effect was as a dream of fairyland. In these great wastes +of forest, life, which abhors darkness, struggles ever upwards to the +light. Every plant, even the smaller ones, curls and writhes to the +green surface, twining itself round its stronger and taller brethren in +the effort. Climbing plants are monstrous and luxuriant, but others +which have never been known to climb elsewhere learn the art as an +escape from that somber shadow, so that the common nettle, the jasmine, +and even the jacitara palm tree can be seen circling the stems of the +cedars and striving to reach their crowns. Of animal life there was no +movement amid the majestic vaulted aisles which stretched from us as we +walked, but a constant movement far above our heads told of that +multitudinous world of snake and monkey, bird and sloth, which lived in +the sunshine, and looked down in wonder at our tiny, dark, stumbling +figures in the obscure depths immeasurably below them. At dawn and at +sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parrakeets broke +into shrill chatter, but during the hot hours of the day only the full +drone of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear, +while nothing moved amid the solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading +away into the darkness which held us in. Once some bandy-legged, +lurching creature, an ant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid the +shadows. It was the only sign of earth life which I saw in this great +Amazonian forest. +</P> + +<P> +And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not far +from us in those mysterious recesses. On the third day out we were +aware of a singular deep throbbing in the air, rhythmic and solemn, +coming and going fitfully throughout the morning. The two boats were +paddling within a few yards of each other when first we heard it, and +our Indians remained motionless, as if they had been turned to bronze, +listening intently with expressions of terror upon their faces. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, then?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Drums," said Lord John, carelessly; "war drums. I have heard them +before." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir, war drums," said Gomez, the half-breed. "Wild Indians, +bravos, not mansos; they watch us every mile of the way; kill us if +they can." +</P> + +<P> +"How can they watch us?" I asked, gazing into the dark, motionless void. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed shrugged his broad shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"The Indians know. They have their own way. They watch us. They talk +the drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can." +</P> + +<P> +By the afternoon of that day—my pocket diary shows me that it was +Tuesday, August 18th—at least six or seven drums were throbbing from +various points. Sometimes they beat quickly, sometimes slowly, +sometimes in obvious question and answer, one far to the east breaking +out in a high staccato rattle, and being followed after a pause by a +deep roll from the north. There was something indescribably +nerve-shaking and menacing in that constant mutter, which seemed to +shape itself into the very syllables of the half-breed, endlessly +repeated, "We will kill you if we can. We will kill you if we can." +No one ever moved in the silent woods. All the peace and soothing of +quiet Nature lay in that dark curtain of vegetation, but away from +behind there came ever the one message from our fellow-man. "We will +kill you if we can," said the men in the east. "We will kill you if we +can," said the men in the north. +</P> + +<P> +All day the drums rumbled and whispered, while their menace reflected +itself in the faces of our colored companions. Even the hardy, +swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however, that day once +for all that both Summerlee and Challenger possessed that highest type +of bravery, the bravery of the scientific mind. Theirs was the spirit +which upheld Darwin among the gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace among +the head-hunters of Malaya. It is decreed by a merciful Nature that +the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if +it be steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merely +personal considerations. All day amid that incessant and mysterious +menace our two Professors watched every bird upon the wing, and every +shrub upon the bank, with many a sharp wordy contention, when the snarl +of Summerlee came quick upon the deep growl of Challenger, but with no +more sense of danger and no more reference to drum-beating Indians than +if they were seated together in the smoking-room of the Royal Society's +Club in St. James's Street. Once only did they condescend to discuss +them. +</P> + +<P> +"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking his thumb +towards the reverberating wood. +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt, sir," Summerlee answered. "Like all such tribes, I shall +expect to find them of poly-synthetic speech and of Mongolian type." +</P> + +<P> +"Polysynthetic certainly," said Challenger, indulgently. "I am not +aware that any other type of language exists in this continent, and I +have notes of more than a hundred. The Mongolian theory I regard with +deep suspicion." +</P> + +<P> +"I should have thought that even a limited knowledge of comparative +anatomy would have helped to verify it," said Summerlee, bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +Challenger thrust out his aggressive chin until he was all beard and +hat-rim. "No doubt, sir, a limited knowledge would have that effect. +When one's knowledge is exhaustive, one comes to other conclusions." +They glared at each other in mutual defiance, while all round rose the +distant whisper, "We will kill you—we will kill you if we can." +</P> + +<P> +That night we moored our canoes with heavy stones for anchors in the +center of the stream, and made every preparation for a possible attack. +Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we pushed upon our way, the +drum-beating dying out behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoon +we came to a very steep rapid, more than a mile long—the very one in +which Professor Challenger had suffered disaster upon his first +journey. I confess that the sight of it consoled me, for it was really +the first direct corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his +story. The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores +through the brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we four +whites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and any danger +coming from the woods. Before evening we had successfully passed the +rapids, and made our way some ten miles above them, where we anchored +for the night. At this point I reckoned that we had come not less than +a hundred miles up the tributary from the main stream. +</P> + +<P> +It was in the early forenoon of the next day that we made the great +departure. Since dawn Professor Challenger had been acutely uneasy, +continually scanning each bank of the river. Suddenly he gave an +exclamation of satisfaction and pointed to a single tree, which +projected at a peculiar angle over the side of the stream. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you make of that?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It is surely an Assai palm," said Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. It was an Assai palm which I took for my landmark. The +secret opening is half a mile onwards upon the other side of the river. +There is no break in the trees. That is the wonder and the mystery of +it. There where you see light-green rushes instead of dark-green +undergrowth, there between the great cotton woods, that is my private +gate into the unknown. Push through, and you will understand." +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed a wonderful place. Having reached the spot marked by a +line of light-green rushes, we poled out two canoes through them for +some hundreds of yards, and eventually emerged into a placid and +shallow stream, running clear and transparent over a sandy bottom. It +may have been twenty yards across, and was banked in on each side by +most luxuriant vegetation. No one who had not observed that for a +short distance reeds had taken the place of shrubs, could possibly have +guessed the existence of such a stream or dreamed of the fairyland +beyond. +</P> + +<P> +For a fairyland it was—the most wonderful that the imagination of man +could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a +natural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a golden +twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but +marvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above +filtered and tempered in its fall. Clear as crystal, motionless as a +sheet of glass, green as the edge of an iceberg, it stretched in front +of us under its leafy archway, every stroke of our paddles sending a +thousand ripples across its shining surface. It was a fitting avenue +to a land of wonders. All sign of the Indians had passed away, but +animal life was more frequent, and the tameness of the creatures showed +that they knew nothing of the hunter. Fuzzy little black-velvet +monkeys, with snow-white teeth and gleaming, mocking eyes, chattered at +us as we passed. With a dull, heavy splash an occasional cayman +plunged in from the bank. Once a dark, clumsy tapir stared at us from +a gap in the bushes, and then lumbered away through the forest; once, +too, the yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid the +brushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over its +tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds, +stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and +white, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the +crystal water was alive with fish of every shape and color. +</P> + +<P> +For three days we made our way up this tunnel of hazy green sunshine. +On the longer stretches one could hardly tell as one looked ahead where +the distant green water ended and the distant green archway began. The +deep peace of this strange waterway was unbroken by any sign of man. +</P> + +<P> +"No Indian here. Too much afraid. Curupuri," said Gomez. +</P> + +<P> +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods," Lord John explained. "It's a +name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think that there is +something fearsome in this direction, and therefore they avoid it." +</P> + +<P> +On the third day it became evident that our journey in the canoes could +not last much longer, for the stream was rapidly growing more shallow. +Twice in as many hours we stuck upon the bottom. Finally we pulled the +boats up among the brushwood and spent the night on the bank of the +river. In the morning Lord John and I made our way for a couple of +miles through the forest, keeping parallel with the stream; but as it +grew ever shallower we returned and reported, what Professor Challenger +had already suspected, that we had reached the highest point to which +the canoes could be brought. We drew them up, therefore, and concealed +them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so that we should +find them again. Then we distributed the various burdens among +us—guns, ammunition, food, a tent, blankets, and the rest—and, +shouldering our packages, we set forth upon the more laborious stage of +our journey. +</P> + +<P> +An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outset of our +new stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining us issued +directions to the whole party, much to the evident discontent of +Summerlee. Now, upon his assigning some duty to his fellow-Professor +(it was only the carrying of an aneroid barometer), the matter suddenly +came to a head. +</P> + +<P> +"May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in what capacity +you take it upon yourself to issue these orders?" +</P> + +<P> +Challenger glared and bristled. +</P> + +<P> +"I do it, Professor Summerlee, as leader of this expedition." +</P> + +<P> +"I am compelled to tell you, sir, that I do not recognize you in that +capacity." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm. "Perhaps you would +define my exact position." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir. You are a man whose veracity is upon trial, and this +committee is here to try it. You walk, sir, with your judges." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me!" said Challenger, seating himself on the side of one of the +canoes. "In that case you will, of course, go on your way, and I will +follow at my leisure. If I am not the leader you cannot expect me to +lead." +</P> + +<P> +Thank heaven that there were two sane men—Lord John Roxton and +myself—to prevent the petulance and folly of our learned Professors +from sending us back empty-handed to London. Such arguing and pleading +and explaining before we could get them mollified! Then at last +Summerlee, with his sneer and his pipe, would move forwards, and +Challenger would come rolling and grumbling after. By some good +fortune we discovered about this time that both our savants had the +very poorest opinion of Dr. Illingworth of Edinburgh. Thenceforward +that was our one safety, and every strained situation was relieved by +our introducing the name of the Scotch zoologist, when both our +Professors would form a temporary alliance and friendship in their +detestation and abuse of this common rival. +</P> + +<P> +Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soon found +that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it lost itself +in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into which we sank up to +our knees. The place was horribly haunted by clouds of mosquitoes and +every form of flying pest, so we were glad to find solid ground again +and to make a circuit among the trees, which enabled us to outflank +this pestilent morass, which droned like an organ in the distance, so +loud was it with insect life. +</P> + +<P> +On the second day after leaving our canoes we found that the whole +character of the country changed. Our road was persistently upwards, +and as we ascended the woods became thinner and lost their tropical +luxuriance. The huge trees of the alluvial Amazonian plain gave place +to the Phoenix and coco palms, growing in scattered clumps, with thick +brushwood between. In the damper hollows the Mauritia palms threw out +their graceful drooping fronds. We traveled entirely by compass, and +once or twice there were differences of opinion between Challenger and +the two Indians, when, to quote the Professor's indignant words, the +whole party agreed to "trust the fallacious instincts of undeveloped +savages rather than the highest product of modern European culture." +That we were justified in doing so was shown upon the third day, when +Challenger admitted that he recognized several landmarks of his former +journey, and in one spot we actually came upon four fire-blackened +stones, which must have marked a camping-place. +</P> + +<P> +The road still ascended, and we crossed a rock-studded slope which took +two days to traverse. The vegetation had again changed, and only the +vegetable ivory tree remained, with a great profusion of wonderful +orchids, among which I learned to recognize the rare Nuttonia +Vexillaria and the glorious pink and scarlet blossoms of Cattleya and +odontoglossum. Occasional brooks with pebbly bottoms and fern-draped +banks gurgled down the shallow gorges in the hill, and offered good +camping-grounds every evening on the banks of some rock-studded pool, +where swarms of little blue-backed fish, about the size and shape of +English trout, gave us a delicious supper. +</P> + +<P> +On the ninth day after leaving the canoes, having done, as I reckon, +about a hundred and twenty miles, we began to emerge from the trees, +which had grown smaller until they were mere shrubs. Their place was +taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which grew so thickly that we +could only penetrate it by cutting a pathway with the machetes and +billhooks of the Indians. It took us a long day, traveling from seven +in the morning till eight at night, with only two breaks of one hour +each, to get through this obstacle. Anything more monotonous and +wearying could not be imagined, for, even at the most open places, I +could not see more than ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision +was limited to the back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me, +and to the yellow wall within a foot of me on either side. From above +came one thin knife-edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our heads +one saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky. I do +not know what kind of creatures inhabit such a thicket, but several +times we heard the plunging of large, heavy animals quite close to us. +From their sounds Lord John judged them to be some form of wild cattle. +Just as night fell we cleared the belt of bamboos, and at once formed +our camp, exhausted by the interminable day. +</P> + +<P> +Early next morning we were again afoot, and found that the character of +the country had changed once again. Behind us was the wall of bamboo, +as definite as if it marked the course of a river. In front was an +open plain, sloping slightly upwards and dotted with clumps of +tree-ferns, the whole curving before us until it ended in a long, +whale-backed ridge. This we reached about midday, only to find a +shallow valley beyond, rising once again into a gentle incline which +led to a low, rounded sky-line. It was here, while we crossed the +first of these hills, that an incident occurred which may or may not +have been important. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger, who with the two local Indians was in the van of +the party, stopped suddenly and pointed excitedly to the right. As he +did so we saw, at the distance of a mile or so, something which +appeared to be a huge gray bird flap slowly up from the ground and skim +smoothly off, flying very low and straight, until it was lost among the +tree-ferns. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you see it?" cried Challenger, in exultation. "Summerlee, did you +see it?" +</P> + +<P> +His colleague was staring at the spot where the creature had +disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you claim that it was?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"To the best of my belief, a pterodactyl." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee burst into derisive laughter "A pter-fiddlestick!" said he. +"It was a stork, if ever I saw one." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger was too furious to speak. He simply swung his pack upon his +back and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreast of me, +however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. He had his +Zeiss glasses in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won't +undertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as a +sportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes on in my +life." +</P> + +<P> +So there the matter stands. Are we really just at the edge of the +unknown, encountering the outlying pickets of this lost world of which +our leader speaks? I give you the incident as it occurred and you will +know as much as I do. It stands alone, for we saw nothing more which +could be called remarkable. +</P> + +<P> +And now, my readers, if ever I have any, I have brought you up the +broad river, and through the screen of rushes, and down the green +tunnel, and up the long slope of palm trees, and through the bamboo +brake, and across the plain of tree-ferns. At last our destination lay +in full sight of us. When we had crossed the second ridge we saw +before us an irregular, palm-studded plain, and then the line of high +red cliffs which I have seen in the picture. There it lies, even as I +write, and there can be no question that it is the same. At the +nearest point it is about seven miles from our present camp, and it +curves away, stretching as far as I can see. Challenger struts about +like a prize peacock, and Summerlee is silent, but still sceptical. +Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. Meanwhile, as +Jose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, insists upon returning, +I send this letter back in his charge, and only hope that it may +eventually come to hand. I will write again as the occasion serves. I +have enclosed with this a rough chart of our journey, which may have +the effect of making the account rather easier to understand. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Who could have Foreseen it?" +</H3> + +<P> +A dreadful thing has happened to us. Who could have foreseen it? I +cannot foresee any end to our troubles. It may be that we are +condemned to spend our whole lives in this strange, inaccessible place. +I am still so confused that I can hardly think clearly of the facts of +the present or of the chances of the future. To my astounded senses +the one seems most terrible and the other as black as night. +</P> + +<P> +No men have ever found themselves in a worse position; nor is there any +use in disclosing to you our exact geographical situation and asking +our friends for a relief party. Even if they could send one, our fate +will in all human probability be decided long before it could arrive in +South America. +</P> + +<P> +We are, in truth, as far from any human aid as if we were in the moon. +If we are to win through, it is only our own qualities which can save +us. I have as companions three remarkable men, men of great +brain-power and of unshaken courage. There lies our one and only hope. +It is only when I look upon the untroubled faces of my comrades that I +see some glimmer through the darkness. Outwardly I trust that I appear +as unconcerned as they. Inwardly I am filled with apprehension. +</P> + +<P> +Let me give you, with as much detail as I can, the sequence of events +which have led us to this catastrophe. +</P> + +<P> +When I finished my last letter I stated that we were within seven miles +from an enormous line of ruddy cliffs, which encircled, beyond all +doubt, the plateau of which Professor Challenger spoke. Their height, +as we approached them, seemed to me in some places to be greater than +he had stated—running up in parts to at least a thousand feet—and +they were curiously striated, in a manner which is, I believe, +characteristic of basaltic upheavals. Something of the sort is to be +seen in Salisbury Crags at Edinburgh. The summit showed every sign of +a luxuriant vegetation, with bushes near the edge, and farther back +many high trees. There was no indication of any life that we could see. +</P> + +<P> +That night we pitched our camp immediately under the cliff—a most wild +and desolate spot. The crags above us were not merely perpendicular, +but curved outwards at the top, so that ascent was out of the question. +Close to us was the high thin pinnacle of rock which I believe I +mentioned earlier in this narrative. It is like a broad red church +spire, the top of it being level with the plateau, but a great chasm +gaping between. On the summit of it there grew one high tree. Both +pinnacle and cliff were comparatively low—some five or six hundred +feet, I should think. +</P> + +<P> +"It was on that," said Professor Challenger, pointing to this tree, +"that the pterodactyl was perched. I climbed half-way up the rock +before I shot him. I am inclined to think that a good mountaineer like +myself could ascend the rock to the top, though he would, of course, be +no nearer to the plateau when he had done so." +</P> + +<P> +As Challenger spoke of his pterodactyl I glanced at Professor +Summerlee, and for the first time I seemed to see some signs of a +dawning credulity and repentance. There was no sneer upon his thin +lips, but, on the contrary, a gray, drawn look of excitement and +amazement. Challenger saw it, too, and reveled in the first taste of +victory. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," said he, with his clumsy and ponderous sarcasm, +"Professor Summerlee will understand that when I speak of a pterodactyl +I mean a stork—only it is the kind of stork which has no feathers, a +leathery skin, membranous wings, and teeth in its jaws." He grinned +and blinked and bowed until his colleague turned and walked away. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning, after a frugal breakfast of coffee and manioc—we had +to be economical of our stores—we held a council of war as to the best +method of ascending to the plateau above us. +</P> + +<P> +Challenger presided with a solemnity as if he were the Lord Chief +Justice on the Bench. Picture him seated upon a rock, his absurd +boyish straw hat tilted on the back of his head, his supercilious eyes +dominating us from under his drooping lids, his great black beard +wagging as he slowly defined our present situation and our future +movements. +</P> + +<P> +Beneath him you might have seen the three of us—myself, sunburnt, +young, and vigorous after our open-air tramp; Summerlee, solemn but +still critical, behind his eternal pipe; Lord John, as keen as a +razor-edge, with his supple, alert figure leaning upon his rifle, and +his eager eyes fixed eagerly upon the speaker. Behind us were grouped +the two swarthy half-breeds and the little knot of Indians, while in +front and above us towered those huge, ruddy ribs of rocks which kept +us from our goal. +</P> + +<P> +"I need not say," said our leader, "that on the occasion of my last +visit I exhausted every means of climbing the cliff, and where I failed +I do not think that anyone else is likely to succeed, for I am +something of a mountaineer. I had none of the appliances of a +rock-climber with me, but I have taken the precaution to bring them +now. With their aid I am positive I could climb that detached pinnacle +to the summit; but so long as the main cliff overhangs, it is vain to +attempt ascending that. I was hurried upon my last visit by the +approach of the rainy season and by the exhaustion of my supplies. +These considerations limited my time, and I can only claim that I have +surveyed about six miles of the cliff to the east of us, finding no +possible way up. What, then, shall we now do?" +</P> + +<P> +"There seems to be only one reasonable course," said Professor +Summerlee. "If you have explored the east, we should travel along the +base of the cliff to the west, and seek for a practicable point for our +ascent." +</P> + +<P> +"That's it," said Lord John. "The odds are that this plateau is of no +great size, and we shall travel round it until we either find an easy +way up it, or come back to the point from which we started." +</P> + +<P> +"I have already explained to our young friend here," said Challenger +(he has a way of alluding to me as if I were a school child ten years +old), "that it is quite impossible that there should be an easy way up +anywhere, for the simple reason that if there were the summit would not +be isolated, and those conditions would not obtain which have effected +so singular an interference with the general laws of survival. Yet I +admit that there may very well be places where an expert human climber +may reach the summit, and yet a cumbrous and heavy animal be unable to +descend. It is certain that there is a point where an ascent is +possible." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know that, sir?" asked Summerlee, sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Because my predecessor, the American Maple White, actually made such +an ascent. How otherwise could he have seen the monster which he +sketched in his notebook?" +</P> + +<P> +"There you reason somewhat ahead of the proved facts," said the +stubborn Summerlee. "I admit your plateau, because I have seen it; but +I have not as yet satisfied myself that it contains any form of life +whatever." +</P> + +<P> +"What you admit, sir, or what you do not admit, is really of +inconceivably small importance. I am glad to perceive that the plateau +itself has actually obtruded itself upon your intelligence." He glanced +up at it, and then, to our amazement, he sprang from his rock, and, +seizing Summerlee by the neck, he tilted his face into the air. "Now +sir!" he shouted, hoarse with excitement. "Do I help you to realize +that the plateau contains some animal life?" +</P> + +<P> +I have said that a thick fringe of green overhung the edge of the +cliff. Out of this there had emerged a black, glistening object. As +it came slowly forth and overhung the chasm, we saw that it was a very +large snake with a peculiar flat, spade-like head. It wavered and +quivered above us for a minute, the morning sun gleaming upon its +sleek, sinuous coils. Then it slowly drew inwards and disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee had been so interested that he had stood unresisting while +Challenger tilted his head into the air. Now he shook his colleague +off and came back to his dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"I should be glad, Professor Challenger," said he, "if you could see +your way to make any remarks which may occur to you without seizing me +by the chin. Even the appearance of a very ordinary rock python does +not appear to justify such a liberty." +</P> + +<P> +"But there is life upon the plateau all the same," his colleague +replied in triumph. "And now, having demonstrated this important +conclusion so that it is clear to anyone, however prejudiced or obtuse, +I am of opinion that we cannot do better than break up our camp and +travel to westward until we find some means of ascent." +</P> + +<P> +The ground at the foot of the cliff was rocky and broken so that the +going was slow and difficult. Suddenly we came, however, upon +something which cheered our hearts. It was the site of an old +encampment, with several empty Chicago meat tins, a bottle labeled +"Brandy," a broken tin-opener, and a quantity of other travelers' +debris. A crumpled, disintegrated newspaper revealed itself as the +Chicago Democrat, though the date had been obliterated. +</P> + +<P> +"Not mine," said Challenger. "It must be Maple White's." +</P> + +<P> +Lord John had been gazing curiously at a great tree-fern which +overshadowed the encampment. "I say, look at this," said he. "I +believe it is meant for a sign-post." +</P> + +<P> +A slip of hard wood had been nailed to the tree in such a way as to +point to the westward. +</P> + +<P> +"Most certainly a sign-post," said Challenger. "What else? Finding +himself upon a dangerous errand, our pioneer has left this sign so that +any party which follows him may know the way he has taken. Perhaps we +shall come upon some other indications as we proceed." +</P> + +<P> +We did indeed, but they were of a terrible and most unexpected nature. +Immediately beneath the cliff there grew a considerable patch of high +bamboo, like that which we had traversed in our journey. Many of these +stems were twenty feet high, with sharp, strong tops, so that even as +they stood they made formidable spears. We were passing along the edge +of this cover when my eye was caught by the gleam of something white +within it. Thrusting in my head between the stems, I found myself +gazing at a fleshless skull. The whole skeleton was there, but the +skull had detached itself and lay some feet nearer to the open. +</P> + +<P> +With a few blows from the machetes of our Indians we cleared the spot +and were able to study the details of this old tragedy. Only a few +shreds of clothes could still be distinguished, but there were the +remains of boots upon the bony feet, and it was very clear that the +dead man was a European. A gold watch by Hudson, of New York, and a +chain which held a stylographic pen, lay among the bones. There was +also a silver cigarette-case, with "J. C., from A. E. S.," upon the +lid. The state of the metal seemed to show that the catastrophe had +occurred no great time before. +</P> + +<P> +"Who can he be?" asked Lord John. "Poor devil! every bone in his body +seems to be broken." +</P> + +<P> +"And the bamboo grows through his smashed ribs," said Summerlee. "It +is a fast-growing plant, but it is surely inconceivable that this body +could have been here while the canes grew to be twenty feet in length." +</P> + +<P> +"As to the man's identity," said Professor Challenger, "I have no doubt +whatever upon that point. As I made my way up the river before I +reached you at the fazenda I instituted very particular inquiries about +Maple White. At Para they knew nothing. Fortunately, I had a definite +clew, for there was a particular picture in his sketch-book which +showed him taking lunch with a certain ecclesiastic at Rosario. This +priest I was able to find, and though he proved a very argumentative +fellow, who took it absurdly amiss that I should point out to him the +corrosive effect which modern science must have upon his beliefs, he +none the less gave me some positive information. Maple White passed +Rosario four years ago, or two years before I saw his dead body. He +was not alone at the time, but there was a friend, an American named +James Colver, who remained in the boat and did not meet this +ecclesiastic. I think, therefore, that there can be no doubt that we +are now looking upon the remains of this James Colver." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor," said Lord John, "is there much doubt as to how he met his death. +He has fallen or been chucked from the top, and so been impaled. How +else could he come by his broken bones, and how could he have been +stuck through by these canes with their points so high above our heads?" +</P> + +<P> +A hush came over us as we stood round these shattered remains and +realized the truth of Lord John Roxton's words. The beetling head of +the cliff projected over the cane-brake. Undoubtedly he had fallen +from above. But had he fallen? Had it been an accident? Or—already +ominous and terrible possibilities began to form round that unknown +land. +</P> + +<P> +We moved off in silence, and continued to coast round the line of +cliffs, which were as even and unbroken as some of those monstrous +Antarctic ice-fields which I have seen depicted as stretching from +horizon to horizon and towering high above the mast-heads of the +exploring vessel. +</P> + +<P> +In five miles we saw no rift or break. And then suddenly we perceived +something which filled us with new hope. In a hollow of the rock, +protected from rain, there was drawn a rough arrow in chalk, pointing +still to the westwards. +</P> + +<P> +"Maple White again," said Professor Challenger. "He had some +presentiment that worthy footsteps would follow close behind him." +</P> + +<P> +"He had chalk, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"A box of colored chalks was among the effects I found in his knapsack. +I remember that the white one was worn to a stump." +</P> + +<P> +"That is certainly good evidence," said Summerlee. "We can only accept +his guidance and follow on to the westward." +</P> + +<P> +We had proceeded some five more miles when again we saw a white arrow +upon the rocks. It was at a point where the face of the cliff was for +the first time split into a narrow cleft. Inside the cleft was a +second guidance mark, which pointed right up it with the tip somewhat +elevated, as if the spot indicated were above the level of the ground. +</P> + +<P> +It was a solemn place, for the walls were so gigantic and the slit of +blue sky so narrow and so obscured by a double fringe of verdure, that +only a dim and shadowy light penetrated to the bottom. We had had no +food for many hours, and were very weary with the stony and irregular +journey, but our nerves were too strung to allow us to halt. We +ordered the camp to be pitched, however, and, leaving the Indians to +arrange it, we four, with the two half-breeds, proceeded up the narrow +gorge. +</P> + +<P> +It was not more than forty feet across at the mouth, but it rapidly +closed until it ended in an acute angle, too straight and smooth for an +ascent. Certainly it was not this which our pioneer had attempted to +indicate. We made our way back—the whole gorge was not more than a +quarter of a mile deep—and then suddenly the quick eyes of Lord John +fell upon what we were seeking. High up above our heads, amid the dark +shadows, there was one circle of deeper gloom. Surely it could only be +the opening of a cave. +</P> + +<P> +The base of the cliff was heaped with loose stones at the spot, and it +was not difficult to clamber up. When we reached it, all doubt was +removed. Not only was it an opening into the rock, but on the side of +it there was marked once again the sign of the arrow. Here was the +point, and this the means by which Maple White and his ill-fated +comrade had made their ascent. +</P> + +<P> +We were too excited to return to the camp, but must make our first +exploration at once. Lord John had an electric torch in his knapsack, +and this had to serve us as light. He advanced, throwing his little +clear circlet of yellow radiance before him, while in single file we +followed at his heels. +</P> + +<P> +The cave had evidently been water-worn, the sides being smooth and the +floor covered with rounded stones. It was of such a size that a single +man could just fit through by stooping. For fifty yards it ran almost +straight into the rock, and then it ascended at an angle of forty-five. +Presently this incline became even steeper, and we found ourselves +climbing upon hands and knees among loose rubble which slid from +beneath us. Suddenly an exclamation broke from Lord Roxton. +</P> + +<P> +"It's blocked!" said he. +</P> + +<P> +Clustering behind him we saw in the yellow field of light a wall of +broken basalt which extended to the ceiling. +</P> + +<P> +"The roof has fallen in!" +</P> + +<P> +In vain we dragged out some of the pieces. The only effect was that +the larger ones became detached and threatened to roll down the +gradient and crush us. It was evident that the obstacle was far beyond +any efforts which we could make to remove it. The road by which Maple +White had ascended was no longer available. +</P> + +<P> +Too much cast down to speak, we stumbled down the dark tunnel and made +our way back to the camp. +</P> + +<P> +One incident occurred, however, before we left the gorge, which is of +importance in view of what came afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +We had gathered in a little group at the bottom of the chasm, some +forty feet beneath the mouth of the cave, when a huge rock rolled +suddenly downwards—and shot past us with tremendous force. It was the +narrowest escape for one or all of us. We could not ourselves see +whence the rock had come, but our half-breed servants, who were still +at the opening of the cave, said that it had flown past them, and must +therefore have fallen from the summit. Looking upwards, we could see +no sign of movement above us amidst the green jungle which topped the +cliff. There could be little doubt, however, that the stone was aimed +at us, so the incident surely pointed to humanity—and malevolent +humanity—upon the plateau. +</P> + +<P> +We withdrew hurriedly from the chasm, our minds full of this new +development and its bearing upon our plans. The situation was +difficult enough before, but if the obstructions of Nature were +increased by the deliberate opposition of man, then our case was indeed +a hopeless one. And yet, as we looked up at that beautiful fringe of +verdure only a few hundreds of feet above our heads, there was not one +of us who could conceive the idea of returning to London until we had +explored it to its depths. +</P> + +<P> +On discussing the situation, we determined that our best course was to +continue to coast round the plateau in the hope of finding some other +means of reaching the top. The line of cliffs, which had decreased +considerably in height, had already begun to trend from west to north, +and if we could take this as representing the arc of a circle, the +whole circumference could not be very great. At the worst, then, we +should be back in a few days at our starting-point. +</P> + +<P> +We made a march that day which totaled some two-and-twenty miles, +without any change in our prospects. I may mention that our aneroid +shows us that in the continual incline which we have ascended since we +abandoned our canoes we have risen to no less than three thousand feet +above sea-level. Hence there is a considerable change both in the +temperature and in the vegetation. We have shaken off some of that +horrible insect life which is the bane of tropical travel. A few palms +still survive, and many tree-ferns, but the Amazonian trees have been +all left behind. It was pleasant to see the convolvulus, the +passion-flower, and the begonia, all reminding me of home, here among +these inhospitable rocks. There was a red begonia just the same color +as one that is kept in a pot in the window of a certain villa in +Streatham—but I am drifting into private reminiscence. +</P> + +<P> +That night—I am still speaking of the first day of our +circumnavigation of the plateau—a great experience awaited us, and one +which for ever set at rest any doubt which we could have had as to the +wonders so near us. +</P> + +<P> +You will realize as you read it, my dear Mr. McArdle, and possibly for +the first time that the paper has not sent me on a wild-goose chase, +and that there is inconceivably fine copy waiting for the world +whenever we have the Professor's leave to make use of it. I shall not +dare to publish these articles unless I can bring back my proofs to +England, or I shall be hailed as the journalistic Munchausen of all +time. I have no doubt that you feel the same way yourself, and that +you would not care to stake the whole credit of the Gazette upon this +adventure until we can meet the chorus of criticism and scepticism +which such articles must of necessity elicit. So this wonderful +incident, which would make such a headline for the old paper, must +still wait its turn in the editorial drawer. +</P> + +<P> +And yet it was all over in a flash, and there was no sequel to it, save +in our own convictions. +</P> + +<P> +What occurred was this. Lord John had shot an ajouti—which is a +small, pig-like animal—and, half of it having been given to the +Indians, we were cooking the other half upon our fire. There is a +chill in the air after dark, and we had all drawn close to the blaze. +The night was moonless, but there were some stars, and one could see +for a little distance across the plain. Well, suddenly out of the +darkness, out of the night, there swooped something with a swish like +an aeroplane. The whole group of us were covered for an instant by a +canopy of leathery wings, and I had a momentary vision of a long, +snake-like neck, a fierce, red, greedy eye, and a great snapping beak, +filled, to my amazement, with little, gleaming teeth. The next instant +it was gone—and so was our dinner. A huge black shadow, twenty feet +across, skimmed up into the air; for an instant the monster wings +blotted out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliff +above us. We all sat in amazed silence round the fire, like the heroes +of Virgil when the Harpies came down upon them. It was Summerlee who +was the first to speak. +</P> + +<P> +"Professor Challenger," said he, in a solemn voice, which quavered with +emotion, "I owe you an apology. Sir, I am very much in the wrong, and +I beg that you will forget what is past." +</P> + +<P> +It was handsomely said, and the two men for the first time shook hands. +So much we have gained by this clear vision of our first pterodactyl. +It was worth a stolen supper to bring two such men together. +</P> + +<P> +But if prehistoric life existed upon the plateau it was not +superabundant, for we had no further glimpse of it during the next +three days. During this time we traversed a barren and forbidding +country, which alternated between stony desert and desolate marshes +full of many wild-fowl, upon the north and east of the cliffs. From +that direction the place is really inaccessible, and, were it not for a +hardish ledge which runs at the very base of the precipice, we should +have had to turn back. Many times we were up to our waists in the +slime and blubber of an old, semi-tropical swamp. To make matters +worse, the place seemed to be a favorite breeding-place of the Jaracaca +snake, the most venomous and aggressive in South America. Again and +again these horrible creatures came writhing and springing towards us +across the surface of this putrid bog, and it was only by keeping our +shot-guns for ever ready that we could feel safe from them. One +funnel-shaped depression in the morass, of a livid green in color from +some lichen which festered in it, will always remain as a nightmare +memory in my mind. It seems to have been a special nest of these +vermins, and the slopes were alive with them, all writhing in our +direction, for it is a peculiarity of the Jaracaca that he will always +attack man at first sight. There were too many for us to shoot, so we +fairly took to our heels and ran until we were exhausted. I shall +always remember as we looked back how far behind we could see the heads +and necks of our horrible pursuers rising and falling amid the reeds. +Jaracaca Swamp we named it in the map which we are constructing. +</P> + +<P> +The cliffs upon the farther side had lost their ruddy tint, being +chocolate-brown in color; the vegetation was more scattered along the +top of them, and they had sunk to three or four hundred feet in height, +but in no place did we find any point where they could be ascended. If +anything, they were more impossible than at the first point where we +had met them. Their absolute steepness is indicated in the photograph +which I took over the stony desert. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely," said I, as we discussed the situation, "the rain must find +its way down somehow. There are bound to be water-channels in the +rocks." +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend has glimpses of lucidity," said Professor Challenger, +patting me upon the shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"The rain must go somewhere," I repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"He keeps a firm grip upon actuality. The only drawback is that we +have conclusively proved by ocular demonstration that there are no +water channels down the rocks." +</P> + +<P> +"Where, then, does it go?" I persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"I think it may be fairly assumed that if it does not come outwards it +must run inwards." +</P> + +<P> +"Then there is a lake in the center." +</P> + +<P> +"So I should suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"It is more than likely that the lake may be an old crater," said +Summerlee. "The whole formation is, of course, highly volcanic. But, +however that may be, I should expect to find the surface of the plateau +slope inwards with a considerable sheet of water in the center, which +may drain off, by some subterranean channel, into the marshes of the +Jaracaca Swamp." +</P> + +<P> +"Or evaporation might preserve an equilibrium," remarked Challenger, +and the two learned men wandered off into one of their usual scientific +arguments, which were as comprehensible as Chinese to the layman. +</P> + +<P> +On the sixth day we completed our first circuit of the cliffs, and +found ourselves back at the first camp, beside the isolated pinnacle of +rock. We were a disconsolate party, for nothing could have been more +minute than our investigation, and it was absolutely certain that there +was no single point where the most active human being could possibly +hope to scale the cliff. The place which Maple White's chalk-marks had +indicated as his own means of access was now entirely impassable. +</P> + +<P> +What were we to do now? Our stores of provisions, supplemented by our +guns, were holding out well, but the day must come when they would need +replenishment. In a couple of months the rains might be expected, and +we should be washed out of our camp. The rock was harder than marble, +and any attempt at cutting a path for so great a height was more than +our time or resources would admit. No wonder that we looked gloomily +at each other that night, and sought our blankets with hardly a word +exchanged. I remember that as I dropped off to sleep my last +recollection was that Challenger was squatting, like a monstrous +bull-frog, by the fire, his huge head in his hands, sunk apparently in +the deepest thought, and entirely oblivious to the good-night which I +wished him. +</P> + +<P> +But it was a very different Challenger who greeted us in the morning—a +Challenger with contentment and self-congratulation shining from his +whole person. He faced us as we assembled for breakfast with a +deprecating false modesty in his eyes, as who should say, "I know that +I deserve all that you can say, but I pray you to spare my blushes by +not saying it." His beard bristled exultantly, his chest was thrown +out, and his hand was thrust into the front of his jacket. So, in his +fancy, may he see himself sometimes, gracing the vacant pedestal in +Trafalgar Square, and adding one more to the horrors of the London +streets. +</P> + +<P> +"Eureka!" he cried, his teeth shining through his beard. "Gentlemen, +you may congratulate me and we may congratulate each other. The +problem is solved." +</P> + +<P> +"You have found a way up?" +</P> + +<P> +"I venture to think so." +</P> + +<P> +"And where?" +</P> + +<P> +For answer he pointed to the spire-like pinnacle upon our right. +</P> + +<P> +Our faces—or mine, at least—fell as we surveyed it. That it could be +climbed we had our companion's assurance. But a horrible abyss lay +between it and the plateau. +</P> + +<P> +"We can never get across," I gasped. +</P> + +<P> +"We can at least all reach the summit," said he. "When we are up I may +be able to show you that the resources of an inventive mind are not yet +exhausted." +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast we unpacked the bundle in which our leader had brought +his climbing accessories. From it he took a coil of the strongest and +lightest rope, a hundred and fifty feet in length, with climbing irons, +clamps, and other devices. Lord John was an experienced mountaineer, +and Summerlee had done some rough climbing at various times, so that I +was really the novice at rock-work of the party; but my strength and +activity may have made up for my want of experience. +</P> + +<P> +It was not in reality a very stiff task, though there were moments +which made my hair bristle upon my head. The first half was perfectly +easy, but from there upwards it became continually steeper until, for +the last fifty feet, we were literally clinging with our fingers and +toes to tiny ledges and crevices in the rock. I could not have +accomplished it, nor could Summerlee, if Challenger had not gained the +summit (it was extraordinary to see such activity in so unwieldy a +creature) and there fixed the rope round the trunk of the considerable +tree which grew there. With this as our support, we were soon able to +scramble up the jagged wall until we found ourselves upon the small +grassy platform, some twenty-five feet each way, which formed the +summit. +</P> + +<P> +The first impression which I received when I had recovered my breath +was of the extraordinary view over the country which we had traversed. +The whole Brazilian plain seemed to lie beneath us, extending away and +away until it ended in dim blue mists upon the farthest sky-line. In +the foreground was the long slope, strewn with rocks and dotted with +tree-ferns; farther off in the middle distance, looking over the +saddle-back hill, I could just see the yellow and green mass of bamboos +through which we had passed; and then, gradually, the vegetation +increased until it formed the huge forest which extended as far as the +eyes could reach, and for a good two thousand miles beyond. +</P> + +<P> +I was still drinking in this wonderful panorama when the heavy hand of +the Professor fell upon my shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"This way, my young friend," said he; "vestigia nulla retrorsum. Never +look rearwards, but always to our glorious goal." +</P> + +<P> +The level of the plateau, when I turned, was exactly that on which we +stood, and the green bank of bushes, with occasional trees, was so near +that it was difficult to realize how inaccessible it remained. At a +rough guess the gulf was forty feet across, but, so far as I could see, +it might as well have been forty miles. I placed one arm round the +trunk of the tree and leaned over the abyss. Far down were the small +dark figures of our servants, looking up at us. The wall was +absolutely precipitous, as was that which faced me. +</P> + +<P> +"This is indeed curious," said the creaking voice of Professor +Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +I turned, and found that he was examining with great interest the tree +to which I clung. That smooth bark and those small, ribbed leaves +seemed familiar to my eyes. "Why," I cried, "it's a beech!" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly," said Summerlee. "A fellow-countryman in a far land." +</P> + +<P> +"Not only a fellow-countryman, my good sir," said Challenger, "but +also, if I may be allowed to enlarge your simile, an ally of the first +value. This beech tree will be our saviour." +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" cried Lord John, "a bridge!" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly, my friends, a bridge! It is not for nothing that I expended +an hour last night in focusing my mind upon the situation. I have some +recollection of once remarking to our young friend here that G. E. C. +is at his best when his back is to the wall. Last night you will admit +that all our backs were to the wall. But where will-power and +intellect go together, there is always a way out. A drawbridge had to +be found which could be dropped across the abyss. Behold it!" +</P> + +<P> +It was certainly a brilliant idea. The tree was a good sixty feet in +height, and if it only fell the right way it would easily cross the +chasm. Challenger had slung the camp axe over his shoulder when he +ascended. Now he handed it to me. +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend has the thews and sinews," said he. "I think he will +be the most useful at this task. I must beg, however, that you will +kindly refrain from thinking for yourself, and that you will do exactly +what you are told." +</P> + +<P> +Under his direction I cut such gashes in the sides of the trees as +would ensure that it should fall as we desired. It had already a +strong, natural tilt in the direction of the plateau, so that the +matter was not difficult. Finally I set to work in earnest upon the +trunk, taking turn and turn with Lord John. In a little over an hour +there was a loud crack, the tree swayed forward, and then crashed over, +burying its branches among the bushes on the farther side. The severed +trunk rolled to the very edge of our platform, and for one terrible +second we all thought it was over. It balanced itself, however, a few +inches from the edge, and there was our bridge to the unknown. +</P> + +<P> +All of us, without a word, shook hands with Professor Challenger, who +raised his straw hat and bowed deeply to each in turn. +</P> + +<P> +"I claim the honor," said he, "to be the first to cross to the unknown +land—a fitting subject, no doubt, for some future historical painting." +</P> + +<P> +He had approached the bridge when Lord John laid his hand upon his coat. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear chap," said he, "I really cannot allow it." +</P> + +<P> +"Cannot allow it, sir!" The head went back and the beard forward. +</P> + +<P> +"When it is a matter of science, don't you know, I follow your lead +because you are by way of bein' a man of science. But it's up to you +to follow me when you come into my department." +</P> + +<P> +"Your department, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"We all have our professions, and soldierin' is mine. We are, +accordin' to my ideas, invadin' a new country, which may or may not be +chock-full of enemies of sorts. To barge blindly into it for want of a +little common sense and patience isn't my notion of management." +</P> + +<P> +The remonstrance was too reasonable to be disregarded. Challenger +tossed his head and shrugged his heavy shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, what do you propose?" +</P> + +<P> +"For all I know there may be a tribe of cannibals waitin' for +lunch-time among those very bushes," said Lord John, looking across the +bridge. "It's better to learn wisdom before you get into a +cookin'-pot; so we will content ourselves with hopin' that there is no +trouble waitin' for us, and at the same time we will act as if there +were. Malone and I will go down again, therefore, and we will fetch up +the four rifles, together with Gomez and the other. One man can then +go across and the rest will cover him with guns, until he sees that it +is safe for the whole crowd to come along." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger sat down upon the cut stump and groaned his impatience; but +Summerlee and I were of one mind that Lord John was our leader when +such practical details were in question. The climb was a more simple +thing now that the rope dangled down the face of the worst part of the +ascent. Within an hour we had brought up the rifles and a shot-gun. +The half-breeds had ascended also, and under Lord John's orders they +had carried up a bale of provisions in case our first exploration +should be a long one. We had each bandoliers of cartridges. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Challenger, if you really insist upon being the first man in," +said Lord John, when every preparation was complete. +</P> + +<P> +"I am much indebted to you for your gracious permission," said the +angry Professor; for never was a man so intolerant of every form of +authority. "Since you are good enough to allow it, I shall most +certainly take it upon myself to act as pioneer upon this occasion." +</P> + +<P> +Seating himself with a leg overhanging the abyss on each side, and his +hatchet slung upon his back, Challenger hopped his way across the trunk +and was soon at the other side. He clambered up and waved his arms in +the air. +</P> + +<P> +"At last!" he cried; "at last!" +</P> + +<P> +I gazed anxiously at him, with a vague expectation that some terrible +fate would dart at him from the curtain of green behind him. But all +was quiet, save that a strange, many-colored bird flew up from under +his feet and vanished among the trees. +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee was the second. His wiry energy is wonderful in so frail a +frame. He insisted upon having two rifles slung upon his back, so that +both Professors were armed when he had made his transit. I came next, +and tried hard not to look down into the horrible gulf over which I was +passing. Summerlee held out the butt-end of his rifle, and an instant +later I was able to grasp his hand. As to Lord John, he walked +across—actually walked without support! He must have nerves of iron. +</P> + +<P> +And there we were, the four of us, upon the dreamland, the lost world, +of Maple White. To all of us it seemed the moment of our supreme +triumph. Who could have guessed that it was the prelude to our supreme +disaster? Let me say in a few words how the crushing blow fell upon us. +</P> + +<P> +We had turned away from the edge, and had penetrated about fifty yards +of close brushwood, when there came a frightful rending crash from +behind us. With one impulse we rushed back the way that we had come. +The bridge was gone! +</P> + +<P> +Far down at the base of the cliff I saw, as I looked over, a tangled +mass of branches and splintered trunk. It was our beech tree. Had the +edge of the platform crumbled and let it through? For a moment this +explanation was in all our minds. The next, from the farther side of +the rocky pinnacle before us a swarthy face, the face of Gomez the +half-breed, was slowly protruded. Yes, it was Gomez, but no longer the +Gomez of the demure smile and the mask-like expression. Here was a +face with flashing eyes and distorted features, a face convulsed with +hatred and with the mad joy of gratified revenge. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord Roxton!" he shouted. "Lord John Roxton!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said our companion, "here I am." +</P> + +<P> +A shriek of laughter came across the abyss. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, there you are, you English dog, and there you will remain! I +have waited and waited, and now has come my chance. You found it hard +to get up; you will find it harder to get down. You cursed fools, you +are trapped, every one of you!" +</P> + +<P> +We were too astounded to speak. We could only stand there staring in +amazement. A great broken bough upon the grass showed whence he had +gained his leverage to tilt over our bridge. The face had vanished, +but presently it was up again, more frantic than before. +</P> + +<P> +"We nearly killed you with a stone at the cave," he cried; "but this is +better. It is slower and more terrible. Your bones will whiten up +there, and none will know where you lie or come to cover them. As you +lie dying, think of Lopez, whom you shot five years ago on the Putomayo +River. I am his brother, and, come what will I will die happy now, for +his memory has been avenged." A furious hand was shaken at us, and then +all was quiet. +</P> + +<P> +Had the half-breed simply wrought his vengeance and then escaped, all +might have been well with him. It was that foolish, irresistible Latin +impulse to be dramatic which brought his own downfall. Roxton, the man +who had earned himself the name of the Flail of the Lord through three +countries, was not one who could be safely taunted. The half-breed was +descending on the farther side of the pinnacle; but before he could +reach the ground Lord John had run along the edge of the plateau and +gained a point from which he could see his man. There was a single +crack of his rifle, and, though we saw nothing, we heard the scream and +then the distant thud of the falling body. Roxton came back to us with +a face of granite. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been a blind simpleton," said he, bitterly, "It's my folly +that has brought you all into this trouble. I should have remembered +that these people have long memories for blood-feuds, and have been +more upon my guard." +</P> + +<P> +"What about the other one? It took two of them to lever that tree over +the edge." +</P> + +<P> +"I could have shot him, but I let him go. He may have had no part in +it. Perhaps it would have been better if I had killed him, for he +must, as you say, have lent a hand." +</P> + +<P> +Now that we had the clue to his action, each of us could cast back and +remember some sinister act upon the part of the half-breed—his +constant desire to know our plans, his arrest outside our tent when he +was over-hearing them, the furtive looks of hatred which from time to +time one or other of us had surprised. We were still discussing it, +endeavoring to adjust our minds to these new conditions, when a +singular scene in the plain below arrested our attention. +</P> + +<P> +A man in white clothes, who could only be the surviving half-breed, was +running as one does run when Death is the pacemaker. Behind him, only +a few yards in his rear, bounded the huge ebony figure of Zambo, our +devoted negro. Even as we looked, he sprang upon the back of the +fugitive and flung his arms round his neck. They rolled on the ground +together. An instant afterwards Zambo rose, looked at the prostrate +man, and then, waving his hand joyously to us, came running in our +direction. The white figure lay motionless in the middle of the great +plain. +</P> + +<P> +Our two traitors had been destroyed, but the mischief that they had +done lived after them. By no possible means could we get back to the +pinnacle. We had been natives of the world; now we were natives of the +plateau. The two things were separate and apart. There was the plain +which led to the canoes. Yonder, beyond the violet, hazy horizon, was +the stream which led back to civilization. But the link between was +missing. No human ingenuity could suggest a means of bridging the +chasm which yawned between ourselves and our past lives. One instant +had altered the whole conditions of our existence. +</P> + +<P> +It was at such a moment that I learned the stuff of which my three +comrades were composed. They were grave, it is true, and thoughtful, +but of an invincible serenity. For the moment we could only sit among +the bushes in patience and wait the coming of Zambo. Presently his +honest black face topped the rocks and his Herculean figure emerged +upon the top of the pinnacle. +</P> + +<P> +"What I do now?" he cried. "You tell me and I do it." +</P> + +<P> +It was a question which it was easier to ask than to answer. One thing +only was clear. He was our one trusty link with the outside world. On +no account must he leave us. +</P> + +<P> +"No no!" he cried. "I not leave you. Whatever come, you always find +me here. But no able to keep Indians. Already they say too much +Curupuri live on this place, and they go home. Now you leave them me +no able to keep them." +</P> + +<P> +It was a fact that our Indians had shown in many ways of late that they +were weary of their journey and anxious to return. We realized that +Zambo spoke the truth, and that it would be impossible for him to keep +them. +</P> + +<P> +"Make them wait till to-morrow, Zambo," I shouted; "then I can send +letter back by them." +</P> + +<P> +"Very good, sarr! I promise they wait till to-morrow," said the negro. +"But what I do for you now?" +</P> + +<P> +There was plenty for him to do, and admirably the faithful fellow did +it. First of all, under our directions, he undid the rope from the +tree-stump and threw one end of it across to us. It was not thicker +than a clothes-line, but it was of great strength, and though we could +not make a bridge of it, we might well find it invaluable if we had any +climbing to do. He then fastened his end of the rope to the package of +supplies which had been carried up, and we were able to drag it across. +This gave us the means of life for at least a week, even if we found +nothing else. Finally he descended and carried up two other packets of +mixed goods—a box of ammunition and a number of other things, all of +which we got across by throwing our rope to him and hauling it back. +It was evening when he at last climbed down, with a final assurance +that he would keep the Indians till next morning. +</P> + +<P> +And so it is that I have spent nearly the whole of this our first night +upon the plateau writing up our experiences by the light of a single +candle-lantern. +</P> + +<P> +We supped and camped at the very edge of the cliff, quenching our +thirst with two bottles of Apollinaris which were in one of the cases. +It is vital to us to find water, but I think even Lord John himself had +had adventures enough for one day, and none of us felt inclined to make +the first push into the unknown. We forbore to light a fire or to make +any unnecessary sound. +</P> + +<P> +To-morrow (or to-day, rather, for it is already dawn as I write) we +shall make our first venture into this strange land. When I shall be +able to write again—or if I ever shall write again—I know not. +Meanwhile, I can see that the Indians are still in their place, and I +am sure that the faithful Zambo will be here presently to get my +letter. I only trust that it will come to hand. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +P.S.—The more I think the more desperate does our position seem. I +see no possible hope of our return. If there were a high tree near the +edge of the plateau we might drop a return bridge across, but there is +none within fifty yards. Our united strength could not carry a trunk +which would serve our purpose. The rope, of course, is far too short +that we could descend by it. No, our position is hopeless—hopeless! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "The most Wonderful Things have Happened" +</H3> + +<P> +The most wonderful things have happened and are continually happening +to us. All the paper that I possess consists of five old note-books +and a lot of scraps, and I have only the one stylographic pencil; but +so long as I can move my hand I will continue to set down our +experiences and impressions, for, since we are the only men of the +whole human race to see such things, it is of enormous importance that +I should record them whilst they are fresh in my memory and before that +fate which seems to be constantly impending does actually overtake us. +Whether Zambo can at last take these letters to the river, or whether I +shall myself in some miraculous way carry them back with me, or, +finally, whether some daring explorer, coming upon our tracks with the +advantage, perhaps, of a perfected monoplane, should find this bundle +of manuscript, in any case I can see that what I am writing is destined +to immortality as a classic of true adventure. +</P> + +<P> +On the morning after our being trapped upon the plateau by the +villainous Gomez we began a new stage in our experiences. The first +incident in it was not such as to give me a very favorable opinion of +the place to which we had wandered. As I roused myself from a short +nap after day had dawned, my eyes fell upon a most singular appearance +upon my own leg. My trouser had slipped up, exposing a few inches of +my skin above my sock. On this there rested a large, purplish grape. +Astonished at the sight, I leaned forward to pick it off, when, to my +horror, it burst between my finger and thumb, squirting blood in every +direction. My cry of disgust had brought the two professors to my side. +</P> + +<P> +"Most interesting," said Summerlee, bending over my shin. "An enormous +blood-tick, as yet, I believe, unclassified." +</P> + +<P> +"The first-fruits of our labors," said Challenger in his booming, +pedantic fashion. "We cannot do less than call it Ixodes Maloni. The +very small inconvenience of being bitten, my young friend, cannot, I am +sure, weigh with you as against the glorious privilege of having your +name inscribed in the deathless roll of zoology. Unhappily you have +crushed this fine specimen at the moment of satiation." +</P> + +<P> +"Filthy vermin!" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger raised his great eyebrows in protest, and placed a +soothing paw upon my shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"You should cultivate the scientific eye and the detached scientific +mind," said he. "To a man of philosophic temperament like myself the +blood-tick, with its lancet-like proboscis and its distending stomach, +is as beautiful a work of Nature as the peacock or, for that matter, +the aurora borealis. It pains me to hear you speak of it in so +unappreciative a fashion. No doubt, with due diligence, we can secure +some other specimen." +</P> + +<P> +"There can be no doubt of that," said Summerlee, grimly, "for one has +just disappeared behind your shirt-collar." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger sprang into the air bellowing like a bull, and tore +frantically at his coat and shirt to get them off. Summerlee and I +laughed so that we could hardly help him. At last we exposed that +monstrous torso (fifty-four inches, by the tailor's tape). His body +was all matted with black hair, out of which jungle we picked the +wandering tick before it had bitten him. But the bushes round were +full of the horrible pests, and it was clear that we must shift our +camp. +</P> + +<P> +But first of all it was necessary to make our arrangements with the +faithful negro, who appeared presently on the pinnacle with a number of +tins of cocoa and biscuits, which he tossed over to us. Of the stores +which remained below he was ordered to retain as much as would keep him +for two months. The Indians were to have the remainder as a reward for +their services and as payment for taking our letters back to the +Amazon. Some hours later we saw them in single file far out upon the +plain, each with a bundle on his head, making their way back along the +path we had come. Zambo occupied our little tent at the base of the +pinnacle, and there he remained, our one link with the world below. +</P> + +<P> +And now we had to decide upon our immediate movements. We shifted our +position from among the tick-laden bushes until we came to a small +clearing thickly surrounded by trees upon all sides. There were some +flat slabs of rock in the center, with an excellent well close by, and +there we sat in cleanly comfort while we made our first plans for the +invasion of this new country. Birds were calling among the +foliage—especially one with a peculiar whooping cry which was new to +us—but beyond these sounds there were no signs of life. +</P> + +<P> +Our first care was to make some sort of list of our own stores, so that +we might know what we had to rely upon. What with the things we had +ourselves brought up and those which Zambo had sent across on the rope, +we were fairly well supplied. Most important of all, in view of the +dangers which might surround us, we had our four rifles and one +thousand three hundred rounds, also a shot-gun, but not more than a +hundred and fifty medium pellet cartridges. In the matter of +provisions we had enough to last for several weeks, with a sufficiency +of tobacco and a few scientific implements, including a large telescope +and a good field-glass. All these things we collected together in the +clearing, and as a first precaution, we cut down with our hatchet and +knives a number of thorny bushes, which we piled round in a circle some +fifteen yards in diameter. This was to be our headquarters for the +time—our place of refuge against sudden danger and the guard-house for +our stores. Fort Challenger, we called it. +</P> + +<P> +It was midday before we had made ourselves secure, but the heat was not +oppressive, and the general character of the plateau, both in its +temperature and in its vegetation, was almost temperate. The beech, +the oak, and even the birch were to be found among the tangle of trees +which girt us in. One huge gingko tree, topping all the others, shot +its great limbs and maidenhair foliage over the fort which we had +constructed. In its shade we continued our discussion, while Lord +John, who had quickly taken command in the hour of action, gave us his +views. +</P> + +<P> +"So long as neither man nor beast has seen or heard us, we are safe," +said he. "From the time they know we are here our troubles begin. +There are no signs that they have found us out as yet. So our game +surely is to lie low for a time and spy out the land. We want to have +a good look at our neighbors before we get on visitin' terms." +</P> + +<P> +"But we must advance," I ventured to remark. +</P> + +<P> +"By all means, sonny my boy! We will advance. But with common sense. +We must never go so far that we can't get back to our base. Above all, +we must never, unless it is life or death, fire off our guns." +</P> + +<P> +"But YOU fired yesterday," said Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it couldn't be helped. However, the wind was strong and blew +outwards. It is not likely that the sound could have traveled far into +the plateau. By the way, what shall we call this place? I suppose it +is up to us to give it a name?" +</P> + +<P> +There were several suggestions, more or less happy, but Challenger's +was final. +</P> + +<P> +"It can only have one name," said he. "It is called after the pioneer +who discovered it. It is Maple White Land." +</P> + +<P> +Maple White Land it became, and so it is named in that chart which has +become my special task. So it will, I trust, appear in the atlas of +the future. +</P> + +<P> +The peaceful penetration of Maple White Land was the pressing subject +before us. We had the evidence of our own eyes that the place was +inhabited by some unknown creatures, and there was that of Maple +White's sketch-book to show that more dreadful and more dangerous +monsters might still appear. That there might also prove to be human +occupants and that they were of a malevolent character was suggested by +the skeleton impaled upon the bamboos, which could not have got there +had it not been dropped from above. Our situation, stranded without +possibility of escape in such a land, was clearly full of danger, and +our reasons endorsed every measure of caution which Lord John's +experience could suggest. Yet it was surely impossible that we should +halt on the edge of this world of mystery when our very souls were +tingling with impatience to push forward and to pluck the heart from it. +</P> + +<P> +We therefore blocked the entrance to our zareba by filling it up with +several thorny bushes, and left our camp with the stores entirely +surrounded by this protecting hedge. We then slowly and cautiously set +forth into the unknown, following the course of the little stream which +flowed from our spring, as it should always serve us as a guide on our +return. +</P> + +<P> +Hardly had we started when we came across signs that there were indeed +wonders awaiting us. After a few hundred yards of thick forest, +containing many trees which were quite unknown to me, but which +Summerlee, who was the botanist of the party, recognized as forms of +conifera and of cycadaceous plants which have long passed away in the +world below, we entered a region where the stream widened out and +formed a considerable bog. High reeds of a peculiar type grew thickly +before us, which were pronounced to be equisetacea, or mare's-tails, +with tree-ferns scattered amongst them, all of them swaying in a brisk +wind. Suddenly Lord John, who was walking first, halted with uplifted +hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Look at this!" said he. "By George, this must be the trail of the +father of all birds!" +</P> + +<P> +An enormous three-toed track was imprinted in the soft mud before us. +The creature, whatever it was, had crossed the swamp and had passed on +into the forest. We all stopped to examine that monstrous spoor. If +it were indeed a bird—and what animal could leave such a mark?—its +foot was so much larger than an ostrich's that its height upon the same +scale must be enormous. Lord John looked eagerly round him and slipped +two cartridges into his elephant-gun. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll stake my good name as a shikarree," said he, "that the track is a +fresh one. The creature has not passed ten minutes. Look how the +water is still oozing into that deeper print! By Jove! See, here is +the mark of a little one!" +</P> + +<P> +Sure enough, smaller tracks of the same general form were running +parallel to the large ones. +</P> + +<P> +"But what do you make of this?" cried Professor Summerlee, +triumphantly, pointing to what looked like the huge print of a +five-fingered human hand appearing among the three-toed marks. +</P> + +<P> +"Wealden!" cried Challenger, in an ecstasy. "I've seen them in the +Wealden clay. It is a creature walking erect upon three-toed feet, and +occasionally putting one of its five-fingered forepaws upon the ground. +Not a bird, my dear Roxton—not a bird." +</P> + +<P> +"A beast?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; a reptile—a dinosaur. Nothing else could have left such a track. +They puzzled a worthy Sussex doctor some ninety years ago; but who in +the world could have hoped—hoped—to have seen a sight like that?" +</P> + +<P> +His words died away into a whisper, and we all stood in motionless +amazement. Following the tracks, we had left the morass and passed +through a screen of brushwood and trees. Beyond was an open glade, and +in this were five of the most extraordinary creatures that I have ever +seen. Crouching down among the bushes, we observed them at our leisure. +</P> + +<P> +There were, as I say, five of them, two being adults and three young +ones. In size they were enormous. Even the babies were as big as +elephants, while the two large ones were far beyond all creatures I +have ever seen. They had slate-colored skin, which was scaled like a +lizard's and shimmered where the sun shone upon it. All five were +sitting up, balancing themselves upon their broad, powerful tails and +their huge three-toed hind-feet, while with their small five-fingered +front-feet they pulled down the branches upon which they browsed. I do +not know that I can bring their appearance home to you better than by +saying that they looked like monstrous kangaroos, twenty feet in +length, and with skins like black crocodiles. +</P> + +<P> +I do not know how long we stayed motionless gazing at this marvelous +spectacle. A strong wind blew towards us and we were well concealed, +so there was no chance of discovery. From time to time the little ones +played round their parents in unwieldy gambols, the great beasts +bounding into the air and falling with dull thuds upon the earth. The +strength of the parents seemed to be limitless, for one of them, having +some difficulty in reaching a bunch of foliage which grew upon a +considerable-sized tree, put his fore-legs round the trunk and tore it +down as if it had been a sapling. The action seemed, as I thought, to +show not only the great development of its muscles, but also the small +one of its brain, for the whole weight came crashing down upon the top +of it, and it uttered a series of shrill yelps to show that, big as it +was, there was a limit to what it could endure. The incident made it +think, apparently, that the neighborhood was dangerous, for it slowly +lurched off through the wood, followed by its mate and its three +enormous infants. We saw the shimmering slaty gleam of their skins +between the tree-trunks, and their heads undulating high above the +brush-wood. Then they vanished from our sight. +</P> + +<P> +I looked at my comrades. Lord John was standing at gaze with his +finger on the trigger of his elephant-gun, his eager hunter's soul +shining from his fierce eyes. What would he not give for one such head +to place between the two crossed oars above the mantelpiece in his +snuggery at the Albany! And yet his reason held him in, for all our +exploration of the wonders of this unknown land depended upon our +presence being concealed from its inhabitants. The two professors were +in silent ecstasy. In their excitement they had unconsciously seized +each other by the hand, and stood like two little children in the +presence of a marvel, Challenger's cheeks bunched up into a seraphic +smile, and Summerlee's sardonic face softening for the moment into +wonder and reverence. +</P> + +<P> +"Nunc dimittis!" he cried at last. "What will they say in England of +this?" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Summerlee, I will tell you with great confidence exactly what +they will say in England," said Challenger. "They will say that you +are an infernal liar and a scientific charlatan, exactly as you and +others said of me." +</P> + +<P> +"In the face of photographs?" +</P> + +<P> +"Faked, Summerlee! Clumsily faked!" +</P> + +<P> +"In the face of specimens?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, there we may have them! Malone and his filthy Fleet Street crew +may be all yelping our praises yet. August the twenty-eighth—the day +we saw five live iguanodons in a glade of Maple White Land. Put it +down in your diary, my young friend, and send it to your rag." +</P> + +<P> +"And be ready to get the toe-end of the editorial boot in return," said +Lord John. "Things look a bit different from the latitude of London, +young fellah my lad. There's many a man who never tells his +adventures, for he can't hope to be believed. Who's to blame them? +For this will seem a bit of a dream to ourselves in a month or two. +WHAT did you say they were?" +</P> + +<P> +"Iguanodons," said Summerlee. "You'll find their footmarks all over +the Hastings sands, in Kent, and in Sussex. The South of England was +alive with them when there was plenty of good lush green-stuff to keep +them going. Conditions have changed, and the beasts died. Here it +seems that the conditions have not changed, and the beasts have lived." +</P> + +<P> +"If ever we get out of this alive, I must have a head with me," said +Lord John. "Lord, how some of that Somaliland-Uganda crowd would turn +a beautiful pea-green if they saw it! I don't know what you chaps +think, but it strikes me that we are on mighty thin ice all this time." +</P> + +<P> +I had the same feeling of mystery and danger around us. In the gloom +of the trees there seemed a constant menace and as we looked up into +their shadowy foliage vague terrors crept into one's heart. It is true +that these monstrous creatures which we had seen were lumbering, +inoffensive brutes which were unlikely to hurt anyone, but in this +world of wonders what other survivals might there not be—what fierce, +active horrors ready to pounce upon us from their lair among the rocks +or brushwood? I knew little of prehistoric life, but I had a clear +remembrance of one book which I had read in which it spoke of creatures +who would live upon our lions and tigers as a cat lives upon mice. +What if these also were to be found in the woods of Maple White Land! +</P> + +<P> +It was destined that on this very morning—our first in the new +country—we were to find out what strange hazards lay around us. It +was a loathsome adventure, and one of which I hate to think. If, as +Lord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will remain with us as a +dream, then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will forever be our +nightmare. Let me set down exactly what occurred. +</P> + +<P> +We passed very slowly through the woods, partly because Lord Roxton +acted as scout before he would let us advance, and partly because at +every second step one or other of our professors would fall, with a cry +of wonder, before some flower or insect which presented him with a new +type. We may have traveled two or three miles in all, keeping to the +right of the line of the stream, when we came upon a considerable +opening in the trees. A belt of brushwood led up to a tangle of +rocks—the whole plateau was strewn with boulders. We were walking +slowly towards these rocks, among bushes which reached over our waists, +when we became aware of a strange low gabbling and whistling sound, +which filled the air with a constant clamor and appeared to come from +some spot immediately before us. Lord John held up his hand as a +signal for us to stop, and he made his way swiftly, stooping and +running, to the line of rocks. We saw him peep over them and give a +gesture of amazement. Then he stood staring as if forgetting us, so +utterly entranced was he by what he saw. Finally he waved us to come +on, holding up his hand as a signal for caution. His whole bearing +made me feel that something wonderful but dangerous lay before us. +</P> + +<P> +Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into which +we gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been one of the +smaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped and at +the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of +green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes. It was a weird +place in itself, but its occupants made it seem like a scene from the +Seven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of pterodactyls. +There were hundreds of them congregated within view. All the bottom +area round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with +hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. From +this crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shocking +clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odor +which turned us sick. But above, perched each upon its own stone, +tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than +actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless +save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their +rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge, membranous +wings were closed by folding their fore-arms, so that they sat like +gigantic old women, wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and with +their ferocious heads protruding above them. Large and small, not less +than a thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us. +</P> + +<P> +Our professors would gladly have stayed there all day, so entranced +were they by this opportunity of studying the life of a prehistoric +age. They pointed out the fish and dead birds lying about among the +rocks as proving the nature of the food of these creatures, and I heard +them congratulating each other on having cleared up the point why the +bones of this flying dragon are found in such great numbers in certain +well-defined areas, as in the Cambridge Green-sand, since it was now +seen that, like penguins, they lived in gregarious fashion. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, however, Challenger, bent upon proving some point which +Summerlee had contested, thrust his head over the rock and nearly +brought destruction upon us all. In an instant the nearest male gave a +shrill, whistling cry, and flapped its twenty-foot span of leathery +wings as it soared up into the air. The females and young ones huddled +together beside the water, while the whole circle of sentinels rose one +after the other and sailed off into the sky. It was a wonderful sight +to see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideous +appearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes +above us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could +afford to linger. At first the great brutes flew round in a huge ring, +as if to make sure what the exact extent of the danger might be. Then, +the flight grew lower and the circle narrower, until they were whizzing +round and round us, the dry, rustling flap of their huge slate-colored +wings filling the air with a volume of sound that made me think of +Hendon aerodrome upon a race day. +</P> + +<P> +"Make for the wood and keep together," cried Lord John, clubbing his +rifle. "The brutes mean mischief." +</P> + +<P> +The moment we attempted to retreat the circle closed in upon us, until +the tips of the wings of those nearest to us nearly touched our faces. +We beat at them with the stocks of our guns, but there was nothing +solid or vulnerable to strike. Then suddenly out of the whizzing, +slate-colored circle a long neck shot out, and a fierce beak made a +thrust at us. Another and another followed. Summerlee gave a cry and +put his hand to his face, from which the blood was streaming. I felt a +prod at the back of my neck, and turned dizzy with the shock. +Challenger fell, and as I stooped to pick him up I was again struck +from behind and dropped on the top of him. At the same instant I heard +the crash of Lord John's elephant-gun, and, looking up, saw one of the +creatures with a broken wing struggling upon the ground, spitting and +gurgling at us with a wide-opened beak and blood-shot, goggled eyes, +like some devil in a medieval picture. Its comrades had flown higher +at the sudden sound, and were circling above our heads. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," cried Lord John, "now for our lives!" +</P> + +<P> +We staggered through the brushwood, and even as we reached the trees +the harpies were on us again. Summerlee was knocked down, but we tore +him up and rushed among the trunks. Once there we were safe, for those +huge wings had no space for their sweep beneath the branches. As we +limped homewards, sadly mauled and discomfited, we saw them for a long +time flying at a great height against the deep blue sky above our +heads, soaring round and round, no bigger than wood-pigeons, with their +eyes no doubt still following our progress. At last, however, as we +reached the thicker woods they gave up the chase, and we saw them no +more. +</P> + +<P> +"A most interesting and convincing experience," said Challenger, as we +halted beside the brook and he bathed a swollen knee. "We are +exceptionally well informed, Summerlee, as to the habits of the enraged +pterodactyl." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee was wiping the blood from a cut in his forehead, while I was +tying up a nasty stab in the muscle of the neck. Lord John had the +shoulder of his coat torn away, but the creature's teeth had only +grazed the flesh. +</P> + +<P> +"It is worth noting," Challenger continued, "that our young friend has +received an undoubted stab, while Lord John's coat could only have been +torn by a bite. In my own case, I was beaten about the head by their +wings, so we have had a remarkable exhibition of their various methods +of offence." +</P> + +<P> +"It has been touch and go for our lives," said Lord John, gravely, "and +I could not think of a more rotten sort of death than to be outed by +such filthy vermin. I was sorry to fire my rifle, but, by Jove! there +was no great choice." +</P> + +<P> +"We should not be here if you hadn't," said I, with conviction. +</P> + +<P> +"It may do no harm," said he. "Among these woods there must be many +loud cracks from splitting or falling trees which would be just like +the sound of a gun. But now, if you are of my opinion, we have had +thrills enough for one day, and had best get back to the surgical box +at the camp for some carbolic. Who knows what venom these beasts may +have in their hideous jaws?" +</P> + +<P> +But surely no men ever had just such a day since the world began. Some +fresh surprise was ever in store for us. When, following the course of +our brook, we at last reached our glade and saw the thorny barricade of +our camp, we thought that our adventures were at an end. But we had +something more to think of before we could rest. The gate of Fort +Challenger had been untouched, the walls were unbroken, and yet it had +been visited by some strange and powerful creature in our absence. No +foot-mark showed a trace of its nature, and only the overhanging branch +of the enormous ginko tree suggested how it might have come and gone; +but of its malevolent strength there was ample evidence in the +condition of our stores. They were strewn at random all over the +ground, and one tin of meat had been crushed into pieces so as to +extract the contents. A case of cartridges had been shattered into +matchwood, and one of the brass shells lay shredded into pieces beside +it. Again the feeling of vague horror came upon our souls, and we +gazed round with frightened eyes at the dark shadows which lay around +us, in all of which some fearsome shape might be lurking. How good it +was when we were hailed by the voice of Zambo, and, going to the edge +of the plateau, saw him sitting grinning at us upon the top of the +opposite pinnacle. +</P> + +<P> +"All well, Massa Challenger, all well!" he cried. "Me stay here. No +fear. You always find me when you want." +</P> + +<P> +His honest black face, and the immense view before us, which carried us +half-way back to the affluent of the Amazon, helped us to remember that +we really were upon this earth in the twentieth century, and had not by +some magic been conveyed to some raw planet in its earliest and wildest +state. How difficult it was to realize that the violet line upon the +far horizon was well advanced to that great river upon which huge +steamers ran, and folk talked of the small affairs of life, while we, +marooned among the creatures of a bygone age, could but gaze towards it +and yearn for all that it meant! +</P> + +<P> +One other memory remains with me of this wonderful day, and with it I +will close this letter. The two professors, their tempers aggravated +no doubt by their injuries, had fallen out as to whether our assailants +were of the genus pterodactylus or dimorphodon, and high words had +ensued. To avoid their wrangling I moved some little way apart, and +was seated smoking upon the trunk of a fallen tree, when Lord John +strolled over in my direction. +</P> + +<P> +"I say, Malone," said he, "do you remember that place where those +beasts were?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very clearly." +</P> + +<P> +"A sort of volcanic pit, was it not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you notice the soil?" +</P> + +<P> +"Rocks." +</P> + +<P> +"But round the water—where the reeds were?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was a bluish soil. It looked like clay." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. A volcanic tube full of blue clay." +</P> + +<P> +"What of that?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, nothing, nothing," said he, and strolled back to where the voices +of the contending men of science rose in a prolonged duet, the high, +strident note of Summerlee rising and falling to the sonorous bass of +Challenger. I should have thought no more of Lord John's remark were +it not that once again that night I heard him mutter to himself: "Blue +clay—clay in a volcanic tube!" They were the last words I heard before +I dropped into an exhausted sleep. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "For once I was the Hero" +</H3> + +<P> +Lord John Roxton was right when he thought that some specially toxic +quality might lie in the bite of the horrible creatures which had +attacked us. On the morning after our first adventure upon the +plateau, both Summerlee and I were in great pain and fever, while +Challenger's knee was so bruised that he could hardly limp. We kept to +our camp all day, therefore, Lord John busying himself, with such help +as we could give him, in raising the height and thickness of the thorny +walls which were our only defense. I remember that during the whole +long day I was haunted by the feeling that we were closely observed, +though by whom or whence I could give no guess. +</P> + +<P> +So strong was the impression that I told Professor Challenger of it, +who put it down to the cerebral excitement caused by my fever. Again +and again I glanced round swiftly, with the conviction that I was about +to see something, but only to meet the dark tangle of our hedge or the +solemn and cavernous gloom of the great trees which arched above our +heads. And yet the feeling grew ever stronger in my own mind that +something observant and something malevolent was at our very elbow. I +thought of the Indian superstition of the Curupuri—the dreadful, +lurking spirit of the woods—and I could have imagined that his +terrible presence haunted those who had invaded his most remote and +sacred retreat. +</P> + +<P> +That night (our third in Maple White Land) we had an experience which +left a fearful impression upon our minds, and made us thankful that +Lord John had worked so hard in making our retreat impregnable. We +were all sleeping round our dying fire when we were aroused—or, +rather, I should say, shot out of our slumbers—by a succession of the +most frightful cries and screams to which I have ever listened. I know +no sound to which I could compare this amazing tumult, which seemed to +come from some spot within a few hundred yards of our camp. It was as +ear-splitting as any whistle of a railway-engine; but whereas the +whistle is a clear, mechanical, sharp-edged sound, this was far deeper +in volume and vibrant with the uttermost strain of agony and horror. +We clapped our hands to our ears to shut out that nerve-shaking appeal. +A cold sweat broke out over my body, and my heart turned sick at the +misery of it. All the woes of tortured life, all its stupendous +indictment of high heaven, its innumerable sorrows, seemed to be +centered and condensed into that one dreadful, agonized cry. And then, +under this high-pitched, ringing sound there was another, more +intermittent, a low, deep-chested laugh, a growling, throaty gurgle of +merriment which formed a grotesque accompaniment to the shriek with +which it was blended. For three or four minutes on end the fearsome +duet continued, while all the foliage rustled with the rising of +startled birds. Then it shut off as suddenly as it began. For a long +time we sat in horrified silence. Then Lord John threw a bundle of +twigs upon the fire, and their red glare lit up the intent faces of my +companions and flickered over the great boughs above our heads. +</P> + +<P> +"What was it?" I whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"We shall know in the morning," said Lord John. "It was close to +us—not farther than the glade." +</P> + +<P> +"We have been privileged to overhear a prehistoric tragedy, the sort of +drama which occurred among the reeds upon the border of some Jurassic +lagoon, when the greater dragon pinned the lesser among the slime," +said Challenger, with more solemnity than I had ever heard in his +voice. "It was surely well for man that he came late in the order of +creation. There were powers abroad in earlier days which no courage +and no mechanism of his could have met. What could his sling, his +throwing-stick, or his arrow avail him against such forces as have been +loose to-night? Even with a modern rifle it would be all odds on the +monster." +</P> + +<P> +"I think I should back my little friend," said Lord John, caressing his +Express. "But the beast would certainly have a good sporting chance." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee raised his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Hush!" he cried. "Surely I hear something?" +</P> + +<P> +From the utter silence there emerged a deep, regular pat-pat. It was +the tread of some animal—the rhythm of soft but heavy pads placed +cautiously upon the ground. It stole slowly round the camp, and then +halted near our gateway. There was a low, sibilant rise and fall—the +breathing of the creature. Only our feeble hedge separated us from +this horror of the night. Each of us had seized his rifle, and Lord +John had pulled out a small bush to make an embrasure in the hedge. +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" he whispered. "I think I can see it!" +</P> + +<P> +I stooped and peered over his shoulder through the gap. Yes, I could +see it, too. In the deep shadow of the tree there was a deeper shadow +yet, black, inchoate, vague—a crouching form full of savage vigor and +menace. It was no higher than a horse, but the dim outline suggested +vast bulk and strength. That hissing pant, as regular and full-volumed +as the exhaust of an engine, spoke of a monstrous organism. Once, as +it moved, I thought I saw the glint of two terrible, greenish eyes. +There was an uneasy rustling, as if it were crawling slowly forward. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe it is going to spring!" said I, cocking my rifle. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't fire! Don't fire!" whispered Lord John. "The crash of a gun in +this silent night would be heard for miles. Keep it as a last card." +</P> + +<P> +"If it gets over the hedge we're done," said Summerlee, and his voice +crackled into a nervous laugh as he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"No, it must not get over," cried Lord John; "but hold your fire to the +last. Perhaps I can make something of the fellow. I'll chance it, +anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +It was as brave an act as ever I saw a man do. He stooped to the fire, +picked up a blazing branch, and slipped in an instant through a +sallyport which he had made in our gateway. The thing moved forward +with a dreadful snarl. Lord John never hesitated, but, running towards +it with a quick, light step, he dashed the flaming wood into the +brute's face. For one moment I had a vision of a horrible mask like a +giant toad's, of a warty, leprous skin, and of a loose mouth all +beslobbered with fresh blood. The next, there was a crash in the +underwood and our dreadful visitor was gone. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought he wouldn't face the fire," said Lord John, laughing, as he +came back and threw his branch among the faggots. +</P> + +<P> +"You should not have taken such a risk!" we all cried. +</P> + +<P> +"There was nothin' else to be done. If he had got among us we should +have shot each other in tryin' to down him. On the other hand, if we +had fired through the hedge and wounded him he would soon have been on +the top of us—to say nothin' of giving ourselves away. On the whole, +I think that we are jolly well out of it. What was he, then?" +</P> + +<P> +Our learned men looked at each other with some hesitation. +</P> + +<P> +"Personally, I am unable to classify the creature with any certainty," +said Summerlee, lighting his pipe from the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"In refusing to commit yourself you are but showing a proper scientific +reserve," said Challenger, with massive condescension. "I am not +myself prepared to go farther than to say in general terms that we have +almost certainly been in contact to-night with some form of carnivorous +dinosaur. I have already expressed my anticipation that something of +the sort might exist upon this plateau." +</P> + +<P> +"We have to bear in mind," remarked Summerlee, "that there are many +prehistoric forms which have never come down to us. It would be rash +to suppose that we can give a name to all that we are likely to meet." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. A rough classification may be the best that we can attempt. +To-morrow some further evidence may help us to an identification. +Meantime we can only renew our interrupted slumbers." +</P> + +<P> +"But not without a sentinel," said Lord John, with decision. "We can't +afford to take chances in a country like this. Two-hour spells in the +future, for each of us." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll just finish my pipe in starting the first one," said +Professor Summerlee; and from that time onwards we never trusted +ourselves again without a watchman. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning it was not long before we discovered the source of the +hideous uproar which had aroused us in the night. The iguanodon glade +was the scene of a horrible butchery. From the pools of blood and the +enormous lumps of flesh scattered in every direction over the green +sward we imagined at first that a number of animals had been killed, +but on examining the remains more closely we discovered that all this +carnage came from one of these unwieldy monsters, which had been +literally torn to pieces by some creature not larger, perhaps, but far +more ferocious, than itself. +</P> + +<P> +Our two professors sat in absorbed argument, examining piece after +piece, which showed the marks of savage teeth and of enormous claws. +</P> + +<P> +"Our judgment must still be in abeyance," said Professor Challenger, +with a huge slab of whitish-colored flesh across his knee. "The +indications would be consistent with the presence of a saber-toothed +tiger, such as are still found among the breccia of our caverns; but +the creature actually seen was undoubtedly of a larger and more +reptilian character. Personally, I should pronounce for allosaurus." +</P> + +<P> +"Or megalosaurus," said Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. Any one of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs would meet the +case. Among them are to be found all the most terrible types of animal +life that have ever cursed the earth or blessed a museum." He laughed +sonorously at his own conceit, for, though he had little sense of +humor, the crudest pleasantry from his own lips moved him always to +roars of appreciation. +</P> + +<P> +"The less noise the better," said Lord Roxton, curtly. "We don't know +who or what may be near us. If this fellah comes back for his +breakfast and catches us here we won't have so much to laugh at. By +the way, what is this mark upon the iguanodon's hide?" +</P> + +<P> +On the dull, scaly, slate-colored skin somewhere above the shoulder, +there was a singular black circle of some substance which looked like +asphalt. None of us could suggest what it meant, though Summerlee was +of opinion that he had seen something similar upon one of the young +ones two days before. Challenger said nothing, but looked pompous and +puffy, as if he could if he would, so that finally Lord John asked his +opinion direct. +</P> + +<P> +"If your lordship will graciously permit me to open my mouth, I shall +be happy to express my sentiments," said he, with elaborate sarcasm. +"I am not in the habit of being taken to task in the fashion which +seems to be customary with your lordship. I was not aware that it was +necessary to ask your permission before smiling at a harmless +pleasantry." +</P> + +<P> +It was not until he had received his apology that our touchy friend +would suffer himself to be appeased. When at last his ruffled feelings +were at ease, he addressed us at some length from his seat upon a +fallen tree, speaking, as his habit was, as if he were imparting most +precious information to a class of a thousand. +</P> + +<P> +"With regard to the marking," said he, "I am inclined to agree with my +friend and colleague, Professor Summerlee, that the stains are from +asphalt. As this plateau is, in its very nature, highly volcanic, and +as asphalt is a substance which one associates with Plutonic forces, I +cannot doubt that it exists in the free liquid state, and that the +creatures may have come in contact with it. A much more important +problem is the question as to the existence of the carnivorous monster +which has left its traces in this glade. We know roughly that this +plateau is not larger than an average English county. Within this +confined space a certain number of creatures, mostly types which have +passed away in the world below, have lived together for innumerable +years. Now, it is very clear to me that in so long a period one would +have expected that the carnivorous creatures, multiplying unchecked, +would have exhausted their food supply and have been compelled to +either modify their flesh-eating habits or die of hunger. This we see +has not been so. We can only imagine, therefore, that the balance of +Nature is preserved by some check which limits the numbers of these +ferocious creatures. One of the many interesting problems, therefore, +which await our solution is to discover what that check may be and how +it operates. I venture to trust that we may have some future +opportunity for the closer study of the carnivorous dinosaurs." +</P> + +<P> +"And I venture to trust we may not," I observed. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor only raised his great eyebrows, as the schoolmaster meets +the irrelevant observation of the naughty boy. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps Professor Summerlee may have an observation to make," he said, +and the two savants ascended together into some rarefied scientific +atmosphere, where the possibilities of a modification of the birth-rate +were weighed against the decline of the food supply as a check in the +struggle for existence. +</P> + +<P> +That morning we mapped out a small portion of the plateau, avoiding the +swamp of the pterodactyls, and keeping to the east of our brook instead +of to the west. In that direction the country was still thickly +wooded, with so much undergrowth that our progress was very slow. +</P> + +<P> +I have dwelt up to now upon the terrors of Maple White Land; but there +was another side to the subject, for all that morning we wandered among +lovely flowers—mostly, as I observed, white or yellow in color, these +being, as our professors explained, the primitive flower-shades. In +many places the ground was absolutely covered with them, and as we +walked ankle-deep on that wonderful yielding carpet, the scent was +almost intoxicating in its sweetness and intensity. The homely English +bee buzzed everywhere around us. Many of the trees under which we +passed had their branches bowed down with fruit, some of which were of +familiar sorts, while other varieties were new. By observing which of +them were pecked by the birds we avoided all danger of poison and added +a delicious variety to our food reserve. In the jungle which we +traversed were numerous hard-trodden paths made by the wild beasts, and +in the more marshy places we saw a profusion of strange footmarks, +including many of the iguanodon. Once in a grove we observed several +of these great creatures grazing, and Lord John, with his glass, was +able to report that they also were spotted with asphalt, though in a +different place to the one which we had examined in the morning. What +this phenomenon meant we could not imagine. +</P> + +<P> +We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, and a +wild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks. Once, through a +break in the trees, we saw a clear shoulder of green hill some distance +away, and across this a large dun-colored animal was traveling at a +considerable pace. It passed so swiftly that we were unable to say +what it was; but if it were a deer, as was claimed by Lord John, it +must have been as large as those monstrous Irish elk which are still +dug up from time to time in the bogs of my native land. +</P> + +<P> +Ever since the mysterious visit which had been paid to our camp we +always returned to it with some misgivings. However, on this occasion +we found everything in order. +</P> + +<P> +That evening we had a grand discussion upon our present situation and +future plans, which I must describe at some length, as it led to a new +departure by which we were enabled to gain a more complete knowledge of +Maple White Land than might have come in many weeks of exploring. It +was Summerlee who opened the debate. All day he had been querulous in +manner, and now some remark of Lord John's as to what we should do on +the morrow brought all his bitterness to a head. +</P> + +<P> +"What we ought to be doing to-day, to-morrow, and all the time," said +he, "is finding some way out of the trap into which we have fallen. +You are all turning your brains towards getting into this country. I +say that we should be scheming how to get out of it." +</P> + +<P> +"I am surprised, sir," boomed Challenger, stroking his majestic beard, +"that any man of science should commit himself to so ignoble a +sentiment. You are in a land which offers such an inducement to the +ambitious naturalist as none ever has since the world began, and you +suggest leaving it before we have acquired more than the most +superficial knowledge of it or of its contents. I expected better +things of you, Professor Summerlee." +</P> + +<P> +"You must remember," said Summerlee, sourly, "that I have a large class +in London who are at present at the mercy of an extremely inefficient +locum tenens. This makes my situation different from yours, Professor +Challenger, since, so far as I know, you have never been entrusted with +any responsible educational work." +</P> + +<P> +"Quite so," said Challenger. "I have felt it to be a sacrilege to +divert a brain which is capable of the highest original research to any +lesser object. That is why I have sternly set my face against any +proffered scholastic appointment." +</P> + +<P> +"For example?" asked Summerlee, with a sneer; but Lord John hastened to +change the conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"I must say," said he, "that I think it would be a mighty poor thing to +go back to London before I know a great deal more of this place than I +do at present." +</P> + +<P> +"I could never dare to walk into the back office of my paper and face +old McArdle," said I. (You will excuse the frankness of this report, +will you not, sir?) "He'd never forgive me for leaving such +unexhausted copy behind me. Besides, so far as I can see it is not +worth discussing, since we can't get down, even if we wanted." +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend makes up for many obvious mental lacunae by some +measure of primitive common sense," remarked Challenger. "The +interests of his deplorable profession are immaterial to us; but, as he +observes, we cannot get down in any case, so it is a waste of energy to +discuss it." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a waste of energy to do anything else," growled Summerlee from +behind his pipe. "Let me remind you that we came here upon a perfectly +definite mission, entrusted to us at the meeting of the Zoological +Institute in London. That mission was to test the truth of Professor +Challenger's statements. Those statements, as I am bound to admit, we +are now in a position to endorse. Our ostensible work is therefore +done. As to the detail which remains to be worked out upon this +plateau, it is so enormous that only a large expedition, with a very +special equipment, could hope to cope with it. Should we attempt to do +so ourselves, the only possible result must be that we shall never +return with the important contribution to science which we have already +gained. Professor Challenger has devised means for getting us on to +this plateau when it appeared to be inaccessible; I think that we +should now call upon him to use the same ingenuity in getting us back +to the world from which we came." +</P> + +<P> +I confess that as Summerlee stated his view it struck me as altogether +reasonable. Even Challenger was affected by the consideration that his +enemies would never stand confuted if the confirmation of his +statements should never reach those who had doubted them. +</P> + +<P> +"The problem of the descent is at first sight a formidable one," said +he, "and yet I cannot doubt that the intellect can solve it. I am +prepared to agree with our colleague that a protracted stay in Maple +White Land is at present inadvisable, and that the question of our +return will soon have to be faced. I absolutely refuse to leave, +however, until we have made at least a superficial examination of this +country, and are able to take back with us something in the nature of a +chart." +</P> + +<P> +Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience. +</P> + +<P> +"We have spent two long days in exploration," said he, "and we are no +wiser as to the actual geography of the place than when we started. It +is clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it would take months to +penetrate it and to learn the relations of one part to another. If +there were some central peak it would be different, but it all slopes +downwards, so far as we can see. The farther we go the less likely it +is that we will get any general view." +</P> + +<P> +It was at that moment that I had my inspiration. My eyes chanced to +light upon the enormous gnarled trunk of the gingko tree which cast its +huge branches over us. Surely, if its bole exceeded that of all +others, its height must do the same. If the rim of the plateau was +indeed the highest point, then why should this mighty tree not prove to +be a watchtower which commanded the whole country? Now, ever since I +ran wild as a lad in Ireland I have been a bold and skilled +tree-climber. My comrades might be my masters on the rocks, but I knew +that I would be supreme among those branches. Could I only get my legs +on to the lowest of the giant off-shoots, then it would be strange +indeed if I could not make my way to the top. My comrades were +delighted at my idea. +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend," said Challenger, bunching up the red apples of his +cheeks, "is capable of acrobatic exertions which would be impossible to +a man of a more solid, though possibly of a more commanding, +appearance. I applaud his resolution." +</P> + +<P> +"By George, young fellah, you've put your hand on it!" said Lord John, +clapping me on the back. "How we never came to think of it before I +can't imagine! There's not more than an hour of daylight left, but if +you take your notebook you may be able to get some rough sketch of the +place. If we put these three ammunition cases under the branch, I will +soon hoist you on to it." +</P> + +<P> +He stood on the boxes while I faced the trunk, and was gently raising +me when Challenger sprang forward and gave me such a thrust with his +huge hand that he fairly shot me into the tree. With both arms +clasping the branch, I scrambled hard with my feet until I had worked, +first my body, and then my knees, onto it. There were three excellent +off-shoots, like huge rungs of a ladder, above my head, and a tangle of +convenient branches beyond, so that I clambered onwards with such speed +that I soon lost sight of the ground and had nothing but foliage +beneath me. Now and then I encountered a check, and once I had to shin +up a creeper for eight or ten feet, but I made excellent progress, and +the booming of Challenger's voice seemed to be a great distance beneath +me. The tree was, however, enormous, and, looking upwards, I could see +no thinning of the leaves above my head. There was some thick, +bush-like clump which seemed to be a parasite upon a branch up which I +was swarming. I leaned my head round it in order to see what was +beyond, and I nearly fell out of the tree in my surprise and horror at +what I saw. +</P> + +<P> +A face was gazing into mine—at the distance of only a foot or two. +The creature that owned it had been crouching behind the parasite, and +had looked round it at the same instant that I did. It was a human +face—or at least it was far more human than any monkey's that I have +ever seen. It was long, whitish, and blotched with pimples, the nose +flattened, and the lower jaw projecting, with a bristle of coarse +whiskers round the chin. The eyes, which were under thick and heavy +brows, were bestial and ferocious, and as it opened its mouth to snarl +what sounded like a curse at me I observed that it had curved, sharp +canine teeth. For an instant I read hatred and menace in the evil +eyes. Then, as quick as a flash, came an expression of overpowering +fear. There was a crash of broken boughs as it dived wildly down into +the tangle of green. I caught a glimpse of a hairy body like that of a +reddish pig, and then it was gone amid a swirl of leaves and branches. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" shouted Roxton from below. "Anything wrong with +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Did you see it?" I cried, with my arms round the branch and all my +nerves tingling. +</P> + +<P> +"We heard a row, as if your foot had slipped. What was it?" +</P> + +<P> +I was so shocked at the sudden and strange appearance of this ape-man +that I hesitated whether I should not climb down again and tell my +experience to my companions. But I was already so far up the great +tree that it seemed a humiliation to return without having carried out +my mission. +</P> + +<P> +After a long pause, therefore, to recover my breath and my courage, I +continued my ascent. Once I put my weight upon a rotten branch and +swung for a few seconds by my hands, but in the main it was all easy +climbing. Gradually the leaves thinned around me, and I was aware, +from the wind upon my face, that I had topped all the trees of the +forest. I was determined, however, not to look about me before I had +reached the very highest point, so I scrambled on until I had got so +far that the topmost branch was bending beneath my weight. There I +settled into a convenient fork, and, balancing myself securely, I found +myself looking down at a most wonderful panorama of this strange +country in which we found ourselves. +</P> + +<P> +The sun was just above the western sky-line, and the evening was a +particularly bright and clear one, so that the whole extent of the +plateau was visible beneath me. It was, as seen from this height, of +an oval contour, with a breadth of about thirty miles and a width of +twenty. Its general shape was that of a shallow funnel, all the sides +sloping down to a considerable lake in the center. This lake may have +been ten miles in circumference, and lay very green and beautiful in +the evening light, with a thick fringe of reeds at its edges, and with +its surface broken by several yellow sandbanks, which gleamed golden in +the mellow sunshine. A number of long dark objects, which were too +large for alligators and too long for canoes, lay upon the edges of +these patches of sand. With my glass I could clearly see that they +were alive, but what their nature might be I could not imagine. +</P> + +<P> +From the side of the plateau on which we were, slopes of woodland, with +occasional glades, stretched down for five or six miles to the central +lake. I could see at my very feet the glade of the iguanodons, and +farther off was a round opening in the trees which marked the swamp of +the pterodactyls. On the side facing me, however, the plateau +presented a very different aspect. There the basalt cliffs of the +outside were reproduced upon the inside, forming an escarpment about +two hundred feet high, with a woody slope beneath it. Along the base +of these red cliffs, some distance above the ground, I could see a +number of dark holes through the glass, which I conjectured to be the +mouths of caves. At the opening of one of these something white was +shimmering, but I was unable to make out what it was. I sat charting +the country until the sun had set and it was so dark that I could no +longer distinguish details. Then I climbed down to my companions +waiting for me so eagerly at the bottom of the great tree. For once I +was the hero of the expedition. Alone I had thought of it, and alone I +had done it; and here was the chart which would save us a month's blind +groping among unknown dangers. Each of them shook me solemnly by the +hand. +</P> + +<P> +But before they discussed the details of my map I had to tell them of +my encounter with the ape-man among the branches. +</P> + +<P> +"He has been there all the time," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know that?" asked Lord John. +</P> + +<P> +"Because I have never been without that feeling that something +malevolent was watching us. I mentioned it to you, Professor +Challenger." +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend certainly said something of the kind. He is also the +one among us who is endowed with that Celtic temperament which would +make him sensitive to such impressions." +</P> + +<P> +"The whole theory of telepathy——" began Summerlee, filling his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"Is too vast to be now discussed," said Challenger, with decision. +"Tell me, now," he added, with the air of a bishop addressing a +Sunday-school, "did you happen to observe whether the creature could +cross its thumb over its palm?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"Had it a tail?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Was the foot prehensile?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not think it could have made off so fast among the branches if it +could not get a grip with its feet." +</P> + +<P> +"In South America there are, if my memory serves me—you will check the +observation, Professor Summerlee—some thirty-six species of monkeys, +but the anthropoid ape is unknown. It is clear, however, that he +exists in this country, and that he is not the hairy, gorilla-like +variety, which is never seen out of Africa or the East." (I was +inclined to interpolate, as I looked at him, that I had seen his first +cousin in Kensington.) "This is a whiskered and colorless type, the +latter characteristic pointing to the fact that he spends his days in +arboreal seclusion. The question which we have to face is whether he +approaches more closely to the ape or the man. In the latter case, he +may well approximate to what the vulgar have called the 'missing link.' +The solution of this problem is our immediate duty." +</P> + +<P> +"It is nothing of the sort," said Summerlee, abruptly. "Now that, +through the intelligence and activity of Mr. Malone" (I cannot help +quoting the words), "we have got our chart, our one and only immediate +duty is to get ourselves safe and sound out of this awful place." +</P> + +<P> +"The flesh-pots of civilization," groaned Challenger. +</P> + +<P> +"The ink-pots of civilization, sir. It is our task to put on record +what we have seen, and to leave the further exploration to others. You +all agreed as much before Mr. Malone got us the chart." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Challenger, "I admit that my mind will be more at ease +when I am assured that the result of our expedition has been conveyed +to our friends. How we are to get down from this place I have not as +yet an idea. I have never yet encountered any problem, however, which +my inventive brain was unable to solve, and I promise you that +to-morrow I will turn my attention to the question of our descent." +And so the matter was allowed to rest. +</P> + +<P> +But that evening, by the light of the fire and of a single candle, the +first map of the lost world was elaborated. Every detail which I had +roughly noted from my watch-tower was drawn out in its relative place. +Challenger's pencil hovered over the great blank which marked the lake. +</P> + +<P> +"What shall we call it?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you not take the chance of perpetuating your own name?" +said Summerlee, with his usual touch of acidity. +</P> + +<P> +"I trust, sir, that my name will have other and more personal claims +upon posterity," said Challenger, severely. "Any ignoramus can hand +down his worthless memory by imposing it upon a mountain or a river. I +need no such monument." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee, with a twisted smile, was about to make some fresh assault +when Lord John hastened to intervene. +</P> + +<P> +"It's up to you, young fellah, to name the lake," said he. "You saw it +first, and, by George, if you choose to put 'Lake Malone' on it, no one +has a better right." +</P> + +<P> +"By all means. Let our young friend give it a name," said Challenger. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said I, blushing, I dare say, as I said it, "let it be named +Lake Gladys." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think the Central Lake would be more descriptive?" remarked +Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"I should prefer Lake Gladys." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger looked at me sympathetically, and shook his great head in +mock disapproval. "Boys will be boys," said he. "Lake Gladys let it +be." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "It was Dreadful in the Forest" +</H3> + +<P> +I have said—or perhaps I have not said, for my memory plays me sad +tricks these days—that I glowed with pride when three such men as my +comrades thanked me for having saved, or at least greatly helped, the +situation. As the youngster of the party, not merely in years, but in +experience, character, knowledge, and all that goes to make a man, I +had been overshadowed from the first. And now I was coming into my +own. I warmed at the thought. Alas! for the pride which goes before a +fall! That little glow of self-satisfaction, that added measure of +self-confidence, were to lead me on that very night to the most +dreadful experience of my life, ending with a shock which turns my +heart sick when I think of it. +</P> + +<P> +It came about in this way. I had been unduly excited by the adventure +of the tree, and sleep seemed to be impossible. Summerlee was on +guard, sitting hunched over our small fire, a quaint, angular figure, +his rifle across his knees and his pointed, goat-like beard wagging +with each weary nod of his head. Lord John lay silent, wrapped in the +South American poncho which he wore, while Challenger snored with a +roll and rattle which reverberated through the woods. The full moon +was shining brightly, and the air was crisply cold. What a night for a +walk! And then suddenly came the thought, "Why not?" Suppose I stole +softly away, suppose I made my way down to the central lake, suppose I +was back at breakfast with some record of the place—would I not in +that case be thought an even more worthy associate? Then, if Summerlee +carried the day and some means of escape were found, we should return +to London with first-hand knowledge of the central mystery of the +plateau, to which I alone, of all men, would have penetrated. I thought +of Gladys, with her "There are heroisms all round us." I seemed to hear +her voice as she said it. I thought also of McArdle. What a three +column article for the paper! What a foundation for a career! A +correspondentship in the next great war might be within my reach. I +clutched at a gun—my pockets were full of cartridges—and, parting the +thorn bushes at the gate of our zareba, quickly slipped out. My last +glance showed me the unconscious Summerlee, most futile of sentinels, +still nodding away like a queer mechanical toy in front of the +smouldering fire. +</P> + +<P> +I had not gone a hundred yards before I deeply repented my rashness. I +may have said somewhere in this chronicle that I am too imaginative to +be a really courageous man, but that I have an overpowering fear of +seeming afraid. This was the power which now carried me onwards. I +simply could not slink back with nothing done. Even if my comrades +should not have missed me, and should never know of my weakness, there +would still remain some intolerable self-shame in my own soul. And yet +I shuddered at the position in which I found myself, and would have +given all I possessed at that moment to have been honorably free of the +whole business. +</P> + +<P> +It was dreadful in the forest. The trees grew so thickly and their +foliage spread so widely that I could see nothing of the moon-light +save that here and there the high branches made a tangled filigree +against the starry sky. As the eyes became more used to the obscurity +one learned that there were different degrees of darkness among the +trees—that some were dimly visible, while between and among them there +were coal-black shadowed patches, like the mouths of caves, from which +I shrank in horror as I passed. I thought of the despairing yell of +the tortured iguanodon—that dreadful cry which had echoed through the +woods. I thought, too, of the glimpse I had in the light of Lord +John's torch of that bloated, warty, blood-slavering muzzle. Even now +I was on its hunting-ground. At any instant it might spring upon me +from the shadows—this nameless and horrible monster. I stopped, and, +picking a cartridge from my pocket, I opened the breech of my gun. As +I touched the lever my heart leaped within me. It was the shot-gun, +not the rifle, which I had taken! +</P> + +<P> +Again the impulse to return swept over me. Here, surely, was a most +excellent reason for my failure—one for which no one would think the +less of me. But again the foolish pride fought against that very word. +I could not—must not—fail. After all, my rifle would probably have +been as useless as a shot-gun against such dangers as I might meet. If +I were to go back to camp to change my weapon I could hardly expect to +enter and to leave again without being seen. In that case there would +be explanations, and my attempt would no longer be all my own. After a +little hesitation, then, I screwed up my courage and continued upon my +way, my useless gun under my arm. +</P> + +<P> +The darkness of the forest had been alarming, but even worse was the +white, still flood of moonlight in the open glade of the iguanodons. +Hid among the bushes, I looked out at it. None of the great brutes +were in sight. Perhaps the tragedy which had befallen one of them had +driven them from their feeding-ground. In the misty, silvery night I +could see no sign of any living thing. Taking courage, therefore, I +slipped rapidly across it, and among the jungle on the farther side I +picked up once again the brook which was my guide. It was a cheery +companion, gurgling and chuckling as it ran, like the dear old +trout-stream in the West Country where I have fished at night in my +boyhood. So long as I followed it down I must come to the lake, and so +long as I followed it back I must come to the camp. Often I had to +lose sight of it on account of the tangled brush-wood, but I was always +within earshot of its tinkle and splash. +</P> + +<P> +As one descended the slope the woods became thinner, and bushes, with +occasional high trees, took the place of the forest. I could make good +progress, therefore, and I could see without being seen. I passed +close to the pterodactyl swamp, and as I did so, with a dry, crisp, +leathery rattle of wings, one of these great creatures—it was twenty +feet at least from tip to tip—rose up from somewhere near me and +soared into the air. As it passed across the face of the moon the +light shone clearly through the membranous wings, and it looked like a +flying skeleton against the white, tropical radiance. I crouched low +among the bushes, for I knew from past experience that with a single +cry the creature could bring a hundred of its loathsome mates about my +ears. It was not until it had settled again that I dared to steal +onwards upon my journey. +</P> + +<P> +The night had been exceedingly still, but as I advanced I became +conscious of a low, rumbling sound, a continuous murmur, somewhere in +front of me. This grew louder as I proceeded, until at last it was +clearly quite close to me. When I stood still the sound was constant, +so that it seemed to come from some stationary cause. It was like a +boiling kettle or the bubbling of some great pot. Soon I came upon the +source of it, for in the center of a small clearing I found a lake—or +a pool, rather, for it was not larger than the basin of the Trafalgar +Square fountain—of some black, pitch-like stuff, the surface of which +rose and fell in great blisters of bursting gas. The air above it was +shimmering with heat, and the ground round was so hot that I could +hardly bear to lay my hand on it. It was clear that the great volcanic +outburst which had raised this strange plateau so many years ago had +not yet entirely spent its forces. Blackened rocks and mounds of lava +I had already seen everywhere peeping out from amid the luxuriant +vegetation which draped them, but this asphalt pool in the jungle was +the first sign that we had of actual existing activity on the slopes of +the ancient crater. I had no time to examine it further for I had need +to hurry if I were to be back in camp in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fearsome walk, and one which will be with me so long as memory +holds. In the great moonlight clearings I slunk along among the +shadows on the margin. In the jungle I crept forward, stopping with a +beating heart whenever I heard, as I often did, the crash of breaking +branches as some wild beast went past. Now and then great shadows +loomed up for an instant and were gone—great, silent shadows which +seemed to prowl upon padded feet. How often I stopped with the +intention of returning, and yet every time my pride conquered my fear, +and sent me on again until my object should be attained. +</P> + +<P> +At last (my watch showed that it was one in the morning) I saw the +gleam of water amid the openings of the jungle, and ten minutes later I +was among the reeds upon the borders of the central lake. I was +exceedingly dry, so I lay down and took a long draught of its waters, +which were fresh and cold. There was a broad pathway with many tracks +upon it at the spot which I had found, so that it was clearly one of +the drinking-places of the animals. Close to the water's edge there +was a huge isolated block of lava. Up this I climbed, and, lying on +the top, I had an excellent view in every direction. +</P> + +<P> +The first thing which I saw filled me with amazement. When I described +the view from the summit of the great tree, I said that on the farther +cliff I could see a number of dark spots, which appeared to be the +mouths of caves. Now, as I looked up at the same cliffs, I saw discs +of light in every direction, ruddy, clearly-defined patches, like the +port-holes of a liner in the darkness. For a moment I thought it was +the lava-glow from some volcanic action; but this could not be so. Any +volcanic action would surely be down in the hollow and not high among +the rocks. What, then, was the alternative? It was wonderful, and yet +it must surely be. These ruddy spots must be the reflection of fires +within the caves—fires which could only be lit by the hand of man. +There were human beings, then, upon the plateau. How gloriously my +expedition was justified! Here was news indeed for us to bear back +with us to London! +</P> + +<P> +For a long time I lay and watched these red, quivering blotches of +light. I suppose they were ten miles off from me, yet even at that +distance one could observe how, from time to time, they twinkled or +were obscured as someone passed before them. What would I not have +given to be able to crawl up to them, to peep in, and to take back some +word to my comrades as to the appearance and character of the race who +lived in so strange a place! It was out of the question for the +moment, and yet surely we could not leave the plateau until we had some +definite knowledge upon the point. +</P> + +<P> +Lake Gladys—my own lake—lay like a sheet of quicksilver before me, +with a reflected moon shining brightly in the center of it. It was +shallow, for in many places I saw low sandbanks protruding above the +water. Everywhere upon the still surface I could see signs of life, +sometimes mere rings and ripples in the water, sometimes the gleam of a +great silver-sided fish in the air, sometimes the arched, slate-colored +back of some passing monster. Once upon a yellow sandbank I saw a +creature like a huge swan, with a clumsy body and a high, flexible +neck, shuffling about upon the margin. Presently it plunged in, and +for some time I could see the arched neck and darting head undulating +over the water. Then it dived, and I saw it no more. +</P> + +<P> +My attention was soon drawn away from these distant sights and brought +back to what was going on at my very feet. Two creatures like large +armadillos had come down to the drinking-place, and were squatting at +the edge of the water, their long, flexible tongues like red ribbons +shooting in and out as they lapped. A huge deer, with branching horns, +a magnificent creature which carried itself like a king, came down with +its doe and two fawns and drank beside the armadillos. No such deer +exist anywhere else upon earth, for the moose or elks which I have seen +would hardly have reached its shoulders. Presently it gave a warning +snort, and was off with its family among the reeds, while the +armadillos also scuttled for shelter. A new-comer, a most monstrous +animal, was coming down the path. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment I wondered where I could have seen that ungainly shape, +that arched back with triangular fringes along it, that strange +bird-like head held close to the ground. Then it came back, to me. It +was the stegosaurus—the very creature which Maple White had preserved +in his sketch-book, and which had been the first object which arrested +the attention of Challenger! There he was—perhaps the very specimen +which the American artist had encountered. The ground shook beneath +his tremendous weight, and his gulpings of water resounded through the +still night. For five minutes he was so close to my rock that by +stretching out my hand I could have touched the hideous waving hackles +upon his back. Then he lumbered away and was lost among the boulders. +</P> + +<P> +Looking at my watch, I saw that it was half-past two o'clock, and high +time, therefore, that I started upon my homeward journey. There was no +difficulty about the direction in which I should return for all along I +had kept the little brook upon my left, and it opened into the central +lake within a stone's-throw of the boulder upon which I had been lying. +I set off, therefore, in high spirits, for I felt that I had done good +work and was bringing back a fine budget of news for my companions. +Foremost of all, of course, were the sight of the fiery caves and the +certainty that some troglodytic race inhabited them. But besides that +I could speak from experience of the central lake. I could testify +that it was full of strange creatures, and I had seen several land +forms of primeval life which we had not before encountered. I +reflected as I walked that few men in the world could have spent a +stranger night or added more to human knowledge in the course of it. +</P> + +<P> +I was plodding up the slope, turning these thoughts over in my mind, +and had reached a point which may have been half-way to home, when my +mind was brought back to my own position by a strange noise behind me. +It was something between a snore and a growl, low, deep, and +exceedingly menacing. Some strange creature was evidently near me, but +nothing could be seen, so I hastened more rapidly upon my way. I had +traversed half a mile or so when suddenly the sound was repeated, still +behind me, but louder and more menacing than before. My heart stood +still within me as it flashed across me that the beast, whatever it +was, must surely be after ME. My skin grew cold and my hair rose at +the thought. That these monsters should tear each other to pieces was +a part of the strange struggle for existence, but that they should turn +upon modern man, that they should deliberately track and hunt down the +predominant human, was a staggering and fearsome thought. I remembered +again the blood-beslobbered face which we had seen in the glare of Lord +John's torch, like some horrible vision from the deepest circle of +Dante's hell. With my knees shaking beneath me, I stood and glared +with starting eyes down the moonlit path which lay behind me. All was +quiet as in a dream landscape. Silver clearings and the black patches +of the bushes—nothing else could I see. Then from out of the silence, +imminent and threatening, there came once more that low, throaty +croaking, far louder and closer than before. There could no longer be +a doubt. Something was on my trail, and was closing in upon me every +minute. +</P> + +<P> +I stood like a man paralyzed, still staring at the ground which I had +traversed. Then suddenly I saw it. There was movement among the +bushes at the far end of the clearing which I had just traversed. A +great dark shadow disengaged itself and hopped out into the clear +moonlight. I say "hopped" advisedly, for the beast moved like a +kangaroo, springing along in an erect position upon its powerful hind +legs, while its front ones were held bent in front of it. It was of +enormous size and power, like an erect elephant, but its movements, in +spite of its bulk, were exceedingly alert. For a moment, as I saw its +shape, I hoped that it was an iguanodon, which I knew to be harmless, +but, ignorant as I was, I soon saw that this was a very different +creature. Instead of the gentle, deer-shaped head of the great +three-toed leaf-eater, this beast had a broad, squat, toad-like face +like that which had alarmed us in our camp. His ferocious cry and the +horrible energy of his pursuit both assured me that this was surely one +of the great flesh-eating dinosaurs, the most terrible beasts which +have ever walked this earth. As the huge brute loped along it dropped +forward upon its fore-paws and brought its nose to the ground every +twenty yards or so. It was smelling out my trail. Sometimes, for an +instant, it was at fault. Then it would catch it up again and come +bounding swiftly along the path I had taken. +</P> + +<P> +Even now when I think of that nightmare the sweat breaks out upon my +brow. What could I do? My useless fowling-piece was in my hand. What +help could I get from that? I looked desperately round for some rock +or tree, but I was in a bushy jungle with nothing higher than a sapling +within sight, while I knew that the creature behind me could tear down +an ordinary tree as though it were a reed. My only possible chance lay +in flight. I could not move swiftly over the rough, broken ground, but +as I looked round me in despair I saw a well-marked, hard-beaten path +which ran across in front of me. We had seen several of the sort, the +runs of various wild beasts, during our expeditions. Along this I +could perhaps hold my own, for I was a fast runner, and in excellent +condition. Flinging away my useless gun, I set myself to do such a +half-mile as I have never done before or since. My limbs ached, my +chest heaved, I felt that my throat would burst for want of air, and +yet with that horror behind me I ran and I ran and ran. At last I +paused, hardly able to move. For a moment I thought that I had thrown +him off. The path lay still behind me. And then suddenly, with a +crashing and a rending, a thudding of giant feet and a panting of +monster lungs the beast was upon me once more. He was at my very +heels. I was lost. +</P> + +<P> +Madman that I was to linger so long before I fled! Up to then he had +hunted by scent, and his movement was slow. But he had actually seen +me as I started to run. From then onwards he had hunted by sight, for +the path showed him where I had gone. Now, as he came round the curve, +he was springing in great bounds. The moonlight shone upon his huge +projecting eyes, the row of enormous teeth in his open mouth, and the +gleaming fringe of claws upon his short, powerful forearms. With a +scream of terror I turned and rushed wildly down the path. Behind me +the thick, gasping breathing of the creature sounded louder and louder. +His heavy footfall was beside me. Every instant I expected to feel his +grip upon my back. And then suddenly there came a crash—I was falling +through space, and everything beyond was darkness and rest. +</P> + +<P> +As I emerged from my unconsciousness—which could not, I think, have +lasted more than a few minutes—I was aware of a most dreadful and +penetrating smell. Putting out my hand in the darkness I came upon +something which felt like a huge lump of meat, while my other hand +closed upon a large bone. Up above me there was a circle of starlit +sky, which showed me that I was lying at the bottom of a deep pit. +Slowly I staggered to my feet and felt myself all over. I was stiff +and sore from head to foot, but there was no limb which would not move, +no joint which would not bend. As the circumstances of my fall came +back into my confused brain, I looked up in terror, expecting to see +that dreadful head silhouetted against the paling sky. There was no +sign of the monster, however, nor could I hear any sound from above. I +began to walk slowly round, therefore, feeling in every direction to +find out what this strange place could be into which I had been so +opportunely precipitated. +</P> + +<P> +It was, as I have said, a pit, with sharply-sloping walls and a level +bottom about twenty feet across. This bottom was littered with great +gobbets of flesh, most of which was in the last state of putridity. +The atmosphere was poisonous and horrible. After tripping and +stumbling over these lumps of decay, I came suddenly against something +hard, and I found that an upright post was firmly fixed in the center +of the hollow. It was so high that I could not reach the top of it +with my hand, and it appeared to be covered with grease. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly I remembered that I had a tin box of wax-vestas in my pocket. +Striking one of them, I was able at last to form some opinion of this +place into which I had fallen. There could be no question as to its +nature. It was a trap—made by the hand of man. The post in the +center, some nine feet long, was sharpened at the upper end, and was +black with the stale blood of the creatures who had been impaled upon +it. The remains scattered about were fragments of the victims, which +had been cut away in order to clear the stake for the next who might +blunder in. I remembered that Challenger had declared that man could +not exist upon the plateau, since with his feeble weapons he could not +hold his own against the monsters who roamed over it. But now it was +clear enough how it could be done. In their narrow-mouthed caves the +natives, whoever they might be, had refuges into which the huge +saurians could not penetrate, while with their developed brains they +were capable of setting such traps, covered with branches, across the +paths which marked the run of the animals as would destroy them in +spite of all their strength and activity. Man was always the master. +</P> + +<P> +The sloping wall of the pit was not difficult for an active man to +climb, but I hesitated long before I trusted myself within reach of the +dreadful creature which had so nearly destroyed me. How did I know +that he was not lurking in the nearest clump of bushes, waiting for my +reappearance? I took heart, however, as I recalled a conversation +between Challenger and Summerlee upon the habits of the great saurians. +Both were agreed that the monsters were practically brainless, that +there was no room for reason in their tiny cranial cavities, and that +if they have disappeared from the rest of the world it was assuredly on +account of their own stupidity, which made it impossible for them to +adapt themselves to changing conditions. +</P> + +<P> +To lie in wait for me now would mean that the creature had appreciated +what had happened to me, and this in turn would argue some power +connecting cause and effect. Surely it was more likely that a +brainless creature, acting solely by vague predatory instinct, would +give up the chase when I disappeared, and, after a pause of +astonishment, would wander away in search of some other prey? I +clambered to the edge of the pit and looked over. The stars were +fading, the sky was whitening, and the cold wind of morning blew +pleasantly upon my face. I could see or hear nothing of my enemy. +Slowly I climbed out and sat for a while upon the ground, ready to +spring back into my refuge if any danger should appear. Then, +reassured by the absolute stillness and by the growing light, I took my +courage in both hands and stole back along the path which I had come. +Some distance down it I picked up my gun, and shortly afterwards struck +the brook which was my guide. So, with many a frightened backward +glance, I made for home. +</P> + +<P> +And suddenly there came something to remind me of my absent companions. +In the clear, still morning air there sounded far away the sharp, hard +note of a single rifle-shot. I paused and listened, but there was +nothing more. For a moment I was shocked at the thought that some +sudden danger might have befallen them. But then a simpler and more +natural explanation came to my mind. It was now broad daylight. No +doubt my absence had been noticed. They had imagined, that I was lost +in the woods, and had fired this shot to guide me home. It is true +that we had made a strict resolution against firing, but if it seemed +to them that I might be in danger they would not hesitate. It was for +me now to hurry on as fast as possible, and so to reassure them. +</P> + +<P> +I was weary and spent, so my progress was not so fast as I wished; but +at last I came into regions which I knew. There was the swamp of the +pterodactyls upon my left; there in front of me was the glade of the +iguanodons. Now I was in the last belt of trees which separated me +from Fort Challenger. I raised my voice in a cheery shout to allay +their fears. No answering greeting came back to me. My heart sank at +that ominous stillness. I quickened my pace into a run. The zareba +rose before me, even as I had left it, but the gate was open. I rushed +in. In the cold, morning light it was a fearful sight which met my +eyes. Our effects were scattered in wild confusion over the ground; my +comrades had disappeared, and close to the smouldering ashes of our +fire the grass was stained crimson with a hideous pool of blood. +</P> + +<P> +I was so stunned by this sudden shock that for a time I must have +nearly lost my reason. I have a vague recollection, as one remembers a +bad dream, of rushing about through the woods all round the empty camp, +calling wildly for my companions. No answer came back from the silent +shadows. The horrible thought that I might never see them again, that +I might find myself abandoned all alone in that dreadful place, with no +possible way of descending into the world below, that I might live and +die in that nightmare country, drove me to desperation. I could have +torn my hair and beaten my head in my despair. Only now did I realize +how I had learned to lean upon my companions, upon the serene +self-confidence of Challenger, and upon the masterful, humorous +coolness of Lord John Roxton. Without them I was like a child in the +dark, helpless and powerless. I did not know which way to turn or what +I should do first. +</P> + +<P> +After a period, during which I sat in bewilderment, I set myself to try +and discover what sudden misfortune could have befallen my companions. +The whole disordered appearance of the camp showed that there had been +some sort of attack, and the rifle-shot no doubt marked the time when +it had occurred. That there should have been only one shot showed that +it had been all over in an instant. The rifles still lay upon the +ground, and one of them—Lord John's—had the empty cartridge in the +breech. The blankets of Challenger and of Summerlee beside the fire +suggested that they had been asleep at the time. The cases of +ammunition and of food were scattered about in a wild litter, together +with our unfortunate cameras and plate-carriers, but none of them were +missing. On the other hand, all the exposed provisions—and I +remembered that there were a considerable quantity of them—were gone. +They were animals, then, and not natives, who had made the inroad, for +surely the latter would have left nothing behind. +</P> + +<P> +But if animals, or some single terrible animal, then what had become of +my comrades? A ferocious beast would surely have destroyed them and +left their remains. It is true that there was that one hideous pool of +blood, which told of violence. Such a monster as had pursued me during +the night could have carried away a victim as easily as a cat would a +mouse. In that case the others would have followed in pursuit. But +then they would assuredly have taken their rifles with them. The more +I tried to think it out with my confused and weary brain the less could +I find any plausible explanation. I searched round in the forest, but +could see no tracks which could help me to a conclusion. Once I lost +myself, and it was only by good luck, and after an hour of wandering, +that I found the camp once more. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly a thought came to me and brought some little comfort to my +heart. I was not absolutely alone in the world. Down at the bottom of +the cliff, and within call of me, was waiting the faithful Zambo. I +went to the edge of the plateau and looked over. Sure enough, he was +squatting among his blankets beside his fire in his little camp. But, +to my amazement, a second man was seated in front of him. For an +instant my heart leaped for joy, as I thought that one of my comrades +had made his way safely down. But a second glance dispelled the hope. +The rising sun shone red upon the man's skin. He was an Indian. I +shouted loudly and waved my handkerchief. Presently Zambo looked up, +waved his hand, and turned to ascend the pinnacle. In a short time he +was standing close to me and listening with deep distress to the story +which I told him. +</P> + +<P> +"Devil got them for sure, Massa Malone," said he. "You got into the +devil's country, sah, and he take you all to himself. You take advice, +Massa Malone, and come down quick, else he get you as well." +</P> + +<P> +"How can I come down, Zambo?" +</P> + +<P> +"You get creepers from trees, Massa Malone. Throw them over here. I +make fast to this stump, and so you have bridge." +</P> + +<P> +"We have thought of that. There are no creepers here which could bear +us." +</P> + +<P> +"Send for ropes, Massa Malone." +</P> + +<P> +"Who can I send, and where?" +</P> + +<P> +"Send to Indian villages, sah. Plenty hide rope in Indian village. +Indian down below; send him." +</P> + +<P> +"Who is he? +</P> + +<P> +"One of our Indians. Other ones beat him and take away his pay. He +come back to us. Ready now to take letter, bring rope,—anything." +</P> + +<P> +To take a letter! Why not? Perhaps he might bring help; but in any +case he would ensure that our lives were not spent for nothing, and +that news of all that we had won for Science should reach our friends +at home. I had two completed letters already waiting. I would spend +the day in writing a third, which would bring my experiences absolutely +up to date. The Indian could bear this back to the world. I ordered +Zambo, therefore, to come again in the evening, and I spent my +miserable and lonely day in recording my own adventures of the night +before. I also drew up a note, to be given to any white merchant or +captain of a steam-boat whom the Indian could find, imploring them to +see that ropes were sent to us, since our lives must depend upon it. +These documents I threw to Zambo in the evening, and also my purse, +which contained three English sovereigns. These were to be given to +the Indian, and he was promised twice as much if he returned with the +ropes. +</P> + +<P> +So now you will understand, my dear Mr. McArdle, how this communication +reaches you, and you will also know the truth, in case you never hear +again from your unfortunate correspondent. To-night I am too weary and +too depressed to make my plans. To-morrow I must think out some way by +which I shall keep in touch with this camp, and yet search round for +any traces of my unhappy friends. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "A Sight which I shall Never Forget" +</H3> + +<P> +Just as the sun was setting upon that melancholy night I saw the lonely +figure of the Indian upon the vast plain beneath me, and I watched him, +our one faint hope of salvation, until he disappeared in the rising +mists of evening which lay, rose-tinted from the setting sun, between +the far-off river and me. +</P> + +<P> +It was quite dark when I at last turned back to our stricken camp, and +my last vision as I went was the red gleam of Zambo's fire, the one +point of light in the wide world below, as was his faithful presence in +my own shadowed soul. And yet I felt happier than I had done since +this crushing blow had fallen upon me, for it was good to think that +the world should know what we had done, so that at the worst our names +should not perish with our bodies, but should go down to posterity +associated with the result of our labors. +</P> + +<P> +It was an awesome thing to sleep in that ill-fated camp; and yet it was +even more unnerving to do so in the jungle. One or the other it must +be. Prudence, on the one hand, warned me that I should remain on +guard, but exhausted Nature, on the other, declared that I should do +nothing of the kind. I climbed up on to a limb of the great gingko +tree, but there was no secure perch on its rounded surface, and I +should certainly have fallen off and broken my neck the moment I began +to doze. I got down, therefore, and pondered over what I should do. +Finally, I closed the door of the zareba, lit three separate fires in a +triangle, and having eaten a hearty supper dropped off into a profound +sleep, from which I had a strange and most welcome awakening. In the +early morning, just as day was breaking, a hand was laid upon my arm, +and starting up, with all my nerves in a tingle and my hand feeling for +a rifle, I gave a cry of joy as in the cold gray light I saw Lord John +Roxton kneeling beside me. +</P> + +<P> +It was he—and yet it was not he. I had left him calm in his bearing, +correct in his person, prim in his dress. Now he was pale and +wild-eyed, gasping as he breathed like one who has run far and fast. +His gaunt face was scratched and bloody, his clothes were hanging in +rags, and his hat was gone. I stared in amazement, but he gave me no +chance for questions. He was grabbing at our stores all the time he +spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Quick, young fellah! Quick!" he cried. "Every moment counts. Get +the rifles, both of them. I have the other two. Now, all the +cartridges you can gather. Fill up your pockets. Now, some food. +Half a dozen tins will do. That's all right! Don't wait to talk or +think. Get a move on, or we are done!" +</P> + +<P> +Still half-awake, and unable to imagine what it all might mean, I found +myself hurrying madly after him through the wood, a rifle under each +arm and a pile of various stores in my hands. He dodged in and out +through the thickest of the scrub until he came to a dense clump of +brush-wood. Into this he rushed, regardless of thorns, and threw +himself into the heart of it, pulling me down by his side. +</P> + +<P> +"There!" he panted. "I think we are safe here. They'll make for the +camp as sure as fate. It will be their first idea. But this should +puzzle 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"What is it all?" I asked, when I had got my breath. "Where are the +professors? And who is it that is after us?" +</P> + +<P> +"The ape-men," he cried. "My God, what brutes! Don't raise your +voice, for they have long ears—sharp eyes, too, but no power of scent, +so far as I could judge, so I don't think they can sniff us out. Where +have you been, young fellah? You were well out of it." +</P> + +<P> +In a few sentences I whispered what I had done. +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty bad," said he, when he had heard of the dinosaur and the pit. +"It isn't quite the place for a rest cure. What? But I had no idea +what its possibilities were until those devils got hold of us. The +man-eatin' Papuans had me once, but they are Chesterfields compared to +this crowd." +</P> + +<P> +"How did it happen?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It was in the early mornin'. Our learned friends were just stirrin'. +Hadn't even begun to argue yet. Suddenly it rained apes. They came +down as thick as apples out of a tree. They had been assemblin' in the +dark, I suppose, until that great tree over our heads was heavy with +them. I shot one of them through the belly, but before we knew where +we were they had us spread-eagled on our backs. I call them apes, but +they carried sticks and stones in their hands and jabbered talk to each +other, and ended up by tyin' our hands with creepers, so they are ahead +of any beast that I have seen in my wanderin's. Ape-men—that's what +they are—Missin' Links, and I wish they had stayed missin'. They +carried off their wounded comrade—he was bleedin' like a pig—and then +they sat around us, and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in their +faces. They were big fellows, as big as a man and a deal stronger. +Curious glassy gray eyes they have, under red tufts, and they just sat +and gloated and gloated. Challenger is no chicken, but even he was +cowed. He managed to struggle to his feet, and yelled out at them to +have done with it and get it over. I think he had gone a bit off his +head at the suddenness of it, for he raged and cursed at them like a +lunatic. If they had been a row of his favorite Pressmen he could not +have slanged them worse." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what did they do?" I was enthralled by the strange story which +my companion was whispering into my ear, while all the time his keen +eyes were shooting in every direction and his hand grasping his cocked +rifle. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought it was the end of us, but instead of that it started them on +a new line. They all jabbered and chattered together. Then one of +them stood out beside Challenger. You'll smile, young fellah, but 'pon +my word they might have been kinsmen. I couldn't have believed it if I +hadn't seen it with my own eyes. This old ape-man—he was their +chief—was a sort of red Challenger, with every one of our friend's +beauty points, only just a trifle more so. He had the short body, the +big shoulders, the round chest, no neck, a great ruddy frill of a +beard, the tufted eyebrows, the 'What do you want, damn you!' look +about the eyes, and the whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood by +Challenger and put his paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete. +Summerlee was a bit hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. The +ape-men laughed too—or at least they put up the devil of a +cacklin'—and they set to work to drag us off through the forest. They +wouldn't touch the guns and things—thought them dangerous, I +expect—but they carried away all our loose food. Summerlee and I got +some rough handlin' on the way—there's my skin and my clothes to prove +it—for they took us a bee-line through the brambles, and their own +hides are like leather. But Challenger was all right. Four of them +carried him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor. What's +that?" +</P> + +<P> +It was a strange clicking noise in the distance not unlike castanets. +</P> + +<P> +"There they go!" said my companion, slipping cartridges into the second +double barrelled "Express." "Load them all up, young fellah my lad, +for we're not going to be taken alive, and don't you think it! That's +the row they make when they are excited. By George! they'll have +something to excite them if they put us up. The 'Last Stand of the +Grays' won't be in it. 'With their rifles grasped in their stiffened +hands, mid a ring of the dead and dyin',' as some fathead sings. Can +you hear them now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very far away." +</P> + +<P> +"That little lot will do no good, but I expect their search parties are +all over the wood. Well, I was telling you my tale of woe. They got +us soon to this town of theirs—about a thousand huts of branches and +leaves in a great grove of trees near the edge of the cliff. It's +three or four miles from here. The filthy beasts fingered me all over, +and I feel as if I should never be clean again. They tied us up—the +fellow who handled me could tie like a bosun—and there we lay with our +toes up, beneath a tree, while a great brute stood guard over us with a +club in his hand. When I say 'we' I mean Summerlee and myself. Old +Challenger was up a tree, eatin' pines and havin' the time of his life. +I'm bound to say that he managed to get some fruit to us, and with his +own hands he loosened our bonds. If you'd seen him sitting up in that +tree hob-nobbin' with his twin brother—and singin' in that rollin' +bass of his, 'Ring out, wild bells,' cause music of any kind seemed to +put 'em in a good humor, you'd have smiled; but we weren't in much mood +for laughin', as you can guess. They were inclined, within limits, to +let him do what he liked, but they drew the line pretty sharply at us. +It was a mighty consolation to us all to know that you were runnin' +loose and had the archives in your keepin'. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now, young fellah, I'll tell you what will surprise you. You +say you saw signs of men, and fires, traps, and the like. Well, we +have seen the natives themselves. Poor devils they were, down-faced +little chaps, and had enough to make them so. It seems that the humans +hold one side of this plateau—over yonder, where you saw the +caves—and the ape-men hold this side, and there is bloody war between +them all the time. That's the situation, so far as I could follow it. +Well, yesterday the ape-men got hold of a dozen of the humans and +brought them in as prisoners. You never heard such a jabberin' and +shriekin' in your life. The men were little red fellows, and had been +bitten and clawed so that they could hardly walk. The ape-men put two +of them to death there and then—fairly pulled the arm off one of +them—it was perfectly beastly. Plucky little chaps they are, and +hardly gave a squeak. But it turned us absolutely sick. Summerlee +fainted, and even Challenger had as much as he could stand. I think +they have cleared, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +We listened intently, but nothing save the calling of the birds broke +the deep peace of the forest. Lord Roxton went on with his story. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you have had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad. It +was catchin' those Indians that put you clean out of their heads, else +they would have been back to the camp for you as sure as fate and +gathered you in. Of course, as you said, they have been watchin' us +from the beginnin' out of that tree, and they knew perfectly well that +we were one short. However, they could think only of this new haul; so +it was I, and not a bunch of apes, that dropped in on you in the +morning. Well, we had a horrid business afterwards. My God! what a +nightmare the whole thing is! You remember the great bristle of sharp +canes down below where we found the skeleton of the American? Well, +that is just under ape-town, and that's the jumpin'-off place of their +prisoners. I expect there's heaps of skeletons there, if we looked for +'em. They have a sort of clear parade-ground on the top, and they make +a proper ceremony about it. One by one the poor devils have to jump, +and the game is to see whether they are merely dashed to pieces or +whether they get skewered on the canes. They took us out to see it, +and the whole tribe lined up on the edge. Four of the Indians jumped, +and the canes went through 'em like knittin' needles through a pat of +butter. No wonder we found that poor Yankee's skeleton with the canes +growin' between his ribs. It was horrible—but it was doocedly +interestin' too. We were all fascinated to see them take the dive, +even when we thought it would be our turn next on the spring-board. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it wasn't. They kept six of the Indians up for to-day—that's +how I understood it—but I fancy we were to be the star performers in +the show. Challenger might get off, but Summerlee and I were in the +bill. Their language is more than half signs, and it was not hard to +follow them. So I thought it was time we made a break for it. I had +been plottin' it out a bit, and had one or two things clear in my mind. +It was all on me, for Summerlee was useless and Challenger not much +better. The only time they got together they got slangin' because they +couldn't agree upon the scientific classification of these red-headed +devils that had got hold of us. One said it was the dryopithecus of +Java, the other said it was pithecanthropus. Madness, I call +it—Loonies, both. But, as I say, I had thought out one or two points +that were helpful. One was that these brutes could not run as fast as +a man in the open. They have short, bandy legs, you see, and heavy +bodies. Even Challenger could give a few yards in a hundred to the +best of them, and you or I would be a perfect Shrubb. Another point +was that they knew nothin' about guns. I don't believe they ever +understood how the fellow I shot came by his hurt. If we could get at +our guns there was no sayin' what we could do. +</P> + +<P> +"So I broke away early this mornin', gave my guard a kick in the tummy +that laid him out, and sprinted for the camp. There I got you and the +guns, and here we are." +</P> + +<P> +"But the professors!" I cried, in consternation. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we must just go back and fetch 'em. I couldn't bring 'em with +me. Challenger was up the tree, and Summerlee was not fit for the +effort. The only chance was to get the guns and try a rescue. Of +course they may scupper them at once in revenge. I don't think they +would touch Challenger, but I wouldn't answer for Summerlee. But they +would have had him in any case. Of that I am certain. So I haven't +made matters any worse by boltin'. But we are honor bound to go back +and have them out or see it through with them. So you can make up your +soul, young fellah my lad, for it will be one way or the other before +evenin'." +</P> + +<P> +I have tried to imitate here Lord Roxton's jerky talk, his short, +strong sentences, the half-humorous, half-reckless tone that ran +through it all. But he was a born leader. As danger thickened his +jaunty manner would increase, his speech become more racy, his cold +eyes glitter into ardent life, and his Don Quixote moustache bristle +with joyous excitement. His love of danger, his intense appreciation +of the drama of an adventure—all the more intense for being held +tightly in—his consistent view that every peril in life is a form of +sport, a fierce game betwixt you and Fate, with Death as a forfeit, +made him a wonderful companion at such hours. If it were not for our +fears as to the fate of our companions, it would have been a positive +joy to throw myself with such a man into such an affair. We were +rising from our brushwood hiding-place when suddenly I felt his grip +upon my arm. +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" he whispered, "here they come!" +</P> + +<P> +From where we lay we could look down a brown aisle, arched with green, +formed by the trunks and branches. Along this a party of the ape-men +were passing. They went in single file, with bent legs and rounded +backs, their hands occasionally touching the ground, their heads +turning to left and right as they trotted along. Their crouching gait +took away from their height, but I should put them at five feet or so, +with long arms and enormous chests. Many of them carried sticks, and +at the distance they looked like a line of very hairy and deformed +human beings. For a moment I caught this clear glimpse of them. Then +they were lost among the bushes. +</P> + +<P> +"Not this time," said Lord John, who had caught up his rifle. "Our +best chance is to lie quiet until they have given up the search. Then +we shall see whether we can't get back to their town and hit 'em where +it hurts most. Give 'em an hour and we'll march." +</P> + +<P> +We filled in the time by opening one of our food tins and making sure +of our breakfast. Lord Roxton had had nothing but some fruit since the +morning before and ate like a starving man. Then, at last, our pockets +bulging with cartridges and a rifle in each hand, we started off upon +our mission of rescue. Before leaving it we carefully marked our +little hiding-place among the brush-wood and its bearing to Fort +Challenger, that we might find it again if we needed it. We slunk +through the bushes in silence until we came to the very edge of the +cliff, close to the old camp. There we halted, and Lord John gave me +some idea of his plans. +</P> + +<P> +"So long as we are among the thick trees these swine are our masters," +said he. "They can see us and we cannot see them. But in the open it +is different. There we can move faster than they. So we must stick to +the open all we can. The edge of the plateau has fewer large trees +than further inland. So that's our line of advance. Go slowly, keep +your eyes open and your rifle ready. Above all, never let them get you +prisoner while there is a cartridge left—that's my last word to you, +young fellah." +</P> + +<P> +When we reached the edge of the cliff I looked over and saw our good +old black Zambo sitting smoking on a rock below us. I would have given +a great deal to have hailed him and told him how we were placed, but it +was too dangerous, lest we should be heard. The woods seemed to be +full of the ape-men; again and again we heard their curious clicking +chatter. At such times we plunged into the nearest clump of bushes and +lay still until the sound had passed away. Our advance, therefore, was +very slow, and two hours at least must have passed before I saw by Lord +John's cautious movements that we must be close to our destination. He +motioned to me to lie still, and he crawled forward himself. In a +minute he was back again, his face quivering with eagerness. +</P> + +<P> +"Come!" said he. "Come quick! I hope to the Lord we are not too late +already!" +</P> + +<P> +I found myself shaking with nervous excitement as I scrambled forward +and lay down beside him, looking out through the bushes at a clearing +which stretched before us. +</P> + +<P> +It was a sight which I shall never forget until my dying day—so weird, +so impossible, that I do not know how I am to make you realize it, or +how in a few years I shall bring myself to believe in it if I live to +sit once more on a lounge in the Savage Club and look out on the drab +solidity of the Embankment. I know that it will seem then to be some +wild nightmare, some delirium of fever. Yet I will set it down now, +while it is still fresh in my memory, and one at least, the man who lay +in the damp grasses by my side, will know if I have lied. +</P> + +<P> +A wide, open space lay before us—some hundreds of yards across—all +green turf and low bracken growing to the very edge of the cliff. +Round this clearing there was a semi-circle of trees with curious huts +built of foliage piled one above the other among the branches. A +rookery, with every nest a little house, would best convey the idea. +The openings of these huts and the branches of the trees were thronged +with a dense mob of ape-people, whom from their size I took to be the +females and infants of the tribe. They formed the background of the +picture, and were all looking out with eager interest at the same scene +which fascinated and bewildered us. +</P> + +<P> +In the open, and near the edge of the cliff, there had assembled a +crowd of some hundred of these shaggy, red-haired creatures, many of +them of immense size, and all of them horrible to look upon. There was +a certain discipline among them, for none of them attempted to break +the line which had been formed. In front there stood a small group of +Indians—little, clean-limbed, red fellows, whose skins glowed like +polished bronze in the strong sunlight. A tall, thin white man was +standing beside them, his head bowed, his arms folded, his whole +attitude expressive of his horror and dejection. There was no +mistaking the angular form of Professor Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +In front of and around this dejected group of prisoners were several +ape-men, who watched them closely and made all escape impossible. +Then, right out from all the others and close to the edge of the cliff, +were two figures, so strange, and under other circumstances so +ludicrous, that they absorbed my attention. The one was our comrade, +Professor Challenger. The remains of his coat still hung in strips +from his shoulders, but his shirt had been all torn out, and his great +beard merged itself in the black tangle which covered his mighty chest. +He had lost his hat, and his hair, which had grown long in our +wanderings, was flying in wild disorder. A single day seemed to have +changed him from the highest product of modern civilization to the most +desperate savage in South America. Beside him stood his master, the +king of the ape-men. In all things he was, as Lord John had said, the +very image of our Professor, save that his coloring was red instead of +black. The same short, broad figure, the same heavy shoulders, the +same forward hang of the arms, the same bristling beard merging itself +in the hairy chest. Only above the eyebrows, where the sloping +forehead and low, curved skull of the ape-man were in sharp contrast to +the broad brow and magnificent cranium of the European, could one see +any marked difference. At every other point the king was an absurd +parody of the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +All this, which takes me so long to describe, impressed itself upon me +in a few seconds. Then we had very different things to think of, for +an active drama was in progress. Two of the ape-men had seized one of +the Indians out of the group and dragged him forward to the edge of the +cliff. The king raised his hand as a signal. They caught the man by +his leg and arm, and swung him three times backwards and forwards with +tremendous violence. Then, with a frightful heave they shot the poor +wretch over the precipice. With such force did they throw him that he +curved high in the air before beginning to drop. As he vanished from +sight, the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to the +edge of the precipice, and there was a long pause of absolute silence, +broken by a mad yell of delight. They sprang about, tossing their +long, hairy arms in the air and howling with exultation. Then they +fell back from the edge, formed themselves again into line, and waited +for the next victim. +</P> + +<P> +This time it was Summerlee. Two of his guards caught him by the wrists +and pulled him brutally to the front. His thin figure and long limbs +struggled and fluttered like a chicken being dragged from a coop. +Challenger had turned to the king and waved his hands frantically +before him. He was begging, pleading, imploring for his comrade's +life. The ape-man pushed him roughly aside and shook his head. It was +the last conscious movement he was to make upon earth. Lord John's +rifle cracked, and the king sank down, a tangled red sprawling thing, +upon the ground. +</P> + +<P> +"Shoot into the thick of them! Shoot! sonny, shoot!" cried my +companion. +</P> + +<P> +There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man. +I am tenderhearted by nature, and have found my eyes moist many a time +over the scream of a wounded hare. Yet the blood lust was on me now. +I found myself on my feet emptying one magazine, then the other, +clicking open the breech to re-load, snapping it to again, while +cheering and yelling with pure ferocity and joy of slaughter as I did +so. With our four guns the two of us made a horrible havoc. Both the +guards who held Summerlee were down, and he was staggering about like a +drunken man in his amazement, unable to realize that he was a free man. +The dense mob of ape-men ran about in bewilderment, marveling whence +this storm of death was coming or what it might mean. They waved, +gesticulated, screamed, and tripped up over those who had fallen. +Then, with a sudden impulse, they all rushed in a howling crowd to the +trees for shelter, leaving the ground behind them spotted with their +stricken comrades. The prisoners were left for the moment standing +alone in the middle of the clearing. +</P> + +<P> +Challenger's quick brain had grasped the situation. He seized the +bewildered Summerlee by the arm, and they both ran towards us. Two of +their guards bounded after them and fell to two bullets from Lord John. +We ran forward into the open to meet our friends, and pressed a loaded +rifle into the hands of each. But Summerlee was at the end of his +strength. He could hardly totter. Already the ape-men were recovering +from their panic. They were coming through the brushwood and +threatening to cut us off. Challenger and I ran Summerlee along, one +at each of his elbows, while Lord John covered our retreat, firing +again and again as savage heads snarled at us out of the bushes. For a +mile or more the chattering brutes were at our very heels. Then the +pursuit slackened, for they learned our power and would no longer face +that unerring rifle. When we had at last reached the camp, we looked +back and found ourselves alone. +</P> + +<P> +So it seemed to us; and yet we were mistaken. We had hardly closed the +thornbush door of our zareba, clasped each other's hands, and thrown +ourselves panting upon the ground beside our spring, when we heard a +patter of feet and then a gentle, plaintive crying from outside our +entrance. Lord Roxton rushed forward, rifle in hand, and threw it +open. There, prostrate upon their faces, lay the little red figures of +the four surviving Indians, trembling with fear of us and yet imploring +our protection. With an expressive sweep of his hands one of them +pointed to the woods around them, and indicated that they were full of +danger. Then, darting forward, he threw his arms round Lord John's +legs, and rested his face upon them. +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" cried our peer, pulling at his moustache in great +perplexity, "I say—what the deuce are we to do with these people? Get +up, little chappie, and take your face off my boots." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee was sitting up and stuffing some tobacco into his old briar. +</P> + +<P> +"We've got to see them safe," said he. "You've pulled us all out of +the jaws of death. My word! it was a good bit of work!" +</P> + +<P> +"Admirable!" cried Challenger. "Admirable! Not only we as +individuals, but European science collectively, owe you a deep debt of +gratitude for what you have done. I do not hesitate to say that the +disappearance of Professor Summerlee and myself would have left an +appreciable gap in modern zoological history. Our young friend here +and you have done most excellently well." +</P> + +<P> +He beamed at us with the old paternal smile, but European science would +have been somewhat amazed could they have seen their chosen child, the +hope of the future, with his tangled, unkempt head, his bare chest, and +his tattered clothes. He had one of the meat-tins between his knees, +and sat with a large piece of cold Australian mutton between his +fingers. The Indian looked up at him, and then, with a little yelp, +cringed to the ground and clung to Lord John's leg. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you be scared, my bonnie boy," said Lord John, patting the +matted head in front of him. "He can't stick your appearance, +Challenger; and, by George! I don't wonder. All right, little chap, +he's only a human, just the same as the rest of us." +</P> + +<P> +"Really, sir!" cried the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's lucky for you, Challenger, that you ARE a little out of the +ordinary. If you hadn't been so like the king——" +</P> + +<P> +"Upon my word, Lord John, you allow yourself great latitude." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's a fact." +</P> + +<P> +"I beg, sir, that you will change the subject. Your remarks are +irrelevant and unintelligible. The question before us is what are we +to do with these Indians? The obvious thing is to escort them home, if +we knew where their home was." +</P> + +<P> +"There is no difficulty about that," said I. "They live in the caves +on the other side of the central lake." +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend here knows where they live. I gather that it is some +distance." +</P> + +<P> +"A good twenty miles," said I. +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee gave a groan. +</P> + +<P> +"I, for one, could never get there. Surely I hear those brutes still +howling upon our track." +</P> + +<P> +As he spoke, from the dark recesses of the woods we heard far away the +jabbering cry of the ape-men. The Indians once more set up a feeble +wail of fear. +</P> + +<P> +"We must move, and move quick!" said Lord John. "You help Summerlee, +young fellah. These Indians will carry stores. Now, then, come along +before they can see us." +</P> + +<P> +In less than half-an-hour we had reached our brushwood retreat and +concealed ourselves. All day we heard the excited calling of the +ape-men in the direction of our old camp, but none of them came our +way, and the tired fugitives, red and white, had a long, deep sleep. I +was dozing myself in the evening when someone plucked my sleeve, and I +found Challenger kneeling beside me. +</P> + +<P> +"You keep a diary of these events, and you expect eventually to publish +it, Mr. Malone," said he, with solemnity. +</P> + +<P> +"I am only here as a Press reporter," I answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. You may have heard some rather fatuous remarks of Lord John +Roxton's which seemed to imply that there was some—some +resemblance——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I heard them." +</P> + +<P> +"I need not say that any publicity given to such an idea—any levity in +your narrative of what occurred—would be exceedingly offensive to me." +</P> + +<P> +"I will keep well within the truth." +</P> + +<P> +"Lord John's observations are frequently exceedingly fanciful, and he +is capable of attributing the most absurd reasons to the respect which +is always shown by the most undeveloped races to dignity and character. +You follow my meaning?" +</P> + +<P> +"Entirely." +</P> + +<P> +"I leave the matter to your discretion." Then, after a long pause, he +added: "The king of the ape-men was really a creature of great +distinction—a most remarkably handsome and intelligent personality. +Did it not strike you?" +</P> + +<P> +"A most remarkable creature," said I. +</P> + +<P> +And the Professor, much eased in his mind, settled down to his slumber +once more. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Those Were the Real Conquests" +</H3> + +<P> +We had imagined that our pursuers, the ape-men, knew nothing of our +brush-wood hiding-place, but we were soon to find out our mistake. +There was no sound in the woods—not a leaf moved upon the trees, and +all was peace around us—but we should have been warned by our first +experience how cunningly and how patiently these creatures can watch +and wait until their chance comes. Whatever fate may be mine through +life, I am very sure that I shall never be nearer death than I was that +morning. But I will tell you the thing in its due order. +</P> + +<P> +We all awoke exhausted after the terrific emotions and scanty food of +yesterday. Summerlee was still so weak that it was an effort for him +to stand; but the old man was full of a sort of surly courage which +would never admit defeat. A council was held, and it was agreed that +we should wait quietly for an hour or two where we were, have our +much-needed breakfast, and then make our way across the plateau and +round the central lake to the caves where my observations had shown +that the Indians lived. We relied upon the fact that we could count +upon the good word of those whom we had rescued to ensure a warm +welcome from their fellows. Then, with our mission accomplished and +possessing a fuller knowledge of the secrets of Maple White Land, we +should turn our whole thoughts to the vital problem of our escape and +return. Even Challenger was ready to admit that we should then have +done all for which we had come, and that our first duty from that time +onwards was to carry back to civilization the amazing discoveries we +had made. +</P> + +<P> +We were able now to take a more leisurely view of the Indians whom we +had rescued. They were small men, wiry, active, and well-built, with +lank black hair tied up in a bunch behind their heads with a leathern +thong, and leathern also were their loin-clothes. Their faces were +hairless, well formed, and good-humored. The lobes of their ears, +hanging ragged and bloody, showed that they had been pierced for some +ornaments which their captors had torn out. Their speech, though +unintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as they pointed +to each other and uttered the word "Accala" many times over, we +gathered that this was the name of the nation. Occasionally, with +faces which were convulsed with fear and hatred, they shook their +clenched hands at the woods round and cried: "Doda! Doda!" which was +surely their term for their enemies. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you make of them, Challenger?" asked Lord John. "One thing is +very clear to me, and that is that the little chap with the front of +his head shaved is a chief among them." +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed evident that this man stood apart from the others, and +that they never ventured to address him without every sign of deep +respect. He seemed to be the youngest of them all, and yet, so proud +and high was his spirit that, upon Challenger laying his great hand +upon his head, he started like a spurred horse and, with a quick flash +of his dark eyes, moved further away from the Professor. Then, placing +his hand upon his breast and holding himself with great dignity, he +uttered the word "Maretas" several times. The Professor, unabashed, +seized the nearest Indian by the shoulder and proceeded to lecture upon +him as if he were a potted specimen in a class-room. +</P> + +<P> +"The type of these people," said he in his sonorous fashion, "whether +judged by cranial capacity, facial angle, or any other test, cannot be +regarded as a low one; on the contrary, we must place it as +considerably higher in the scale than many South American tribes which +I can mention. On no possible supposition can we explain the evolution +of such a race in this place. For that matter, so great a gap +separates these ape-men from the primitive animals which have survived +upon this plateau, that it is inadmissible to think that they could +have developed where we find them." +</P> + +<P> +"Then where the dooce did they drop from?" asked Lord John. +</P> + +<P> +"A question which will, no doubt, be eagerly discussed in every +scientific society in Europe and America," the Professor answered. "My +own reading of the situation for what it is worth—" he inflated his +chest enormously and looked insolently around him at the words—"is +that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions of this +country up to the vertebrate stage, the old types surviving and living +on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find such modern creatures +as the tapir—an animal with quite a respectable length of +pedigree—the great deer, and the ant-eater in the companionship of +reptilian forms of jurassic type. So much is clear. And now come the +ape-men and the Indian. What is the scientific mind to think of their +presence? I can only account for it by an invasion from outside. It +is probable that there existed an anthropoid ape in South America, who +in past ages found his way to this place, and that he developed into +the creatures we have seen, some of which"—here he looked hard at +me—"were of an appearance and shape which, if it had been accompanied +by corresponding intelligence, would, I do not hesitate to say, have +reflected credit upon any living race. As to the Indians I cannot +doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. Under the +stress of famine or of conquest they have made their way up here. +Faced by ferocious creatures which they had never before seen, they +took refuge in the caves which our young friend has described, but they +have no doubt had a bitter fight to hold their own against wild beasts, +and especially against the ape-men who would regard them as intruders, +and wage a merciless war upon them with a cunning which the larger +beasts would lack. Hence the fact that their numbers appear to be +limited. Well, gentlemen, have I read you the riddle aright, or is +there any point which you would query?" +</P> + +<P> +Professor Summerlee for once was too depressed to argue, though he +shook his head violently as a token of general disagreement. Lord John +merely scratched his scanty locks with the remark that he couldn't put +up a fight as he wasn't in the same weight or class. For my own part I +performed my usual role of bringing things down to a strictly prosaic +and practical level by the remark that one of the Indians was missing. +</P> + +<P> +"He has gone to fetch some water," said Lord Roxton. "We fitted him up +with an empty beef tin and he is off." +</P> + +<P> +"To the old camp?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No, to the brook. It's among the trees there. It can't be more than +a couple of hundred yards. But the beggar is certainly taking his +time." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go and look after him," said I. I picked up my rifle and +strolled in the direction of the brook, leaving my friends to lay out +the scanty breakfast. It may seem to you rash that even for so short a +distance I should quit the shelter of our friendly thicket, but you +will remember that we were many miles from Ape-town, that so far as we +knew the creatures had not discovered our retreat, and that in any case +with a rifle in my hands I had no fear of them. I had not yet learned +their cunning or their strength. +</P> + +<P> +I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, but there +was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it. I was making my +way through this at a point which was just out of sight of my +companions, when, under one of the trees, I noticed something red +huddled among the bushes. As I approached it, I was shocked to see +that it was the dead body of the missing Indian. He lay upon his side, +his limbs drawn up, and his head screwed round at a most unnatural +angle, so that he seemed to be looking straight over his own shoulder. +I gave a cry to warn my friends that something was amiss, and running +forwards I stooped over the body. Surely my guardian angel was very +near me then, for some instinct of fear, or it may have been some faint +rustle of leaves, made me glance upwards. Out of the thick green +foliage which hung low over my head, two long muscular arms covered +with reddish hair were slowly descending. Another instant and the +great stealthy hands would have been round my throat. I sprang +backwards, but quick as I was, those hands were quicker still. Through +my sudden spring they missed a fatal grip, but one of them caught the +back of my neck and the other one my face. I threw my hands up to +protect my throat, and the next moment the huge paw had slid down my +face and closed over them. I was lifted lightly from the ground, and I +felt an intolerable pressure forcing my head back and back until the +strain upon the cervical spine was more than I could bear. My senses +swam, but I still tore at the hand and forced it out from my chin. +Looking up I saw a frightful face with cold inexorable light blue eyes +looking down into mine. There was something hypnotic in those terrible +eyes. I could struggle no longer. As the creature felt me grow limp +in his grasp, two white canines gleamed for a moment at each side of +the vile mouth, and the grip tightened still more upon my chin, forcing +it always upwards and back. A thin, oval-tinted mist formed before my +eyes and little silvery bells tinkled in my ears. Dully and far off I +heard the crack of a rifle and was feebly aware of the shock as I was +dropped to the earth, where I lay without sense or motion. +</P> + +<P> +I awoke to find myself on my back upon the grass in our lair within the +thicket. Someone had brought the water from the brook, and Lord John +was sprinkling my head with it, while Challenger and Summerlee were +propping me up, with concern in their faces. For a moment I had a +glimpse of the human spirits behind their scientific masks. It was +really shock, rather than any injury, which had prostrated me, and in +half-an-hour, in spite of aching head and stiff neck, I was sitting up +and ready for anything. +</P> + +<P> +"But you've had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad," said +Lord Roxton. "When I heard your cry and ran forward, and saw your head +twisted half-off and your stohwassers kickin' in the air, I thought we +were one short. I missed the beast in my flurry, but he dropped you +all right and was off like a streak. By George! I wish I had fifty +men with rifles. I'd clear out the whole infernal gang of them and +leave this country a bit cleaner than we found it." +</P> + +<P> +It was clear now that the ape-men had in some way marked us down, and +that we were watched on every side. We had not so much to fear from +them during the day, but they would be very likely to rush us by night; +so the sooner we got away from their neighborhood the better. On three +sides of us was absolute forest, and there we might find ourselves in +an ambush. But on the fourth side—that which sloped down in the +direction of the lake—there was only low scrub, with scattered trees +and occasional open glades. It was, in fact, the route which I had +myself taken in my solitary journey, and it led us straight for the +Indian caves. This then must for every reason be our road. +</P> + +<P> +One great regret we had, and that was to leave our old camp behind us, +not only for the sake of the stores which remained there, but even more +because we were losing touch with Zambo, our link with the outside +world. However, we had a fair supply of cartridges and all our guns, +so, for a time at least, we could look after ourselves, and we hoped +soon to have a chance of returning and restoring our communications +with our negro. He had faithfully promised to stay where he was, and +we had not a doubt that he would be as good as his word. +</P> + +<P> +It was in the early afternoon that we started upon our journey. The +young chief walked at our head as our guide, but refused indignantly to +carry any burden. Behind him came the two surviving Indians with our +scanty possessions upon their backs. We four white men walked in the +rear with rifles loaded and ready. As we started there broke from the +thick silent woods behind us a sudden great ululation of the ape-men, +which may have been a cheer of triumph at our departure or a jeer of +contempt at our flight. Looking back we saw only the dense screen of +trees, but that long-drawn yell told us how many of our enemies lurked +among them. We saw no sign of pursuit, however, and soon we had got +into more open country and beyond their power. +</P> + +<P> +As I tramped along, the rearmost of the four, I could not help smiling +at the appearance of my three companions in front. Was this the +luxurious Lord John Roxton who had sat that evening in the Albany +amidst his Persian rugs and his pictures in the pink radiance of the +tinted lights? And was this the imposing Professor who had swelled +behind the great desk in his massive study at Enmore Park? And, +finally, could this be the austere and prim figure which had risen +before the meeting at the Zoological Institute? No three tramps that +one could have met in a Surrey lane could have looked more hopeless and +bedraggled. We had, it is true, been only a week or so upon the top of +the plateau, but all our spare clothing was in our camp below, and the +one week had been a severe one upon us all, though least to me who had +not to endure the handling of the ape-men. My three friends had all +lost their hats, and had now bound handkerchiefs round their heads, +their clothes hung in ribbons about them, and their unshaven grimy +faces were hardly to be recognized. Both Summerlee and Challenger were +limping heavily, while I still dragged my feet from weakness after the +shock of the morning, and my neck was as stiff as a board from the +murderous grip that held it. We were indeed a sorry crew, and I did +not wonder to see our Indian companions glance back at us occasionally +with horror and amazement on their faces. +</P> + +<P> +In the late afternoon we reached the margin of the lake, and as we +emerged from the bush and saw the sheet of water stretching before us +our native friends set up a shrill cry of joy and pointed eagerly in +front of them. It was indeed a wonderful sight which lay before us. +Sweeping over the glassy surface was a great flotilla of canoes coming +straight for the shore upon which we stood. They were some miles out +when we first saw them, but they shot forward with great swiftness, and +were soon so near that the rowers could distinguish our persons. +Instantly a thunderous shout of delight burst from them, and we saw +them rise from their seats, waving their paddles and spears madly in +the air. Then bending to their work once more, they flew across the +intervening water, beached their boats upon the sloping sand, and +rushed up to us, prostrating themselves with loud cries of greeting +before the young chief. Finally one of them, an elderly man, with a +necklace and bracelet of great lustrous glass beads and the skin of +some beautiful mottled amber-colored animal slung over his shoulders, +ran forward and embraced most tenderly the youth whom we had saved. He +then looked at us and asked some questions, after which he stepped up +with much dignity and embraced us also each in turn. Then, at his +order, the whole tribe lay down upon the ground before us in homage. +Personally I felt shy and uncomfortable at this obsequious adoration, +and I read the same feeling in the faces of Roxton and Summerlee, but +Challenger expanded like a flower in the sun. +</P> + +<P> +"They may be undeveloped types," said he, stroking his beard and +looking round at them, "but their deportment in the presence of their +superiors might be a lesson to some of our more advanced Europeans. +Strange how correct are the instincts of the natural man!" +</P> + +<P> +It was clear that the natives had come out upon the war-path, for every +man carried his spear—a long bamboo tipped with bone—his bow and +arrows, and some sort of club or stone battle-axe slung at his side. +Their dark, angry glances at the woods from which we had come, and the +frequent repetition of the word "Doda," made it clear enough that this +was a rescue party who had set forth to save or revenge the old chief's +son, for such we gathered that the youth must be. A council was now +held by the whole tribe squatting in a circle, whilst we sat near on a +slab of basalt and watched their proceedings. Two or three warriors +spoke, and finally our young friend made a spirited harangue with such +eloquent features and gestures that we could understand it all as +clearly as if we had known his language. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the use of returning?" he said. "Sooner or later the thing +must be done. Your comrades have been murdered. What if I have +returned safe? These others have been done to death. There is no +safety for any of us. We are assembled now and ready." Then he pointed +to us. "These strange men are our friends. They are great fighters, +and they hate the ape-men even as we do. They command," here he +pointed up to heaven, "the thunder and the lightning. When shall we +have such a chance again? Let us go forward, and either die now or +live for the future in safety. How else shall we go back unashamed to +our women?" +</P> + +<P> +The little red warriors hung upon the words of the speaker, and when he +had finished they burst into a roar of applause, waving their rude +weapons in the air. The old chief stepped forward to us, and asked us +some questions, pointing at the same time to the woods. Lord John made +a sign to him that he should wait for an answer and then he turned to +us. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's up to you to say what you will do," said he; "for my part I +have a score to settle with these monkey-folk, and if it ends by wiping +them off the face of the earth I don't see that the earth need fret +about it. I'm goin' with our little red pals and I mean to see them +through the scrap. What do you say, young fellah?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I will come." +</P> + +<P> +"And you, Challenger?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will assuredly co-operate." +</P> + +<P> +"And you, Summerlee?" +</P> + +<P> +"We seem to be drifting very far from the object of this expedition, +Lord John. I assure you that I little thought when I left my +professional chair in London that it was for the purpose of heading a +raid of savages upon a colony of anthropoid apes." +</P> + +<P> +"To such base uses do we come," said Lord John, smiling. "But we are +up against it, so what's the decision?" +</P> + +<P> +"It seems a most questionable step," said Summerlee, argumentative to +the last, "but if you are all going, I hardly see how I can remain +behind." +</P> + +<P> +"Then it is settled," said Lord John, and turning to the chief he +nodded and slapped his rifle. +</P> + +<P> +The old fellow clasped our hands, each in turn, while his men cheered +louder than ever. It was too late to advance that night, so the +Indians settled down into a rude bivouac. On all sides their fires +began to glimmer and smoke. Some of them who had disappeared into the +jungle came back presently driving a young iguanodon before them. Like +the others, it had a daub of asphalt upon its shoulder, and it was only +when we saw one of the natives step forward with the air of an owner +and give his consent to the beast's slaughter that we understood at +last that these great creatures were as much private property as a herd +of cattle, and that these symbols which had so perplexed us were +nothing more than the marks of the owner. Helpless, torpid, and +vegetarian, with great limbs but a minute brain, they could be rounded +up and driven by a child. In a few minutes the huge beast had been cut +up and slabs of him were hanging over a dozen camp fires, together with +great scaly ganoid fish which had been speared in the lake. +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee had lain down and slept upon the sand, but we others roamed +round the edge of the water, seeking to learn something more of this +strange country. Twice we found pits of blue clay, such as we had +already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls. These were old volcanic +vents, and for some reason excited the greatest interest in Lord John. +What attracted Challenger, on the other hand, was a bubbling, gurgling +mud geyser, where some strange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon +the surface. He thrust a hollow reed into it and cried out with +delight like a schoolboy then he was able, on touching it with a +lighted match, to cause a sharp explosion and a blue flame at the far +end of the tube. Still more pleased was he when, inverting a leathern +pouch over the end of the reed, and so filling it with the gas, he was +able to send it soaring up into the air. +</P> + +<P> +"An inflammable gas, and one markedly lighter than the atmosphere. I +should say beyond doubt that it contained a considerable proportion of +free hydrogen. The resources of G. E. C. are not yet exhausted, my +young friend. I may yet show you how a great mind molds all Nature to +its use." He swelled with some secret purpose, but would say no more. +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing which we could see upon the shore which seemed to me +so wonderful as the great sheet of water before us. Our numbers and +our noise had frightened all living creatures away, and save for a few +pterodactyls, which soared round high above our heads while they waited +for the carrion, all was still around the camp. But it was different +out upon the rose-tinted waters of the central lake. It boiled and +heaved with strange life. Great slate-colored backs and high serrated +dorsal fins shot up with a fringe of silver, and then rolled down into +the depths again. The sand-banks far out were spotted with uncouth +crawling forms, huge turtles, strange saurians, and one great flat +creature like a writhing, palpitating mat of black greasy leather, +which flopped its way slowly to the lake. Here and there high serpent +heads projected out of the water, cutting swiftly through it with a +little collar of foam in front, and a long swirling wake behind, rising +and falling in graceful, swan-like undulations as they went. It was +not until one of these creatures wriggled on to a sand-bank within a +few hundred yards of us, and exposed a barrel-shaped body and huge +flippers behind the long serpent neck, that Challenger, and Summerlee, +who had joined us, broke out into their duet of wonder and admiration. +</P> + +<P> +"Plesiosaurus! A fresh-water plesiosaurus!" cried Summerlee. "That I +should have lived to see such a sight! We are blessed, my dear +Challenger, above all zoologists since the world began!" +</P> + +<P> +It was not until the night had fallen, and the fires of our savage +allies glowed red in the shadows, that our two men of science could be +dragged away from the fascinations of that primeval lake. Even in the +darkness as we lay upon the strand, we heard from time to time the +snort and plunge of the huge creatures who lived therein. +</P> + +<P> +At earliest dawn our camp was astir and an hour later we had started +upon our memorable expedition. Often in my dreams have I thought that +I might live to be a war correspondent. In what wildest one could I +have conceived the nature of the campaign which it should be my lot to +report! Here then is my first despatch from a field of battle: +</P> + +<P> +Our numbers had been reinforced during the night by a fresh batch of +natives from the caves, and we may have been four or five hundred +strong when we made our advance. A fringe of scouts was thrown out in +front, and behind them the whole force in a solid column made their way +up the long slope of the bush country until we were near the edge of +the forest. Here they spread out into a long straggling line of +spearmen and bowmen. Roxton and Summerlee took their position upon the +right flank, while Challenger and I were on the left. It was a host of +the stone age that we were accompanying to battle—we with the last +word of the gunsmith's art from St. James' Street and the Strand. +</P> + +<P> +We had not long to wait for our enemy. A wild shrill clamor rose from +the edge of the wood and suddenly a body of ape-men rushed out with +clubs and stones, and made for the center of the Indian line. It was a +valiant move but a foolish one, for the great bandy-legged creatures +were slow of foot, while their opponents were as active as cats. It +was horrible to see the fierce brutes with foaming mouths and glaring +eyes, rushing and grasping, but forever missing their elusive enemies, +while arrow after arrow buried itself in their hides. One great fellow +ran past me roaring with pain, with a dozen darts sticking from his +chest and ribs. In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, and he fell +sprawling among the aloes. But this was the only shot fired, for the +attack had been on the center of the line, and the Indians there had +needed no help of ours in repulsing it. Of all the ape-men who had +rushed out into the open, I do not think that one got back to cover. +</P> + +<P> +But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. For an +hour or more after we entered the wood, there was a desperate struggle +in which for a time we hardly held our own. Springing out from among +the scrub the ape-men with huge clubs broke in upon the Indians and +often felled three or four of them before they could be speared. Their +frightful blows shattered everything upon which they fell. One of them +knocked Summerlee's rifle to matchwood and the next would have crushed +his skull had an Indian not stabbed the beast to the heart. Other +ape-men in the trees above us hurled down stones and logs of wood, +occasionally dropping bodily on to our ranks and fighting furiously +until they were felled. Once our allies broke under the pressure, and +had it not been for the execution done by our rifles they would +certainly have taken to their heels. But they were gallantly rallied +by their old chief and came on with such a rush that the ape-men began +in turn to give way. Summerlee was weaponless, but I was emptying my +magazine as quick as I could fire, and on the further flank we heard +the continuous cracking of our companion's rifles. +</P> + +<P> +Then in a moment came the panic and the collapse. Screaming and +howling, the great creatures rushed away in all directions through the +brushwood, while our allies yelled in their savage delight, following +swiftly after their flying enemies. All the feuds of countless +generations, all the hatreds and cruelties of their narrow history, all +the memories of ill-usage and persecution were to be purged that day. +At last man was to be supreme and the man-beast to find forever his +allotted place. Fly as they would the fugitives were too slow to +escape from the active savages, and from every side in the tangled +woods we heard the exultant yells, the twanging of bows, and the crash +and thud as ape-men were brought down from their hiding-places in the +trees. +</P> + +<P> +I was following the others, when I found that Lord John and Challenger +had come across to join us. +</P> + +<P> +"It's over," said Lord John. "I think we can leave the tidying up to +them. Perhaps the less we see of it the better we shall sleep." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger's eyes were shining with the lust of slaughter. +</P> + +<P> +"We have been privileged," he cried, strutting about like a gamecock, +"to be present at one of the typical decisive battles of history—the +battles which have determined the fate of the world. What, my friends, +is the conquest of one nation by another? It is meaningless. Each +produces the same result. But those fierce fights, when in the dawn of +the ages the cave-dwellers held their own against the tiger folk, or +the elephants first found that they had a master, those were the real +conquests—the victories that count. By this strange turn of fate we +have seen and helped to decide even such a contest. Now upon this +plateau the future must ever be for man." +</P> + +<P> +It needed a robust faith in the end to justify such tragic means. As +we advanced together through the woods we found the ape-men lying +thick, transfixed with spears or arrows. Here and there a little group +of shattered Indians marked where one of the anthropoids had turned to +bay, and sold his life dearly. Always in front of us we heard the +yelling and roaring which showed the direction of the pursuit. The +ape-men had been driven back to their city, they had made a last stand +there, once again they had been broken, and now we were in time to see +the final fearful scene of all. Some eighty or a hundred males, the +last survivors, had been driven across that same little clearing which +led to the edge of the cliff, the scene of our own exploit two days +before. As we arrived the Indians, a semicircle of spearmen, had +closed in on them, and in a minute it was over, Thirty or forty died +where they stood. The others, screaming and clawing, were thrust over +the precipice, and went hurtling down, as their prisoners had of old, +on to the sharp bamboos six hundred feet below. It was as Challenger +had said, and the reign of man was assured forever in Maple White Land. +The males were exterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and +young were driven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of +untold centuries had reached its bloody end. +</P> + +<P> +For us the victory brought much advantage. Once again we were able to +visit our camp and get at our stores. Once more also we were able to +communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified by the spectacle from +afar of an avalanche of apes falling from the edge of the cliff. +</P> + +<P> +"Come away, Massas, come away!" he cried, his eyes starting from his +head. "The debbil get you sure if you stay up there." +</P> + +<P> +"It is the voice of sanity!" said Summerlee with conviction. "We have +had adventures enough and they are neither suitable to our character or +our position. I hold you to your word, Challenger. From now onwards +you devote your energies to getting us out of this horrible country and +back once more to civilization." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Our Eyes have seen Great Wonders" +</H3> + +<P> +I write this from day to day, but I trust that before I come to the end +of it, I may be able to say that the light shines, at last, through our +clouds. We are held here with no clear means of making our escape, and +bitterly we chafe against it. Yet, I can well imagine that the day may +come when we may be glad that we were kept, against our will, to see +something more of the wonders of this singular place, and of the +creatures who inhabit it. +</P> + +<P> +The victory of the Indians and the annihilation of the ape-men, marked +the turning point of our fortunes. From then onwards, we were in truth +masters of the plateau, for the natives looked upon us with a mixture +of fear and gratitude, since by our strange powers we had aided them to +destroy their hereditary foe. For their own sakes they would, perhaps, +be glad to see the departure of such formidable and incalculable +people, but they have not themselves suggested any way by which we may +reach the plains below. There had been, so far as we could follow +their signs, a tunnel by which the place could be approached, the lower +exit of which we had seen from below. By this, no doubt, both ape-men +and Indians had at different epochs reached the top, and Maple White +with his companion had taken the same way. Only the year before, +however, there had been a terrific earthquake, and the upper end of the +tunnel had fallen in and completely disappeared. The Indians now could +only shake their heads and shrug their shoulders when we expressed by +signs our desire to descend. It may be that they cannot, but it may +also be that they will not, help us to get away. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of the victorious campaign the surviving ape-folk were +driven across the plateau (their wailings were horrible) and +established in the neighborhood of the Indian caves, where they would, +from now onwards, be a servile race under the eyes of their masters. +It was a rude, raw, primeval version of the Jews in Babylon or the +Israelites in Egypt. At night we could hear from amid the trees the +long-drawn cry, as some primitive Ezekiel mourned for fallen greatness +and recalled the departed glories of Ape Town. Hewers of wood and +drawers of water, such were they from now onwards. +</P> + +<P> +We had returned across the plateau with our allies two days after the +battle, and made our camp at the foot of their cliffs. They would have +had us share their caves with them, but Lord John would by no means +consent to it considering that to do so would put us in their power if +they were treacherously disposed. We kept our independence, therefore, +and had our weapons ready for any emergency, while preserving the most +friendly relations. We also continually visited their caves, which +were most remarkable places, though whether made by man or by Nature we +have never been able to determine. They were all on the one stratum, +hollowed out of some soft rock which lay between the volcanic basalt +forming the ruddy cliffs above them, and the hard granite which formed +their base. +</P> + +<P> +The openings were about eighty feet above the ground, and were led up +to by long stone stairs, so narrow and steep that no large animal could +mount them. Inside they were warm and dry, running in straight +passages of varying length into the side of the hill, with smooth gray +walls decorated with many excellent pictures done with charred sticks +and representing the various animals of the plateau. If every living +thing were swept from the country the future explorer would find upon +the walls of these caves ample evidence of the strange fauna—the +dinosaurs, iguanodons, and fish lizards—which had lived so recently +upon earth. +</P> + +<P> +Since we had learned that the huge iguanodons were kept as tame herds +by their owners, and were simply walking meat-stores, we had conceived +that man, even with his primitive weapons, had established his +ascendancy upon the plateau. We were soon to discover that it was not +so, and that he was still there upon tolerance. +</P> + +<P> +It was on the third day after our forming our camp near the Indian +caves that the tragedy occurred. Challenger and Summerlee had gone off +together that day to the lake where some of the natives, under their +direction, were engaged in harpooning specimens of the great lizards. +Lord John and I had remained in our camp, while a number of the Indians +were scattered about upon the grassy slope in front of the caves +engaged in different ways. Suddenly there was a shrill cry of alarm, +with the word "Stoa" resounding from a hundred tongues. From every +side men, women, and children were rushing wildly for shelter, swarming +up the staircases and into the caves in a mad stampede. +</P> + +<P> +Looking up, we could see them waving their arms from the rocks above +and beckoning to us to join them in their refuge. We had both seized +our magazine rifles and ran out to see what the danger could be. +Suddenly from the near belt of trees there broke forth a group of +twelve or fifteen Indians, running for their lives, and at their very +heels two of those frightful monsters which had disturbed our camp and +pursued me upon my solitary journey. In shape they were like horrible +toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of +an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant. We had never +before seen them save at night, and indeed they are nocturnal animals +save when disturbed in their lairs, as these had been. We now stood +amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty skins were of a +curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight struck them with an +ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved. +</P> + +<P> +We had little time to watch them, however, for in an instant they had +overtaken the fugitives and were making a dire slaughter among them. +Their method was to fall forward with their full weight upon each in +turn, leaving him crushed and mangled, to bound on after the others. +The wretched Indians screamed with terror, but were helpless, run as +they would, before the relentless purpose and horrible activity of +these monstrous creatures. One after another they went down, and there +were not half-a-dozen surviving by the time my companion and I could +come to their help. But our aid was of little avail and only involved +us in the same peril. At the range of a couple of hundred yards we +emptied our magazines, firing bullet after bullet into the beasts, but +with no more effect than if we were pelting them with pellets of paper. +Their slow reptilian natures cared nothing for wounds, and the springs +of their lives, with no special brain center but scattered throughout +their spinal cords, could not be tapped by any modern weapons. The +most that we could do was to check their progress by distracting their +attention with the flash and roar of our guns, and so to give both the +natives and ourselves time to reach the steps which led to safety. But +where the conical explosive bullets of the twentieth century were of no +avail, the poisoned arrows of the natives, dipped in the juice of +strophanthus and steeped afterwards in decayed carrion, could succeed. +Such arrows were of little avail to the hunter who attacked the beast, +because their action in that torpid circulation was slow, and before +its powers failed it could certainly overtake and slay its assailant. +But now, as the two monsters hounded us to the very foot of the stairs, +a drift of darts came whistling from every chink in the cliff above +them. In a minute they were feathered with them, and yet with no sign +of pain they clawed and slobbered with impotent rage at the steps which +would lead them to their victims, mounting clumsily up for a few yards +and then sliding down again to the ground. But at last the poison +worked. One of them gave a deep rumbling groan and dropped his huge +squat head on to the earth. The other bounded round in an eccentric +circle with shrill, wailing cries, and then lying down writhed in agony +for some minutes before it also stiffened and lay still. With yells of +triumph the Indians came flocking down from their caves and danced a +frenzied dance of victory round the dead bodies, in mad joy that two +more of the most dangerous of all their enemies had been slain. That +night they cut up and removed the bodies, not to eat—for the poison +was still active—but lest they should breed a pestilence. The great +reptilian hearts, however, each as large as a cushion, still lay there, +beating slowly and steadily, with a gentle rise and fall, in horrible +independent life. It was only upon the third day that the ganglia ran +down and the dreadful things were still. +</P> + +<P> +Some day, when I have a better desk than a meat-tin and more helpful +tools than a worn stub of pencil and a last, tattered note-book, I will +write some fuller account of the Accala Indians—of our life amongst +them, and of the glimpses which we had of the strange conditions of +wondrous Maple White Land. Memory, at least, will never fail me, for +so long as the breath of life is in me, every hour and every action of +that period will stand out as hard and clear as do the first strange +happenings of our childhood. No new impressions could efface those +which are so deeply cut. When the time comes I will describe that +wondrous moonlit night upon the great lake when a young +ichthyosaurus—a strange creature, half seal, half fish, to look at, +with bone-covered eyes on each side of his snout, and a third eye fixed +upon the top of his head—was entangled in an Indian net, and nearly +upset our canoe before we towed it ashore; the same night that a green +water-snake shot out from the rushes and carried off in its coils the +steersman of Challenger's canoe. I will tell, too, of the great +nocturnal white thing—to this day we do not know whether it was beast +or reptile—which lived in a vile swamp to the east of the lake, and +flitted about with a faint phosphorescent glimmer in the darkness. The +Indians were so terrified at it that they would not go near the place, +and, though we twice made expeditions and saw it each time, we could +not make our way through the deep marsh in which it lived. I can only +say that it seemed to be larger than a cow and had the strangest musky +odor. I will tell also of the huge bird which chased Challenger to the +shelter of the rocks one day—a great running bird, far taller than an +ostrich, with a vulture-like neck and cruel head which made it a +walking death. As Challenger climbed to safety one dart of that savage +curving beak shore off the heel of his boot as if it had been cut with +a chisel. This time at least modern weapons prevailed and the great +creature, twelve feet from head to foot—phororachus its name, +according to our panting but exultant Professor—went down before Lord +Roxton's rifle in a flurry of waving feathers and kicking limbs, with +two remorseless yellow eyes glaring up from the midst of it. May I +live to see that flattened vicious skull in its own niche amid the +trophies of the Albany. Finally, I will assuredly give some account of +the toxodon, the giant ten-foot guinea pig, with projecting chisel +teeth, which we killed as it drank in the gray of the morning by the +side of the lake. +</P> + +<P> +All this I shall some day write at fuller length, and amidst these more +stirring days I would tenderly sketch in these lovely summer evenings, +when with the deep blue sky above us we lay in good comradeship among +the long grasses by the wood and marveled at the strange fowl that +swept over us and the quaint new creatures which crept from their +burrows to watch us, while above us the boughs of the bushes were heavy +with luscious fruit, and below us strange and lovely flowers peeped at +us from among the herbage; or those long moonlit nights when we lay out +upon the shimmering surface of the great lake and watched with wonder +and awe the huge circles rippling out from the sudden splash of some +fantastic monster; or the greenish gleam, far down in the deep water, +of some strange creature upon the confines of darkness. These are the +scenes which my mind and my pen will dwell upon in every detail at some +future day. +</P> + +<P> +But, you will ask, why these experiences and why this delay, when you +and your comrades should have been occupied day and night in the +devising of some means by which you could return to the outer world? +My answer is, that there was not one of us who was not working for this +end, but that our work had been in vain. One fact we had very speedily +discovered: The Indians would do nothing to help us. In every other +way they were our friends—one might almost say our devoted slaves—but +when it was suggested that they should help us to make and carry a +plank which would bridge the chasm, or when we wished to get from them +thongs of leather or liana to weave ropes which might help us, we were +met by a good-humored, but an invincible, refusal. They would smile, +twinkle their eyes, shake their heads, and there was the end of it. +Even the old chief met us with the same obstinate denial, and it was +only Maretas, the youngster whom we had saved, who looked wistfully at +us and told us by his gestures that he was grieved for our thwarted +wishes. Ever since their crowning triumph with the ape-men they looked +upon us as supermen, who bore victory in the tubes of strange weapons, +and they believed that so long as we remained with them good fortune +would be theirs. A little red-skinned wife and a cave of our own were +freely offered to each of us if we would but forget our own people and +dwell forever upon the plateau. So far all had been kindly, however +far apart our desires might be; but we felt well assured that our +actual plans of a descent must be kept secret, for we had reason to +fear that at the last they might try to hold us by force. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of the danger from dinosaurs (which is not great save at +night, for, as I may have said before, they are mostly nocturnal in +their habits) I have twice in the last three weeks been over to our old +camp in order to see our negro who still kept watch and ward below the +cliff. My eyes strained eagerly across the great plain in the hope of +seeing afar off the help for which we had prayed. But the long +cactus-strewn levels still stretched away, empty and bare, to the +distant line of the cane-brake. +</P> + +<P> +"They will soon come now, Massa Malone. Before another week pass +Indian come back and bring rope and fetch you down." Such was the +cheery cry of our excellent Zambo. +</P> + +<P> +I had one strange experience as I came from this second visit which had +involved my being away for a night from my companions. I was returning +along the well-remembered route, and had reached a spot within a mile +or so of the marsh of the pterodactyls, when I saw an extraordinary +object approaching me. It was a man who walked inside a framework made +of bent canes so that he was enclosed on all sides in a bell-shaped +cage. As I drew nearer I was more amazed still to see that it was Lord +John Roxton. When he saw me he slipped from under his curious +protection and came towards me laughing, and yet, as I thought, with +some confusion in his manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, young fellah," said he, "who would have thought of meetin' you +up here?" +</P> + +<P> +"What in the world are you doing?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Visitin' my friends, the pterodactyls," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"But why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Interestin' beasts, don't you think? But unsociable! Nasty rude ways +with strangers, as you may remember. So I rigged this framework which +keeps them from bein' too pressin' in their attentions." +</P> + +<P> +"But what do you want in the swamp?" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at me with a very questioning eye, and I read hesitation in +his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think other people besides Professors can want to know +things?" he said at last. "I'm studyin' the pretty dears. That's +enough for you." +</P> + +<P> +"No offense," said I. +</P> + +<P> +His good-humor returned and he laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"No offense, young fellah. I'm goin' to get a young devil chick for +Challenger. That's one of my jobs. No, I don't want your company. +I'm safe in this cage, and you are not. So long, and I'll be back in +camp by night-fall." +</P> + +<P> +He turned away and I left him wandering on through the wood with his +extraordinary cage around him. +</P> + +<P> +If Lord John's behavior at this time was strange, that of Challenger +was more so. I may say that he seemed to possess an extraordinary +fascination for the Indian women, and that he always carried a large +spreading palm branch with which he beat them off as if they were +flies, when their attentions became too pressing. To see him walking +like a comic opera Sultan, with this badge of authority in his hand, +his black beard bristling in front of him, his toes pointing at each +step, and a train of wide-eyed Indian girls behind him, clad in their +slender drapery of bark cloth, is one of the most grotesque of all the +pictures which I will carry back with me. As to Summerlee, he was +absorbed in the insect and bird life of the plateau, and spent his +whole time (save that considerable portion which was devoted to abusing +Challenger for not getting us out of our difficulties) in cleaning and +mounting his specimens. +</P> + +<P> +Challenger had been in the habit of walking off by himself every +morning and returning from time to time with looks of portentous +solemnity, as one who bears the full weight of a great enterprise upon +his shoulders. One day, palm branch in hand, and his crowd of adoring +devotees behind him, he led us down to his hidden work-shop and took us +into the secret of his plans. +</P> + +<P> +The place was a small clearing in the center of a palm grove. In this +was one of those boiling mud geysers which I have already described. +Around its edge were scattered a number of leathern thongs cut from +iguanodon hide, and a large collapsed membrane which proved to be the +dried and scraped stomach of one of the great fish lizards from the +lake. This huge sack had been sewn up at one end and only a small +orifice left at the other. Into this opening several bamboo canes had +been inserted and the other ends of these canes were in contact with +conical clay funnels which collected the gas bubbling up through the +mud of the geyser. Soon the flaccid organ began to slowly expand and +show such a tendency to upward movements that Challenger fastened the +cords which held it to the trunks of the surrounding trees. In half an +hour a good-sized gas-bag had been formed, and the jerking and +straining upon the thongs showed that it was capable of considerable +lift. Challenger, like a glad father in the presence of his +first-born, stood smiling and stroking his beard, in silent, +self-satisfied content as he gazed at the creation of his brain. It +was Summerlee who first broke the silence. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't mean us to go up in that thing, Challenger?" said he, in an +acid voice. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean, my dear Summerlee, to give you such a demonstration of its +powers that after seeing it you will, I am sure, have no hesitation in +trusting yourself to it." +</P> + +<P> +"You can put it right out of your head now, at once," said Summerlee +with decision, "nothing on earth would induce me to commit such a +folly. Lord John, I trust that you will not countenance such madness?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dooced ingenious, I call it," said our peer. "I'd like to see how it +works." +</P> + +<P> +"So you shall," said Challenger. "For some days I have exerted my +whole brain force upon the problem of how we shall descend from these +cliffs. We have satisfied ourselves that we cannot climb down and that +there is no tunnel. We are also unable to construct any kind of bridge +which may take us back to the pinnacle from which we came. How then +shall I find a means to convey us? Some little time ago I had remarked +to our young friend here that free hydrogen was evolved from the +geyser. The idea of a balloon naturally followed. I was, I will +admit, somewhat baffled by the difficulty of discovering an envelope to +contain the gas, but the contemplation of the immense entrails of these +reptiles supplied me with a solution to the problem. Behold the +result!" +</P> + +<P> +He put one hand in the front of his ragged jacket and pointed proudly +with the other. +</P> + +<P> +By this time the gas-bag had swollen to a goodly rotundity and was +jerking strongly upon its lashings. +</P> + +<P> +"Midsummer madness!" snorted Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +Lord John was delighted with the whole idea. "Clever old dear, ain't +he?" he whispered to me, and then louder to Challenger. "What about a +car?" +</P> + +<P> +"The car will be my next care. I have already planned how it is to be +made and attached. Meanwhile I will simply show you how capable my +apparatus is of supporting the weight of each of us." +</P> + +<P> +"All of us, surely?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, it is part of my plan that each in turn shall descend as in a +parachute, and the balloon be drawn back by means which I shall have no +difficulty in perfecting. If it will support the weight of one and let +him gently down, it will have done all that is required of it. I will +now show you its capacity in that direction." +</P> + +<P> +He brought out a lump of basalt of a considerable size, constructed in +the middle so that a cord could be easily attached to it. This cord +was the one which we had brought with us on to the plateau after we had +used it for climbing the pinnacle. It was over a hundred feet long, +and though it was thin it was very strong. He had prepared a sort of +collar of leather with many straps depending from it. This collar was +placed over the dome of the balloon, and the hanging thongs were +gathered together below, so that the pressure of any weight would be +diffused over a considerable surface. Then the lump of basalt was +fastened to the thongs, and the rope was allowed to hang from the end +of it, being passed three times round the Professor's arm. +</P> + +<P> +"I will now," said Challenger, with a smile of pleased anticipation, +"demonstrate the carrying power of my balloon." As he said so he cut +with a knife the various lashings that held it. +</P> + +<P> +Never was our expedition in more imminent danger of complete +annihilation. The inflated membrane shot up with frightful velocity +into the air. In an instant Challenger was pulled off his feet and +dragged after it. I had just time to throw my arms round his ascending +waist when I was myself whipped up into the air. Lord John had me with +a rat-trap grip round the legs, but I felt that he also was coming off +the ground. For a moment I had a vision of four adventurers floating +like a string of sausages over the land that they had explored. But, +happily, there were limits to the strain which the rope would stand, +though none apparently to the lifting powers of this infernal machine. +There was a sharp crack, and we were in a heap upon the ground with +coils of rope all over us. When we were able to stagger to our feet we +saw far off in the deep blue sky one dark spot where the lump of basalt +was speeding upon its way. +</P> + +<P> +"Splendid!" cried the undaunted Challenger, rubbing his injured arm. +"A most thorough and satisfactory demonstration! I could not have +anticipated such a success. Within a week, gentlemen, I promise that a +second balloon will be prepared, and that you can count upon taking in +safety and comfort the first stage of our homeward journey." So far I +have written each of the foregoing events as it occurred. Now I am +rounding off my narrative from the old camp, where Zambo has waited so +long, with all our difficulties and dangers left like a dream behind us +upon the summit of those vast ruddy crags which tower above our heads. +We have descended in safety, though in a most unexpected fashion, and +all is well with us. In six weeks or two months we shall be in London, +and it is possible that this letter may not reach you much earlier than +we do ourselves. Already our hearts yearn and our spirits fly towards +the great mother city which holds so much that is dear to us. +</P> + +<P> +It was on the very evening of our perilous adventure with Challenger's +home-made balloon that the change came in our fortunes. I have said +that the one person from whom we had had some sign of sympathy in our +attempts to get away was the young chief whom we had rescued. He alone +had no desire to hold us against our will in a strange land. He had +told us as much by his expressive language of signs. That evening, +after dusk, he came down to our little camp, handed me (for some reason +he had always shown his attentions to me, perhaps because I was the one +who was nearest his age) a small roll of the bark of a tree, and then +pointing solemnly up at the row of caves above him, he had put his +finger to his lips as a sign of secrecy and had stolen back again to +his people. +</P> + +<P> +I took the slip of bark to the firelight and we examined it together. +It was about a foot square, and on the inner side there was a singular +arrangement of lines, which I here reproduce: +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +They were neatly done in charcoal upon the white surface, and looked to +me at first sight like some sort of rough musical score. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever it is, I can swear that it is of importance to us," said I. +"I could read that on his face as he gave it." +</P> + +<P> +"Unless we have come upon a primitive practical joker," Summerlee +suggested, "which I should think would be one of the most elementary +developments of man." +</P> + +<P> +"It is clearly some sort of script," said Challenger. +</P> + +<P> +"Looks like a guinea puzzle competition," remarked Lord John, craning +his neck to have a look at it. Then suddenly he stretched out his hand +and seized the puzzle. +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" he cried, "I believe I've got it. The boy guessed right +the very first time. See here! How many marks are on that paper? +Eighteen. Well, if you come to think of it there are eighteen cave +openings on the hill-side above us." +</P> + +<P> +"He pointed up to the caves when he gave it to me," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that settles it. This is a chart of the caves. What! Eighteen +of them all in a row, some short, some deep, some branching, same as we +saw them. It's a map, and here's a cross on it. What's the cross for? +It is placed to mark one that is much deeper than the others." +</P> + +<P> +"One that goes through," I cried. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe our young friend has read the riddle," said Challenger. "If +the cave does not go through I do not understand why this person, who +has every reason to mean us well, should have drawn our attention to +it. But if it does go through and comes out at the corresponding point +on the other side, we should not have more than a hundred feet to +descend." +</P> + +<P> +"A hundred feet!" grumbled Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, our rope is still more than a hundred feet long," I cried. +"Surely we could get down." +</P> + +<P> +"How about the Indians in the cave?" Summerlee objected. +</P> + +<P> +"There are no Indians in any of the caves above our heads," said I. +"They are all used as barns and store-houses. Why should we not go up +now at once and spy out the land?" +</P> + +<P> +There is a dry bituminous wood upon the plateau—a species of +araucaria, according to our botanist—which is always used by the +Indians for torches. Each of us picked up a faggot of this, and we +made our way up weed-covered steps to the particular cave which was +marked in the drawing. It was, as I had said, empty, save for a great +number of enormous bats, which flapped round our heads as we advanced +into it. As we had no desire to draw the attention of the Indians to +our proceedings, we stumbled along in the dark until we had gone round +several curves and penetrated a considerable distance into the cavern. +Then, at last, we lit our torches. It was a beautiful dry tunnel with +smooth gray walls covered with native symbols, a curved roof which +arched over our heads, and white glistening sand beneath our feet. We +hurried eagerly along it until, with a deep groan of bitter +disappointment, we were brought to a halt. A sheer wall of rock had +appeared before us, with no chink through which a mouse could have +slipped. There was no escape for us there. +</P> + +<P> +We stood with bitter hearts staring at this unexpected obstacle. It +was not the result of any convulsion, as in the case of the ascending +tunnel. The end wall was exactly like the side ones. It was, and had +always been, a cul-de-sac. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind, my friends," said the indomitable Challenger. "You have +still my firm promise of a balloon." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee groaned. +</P> + +<P> +"Can we be in the wrong cave?" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"No use, young fellah," said Lord John, with his finger on the chart. +"Seventeen from the right and second from the left. This is the cave +sure enough." +</P> + +<P> +I looked at the mark to which his finger pointed, and I gave a sudden +cry of joy. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe I have it! Follow me! Follow me!" +</P> + +<P> +I hurried back along the way we had come, my torch in my hand. "Here," +said I, pointing to some matches upon the ground, "is where we lit up." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is marked as a forked cave, and in the darkness we passed the +fork before the torches were lit. On the right side as we go out we +should find the longer arm." +</P> + +<P> +It was as I had said. We had not gone thirty yards before a great +black opening loomed in the wall. We turned into it to find that we +were in a much larger passage than before. Along it we hurried in +breathless impatience for many hundreds of yards. Then, suddenly, in +the black darkness of the arch in front of us we saw a gleam of dark +red light. We stared in amazement. A sheet of steady flame seemed to +cross the passage and to bar our way. We hastened towards it. No +sound, no heat, no movement came from it, but still the great luminous +curtain glowed before us, silvering all the cave and turning the sand +to powdered jewels, until as we drew closer it discovered a circular +edge. +</P> + +<P> +"The moon, by George!" cried Lord John. "We are through, boys! We are +through!" +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed the full moon which shone straight down the aperture +which opened upon the cliffs. It was a small rift, not larger than a +window, but it was enough for all our purposes. As we craned our necks +through it we could see that the descent was not a very difficult one, +and that the level ground was no very great way below us. It was no +wonder that from below we had not observed the place, as the cliffs +curved overhead and an ascent at the spot would have seemed so +impossible as to discourage close inspection. We satisfied ourselves +that with the help of our rope we could find our way down, and then +returned, rejoicing, to our camp to make our preparations for the next +evening. +</P> + +<P> +What we did we had to do quickly and secretly, since even at this last +hour the Indians might hold us back. Our stores we would leave behind +us, save only our guns and cartridges. But Challenger had some +unwieldy stuff which he ardently desired to take with him, and one +particular package, of which I may not speak, which gave us more labor +than any. Slowly the day passed, but when the darkness fell we were +ready for our departure. With much labor we got our things up the +steps, and then, looking back, took one last long survey of that +strange land, soon I fear to be vulgarized, the prey of hunter and +prospector, but to each of us a dreamland of glamour and romance, a +land where we had dared much, suffered much, and learned much—OUR +land, as we shall ever fondly call it. Along upon our left the +neighboring caves each threw out its ruddy cheery firelight into the +gloom. From the slope below us rose the voices of the Indians as they +laughed and sang. Beyond was the long sweep of the woods, and in the +center, shimmering vaguely through the gloom, was the great lake, the +mother of strange monsters. Even as we looked a high whickering cry, +the call of some weird animal, rang clear out of the darkness. It was +the very voice of Maple White Land bidding us good-bye. We turned and +plunged into the cave which led to home. +</P> + +<P> +Two hours later, we, our packages, and all we owned, were at the foot +of the cliff. Save for Challenger's luggage we had never a difficulty. +Leaving it all where we descended, we started at once for Zambo's camp. +In the early morning we approached it, but only to find, to our +amazement, not one fire but a dozen upon the plain. The rescue party +had arrived. There were twenty Indians from the river, with stakes, +ropes, and all that could be useful for bridging the chasm. At least +we shall have no difficulty now in carrying our packages, when +to-morrow we begin to make our way back to the Amazon. +</P> + +<P> +And so, in humble and thankful mood, I close this account. Our eyes +have seen great wonders and our souls are chastened by what we have +endured. Each is in his own way a better and deeper man. It may be +that when we reach Para we shall stop to refit. If we do, this letter +will be a mail ahead. If not, it will reach London on the very day +that I do. In either case, my dear Mr. McArdle, I hope very soon to +shake you by the hand. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "A Procession! A Procession!" +</H3> + +<P> +I should wish to place upon record here our gratitude to all our +friends upon the Amazon for the very great kindness and hospitality +which was shown to us upon our return journey. Very particularly would +I thank Senhor Penalosa and other officials of the Brazilian Government +for the special arrangements by which we were helped upon our way, and +Senhor Pereira of Para, to whose forethought we owe the complete outfit +for a decent appearance in the civilized world which we found ready for +us at that town. It seemed a poor return for all the courtesy which we +encountered that we should deceive our hosts and benefactors, but under +the circumstances we had really no alternative, and I hereby tell them +that they will only waste their time and their money if they attempt to +follow upon our traces. Even the names have been altered in our +accounts, and I am very sure that no one, from the most careful study +of them, could come within a thousand miles of our unknown land. +</P> + +<P> +The excitement which had been caused through those parts of South +America which we had to traverse was imagined by us to be purely local, +and I can assure our friends in England that we had no notion of the +uproar which the mere rumor of our experiences had caused through +Europe. It was not until the Ivernia was within five hundred miles of +Southampton that the wireless messages from paper after paper and +agency after agency, offering huge prices for a short return message as +to our actual results, showed us how strained was the attention not +only of the scientific world but of the general public. It was agreed +among us, however, that no definite statement should be given to the +Press until we had met the members of the Zoological Institute, since +as delegates it was our clear duty to give our first report to the body +from which we had received our commission of investigation. Thus, +although we found Southampton full of Pressmen, we absolutely refused +to give any information, which had the natural effect of focussing +public attention upon the meeting which was advertised for the evening +of November 7th. For this gathering, the Zoological Hall which had +been the scene of the inception of our task was found to be far too +small, and it was only in the Queen's Hall in Regent Street that +accommodation could be found. It is now common knowledge the promoters +might have ventured upon the Albert Hall and still found their space +too scanty. +</P> + +<P> +It was for the second evening after our arrival that the great meeting +had been fixed. For the first, we had each, no doubt, our own pressing +personal affairs to absorb us. Of mine I cannot yet speak. It may be +that as it stands further from me I may think of it, and even speak of +it, with less emotion. I have shown the reader in the beginning of +this narrative where lay the springs of my action. It is but right, +perhaps, that I should carry on the tale and show also the results. +And yet the day may come when I would not have it otherwise. At least +I have been driven forth to take part in a wondrous adventure, and I +cannot but be thankful to the force that drove me. +</P> + +<P> +And now I turn to the last supreme eventful moment of our adventure. +As I was racking my brain as to how I should best describe it, my eyes +fell upon the issue of my own Journal for the morning of the 8th of +November with the full and excellent account of my friend and +fellow-reporter Macdona. What can I do better than transcribe his +narrative—head-lines and all? I admit that the paper was exuberant in +the matter, out of compliment to its own enterprise in sending a +correspondent, but the other great dailies were hardly less full in +their account. Thus, then, friend Mac in his report: +</P> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE NEW WORLD<BR> +GREAT MEETING AT THE QUEEN'S HALL<BR> +SCENES OF UPROAR<BR> +EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT<BR> +WHAT WAS IT?<BR> +NOCTURNAL RIOT IN REGENT STREET<BR> +(Special) +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P> +"The much-discussed meeting of the Zoological Institute, convened to +hear the report of the Committee of Investigation sent out last year to +South America to test the assertions made by Professor Challenger as to +the continued existence of prehistoric life upon that Continent, was +held last night in the greater Queen's Hall, and it is safe to say that +it is likely to be a red letter date in the history of Science, for the +proceedings were of so remarkable and sensational a character that no +one present is ever likely to forget them." (Oh, brother scribe +Macdona, what a monstrous opening sentence!) "The tickets were +theoretically confined to members and their friends, but the latter is +an elastic term, and long before eight o'clock, the hour fixed for the +commencement of the proceedings, all parts of the Great Hall were +tightly packed. The general public, however, which most unreasonably +entertained a grievance at having been excluded, stormed the doors at a +quarter to eight, after a prolonged melee in which several people were +injured, including Inspector Scoble of H. Division, whose leg was +unfortunately broken. After this unwarrantable invasion, which not +only filled every passage, but even intruded upon the space set apart +for the Press, it is estimated that nearly five thousand people awaited +the arrival of the travelers. When they eventually appeared, they took +their places in the front of a platform which already contained all the +leading scientific men, not only of this country, but of France and of +Germany. Sweden was also represented, in the person of Professor +Sergius, the famous Zoologist of the University of Upsala. The +entrance of the four heroes of the occasion was the signal for a +remarkable demonstration of welcome, the whole audience rising and +cheering for some minutes. An acute observer might, however, have +detected some signs of dissent amid the applause, and gathered that the +proceedings were likely to become more lively than harmonious. It may +safely be prophesied, however, that no one could have foreseen the +extraordinary turn which they were actually to take. +</P> + +<P> +"Of the appearance of the four wanderers little need be said, since +their photographs have for some time been appearing in all the papers. +They bear few traces of the hardships which they are said to have +undergone. Professor Challenger's beard may be more shaggy, Professor +Summerlee's features more ascetic, Lord John Roxton's figure more +gaunt, and all three may be burned to a darker tint than when they left +our shores, but each appeared to be in most excellent health. As to +our own representative, the well-known athlete and international Rugby +football player, E. D. Malone, he looks trained to a hair, and as he +surveyed the crowd a smile of good-humored contentment pervaded his +honest but homely face." (All right, Mac, wait till I get you alone!) +</P> + +<P> +"When quiet had been restored and the audience resumed their seats +after the ovation which they had given to the travelers, the chairman, +the Duke of Durham, addressed the meeting. 'He would not,' he said, +'stand for more than a moment between that vast assembly and the treat +which lay before them. It was not for him to anticipate what Professor +Summerlee, who was the spokesman of the committee, had to say to them, +but it was common rumor that their expedition had been crowned by +extraordinary success.' (Applause.) 'Apparently the age of romance +was not dead, and there was common ground upon which the wildest +imaginings of the novelist could meet the actual scientific +investigations of the searcher for truth. He would only add, before he +sat down, that he rejoiced—and all of them would rejoice—that these +gentlemen had returned safe and sound from their difficult and +dangerous task, for it cannot be denied that any disaster to such an +expedition would have inflicted a well-nigh irreparable loss to the +cause of Zoological science.' (Great applause, in which Professor +Challenger was observed to join.) +</P> + +<P> +"Professor Summerlee's rising was the signal for another extraordinary +outbreak of enthusiasm, which broke out again at intervals throughout +his address. That address will not be given in extenso in these +columns, for the reason that a full account of the whole adventures of +the expedition is being published as a supplement from the pen of our +own special correspondent. Some general indications will therefore +suffice. Having described the genesis of their journey, and paid a +handsome tribute to his friend Professor Challenger, coupled with an +apology for the incredulity with which his assertions, now fully +vindicated, had been received, he gave the actual course of their +journey, carefully withholding such information as would aid the public +in any attempt to locate this remarkable plateau. Having described, in +general terms, their course from the main river up to the time that +they actually reached the base of the cliffs, he enthralled his hearers +by his account of the difficulties encountered by the expedition in +their repeated attempts to mount them, and finally described how they +succeeded in their desperate endeavors, which cost the lives of their +two devoted half-breed servants." (This amazing reading of the affair +was the result of Summerlee's endeavors to avoid raising any +questionable matter at the meeting.) +</P> + +<P> +"Having conducted his audience in fancy to the summit, and marooned +them there by reason of the fall of their bridge, the Professor +proceeded to describe both the horrors and the attractions of that +remarkable land. Of personal adventures he said little, but laid +stress upon the rich harvest reaped by Science in the observations of +the wonderful beast, bird, insect, and plant life of the plateau. +Peculiarly rich in the coleoptera and in the lepidoptera, forty-six new +species of the one and ninety-four of the other had been secured in the +course of a few weeks. It was, however, in the larger animals, and +especially in the larger animals supposed to have been long extinct, +that the interest of the public was naturally centered. Of these he +was able to give a goodly list, but had little doubt that it would be +largely extended when the place had been more thoroughly investigated. +He and his companions had seen at least a dozen creatures, most of them +at a distance, which corresponded with nothing at present known to +Science. These would in time be duly classified and examined. He +instanced a snake, the cast skin of which, deep purple in color, was +fifty-one feet in length, and mentioned a white creature, supposed to +be mammalian, which gave forth well-marked phosphorescence in the +darkness; also a large black moth, the bite of which was supposed by +the Indians to be highly poisonous. Setting aside these entirely new +forms of life, the plateau was very rich in known prehistoric forms, +dating back in some cases to early Jurassic times. Among these he +mentioned the gigantic and grotesque stegosaurus, seen once by Mr. +Malone at a drinking-place by the lake, and drawn in the sketch-book of +that adventurous American who had first penetrated this unknown world. +He described also the iguanodon and the pterodactyl—two of the first +of the wonders which they had encountered. He then thrilled the +assembly by some account of the terrible carnivorous dinosaurs, which +had on more than one occasion pursued members of the party, and which +were the most formidable of all the creatures which they had +encountered. Thence he passed to the huge and ferocious bird, the +phororachus, and to the great elk which still roams upon this upland. +It was not, however, until he sketched the mysteries of the central +lake that the full interest and enthusiasm of the audience were +aroused. One had to pinch oneself to be sure that one was awake as one +heard this sane and practical Professor in cold measured tones +describing the monstrous three-eyed fish-lizards and the huge +water-snakes which inhabit this enchanted sheet of water. Next he +touched upon the Indians, and upon the extraordinary colony of +anthropoid apes, which might be looked upon as an advance upon the +pithecanthropus of Java, and as coming therefore nearer than any known +form to that hypothetical creation, the missing link. Finally he +described, amongst some merriment, the ingenious but highly dangerous +aeronautic invention of Professor Challenger, and wound up a most +memorable address by an account of the methods by which the committee +did at last find their way back to civilization. +</P> + +<P> +"It had been hoped that the proceedings would end there, and that a +vote of thanks and congratulation, moved by Professor Sergius, of +Upsala University, would be duly seconded and carried; but it was soon +evident that the course of events was not destined to flow so smoothly. +Symptoms of opposition had been evident from time to time during the +evening, and now Dr. James Illingworth, of Edinburgh, rose in the +center of the hall. Dr. Illingworth asked whether an amendment should +not be taken before a resolution. +</P> + +<P> +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Yes, sir, if there must be an amendment.' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Your Grace, there must be an amendment.' +</P> + +<P> +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Then let us take it at once.' +</P> + +<P> +"PROFESSOR SUMMERLEE (springing to his feet): 'Might I explain, your +Grace, that this man is my personal enemy ever since our controversy in +the Quarterly Journal of Science as to the true nature of Bathybius?' +</P> + +<P> +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'I fear I cannot go into personal matters. Proceed.' +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Illingworth was imperfectly heard in part of his remarks on +account of the strenuous opposition of the friends of the explorers. +Some attempts were also made to pull him down. Being a man of enormous +physique, however, and possessed of a very powerful voice, he dominated +the tumult and succeeded in finishing his speech. It was clear, from +the moment of his rising, that he had a number of friends and +sympathizers in the hall, though they formed a minority in the +audience. The attitude of the greater part of the public might be +described as one of attentive neutrality. +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Illingworth began his remarks by expressing his high appreciation +of the scientific work both of Professor Challenger and of Professor +Summerlee. He much regretted that any personal bias should have been +read into his remarks, which were entirely dictated by his desire for +scientific truth. His position, in fact, was substantially the same as +that taken up by Professor Summerlee at the last meeting. At that last +meeting Professor Challenger had made certain assertions which had been +queried by his colleague. Now this colleague came forward himself with +the same assertions and expected them to remain unquestioned. Was this +reasonable? ('Yes,' 'No,' and prolonged interruption, during which +Professor Challenger was heard from the Press box to ask leave from the +chairman to put Dr. Illingworth into the street.) A year ago one man +said certain things. Now four men said other and more startling ones. +Was this to constitute a final proof where the matters in question were +of the most revolutionary and incredible character? There had been +recent examples of travelers arriving from the unknown with certain +tales which had been too readily accepted. Was the London Zoological +Institute to place itself in this position? He admitted that the +members of the committee were men of character. But human nature was +very complex. Even Professors might be misled by the desire for +notoriety. Like moths, we all love best to flutter in the light. +Heavy-game shots liked to be in a position to cap the tales of their +rivals, and journalists were not averse from sensational coups, even +when imagination had to aid fact in the process. Each member of the +committee had his own motive for making the most of his results. +('Shame! shame!') He had no desire to be offensive. ('You are!' and +interruption.) The corroboration of these wondrous tales was really of +the most slender description. What did it amount to? Some +photographs. {Was it possible that in this age of ingenious +manipulation photographs could be accepted as evidence?} What more? +We have a story of a flight and a descent by ropes which precluded the +production of larger specimens. It was ingenious, but not convincing. +It was understood that Lord John Roxton claimed to have the skull of a +phororachus. He could only say that he would like to see that skull. +</P> + +<P> +"LORD JOHN ROXTON: 'Is this fellow calling me a liar?' (Uproar.) +</P> + +<P> +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Order! order! Dr. Illingworth, I must direct you to +bring your remarks to a conclusion and to move your amendment.' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Your Grace, I have more to say, but I bow to your +ruling. I move, then, that, while Professor Summerlee be thanked for +his interesting address, the whole matter shall be regarded as +'non-proven,' and shall be referred back to a larger, and possibly more +reliable Committee of Investigation.' +</P> + +<P> +"It is difficult to describe the confusion caused by this amendment. A +large section of the audience expressed their indignation at such a +slur upon the travelers by noisy shouts of dissent and cries of, 'Don't +put it!' 'Withdraw!' 'Turn him out!' On the other hand, the +malcontents—and it cannot be denied that they were fairly +numerous—cheered for the amendment, with cries of 'Order!' 'Chair!' +and 'Fair play!' A scuffle broke out in the back benches, and blows +were freely exchanged among the medical students who crowded that part +of the hall. It was only the moderating influence of the presence of +large numbers of ladies which prevented an absolute riot. Suddenly, +however, there was a pause, a hush, and then complete silence. +Professor Challenger was on his feet. His appearance and manner are +peculiarly arresting, and as he raised his hand for order the whole +audience settled down expectantly to give him a hearing. +</P> + +<P> +"'It will be within the recollection of many present,' said Professor +Challenger, 'that similar foolish and unmannerly scenes marked the last +meeting at which I have been able to address them. On that occasion +Professor Summerlee was the chief offender, and though he is now +chastened and contrite, the matter could not be entirely forgotten. I +have heard to-night similar, but even more offensive, sentiments from +the person who has just sat down, and though it is a conscious effort +of self-effacement to come down to that person's mental level, I will +endeavor to do so, in order to allay any reasonable doubt which could +possibly exist in the minds of anyone.' (Laughter and interruption.) +'I need not remind this audience that, though Professor Summerlee, as +the head of the Committee of Investigation, has been put up to speak +to-night, still it is I who am the real prime mover in this business, +and that it is mainly to me that any successful result must be +ascribed. I have safely conducted these three gentlemen to the spot +mentioned, and I have, as you have heard, convinced them of the +accuracy of my previous account. We had hoped that we should find upon +our return that no one was so dense as to dispute our joint +conclusions. Warned, however, by my previous experience, I have not +come without such proofs as may convince a reasonable man. As +explained by Professor Summerlee, our cameras have been tampered with +by the ape-men when they ransacked our camp, and most of our negatives +ruined.' (Jeers, laughter, and 'Tell us another!' from the back.) 'I +have mentioned the ape-men, and I cannot forbear from saying that some +of the sounds which now meet my ears bring back most vividly to my +recollection my experiences with those interesting creatures.' +(Laughter.) 'In spite of the destruction of so many invaluable +negatives, there still remains in our collection a certain number of +corroborative photographs showing the conditions of life upon the +plateau. Did they accuse them of having forged these photographs?' (A +voice, 'Yes,' and considerable interruption which ended in several men +being put out of the hall.) 'The negatives were open to the inspection +of experts. But what other evidence had they? Under the conditions of +their escape it was naturally impossible to bring a large amount of +baggage, but they had rescued Professor Summerlee's collections of +butterflies and beetles, containing many new species. Was this not +evidence?' (Several voices, 'No.') 'Who said no?' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (rising): 'Our point is that such a collection might +have been made in other places than a prehistoric plateau.' (Applause.) +</P> + +<P> +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'No doubt, sir, we have to bow to your +scientific authority, although I must admit that the name is +unfamiliar. Passing, then, both the photographs and the entomological +collection, I come to the varied and accurate information which we +bring with us upon points which have never before been elucidated. For +example, upon the domestic habits of the pterodactyl—'(A voice: +'Bosh,' and uproar)—'I say, that upon the domestic habits of the +pterodactyl we can throw a flood of light. I can exhibit to you from +my portfolio a picture of that creature taken from life which would +convince you——' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'No picture could convince us of anything.' +</P> + +<P> +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'You would require to see the thing itself?' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Undoubtedly.' +</P> + +<P> +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'And you would accept that?' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (laughing): 'Beyond a doubt.' +</P> + +<P> +"It was at this point that the sensation of the evening arose—a +sensation so dramatic that it can never have been paralleled in the +history of scientific gatherings. Professor Challenger raised his hand +in the air as a signal, and at once our colleague, Mr. E. D. Malone, +was observed to rise and to make his way to the back of the platform. +An instant later he re-appeared in company of a gigantic negro, the two +of them bearing between them a large square packing-case. It was +evidently of great weight, and was slowly carried forward and placed in +front of the Professor's chair. All sound had hushed in the audience +and everyone was absorbed in the spectacle before them. Professor +Challenger drew off the top of the case, which formed a sliding lid. +Peering down into the box he snapped his fingers several times and was +heard from the Press seat to say, 'Come, then, pretty, pretty!' in a +coaxing voice. An instant later, with a scratching, rattling sound, a +most horrible and loathsome creature appeared from below and perched +itself upon the side of the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke +of Durham into the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not +distract the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the +creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad +medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, +with two small red eyes as bright as points of burning coal. Its long, +savage mouth, which was held half-open, was full of a double row of +shark-like teeth. Its shoulders were humped, and round them were +draped what appeared to be a faded gray shawl. It was the devil of our +childhood in person. There was a turmoil in the audience—someone +screamed, two ladies in the front row fell senseless from their chairs, +and there was a general movement upon the platform to follow their +chairman into the orchestra. For a moment there was danger of a +general panic. Professor Challenger threw up his hands to still the +commotion, but the movement alarmed the creature beside him. Its +strange shawl suddenly unfurled, spread, and fluttered as a pair of +leathery wings. Its owner grabbed at its legs, but too late to hold +it. It had sprung from the perch and was circling slowly round the +Queen's Hall with a dry, leathery flapping of its ten-foot wings, while +a putrid and insidious odor pervaded the room. The cries of the people +in the galleries, who were alarmed at the near approach of those +glowing eyes and that murderous beak, excited the creature to a frenzy. +Faster and faster it flew, beating against walls and chandeliers in a +blind frenzy of alarm. 'The window! For heaven's sake shut that +window!' roared the Professor from the platform, dancing and wringing +his hands in an agony of apprehension. Alas, his warning was too late! +In a moment the creature, beating and bumping along the wall like a +huge moth within a gas-shade, came upon the opening, squeezed its +hideous bulk through it, and was gone. Professor Challenger fell back +into his chair with his face buried in his hands, while the audience +gave one long, deep sigh of relief as they realized that the incident +was over. +</P> + +<P> +"Then—oh! how shall one describe what took place then—when the full +exuberance of the majority and the full reaction of the minority united +to make one great wave of enthusiasm, which rolled from the back of the +hall, gathering volume as it came, swept over the orchestra, submerged +the platform, and carried the four heroes away upon its crest?" (Good +for you, Mac!) "If the audience had done less than justice, surely it +made ample amends. Every one was on his feet. Every one was moving, +shouting, gesticulating. A dense crowd of cheering men were round the +four travelers. 'Up with them! up with them!' cried a hundred voices. +In a moment four figures shot up above the crowd. In vain they strove +to break loose. They were held in their lofty places of honor. It +would have been hard to let them down if it had been wished, so dense +was the crowd around them. 'Regent Street! Regent Street!' sounded +the voices. There was a swirl in the packed multitude, and a slow +current, bearing the four upon their shoulders, made for the door. Out +in the street the scene was extraordinary. An assemblage of not less +than a hundred thousand people was waiting. The close-packed throng +extended from the other side of the Langham Hotel to Oxford Circus. A +roar of acclamation greeted the four adventurers as they appeared, high +above the heads of the people, under the vivid electric lamps outside +the hall. 'A procession! A procession!' was the cry. In a dense +phalanx, blocking the streets from side to side, the crowd set forth, +taking the route of Regent Street, Pall Mall, St. James's Street, and +Piccadilly. The whole central traffic of London was held up, and many +collisions were reported between the demonstrators upon the one side +and the police and taxi-cabmen upon the other. Finally, it was not +until after midnight that the four travelers were released at the +entrance to Lord John Roxton's chambers in the Albany, and that the +exuberant crowd, having sung 'They are Jolly Good Fellows' in chorus, +concluded their program with 'God Save the King.' So ended one of the +most remarkable evenings that London has seen for a considerable time." +</P> + +<P> +So far my friend Macdona; and it may be taken as a fairly accurate, if +florid, account of the proceedings. As to the main incident, it was a +bewildering surprise to the audience, but not, I need hardly say, to +us. The reader will remember how I met Lord John Roxton upon the very +occasion when, in his protective crinoline, he had gone to bring the +"Devil's chick" as he called it, for Professor Challenger. I have +hinted also at the trouble which the Professor's baggage gave us when +we left the plateau, and had I described our voyage I might have said a +good deal of the worry we had to coax with putrid fish the appetite of +our filthy companion. If I have not said much about it before, it was, +of course, that the Professor's earnest desire was that no possible +rumor of the unanswerable argument which we carried should be allowed +to leak out until the moment came when his enemies were to be confuted. +</P> + +<P> +One word as to the fate of the London pterodactyl. Nothing can be said +to be certain upon this point. There is the evidence of two frightened +women that it perched upon the roof of the Queen's Hall and remained +there like a diabolical statue for some hours. The next day it came +out in the evening papers that Private Miles, of the Coldstream Guards, +on duty outside Marlborough House, had deserted his post without leave, +and was therefore courtmartialed. Private Miles' account, that he +dropped his rifle and took to his heels down the Mall because on +looking up he had suddenly seen the devil between him and the moon, was +not accepted by the Court, and yet it may have a direct bearing upon +the point at issue. The only other evidence which I can adduce is from +the log of the SS. Friesland, a Dutch-American liner, which asserts +that at nine next morning, Start Point being at the time ten miles upon +their starboard quarter, they were passed by something between a flying +goat and a monstrous bat, which was heading at a prodigious pace south +and west. If its homing instinct led it upon the right line, there can +be no doubt that somewhere out in the wastes of the Atlantic the last +European pterodactyl found its end. +</P> + +<P> +And Gladys—oh, my Gladys!—Gladys of the mystic lake, now to be +re-named the Central, for never shall she have immortality through me. +Did I not always see some hard fiber in her nature? Did I not, even at +the time when I was proud to obey her behest, feel that it was surely a +poor love which could drive a lover to his death or the danger of it? +Did I not, in my truest thoughts, always recurring and always +dismissed, see past the beauty of the face, and, peering into the soul, +discern the twin shadows of selfishness and of fickleness glooming at +the back of it? Did she love the heroic and the spectacular for its +own noble sake, or was it for the glory which might, without effort or +sacrifice, be reflected upon herself? Or are these thoughts the vain +wisdom which comes after the event? It was the shock of my life. For +a moment it had turned me to a cynic. But already, as I write, a week +has passed, and we have had our momentous interview with Lord John +Roxton and—well, perhaps things might be worse. +</P> + +<P> +Let me tell it in a few words. No letter or telegram had come to me at +Southampton, and I reached the little villa at Streatham about ten +o'clock that night in a fever of alarm. Was she dead or alive? Where +were all my nightly dreams of the open arms, the smiling face, the +words of praise for her man who had risked his life to humor her whim? +Already I was down from the high peaks and standing flat-footed upon +earth. Yet some good reasons given might still lift me to the clouds +once more. I rushed down the garden path, hammered at the door, heard +the voice of Gladys within, pushed past the staring maid, and strode +into the sitting-room. She was seated in a low settee under the shaded +standard lamp by the piano. In three steps I was across the room and +had both her hands in mine. +</P> + +<P> +"Gladys!" I cried, "Gladys!" +</P> + +<P> +She looked up with amazement in her face. She was altered in some +subtle way. The expression of her eyes, the hard upward stare, the set +of the lips, was new to me. She drew back her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Gladys!" I cried. "What is the matter? You are my Gladys, are you +not—little Gladys Hungerton?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said she, "I am Gladys Potts. Let me introduce you to my +husband." +</P> + +<P> +How absurd life is! I found myself mechanically bowing and shaking +hands with a little ginger-haired man who was coiled up in the deep +arm-chair which had once been sacred to my own use. We bobbed and +grinned in front of each other. +</P> + +<P> +"Father lets us stay here. We are getting our house ready," said +Gladys. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't get my letter at Para, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I got no letter." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what a pity! It would have made all clear." +</P> + +<P> +"It is quite clear," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"I've told William all about you," said she. "We have no secrets. I +am so sorry about it. But it couldn't have been so very deep, could +it, if you could go off to the other end of the world and leave me here +alone. You're not crabby, are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, not at all. I think I'll go." +</P> + +<P> +"Have some refreshment," said the little man, and he added, in a +confidential way, "It's always like this, ain't it? And must be unless +you had polygamy, only the other way round; you understand." He laughed +like an idiot, while I made for the door. +</P> + +<P> +I was through it, when a sudden fantastic impulse came upon me, and I +went back to my successful rival, who looked nervously at the electric +push. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you answer a question?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, within reason," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you do it? Have you searched for hidden treasure, or +discovered a pole, or done time on a pirate, or flown the Channel, or +what? Where is the glamour of romance? How did you get it?" +</P> + +<P> +He stared at me with a hopeless expression upon his vacuous, +good-natured, scrubby little face. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think all this is a little too personal?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, just one question," I cried. "What are you? What is your +profession?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am a solicitor's clerk," said he. "Second man at Johnson and +Merivale's, 41 Chancery Lane." +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night!" said I, and vanished, like all disconsolate and +broken-hearted heroes, into the darkness, with grief and rage and +laughter all simmering within me like a boiling pot. +</P> + +<P> +One more little scene, and I have done. Last night we all supped at +Lord John Roxton's rooms, and sitting together afterwards we smoked in +good comradeship and talked our adventures over. It was strange under +these altered surroundings to see the old, well-known faces and +figures. There was Challenger, with his smile of condescension, his +drooping eyelids, his intolerant eyes, his aggressive beard, his huge +chest, swelling and puffing as he laid down the law to Summerlee. And +Summerlee, too, there he was with his short briar between his thin +moustache and his gray goat's-beard, his worn face protruded in eager +debate as he queried all Challenger's propositions. Finally, there was +our host, with his rugged, eagle face, and his cold, blue, glacier eyes +with always a shimmer of devilment and of humor down in the depths of +them. Such is the last picture of them that I have carried away. +</P> + +<P> +It was after supper, in his own sanctum—the room of the pink radiance +and the innumerable trophies—that Lord John Roxton had something to +say to us. From a cupboard he had brought an old cigar-box, and this +he laid before him on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"There's one thing," said he, "that maybe I should have spoken about +before this, but I wanted to know a little more clearly where I was. +No use to raise hopes and let them down again. But it's facts, not +hopes, with us now. You may remember that day we found the pterodactyl +rookery in the swamp—what? Well, somethin' in the lie of the land +took my notice. Perhaps it has escaped you, so I will tell you. It +was a volcanic vent full of blue clay." The Professors nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now, in the whole world I've only had to do with one place that +was a volcanic vent of blue clay. That was the great De Beers Diamond +Mine of Kimberley—what? So you see I got diamonds into my head. I +rigged up a contraption to hold off those stinking beasts, and I spent +a happy day there with a spud. This is what I got." +</P> + +<P> +He opened his cigar-box, and tilting it over he poured about twenty or +thirty rough stones, varying from the size of beans to that of +chestnuts, on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you think I should have told you then. Well, so I should, +only I know there are a lot of traps for the unwary, and that stones +may be of any size and yet of little value where color and consistency +are clean off. Therefore, I brought them back, and on the first day at +home I took one round to Spink's, and asked him to have it roughly cut +and valued." +</P> + +<P> +He took a pill-box from his pocket, and spilled out of it a beautiful +glittering diamond, one of the finest stones that I have ever seen. +</P> + +<P> +"There's the result," said he. "He prices the lot at a minimum of two +hundred thousand pounds. Of course it is fair shares between us. I +won't hear of anythin' else. Well, Challenger, what will you do with +your fifty thousand?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you really persist in your generous view," said the Professor, "I +should found a private museum, which has long been one of my dreams." +</P> + +<P> +"And you, Summerlee?" +</P> + +<P> +"I would retire from teaching, and so find time for my final +classification of the chalk fossils." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll use my own," said Lord John Roxton, "in fitting a well-formed +expedition and having another look at the dear old plateau. As to you, +young fellah, you, of course, will spend yours in gettin' married." +</P> + +<P> +"Not just yet," said I, with a rueful smile. "I think, if you will +have me, that I would rather go with you." +</P> + +<P> +Lord Roxton said nothing, but a brown hand was stretched out to me +across the table. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 139 ***</div> +</BODY> + +</HTML> + + diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Lost World + +Author: Arthur Conan Doyle + +Release Date: June 19, 2008 [EBook #139] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE LOST WORLD +</H1> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I have wrought my simple plan<BR> + If I give one hour of joy<BR> +To the boy who's half a man,<BR> + Or the man who's half a boy. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +The Lost World +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE +</H2> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1912 +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Foreword +</H3> + +<P> +Mr. E. D. Malone desires to state that +both the injunction for restraint and the +libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly +by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being +satisfied that no criticism or comment in +this book is meant in an offensive spirit, +has guaranteed that he will place no +impediment to its publication and circulation. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Contents +</H2> + +<BR> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">"THERE ARE HEROISMS ALL ROUND US"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">"TRY YOUR LUCK WITH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">"HE IS A PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE PERSON"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">"IT'S JUST THE VERY BIGGEST THING IN THE WORLD"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">"QUESTION!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">"I WAS THE FLAIL OF THE LORD"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">"TO-MORROW WE DISAPPEAR INTO THE UNKNOWN"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">"THE OUTLYING PICKETS OF THE NEW WORLD"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">"WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN IT?"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">"THE MOST WONDERFUL THINGS HAVE HAPPENED"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">"FOR ONCE I WAS THE HERO"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">"IT WAS DREADFUL IN THE FOREST"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">"A SIGHT I SHALL NEVER FORGET"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">"THOSE WERE THE REAL CONQUESTS"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">"OUR EYES HAVE SEEN GREAT WONDERS"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">"A PROCESSION! A PROCESSION!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE LOST WORLD +</H1> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +The Lost World +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "There Are Heroisms All Round Us" +</H3> + +<P> +Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon +earth,—a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly +good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If +anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the +thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really +believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a +week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his +views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an +authority. +</P> + +<P> +For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup +about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the +depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange. +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose," he cried with feeble violence, "that all the debts in the +world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted +upon,—what under our present conditions would happen then?" +</P> + +<P> +I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon +which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, +which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in +my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic +meeting. +</P> + +<P> +At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! All +that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which +will send him on a forlorn hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse +alternating in his mind. +</P> + +<P> +She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the +red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been +friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same +comradeship which I might have established with one of my +fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,—perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, +and perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too +frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where +the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, +heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in +hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing +figure—these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the +true signals of passion. Even in my short life I had learned as much +as that—or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct. +</P> + +<P> +Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be cold +and hard; but such a thought was treason. That delicately bronzed +skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large +liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,—all the stigmata of passion +were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found +the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should +have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She +could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted +brother. +</P> + +<P> +So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long +and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, +and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof. "I have a +presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you +wouldn't; for things are so much nicer as they are." +</P> + +<P> +I drew my chair a little nearer. "Now, how did you know that I was +going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was +ever taken unawares? But—oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and +so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don't you feel how splendid it +is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to +face as we have talked?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with—with the +station-master." I can't imagine how that official came into the +matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing. "That does not +satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you, and your head on my +breast, and—oh, Gladys, I want——" +</P> + +<P> +She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to +demonstrate some of my wants. "You've spoiled everything, Ned," she +said. "It's all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing +comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you control yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't invent it," I pleaded. "It's nature. It's love." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never felt +it." +</P> + +<P> +"But you must—you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you +were made for love! You must love!" +</P> + +<P> +"One must wait till it comes." +</P> + +<P> +"But why can't you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?" +</P> + +<P> +She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand—such a gracious, +stooping attitude it was—and she pressed back my head. Then she +looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile. +</P> + +<P> +"No it isn't that," she said at last. "You're not a conceited boy by +nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. It's deeper." +</P> + +<P> +"My character?" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded severely. +</P> + +<P> +"What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. No, really, +I won't if you'll only sit down!" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my +mind than her whole-hearted confidence. How primitive and bestial it +looks when you put it down in black and white!—and perhaps after all +it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat down. +</P> + +<P> +"Now tell me what's amiss with me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm in love with somebody else," said she. +</P> + +<P> +It was my turn to jump out of my chair. +</P> + +<P> +"It's nobody in particular," she explained, laughing at the expression +of my face: "only an ideal. I've never met the kind of man I mean." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me about him. What does he look like?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he might look very much like you." +</P> + +<P> +"How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I +don't do? Just say the word,—teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, +theosophist, superman. I'll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only +give me an idea what would please you." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed at the elasticity of my character. "Well, in the first +place, I don't think my ideal would speak like that," said she. "He +would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a +silly girl's whim. But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who +could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a +man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I +should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be +reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! When I read his wife's +life of him I could so understand her love! And Lady Stanley! Did you +ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? +These are the sort of men that a woman could worship with all her soul, +and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honored +by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds." +</P> + +<P> +She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down +the whole level of the interview. I gripped myself hard, and went on +with the argument. +</P> + +<P> +"We can't all be Stanleys and Burtons," said I; "besides, we don't get +the chance,—at least, I never had the chance. If I did, I should try +to take it." +</P> + +<P> +"But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I +mean that he makes his own chances. You can't hold him back. I've +never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There are heroisms +all round us waiting to be done. It's for men to do them, and for +women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. Look at that +young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. It was blowing a +gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on +starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four +hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I +mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have +envied her! That's what I should like to be,—envied for my man." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd have done it to please you." +</P> + +<P> +"But you shouldn't do it merely to please me. You should do it because +you can't help yourself, because it's natural to you, because the man +in you is crying out for heroic expression. Now, when you described +the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and +helped those people, in spite of the choke-damp?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did." +</P> + +<P> +"You never said so." +</P> + +<P> +"There was nothing worth bucking about." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know." She looked at me with rather more interest. "That +was brave of you." +</P> + +<P> +"I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the +things are." +</P> + +<P> +"What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. +But, still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that +mine." She gave me her hand; but with such sweetness and dignity that +I could only stoop and kiss it. "I dare say I am merely a foolish +woman with a young girl's fancies. And yet it is so real with me, so +entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I +marry, I do want to marry a famous man!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you not?" I cried. "It is women like you who brace men up. +Give me a chance, and see if I will take it! Besides, as you say, men +ought to MAKE their own chances, and not wait until they are given. +Look at Clive—just a clerk, and he conquered India! By George! I'll +do something in the world yet!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. "Why not?" she said. +"You have everything a man could have,—youth, health, strength, +education, energy. I was sorry you spoke. And now I am glad—so +glad—if it wakens these thoughts in you!" +</P> + +<P> +"And if I do——" +</P> + +<P> +Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. "Not another word, +Sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour +ago; only I hadn't the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when +you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again." +</P> + +<P> +And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing +the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager +determination that not another day should elapse before I should find +some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who—who in all this wide +world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was +to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it? +</P> + +<P> +And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have +nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no +narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world +with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the +desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight +of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and +ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the +great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the office +of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant +unit, with the settled determination that very night, if possible, to +find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness, +was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own +glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to +ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger" +</H3> + +<P> +I always liked McArdle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, red-headed news +editor, and I rather hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was +the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian +height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an +international crisis or a split in the Cabinet. Sometimes we saw him +passing in lonely majesty to his inner sanctum, with his eyes staring +vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He +was above and beyond us. But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it +was he that we knew. The old man nodded as I entered the room, and he +pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mr. Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very well," +said he in his kindly Scotch accent. +</P> + +<P> +I thanked him. +</P> + +<P> +"The colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwark fire. You +have the true descreeptive touch. What did you want to see me about?" +</P> + +<P> +"To ask a favor." +</P> + +<P> +He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine. "Tut, tut! What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for +the paper? I would do my best to put it through and get you some good +copy." +</P> + +<P> +"What sort of meesion had you in your mind, Mr. Malone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. I really +would do my very best. The more difficult it was, the better it would +suit me." +</P> + +<P> +"You seem very anxious to lose your life." +</P> + +<P> +"To justify my life, Sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me, Mr. Malone, this is very—very exalted. I'm afraid the day +for this sort of thing is rather past. The expense of the 'special +meesion' business hardly justifies the result, and, of course, in any +case it would only be an experienced man with a name that would command +public confidence who would get such an order. The big blank spaces in +the map are all being filled in, and there's no room for romance +anywhere. Wait a bit, though!" he added, with a sudden smile upon his +face. "Talking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea. What +about exposing a fraud—a modern Munchausen—and making him +rideeculous? You could show him up as the liar that he is! Eh, man, +it would be fine. How does it appeal to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Anything—anywhere—I care nothing." +</P> + +<P> +McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder whether you could get on friendly—or at least on talking +terms with the fellow," he said, at last. "You seem to have a sort of +genius for establishing relations with people—seempathy, I suppose, or +animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something. I am conscious +of it myself." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very good, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger, of +Enmore Park?" +</P> + +<P> +I dare say I looked a little startled. +</P> + +<P> +"Challenger!" I cried. "Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist! +Wasn't he the man who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph?" +</P> + +<P> +The news editor smiled grimly. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mind? Didn't you say it was adventures you were after?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is all in the way of business, sir," I answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. I don't suppose he can always be so violent as that. I'm +thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the +wrong fashion. You may have better luck, or more tact in handling him. +There's something in your line there, I am sure, and the Gazette should +work it." +</P> + +<P> +"I really know nothing about him," said I. "I only remember his name +in connection with the police-court proceedings, for striking Blundell." +</P> + +<P> +"I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr. Malone. I've had my eye on +the Professor for some little time." He took a paper from a drawer. +"Here is a summary of his record. I give it you briefly:— +</P> + +<P> +"'Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863. Educ.: Largs +Academy; Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. +Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. +Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year. Winner of +Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign Member of'—well, +quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type—'Societe Belge, +American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc. Ex-President +Palaeontological Society. Section H, British Association'—so on, so +on!—'Publications: "Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuck +Skulls"; "Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution"; and numerous papers, +including "The underlying fallacy of Weissmannism," which caused heated +discussion at the Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations: Walking, +Alpine climbing. Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.' +</P> + +<P> +"There, take it with you. I've nothing more for you to-night." +</P> + +<P> +I pocketed the slip of paper. +</P> + +<P> +"One moment, sir," I said, as I realized that it was a pink bald head, +and not a red face, which was fronting me. "I am not very clear yet +why I am to interview this gentleman. What has he done?" +</P> + +<P> +The face flashed back again. +</P> + +<P> +"Went to South America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago. Came +back last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to +say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a vague way, but +somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. +Something wonderful happened—or the man's a champion liar, which is +the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to +be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, +and heaves reporters down the stairs. In my opinion he's just a +homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. +Malone. Now, off you run, and see what you can make of him. You're +big enough to look after yourself. Anyway, you are all safe. +Employers' Liability Act, you know." +</P> + +<P> +A grinning red face turned once more into a pink oval, fringed with +gingery fluff; the interview was at an end. +</P> + +<P> +I walked across to the Savage Club, but instead of turning into it I +leaned upon the railings of Adelphi Terrace and gazed thoughtfully for +a long time at the brown, oily river. I can always think most sanely +and clearly in the open air. I took out the list of Professor +Challenger's exploits, and I read it over under the electric lamp. +Then I had what I can only regard as an inspiration. As a Pressman, I +felt sure from what I had been told that I could never hope to get into +touch with this cantankerous Professor. But these recriminations, +twice mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean that he was +a fanatic in science. Was there not an exposed margin there upon which +he might be accessible? I would try. +</P> + +<P> +I entered the club. It was just after eleven, and the big room was +fairly full, though the rush had not yet set in. I noticed a tall, +thin, angular man seated in an arm-chair by the fire. He turned as I +drew my chair up to him. It was the man of all others whom I should +have chosen—Tarp Henry, of the staff of Nature, a thin, dry, leathery +creature, who was full, to those who knew him, of kindly humanity. I +plunged instantly into my subject. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you know of Professor Challenger?" +</P> + +<P> +"Challenger?" He gathered his brows in scientific disapproval. +"Challenger was the man who came with some cock-and-bull story from +South America." +</P> + +<P> +"What story?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it was rank nonsense about some queer animals he had discovered. +I believe he has retracted since. Anyhow, he has suppressed it all. +He gave an interview to Reuter's, and there was such a howl that he saw +it wouldn't do. It was a discreditable business. There were one or +two folk who were inclined to take him seriously, but he soon choked +them off." +</P> + +<P> +"How?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior. There was +poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent a message: +'The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments to +Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favor if he would +do them the honor to come to their next meeting.' The answer was +unprintable." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: 'Professor Challenger +presents his compliments to the President of the Zoological Institute, +and would take it as a personal favor if he would go to the devil.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I expect that's what old Wadley said. I remember his wail at the +meeting, which began: 'In fifty years experience of scientific +intercourse——' It quite broke the old man up." +</P> + +<P> +"Anything more about Challenger?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a +nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take serious +notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye. I'm a +frontiersman from the extreme edge of the Knowable, and I feel quite +out of place when I leave my study and come into touch with all you +great, rough, hulking creatures. I'm too detached to talk scandal, and +yet at scientific conversaziones I HAVE heard something of Challenger, +for he is one of those men whom nobody can ignore. He's as clever as +they make 'em—a full-charged battery of force and vitality, but a +quarrelsome, ill-conditioned faddist, and unscrupulous at that. He had +gone the length of faking some photographs over the South American +business." +</P> + +<P> +"You say he is a faddist. What is his particular fad?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has a thousand, but the latest is something about Weissmann and +Evolution. He had a fearful row about it in Vienna, I believe." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you tell me the point?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not at the moment, but a translation of the proceedings exists. We +have it filed at the office. Would you care to come?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's just what I want. I have to interview the fellow, and I need +some lead up to him. It's really awfully good of you to give me a +lift. I'll go with you now, if it is not too late." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a huge +tome in front of me, which had been opened at the article "Weissmann +versus Darwin," with the sub heading, "Spirited Protest at Vienna. +Lively Proceedings." My scientific education having been somewhat +neglected, I was unable to follow the whole argument, but it was +evident that the English Professor had handled his subject in a very +aggressive fashion, and had thoroughly annoyed his Continental +colleagues. "Protests," "Uproar," and "General appeal to the Chairman" +were three of the first brackets which caught my eye. Most of the +matter might have been written in Chinese for any definite meaning that +it conveyed to my brain. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you could translate it into English for me," I said, +pathetically, to my help-mate. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is a translation." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'd better try my luck with the original." +</P> + +<P> +"It is certainly rather deep for a layman." +</P> + +<P> +"If I could only get a single good, meaty sentence which seemed to +convey some sort of definite human idea, it would serve my turn. Ah, +yes, this one will do. I seem in a vague way almost to understand it. +I'll copy it out. This shall be my link with the terrible Professor." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing else I can do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, yes; I propose to write to him. If I could frame the letter +here, and use your address it would give atmosphere." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll have the fellow round here making a row and breaking the +furniture." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no; you'll see the letter—nothing contentious, I assure you." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's my chair and desk. You'll find paper there. I'd like to +censor it before it goes." +</P> + +<P> +It took some doing, but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a bad job +when it was finished. I read it aloud to the critical bacteriologist +with some pride in my handiwork. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"DEAR PROFESSOR CHALLENGER," it said, "As a humble student of Nature, I +have always taken the most profound interest in your speculations as to +the differences between Darwin and Weissmann. I have recently had +occasion to refresh my memory by re-reading——" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"You infernal liar!" murmured Tarp Henry. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +—"by re-reading your masterly address at Vienna. That lucid and +admirable statement seems to be the last word in the matter. There is +one sentence in it, however—namely: 'I protest strongly against the +insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that each separate id is a +microcosm possessed of an historical architecture elaborated slowly +through the series of generations.' Have you no desire, in view of +later research, to modify this statement? Do you not think that it is +over-accentuated? With your permission, I would ask the favor of an +interview, as I feel strongly upon the subject, and have certain +suggestions which I could only elaborate in a personal conversation. +With your consent, I trust to have the honor of calling at eleven +o'clock the day after to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"I remain, Sir, with assurances of profound respect, yours very truly, +<BR> +EDWARD D. MALONE." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"How's that?" I asked, triumphantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well if your conscience can stand it——" +</P> + +<P> +"It has never failed me yet." +</P> + +<P> +"But what do you mean to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"To get there. Once I am in his room I may see some opening. I may +even go the length of open confession. If he is a sportsman he will be +tickled." +</P> + +<P> +"Tickled, indeed! He's much more likely to do the tickling. Chain +mail, or an American football suit—that's what you'll want. Well, +good-bye. I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning—if +he ever deigns to answer you. He is a violent, dangerous, cantankerous +character, hated by everyone who comes across him, and the butt of the +students, so far as they dare take a liberty with him. Perhaps it +would be best for you if you never heard from the fellow at all." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "He is a Perfectly Impossible Person" +</H3> + +<P> +My friend's fear or hope was not destined to be realized. When I +called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington +postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a +handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing. The contents were +as follows:— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"ENMORE PARK, W. +</P> + +<P> +"SIR,—I have duly received your note, in which you claim to endorse my +views, although I am not aware that they are dependent upon endorsement +either from you or anyone else. You have ventured to use the word +'speculation' with regard to my statement upon the subject of +Darwinism, and I would call your attention to the fact that such a word +in such a connection is offensive to a degree. The context convinces +me, however, that you have sinned rather through ignorance and +tactlessness than through malice, so I am content to pass the matter +by. You quote an isolated sentence from my lecture, and appear to have +some difficulty in understanding it. I should have thought that only a +sub-human intelligence could have failed to grasp the point, but if it +really needs amplification I shall consent to see you at the hour +named, though visits and visitors of every sort are exceeding +distasteful to me. As to your suggestion that I may modify my opinion, +I would have you know that it is not my habit to do so after a +deliberate expression of my mature views. You will kindly show the +envelope of this letter to my man, Austin, when you call, as he has to +take every precaution to shield me from the intrusive rascals who call +themselves 'journalists.' +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"Yours faithfully,<BR> + "GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This was the letter that I read aloud to Tarp Henry, who had come down +early to hear the result of my venture. His only remark was, "There's +some new stuff, cuticura or something, which is better than arnica." +Some people have such extraordinary notions of humor. +</P> + +<P> +It was nearly half-past ten before I had received my message, but a +taxicab took me round in good time for my appointment. It was an +imposing porticoed house at which we stopped, and the heavily-curtained +windows gave every indication of wealth upon the part of this +formidable Professor. The door was opened by an odd, swarthy, dried-up +person of uncertain age, with a dark pilot jacket and brown leather +gaiters. I found afterwards that he was the chauffeur, who filled the +gaps left by a succession of fugitive butlers. He looked me up and +down with a searching light blue eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Expected?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"An appointment." +</P> + +<P> +"Got your letter?" +</P> + +<P> +I produced the envelope. +</P> + +<P> +"Right!" He seemed to be a person of few words. Following him down +the passage I was suddenly interrupted by a small woman, who stepped +out from what proved to be the dining-room door. She was a bright, +vivacious, dark-eyed lady, more French than English in her type. +</P> + +<P> +"One moment," she said. "You can wait, Austin. Step in here, sir. +May I ask if you have met my husband before?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, madam, I have not had the honor." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I apologize to you in advance. I must tell you that he is a +perfectly impossible person—absolutely impossible. If you are +forewarned you will be the more ready to make allowances." +</P> + +<P> +"It is most considerate of you, madam." +</P> + +<P> +"Get quickly out of the room if he seems inclined to be violent. Don't +wait to argue with him. Several people have been injured through doing +that. Afterwards there is a public scandal and it reflects upon me and +all of us. I suppose it wasn't about South America you wanted to see +him?" +</P> + +<P> +I could not lie to a lady. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me! That is his most dangerous subject. You won't believe a +word he says—I'm sure I don't wonder. But don't tell him so, for it +makes him very violent. Pretend to believe him, and you may get +through all right. Remember he believes it himself. Of that you may +be assured. A more honest man never lived. Don't wait any longer or +he may suspect. If you find him dangerous—really dangerous—ring the +bell and hold him off until I come. Even at his worst I can usually +control him." +</P> + +<P> +With these encouraging words the lady handed me over to the taciturn +Austin, who had waited like a bronze statue of discretion during our +short interview, and I was conducted to the end of the passage. There +was a tap at a door, a bull's bellow from within, and I was face to +face with the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +He sat in a rotating chair behind a broad table, which was covered with +books, maps, and diagrams. As I entered, his seat spun round to face +me. His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something +strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his +size which took one's breath away—his size and his imposing presence. +His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. +I am sure that his top-hat, had I ever ventured to don it, would have +slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face +and beard which I associate with an Assyrian bull; the former florid, +the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped +and rippling down over his chest. The hair was peculiar, plastered +down in front in a long, curving wisp over his massive forehead. The +eyes were blue-gray under great black tufts, very clear, very critical, +and very masterful. A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a +barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table, save +for two enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a +bellowing, roaring, rumbling voice made up my first impression of the +notorious Professor Challenger. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" said he, with a most insolent stare. "What now?" +</P> + +<P> +I must keep up my deception for at least a little time longer, +otherwise here was evidently an end of the interview. +</P> + +<P> +"You were good enough to give me an appointment, sir," said I, humbly, +producing his envelope. +</P> + +<P> +He took my letter from his desk and laid it out before him. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you are the young person who cannot understand plain English, are +you? My general conclusions you are good enough to approve, as I +understand?" +</P> + +<P> +"Entirely, sir—entirely!" I was very emphatic. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me! That strengthens my position very much, does it not? Your +age and appearance make your support doubly valuable. Well, at least +you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna, whose gregarious +grunt is, however, not more offensive than the isolated effort of the +British hog." He glared at me as the present representative of the +beast. +</P> + +<P> +"They seem to have behaved abominably," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"I assure you that I can fight my own battles, and that I have no +possible need of your sympathy. Put me alone, sir, and with my back to +the wall. G. E. C. is happiest then. Well, sir, let us do what we can +to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is +inexpressibly irksome to me. You had, as I have been led to believe, +some comments to make upon the proposition which I advanced in my +thesis." +</P> + +<P> +There was a brutal directness about his methods which made evasion +difficult. I must still make play and wait for a better opening. It +had seemed simple enough at a distance. Oh, my Irish wits, could they +not help me now, when I needed help so sorely? He transfixed me with +two sharp, steely eyes. "Come, come!" he rumbled. +</P> + +<P> +"I am, of course, a mere student," said I, with a fatuous smile, +"hardly more, I might say, than an earnest inquirer. At the same time, +it seemed to me that you were a little severe upon Weissmann in this +matter. Has not the general evidence since that date tended to—well, +to strengthen his position?" +</P> + +<P> +"What evidence?" He spoke with a menacing calm. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, of course, I am aware that there is not any what you might call +DEFINITE evidence. I alluded merely to the trend of modern thought and +the general scientific point of view, if I might so express it." +</P> + +<P> +He leaned forward with great earnestness. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you are aware," said he, checking off points upon his +fingers, "that the cranial index is a constant factor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"And that telegony is still sub judice?" +</P> + +<P> +"Undoubtedly." +</P> + +<P> +"And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, surely!" I cried, and gloried in my own audacity. +</P> + +<P> +"But what does that prove?" he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, what indeed?" I murmured. "What does it prove?" +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I tell you?" he cooed. +</P> + +<P> +"Pray do." +</P> + +<P> +"It proves," he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, "that you are the +damnedest imposter in London—a vile, crawling journalist, who has no +more science than he has decency in his composition!" +</P> + +<P> +He had sprung to his feet with a mad rage in his eyes. Even at that +moment of tension I found time for amazement at the discovery that he +was quite a short man, his head not higher than my shoulder—a stunted +Hercules whose tremendous vitality had all run to depth, breadth, and +brain. +</P> + +<P> +"Gibberish!" he cried, leaning forward, with his fingers on the table +and his face projecting. "That's what I have been talking to you, +sir—scientific gibberish! Did you think you could match cunning with +me—you with your walnut of a brain? You think you are omnipotent, you +infernal scribblers, don't you? That your praise can make a man and +your blame can break him? We must all bow to you, and try to get a +favorable word, must we? This man shall have a leg up, and this man +shall have a dressing down! Creeping vermin, I know you! You've got +out of your station. Time was when your ears were clipped. You've +lost your sense of proportion. Swollen gas-bags! I'll keep you in +your proper place. Yes, sir, you haven't got over G. E. C. There's +one man who is still your master. He warned you off, but if you WILL +come, by the Lord you do it at your own risk. Forfeit, my good Mr. +Malone, I claim forfeit! You have played a rather dangerous game, and +it strikes me that you have lost it." +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, sir," said I, backing to the door and opening it; "you can +be as abusive as you like. But there is a limit. You shall not +assault me." +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I not?" He was slowly advancing in a peculiarly menacing way, +but he stopped now and put his big hands into the side-pockets of a +rather boyish short jacket which he wore. "I have thrown several of +you out of the house. You will be the fourth or fifth. Three pound +fifteen each—that is how it averaged. Expensive, but very necessary. +Now, sir, why should you not follow your brethren? I rather think you +must." He resumed his unpleasant and stealthy advance, pointing his +toes as he walked, like a dancing master. +</P> + +<P> +I could have bolted for the hall door, but it would have been too +ignominious. Besides, a little glow of righteous anger was springing +up within me. I had been hopelessly in the wrong before, but this +man's menaces were putting me in the right. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll trouble you to keep your hands off, sir. I'll not stand it." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me!" His black moustache lifted and a white fang twinkled in a +sneer. "You won't stand it, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be such a fool, Professor!" I cried. "What can you hope for? +I'm fifteen stone, as hard as nails, and play center three-quarter +every Saturday for the London Irish. I'm not the man——" +</P> + +<P> +It was at that moment that he rushed me. It was lucky that I had +opened the door, or we should have gone through it. We did a +Catharine-wheel together down the passage. Somehow we gathered up a +chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street. My +mouth was full of his beard, our arms were locked, our bodies +intertwined, and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us. +The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went with a back +somersault down the front steps. I have seen the two Macs attempt +something of the kind at the halls, but it appears to take some +practise to do it without hurting oneself. The chair went to matchwood +at the bottom, and we rolled apart into the gutter. He sprang to his +feet, waving his fists and wheezing like an asthmatic. +</P> + +<P> +"Had enough?" he panted. +</P> + +<P> +"You infernal bully!" I cried, as I gathered myself together. +</P> + +<P> +Then and there we should have tried the thing out, for he was +effervescing with fight, but fortunately I was rescued from an odious +situation. A policeman was beside us, his notebook in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"What's all this? You ought to be ashamed" said the policeman. It was +the most rational remark which I had heard in Enmore Park. "Well," he +insisted, turning to me, "what is it, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"This man attacked me," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you attack him?" asked the policeman. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor breathed hard and said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not the first time, either," said the policeman, severely, +shaking his head. "You were in trouble last month for the same thing. +You've blackened this young man's eye. Do you give him in charge, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +I relented. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said I, "I do not." +</P> + +<P> +"What's that?" said the policeman. +</P> + +<P> +"I was to blame myself. I intruded upon him. He gave me fair warning." +</P> + +<P> +The policeman snapped up his notebook. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't let us have any more such goings-on," said he. "Now, then! +Move on, there, move on!" This to a butcher's boy, a maid, and one or +two loafers who had collected. He clumped heavily down the street, +driving this little flock before him. The Professor looked at me, and +there was something humorous at the back of his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Come in!" said he. "I've not done with you yet." +</P> + +<P> +The speech had a sinister sound, but I followed him none the less into +the house. The man-servant, Austin, like a wooden image, closed the +door behind us. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "It's Just the very Biggest Thing in the World" +</H3> + +<P> +Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger darted out from the +dining-room. The small woman was in a furious temper. She barred her +husband's way like an enraged chicken in front of a bulldog. It was +evident that she had seen my exit, but had not observed my return. +</P> + +<P> +"You brute, George!" she screamed. "You've hurt that nice young man." +</P> + +<P> +He jerked backwards with his thumb. +</P> + +<P> +"Here he is, safe and sound behind me." +</P> + +<P> +She was confused, but not unduly so. +</P> + +<P> +"I am so sorry, I didn't see you." +</P> + +<P> +"I assure you, madam, that it is all right." +</P> + +<P> +"He has marked your poor face! Oh, George, what a brute you are! +Nothing but scandals from one end of the week to the other. Everyone +hating and making fun of you. You've finished my patience. This ends +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Dirty linen," he rumbled. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not a secret," she cried. "Do you suppose that the whole +street—the whole of London, for that matter—— Get away, Austin, we +don't want you here. Do you suppose they don't all talk about you? +Where is your dignity? You, a man who should have been Regius +Professor at a great University with a thousand students all revering +you. Where is your dignity, George?" +</P> + +<P> +"How about yours, my dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"You try me too much. A ruffian—a common brawling ruffian—that's +what you have become." +</P> + +<P> +"Be good, Jessie." +</P> + +<P> +"A roaring, raging bully!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's done it! Stool of penance!" said he. +</P> + +<P> +To my amazement he stooped, picked her up, and placed her sitting upon +a high pedestal of black marble in the angle of the hall. It was at +least seven feet high, and so thin that she could hardly balance upon +it. A more absurd object than she presented cocked up there with her +face convulsed with anger, her feet dangling, and her body rigid for +fear of an upset, I could not imagine. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me down!" she wailed. +</P> + +<P> +"Say 'please.'" +</P> + +<P> +"You brute, George! Let me down this instant!" +</P> + +<P> +"Come into the study, Mr. Malone." +</P> + +<P> +"Really, sir——!" said I, looking at the lady. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's Mr. Malone pleading for you, Jessie. Say 'please,' and down +you come." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you brute! Please! please!" +</P> + +<P> +He took her down as if she had been a canary. +</P> + +<P> +"You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. He will +have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra dozen among our +neighbors. 'Strange story of high life'—you felt fairly high on that +pedestal, did you not? Then a sub-title, 'Glimpse of a singular +menage.' He's a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone, a carrion eater, like all +of his kind—porcus ex grege diaboli—a swine from the devil's herd. +That's it, Malone—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are really intolerable!" said I, hotly. +</P> + +<P> +He bellowed with laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"We shall have a coalition presently," he boomed, looking from his wife +to me and puffing out his enormous chest. Then, suddenly altering his +tone, "Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone. I called you +back for some more serious purpose than to mix you up with our little +domestic pleasantries. Run away, little woman, and don't fret." He +placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders. "All that you say is +perfectly true. I should be a better man if I did what you advise, but +I shouldn't be quite George Edward Challenger. There are plenty of +better men, my dear, but only one G. E. C. So make the best of him." +He suddenly gave her a resounding kiss, which embarrassed me even more +than his violence had done. "Now, Mr. Malone," he continued, with a +great accession of dignity, "this way, if YOU please." +</P> + +<P> +We re-entered the room which we had left so tumultuously ten minutes +before. The Professor closed the door carefully behind us, motioned me +into an arm-chair, and pushed a cigar-box under my nose. +</P> + +<P> +"Real San Juan Colorado," he said. "Excitable people like you are the +better for narcotics. Heavens! don't bite it! Cut—and cut with +reverence! Now lean back, and listen attentively to whatever I may +care to say to you. If any remark should occur to you, you can reserve +it for some more opportune time. +</P> + +<P> +"First of all, as to your return to my house after your most +justifiable expulsion"—he protruded his beard, and stared at me as one +who challenges and invites contradiction—"after, as I say, your +well-merited expulsion. The reason lay in your answer to that most +officious policeman, in which I seemed to discern some glimmering of +good feeling upon your part—more, at any rate, than I am accustomed to +associate with your profession. In admitting that the fault of the +incident lay with you, you gave some evidence of a certain mental +detachment and breadth of view which attracted my favorable notice. +The sub-species of the human race to which you unfortunately belong has +always been below my mental horizon. Your words brought you suddenly +above it. You swam up into my serious notice. For this reason I asked +you to return with me, as I was minded to make your further +acquaintance. You will kindly deposit your ash in the small Japanese +tray on the bamboo table which stands at your left elbow." +</P> + +<P> +All this he boomed forth like a professor addressing his class. He had +swung round his revolving chair so as to face me, and he sat all puffed +out like an enormous bull-frog, his head laid back and his eyes +half-covered by supercilious lids. Now he suddenly turned himself +sideways, and all I could see of him was tangled hair with a red, +protruding ear. He was scratching about among the litter of papers +upon his desk. He faced me presently with what looked like a very +tattered sketch-book in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to talk to you about South America," said he. "No comments +if you please. First of all, I wish you to understand that nothing I +tell you now is to be repeated in any public way unless you have my +express permission. That permission will, in all human probability, +never be given. Is that clear?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is very hard," said I. "Surely a judicious account——" +</P> + +<P> +He replaced the notebook upon the table. +</P> + +<P> +"That ends it," said he. "I wish you a very good morning." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no!" I cried. "I submit to any conditions. So far as I can see, +I have no choice." +</P> + +<P> +"None in the world," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, I promise." +</P> + +<P> +"Word of honor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Word of honor." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at me with doubt in his insolent eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"After all, what do I know about your honor?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Upon my word, sir," I cried, angrily, "you take very great liberties! +I have never been so insulted in my life." +</P> + +<P> +He seemed more interested than annoyed at my outbreak. +</P> + +<P> +"Round-headed," he muttered. "Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, black-haired, +with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am an Irishman, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Irish Irish?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"That, of course, explains it. Let me see; you have given me your +promise that my confidence will be respected? That confidence, I may +say, will be far from complete. But I am prepared to give you a few +indications which will be of interest. In the first place, you are +probably aware that two years ago I made a journey to South +America—one which will be classical in the scientific history of the +world? The object of my journey was to verify some conclusions of +Wallace and of Bates, which could only be done by observing their +reported facts under the same conditions in which they had themselves +noted them. If my expedition had no other results it would still have +been noteworthy, but a curious incident occurred to me while there +which opened up an entirely fresh line of inquiry. +</P> + +<P> +"You are aware—or probably, in this half-educated age, you are not +aware—that the country round some parts of the Amazon is still only +partially explored, and that a great number of tributaries, some of +them entirely uncharted, run into the main river. It was my business +to visit this little-known back-country and to examine its fauna, which +furnished me with the materials for several chapters for that great and +monumental work upon zoology which will be my life's justification. I +was returning, my work accomplished, when I had occasion to spend a +night at a small Indian village at a point where a certain +tributary—the name and position of which I withhold—opens into the +main river. The natives were Cucama Indians, an amiable but degraded +race, with mental powers hardly superior to the average Londoner. I +had effected some cures among them upon my way up the river, and had +impressed them considerably with my personality, so that I was not +surprised to find myself eagerly awaited upon my return. I gathered +from their signs that someone had urgent need of my medical services, +and I followed the chief to one of his huts. When I entered I found +that the sufferer to whose aid I had been summoned had that instant +expired. He was, to my surprise, no Indian, but a white man; indeed, I +may say a very white man, for he was flaxen-haired and had some +characteristics of an albino. He was clad in rags, was very emaciated, +and bore every trace of prolonged hardship. So far as I could +understand the account of the natives, he was a complete stranger to +them, and had come upon their village through the woods alone and in +the last stage of exhaustion. +</P> + +<P> +"The man's knapsack lay beside the couch, and I examined the contents. +His name was written upon a tab within it—Maple White, Lake Avenue, +Detroit, Michigan. It is a name to which I am prepared always to lift +my hat. It is not too much to say that it will rank level with my own +when the final credit of this business comes to be apportioned. +</P> + +<P> +"From the contents of the knapsack it was evident that this man had +been an artist and poet in search of effects. There were scraps of +verse. I do not profess to be a judge of such things, but they +appeared to me to be singularly wanting in merit. There were also some +rather commonplace pictures of river scenery, a paint-box, a box of +colored chalks, some brushes, that curved bone which lies upon my +inkstand, a volume of Baxter's 'Moths and Butterflies,' a cheap +revolver, and a few cartridges. Of personal equipment he either had +none or he had lost it in his journey. Such were the total effects of +this strange American Bohemian. +</P> + +<P> +"I was turning away from him when I observed that something projected +from the front of his ragged jacket. It was this sketch-book, which +was as dilapidated then as you see it now. Indeed, I can assure you +that a first folio of Shakespeare could not be treated with greater +reverence than this relic has been since it came into my possession. I +hand it to you now, and I ask you to take it page by page and to +examine the contents." +</P> + +<P> +He helped himself to a cigar and leaned back with a fiercely critical +pair of eyes, taking note of the effect which this document would +produce. +</P> + +<P> +I had opened the volume with some expectation of a revelation, though +of what nature I could not imagine. The first page was disappointing, +however, as it contained nothing but the picture of a very fat man in a +pea-jacket, with the legend, "Jimmy Colver on the Mail-boat," written +beneath it. There followed several pages which were filled with small +sketches of Indians and their ways. Then came a picture of a cheerful +and corpulent ecclesiastic in a shovel hat, sitting opposite a very +thin European, and the inscription: "Lunch with Fra Cristofero at +Rosario." Studies of women and babies accounted for several more +pages, and then there was an unbroken series of animal drawings with +such explanations as "Manatee upon Sandbank," "Turtles and Their Eggs," +"Black Ajouti under a Miriti Palm"—the matter disclosing some sort of +pig-like animal; and finally came a double page of studies of +long-snouted and very unpleasant saurians. I could make nothing of it, +and said so to the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely these are only crocodiles?" +</P> + +<P> +"Alligators! Alligators! There is hardly such a thing as a true +crocodile in South America. The distinction between them——" +</P> + +<P> +"I meant that I could see nothing unusual—nothing to justify what you +have said." +</P> + +<P> +He smiled serenely. +</P> + +<P> +"Try the next page," said he. +</P> + +<P> +I was still unable to sympathize. It was a full-page sketch of a +landscape roughly tinted in color—the kind of painting which an +open-air artist takes as a guide to a future more elaborate effort. +There was a pale-green foreground of feathery vegetation, which sloped +upwards and ended in a line of cliffs dark red in color, and curiously +ribbed like some basaltic formations which I have seen. They extended +in an unbroken wall right across the background. At one point was an +isolated pyramidal rock, crowned by a great tree, which appeared to be +separated by a cleft from the main crag. Behind it all, a blue +tropical sky. A thin green line of vegetation fringed the summit of +the ruddy cliff. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It is no doubt a curious formation," said I "but I am not geologist +enough to say that it is wonderful." +</P> + +<P> +"Wonderful!" he repeated. "It is unique. It is incredible. No one on +earth has ever dreamed of such a possibility. Now the next." +</P> + +<P> +I turned it over, and gave an exclamation of surprise. There was a +full-page picture of the most extraordinary creature that I had ever +seen. It was the wild dream of an opium smoker, a vision of delirium. +The head was like that of a fowl, the body that of a bloated lizard, +the trailing tail was furnished with upward-turned spikes, and the +curved back was edged with a high serrated fringe, which looked like a +dozen cocks' wattles placed behind each other. In front of this +creature was an absurd mannikin, or dwarf, in human form, who stood +staring at it. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what do you think of that?" cried the Professor, rubbing his +hands with an air of triumph. +</P> + +<P> +"It is monstrous—grotesque." +</P> + +<P> +"But what made him draw such an animal?" +</P> + +<P> +"Trade gin, I should think." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's the best explanation you can give, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, what is yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"The obvious one that the creature exists. That is actually sketched +from the life." +</P> + +<P> +I should have laughed only that I had a vision of our doing another +Catharine-wheel down the passage. +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt," said I, "no doubt," as one humors an imbecile. "I confess, +however," I added, "that this tiny human figure puzzles me. If it were +an Indian we could set it down as evidence of some pigmy race in +America, but it appears to be a European in a sun-hat." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor snorted like an angry buffalo. "You really touch the +limit," said he. "You enlarge my view of the possible. Cerebral +paresis! Mental inertia! Wonderful!" +</P> + +<P> +He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of energy, +for if you were going to be angry with this man you would be angry all +the time. I contented myself with smiling wearily. "It struck me that +the man was small," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here!" he cried, leaning forward and dabbing a great hairy +sausage of a finger on to the picture. "You see that plant behind the +animal; I suppose you thought it was a dandelion or a Brussels +sprout—what? Well, it is a vegetable ivory palm, and they run to +about fifty or sixty feet. Don't you see that the man is put in for a +purpose? He couldn't really have stood in front of that brute and +lived to draw it. He sketched himself in to give a scale of heights. +He was, we will say, over five feet high. The tree is ten times +bigger, which is what one would expect." +</P> + +<P> +"Good heavens!" I cried. "Then you think the beast was—— Why, +Charing Cross station would hardly make a kennel for such a brute!" +</P> + +<P> +"Apart from exaggeration, he is certainly a well-grown specimen," said +the Professor, complacently. +</P> + +<P> +"But," I cried, "surely the whole experience of the human race is not +to be set aside on account of a single sketch"—I had turned over the +leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more in the book—"a +single sketch by a wandering American artist who may have done it under +hashish, or in the delirium of fever, or simply in order to gratify a +freakish imagination. You can't, as a man of science, defend such a +position as that." +</P> + +<P> +For answer the Professor took a book down from a shelf. +</P> + +<P> +"This is an excellent monograph by my gifted friend, Ray Lankester!" +said he. "There is an illustration here which would interest you. Ah, +yes, here it is! The inscription beneath it runs: 'Probable +appearance in life of the Jurassic Dinosaur Stegosaurus. The hind leg +alone is twice as tall as a full-grown man.' Well, what do you make of +that?" +</P> + +<P> +He handed me the open book. I started as I looked at the picture. In +this reconstructed animal of a dead world there was certainly a very +great resemblance to the sketch of the unknown artist. +</P> + +<P> +"That is certainly remarkable," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"But you won't admit that it is final?" +</P> + +<P> +"Surely it might be a coincidence, or this American may have seen a +picture of the kind and carried it in his memory. It would be likely +to recur to a man in a delirium." +</P> + +<P> +"Very good," said the Professor, indulgently; "we leave it at that. I +will now ask you to look at this bone." He handed over the one which he +had already described as part of the dead man's possessions. It was +about six inches long, and thicker than my thumb, with some indications +of dried cartilage at one end of it. +</P> + +<P> +"To what known creature does that bone belong?" asked the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +I examined it with care and tried to recall some half-forgotten +knowledge. +</P> + +<P> +"It might be a very thick human collar-bone," I said. +</P> + +<P> +My companion waved his hand in contemptuous deprecation. +</P> + +<P> +"The human collar-bone is curved. This is straight. There is a groove +upon its surface showing that a great tendon played across it, which +could not be the case with a clavicle." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I must confess that I don't know what it is." +</P> + +<P> +"You need not be ashamed to expose your ignorance, for I don't suppose +the whole South Kensington staff could give a name to it." He took a +little bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box. "So far as I am a +judge this human bone is the analogue of the one which you hold in your +hand. That will give you some idea of the size of the creature. You +will observe from the cartilage that this is no fossil specimen, but +recent. What do you say to that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Surely in an elephant——" +</P> + +<P> +He winced as if in pain. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these days +of Board schools——" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," I interrupted, "any large South American animal—a tapir, for +example." +</P> + +<P> +"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of my +business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of any +other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very large, a very +strong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animal which exists upon the +face of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science. +You are still unconvinced?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am at least deeply interested." +</P> + +<P> +"Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason lurking +in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. We will now +leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imagine +that I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeper +into the matter. There were indications as to the direction from which +the dead traveler had come. Indian legends would alone have been my +guide, for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among all +the riverine tribes. You have heard, no doubt, of Curupuri?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never." +</P> + +<P> +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods, something terrible, something +malevolent, something to be avoided. None can describe its shape or +nature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. Now all tribes +agree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives. It was the same +direction from which the American had come. Something terrible lay +that way. It was my business to find out what it was." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you do?" My flippancy was all gone. This massive man +compelled one's attention and respect. +</P> + +<P> +"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives—a reluctance which +extends even to talk upon the subject—and by judicious persuasion and +gifts, aided, I will admit, by some threats of coercion, I got two of +them to act as guides. After many adventures which I need not +describe, and after traveling a distance which I will not mention, in a +direction which I withhold, we came at last to a tract of country which +has never been described, nor, indeed, visited save by my unfortunate +predecessor. Would you kindly look at this?" +</P> + +<P> +He handed me a photograph—half-plate size. +</P> + +<P> +"The unsatisfactory appearance of it is due to the fact," said he, +"that on descending the river the boat was upset and the case which +contained the undeveloped films was broken, with disastrous results. +Nearly all of them were totally ruined—an irreparable loss. This is +one of the few which partially escaped. This explanation of +deficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept. There was talk +of faking. I am not in a mood to argue such a point." +</P> + +<P> +The photograph was certainly very off-colored. An unkind critic might +easily have misinterpreted that dim surface. It was a dull gray +landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realized +that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactly +like an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping, +tree-clad plain in the foreground. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe it is the same place as the painted picture," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"It is the same place," the Professor answered. "I found traces of the +fellow's camp. Now look at this." +</P> + +<P> +It was a nearer view of the same scene, though the photograph was +extremely defective. I could distinctly see the isolated, tree-crowned +pinnacle of rock which was detached from the crag. +</P> + +<P> +"I have no doubt of it at all," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that is something gained," said he. "We progress, do we not? +Now, will you please look at the top of that rocky pinnacle? Do you +observe something there?" +</P> + +<P> +"An enormous tree." +</P> + +<P> +"But on the tree?" +</P> + +<P> +"A large bird," said I. +</P> + +<P> +He handed me a lens. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I said, peering through it, "a large bird stands on the tree. +It appears to have a considerable beak. I should say it was a pelican." +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot congratulate you upon your eyesight," said the Professor. +"It is not a pelican, nor, indeed, is it a bird. It may interest you +to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen. It was +the only absolute proof of my experiences which I was able to bring +away with me." +</P> + +<P> +"You have it, then?" Here at last was tangible corroboration. +</P> + +<P> +"I had it. It was unfortunately lost with so much else in the same +boat accident which ruined my photographs. I clutched at it as it +disappeared in the swirl of the rapids, and part of its wing was left +in my hand. I was insensible when washed ashore, but the miserable +remnant of my superb specimen was still intact; I now lay it before +you." +</P> + +<P> +From a drawer he produced what seemed to me to be the upper portion of +the wing of a large bat. It was at least two feet in length, a curved +bone, with a membranous veil beneath it. +</P> + +<P> +"A monstrous bat!" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing of the sort," said the Professor, severely. "Living, as I do, +in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have conceived +that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it +possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative +anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the forearm, while the wing +of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between? +Now, in this case, the bone is certainly not the forearm, and you can +see for yourself that this is a single membrane hanging upon a single +bone, and therefore that it cannot belong to a bat. But if it is +neither bird nor bat, what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +My small stock of knowledge was exhausted. +</P> + +<P> +"I really do not know," said I. +</P> + +<P> +He opened the standard work to which he had already referred me. +</P> + +<P> +"Here," said he, pointing to the picture of an extraordinary flying +monster, "is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon, or +pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Jurassic period. On the next page +is a diagram of the mechanism of its wing. Kindly compare it with the +specimen in your hand." +</P> + +<P> +A wave of amazement passed over me as I looked. I was convinced. +There could be no getting away from it. The cumulative proof was +overwhelming. The sketch, the photographs, the narrative, and now the +actual specimen—the evidence was complete. I said so—I said so +warmly, for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man. He leaned +back in his chair with drooping eyelids and a tolerant smile, basking +in this sudden gleam of sunshine. +</P> + +<P> +"It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of!" said I, though +it was my journalistic rather than my scientific enthusiasm that was +roused. "It is colossal. You are a Columbus of science who has +discovered a lost world. I'm awfully sorry if I seemed to doubt you. +It was all so unthinkable. But I understand evidence when I see it, +and this should be good enough for anyone." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor purred with satisfaction. +</P> + +<P> +"And then, sir, what did you do next?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was the wet season, Mr. Malone, and my stores were exhausted. I +explored some portion of this huge cliff, but I was unable to find any +way to scale it. The pyramidal rock upon which I saw and shot the +pterodactyl was more accessible. Being something of a cragsman, I did +manage to get half way to the top of that. From that height I had a +better idea of the plateau upon the top of the crags. It appeared to +be very large; neither to east nor to west could I see any end to the +vista of green-capped cliffs. Below, it is a swampy, jungly region, +full of snakes, insects, and fever. It is a natural protection to this +singular country." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you see any other trace of life?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir, I did not; but during the week that we lay encamped at the +base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above." +</P> + +<P> +"But the creature that the American drew? How do you account for that?" +</P> + +<P> +"We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summit and +seen it there. We know, therefore, that there is a way up. We know +equally that it must be a very difficult one, otherwise the creatures +would have come down and overrun the surrounding country. Surely that +is clear?" +</P> + +<P> +"But how did they come to be there?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one," said the +Professor; "there can only be one explanation. South America is, as +you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single point in the +interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great, sudden +volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, are basaltic, and +therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps as Sussex, has been +lifted up en bloc with all its living contents, and cut off by +perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all +the rest of the continent. What is the result? Why, the ordinary laws +of Nature are suspended. The various checks which influence the +struggle for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or +altered. Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear. You will +observe that both the pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic, and +therefore of a great age in the order of life. They have been +artificially conserved by those strange accidental conditions." +</P> + +<P> +"But surely your evidence is conclusive. You have only to lay it +before the proper authorities." +</P> + +<P> +"So in my simplicity, I had imagined," said the Professor, bitterly. +"I can only tell you that it was not so, that I was met at every turn +by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. It is +not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man, or to seek to prove a fact if +my word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to +show such corroborative proofs as I possess. The subject became +hateful to me—I would not speak of it. When men like yourself, who +represent the foolish curiosity of the public, came to disturb my +privacy I was unable to meet them with dignified reserve. By nature I +am, I admit, somewhat fiery, and under provocation I am inclined to be +violent. I fear you may have remarked it." +</P> + +<P> +I nursed my eye and was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"My wife has frequently remonstrated with me upon the subject, and yet +I fancy that any man of honor would feel the same. To-night, however, +I propose to give an extreme example of the control of the will over +the emotions. I invite you to be present at the exhibition." He +handed me a card from his desk. "You will perceive that Mr. Percival +Waldron, a naturalist of some popular repute, is announced to lecture +at eight-thirty at the Zoological Institute's Hall upon 'The Record of +the Ages.' I have been specially invited to be present upon the +platform, and to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing +so, I shall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, to +throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the audience +and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply into the matter. +Nothing contentious, you understand, but only an indication that there +are greater deeps beyond. I shall hold myself strongly in leash, and +see whether by this self-restraint I attain a more favorable result." +</P> + +<P> +"And I may come?" I asked eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, surely," he answered, cordially. He had an enormously massive +genial manner, which was almost as overpowering as his violence. His +smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing, when his cheeks would +suddenly bunch into two red apples, between his half-closed eyes and +his great black beard. "By all means, come. It will be a comfort to +me to know that I have one ally in the hall, however inefficient and +ignorant of the subject he may be. I fancy there will be a large +audience, for Waldron, though an absolute charlatan, has a considerable +popular following. Now, Mr. Malone, I have given you rather more of my +time than I had intended. The individual must not monopolize what is +meant for the world. I shall be pleased to see you at the lecture +to-night. In the meantime, you will understand that no public use is +to be made of any of the material that I have given you." +</P> + +<P> +"But Mr. McArdle—my news editor, you know—will want to know what I +have done." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell him what you like. You can say, among other things, that if he +sends anyone else to intrude upon me I shall call upon him with a +riding-whip. But I leave it to you that nothing of all this appears in +print. Very good. Then the Zoological Institute's Hall at +eight-thirty to-night." I had a last impression of red cheeks, blue +rippling beard, and intolerant eyes, as he waved me out of the room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Question!" +</H3> + +<P> +What with the physical shocks incidental to my first interview with +Professor Challenger and the mental ones which accompanied the second, +I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I found myself in +Enmore Park once more. In my aching head the one thought was throbbing +that there really was truth in this man's story, that it was of +tremendous consequence, and that it would work up into inconceivable +copy for the Gazette when I could obtain permission to use it. A +taxicab was waiting at the end of the road, so I sprang into it and +drove down to the office. McArdle was at his post as usual. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he cried, expectantly, "what may it run to? I'm thinking, +young man, you have been in the wars. Don't tell me that he assaulted +you." +</P> + +<P> +"We had a little difference at first." +</P> + +<P> +"What a man it is! What did you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, he became more reasonable and we had a chat. But I got nothing +out of him—nothing for publication." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not so sure about that. You got a black eye out of him, and +that's for publication. We can't have this reign of terror, Mr. +Malone. We must bring the man to his bearings. I'll have a leaderette +on him to-morrow that will raise a blister. Just give me the material +and I will engage to brand the fellow for ever. Professor +Munchausen—how's that for an inset headline? Sir John Mandeville +redivivus—Cagliostro—all the imposters and bullies in history. I'll +show him up for the fraud he is." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't do that, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because he is not a fraud at all." +</P> + +<P> +"What!" roared McArdle. "You don't mean to say you really believe this +stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great sea sairpents?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't know about that. I don't think he makes any claims of +that kind. But I do believe he has got something new." +</P> + +<P> +"Then for Heaven's sake, man, write it up!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm longing to, but all I know he gave me in confidence and on +condition that I didn't." I condensed into a few sentences the +Professor's narrative. "That's how it stands." +</P> + +<P> +McArdle looked deeply incredulous. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mr. Malone," he said at last, "about this scientific meeting +to-night; there can be no privacy about that, anyhow. I don't suppose +any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has been reported already +a dozen times, and no one is aware that Challenger will speak. We may +get a scoop, if we are lucky. You'll be there in any case, so you'll +just give us a pretty full report. I'll keep space up to midnight." +</P> + +<P> +My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the Savage Club +with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. He +listened with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared with +laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear chap, things don't happen like that in real life. People +don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence. +Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as full of tricks as the +monkey-house at the Zoo. It's all bosh." +</P> + +<P> +"But the American poet?" +</P> + +<P> +"He never existed." +</P> + +<P> +"I saw his sketch-book." +</P> + +<P> +"Challenger's sketch-book." +</P> + +<P> +"You think he drew that animal?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course he did. Who else?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, the photographs?" +</P> + +<P> +"There was nothing in the photographs. By your own admission you only +saw a bird." +</P> + +<P> +"A pterodactyl." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what HE says. He put the pterodactyl into your head." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, the bones?" +</P> + +<P> +"First one out of an Irish stew. Second one vamped up for the +occasion. If you are clever and know your business you can fake a bone +as easily as you can a photograph." +</P> + +<P> +I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps, after all, I had been premature in my +acquiescence. Then I had a sudden happy thought. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you come to the meeting?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +Tarp Henry looked thoughtful. +</P> + +<P> +"He is not a popular person, the genial Challenger," said he. "A lot +of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he is about +the best-hated man in London. If the medical students turn out there +will be no end of a rag. I don't want to get into a bear-garden." +</P> + +<P> +"You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, perhaps it's only fair. All right. I'm your man for the +evening." +</P> + +<P> +When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than I +had expected. A line of electric broughams discharged their little +cargoes of white-bearded professors, while the dark stream of humbler +pedestrians, who crowded through the arched door-way, showed that the +audience would be popular as well as scientific. Indeed, it became +evident to us as soon as we had taken our seats that a youthful and +even boyish spirit was abroad in the gallery and the back portions of +the hall. Looking behind me, I could see rows of faces of the familiar +medical student type. Apparently the great hospitals had each sent +down their contingent. The behavior of the audience at present was +good-humored, but mischievous. Scraps of popular songs were chorused +with an enthusiasm which was a strange prelude to a scientific lecture, +and there was already a tendency to personal chaff which promised a +jovial evening to others, however embarrassing it might be to the +recipients of these dubious honors. +</P> + +<P> +Thus, when old Doctor Meldrum, with his well-known curly-brimmed +opera-hat, appeared upon the platform, there was such a universal query +of "Where DID you get that tile?" that he hurriedly removed it, and +concealed it furtively under his chair. When gouty Professor Wadley +limped down to his seat there were general affectionate inquiries from +all parts of the hall as to the exact state of his poor toe, which +caused him obvious embarrassment. The greatest demonstration of all, +however, was at the entrance of my new acquaintance, Professor +Challenger, when he passed down to take his place at the extreme end of +the front row of the platform. Such a yell of welcome broke forth when +his black beard first protruded round the corner that I began to +suspect Tarp Henry was right in his surmise, and that this assemblage +was there not merely for the sake of the lecture, but because it had +got rumored abroad that the famous Professor would take part in the +proceedings. +</P> + +<P> +There was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance among the front +benches of well-dressed spectators, as though the demonstration of the +students in this instance was not unwelcome to them. That greeting +was, indeed, a frightful outburst of sound, the uproar of the carnivora +cage when the step of the bucket-bearing keeper is heard in the +distance. There was an offensive tone in it, perhaps, and yet in the +main it struck me as mere riotous outcry, the noisy reception of one +who amused and interested them, rather than of one they disliked or +despised. Challenger smiled with weary and tolerant contempt, as a +kindly man would meet the yapping of a litter of puppies. He sat +slowly down, blew out his chest, passed his hand caressingly down his +beard, and looked with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at the +crowded hall before him. The uproar of his advent had not yet died +away when Professor Ronald Murray, the chairman, and Mr. Waldron, the +lecturer, threaded their way to the front, and the proceedings began. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Murray will, I am sure, excuse me if I say that he has the +common fault of most Englishmen of being inaudible. Why on earth +people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take +the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange +mysteries of modern life. Their methods are as reasonable as to try to +pour some precious stuff from the spring to the reservoir through a +non-conducting pipe, which could by the least effort be opened. +Professor Murray made several profound remarks to his white tie and to +the water-carafe upon the table, with a humorous, twinkling aside to +the silver candlestick upon his right. Then he sat down, and Mr. +Waldron, the famous popular lecturer, rose amid a general murmur of +applause. He was a stern, gaunt man, with a harsh voice, and an +aggressive manner, but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate +the ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was +intelligible and even interesting to the lay public, with a happy knack +of being funny about the most unlikely objects, so that the precession +of the Equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly +humorous process as treated by him. +</P> + +<P> +It was a bird's-eye view of creation, as interpreted by science, which, +in language always clear and sometimes picturesque, he unfolded before +us. He told us of the globe, a huge mass of flaming gas, flaring +through the heavens. Then he pictured the solidification, the cooling, +the wrinkling which formed the mountains, the steam which turned to +water, the slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played +the inexplicable drama of life. On the origin of life itself he was +discreetly vague. That the germs of it could hardly have survived the +original roasting was, he declared, fairly certain. Therefore it had +come later. Had it built itself out of the cooling, inorganic elements +of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived from outside +upon a meteor? It was hardly conceivable. On the whole, the wisest +man was the least dogmatic upon the point. We could not—or at least +we had not succeeded up to date in making organic life in our +laboratories out of inorganic materials. The gulf between the dead and +the living was something which our chemistry could not as yet bridge. +But there was a higher and subtler chemistry of Nature, which, working +with great forces over long epochs, might well produce results which +were impossible for us. There the matter must be left. +</P> + +<P> +This brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, beginning +low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures, then up rung by rung +through reptiles and fishes, till at last we came to a kangaroo-rat, a +creature which brought forth its young alive, the direct ancestor of +all mammals, and presumably, therefore, of everyone in the audience. +("No, no," from a sceptical student in the back row.) If the young +gentleman in the red tie who cried "No, no," and who presumably claimed +to have been hatched out of an egg, would wait upon him after the +lecture, he would be glad to see such a curiosity. (Laughter.) It was +strange to think that the climax of all the age-long process of Nature +had been the creation of that gentleman in the red tie. But had the +process stopped? Was this gentleman to be taken as the final type—the +be-all and end-all of development? He hoped that he would not hurt the +feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that, +whatever virtues that gentleman might possess in private life, still +the vast processes of the universe were not fully justified if they +were to end entirely in his production. Evolution was not a spent +force, but one still working, and even greater achievements were in +store. +</P> + +<P> +Having thus, amid a general titter, played very prettily with his +interrupter, the lecturer went back to his picture of the past, the +drying of the seas, the emergence of the sand-bank, the sluggish, +viscous life which lay upon their margins, the overcrowded lagoons, the +tendency of the sea creatures to take refuge upon the mud-flats, the +abundance of food awaiting them, their consequent enormous growth. +"Hence, ladies and gentlemen," he added, "that frightful brood of +saurians which still affright our eyes when seen in the Wealden or in +the Solenhofen slates, but which were fortunately extinct long before +the first appearance of mankind upon this planet." +</P> + +<P> +"Question!" boomed a voice from the platform. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Waldron was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid humor, as +exemplified upon the gentleman with the red tie, which made it perilous +to interrupt him. But this interjection appeared to him so absurd that +he was at a loss how to deal with it. So looks the Shakespearean who +is confronted by a rancid Baconian, or the astronomer who is assailed +by a flat-earth fanatic. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his +voice, repeated slowly the words: "Which were extinct before the +coming of man." +</P> + +<P> +"Question!" boomed the voice once more. +</P> + +<P> +Waldron looked with amazement along the line of professors upon the +platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, who leaned +back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused expression, as if he +were smiling in his sleep. +</P> + +<P> +"I see!" said Waldron, with a shrug. "It is my friend Professor +Challenger," and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this was a +final explanation and no more need be said. +</P> + +<P> +But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever path the lecturer +took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably to lead him to some +assertion as to extinct or prehistoric life which instantly brought the +same bulls' bellow from the Professor. The audience began to +anticipate it and to roar with delight when it came. The packed +benches of students joined in, and every time Challenger's beard +opened, before any sound could come forth, there was a yell of +"Question!" from a hundred voices, and an answering counter cry of +"Order!" and "Shame!" from as many more. Waldron, though a hardened +lecturer and a strong man, became rattled. He hesitated, stammered, +repeated himself, got snarled in a long sentence, and finally turned +furiously upon the cause of his troubles. +</P> + +<P> +"This is really intolerable!" he cried, glaring across the platform. +"I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to cease these ignorant and +unmannerly interruptions." +</P> + +<P> +There was a hush over the hall, the students rigid with delight at +seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves. +Challenger levered his bulky figure slowly out of his chair. +</P> + +<P> +"I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldron," he said, "to cease to make +assertions which are not in strict accordance with scientific fact." +</P> + +<P> +The words unloosed a tempest. "Shame! Shame!" "Give him a hearing!" +"Put him out!" "Shove him off the platform!" "Fair play!" emerged +from a general roar of amusement or execration. The chairman was on +his feet flapping both his hands and bleating excitedly. "Professor +Challenger—personal—views—later," were the solid peaks above his +clouds of inaudible mutter. The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his +beard, and relapsed into his chair. Waldron, very flushed and warlike, +continued his observations. Now and then, as he made an assertion, he +shot a venomous glance at his opponent, who seemed to be slumbering +deeply, with the same broad, happy smile upon his face. +</P> + +<P> +At last the lecture came to an end—I am inclined to think that it was +a premature one, as the peroration was hurried and disconnected. The +thread of the argument had been rudely broken, and the audience was +restless and expectant. Waldron sat down, and, after a chirrup from +the chairman, Professor Challenger rose and advanced to the edge of the +platform. In the interests of my paper I took down his speech verbatim. +</P> + +<P> +"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, amid a sustained interruption from +the back. "I beg pardon—Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children—I must +apologize, I had inadvertently omitted a considerable section of this +audience" (tumult, during which the Professor stood with one hand +raised and his enormous head nodding sympathetically, as if he were +bestowing a pontifical blessing upon the crowd), "I have been selected +to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and +imaginative address to which we have just listened. There are points +in it with which I disagree, and it has been my duty to indicate them +as they arose, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished his +object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting account +of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. Popular +lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron" (here he beamed +and blinked at the lecturer) "will excuse me when I say that they are +necessarily both superficial and misleading, since they have to be +graded to the comprehension of an ignorant audience." (Ironical +cheering.) "Popular lecturers are in their nature parasitic." (Angry +gesture of protest from Mr. Waldron.) "They exploit for fame or cash +the work which has been done by their indigent and unknown brethren. +One smallest new fact obtained in the laboratory, one brick built into +the temple of science, far outweighs any second-hand exposition which +passes an idle hour, but can leave no useful result behind it. I put +forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to disparage Mr. +Waldron in particular, but that you may not lose your sense of +proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest." (At this point +Mr. Waldron whispered to the chairman, who half rose and said something +severely to his water-carafe.) "But enough of this!" (Loud and +prolonged cheers.) "Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. +What is the particular point upon which I, as an original investigator, +have challenged our lecturer's accuracy? It is upon the permanence of +certain types of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this +subject as an amateur, nor, I may add, as a popular lecturer, but I +speak as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely +to facts, when I say that Mr. Waldron is very wrong in supposing that +because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric animal, +therefore these creatures no longer exist. They are indeed, as he has +said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use the expression, our +contemporary ancestors, who can still be found with all their hideous +and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and hardihood +to seek their haunts. Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic, +monsters who would hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest +mammals, still exist." (Cries of "Bosh!" "Prove it!" "How do YOU know?" +"Question!") "How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited +their secret haunts. I know because I have seen some of them." +(Applause, uproar, and a voice, "Liar!") "Am I a liar?" (General +hearty and noisy assent.) "Did I hear someone say that I was a liar? +Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up that I may know +him?" (A voice, "Here he is, sir!" and an inoffensive little person in +spectacles, struggling violently, was held up among a group of +students.) "Did you venture to call me a liar?" ("No, sir, no!" +shouted the accused, and disappeared like a jack-in-the-box.) "If any +person in this hall dares to doubt my veracity, I shall be glad to have +a few words with him after the lecture." ("Liar!") "Who said that?" +(Again the inoffensive one plunging desperately, was elevated high into +the air.) "If I come down among you——" (General chorus of "Come, +love, come!" which interrupted the proceedings for some moments, while +the chairman, standing up and waving both his arms, seemed to be +conducting the music. The Professor, with his face flushed, his +nostrils dilated, and his beard bristling, was now in a proper Berserk +mood.) "Every great discoverer has been met with the same +incredulity—the sure brand of a generation of fools. When great facts +are laid before you, you have not the intuition, the imagination which +would help you to understand them. You can only throw mud at the men +who have risked their lives to open new fields to science. You +persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin, and I——" (Prolonged +cheering and complete interruption.) +</P> + +<P> +All this is from my hurried notes taken at the time, which give little +notion of the absolute chaos to which the assembly had by this time +been reduced. So terrific was the uproar that several ladies had +already beaten a hurried retreat. Grave and reverend seniors seemed to +have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as the students, and I saw +white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate +Professor. The whole great audience seethed and simmered like a +boiling pot. The Professor took a step forward and raised both his +hands. There was something so big and arresting and virile in the man +that the clatter and shouting died gradually away before his commanding +gesture and his masterful eyes. He seemed to have a definite message. +They hushed to hear it. +</P> + +<P> +"I will not detain you," he said. "It is not worth it. Truth is +truth, and the noise of a number of foolish young men—and, I fear I +must add, of their equally foolish seniors—cannot affect the matter. +I claim that I have opened a new field of science. You dispute it." +(Cheers.) "Then I put you to the test. Will you accredit one or more +of your own number to go out as your representatives and test my +statement in your name?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Summerlee, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose among +the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man, with the withered aspect of a +theologian. He wished, he said, to ask Professor Challenger whether +the results to which he had alluded in his remarks had been obtained +during a journey to the headwaters of the Amazon made by him two years +before. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger answered that they had. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Summerlee desired to know how it was that Professor Challenger +claimed to have made discoveries in those regions which had been +overlooked by Wallace, Bates, and other previous explorers of +established scientific repute. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerlee appeared to be +confusing the Amazon with the Thames; that it was in reality a somewhat +larger river; that Mr. Summerlee might be interested to know that with +the Orinoco, which communicated with it, some fifty thousand miles of +country were opened up, and that in so vast a space it was not +impossible for one person to find what another had missed. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Summerlee declared, with an acid smile, that he fully appreciated +the difference between the Thames and the Amazon, which lay in the fact +that any assertion about the former could be tested, while about the +latter it could not. He would be obliged if Professor Challenger would +give the latitude and the longitude of the country in which prehistoric +animals were to be found. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information for good +reasons of his own, but would be prepared to give it with proper +precautions to a committee chosen from the audience. Would Mr. +Summerlee serve on such a committee and test his story in person? +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Summerlee: "Yes, I will." (Great cheering.) +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger: "Then I guarantee that I will place in your +hands such material as will enable you to find your way. It is only +right, however, since Mr. Summerlee goes to check my statement that I +should have one or more with him who may check his. I will not +disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers. Mr. +Summerlee will need a younger colleague. May I ask for volunteers?" +</P> + +<P> +It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him. +Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to +pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in my +dreams? But Gladys—was it not the very opportunity of which she +spoke? Gladys would have told me to go. I had sprung to my feet. I +was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my +companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, "Sit +down, Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself." At the same time I +was aware that a tall, thin man, with dark gingery hair, a few seats in +front of me, was also upon his feet. He glared back at me with hard +angry eyes, but I refused to give way. +</P> + +<P> +"I will go, Mr. Chairman," I kept repeating over and over again. +</P> + +<P> +"Name! Name!" cried the audience. +</P> + +<P> +"My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily +Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness." +</P> + +<P> +"What is YOUR name, sir?" the chairman asked of my tall rival. +</P> + +<P> +"I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon, I know all +the ground, and have special qualifications for this investigation." +</P> + +<P> +"Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveler is, of +course, world-famous," said the chairman; "at the same time it would +certainly be as well to have a member of the Press upon such an +expedition." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I move," said Professor Challenger, "that both these gentlemen be +elected, as representatives of this meeting, to accompany Professor +Summerlee upon his journey to investigate and to report upon the truth +of my statements." +</P> + +<P> +And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided, and I found +myself borne away in the human current which swirled towards the door, +with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so +suddenly before it. As I emerged from the hall I was conscious for a +moment of a rush of laughing students—down the pavement, and of an arm +wielding a heavy umbrella, which rose and fell in the midst of them. +Then, amid a mixture of groans and cheers, Professor Challenger's +electric brougham slid from the curb, and I found myself walking under +the silvery lights of Regent Street, full of thoughts of Gladys and of +wonder as to my future. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow. I turned, and found myself +looking into the humorous, masterful eyes of the tall, thin man who had +volunteered to be my companion on this strange quest. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Malone, I understand," said he. "We are to be companions—what? +My rooms are just over the road, in the Albany. Perhaps you would have +the kindness to spare me half an hour, for there are one or two things +that I badly want to say to you." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "I was the Flail of the Lord" +</H3> + +<P> +Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the +dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery. At the end of a long +drab passage my new acquaintance pushed open a door and turned on an +electric switch. A number of lamps shining through tinted shades +bathed the whole great room before us in a ruddy radiance. Standing in +the doorway and glancing round me, I had a general impression of +extraordinary comfort and elegance combined with an atmosphere of +masculine virility. Everywhere there were mingled the luxury of the +wealthy man of taste and the careless untidiness of the bachelor. Rich +furs and strange iridescent mats from some Oriental bazaar were +scattered upon the floor. Pictures and prints which even my +unpractised eyes could recognize as being of great price and rarity +hung thick upon the walls. Sketches of boxers, of ballet-girls, and of +racehorses alternated with a sensuous Fragonard, a martial Girardet, +and a dreamy Turner. But amid these varied ornaments there were +scattered the trophies which brought back strongly to my recollection +the fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great all-round sportsmen +and athletes of his day. A dark-blue oar crossed with a cherry-pink +one above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man, +while the foils and boxing-gloves above and below them were the tools +of a man who had won supremacy with each. Like a dado round the room +was the jutting line of splendid heavy game-heads, the best of their +sort from every quarter of the world, with the rare white rhinoceros of +the Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all. +</P> + +<P> +In the center of the rich red carpet was a black and gold Louis Quinze +table, a lovely antique, now sacrilegiously desecrated with marks of +glasses and the scars of cigar-stumps. On it stood a silver tray of +smokables and a burnished spirit-stand, from which and an adjacent +siphon my silent host proceeded to charge two high glasses. Having +indicated an arm-chair to me and placed my refreshment near it, he +handed me a long, smooth Havana. Then, seating himself opposite to me, +he looked at me long and fixedly with his strange, twinkling, reckless +eyes—eyes of a cold light blue, the color of a glacier lake. +</P> + +<P> +Through the thin haze of my cigar-smoke I noted the details of a face +which was already familiar to me from many photographs—the +strongly-curved nose, the hollow, worn cheeks, the dark, ruddy hair, +thin at the top, the crisp, virile moustaches, the small, aggressive +tuft upon his projecting chin. Something there was of Napoleon III., +something of Don Quixote, and yet again something which was the essence +of the English country gentleman, the keen, alert, open-air lover of +dogs and of horses. His skin was of a rich flower-pot red from sun and +wind. His eyebrows were tufted and overhanging, which gave those +naturally cold eyes an almost ferocious aspect, an impression which was +increased by his strong and furrowed brow. In figure he was spare, but +very strongly built—indeed, he had often proved that there were few +men in England capable of such sustained exertions. His height was a +little over six feet, but he seemed shorter on account of a peculiar +rounding of the shoulders. Such was the famous Lord John Roxton as he +sat opposite to me, biting hard upon his cigar and watching me steadily +in a long and embarrassing silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said he, at last, "we've gone and done it, young fellah my +lad." (This curious phrase he pronounced as if it were all one +word—"young-fellah-me-lad.") "Yes, we've taken a jump, you an' me. I +suppose, now, when you went into that room there was no such notion in +your head—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"No thought of it." +</P> + +<P> +"The same here. No thought of it. And here we are, up to our necks in +the tureen. Why, I've only been back three weeks from Uganda, and +taken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. Pretty goin's +on—what? How does it hit you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a journalist on +the Gazette." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course—you said so when you took it on. By the way, I've got a +small job for you, if you'll help me." +</P> + +<P> +"With pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't mind takin' a risk, do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"What is the risk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's Ballinger—he's the risk. You've heard of him?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, young fellah, where HAVE you lived? Sir John Ballinger is the +best gentleman jock in the north country. I could hold him on the flat +at my best, but over jumps he's my master. Well, it's an open secret +that when he's out of trainin' he drinks hard—strikin' an average, he +calls it. He got delirium on Toosday, and has been ragin' like a devil +ever since. His room is above this. The doctors say that it is all up +with the old dear unless some food is got into him, but as he lies in +bed with a revolver on his coverlet, and swears he will put six of the +best through anyone that comes near him, there's been a bit of a strike +among the serving-men. He's a hard nail, is Jack, and a dead shot, +too, but you can't leave a Grand National winner to die like +that—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean to do, then?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be dozin', +and at the worst he can only wing one of us, and the other should have +him. If we can get his bolster-cover round his arms and then 'phone up +a stomach-pump, we'll give the old dear the supper of his life." +</P> + +<P> +It was a rather desperate business to come suddenly into one's day's +work. I don't think that I am a particularly brave man. I have an +Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terrible +than they are. On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror of +cowardice and with a terror of such a stigma. I dare say that I could +throw myself over a precipice, like the Hun in the history books, if my +courage to do it were questioned, and yet it would surely be pride and +fear, rather than courage, which would be my inspiration. Therefore, +although every nerve in my body shrank from the whisky-maddened figure +which I pictured in the room above, I still answered, in as careless a +voice as I could command, that I was ready to go. Some further remark +of Lord Roxton's about the danger only made me irritable. +</P> + +<P> +"Talking won't make it any better," said I. "Come on." +</P> + +<P> +I rose from my chair and he from his. Then with a little confidential +chuckle of laughter, he patted me two or three times on the chest, +finally pushing me back into my chair. +</P> + +<P> +"All right, sonny my lad—you'll do," said he. I looked up in surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw after Jack Ballinger myself this mornin'. He blew a hole in the +skirt of my kimono, bless his shaky old hand, but we got a jacket on +him, and he's to be all right in a week. I say, young fellah, I hope +you don't mind—what? You see, between you an' me close-tiled, I look +on this South American business as a mighty serious thing, and if I +have a pal with me I want a man I can bank on. So I sized you down, +and I'm bound to say that you came well out of it. You see, it's all +up to you and me, for this old Summerlee man will want dry-nursin' from +the first. By the way, are you by any chance the Malone who is +expected to get his Rugby cap for Ireland?" +</P> + +<P> +"A reserve, perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I remembered your face. Why, I was there when you got that +try against Richmond—as fine a swervin' run as I saw the whole season. +I never miss a Rugby match if I can help it, for it is the manliest +game we have left. Well, I didn't ask you in here just to talk sport. +We've got to fix our business. Here are the sailin's, on the first +page of the Times. There's a Booth boat for Para next Wednesday week, +and if the Professor and you can work it, I think we should take +it—what? Very good, I'll fix it with him. What about your outfit?" +</P> + +<P> +"My paper will see to that." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you shoot?" +</P> + +<P> +"About average Territorial standard." +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord! as bad as that? It's the last thing you young fellahs +think of learnin'. You're all bees without stings, so far as lookin' +after the hive goes. You'll look silly, some o' these days, when +someone comes along an' sneaks the honey. But you'll need to hold your +gun straight in South America, for, unless our friend the Professor is +a madman or a liar, we may see some queer things before we get back. +What gun have you?" +</P> + +<P> +He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught a +glimpse of glistening rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes of an +organ. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery," said he. +</P> + +<P> +One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening and +shutting them with a snap and a clang, and then patting them as he put +them back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would fondle her +children. +</P> + +<P> +"This is a Bland's .577 axite express," said he. "I got that big +fellow with it." He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. "Ten more +yards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection. +</P> + +<P> +'On that conical bullet his one chance hangs, +'Tis the weak one's advantage fair.' +</P> + +<P> +Hope you know your Gordon, for he's the poet of the horse and the gun +and the man that handles both. Now, here's a useful tool—.470, +telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to three-fifty. +That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave-drivers three years +ago. I was the flail of the Lord up in those parts, I may tell you, +though you won't find it in any Blue-book. There are times, young +fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and +justice, or you never feel clean again. That's why I made a little war +on my own. Declared it myself, waged it myself, ended it myself. Each +of those nicks is for a slave murderer—a good row of them—what? That +big one is for Pedro Lopez, the king of them all, that I killed in a +backwater of the Putomayo River. Now, here's something that would do +for you." He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle. "Well +rubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip. +You can trust your life to that." He handed it to me and closed the +door of his oak cabinet. +</P> + +<P> +"By the way," he continued, coming back to his chair, "what do you know +of this Professor Challenger?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never saw him till to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, neither did I. It's funny we should both sail under sealed +orders from a man we don't know. He seemed an uppish old bird. His +brothers of science don't seem too fond of him, either. How came you +to take an interest in the affair?" +</P> + +<P> +I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he listened +intently. Then he drew out a map of South America and laid it on the +table. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe every single word he said to you was the truth," said he, +earnestly, "and, mind you, I have something to go on when I speak like +that. South America is a place I love, and I think, if you take it +right through from Darien to Fuego, it's the grandest, richest, most +wonderful bit of earth upon this planet. People don't know it yet, and +don't realize what it may become. I've been up an' down it from end to +end, and had two dry seasons in those very parts, as I told you when I +spoke of the war I made on the slave-dealers. Well, when I was up +there I heard some yarns of the same kind—traditions of Indians and +the like, but with somethin' behind them, no doubt. The more you knew +of that country, young fellah, the more you would understand that +anythin' was possible—ANYTHIN'! There are just some narrow +water-lanes along which folk travel, and outside that it is all +darkness. Now, down here in the Matto Grande"—he swept his cigar over +a part of the map—"or up in this corner where three countries meet, +nothin' would surprise me. As that chap said to-night, there are +fifty-thousand miles of water-way runnin' through a forest that is very +near the size of Europe. You and I could be as far away from each +other as Scotland is from Constantinople, and yet each of us be in the +same great Brazilian forest. Man has just made a track here and a +scrape there in the maze. Why, the river rises and falls the best part +of forty feet, and half the country is a morass that you can't pass +over. Why shouldn't somethin' new and wonderful lie in such a country? +And why shouldn't we be the men to find it out? Besides," he added, +his queer, gaunt face shining with delight, "there's a sportin' risk in +every mile of it. I'm like an old golf-ball—I've had all the white +paint knocked off me long ago. Life can whack me about now, and it +can't leave a mark. But a sportin' risk, young fellah, that's the salt +of existence. Then it's worth livin' again. We're all gettin' a deal +too soft and dull and comfy. Give me the great waste lands and the +wide spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin' to look for that's +worth findin'. I've tried war and steeplechasin' and aeroplanes, but +this huntin' of beasts that look like a lobster-supper dream is a +brand-new sensation." He chuckled with glee at the prospect. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this new acquaintance, but he is to +be my comrade for many a day, and so I have tried to set him down as I +first saw him, with his quaint personality and his queer little tricks +of speech and of thought. It was only the need of getting in the +account of my meeting which drew me at last from his company. I left +him seated amid his pink radiance, oiling the lock of his favorite +rifle, while he still chuckled to himself at the thought of the +adventures which awaited us. It was very clear to me that if dangers +lay before us I could not in all England have found a cooler head or a +braver spirit with which to share them. +</P> + +<P> +That night, wearied as I was after the wonderful happenings of the day, +I sat late with McArdle, the news editor, explaining to him the whole +situation, which he thought important enough to bring next morning +before the notice of Sir George Beaumont, the chief. It was agreed +that I should write home full accounts of my adventures in the shape of +successive letters to McArdle, and that these should either be edited +for the Gazette as they arrived, or held back to be published later, +according to the wishes of Professor Challenger, since we could not yet +know what conditions he might attach to those directions which should +guide us to the unknown land. In response to a telephone inquiry, we +received nothing more definite than a fulmination against the Press, +ending up with the remark that if we would notify our boat he would +hand us any directions which he might think it proper to give us at the +moment of starting. A second question from us failed to elicit any +answer at all, save a plaintive bleat from his wife to the effect that +her husband was in a very violent temper already, and that she hoped we +would do nothing to make it worse. A third attempt, later in the day, +provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent message from the Central +Exchange that Professor Challenger's receiver had been shattered. +After that we abandoned all attempt at communication. +</P> + +<P> +And now my patient readers, I can address you directly no longer. From +now onwards (if, indeed, any continuation of this narrative should ever +reach you) it can only be through the paper which I represent. In the +hands of the editor I leave this account of the events which have led +up to one of the most remarkable expeditions of all time, so that if I +never return to England there shall be some record as to how the affair +came about. I am writing these last lines in the saloon of the Booth +liner Francisca, and they will go back by the pilot to the keeping of +Mr. McArdle. Let me draw one last picture before I close the +notebook—a picture which is the last memory of the old country which I +bear away with me. It is a wet, foggy morning in the late spring; a +thin, cold rain is falling. Three shining mackintoshed figures are +walking down the quay, making for the gang-plank of the great liner +from which the blue-peter is flying. In front of them a porter pushes +a trolley piled high with trunks, wraps, and gun-cases. Professor +Summerlee, a long, melancholy figure, walks with dragging steps and +drooping head, as one who is already profoundly sorry for himself. +Lord John Roxton steps briskly, and his thin, eager face beams forth +between his hunting-cap and his muffler. As for myself, I am glad to +have got the bustling days of preparation and the pangs of leave-taking +behind me, and I have no doubt that I show it in my bearing. Suddenly, +just as we reach the vessel, there is a shout behind us. It is +Professor Challenger, who had promised to see us off. He runs after +us, a puffing, red-faced, irascible figure. +</P> + +<P> +"No thank you," says he; "I should much prefer not to go aboard. I +have only a few words to say to you, and they can very well be said +where we are. I beg you not to imagine that I am in any way indebted +to you for making this journey. I would have you to understand that it +is a matter of perfect indifference to me, and I refuse to entertain +the most remote sense of personal obligation. Truth is truth, and +nothing which you can report can affect it in any way, though it may +excite the emotions and allay the curiosity of a number of very +ineffectual people. My directions for your instruction and guidance +are in this sealed envelope. You will open it when you reach a town +upon the Amazon which is called Manaos, but not until the date and hour +which is marked upon the outside. Have I made myself clear? I leave +the strict observance of my conditions entirely to your honor. No, Mr. +Malone, I will place no restriction upon your correspondence, since the +ventilation of the facts is the object of your journey; but I demand +that you shall give no particulars as to your exact destination, and +that nothing be actually published until your return. Good-bye, sir. +You have done something to mitigate my feelings for the loathsome +profession to which you unhappily belong. Good-bye, Lord John. +Science is, as I understand, a sealed book to you; but you may +congratulate yourself upon the hunting-field which awaits you. You +will, no doubt, have the opportunity of describing in the Field how you +brought down the rocketing dimorphodon. And good-bye to you also, +Professor Summerlee. If you are still capable of self-improvement, of +which I am frankly unconvinced, you will surely return to London a +wiser man." +</P> + +<P> +So he turned upon his heel, and a minute later from the deck I could +see his short, squat figure bobbing about in the distance as he made +his way back to his train. Well, we are well down Channel now. +There's the last bell for letters, and it's good-bye to the pilot. +We'll be "down, hull-down, on the old trail" from now on. God bless +all we leave behind us, and send us safely back. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "To-morrow we Disappear into the Unknown" +</H3> + +<P> +I will not bore those whom this narrative may reach by an account of +our luxurious voyage upon the Booth liner, nor will I tell of our +week's stay at Para (save that I should wish to acknowledge the great +kindness of the Pereira da Pinta Company in helping us to get together +our equipment). I will also allude very briefly to our river journey, +up a wide, slow-moving, clay-tinted stream, in a steamer which was +little smaller than that which had carried us across the Atlantic. +Eventually we found ourselves through the narrows of Obidos and reached +the town of Manaos. Here we were rescued from the limited attractions +of the local inn by Mr. Shortman, the representative of the British and +Brazilian Trading Company. In his hospitable Fazenda we spent our time +until the day when we were empowered to open the letter of instructions +given to us by Professor Challenger. Before I reach the surprising +events of that date I would desire to give a clearer sketch of my +comrades in this enterprise, and of the associates whom we had already +gathered together in South America. I speak freely, and I leave the +use of my material to your own discretion, Mr. McArdle, since it is +through your hands that this report must pass before it reaches the +world. +</P> + +<P> +The scientific attainments of Professor Summerlee are too well known +for me to trouble to recapitulate them. He is better equipped for a +rough expedition of this sort than one would imagine at first sight. +His tall, gaunt, stringy figure is insensible to fatigue, and his dry, +half-sarcastic, and often wholly unsympathetic manner is uninfluenced +by any change in his surroundings. Though in his sixty-sixth year, I +have never heard him express any dissatisfaction at the occasional +hardships which we have had to encounter. I had regarded his presence +as an encumbrance to the expedition, but, as a matter of fact, I am now +well convinced that his power of endurance is as great as my own. In +temper he is naturally acid and sceptical. From the beginning he has +never concealed his belief that Professor Challenger is an absolute +fraud, that we are all embarked upon an absurd wild-goose chase and +that we are likely to reap nothing but disappointment and danger in +South America, and corresponding ridicule in England. Such are the +views which, with much passionate distortion of his thin features and +wagging of his thin, goat-like beard, he poured into our ears all the +way from Southampton to Manaos. Since landing from the boat he has +obtained some consolation from the beauty and variety of the insect and +bird life around him, for he is absolutely whole-hearted in his +devotion to science. He spends his days flitting through the woods +with his shot-gun and his butterfly-net, and his evenings in mounting +the many specimens he has acquired. Among his minor peculiarities are +that he is careless as to his attire, unclean in his person, +exceedingly absent-minded in his habits, and addicted to smoking a +short briar pipe, which is seldom out of his mouth. He has been upon +several scientific expeditions in his youth (he was with Robertson in +Papua), and the life of the camp and the canoe is nothing fresh to him. +</P> + +<P> +Lord John Roxton has some points in common with Professor Summerlee, +and others in which they are the very antithesis to each other. He is +twenty years younger, but has something of the same spare, scraggy +physique. As to his appearance, I have, as I recollect, described it +in that portion of my narrative which I have left behind me in London. +He is exceedingly neat and prim in his ways, dresses always with great +care in white drill suits and high brown mosquito-boots, and shaves at +least once a day. Like most men of action, he is laconic in speech, +and sinks readily into his own thoughts, but he is always quick to +answer a question or join in a conversation, talking in a queer, jerky, +half-humorous fashion. His knowledge of the world, and very especially +of South America, is surprising, and he has a whole-hearted belief in +the possibilities of our journey which is not to be dashed by the +sneers of Professor Summerlee. He has a gentle voice and a quiet +manner, but behind his twinkling blue eyes there lurks a capacity for +furious wrath and implacable resolution, the more dangerous because +they are held in leash. He spoke little of his own exploits in Brazil +and Peru, but it was a revelation to me to find the excitement which +was caused by his presence among the riverine natives, who looked upon +him as their champion and protector. The exploits of the Red Chief, as +they called him, had become legends among them, but the real facts, as +far as I could learn them, were amazing enough. +</P> + +<P> +These were that Lord John had found himself some years before in that +no-man's-land which is formed by the half-defined frontiers between +Peru, Brazil, and Columbia. In this great district the wild rubber +tree flourishes, and has become, as in the Congo, a curse to the +natives which can only be compared to their forced labor under the +Spaniards upon the old silver mines of Darien. A handful of villainous +half-breeds dominated the country, armed such Indians as would support +them, and turned the rest into slaves, terrorizing them with the most +inhuman tortures in order to force them to gather the india-rubber, +which was then floated down the river to Para. Lord John Roxton +expostulated on behalf of the wretched victims, and received nothing +but threats and insults for his pains. He then formally declared war +against Pedro Lopez, the leader of the slave-drivers, enrolled a band +of runaway slaves in his service, armed them, and conducted a campaign, +which ended by his killing with his own hands the notorious half-breed +and breaking down the system which he represented. +</P> + +<P> +No wonder that the ginger-headed man with the silky voice and the free +and easy manners was now looked upon with deep interest upon the banks +of the great South American river, though the feelings he inspired were +naturally mixed, since the gratitude of the natives was equaled by the +resentment of those who desired to exploit them. One useful result of +his former experiences was that he could talk fluently in the Lingoa +Geral, which is the peculiar talk, one-third Portuguese and two-thirds +Indian, which is current all over Brazil. +</P> + +<P> +I have said before that Lord John Roxton was a South Americomaniac. He +could not speak of that great country without ardor, and this ardor was +infectious, for, ignorant as I was, he fixed my attention and +stimulated my curiosity. How I wish I could reproduce the glamour of +his discourses, the peculiar mixture of accurate knowledge and of racy +imagination which gave them their fascination, until even the +Professor's cynical and sceptical smile would gradually vanish from his +thin face as he listened. He would tell the history of the mighty +river so rapidly explored (for some of the first conquerors of Peru +actually crossed the entire continent upon its waters), and yet so +unknown in regard to all that lay behind its ever-changing banks. +</P> + +<P> +"What is there?" he would cry, pointing to the north. "Wood and marsh +and unpenetrated jungle. Who knows what it may shelter? And there to +the south? A wilderness of swampy forest, where no white man has ever +been. The unknown is up against us on every side. Outside the narrow +lines of the rivers what does anyone know? Who will say what is +possible in such a country? Why should old man Challenger not be +right?" At which direct defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear +upon Professor Summerlee's face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic +head in unsympathetic silence, behind the cloud of his briar-root pipe. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +So much, for the moment, for my two white companions, whose characters +and limitations will be further exposed, as surely as my own, as this +narrative proceeds. But already we have enrolled certain retainers who +may play no small part in what is to come. The first is a gigantic +negro named Zambo, who is a black Hercules, as willing as any horse, +and about as intelligent. Him we enlisted at Para, on the +recommendation of the steamship company, on whose vessels he had +learned to speak a halting English. +</P> + +<P> +It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two half-breeds +from up the river, just come down with a cargo of redwood. They were +swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce, as active and wiry as panthers. +Both of them had spent their lives in those upper waters of the Amazon +which we were about to explore, and it was this recommendation which +had caused Lord John to engage them. One of them, Gomez, had the +further advantage that he could speak excellent English. These men +were willing to act as our personal servants, to cook, to row, or to +make themselves useful in any way at a payment of fifteen dollars a +month. Besides these, we had engaged three Mojo Indians from Bolivia, +who are the most skilful at fishing and boat work of all the river +tribes. The chief of these we called Mojo, after his tribe, and the +others are known as Jose and Fernando. Three white men, then, two +half-breeds, one negro, and three Indians made up the personnel of the +little expedition which lay waiting for its instructions at Manaos +before starting upon its singular quest. +</P> + +<P> +At last, after a weary week, the day had come and the hour. I ask you +to picture the shaded sitting-room of the Fazenda St. Ignatio, two +miles inland from the town of Manaos. Outside lay the yellow, brassy +glare of the sunshine, with the shadows of the palm trees as black and +definite as the trees themselves. The air was calm, full of the +eternal hum of insects, a tropical chorus of many octaves, from the +deep drone of the bee to the high, keen pipe of the mosquito. Beyond +the veranda was a small cleared garden, bounded with cactus hedges and +adorned with clumps of flowering shrubs, round which the great blue +butterflies and the tiny humming-birds fluttered and darted in +crescents of sparkling light. Within we were seated round the cane +table, on which lay a sealed envelope. Inscribed upon it, in the +jagged handwriting of Professor Challenger, were the words:— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Instructions to Lord John Roxton and party. To be opened at Manaos +upon July 15th, at 12 o'clock precisely." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Lord John had placed his watch upon the table beside him. +</P> + +<P> +"We have seven more minutes," said he. "The old dear is very precise." +</P> + +<P> +Professor Summerlee gave an acid smile as he picked up the envelope in +his gaunt hand. +</P> + +<P> +"What can it possibly matter whether we open it now or in seven +minutes?" said he. "It is all part and parcel of the same system of +quackery and nonsense, for which I regret to say that the writer is +notorious." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, come, we must play the game accordin' to rules," said Lord John. +"It's old man Challenger's show and we are here by his good will, so it +would be rotten bad form if we didn't follow his instructions to the +letter." +</P> + +<P> +"A pretty business it is!" cried the Professor, bitterly. "It struck +me as preposterous in London, but I'm bound to say that it seems even +more so upon closer acquaintance. I don't know what is inside this +envelope, but, unless it is something pretty definite, I shall be much +tempted to take the next down-river boat and catch the Bolivia at Para. +After all, I have some more responsible work in the world than to run +about disproving the assertions of a lunatic. Now, Roxton, surely it +is time." +</P> + +<P> +"Time it is," said Lord John. "You can blow the whistle." He took up +the envelope and cut it with his penknife. From it he drew a folded +sheet of paper. This he carefully opened out and flattened on the +table. It was a blank sheet. He turned it over. Again it was blank. +We looked at each other in a bewildered silence, which was broken by a +discordant burst of derisive laughter from Professor Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"It is an open admission," he cried. "What more do you want? The +fellow is a self-confessed humbug. We have only to return home and +report him as the brazen imposter that he is." +</P> + +<P> +"Invisible ink!" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think!" said Lord Roxton, holding the paper to the light. +"No, young fellah my lad, there is no use deceiving yourself. I'll go +bail for it that nothing has ever been written upon this paper." +</P> + +<P> +"May I come in?" boomed a voice from the veranda. +</P> + +<P> +The shadow of a squat figure had stolen across the patch of sunlight. +That voice! That monstrous breadth of shoulder! We sprang to our feet +with a gasp of astonishment as Challenger, in a round, boyish straw-hat +with a colored ribbon—Challenger, with his hands in his jacket-pockets +and his canvas shoes daintily pointing as he walked—appeared in the +open space before us. He threw back his head, and there he stood in +the golden glow with all his old Assyrian luxuriance of beard, all his +native insolence of drooping eyelids and intolerant eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I fear," said he, taking out his watch, "that I am a few minutes too +late. When I gave you this envelope I must confess that I had never +intended that you should open it, for it had been my fixed intention to +be with you before the hour. The unfortunate delay can be apportioned +between a blundering pilot and an intrusive sandbank. I fear that it +has given my colleague, Professor Summerlee, occasion to blaspheme." +</P> + +<P> +"I am bound to say, sir," said Lord John, with some sternness of voice, +"that your turning up is a considerable relief to us, for our mission +seemed to have come to a premature end. Even now I can't for the life +of me understand why you should have worked it in so extraordinary a +manner." +</P> + +<P> +Instead of answering, Professor Challenger entered, shook hands with +myself and Lord John, bowed with ponderous insolence to Professor +Summerlee, and sank back into a basket-chair, which creaked and swayed +beneath his weight. +</P> + +<P> +"Is all ready for your journey?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"We can start to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Then so you shall. You need no chart of directions now, since you +will have the inestimable advantage of my own guidance. From the first +I had determined that I would myself preside over your investigation. +The most elaborate charts would, as you will readily admit, be a poor +substitute for my own intelligence and advice. As to the small ruse +which I played upon you in the matter of the envelope, it is clear +that, had I told you all my intentions, I should have been forced to +resist unwelcome pressure to travel out with you." +</P> + +<P> +"Not from me, sir!" exclaimed Professor Summerlee, heartily. "So long +as there was another ship upon the Atlantic." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger waved him away with his great hairy hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Your common sense will, I am sure, sustain my objection and realize +that it was better that I should direct my own movements and appear +only at the exact moment when my presence was needed. That moment has +now arrived. You are in safe hands. You will not now fail to reach +your destination. From henceforth I take command of this expedition, +and I must ask you to complete your preparations to-night, so that we +may be able to make an early start in the morning. My time is of +value, and the same thing may be said, no doubt, in a lesser degree of +your own. I propose, therefore, that we push on as rapidly as +possible, until I have demonstrated what you have come to see." +</P> + +<P> +Lord John Roxton has chartered a large steam launch, the Esmeralda, +which was to carry us up the river. So far as climate goes, it was +immaterial what time we chose for our expedition, as the temperature +ranges from seventy-five to ninety degrees both summer and winter, with +no appreciable difference in heat. In moisture, however, it is +otherwise; from December to May is the period of the rains, and during +this time the river slowly rises until it attains a height of nearly +forty feet above its low-water mark. It floods the banks, extends in +great lagoons over a monstrous waste of country, and forms a huge +district, called locally the Gapo, which is for the most part too +marshy for foot-travel and too shallow for boating. About June the +waters begin to fall, and are at their lowest at October or November. +Thus our expedition was at the time of the dry season, when the great +river and its tributaries were more or less in a normal condition. +</P> + +<P> +The current of the river is a slight one, the drop being not greater +than eight inches in a mile. No stream could be more convenient for +navigation, since the prevailing wind is south-east, and sailing boats +may make a continuous progress to the Peruvian frontier, dropping down +again with the current. In our own case the excellent engines of the +Esmeralda could disregard the sluggish flow of the stream, and we made +as rapid progress as if we were navigating a stagnant lake. For three +days we steamed north-westwards up a stream which even here, a thousand +miles from its mouth, was still so enormous that from its center the +two banks were mere shadows upon the distant skyline. On the fourth +day after leaving Manaos we turned into a tributary which at its mouth +was little smaller than the main stream. It narrowed rapidly, however, +and after two more days' steaming we reached an Indian village, where +the Professor insisted that we should land, and that the Esmeralda +should be sent back to Manaos. We should soon come upon rapids, he +explained, which would make its further use impossible. He added +privately that we were now approaching the door of the unknown country, +and that the fewer whom we took into our confidence the better it would +be. To this end also he made each of us give our word of honor that we +would publish or say nothing which would give any exact clue as to the +whereabouts of our travels, while the servants were all solemnly sworn +to the same effect. It is for this reason that I am compelled to be +vague in my narrative, and I would warn my readers that in any map or +diagram which I may give the relation of places to each other may be +correct, but the points of the compass are carefully confused, so that +in no way can it be taken as an actual guide to the country. Professor +Challenger's reasons for secrecy may be valid or not, but we had no +choice but to adopt them, for he was prepared to abandon the whole +expedition rather than modify the conditions upon which he would guide +us. +</P> + +<P> +It was August 2nd when we snapped our last link with the outer world by +bidding farewell to the Esmeralda. Since then four days have passed, +during which we have engaged two large canoes from the Indians, made of +so light a material (skins over a bamboo framework) that we should be +able to carry them round any obstacle. These we have loaded with all +our effects, and have engaged two additional Indians to help us in the +navigation. I understand that they are the very two—Ataca and Ipetu +by name—who accompanied Professor Challenger upon his previous +journey. They appeared to be terrified at the prospect of repeating +it, but the chief has patriarchal powers in these countries, and if the +bargain is good in his eyes the clansman has little choice in the +matter. +</P> + +<P> +So to-morrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am +transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to +those who are interested in our fate. I have, according to our +arrangement, addressed it to you, my dear Mr. McArdle, and I leave it +to your discretion to delete, alter, or do what you like with it. From +the assurance of Professor Challenger's manner—and in spite of the +continued scepticism of Professor Summerlee—I have no doubt that our +leader will make good his statement, and that we are really on the eve +of some most remarkable experiences. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "The Outlying Pickets of the New World" +</H3> + +<P> +Our friends at home may well rejoice with us, for we are at our goal, +and up to a point, at least, we have shown that the statement of +Professor Challenger can be verified. We have not, it is true, +ascended the plateau, but it lies before us, and even Professor +Summerlee is in a more chastened mood. Not that he will for an instant +admit that his rival could be right, but he is less persistent in his +incessant objections, and has sunk for the most part into an observant +silence. I must hark back, however, and continue my narrative from +where I dropped it. We are sending home one of our local Indians who +is injured, and I am committing this letter to his charge, with +considerable doubts in my mind as to whether it will ever come to hand. +</P> + +<P> +When I wrote last we were about to leave the Indian village where we +had been deposited by the Esmeralda. I have to begin my report by bad +news, for the first serious personal trouble (I pass over the incessant +bickerings between the Professors) occurred this evening, and might +have had a tragic ending. I have spoken of our English-speaking +half-breed, Gomez—a fine worker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, I +fancy, with the vice of curiosity, which is common enough among such +men. On the last evening he seems to have hid himself near the hut in +which we were discussing our plans, and, being observed by our huge +negro Zambo, who is as faithful as a dog and has the hatred which all +his race bear to the half-breeds, he was dragged out and carried into +our presence. Gomez whipped out his knife, however, and but for the +huge strength of his captor, which enabled him to disarm him with one +hand, he would certainly have stabbed him. The matter has ended in +reprimands, the opponents have been compelled to shake hands, and there +is every hope that all will be well. As to the feuds of the two +learned men, they are continuous and bitter. It must be admitted that +Challenger is provocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acid +tongue, which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that he +never cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river, as +it was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He is convinced, of +course, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. Summerlee rejoined, +however, with a sour smile, by saying that he understood that Millbank +Prison had been pulled down. Challenger's conceit is too colossal to +allow him to be really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and +repeated "Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a +child. Indeed, they are children both—the one wizened and +cantankerous, the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a +brain which has put him in the front rank of his scientific age. +Brain, character, soul—only as one sees more of life does one +understand how distinct is each. +</P> + +<P> +The very next day we did actually make our start upon this remarkable +expedition. We found that all our possessions fitted very easily into +the two canoes, and we divided our personnel, six in each, taking the +obvious precaution in the interests of peace of putting one Professor +into each canoe. Personally, I was with Challenger, who was in a +beatific humor, moving about as one in a silent ecstasy and beaming +benevolence from every feature. I have had some experience of him in +other moods, however, and shall be the less surprised when the +thunderstorms suddenly come up amidst the sunshine. If it is +impossible to be at your ease, it is equally impossible to be dull in +his company, for one is always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as to +what sudden turn his formidable temper may take. +</P> + +<P> +For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundreds of +yards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that one could +usually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are, half of them, +of this nature, while the other half are whitish and opaque, the +difference depending upon the class of country through which they have +flowed. The dark indicate vegetable decay, while the others point to +clayey soil. Twice we came across rapids, and in each case made a +portage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either side +were primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of the +second growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes +through them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The +height of the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything +which I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards in +magnificent columns until, at an enormous distance above our heads, we +could dimly discern the spot where they threw out their side-branches +into Gothic upward curves which coalesced to form one great matted roof +of verdure, through which only an occasional golden ray of sunshine +shot downwards to trace a thin dazzling line of light amidst the +majestic obscurity. As we walked noiselessly amid the thick, soft +carpet of decaying vegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comes +upon us in the twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger's +full-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should have been +ignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men of science +pointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, and the redwood +trees, with all that profusion of various plants which has made this +continent the chief supplier to the human race of those gifts of Nature +which depend upon the vegetable world, while it is the most backward in +those products which come from animal life. Vivid orchids and +wonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and +where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, +the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of +ipomaea, the effect was as a dream of fairyland. In these great wastes +of forest, life, which abhors darkness, struggles ever upwards to the +light. Every plant, even the smaller ones, curls and writhes to the +green surface, twining itself round its stronger and taller brethren in +the effort. Climbing plants are monstrous and luxuriant, but others +which have never been known to climb elsewhere learn the art as an +escape from that somber shadow, so that the common nettle, the jasmine, +and even the jacitara palm tree can be seen circling the stems of the +cedars and striving to reach their crowns. Of animal life there was no +movement amid the majestic vaulted aisles which stretched from us as we +walked, but a constant movement far above our heads told of that +multitudinous world of snake and monkey, bird and sloth, which lived in +the sunshine, and looked down in wonder at our tiny, dark, stumbling +figures in the obscure depths immeasurably below them. At dawn and at +sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parrakeets broke +into shrill chatter, but during the hot hours of the day only the full +drone of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear, +while nothing moved amid the solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading +away into the darkness which held us in. Once some bandy-legged, +lurching creature, an ant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid the +shadows. It was the only sign of earth life which I saw in this great +Amazonian forest. +</P> + +<P> +And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not far +from us in those mysterious recesses. On the third day out we were +aware of a singular deep throbbing in the air, rhythmic and solemn, +coming and going fitfully throughout the morning. The two boats were +paddling within a few yards of each other when first we heard it, and +our Indians remained motionless, as if they had been turned to bronze, +listening intently with expressions of terror upon their faces. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, then?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Drums," said Lord John, carelessly; "war drums. I have heard them +before." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir, war drums," said Gomez, the half-breed. "Wild Indians, +bravos, not mansos; they watch us every mile of the way; kill us if +they can." +</P> + +<P> +"How can they watch us?" I asked, gazing into the dark, motionless void. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed shrugged his broad shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"The Indians know. They have their own way. They watch us. They talk +the drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can." +</P> + +<P> +By the afternoon of that day—my pocket diary shows me that it was +Tuesday, August 18th—at least six or seven drums were throbbing from +various points. Sometimes they beat quickly, sometimes slowly, +sometimes in obvious question and answer, one far to the east breaking +out in a high staccato rattle, and being followed after a pause by a +deep roll from the north. There was something indescribably +nerve-shaking and menacing in that constant mutter, which seemed to +shape itself into the very syllables of the half-breed, endlessly +repeated, "We will kill you if we can. We will kill you if we can." +No one ever moved in the silent woods. All the peace and soothing of +quiet Nature lay in that dark curtain of vegetation, but away from +behind there came ever the one message from our fellow-man. "We will +kill you if we can," said the men in the east. "We will kill you if we +can," said the men in the north. +</P> + +<P> +All day the drums rumbled and whispered, while their menace reflected +itself in the faces of our colored companions. Even the hardy, +swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however, that day once +for all that both Summerlee and Challenger possessed that highest type +of bravery, the bravery of the scientific mind. Theirs was the spirit +which upheld Darwin among the gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace among +the head-hunters of Malaya. It is decreed by a merciful Nature that +the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if +it be steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merely +personal considerations. All day amid that incessant and mysterious +menace our two Professors watched every bird upon the wing, and every +shrub upon the bank, with many a sharp wordy contention, when the snarl +of Summerlee came quick upon the deep growl of Challenger, but with no +more sense of danger and no more reference to drum-beating Indians than +if they were seated together in the smoking-room of the Royal Society's +Club in St. James's Street. Once only did they condescend to discuss +them. +</P> + +<P> +"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking his thumb +towards the reverberating wood. +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt, sir," Summerlee answered. "Like all such tribes, I shall +expect to find them of poly-synthetic speech and of Mongolian type." +</P> + +<P> +"Polysynthetic certainly," said Challenger, indulgently. "I am not +aware that any other type of language exists in this continent, and I +have notes of more than a hundred. The Mongolian theory I regard with +deep suspicion." +</P> + +<P> +"I should have thought that even a limited knowledge of comparative +anatomy would have helped to verify it," said Summerlee, bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +Challenger thrust out his aggressive chin until he was all beard and +hat-rim. "No doubt, sir, a limited knowledge would have that effect. +When one's knowledge is exhaustive, one comes to other conclusions." +They glared at each other in mutual defiance, while all round rose the +distant whisper, "We will kill you—we will kill you if we can." +</P> + +<P> +That night we moored our canoes with heavy stones for anchors in the +center of the stream, and made every preparation for a possible attack. +Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we pushed upon our way, the +drum-beating dying out behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoon +we came to a very steep rapid, more than a mile long—the very one in +which Professor Challenger had suffered disaster upon his first +journey. I confess that the sight of it consoled me, for it was really +the first direct corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his +story. The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores +through the brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we four +whites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and any danger +coming from the woods. Before evening we had successfully passed the +rapids, and made our way some ten miles above them, where we anchored +for the night. At this point I reckoned that we had come not less than +a hundred miles up the tributary from the main stream. +</P> + +<P> +It was in the early forenoon of the next day that we made the great +departure. Since dawn Professor Challenger had been acutely uneasy, +continually scanning each bank of the river. Suddenly he gave an +exclamation of satisfaction and pointed to a single tree, which +projected at a peculiar angle over the side of the stream. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you make of that?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It is surely an Assai palm," said Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. It was an Assai palm which I took for my landmark. The +secret opening is half a mile onwards upon the other side of the river. +There is no break in the trees. That is the wonder and the mystery of +it. There where you see light-green rushes instead of dark-green +undergrowth, there between the great cotton woods, that is my private +gate into the unknown. Push through, and you will understand." +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed a wonderful place. Having reached the spot marked by a +line of light-green rushes, we poled out two canoes through them for +some hundreds of yards, and eventually emerged into a placid and +shallow stream, running clear and transparent over a sandy bottom. It +may have been twenty yards across, and was banked in on each side by +most luxuriant vegetation. No one who had not observed that for a +short distance reeds had taken the place of shrubs, could possibly have +guessed the existence of such a stream or dreamed of the fairyland +beyond. +</P> + +<P> +For a fairyland it was—the most wonderful that the imagination of man +could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a +natural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a golden +twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but +marvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above +filtered and tempered in its fall. Clear as crystal, motionless as a +sheet of glass, green as the edge of an iceberg, it stretched in front +of us under its leafy archway, every stroke of our paddles sending a +thousand ripples across its shining surface. It was a fitting avenue +to a land of wonders. All sign of the Indians had passed away, but +animal life was more frequent, and the tameness of the creatures showed +that they knew nothing of the hunter. Fuzzy little black-velvet +monkeys, with snow-white teeth and gleaming, mocking eyes, chattered at +us as we passed. With a dull, heavy splash an occasional cayman +plunged in from the bank. Once a dark, clumsy tapir stared at us from +a gap in the bushes, and then lumbered away through the forest; once, +too, the yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid the +brushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over its +tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds, +stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and +white, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the +crystal water was alive with fish of every shape and color. +</P> + +<P> +For three days we made our way up this tunnel of hazy green sunshine. +On the longer stretches one could hardly tell as one looked ahead where +the distant green water ended and the distant green archway began. The +deep peace of this strange waterway was unbroken by any sign of man. +</P> + +<P> +"No Indian here. Too much afraid. Curupuri," said Gomez. +</P> + +<P> +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods," Lord John explained. "It's a +name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think that there is +something fearsome in this direction, and therefore they avoid it." +</P> + +<P> +On the third day it became evident that our journey in the canoes could +not last much longer, for the stream was rapidly growing more shallow. +Twice in as many hours we stuck upon the bottom. Finally we pulled the +boats up among the brushwood and spent the night on the bank of the +river. In the morning Lord John and I made our way for a couple of +miles through the forest, keeping parallel with the stream; but as it +grew ever shallower we returned and reported, what Professor Challenger +had already suspected, that we had reached the highest point to which +the canoes could be brought. We drew them up, therefore, and concealed +them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so that we should +find them again. Then we distributed the various burdens among +us—guns, ammunition, food, a tent, blankets, and the rest—and, +shouldering our packages, we set forth upon the more laborious stage of +our journey. +</P> + +<P> +An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outset of our +new stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining us issued +directions to the whole party, much to the evident discontent of +Summerlee. Now, upon his assigning some duty to his fellow-Professor +(it was only the carrying of an aneroid barometer), the matter suddenly +came to a head. +</P> + +<P> +"May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in what capacity +you take it upon yourself to issue these orders?" +</P> + +<P> +Challenger glared and bristled. +</P> + +<P> +"I do it, Professor Summerlee, as leader of this expedition." +</P> + +<P> +"I am compelled to tell you, sir, that I do not recognize you in that +capacity." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm. "Perhaps you would +define my exact position." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir. You are a man whose veracity is upon trial, and this +committee is here to try it. You walk, sir, with your judges." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me!" said Challenger, seating himself on the side of one of the +canoes. "In that case you will, of course, go on your way, and I will +follow at my leisure. If I am not the leader you cannot expect me to +lead." +</P> + +<P> +Thank heaven that there were two sane men—Lord John Roxton and +myself—to prevent the petulance and folly of our learned Professors +from sending us back empty-handed to London. Such arguing and pleading +and explaining before we could get them mollified! Then at last +Summerlee, with his sneer and his pipe, would move forwards, and +Challenger would come rolling and grumbling after. By some good +fortune we discovered about this time that both our savants had the +very poorest opinion of Dr. Illingworth of Edinburgh. Thenceforward +that was our one safety, and every strained situation was relieved by +our introducing the name of the Scotch zoologist, when both our +Professors would form a temporary alliance and friendship in their +detestation and abuse of this common rival. +</P> + +<P> +Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soon found +that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it lost itself +in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into which we sank up to +our knees. The place was horribly haunted by clouds of mosquitoes and +every form of flying pest, so we were glad to find solid ground again +and to make a circuit among the trees, which enabled us to outflank +this pestilent morass, which droned like an organ in the distance, so +loud was it with insect life. +</P> + +<P> +On the second day after leaving our canoes we found that the whole +character of the country changed. Our road was persistently upwards, +and as we ascended the woods became thinner and lost their tropical +luxuriance. The huge trees of the alluvial Amazonian plain gave place +to the Phoenix and coco palms, growing in scattered clumps, with thick +brushwood between. In the damper hollows the Mauritia palms threw out +their graceful drooping fronds. We traveled entirely by compass, and +once or twice there were differences of opinion between Challenger and +the two Indians, when, to quote the Professor's indignant words, the +whole party agreed to "trust the fallacious instincts of undeveloped +savages rather than the highest product of modern European culture." +That we were justified in doing so was shown upon the third day, when +Challenger admitted that he recognized several landmarks of his former +journey, and in one spot we actually came upon four fire-blackened +stones, which must have marked a camping-place. +</P> + +<P> +The road still ascended, and we crossed a rock-studded slope which took +two days to traverse. The vegetation had again changed, and only the +vegetable ivory tree remained, with a great profusion of wonderful +orchids, among which I learned to recognize the rare Nuttonia +Vexillaria and the glorious pink and scarlet blossoms of Cattleya and +odontoglossum. Occasional brooks with pebbly bottoms and fern-draped +banks gurgled down the shallow gorges in the hill, and offered good +camping-grounds every evening on the banks of some rock-studded pool, +where swarms of little blue-backed fish, about the size and shape of +English trout, gave us a delicious supper. +</P> + +<P> +On the ninth day after leaving the canoes, having done, as I reckon, +about a hundred and twenty miles, we began to emerge from the trees, +which had grown smaller until they were mere shrubs. Their place was +taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which grew so thickly that we +could only penetrate it by cutting a pathway with the machetes and +billhooks of the Indians. It took us a long day, traveling from seven +in the morning till eight at night, with only two breaks of one hour +each, to get through this obstacle. Anything more monotonous and +wearying could not be imagined, for, even at the most open places, I +could not see more than ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision +was limited to the back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me, +and to the yellow wall within a foot of me on either side. From above +came one thin knife-edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our heads +one saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky. I do +not know what kind of creatures inhabit such a thicket, but several +times we heard the plunging of large, heavy animals quite close to us. +From their sounds Lord John judged them to be some form of wild cattle. +Just as night fell we cleared the belt of bamboos, and at once formed +our camp, exhausted by the interminable day. +</P> + +<P> +Early next morning we were again afoot, and found that the character of +the country had changed once again. Behind us was the wall of bamboo, +as definite as if it marked the course of a river. In front was an +open plain, sloping slightly upwards and dotted with clumps of +tree-ferns, the whole curving before us until it ended in a long, +whale-backed ridge. This we reached about midday, only to find a +shallow valley beyond, rising once again into a gentle incline which +led to a low, rounded sky-line. It was here, while we crossed the +first of these hills, that an incident occurred which may or may not +have been important. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger, who with the two local Indians was in the van of +the party, stopped suddenly and pointed excitedly to the right. As he +did so we saw, at the distance of a mile or so, something which +appeared to be a huge gray bird flap slowly up from the ground and skim +smoothly off, flying very low and straight, until it was lost among the +tree-ferns. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you see it?" cried Challenger, in exultation. "Summerlee, did you +see it?" +</P> + +<P> +His colleague was staring at the spot where the creature had +disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you claim that it was?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"To the best of my belief, a pterodactyl." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee burst into derisive laughter "A pter-fiddlestick!" said he. +"It was a stork, if ever I saw one." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger was too furious to speak. He simply swung his pack upon his +back and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreast of me, +however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. He had his +Zeiss glasses in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won't +undertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as a +sportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes on in my +life." +</P> + +<P> +So there the matter stands. Are we really just at the edge of the +unknown, encountering the outlying pickets of this lost world of which +our leader speaks? I give you the incident as it occurred and you will +know as much as I do. It stands alone, for we saw nothing more which +could be called remarkable. +</P> + +<P> +And now, my readers, if ever I have any, I have brought you up the +broad river, and through the screen of rushes, and down the green +tunnel, and up the long slope of palm trees, and through the bamboo +brake, and across the plain of tree-ferns. At last our destination lay +in full sight of us. When we had crossed the second ridge we saw +before us an irregular, palm-studded plain, and then the line of high +red cliffs which I have seen in the picture. There it lies, even as I +write, and there can be no question that it is the same. At the +nearest point it is about seven miles from our present camp, and it +curves away, stretching as far as I can see. Challenger struts about +like a prize peacock, and Summerlee is silent, but still sceptical. +Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. Meanwhile, as +Jose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, insists upon returning, +I send this letter back in his charge, and only hope that it may +eventually come to hand. I will write again as the occasion serves. I +have enclosed with this a rough chart of our journey, which may have +the effect of making the account rather easier to understand. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Who could have Foreseen it?" +</H3> + +<P> +A dreadful thing has happened to us. Who could have foreseen it? I +cannot foresee any end to our troubles. It may be that we are +condemned to spend our whole lives in this strange, inaccessible place. +I am still so confused that I can hardly think clearly of the facts of +the present or of the chances of the future. To my astounded senses +the one seems most terrible and the other as black as night. +</P> + +<P> +No men have ever found themselves in a worse position; nor is there any +use in disclosing to you our exact geographical situation and asking +our friends for a relief party. Even if they could send one, our fate +will in all human probability be decided long before it could arrive in +South America. +</P> + +<P> +We are, in truth, as far from any human aid as if we were in the moon. +If we are to win through, it is only our own qualities which can save +us. I have as companions three remarkable men, men of great +brain-power and of unshaken courage. There lies our one and only hope. +It is only when I look upon the untroubled faces of my comrades that I +see some glimmer through the darkness. Outwardly I trust that I appear +as unconcerned as they. Inwardly I am filled with apprehension. +</P> + +<P> +Let me give you, with as much detail as I can, the sequence of events +which have led us to this catastrophe. +</P> + +<P> +When I finished my last letter I stated that we were within seven miles +from an enormous line of ruddy cliffs, which encircled, beyond all +doubt, the plateau of which Professor Challenger spoke. Their height, +as we approached them, seemed to me in some places to be greater than +he had stated—running up in parts to at least a thousand feet—and +they were curiously striated, in a manner which is, I believe, +characteristic of basaltic upheavals. Something of the sort is to be +seen in Salisbury Crags at Edinburgh. The summit showed every sign of +a luxuriant vegetation, with bushes near the edge, and farther back +many high trees. There was no indication of any life that we could see. +</P> + +<P> +That night we pitched our camp immediately under the cliff—a most wild +and desolate spot. The crags above us were not merely perpendicular, +but curved outwards at the top, so that ascent was out of the question. +Close to us was the high thin pinnacle of rock which I believe I +mentioned earlier in this narrative. It is like a broad red church +spire, the top of it being level with the plateau, but a great chasm +gaping between. On the summit of it there grew one high tree. Both +pinnacle and cliff were comparatively low—some five or six hundred +feet, I should think. +</P> + +<P> +"It was on that," said Professor Challenger, pointing to this tree, +"that the pterodactyl was perched. I climbed half-way up the rock +before I shot him. I am inclined to think that a good mountaineer like +myself could ascend the rock to the top, though he would, of course, be +no nearer to the plateau when he had done so." +</P> + +<P> +As Challenger spoke of his pterodactyl I glanced at Professor +Summerlee, and for the first time I seemed to see some signs of a +dawning credulity and repentance. There was no sneer upon his thin +lips, but, on the contrary, a gray, drawn look of excitement and +amazement. Challenger saw it, too, and reveled in the first taste of +victory. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," said he, with his clumsy and ponderous sarcasm, +"Professor Summerlee will understand that when I speak of a pterodactyl +I mean a stork—only it is the kind of stork which has no feathers, a +leathery skin, membranous wings, and teeth in its jaws." He grinned +and blinked and bowed until his colleague turned and walked away. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning, after a frugal breakfast of coffee and manioc—we had +to be economical of our stores—we held a council of war as to the best +method of ascending to the plateau above us. +</P> + +<P> +Challenger presided with a solemnity as if he were the Lord Chief +Justice on the Bench. Picture him seated upon a rock, his absurd +boyish straw hat tilted on the back of his head, his supercilious eyes +dominating us from under his drooping lids, his great black beard +wagging as he slowly defined our present situation and our future +movements. +</P> + +<P> +Beneath him you might have seen the three of us—myself, sunburnt, +young, and vigorous after our open-air tramp; Summerlee, solemn but +still critical, behind his eternal pipe; Lord John, as keen as a +razor-edge, with his supple, alert figure leaning upon his rifle, and +his eager eyes fixed eagerly upon the speaker. Behind us were grouped +the two swarthy half-breeds and the little knot of Indians, while in +front and above us towered those huge, ruddy ribs of rocks which kept +us from our goal. +</P> + +<P> +"I need not say," said our leader, "that on the occasion of my last +visit I exhausted every means of climbing the cliff, and where I failed +I do not think that anyone else is likely to succeed, for I am +something of a mountaineer. I had none of the appliances of a +rock-climber with me, but I have taken the precaution to bring them +now. With their aid I am positive I could climb that detached pinnacle +to the summit; but so long as the main cliff overhangs, it is vain to +attempt ascending that. I was hurried upon my last visit by the +approach of the rainy season and by the exhaustion of my supplies. +These considerations limited my time, and I can only claim that I have +surveyed about six miles of the cliff to the east of us, finding no +possible way up. What, then, shall we now do?" +</P> + +<P> +"There seems to be only one reasonable course," said Professor +Summerlee. "If you have explored the east, we should travel along the +base of the cliff to the west, and seek for a practicable point for our +ascent." +</P> + +<P> +"That's it," said Lord John. "The odds are that this plateau is of no +great size, and we shall travel round it until we either find an easy +way up it, or come back to the point from which we started." +</P> + +<P> +"I have already explained to our young friend here," said Challenger +(he has a way of alluding to me as if I were a school child ten years +old), "that it is quite impossible that there should be an easy way up +anywhere, for the simple reason that if there were the summit would not +be isolated, and those conditions would not obtain which have effected +so singular an interference with the general laws of survival. Yet I +admit that there may very well be places where an expert human climber +may reach the summit, and yet a cumbrous and heavy animal be unable to +descend. It is certain that there is a point where an ascent is +possible." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know that, sir?" asked Summerlee, sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Because my predecessor, the American Maple White, actually made such +an ascent. How otherwise could he have seen the monster which he +sketched in his notebook?" +</P> + +<P> +"There you reason somewhat ahead of the proved facts," said the +stubborn Summerlee. "I admit your plateau, because I have seen it; but +I have not as yet satisfied myself that it contains any form of life +whatever." +</P> + +<P> +"What you admit, sir, or what you do not admit, is really of +inconceivably small importance. I am glad to perceive that the plateau +itself has actually obtruded itself upon your intelligence." He glanced +up at it, and then, to our amazement, he sprang from his rock, and, +seizing Summerlee by the neck, he tilted his face into the air. "Now +sir!" he shouted, hoarse with excitement. "Do I help you to realize +that the plateau contains some animal life?" +</P> + +<P> +I have said that a thick fringe of green overhung the edge of the +cliff. Out of this there had emerged a black, glistening object. As +it came slowly forth and overhung the chasm, we saw that it was a very +large snake with a peculiar flat, spade-like head. It wavered and +quivered above us for a minute, the morning sun gleaming upon its +sleek, sinuous coils. Then it slowly drew inwards and disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee had been so interested that he had stood unresisting while +Challenger tilted his head into the air. Now he shook his colleague +off and came back to his dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"I should be glad, Professor Challenger," said he, "if you could see +your way to make any remarks which may occur to you without seizing me +by the chin. Even the appearance of a very ordinary rock python does +not appear to justify such a liberty." +</P> + +<P> +"But there is life upon the plateau all the same," his colleague +replied in triumph. "And now, having demonstrated this important +conclusion so that it is clear to anyone, however prejudiced or obtuse, +I am of opinion that we cannot do better than break up our camp and +travel to westward until we find some means of ascent." +</P> + +<P> +The ground at the foot of the cliff was rocky and broken so that the +going was slow and difficult. Suddenly we came, however, upon +something which cheered our hearts. It was the site of an old +encampment, with several empty Chicago meat tins, a bottle labeled +"Brandy," a broken tin-opener, and a quantity of other travelers' +debris. A crumpled, disintegrated newspaper revealed itself as the +Chicago Democrat, though the date had been obliterated. +</P> + +<P> +"Not mine," said Challenger. "It must be Maple White's." +</P> + +<P> +Lord John had been gazing curiously at a great tree-fern which +overshadowed the encampment. "I say, look at this," said he. "I +believe it is meant for a sign-post." +</P> + +<P> +A slip of hard wood had been nailed to the tree in such a way as to +point to the westward. +</P> + +<P> +"Most certainly a sign-post," said Challenger. "What else? Finding +himself upon a dangerous errand, our pioneer has left this sign so that +any party which follows him may know the way he has taken. Perhaps we +shall come upon some other indications as we proceed." +</P> + +<P> +We did indeed, but they were of a terrible and most unexpected nature. +Immediately beneath the cliff there grew a considerable patch of high +bamboo, like that which we had traversed in our journey. Many of these +stems were twenty feet high, with sharp, strong tops, so that even as +they stood they made formidable spears. We were passing along the edge +of this cover when my eye was caught by the gleam of something white +within it. Thrusting in my head between the stems, I found myself +gazing at a fleshless skull. The whole skeleton was there, but the +skull had detached itself and lay some feet nearer to the open. +</P> + +<P> +With a few blows from the machetes of our Indians we cleared the spot +and were able to study the details of this old tragedy. Only a few +shreds of clothes could still be distinguished, but there were the +remains of boots upon the bony feet, and it was very clear that the +dead man was a European. A gold watch by Hudson, of New York, and a +chain which held a stylographic pen, lay among the bones. There was +also a silver cigarette-case, with "J. C., from A. E. S.," upon the +lid. The state of the metal seemed to show that the catastrophe had +occurred no great time before. +</P> + +<P> +"Who can he be?" asked Lord John. "Poor devil! every bone in his body +seems to be broken." +</P> + +<P> +"And the bamboo grows through his smashed ribs," said Summerlee. "It +is a fast-growing plant, but it is surely inconceivable that this body +could have been here while the canes grew to be twenty feet in length." +</P> + +<P> +"As to the man's identity," said Professor Challenger, "I have no doubt +whatever upon that point. As I made my way up the river before I +reached you at the fazenda I instituted very particular inquiries about +Maple White. At Para they knew nothing. Fortunately, I had a definite +clew, for there was a particular picture in his sketch-book which +showed him taking lunch with a certain ecclesiastic at Rosario. This +priest I was able to find, and though he proved a very argumentative +fellow, who took it absurdly amiss that I should point out to him the +corrosive effect which modern science must have upon his beliefs, he +none the less gave me some positive information. Maple White passed +Rosario four years ago, or two years before I saw his dead body. He +was not alone at the time, but there was a friend, an American named +James Colver, who remained in the boat and did not meet this +ecclesiastic. I think, therefore, that there can be no doubt that we +are now looking upon the remains of this James Colver." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor," said Lord John, "is there much doubt as to how he met his death. +He has fallen or been chucked from the top, and so been impaled. How +else could he come by his broken bones, and how could he have been +stuck through by these canes with their points so high above our heads?" +</P> + +<P> +A hush came over us as we stood round these shattered remains and +realized the truth of Lord John Roxton's words. The beetling head of +the cliff projected over the cane-brake. Undoubtedly he had fallen +from above. But had he fallen? Had it been an accident? Or—already +ominous and terrible possibilities began to form round that unknown +land. +</P> + +<P> +We moved off in silence, and continued to coast round the line of +cliffs, which were as even and unbroken as some of those monstrous +Antarctic ice-fields which I have seen depicted as stretching from +horizon to horizon and towering high above the mast-heads of the +exploring vessel. +</P> + +<P> +In five miles we saw no rift or break. And then suddenly we perceived +something which filled us with new hope. In a hollow of the rock, +protected from rain, there was drawn a rough arrow in chalk, pointing +still to the westwards. +</P> + +<P> +"Maple White again," said Professor Challenger. "He had some +presentiment that worthy footsteps would follow close behind him." +</P> + +<P> +"He had chalk, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"A box of colored chalks was among the effects I found in his knapsack. +I remember that the white one was worn to a stump." +</P> + +<P> +"That is certainly good evidence," said Summerlee. "We can only accept +his guidance and follow on to the westward." +</P> + +<P> +We had proceeded some five more miles when again we saw a white arrow +upon the rocks. It was at a point where the face of the cliff was for +the first time split into a narrow cleft. Inside the cleft was a +second guidance mark, which pointed right up it with the tip somewhat +elevated, as if the spot indicated were above the level of the ground. +</P> + +<P> +It was a solemn place, for the walls were so gigantic and the slit of +blue sky so narrow and so obscured by a double fringe of verdure, that +only a dim and shadowy light penetrated to the bottom. We had had no +food for many hours, and were very weary with the stony and irregular +journey, but our nerves were too strung to allow us to halt. We +ordered the camp to be pitched, however, and, leaving the Indians to +arrange it, we four, with the two half-breeds, proceeded up the narrow +gorge. +</P> + +<P> +It was not more than forty feet across at the mouth, but it rapidly +closed until it ended in an acute angle, too straight and smooth for an +ascent. Certainly it was not this which our pioneer had attempted to +indicate. We made our way back—the whole gorge was not more than a +quarter of a mile deep—and then suddenly the quick eyes of Lord John +fell upon what we were seeking. High up above our heads, amid the dark +shadows, there was one circle of deeper gloom. Surely it could only be +the opening of a cave. +</P> + +<P> +The base of the cliff was heaped with loose stones at the spot, and it +was not difficult to clamber up. When we reached it, all doubt was +removed. Not only was it an opening into the rock, but on the side of +it there was marked once again the sign of the arrow. Here was the +point, and this the means by which Maple White and his ill-fated +comrade had made their ascent. +</P> + +<P> +We were too excited to return to the camp, but must make our first +exploration at once. Lord John had an electric torch in his knapsack, +and this had to serve us as light. He advanced, throwing his little +clear circlet of yellow radiance before him, while in single file we +followed at his heels. +</P> + +<P> +The cave had evidently been water-worn, the sides being smooth and the +floor covered with rounded stones. It was of such a size that a single +man could just fit through by stooping. For fifty yards it ran almost +straight into the rock, and then it ascended at an angle of forty-five. +Presently this incline became even steeper, and we found ourselves +climbing upon hands and knees among loose rubble which slid from +beneath us. Suddenly an exclamation broke from Lord Roxton. +</P> + +<P> +"It's blocked!" said he. +</P> + +<P> +Clustering behind him we saw in the yellow field of light a wall of +broken basalt which extended to the ceiling. +</P> + +<P> +"The roof has fallen in!" +</P> + +<P> +In vain we dragged out some of the pieces. The only effect was that +the larger ones became detached and threatened to roll down the +gradient and crush us. It was evident that the obstacle was far beyond +any efforts which we could make to remove it. The road by which Maple +White had ascended was no longer available. +</P> + +<P> +Too much cast down to speak, we stumbled down the dark tunnel and made +our way back to the camp. +</P> + +<P> +One incident occurred, however, before we left the gorge, which is of +importance in view of what came afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +We had gathered in a little group at the bottom of the chasm, some +forty feet beneath the mouth of the cave, when a huge rock rolled +suddenly downwards—and shot past us with tremendous force. It was the +narrowest escape for one or all of us. We could not ourselves see +whence the rock had come, but our half-breed servants, who were still +at the opening of the cave, said that it had flown past them, and must +therefore have fallen from the summit. Looking upwards, we could see +no sign of movement above us amidst the green jungle which topped the +cliff. There could be little doubt, however, that the stone was aimed +at us, so the incident surely pointed to humanity—and malevolent +humanity—upon the plateau. +</P> + +<P> +We withdrew hurriedly from the chasm, our minds full of this new +development and its bearing upon our plans. The situation was +difficult enough before, but if the obstructions of Nature were +increased by the deliberate opposition of man, then our case was indeed +a hopeless one. And yet, as we looked up at that beautiful fringe of +verdure only a few hundreds of feet above our heads, there was not one +of us who could conceive the idea of returning to London until we had +explored it to its depths. +</P> + +<P> +On discussing the situation, we determined that our best course was to +continue to coast round the plateau in the hope of finding some other +means of reaching the top. The line of cliffs, which had decreased +considerably in height, had already begun to trend from west to north, +and if we could take this as representing the arc of a circle, the +whole circumference could not be very great. At the worst, then, we +should be back in a few days at our starting-point. +</P> + +<P> +We made a march that day which totaled some two-and-twenty miles, +without any change in our prospects. I may mention that our aneroid +shows us that in the continual incline which we have ascended since we +abandoned our canoes we have risen to no less than three thousand feet +above sea-level. Hence there is a considerable change both in the +temperature and in the vegetation. We have shaken off some of that +horrible insect life which is the bane of tropical travel. A few palms +still survive, and many tree-ferns, but the Amazonian trees have been +all left behind. It was pleasant to see the convolvulus, the +passion-flower, and the begonia, all reminding me of home, here among +these inhospitable rocks. There was a red begonia just the same color +as one that is kept in a pot in the window of a certain villa in +Streatham—but I am drifting into private reminiscence. +</P> + +<P> +That night—I am still speaking of the first day of our +circumnavigation of the plateau—a great experience awaited us, and one +which for ever set at rest any doubt which we could have had as to the +wonders so near us. +</P> + +<P> +You will realize as you read it, my dear Mr. McArdle, and possibly for +the first time that the paper has not sent me on a wild-goose chase, +and that there is inconceivably fine copy waiting for the world +whenever we have the Professor's leave to make use of it. I shall not +dare to publish these articles unless I can bring back my proofs to +England, or I shall be hailed as the journalistic Munchausen of all +time. I have no doubt that you feel the same way yourself, and that +you would not care to stake the whole credit of the Gazette upon this +adventure until we can meet the chorus of criticism and scepticism +which such articles must of necessity elicit. So this wonderful +incident, which would make such a headline for the old paper, must +still wait its turn in the editorial drawer. +</P> + +<P> +And yet it was all over in a flash, and there was no sequel to it, save +in our own convictions. +</P> + +<P> +What occurred was this. Lord John had shot an ajouti—which is a +small, pig-like animal—and, half of it having been given to the +Indians, we were cooking the other half upon our fire. There is a +chill in the air after dark, and we had all drawn close to the blaze. +The night was moonless, but there were some stars, and one could see +for a little distance across the plain. Well, suddenly out of the +darkness, out of the night, there swooped something with a swish like +an aeroplane. The whole group of us were covered for an instant by a +canopy of leathery wings, and I had a momentary vision of a long, +snake-like neck, a fierce, red, greedy eye, and a great snapping beak, +filled, to my amazement, with little, gleaming teeth. The next instant +it was gone—and so was our dinner. A huge black shadow, twenty feet +across, skimmed up into the air; for an instant the monster wings +blotted out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliff +above us. We all sat in amazed silence round the fire, like the heroes +of Virgil when the Harpies came down upon them. It was Summerlee who +was the first to speak. +</P> + +<P> +"Professor Challenger," said he, in a solemn voice, which quavered with +emotion, "I owe you an apology. Sir, I am very much in the wrong, and +I beg that you will forget what is past." +</P> + +<P> +It was handsomely said, and the two men for the first time shook hands. +So much we have gained by this clear vision of our first pterodactyl. +It was worth a stolen supper to bring two such men together. +</P> + +<P> +But if prehistoric life existed upon the plateau it was not +superabundant, for we had no further glimpse of it during the next +three days. During this time we traversed a barren and forbidding +country, which alternated between stony desert and desolate marshes +full of many wild-fowl, upon the north and east of the cliffs. From +that direction the place is really inaccessible, and, were it not for a +hardish ledge which runs at the very base of the precipice, we should +have had to turn back. Many times we were up to our waists in the +slime and blubber of an old, semi-tropical swamp. To make matters +worse, the place seemed to be a favorite breeding-place of the Jaracaca +snake, the most venomous and aggressive in South America. Again and +again these horrible creatures came writhing and springing towards us +across the surface of this putrid bog, and it was only by keeping our +shot-guns for ever ready that we could feel safe from them. One +funnel-shaped depression in the morass, of a livid green in color from +some lichen which festered in it, will always remain as a nightmare +memory in my mind. It seems to have been a special nest of these +vermins, and the slopes were alive with them, all writhing in our +direction, for it is a peculiarity of the Jaracaca that he will always +attack man at first sight. There were too many for us to shoot, so we +fairly took to our heels and ran until we were exhausted. I shall +always remember as we looked back how far behind we could see the heads +and necks of our horrible pursuers rising and falling amid the reeds. +Jaracaca Swamp we named it in the map which we are constructing. +</P> + +<P> +The cliffs upon the farther side had lost their ruddy tint, being +chocolate-brown in color; the vegetation was more scattered along the +top of them, and they had sunk to three or four hundred feet in height, +but in no place did we find any point where they could be ascended. If +anything, they were more impossible than at the first point where we +had met them. Their absolute steepness is indicated in the photograph +which I took over the stony desert. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely," said I, as we discussed the situation, "the rain must find +its way down somehow. There are bound to be water-channels in the +rocks." +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend has glimpses of lucidity," said Professor Challenger, +patting me upon the shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"The rain must go somewhere," I repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"He keeps a firm grip upon actuality. The only drawback is that we +have conclusively proved by ocular demonstration that there are no +water channels down the rocks." +</P> + +<P> +"Where, then, does it go?" I persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"I think it may be fairly assumed that if it does not come outwards it +must run inwards." +</P> + +<P> +"Then there is a lake in the center." +</P> + +<P> +"So I should suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"It is more than likely that the lake may be an old crater," said +Summerlee. "The whole formation is, of course, highly volcanic. But, +however that may be, I should expect to find the surface of the plateau +slope inwards with a considerable sheet of water in the center, which +may drain off, by some subterranean channel, into the marshes of the +Jaracaca Swamp." +</P> + +<P> +"Or evaporation might preserve an equilibrium," remarked Challenger, +and the two learned men wandered off into one of their usual scientific +arguments, which were as comprehensible as Chinese to the layman. +</P> + +<P> +On the sixth day we completed our first circuit of the cliffs, and +found ourselves back at the first camp, beside the isolated pinnacle of +rock. We were a disconsolate party, for nothing could have been more +minute than our investigation, and it was absolutely certain that there +was no single point where the most active human being could possibly +hope to scale the cliff. The place which Maple White's chalk-marks had +indicated as his own means of access was now entirely impassable. +</P> + +<P> +What were we to do now? Our stores of provisions, supplemented by our +guns, were holding out well, but the day must come when they would need +replenishment. In a couple of months the rains might be expected, and +we should be washed out of our camp. The rock was harder than marble, +and any attempt at cutting a path for so great a height was more than +our time or resources would admit. No wonder that we looked gloomily +at each other that night, and sought our blankets with hardly a word +exchanged. I remember that as I dropped off to sleep my last +recollection was that Challenger was squatting, like a monstrous +bull-frog, by the fire, his huge head in his hands, sunk apparently in +the deepest thought, and entirely oblivious to the good-night which I +wished him. +</P> + +<P> +But it was a very different Challenger who greeted us in the morning—a +Challenger with contentment and self-congratulation shining from his +whole person. He faced us as we assembled for breakfast with a +deprecating false modesty in his eyes, as who should say, "I know that +I deserve all that you can say, but I pray you to spare my blushes by +not saying it." His beard bristled exultantly, his chest was thrown +out, and his hand was thrust into the front of his jacket. So, in his +fancy, may he see himself sometimes, gracing the vacant pedestal in +Trafalgar Square, and adding one more to the horrors of the London +streets. +</P> + +<P> +"Eureka!" he cried, his teeth shining through his beard. "Gentlemen, +you may congratulate me and we may congratulate each other. The +problem is solved." +</P> + +<P> +"You have found a way up?" +</P> + +<P> +"I venture to think so." +</P> + +<P> +"And where?" +</P> + +<P> +For answer he pointed to the spire-like pinnacle upon our right. +</P> + +<P> +Our faces—or mine, at least—fell as we surveyed it. That it could be +climbed we had our companion's assurance. But a horrible abyss lay +between it and the plateau. +</P> + +<P> +"We can never get across," I gasped. +</P> + +<P> +"We can at least all reach the summit," said he. "When we are up I may +be able to show you that the resources of an inventive mind are not yet +exhausted." +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast we unpacked the bundle in which our leader had brought +his climbing accessories. From it he took a coil of the strongest and +lightest rope, a hundred and fifty feet in length, with climbing irons, +clamps, and other devices. Lord John was an experienced mountaineer, +and Summerlee had done some rough climbing at various times, so that I +was really the novice at rock-work of the party; but my strength and +activity may have made up for my want of experience. +</P> + +<P> +It was not in reality a very stiff task, though there were moments +which made my hair bristle upon my head. The first half was perfectly +easy, but from there upwards it became continually steeper until, for +the last fifty feet, we were literally clinging with our fingers and +toes to tiny ledges and crevices in the rock. I could not have +accomplished it, nor could Summerlee, if Challenger had not gained the +summit (it was extraordinary to see such activity in so unwieldy a +creature) and there fixed the rope round the trunk of the considerable +tree which grew there. With this as our support, we were soon able to +scramble up the jagged wall until we found ourselves upon the small +grassy platform, some twenty-five feet each way, which formed the +summit. +</P> + +<P> +The first impression which I received when I had recovered my breath +was of the extraordinary view over the country which we had traversed. +The whole Brazilian plain seemed to lie beneath us, extending away and +away until it ended in dim blue mists upon the farthest sky-line. In +the foreground was the long slope, strewn with rocks and dotted with +tree-ferns; farther off in the middle distance, looking over the +saddle-back hill, I could just see the yellow and green mass of bamboos +through which we had passed; and then, gradually, the vegetation +increased until it formed the huge forest which extended as far as the +eyes could reach, and for a good two thousand miles beyond. +</P> + +<P> +I was still drinking in this wonderful panorama when the heavy hand of +the Professor fell upon my shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"This way, my young friend," said he; "vestigia nulla retrorsum. Never +look rearwards, but always to our glorious goal." +</P> + +<P> +The level of the plateau, when I turned, was exactly that on which we +stood, and the green bank of bushes, with occasional trees, was so near +that it was difficult to realize how inaccessible it remained. At a +rough guess the gulf was forty feet across, but, so far as I could see, +it might as well have been forty miles. I placed one arm round the +trunk of the tree and leaned over the abyss. Far down were the small +dark figures of our servants, looking up at us. The wall was +absolutely precipitous, as was that which faced me. +</P> + +<P> +"This is indeed curious," said the creaking voice of Professor +Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +I turned, and found that he was examining with great interest the tree +to which I clung. That smooth bark and those small, ribbed leaves +seemed familiar to my eyes. "Why," I cried, "it's a beech!" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly," said Summerlee. "A fellow-countryman in a far land." +</P> + +<P> +"Not only a fellow-countryman, my good sir," said Challenger, "but +also, if I may be allowed to enlarge your simile, an ally of the first +value. This beech tree will be our saviour." +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" cried Lord John, "a bridge!" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly, my friends, a bridge! It is not for nothing that I expended +an hour last night in focusing my mind upon the situation. I have some +recollection of once remarking to our young friend here that G. E. C. +is at his best when his back is to the wall. Last night you will admit +that all our backs were to the wall. But where will-power and +intellect go together, there is always a way out. A drawbridge had to +be found which could be dropped across the abyss. Behold it!" +</P> + +<P> +It was certainly a brilliant idea. The tree was a good sixty feet in +height, and if it only fell the right way it would easily cross the +chasm. Challenger had slung the camp axe over his shoulder when he +ascended. Now he handed it to me. +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend has the thews and sinews," said he. "I think he will +be the most useful at this task. I must beg, however, that you will +kindly refrain from thinking for yourself, and that you will do exactly +what you are told." +</P> + +<P> +Under his direction I cut such gashes in the sides of the trees as +would ensure that it should fall as we desired. It had already a +strong, natural tilt in the direction of the plateau, so that the +matter was not difficult. Finally I set to work in earnest upon the +trunk, taking turn and turn with Lord John. In a little over an hour +there was a loud crack, the tree swayed forward, and then crashed over, +burying its branches among the bushes on the farther side. The severed +trunk rolled to the very edge of our platform, and for one terrible +second we all thought it was over. It balanced itself, however, a few +inches from the edge, and there was our bridge to the unknown. +</P> + +<P> +All of us, without a word, shook hands with Professor Challenger, who +raised his straw hat and bowed deeply to each in turn. +</P> + +<P> +"I claim the honor," said he, "to be the first to cross to the unknown +land—a fitting subject, no doubt, for some future historical painting." +</P> + +<P> +He had approached the bridge when Lord John laid his hand upon his coat. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear chap," said he, "I really cannot allow it." +</P> + +<P> +"Cannot allow it, sir!" The head went back and the beard forward. +</P> + +<P> +"When it is a matter of science, don't you know, I follow your lead +because you are by way of bein' a man of science. But it's up to you +to follow me when you come into my department." +</P> + +<P> +"Your department, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"We all have our professions, and soldierin' is mine. We are, +accordin' to my ideas, invadin' a new country, which may or may not be +chock-full of enemies of sorts. To barge blindly into it for want of a +little common sense and patience isn't my notion of management." +</P> + +<P> +The remonstrance was too reasonable to be disregarded. Challenger +tossed his head and shrugged his heavy shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, what do you propose?" +</P> + +<P> +"For all I know there may be a tribe of cannibals waitin' for +lunch-time among those very bushes," said Lord John, looking across the +bridge. "It's better to learn wisdom before you get into a +cookin'-pot; so we will content ourselves with hopin' that there is no +trouble waitin' for us, and at the same time we will act as if there +were. Malone and I will go down again, therefore, and we will fetch up +the four rifles, together with Gomez and the other. One man can then +go across and the rest will cover him with guns, until he sees that it +is safe for the whole crowd to come along." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger sat down upon the cut stump and groaned his impatience; but +Summerlee and I were of one mind that Lord John was our leader when +such practical details were in question. The climb was a more simple +thing now that the rope dangled down the face of the worst part of the +ascent. Within an hour we had brought up the rifles and a shot-gun. +The half-breeds had ascended also, and under Lord John's orders they +had carried up a bale of provisions in case our first exploration +should be a long one. We had each bandoliers of cartridges. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Challenger, if you really insist upon being the first man in," +said Lord John, when every preparation was complete. +</P> + +<P> +"I am much indebted to you for your gracious permission," said the +angry Professor; for never was a man so intolerant of every form of +authority. "Since you are good enough to allow it, I shall most +certainly take it upon myself to act as pioneer upon this occasion." +</P> + +<P> +Seating himself with a leg overhanging the abyss on each side, and his +hatchet slung upon his back, Challenger hopped his way across the trunk +and was soon at the other side. He clambered up and waved his arms in +the air. +</P> + +<P> +"At last!" he cried; "at last!" +</P> + +<P> +I gazed anxiously at him, with a vague expectation that some terrible +fate would dart at him from the curtain of green behind him. But all +was quiet, save that a strange, many-colored bird flew up from under +his feet and vanished among the trees. +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee was the second. His wiry energy is wonderful in so frail a +frame. He insisted upon having two rifles slung upon his back, so that +both Professors were armed when he had made his transit. I came next, +and tried hard not to look down into the horrible gulf over which I was +passing. Summerlee held out the butt-end of his rifle, and an instant +later I was able to grasp his hand. As to Lord John, he walked +across—actually walked without support! He must have nerves of iron. +</P> + +<P> +And there we were, the four of us, upon the dreamland, the lost world, +of Maple White. To all of us it seemed the moment of our supreme +triumph. Who could have guessed that it was the prelude to our supreme +disaster? Let me say in a few words how the crushing blow fell upon us. +</P> + +<P> +We had turned away from the edge, and had penetrated about fifty yards +of close brushwood, when there came a frightful rending crash from +behind us. With one impulse we rushed back the way that we had come. +The bridge was gone! +</P> + +<P> +Far down at the base of the cliff I saw, as I looked over, a tangled +mass of branches and splintered trunk. It was our beech tree. Had the +edge of the platform crumbled and let it through? For a moment this +explanation was in all our minds. The next, from the farther side of +the rocky pinnacle before us a swarthy face, the face of Gomez the +half-breed, was slowly protruded. Yes, it was Gomez, but no longer the +Gomez of the demure smile and the mask-like expression. Here was a +face with flashing eyes and distorted features, a face convulsed with +hatred and with the mad joy of gratified revenge. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord Roxton!" he shouted. "Lord John Roxton!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said our companion, "here I am." +</P> + +<P> +A shriek of laughter came across the abyss. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, there you are, you English dog, and there you will remain! I +have waited and waited, and now has come my chance. You found it hard +to get up; you will find it harder to get down. You cursed fools, you +are trapped, every one of you!" +</P> + +<P> +We were too astounded to speak. We could only stand there staring in +amazement. A great broken bough upon the grass showed whence he had +gained his leverage to tilt over our bridge. The face had vanished, +but presently it was up again, more frantic than before. +</P> + +<P> +"We nearly killed you with a stone at the cave," he cried; "but this is +better. It is slower and more terrible. Your bones will whiten up +there, and none will know where you lie or come to cover them. As you +lie dying, think of Lopez, whom you shot five years ago on the Putomayo +River. I am his brother, and, come what will I will die happy now, for +his memory has been avenged." A furious hand was shaken at us, and then +all was quiet. +</P> + +<P> +Had the half-breed simply wrought his vengeance and then escaped, all +might have been well with him. It was that foolish, irresistible Latin +impulse to be dramatic which brought his own downfall. Roxton, the man +who had earned himself the name of the Flail of the Lord through three +countries, was not one who could be safely taunted. The half-breed was +descending on the farther side of the pinnacle; but before he could +reach the ground Lord John had run along the edge of the plateau and +gained a point from which he could see his man. There was a single +crack of his rifle, and, though we saw nothing, we heard the scream and +then the distant thud of the falling body. Roxton came back to us with +a face of granite. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been a blind simpleton," said he, bitterly, "It's my folly +that has brought you all into this trouble. I should have remembered +that these people have long memories for blood-feuds, and have been +more upon my guard." +</P> + +<P> +"What about the other one? It took two of them to lever that tree over +the edge." +</P> + +<P> +"I could have shot him, but I let him go. He may have had no part in +it. Perhaps it would have been better if I had killed him, for he +must, as you say, have lent a hand." +</P> + +<P> +Now that we had the clue to his action, each of us could cast back and +remember some sinister act upon the part of the half-breed—his +constant desire to know our plans, his arrest outside our tent when he +was over-hearing them, the furtive looks of hatred which from time to +time one or other of us had surprised. We were still discussing it, +endeavoring to adjust our minds to these new conditions, when a +singular scene in the plain below arrested our attention. +</P> + +<P> +A man in white clothes, who could only be the surviving half-breed, was +running as one does run when Death is the pacemaker. Behind him, only +a few yards in his rear, bounded the huge ebony figure of Zambo, our +devoted negro. Even as we looked, he sprang upon the back of the +fugitive and flung his arms round his neck. They rolled on the ground +together. An instant afterwards Zambo rose, looked at the prostrate +man, and then, waving his hand joyously to us, came running in our +direction. The white figure lay motionless in the middle of the great +plain. +</P> + +<P> +Our two traitors had been destroyed, but the mischief that they had +done lived after them. By no possible means could we get back to the +pinnacle. We had been natives of the world; now we were natives of the +plateau. The two things were separate and apart. There was the plain +which led to the canoes. Yonder, beyond the violet, hazy horizon, was +the stream which led back to civilization. But the link between was +missing. No human ingenuity could suggest a means of bridging the +chasm which yawned between ourselves and our past lives. One instant +had altered the whole conditions of our existence. +</P> + +<P> +It was at such a moment that I learned the stuff of which my three +comrades were composed. They were grave, it is true, and thoughtful, +but of an invincible serenity. For the moment we could only sit among +the bushes in patience and wait the coming of Zambo. Presently his +honest black face topped the rocks and his Herculean figure emerged +upon the top of the pinnacle. +</P> + +<P> +"What I do now?" he cried. "You tell me and I do it." +</P> + +<P> +It was a question which it was easier to ask than to answer. One thing +only was clear. He was our one trusty link with the outside world. On +no account must he leave us. +</P> + +<P> +"No no!" he cried. "I not leave you. Whatever come, you always find +me here. But no able to keep Indians. Already they say too much +Curupuri live on this place, and they go home. Now you leave them me +no able to keep them." +</P> + +<P> +It was a fact that our Indians had shown in many ways of late that they +were weary of their journey and anxious to return. We realized that +Zambo spoke the truth, and that it would be impossible for him to keep +them. +</P> + +<P> +"Make them wait till to-morrow, Zambo," I shouted; "then I can send +letter back by them." +</P> + +<P> +"Very good, sarr! I promise they wait till to-morrow," said the negro. +"But what I do for you now?" +</P> + +<P> +There was plenty for him to do, and admirably the faithful fellow did +it. First of all, under our directions, he undid the rope from the +tree-stump and threw one end of it across to us. It was not thicker +than a clothes-line, but it was of great strength, and though we could +not make a bridge of it, we might well find it invaluable if we had any +climbing to do. He then fastened his end of the rope to the package of +supplies which had been carried up, and we were able to drag it across. +This gave us the means of life for at least a week, even if we found +nothing else. Finally he descended and carried up two other packets of +mixed goods—a box of ammunition and a number of other things, all of +which we got across by throwing our rope to him and hauling it back. +It was evening when he at last climbed down, with a final assurance +that he would keep the Indians till next morning. +</P> + +<P> +And so it is that I have spent nearly the whole of this our first night +upon the plateau writing up our experiences by the light of a single +candle-lantern. +</P> + +<P> +We supped and camped at the very edge of the cliff, quenching our +thirst with two bottles of Apollinaris which were in one of the cases. +It is vital to us to find water, but I think even Lord John himself had +had adventures enough for one day, and none of us felt inclined to make +the first push into the unknown. We forbore to light a fire or to make +any unnecessary sound. +</P> + +<P> +To-morrow (or to-day, rather, for it is already dawn as I write) we +shall make our first venture into this strange land. When I shall be +able to write again—or if I ever shall write again—I know not. +Meanwhile, I can see that the Indians are still in their place, and I +am sure that the faithful Zambo will be here presently to get my +letter. I only trust that it will come to hand. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +P.S.—The more I think the more desperate does our position seem. I +see no possible hope of our return. If there were a high tree near the +edge of the plateau we might drop a return bridge across, but there is +none within fifty yards. Our united strength could not carry a trunk +which would serve our purpose. The rope, of course, is far too short +that we could descend by it. No, our position is hopeless—hopeless! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "The most Wonderful Things have Happened" +</H3> + +<P> +The most wonderful things have happened and are continually happening +to us. All the paper that I possess consists of five old note-books +and a lot of scraps, and I have only the one stylographic pencil; but +so long as I can move my hand I will continue to set down our +experiences and impressions, for, since we are the only men of the +whole human race to see such things, it is of enormous importance that +I should record them whilst they are fresh in my memory and before that +fate which seems to be constantly impending does actually overtake us. +Whether Zambo can at last take these letters to the river, or whether I +shall myself in some miraculous way carry them back with me, or, +finally, whether some daring explorer, coming upon our tracks with the +advantage, perhaps, of a perfected monoplane, should find this bundle +of manuscript, in any case I can see that what I am writing is destined +to immortality as a classic of true adventure. +</P> + +<P> +On the morning after our being trapped upon the plateau by the +villainous Gomez we began a new stage in our experiences. The first +incident in it was not such as to give me a very favorable opinion of +the place to which we had wandered. As I roused myself from a short +nap after day had dawned, my eyes fell upon a most singular appearance +upon my own leg. My trouser had slipped up, exposing a few inches of +my skin above my sock. On this there rested a large, purplish grape. +Astonished at the sight, I leaned forward to pick it off, when, to my +horror, it burst between my finger and thumb, squirting blood in every +direction. My cry of disgust had brought the two professors to my side. +</P> + +<P> +"Most interesting," said Summerlee, bending over my shin. "An enormous +blood-tick, as yet, I believe, unclassified." +</P> + +<P> +"The first-fruits of our labors," said Challenger in his booming, +pedantic fashion. "We cannot do less than call it Ixodes Maloni. The +very small inconvenience of being bitten, my young friend, cannot, I am +sure, weigh with you as against the glorious privilege of having your +name inscribed in the deathless roll of zoology. Unhappily you have +crushed this fine specimen at the moment of satiation." +</P> + +<P> +"Filthy vermin!" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Challenger raised his great eyebrows in protest, and placed a +soothing paw upon my shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"You should cultivate the scientific eye and the detached scientific +mind," said he. "To a man of philosophic temperament like myself the +blood-tick, with its lancet-like proboscis and its distending stomach, +is as beautiful a work of Nature as the peacock or, for that matter, +the aurora borealis. It pains me to hear you speak of it in so +unappreciative a fashion. No doubt, with due diligence, we can secure +some other specimen." +</P> + +<P> +"There can be no doubt of that," said Summerlee, grimly, "for one has +just disappeared behind your shirt-collar." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger sprang into the air bellowing like a bull, and tore +frantically at his coat and shirt to get them off. Summerlee and I +laughed so that we could hardly help him. At last we exposed that +monstrous torso (fifty-four inches, by the tailor's tape). His body +was all matted with black hair, out of which jungle we picked the +wandering tick before it had bitten him. But the bushes round were +full of the horrible pests, and it was clear that we must shift our +camp. +</P> + +<P> +But first of all it was necessary to make our arrangements with the +faithful negro, who appeared presently on the pinnacle with a number of +tins of cocoa and biscuits, which he tossed over to us. Of the stores +which remained below he was ordered to retain as much as would keep him +for two months. The Indians were to have the remainder as a reward for +their services and as payment for taking our letters back to the +Amazon. Some hours later we saw them in single file far out upon the +plain, each with a bundle on his head, making their way back along the +path we had come. Zambo occupied our little tent at the base of the +pinnacle, and there he remained, our one link with the world below. +</P> + +<P> +And now we had to decide upon our immediate movements. We shifted our +position from among the tick-laden bushes until we came to a small +clearing thickly surrounded by trees upon all sides. There were some +flat slabs of rock in the center, with an excellent well close by, and +there we sat in cleanly comfort while we made our first plans for the +invasion of this new country. Birds were calling among the +foliage—especially one with a peculiar whooping cry which was new to +us—but beyond these sounds there were no signs of life. +</P> + +<P> +Our first care was to make some sort of list of our own stores, so that +we might know what we had to rely upon. What with the things we had +ourselves brought up and those which Zambo had sent across on the rope, +we were fairly well supplied. Most important of all, in view of the +dangers which might surround us, we had our four rifles and one +thousand three hundred rounds, also a shot-gun, but not more than a +hundred and fifty medium pellet cartridges. In the matter of +provisions we had enough to last for several weeks, with a sufficiency +of tobacco and a few scientific implements, including a large telescope +and a good field-glass. All these things we collected together in the +clearing, and as a first precaution, we cut down with our hatchet and +knives a number of thorny bushes, which we piled round in a circle some +fifteen yards in diameter. This was to be our headquarters for the +time—our place of refuge against sudden danger and the guard-house for +our stores. Fort Challenger, we called it. +</P> + +<P> +It was midday before we had made ourselves secure, but the heat was not +oppressive, and the general character of the plateau, both in its +temperature and in its vegetation, was almost temperate. The beech, +the oak, and even the birch were to be found among the tangle of trees +which girt us in. One huge gingko tree, topping all the others, shot +its great limbs and maidenhair foliage over the fort which we had +constructed. In its shade we continued our discussion, while Lord +John, who had quickly taken command in the hour of action, gave us his +views. +</P> + +<P> +"So long as neither man nor beast has seen or heard us, we are safe," +said he. "From the time they know we are here our troubles begin. +There are no signs that they have found us out as yet. So our game +surely is to lie low for a time and spy out the land. We want to have +a good look at our neighbors before we get on visitin' terms." +</P> + +<P> +"But we must advance," I ventured to remark. +</P> + +<P> +"By all means, sonny my boy! We will advance. But with common sense. +We must never go so far that we can't get back to our base. Above all, +we must never, unless it is life or death, fire off our guns." +</P> + +<P> +"But YOU fired yesterday," said Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it couldn't be helped. However, the wind was strong and blew +outwards. It is not likely that the sound could have traveled far into +the plateau. By the way, what shall we call this place? I suppose it +is up to us to give it a name?" +</P> + +<P> +There were several suggestions, more or less happy, but Challenger's +was final. +</P> + +<P> +"It can only have one name," said he. "It is called after the pioneer +who discovered it. It is Maple White Land." +</P> + +<P> +Maple White Land it became, and so it is named in that chart which has +become my special task. So it will, I trust, appear in the atlas of +the future. +</P> + +<P> +The peaceful penetration of Maple White Land was the pressing subject +before us. We had the evidence of our own eyes that the place was +inhabited by some unknown creatures, and there was that of Maple +White's sketch-book to show that more dreadful and more dangerous +monsters might still appear. That there might also prove to be human +occupants and that they were of a malevolent character was suggested by +the skeleton impaled upon the bamboos, which could not have got there +had it not been dropped from above. Our situation, stranded without +possibility of escape in such a land, was clearly full of danger, and +our reasons endorsed every measure of caution which Lord John's +experience could suggest. Yet it was surely impossible that we should +halt on the edge of this world of mystery when our very souls were +tingling with impatience to push forward and to pluck the heart from it. +</P> + +<P> +We therefore blocked the entrance to our zareba by filling it up with +several thorny bushes, and left our camp with the stores entirely +surrounded by this protecting hedge. We then slowly and cautiously set +forth into the unknown, following the course of the little stream which +flowed from our spring, as it should always serve us as a guide on our +return. +</P> + +<P> +Hardly had we started when we came across signs that there were indeed +wonders awaiting us. After a few hundred yards of thick forest, +containing many trees which were quite unknown to me, but which +Summerlee, who was the botanist of the party, recognized as forms of +conifera and of cycadaceous plants which have long passed away in the +world below, we entered a region where the stream widened out and +formed a considerable bog. High reeds of a peculiar type grew thickly +before us, which were pronounced to be equisetacea, or mare's-tails, +with tree-ferns scattered amongst them, all of them swaying in a brisk +wind. Suddenly Lord John, who was walking first, halted with uplifted +hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Look at this!" said he. "By George, this must be the trail of the +father of all birds!" +</P> + +<P> +An enormous three-toed track was imprinted in the soft mud before us. +The creature, whatever it was, had crossed the swamp and had passed on +into the forest. We all stopped to examine that monstrous spoor. If +it were indeed a bird—and what animal could leave such a mark?—its +foot was so much larger than an ostrich's that its height upon the same +scale must be enormous. Lord John looked eagerly round him and slipped +two cartridges into his elephant-gun. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll stake my good name as a shikarree," said he, "that the track is a +fresh one. The creature has not passed ten minutes. Look how the +water is still oozing into that deeper print! By Jove! See, here is +the mark of a little one!" +</P> + +<P> +Sure enough, smaller tracks of the same general form were running +parallel to the large ones. +</P> + +<P> +"But what do you make of this?" cried Professor Summerlee, +triumphantly, pointing to what looked like the huge print of a +five-fingered human hand appearing among the three-toed marks. +</P> + +<P> +"Wealden!" cried Challenger, in an ecstasy. "I've seen them in the +Wealden clay. It is a creature walking erect upon three-toed feet, and +occasionally putting one of its five-fingered forepaws upon the ground. +Not a bird, my dear Roxton—not a bird." +</P> + +<P> +"A beast?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; a reptile—a dinosaur. Nothing else could have left such a track. +They puzzled a worthy Sussex doctor some ninety years ago; but who in +the world could have hoped—hoped—to have seen a sight like that?" +</P> + +<P> +His words died away into a whisper, and we all stood in motionless +amazement. Following the tracks, we had left the morass and passed +through a screen of brushwood and trees. Beyond was an open glade, and +in this were five of the most extraordinary creatures that I have ever +seen. Crouching down among the bushes, we observed them at our leisure. +</P> + +<P> +There were, as I say, five of them, two being adults and three young +ones. In size they were enormous. Even the babies were as big as +elephants, while the two large ones were far beyond all creatures I +have ever seen. They had slate-colored skin, which was scaled like a +lizard's and shimmered where the sun shone upon it. All five were +sitting up, balancing themselves upon their broad, powerful tails and +their huge three-toed hind-feet, while with their small five-fingered +front-feet they pulled down the branches upon which they browsed. I do +not know that I can bring their appearance home to you better than by +saying that they looked like monstrous kangaroos, twenty feet in +length, and with skins like black crocodiles. +</P> + +<P> +I do not know how long we stayed motionless gazing at this marvelous +spectacle. A strong wind blew towards us and we were well concealed, +so there was no chance of discovery. From time to time the little ones +played round their parents in unwieldy gambols, the great beasts +bounding into the air and falling with dull thuds upon the earth. The +strength of the parents seemed to be limitless, for one of them, having +some difficulty in reaching a bunch of foliage which grew upon a +considerable-sized tree, put his fore-legs round the trunk and tore it +down as if it had been a sapling. The action seemed, as I thought, to +show not only the great development of its muscles, but also the small +one of its brain, for the whole weight came crashing down upon the top +of it, and it uttered a series of shrill yelps to show that, big as it +was, there was a limit to what it could endure. The incident made it +think, apparently, that the neighborhood was dangerous, for it slowly +lurched off through the wood, followed by its mate and its three +enormous infants. We saw the shimmering slaty gleam of their skins +between the tree-trunks, and their heads undulating high above the +brush-wood. Then they vanished from our sight. +</P> + +<P> +I looked at my comrades. Lord John was standing at gaze with his +finger on the trigger of his elephant-gun, his eager hunter's soul +shining from his fierce eyes. What would he not give for one such head +to place between the two crossed oars above the mantelpiece in his +snuggery at the Albany! And yet his reason held him in, for all our +exploration of the wonders of this unknown land depended upon our +presence being concealed from its inhabitants. The two professors were +in silent ecstasy. In their excitement they had unconsciously seized +each other by the hand, and stood like two little children in the +presence of a marvel, Challenger's cheeks bunched up into a seraphic +smile, and Summerlee's sardonic face softening for the moment into +wonder and reverence. +</P> + +<P> +"Nunc dimittis!" he cried at last. "What will they say in England of +this?" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Summerlee, I will tell you with great confidence exactly what +they will say in England," said Challenger. "They will say that you +are an infernal liar and a scientific charlatan, exactly as you and +others said of me." +</P> + +<P> +"In the face of photographs?" +</P> + +<P> +"Faked, Summerlee! Clumsily faked!" +</P> + +<P> +"In the face of specimens?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, there we may have them! Malone and his filthy Fleet Street crew +may be all yelping our praises yet. August the twenty-eighth—the day +we saw five live iguanodons in a glade of Maple White Land. Put it +down in your diary, my young friend, and send it to your rag." +</P> + +<P> +"And be ready to get the toe-end of the editorial boot in return," said +Lord John. "Things look a bit different from the latitude of London, +young fellah my lad. There's many a man who never tells his +adventures, for he can't hope to be believed. Who's to blame them? +For this will seem a bit of a dream to ourselves in a month or two. +WHAT did you say they were?" +</P> + +<P> +"Iguanodons," said Summerlee. "You'll find their footmarks all over +the Hastings sands, in Kent, and in Sussex. The South of England was +alive with them when there was plenty of good lush green-stuff to keep +them going. Conditions have changed, and the beasts died. Here it +seems that the conditions have not changed, and the beasts have lived." +</P> + +<P> +"If ever we get out of this alive, I must have a head with me," said +Lord John. "Lord, how some of that Somaliland-Uganda crowd would turn +a beautiful pea-green if they saw it! I don't know what you chaps +think, but it strikes me that we are on mighty thin ice all this time." +</P> + +<P> +I had the same feeling of mystery and danger around us. In the gloom +of the trees there seemed a constant menace and as we looked up into +their shadowy foliage vague terrors crept into one's heart. It is true +that these monstrous creatures which we had seen were lumbering, +inoffensive brutes which were unlikely to hurt anyone, but in this +world of wonders what other survivals might there not be—what fierce, +active horrors ready to pounce upon us from their lair among the rocks +or brushwood? I knew little of prehistoric life, but I had a clear +remembrance of one book which I had read in which it spoke of creatures +who would live upon our lions and tigers as a cat lives upon mice. +What if these also were to be found in the woods of Maple White Land! +</P> + +<P> +It was destined that on this very morning—our first in the new +country—we were to find out what strange hazards lay around us. It +was a loathsome adventure, and one of which I hate to think. If, as +Lord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will remain with us as a +dream, then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will forever be our +nightmare. Let me set down exactly what occurred. +</P> + +<P> +We passed very slowly through the woods, partly because Lord Roxton +acted as scout before he would let us advance, and partly because at +every second step one or other of our professors would fall, with a cry +of wonder, before some flower or insect which presented him with a new +type. We may have traveled two or three miles in all, keeping to the +right of the line of the stream, when we came upon a considerable +opening in the trees. A belt of brushwood led up to a tangle of +rocks—the whole plateau was strewn with boulders. We were walking +slowly towards these rocks, among bushes which reached over our waists, +when we became aware of a strange low gabbling and whistling sound, +which filled the air with a constant clamor and appeared to come from +some spot immediately before us. Lord John held up his hand as a +signal for us to stop, and he made his way swiftly, stooping and +running, to the line of rocks. We saw him peep over them and give a +gesture of amazement. Then he stood staring as if forgetting us, so +utterly entranced was he by what he saw. Finally he waved us to come +on, holding up his hand as a signal for caution. His whole bearing +made me feel that something wonderful but dangerous lay before us. +</P> + +<P> +Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into which +we gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been one of the +smaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped and at +the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of +green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes. It was a weird +place in itself, but its occupants made it seem like a scene from the +Seven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of pterodactyls. +There were hundreds of them congregated within view. All the bottom +area round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with +hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. From +this crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shocking +clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odor +which turned us sick. But above, perched each upon its own stone, +tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than +actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless +save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their +rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge, membranous +wings were closed by folding their fore-arms, so that they sat like +gigantic old women, wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and with +their ferocious heads protruding above them. Large and small, not less +than a thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us. +</P> + +<P> +Our professors would gladly have stayed there all day, so entranced +were they by this opportunity of studying the life of a prehistoric +age. They pointed out the fish and dead birds lying about among the +rocks as proving the nature of the food of these creatures, and I heard +them congratulating each other on having cleared up the point why the +bones of this flying dragon are found in such great numbers in certain +well-defined areas, as in the Cambridge Green-sand, since it was now +seen that, like penguins, they lived in gregarious fashion. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, however, Challenger, bent upon proving some point which +Summerlee had contested, thrust his head over the rock and nearly +brought destruction upon us all. In an instant the nearest male gave a +shrill, whistling cry, and flapped its twenty-foot span of leathery +wings as it soared up into the air. The females and young ones huddled +together beside the water, while the whole circle of sentinels rose one +after the other and sailed off into the sky. It was a wonderful sight +to see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideous +appearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes +above us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could +afford to linger. At first the great brutes flew round in a huge ring, +as if to make sure what the exact extent of the danger might be. Then, +the flight grew lower and the circle narrower, until they were whizzing +round and round us, the dry, rustling flap of their huge slate-colored +wings filling the air with a volume of sound that made me think of +Hendon aerodrome upon a race day. +</P> + +<P> +"Make for the wood and keep together," cried Lord John, clubbing his +rifle. "The brutes mean mischief." +</P> + +<P> +The moment we attempted to retreat the circle closed in upon us, until +the tips of the wings of those nearest to us nearly touched our faces. +We beat at them with the stocks of our guns, but there was nothing +solid or vulnerable to strike. Then suddenly out of the whizzing, +slate-colored circle a long neck shot out, and a fierce beak made a +thrust at us. Another and another followed. Summerlee gave a cry and +put his hand to his face, from which the blood was streaming. I felt a +prod at the back of my neck, and turned dizzy with the shock. +Challenger fell, and as I stooped to pick him up I was again struck +from behind and dropped on the top of him. At the same instant I heard +the crash of Lord John's elephant-gun, and, looking up, saw one of the +creatures with a broken wing struggling upon the ground, spitting and +gurgling at us with a wide-opened beak and blood-shot, goggled eyes, +like some devil in a medieval picture. Its comrades had flown higher +at the sudden sound, and were circling above our heads. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," cried Lord John, "now for our lives!" +</P> + +<P> +We staggered through the brushwood, and even as we reached the trees +the harpies were on us again. Summerlee was knocked down, but we tore +him up and rushed among the trunks. Once there we were safe, for those +huge wings had no space for their sweep beneath the branches. As we +limped homewards, sadly mauled and discomfited, we saw them for a long +time flying at a great height against the deep blue sky above our +heads, soaring round and round, no bigger than wood-pigeons, with their +eyes no doubt still following our progress. At last, however, as we +reached the thicker woods they gave up the chase, and we saw them no +more. +</P> + +<P> +"A most interesting and convincing experience," said Challenger, as we +halted beside the brook and he bathed a swollen knee. "We are +exceptionally well informed, Summerlee, as to the habits of the enraged +pterodactyl." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee was wiping the blood from a cut in his forehead, while I was +tying up a nasty stab in the muscle of the neck. Lord John had the +shoulder of his coat torn away, but the creature's teeth had only +grazed the flesh. +</P> + +<P> +"It is worth noting," Challenger continued, "that our young friend has +received an undoubted stab, while Lord John's coat could only have been +torn by a bite. In my own case, I was beaten about the head by their +wings, so we have had a remarkable exhibition of their various methods +of offence." +</P> + +<P> +"It has been touch and go for our lives," said Lord John, gravely, "and +I could not think of a more rotten sort of death than to be outed by +such filthy vermin. I was sorry to fire my rifle, but, by Jove! there +was no great choice." +</P> + +<P> +"We should not be here if you hadn't," said I, with conviction. +</P> + +<P> +"It may do no harm," said he. "Among these woods there must be many +loud cracks from splitting or falling trees which would be just like +the sound of a gun. But now, if you are of my opinion, we have had +thrills enough for one day, and had best get back to the surgical box +at the camp for some carbolic. Who knows what venom these beasts may +have in their hideous jaws?" +</P> + +<P> +But surely no men ever had just such a day since the world began. Some +fresh surprise was ever in store for us. When, following the course of +our brook, we at last reached our glade and saw the thorny barricade of +our camp, we thought that our adventures were at an end. But we had +something more to think of before we could rest. The gate of Fort +Challenger had been untouched, the walls were unbroken, and yet it had +been visited by some strange and powerful creature in our absence. No +foot-mark showed a trace of its nature, and only the overhanging branch +of the enormous ginko tree suggested how it might have come and gone; +but of its malevolent strength there was ample evidence in the +condition of our stores. They were strewn at random all over the +ground, and one tin of meat had been crushed into pieces so as to +extract the contents. A case of cartridges had been shattered into +matchwood, and one of the brass shells lay shredded into pieces beside +it. Again the feeling of vague horror came upon our souls, and we +gazed round with frightened eyes at the dark shadows which lay around +us, in all of which some fearsome shape might be lurking. How good it +was when we were hailed by the voice of Zambo, and, going to the edge +of the plateau, saw him sitting grinning at us upon the top of the +opposite pinnacle. +</P> + +<P> +"All well, Massa Challenger, all well!" he cried. "Me stay here. No +fear. You always find me when you want." +</P> + +<P> +His honest black face, and the immense view before us, which carried us +half-way back to the affluent of the Amazon, helped us to remember that +we really were upon this earth in the twentieth century, and had not by +some magic been conveyed to some raw planet in its earliest and wildest +state. How difficult it was to realize that the violet line upon the +far horizon was well advanced to that great river upon which huge +steamers ran, and folk talked of the small affairs of life, while we, +marooned among the creatures of a bygone age, could but gaze towards it +and yearn for all that it meant! +</P> + +<P> +One other memory remains with me of this wonderful day, and with it I +will close this letter. The two professors, their tempers aggravated +no doubt by their injuries, had fallen out as to whether our assailants +were of the genus pterodactylus or dimorphodon, and high words had +ensued. To avoid their wrangling I moved some little way apart, and +was seated smoking upon the trunk of a fallen tree, when Lord John +strolled over in my direction. +</P> + +<P> +"I say, Malone," said he, "do you remember that place where those +beasts were?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very clearly." +</P> + +<P> +"A sort of volcanic pit, was it not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you notice the soil?" +</P> + +<P> +"Rocks." +</P> + +<P> +"But round the water—where the reeds were?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was a bluish soil. It looked like clay." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. A volcanic tube full of blue clay." +</P> + +<P> +"What of that?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, nothing, nothing," said he, and strolled back to where the voices +of the contending men of science rose in a prolonged duet, the high, +strident note of Summerlee rising and falling to the sonorous bass of +Challenger. I should have thought no more of Lord John's remark were +it not that once again that night I heard him mutter to himself: "Blue +clay—clay in a volcanic tube!" They were the last words I heard before +I dropped into an exhausted sleep. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "For once I was the Hero" +</H3> + +<P> +Lord John Roxton was right when he thought that some specially toxic +quality might lie in the bite of the horrible creatures which had +attacked us. On the morning after our first adventure upon the +plateau, both Summerlee and I were in great pain and fever, while +Challenger's knee was so bruised that he could hardly limp. We kept to +our camp all day, therefore, Lord John busying himself, with such help +as we could give him, in raising the height and thickness of the thorny +walls which were our only defense. I remember that during the whole +long day I was haunted by the feeling that we were closely observed, +though by whom or whence I could give no guess. +</P> + +<P> +So strong was the impression that I told Professor Challenger of it, +who put it down to the cerebral excitement caused by my fever. Again +and again I glanced round swiftly, with the conviction that I was about +to see something, but only to meet the dark tangle of our hedge or the +solemn and cavernous gloom of the great trees which arched above our +heads. And yet the feeling grew ever stronger in my own mind that +something observant and something malevolent was at our very elbow. I +thought of the Indian superstition of the Curupuri—the dreadful, +lurking spirit of the woods—and I could have imagined that his +terrible presence haunted those who had invaded his most remote and +sacred retreat. +</P> + +<P> +That night (our third in Maple White Land) we had an experience which +left a fearful impression upon our minds, and made us thankful that +Lord John had worked so hard in making our retreat impregnable. We +were all sleeping round our dying fire when we were aroused—or, +rather, I should say, shot out of our slumbers—by a succession of the +most frightful cries and screams to which I have ever listened. I know +no sound to which I could compare this amazing tumult, which seemed to +come from some spot within a few hundred yards of our camp. It was as +ear-splitting as any whistle of a railway-engine; but whereas the +whistle is a clear, mechanical, sharp-edged sound, this was far deeper +in volume and vibrant with the uttermost strain of agony and horror. +We clapped our hands to our ears to shut out that nerve-shaking appeal. +A cold sweat broke out over my body, and my heart turned sick at the +misery of it. All the woes of tortured life, all its stupendous +indictment of high heaven, its innumerable sorrows, seemed to be +centered and condensed into that one dreadful, agonized cry. And then, +under this high-pitched, ringing sound there was another, more +intermittent, a low, deep-chested laugh, a growling, throaty gurgle of +merriment which formed a grotesque accompaniment to the shriek with +which it was blended. For three or four minutes on end the fearsome +duet continued, while all the foliage rustled with the rising of +startled birds. Then it shut off as suddenly as it began. For a long +time we sat in horrified silence. Then Lord John threw a bundle of +twigs upon the fire, and their red glare lit up the intent faces of my +companions and flickered over the great boughs above our heads. +</P> + +<P> +"What was it?" I whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"We shall know in the morning," said Lord John. "It was close to +us—not farther than the glade." +</P> + +<P> +"We have been privileged to overhear a prehistoric tragedy, the sort of +drama which occurred among the reeds upon the border of some Jurassic +lagoon, when the greater dragon pinned the lesser among the slime," +said Challenger, with more solemnity than I had ever heard in his +voice. "It was surely well for man that he came late in the order of +creation. There were powers abroad in earlier days which no courage +and no mechanism of his could have met. What could his sling, his +throwing-stick, or his arrow avail him against such forces as have been +loose to-night? Even with a modern rifle it would be all odds on the +monster." +</P> + +<P> +"I think I should back my little friend," said Lord John, caressing his +Express. "But the beast would certainly have a good sporting chance." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee raised his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Hush!" he cried. "Surely I hear something?" +</P> + +<P> +From the utter silence there emerged a deep, regular pat-pat. It was +the tread of some animal—the rhythm of soft but heavy pads placed +cautiously upon the ground. It stole slowly round the camp, and then +halted near our gateway. There was a low, sibilant rise and fall—the +breathing of the creature. Only our feeble hedge separated us from +this horror of the night. Each of us had seized his rifle, and Lord +John had pulled out a small bush to make an embrasure in the hedge. +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" he whispered. "I think I can see it!" +</P> + +<P> +I stooped and peered over his shoulder through the gap. Yes, I could +see it, too. In the deep shadow of the tree there was a deeper shadow +yet, black, inchoate, vague—a crouching form full of savage vigor and +menace. It was no higher than a horse, but the dim outline suggested +vast bulk and strength. That hissing pant, as regular and full-volumed +as the exhaust of an engine, spoke of a monstrous organism. Once, as +it moved, I thought I saw the glint of two terrible, greenish eyes. +There was an uneasy rustling, as if it were crawling slowly forward. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe it is going to spring!" said I, cocking my rifle. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't fire! Don't fire!" whispered Lord John. "The crash of a gun in +this silent night would be heard for miles. Keep it as a last card." +</P> + +<P> +"If it gets over the hedge we're done," said Summerlee, and his voice +crackled into a nervous laugh as he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"No, it must not get over," cried Lord John; "but hold your fire to the +last. Perhaps I can make something of the fellow. I'll chance it, +anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +It was as brave an act as ever I saw a man do. He stooped to the fire, +picked up a blazing branch, and slipped in an instant through a +sallyport which he had made in our gateway. The thing moved forward +with a dreadful snarl. Lord John never hesitated, but, running towards +it with a quick, light step, he dashed the flaming wood into the +brute's face. For one moment I had a vision of a horrible mask like a +giant toad's, of a warty, leprous skin, and of a loose mouth all +beslobbered with fresh blood. The next, there was a crash in the +underwood and our dreadful visitor was gone. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought he wouldn't face the fire," said Lord John, laughing, as he +came back and threw his branch among the faggots. +</P> + +<P> +"You should not have taken such a risk!" we all cried. +</P> + +<P> +"There was nothin' else to be done. If he had got among us we should +have shot each other in tryin' to down him. On the other hand, if we +had fired through the hedge and wounded him he would soon have been on +the top of us—to say nothin' of giving ourselves away. On the whole, +I think that we are jolly well out of it. What was he, then?" +</P> + +<P> +Our learned men looked at each other with some hesitation. +</P> + +<P> +"Personally, I am unable to classify the creature with any certainty," +said Summerlee, lighting his pipe from the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"In refusing to commit yourself you are but showing a proper scientific +reserve," said Challenger, with massive condescension. "I am not +myself prepared to go farther than to say in general terms that we have +almost certainly been in contact to-night with some form of carnivorous +dinosaur. I have already expressed my anticipation that something of +the sort might exist upon this plateau." +</P> + +<P> +"We have to bear in mind," remarked Summerlee, "that there are many +prehistoric forms which have never come down to us. It would be rash +to suppose that we can give a name to all that we are likely to meet." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. A rough classification may be the best that we can attempt. +To-morrow some further evidence may help us to an identification. +Meantime we can only renew our interrupted slumbers." +</P> + +<P> +"But not without a sentinel," said Lord John, with decision. "We can't +afford to take chances in a country like this. Two-hour spells in the +future, for each of us." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll just finish my pipe in starting the first one," said +Professor Summerlee; and from that time onwards we never trusted +ourselves again without a watchman. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning it was not long before we discovered the source of the +hideous uproar which had aroused us in the night. The iguanodon glade +was the scene of a horrible butchery. From the pools of blood and the +enormous lumps of flesh scattered in every direction over the green +sward we imagined at first that a number of animals had been killed, +but on examining the remains more closely we discovered that all this +carnage came from one of these unwieldy monsters, which had been +literally torn to pieces by some creature not larger, perhaps, but far +more ferocious, than itself. +</P> + +<P> +Our two professors sat in absorbed argument, examining piece after +piece, which showed the marks of savage teeth and of enormous claws. +</P> + +<P> +"Our judgment must still be in abeyance," said Professor Challenger, +with a huge slab of whitish-colored flesh across his knee. "The +indications would be consistent with the presence of a saber-toothed +tiger, such as are still found among the breccia of our caverns; but +the creature actually seen was undoubtedly of a larger and more +reptilian character. Personally, I should pronounce for allosaurus." +</P> + +<P> +"Or megalosaurus," said Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. Any one of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs would meet the +case. Among them are to be found all the most terrible types of animal +life that have ever cursed the earth or blessed a museum." He laughed +sonorously at his own conceit, for, though he had little sense of +humor, the crudest pleasantry from his own lips moved him always to +roars of appreciation. +</P> + +<P> +"The less noise the better," said Lord Roxton, curtly. "We don't know +who or what may be near us. If this fellah comes back for his +breakfast and catches us here we won't have so much to laugh at. By +the way, what is this mark upon the iguanodon's hide?" +</P> + +<P> +On the dull, scaly, slate-colored skin somewhere above the shoulder, +there was a singular black circle of some substance which looked like +asphalt. None of us could suggest what it meant, though Summerlee was +of opinion that he had seen something similar upon one of the young +ones two days before. Challenger said nothing, but looked pompous and +puffy, as if he could if he would, so that finally Lord John asked his +opinion direct. +</P> + +<P> +"If your lordship will graciously permit me to open my mouth, I shall +be happy to express my sentiments," said he, with elaborate sarcasm. +"I am not in the habit of being taken to task in the fashion which +seems to be customary with your lordship. I was not aware that it was +necessary to ask your permission before smiling at a harmless +pleasantry." +</P> + +<P> +It was not until he had received his apology that our touchy friend +would suffer himself to be appeased. When at last his ruffled feelings +were at ease, he addressed us at some length from his seat upon a +fallen tree, speaking, as his habit was, as if he were imparting most +precious information to a class of a thousand. +</P> + +<P> +"With regard to the marking," said he, "I am inclined to agree with my +friend and colleague, Professor Summerlee, that the stains are from +asphalt. As this plateau is, in its very nature, highly volcanic, and +as asphalt is a substance which one associates with Plutonic forces, I +cannot doubt that it exists in the free liquid state, and that the +creatures may have come in contact with it. A much more important +problem is the question as to the existence of the carnivorous monster +which has left its traces in this glade. We know roughly that this +plateau is not larger than an average English county. Within this +confined space a certain number of creatures, mostly types which have +passed away in the world below, have lived together for innumerable +years. Now, it is very clear to me that in so long a period one would +have expected that the carnivorous creatures, multiplying unchecked, +would have exhausted their food supply and have been compelled to +either modify their flesh-eating habits or die of hunger. This we see +has not been so. We can only imagine, therefore, that the balance of +Nature is preserved by some check which limits the numbers of these +ferocious creatures. One of the many interesting problems, therefore, +which await our solution is to discover what that check may be and how +it operates. I venture to trust that we may have some future +opportunity for the closer study of the carnivorous dinosaurs." +</P> + +<P> +"And I venture to trust we may not," I observed. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor only raised his great eyebrows, as the schoolmaster meets +the irrelevant observation of the naughty boy. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps Professor Summerlee may have an observation to make," he said, +and the two savants ascended together into some rarefied scientific +atmosphere, where the possibilities of a modification of the birth-rate +were weighed against the decline of the food supply as a check in the +struggle for existence. +</P> + +<P> +That morning we mapped out a small portion of the plateau, avoiding the +swamp of the pterodactyls, and keeping to the east of our brook instead +of to the west. In that direction the country was still thickly +wooded, with so much undergrowth that our progress was very slow. +</P> + +<P> +I have dwelt up to now upon the terrors of Maple White Land; but there +was another side to the subject, for all that morning we wandered among +lovely flowers—mostly, as I observed, white or yellow in color, these +being, as our professors explained, the primitive flower-shades. In +many places the ground was absolutely covered with them, and as we +walked ankle-deep on that wonderful yielding carpet, the scent was +almost intoxicating in its sweetness and intensity. The homely English +bee buzzed everywhere around us. Many of the trees under which we +passed had their branches bowed down with fruit, some of which were of +familiar sorts, while other varieties were new. By observing which of +them were pecked by the birds we avoided all danger of poison and added +a delicious variety to our food reserve. In the jungle which we +traversed were numerous hard-trodden paths made by the wild beasts, and +in the more marshy places we saw a profusion of strange footmarks, +including many of the iguanodon. Once in a grove we observed several +of these great creatures grazing, and Lord John, with his glass, was +able to report that they also were spotted with asphalt, though in a +different place to the one which we had examined in the morning. What +this phenomenon meant we could not imagine. +</P> + +<P> +We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, and a +wild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks. Once, through a +break in the trees, we saw a clear shoulder of green hill some distance +away, and across this a large dun-colored animal was traveling at a +considerable pace. It passed so swiftly that we were unable to say +what it was; but if it were a deer, as was claimed by Lord John, it +must have been as large as those monstrous Irish elk which are still +dug up from time to time in the bogs of my native land. +</P> + +<P> +Ever since the mysterious visit which had been paid to our camp we +always returned to it with some misgivings. However, on this occasion +we found everything in order. +</P> + +<P> +That evening we had a grand discussion upon our present situation and +future plans, which I must describe at some length, as it led to a new +departure by which we were enabled to gain a more complete knowledge of +Maple White Land than might have come in many weeks of exploring. It +was Summerlee who opened the debate. All day he had been querulous in +manner, and now some remark of Lord John's as to what we should do on +the morrow brought all his bitterness to a head. +</P> + +<P> +"What we ought to be doing to-day, to-morrow, and all the time," said +he, "is finding some way out of the trap into which we have fallen. +You are all turning your brains towards getting into this country. I +say that we should be scheming how to get out of it." +</P> + +<P> +"I am surprised, sir," boomed Challenger, stroking his majestic beard, +"that any man of science should commit himself to so ignoble a +sentiment. You are in a land which offers such an inducement to the +ambitious naturalist as none ever has since the world began, and you +suggest leaving it before we have acquired more than the most +superficial knowledge of it or of its contents. I expected better +things of you, Professor Summerlee." +</P> + +<P> +"You must remember," said Summerlee, sourly, "that I have a large class +in London who are at present at the mercy of an extremely inefficient +locum tenens. This makes my situation different from yours, Professor +Challenger, since, so far as I know, you have never been entrusted with +any responsible educational work." +</P> + +<P> +"Quite so," said Challenger. "I have felt it to be a sacrilege to +divert a brain which is capable of the highest original research to any +lesser object. That is why I have sternly set my face against any +proffered scholastic appointment." +</P> + +<P> +"For example?" asked Summerlee, with a sneer; but Lord John hastened to +change the conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"I must say," said he, "that I think it would be a mighty poor thing to +go back to London before I know a great deal more of this place than I +do at present." +</P> + +<P> +"I could never dare to walk into the back office of my paper and face +old McArdle," said I. (You will excuse the frankness of this report, +will you not, sir?) "He'd never forgive me for leaving such +unexhausted copy behind me. Besides, so far as I can see it is not +worth discussing, since we can't get down, even if we wanted." +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend makes up for many obvious mental lacunae by some +measure of primitive common sense," remarked Challenger. "The +interests of his deplorable profession are immaterial to us; but, as he +observes, we cannot get down in any case, so it is a waste of energy to +discuss it." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a waste of energy to do anything else," growled Summerlee from +behind his pipe. "Let me remind you that we came here upon a perfectly +definite mission, entrusted to us at the meeting of the Zoological +Institute in London. That mission was to test the truth of Professor +Challenger's statements. Those statements, as I am bound to admit, we +are now in a position to endorse. Our ostensible work is therefore +done. As to the detail which remains to be worked out upon this +plateau, it is so enormous that only a large expedition, with a very +special equipment, could hope to cope with it. Should we attempt to do +so ourselves, the only possible result must be that we shall never +return with the important contribution to science which we have already +gained. Professor Challenger has devised means for getting us on to +this plateau when it appeared to be inaccessible; I think that we +should now call upon him to use the same ingenuity in getting us back +to the world from which we came." +</P> + +<P> +I confess that as Summerlee stated his view it struck me as altogether +reasonable. Even Challenger was affected by the consideration that his +enemies would never stand confuted if the confirmation of his +statements should never reach those who had doubted them. +</P> + +<P> +"The problem of the descent is at first sight a formidable one," said +he, "and yet I cannot doubt that the intellect can solve it. I am +prepared to agree with our colleague that a protracted stay in Maple +White Land is at present inadvisable, and that the question of our +return will soon have to be faced. I absolutely refuse to leave, +however, until we have made at least a superficial examination of this +country, and are able to take back with us something in the nature of a +chart." +</P> + +<P> +Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience. +</P> + +<P> +"We have spent two long days in exploration," said he, "and we are no +wiser as to the actual geography of the place than when we started. It +is clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it would take months to +penetrate it and to learn the relations of one part to another. If +there were some central peak it would be different, but it all slopes +downwards, so far as we can see. The farther we go the less likely it +is that we will get any general view." +</P> + +<P> +It was at that moment that I had my inspiration. My eyes chanced to +light upon the enormous gnarled trunk of the gingko tree which cast its +huge branches over us. Surely, if its bole exceeded that of all +others, its height must do the same. If the rim of the plateau was +indeed the highest point, then why should this mighty tree not prove to +be a watchtower which commanded the whole country? Now, ever since I +ran wild as a lad in Ireland I have been a bold and skilled +tree-climber. My comrades might be my masters on the rocks, but I knew +that I would be supreme among those branches. Could I only get my legs +on to the lowest of the giant off-shoots, then it would be strange +indeed if I could not make my way to the top. My comrades were +delighted at my idea. +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend," said Challenger, bunching up the red apples of his +cheeks, "is capable of acrobatic exertions which would be impossible to +a man of a more solid, though possibly of a more commanding, +appearance. I applaud his resolution." +</P> + +<P> +"By George, young fellah, you've put your hand on it!" said Lord John, +clapping me on the back. "How we never came to think of it before I +can't imagine! There's not more than an hour of daylight left, but if +you take your notebook you may be able to get some rough sketch of the +place. If we put these three ammunition cases under the branch, I will +soon hoist you on to it." +</P> + +<P> +He stood on the boxes while I faced the trunk, and was gently raising +me when Challenger sprang forward and gave me such a thrust with his +huge hand that he fairly shot me into the tree. With both arms +clasping the branch, I scrambled hard with my feet until I had worked, +first my body, and then my knees, onto it. There were three excellent +off-shoots, like huge rungs of a ladder, above my head, and a tangle of +convenient branches beyond, so that I clambered onwards with such speed +that I soon lost sight of the ground and had nothing but foliage +beneath me. Now and then I encountered a check, and once I had to shin +up a creeper for eight or ten feet, but I made excellent progress, and +the booming of Challenger's voice seemed to be a great distance beneath +me. The tree was, however, enormous, and, looking upwards, I could see +no thinning of the leaves above my head. There was some thick, +bush-like clump which seemed to be a parasite upon a branch up which I +was swarming. I leaned my head round it in order to see what was +beyond, and I nearly fell out of the tree in my surprise and horror at +what I saw. +</P> + +<P> +A face was gazing into mine—at the distance of only a foot or two. +The creature that owned it had been crouching behind the parasite, and +had looked round it at the same instant that I did. It was a human +face—or at least it was far more human than any monkey's that I have +ever seen. It was long, whitish, and blotched with pimples, the nose +flattened, and the lower jaw projecting, with a bristle of coarse +whiskers round the chin. The eyes, which were under thick and heavy +brows, were bestial and ferocious, and as it opened its mouth to snarl +what sounded like a curse at me I observed that it had curved, sharp +canine teeth. For an instant I read hatred and menace in the evil +eyes. Then, as quick as a flash, came an expression of overpowering +fear. There was a crash of broken boughs as it dived wildly down into +the tangle of green. I caught a glimpse of a hairy body like that of a +reddish pig, and then it was gone amid a swirl of leaves and branches. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" shouted Roxton from below. "Anything wrong with +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Did you see it?" I cried, with my arms round the branch and all my +nerves tingling. +</P> + +<P> +"We heard a row, as if your foot had slipped. What was it?" +</P> + +<P> +I was so shocked at the sudden and strange appearance of this ape-man +that I hesitated whether I should not climb down again and tell my +experience to my companions. But I was already so far up the great +tree that it seemed a humiliation to return without having carried out +my mission. +</P> + +<P> +After a long pause, therefore, to recover my breath and my courage, I +continued my ascent. Once I put my weight upon a rotten branch and +swung for a few seconds by my hands, but in the main it was all easy +climbing. Gradually the leaves thinned around me, and I was aware, +from the wind upon my face, that I had topped all the trees of the +forest. I was determined, however, not to look about me before I had +reached the very highest point, so I scrambled on until I had got so +far that the topmost branch was bending beneath my weight. There I +settled into a convenient fork, and, balancing myself securely, I found +myself looking down at a most wonderful panorama of this strange +country in which we found ourselves. +</P> + +<P> +The sun was just above the western sky-line, and the evening was a +particularly bright and clear one, so that the whole extent of the +plateau was visible beneath me. It was, as seen from this height, of +an oval contour, with a breadth of about thirty miles and a width of +twenty. Its general shape was that of a shallow funnel, all the sides +sloping down to a considerable lake in the center. This lake may have +been ten miles in circumference, and lay very green and beautiful in +the evening light, with a thick fringe of reeds at its edges, and with +its surface broken by several yellow sandbanks, which gleamed golden in +the mellow sunshine. A number of long dark objects, which were too +large for alligators and too long for canoes, lay upon the edges of +these patches of sand. With my glass I could clearly see that they +were alive, but what their nature might be I could not imagine. +</P> + +<P> +From the side of the plateau on which we were, slopes of woodland, with +occasional glades, stretched down for five or six miles to the central +lake. I could see at my very feet the glade of the iguanodons, and +farther off was a round opening in the trees which marked the swamp of +the pterodactyls. On the side facing me, however, the plateau +presented a very different aspect. There the basalt cliffs of the +outside were reproduced upon the inside, forming an escarpment about +two hundred feet high, with a woody slope beneath it. Along the base +of these red cliffs, some distance above the ground, I could see a +number of dark holes through the glass, which I conjectured to be the +mouths of caves. At the opening of one of these something white was +shimmering, but I was unable to make out what it was. I sat charting +the country until the sun had set and it was so dark that I could no +longer distinguish details. Then I climbed down to my companions +waiting for me so eagerly at the bottom of the great tree. For once I +was the hero of the expedition. Alone I had thought of it, and alone I +had done it; and here was the chart which would save us a month's blind +groping among unknown dangers. Each of them shook me solemnly by the +hand. +</P> + +<P> +But before they discussed the details of my map I had to tell them of +my encounter with the ape-man among the branches. +</P> + +<P> +"He has been there all the time," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know that?" asked Lord John. +</P> + +<P> +"Because I have never been without that feeling that something +malevolent was watching us. I mentioned it to you, Professor +Challenger." +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend certainly said something of the kind. He is also the +one among us who is endowed with that Celtic temperament which would +make him sensitive to such impressions." +</P> + +<P> +"The whole theory of telepathy——" began Summerlee, filling his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"Is too vast to be now discussed," said Challenger, with decision. +"Tell me, now," he added, with the air of a bishop addressing a +Sunday-school, "did you happen to observe whether the creature could +cross its thumb over its palm?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"Had it a tail?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Was the foot prehensile?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not think it could have made off so fast among the branches if it +could not get a grip with its feet." +</P> + +<P> +"In South America there are, if my memory serves me—you will check the +observation, Professor Summerlee—some thirty-six species of monkeys, +but the anthropoid ape is unknown. It is clear, however, that he +exists in this country, and that he is not the hairy, gorilla-like +variety, which is never seen out of Africa or the East." (I was +inclined to interpolate, as I looked at him, that I had seen his first +cousin in Kensington.) "This is a whiskered and colorless type, the +latter characteristic pointing to the fact that he spends his days in +arboreal seclusion. The question which we have to face is whether he +approaches more closely to the ape or the man. In the latter case, he +may well approximate to what the vulgar have called the 'missing link.' +The solution of this problem is our immediate duty." +</P> + +<P> +"It is nothing of the sort," said Summerlee, abruptly. "Now that, +through the intelligence and activity of Mr. Malone" (I cannot help +quoting the words), "we have got our chart, our one and only immediate +duty is to get ourselves safe and sound out of this awful place." +</P> + +<P> +"The flesh-pots of civilization," groaned Challenger. +</P> + +<P> +"The ink-pots of civilization, sir. It is our task to put on record +what we have seen, and to leave the further exploration to others. You +all agreed as much before Mr. Malone got us the chart." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Challenger, "I admit that my mind will be more at ease +when I am assured that the result of our expedition has been conveyed +to our friends. How we are to get down from this place I have not as +yet an idea. I have never yet encountered any problem, however, which +my inventive brain was unable to solve, and I promise you that +to-morrow I will turn my attention to the question of our descent." +And so the matter was allowed to rest. +</P> + +<P> +But that evening, by the light of the fire and of a single candle, the +first map of the lost world was elaborated. Every detail which I had +roughly noted from my watch-tower was drawn out in its relative place. +Challenger's pencil hovered over the great blank which marked the lake. +</P> + +<P> +"What shall we call it?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you not take the chance of perpetuating your own name?" +said Summerlee, with his usual touch of acidity. +</P> + +<P> +"I trust, sir, that my name will have other and more personal claims +upon posterity," said Challenger, severely. "Any ignoramus can hand +down his worthless memory by imposing it upon a mountain or a river. I +need no such monument." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee, with a twisted smile, was about to make some fresh assault +when Lord John hastened to intervene. +</P> + +<P> +"It's up to you, young fellah, to name the lake," said he. "You saw it +first, and, by George, if you choose to put 'Lake Malone' on it, no one +has a better right." +</P> + +<P> +"By all means. Let our young friend give it a name," said Challenger. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said I, blushing, I dare say, as I said it, "let it be named +Lake Gladys." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think the Central Lake would be more descriptive?" remarked +Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"I should prefer Lake Gladys." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger looked at me sympathetically, and shook his great head in +mock disapproval. "Boys will be boys," said he. "Lake Gladys let it +be." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "It was Dreadful in the Forest" +</H3> + +<P> +I have said—or perhaps I have not said, for my memory plays me sad +tricks these days—that I glowed with pride when three such men as my +comrades thanked me for having saved, or at least greatly helped, the +situation. As the youngster of the party, not merely in years, but in +experience, character, knowledge, and all that goes to make a man, I +had been overshadowed from the first. And now I was coming into my +own. I warmed at the thought. Alas! for the pride which goes before a +fall! That little glow of self-satisfaction, that added measure of +self-confidence, were to lead me on that very night to the most +dreadful experience of my life, ending with a shock which turns my +heart sick when I think of it. +</P> + +<P> +It came about in this way. I had been unduly excited by the adventure +of the tree, and sleep seemed to be impossible. Summerlee was on +guard, sitting hunched over our small fire, a quaint, angular figure, +his rifle across his knees and his pointed, goat-like beard wagging +with each weary nod of his head. Lord John lay silent, wrapped in the +South American poncho which he wore, while Challenger snored with a +roll and rattle which reverberated through the woods. The full moon +was shining brightly, and the air was crisply cold. What a night for a +walk! And then suddenly came the thought, "Why not?" Suppose I stole +softly away, suppose I made my way down to the central lake, suppose I +was back at breakfast with some record of the place—would I not in +that case be thought an even more worthy associate? Then, if Summerlee +carried the day and some means of escape were found, we should return +to London with first-hand knowledge of the central mystery of the +plateau, to which I alone, of all men, would have penetrated. I thought +of Gladys, with her "There are heroisms all round us." I seemed to hear +her voice as she said it. I thought also of McArdle. What a three +column article for the paper! What a foundation for a career! A +correspondentship in the next great war might be within my reach. I +clutched at a gun—my pockets were full of cartridges—and, parting the +thorn bushes at the gate of our zareba, quickly slipped out. My last +glance showed me the unconscious Summerlee, most futile of sentinels, +still nodding away like a queer mechanical toy in front of the +smouldering fire. +</P> + +<P> +I had not gone a hundred yards before I deeply repented my rashness. I +may have said somewhere in this chronicle that I am too imaginative to +be a really courageous man, but that I have an overpowering fear of +seeming afraid. This was the power which now carried me onwards. I +simply could not slink back with nothing done. Even if my comrades +should not have missed me, and should never know of my weakness, there +would still remain some intolerable self-shame in my own soul. And yet +I shuddered at the position in which I found myself, and would have +given all I possessed at that moment to have been honorably free of the +whole business. +</P> + +<P> +It was dreadful in the forest. The trees grew so thickly and their +foliage spread so widely that I could see nothing of the moon-light +save that here and there the high branches made a tangled filigree +against the starry sky. As the eyes became more used to the obscurity +one learned that there were different degrees of darkness among the +trees—that some were dimly visible, while between and among them there +were coal-black shadowed patches, like the mouths of caves, from which +I shrank in horror as I passed. I thought of the despairing yell of +the tortured iguanodon—that dreadful cry which had echoed through the +woods. I thought, too, of the glimpse I had in the light of Lord +John's torch of that bloated, warty, blood-slavering muzzle. Even now +I was on its hunting-ground. At any instant it might spring upon me +from the shadows—this nameless and horrible monster. I stopped, and, +picking a cartridge from my pocket, I opened the breech of my gun. As +I touched the lever my heart leaped within me. It was the shot-gun, +not the rifle, which I had taken! +</P> + +<P> +Again the impulse to return swept over me. Here, surely, was a most +excellent reason for my failure—one for which no one would think the +less of me. But again the foolish pride fought against that very word. +I could not—must not—fail. After all, my rifle would probably have +been as useless as a shot-gun against such dangers as I might meet. If +I were to go back to camp to change my weapon I could hardly expect to +enter and to leave again without being seen. In that case there would +be explanations, and my attempt would no longer be all my own. After a +little hesitation, then, I screwed up my courage and continued upon my +way, my useless gun under my arm. +</P> + +<P> +The darkness of the forest had been alarming, but even worse was the +white, still flood of moonlight in the open glade of the iguanodons. +Hid among the bushes, I looked out at it. None of the great brutes +were in sight. Perhaps the tragedy which had befallen one of them had +driven them from their feeding-ground. In the misty, silvery night I +could see no sign of any living thing. Taking courage, therefore, I +slipped rapidly across it, and among the jungle on the farther side I +picked up once again the brook which was my guide. It was a cheery +companion, gurgling and chuckling as it ran, like the dear old +trout-stream in the West Country where I have fished at night in my +boyhood. So long as I followed it down I must come to the lake, and so +long as I followed it back I must come to the camp. Often I had to +lose sight of it on account of the tangled brush-wood, but I was always +within earshot of its tinkle and splash. +</P> + +<P> +As one descended the slope the woods became thinner, and bushes, with +occasional high trees, took the place of the forest. I could make good +progress, therefore, and I could see without being seen. I passed +close to the pterodactyl swamp, and as I did so, with a dry, crisp, +leathery rattle of wings, one of these great creatures—it was twenty +feet at least from tip to tip—rose up from somewhere near me and +soared into the air. As it passed across the face of the moon the +light shone clearly through the membranous wings, and it looked like a +flying skeleton against the white, tropical radiance. I crouched low +among the bushes, for I knew from past experience that with a single +cry the creature could bring a hundred of its loathsome mates about my +ears. It was not until it had settled again that I dared to steal +onwards upon my journey. +</P> + +<P> +The night had been exceedingly still, but as I advanced I became +conscious of a low, rumbling sound, a continuous murmur, somewhere in +front of me. This grew louder as I proceeded, until at last it was +clearly quite close to me. When I stood still the sound was constant, +so that it seemed to come from some stationary cause. It was like a +boiling kettle or the bubbling of some great pot. Soon I came upon the +source of it, for in the center of a small clearing I found a lake—or +a pool, rather, for it was not larger than the basin of the Trafalgar +Square fountain—of some black, pitch-like stuff, the surface of which +rose and fell in great blisters of bursting gas. The air above it was +shimmering with heat, and the ground round was so hot that I could +hardly bear to lay my hand on it. It was clear that the great volcanic +outburst which had raised this strange plateau so many years ago had +not yet entirely spent its forces. Blackened rocks and mounds of lava +I had already seen everywhere peeping out from amid the luxuriant +vegetation which draped them, but this asphalt pool in the jungle was +the first sign that we had of actual existing activity on the slopes of +the ancient crater. I had no time to examine it further for I had need +to hurry if I were to be back in camp in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fearsome walk, and one which will be with me so long as memory +holds. In the great moonlight clearings I slunk along among the +shadows on the margin. In the jungle I crept forward, stopping with a +beating heart whenever I heard, as I often did, the crash of breaking +branches as some wild beast went past. Now and then great shadows +loomed up for an instant and were gone—great, silent shadows which +seemed to prowl upon padded feet. How often I stopped with the +intention of returning, and yet every time my pride conquered my fear, +and sent me on again until my object should be attained. +</P> + +<P> +At last (my watch showed that it was one in the morning) I saw the +gleam of water amid the openings of the jungle, and ten minutes later I +was among the reeds upon the borders of the central lake. I was +exceedingly dry, so I lay down and took a long draught of its waters, +which were fresh and cold. There was a broad pathway with many tracks +upon it at the spot which I had found, so that it was clearly one of +the drinking-places of the animals. Close to the water's edge there +was a huge isolated block of lava. Up this I climbed, and, lying on +the top, I had an excellent view in every direction. +</P> + +<P> +The first thing which I saw filled me with amazement. When I described +the view from the summit of the great tree, I said that on the farther +cliff I could see a number of dark spots, which appeared to be the +mouths of caves. Now, as I looked up at the same cliffs, I saw discs +of light in every direction, ruddy, clearly-defined patches, like the +port-holes of a liner in the darkness. For a moment I thought it was +the lava-glow from some volcanic action; but this could not be so. Any +volcanic action would surely be down in the hollow and not high among +the rocks. What, then, was the alternative? It was wonderful, and yet +it must surely be. These ruddy spots must be the reflection of fires +within the caves—fires which could only be lit by the hand of man. +There were human beings, then, upon the plateau. How gloriously my +expedition was justified! Here was news indeed for us to bear back +with us to London! +</P> + +<P> +For a long time I lay and watched these red, quivering blotches of +light. I suppose they were ten miles off from me, yet even at that +distance one could observe how, from time to time, they twinkled or +were obscured as someone passed before them. What would I not have +given to be able to crawl up to them, to peep in, and to take back some +word to my comrades as to the appearance and character of the race who +lived in so strange a place! It was out of the question for the +moment, and yet surely we could not leave the plateau until we had some +definite knowledge upon the point. +</P> + +<P> +Lake Gladys—my own lake—lay like a sheet of quicksilver before me, +with a reflected moon shining brightly in the center of it. It was +shallow, for in many places I saw low sandbanks protruding above the +water. Everywhere upon the still surface I could see signs of life, +sometimes mere rings and ripples in the water, sometimes the gleam of a +great silver-sided fish in the air, sometimes the arched, slate-colored +back of some passing monster. Once upon a yellow sandbank I saw a +creature like a huge swan, with a clumsy body and a high, flexible +neck, shuffling about upon the margin. Presently it plunged in, and +for some time I could see the arched neck and darting head undulating +over the water. Then it dived, and I saw it no more. +</P> + +<P> +My attention was soon drawn away from these distant sights and brought +back to what was going on at my very feet. Two creatures like large +armadillos had come down to the drinking-place, and were squatting at +the edge of the water, their long, flexible tongues like red ribbons +shooting in and out as they lapped. A huge deer, with branching horns, +a magnificent creature which carried itself like a king, came down with +its doe and two fawns and drank beside the armadillos. No such deer +exist anywhere else upon earth, for the moose or elks which I have seen +would hardly have reached its shoulders. Presently it gave a warning +snort, and was off with its family among the reeds, while the +armadillos also scuttled for shelter. A new-comer, a most monstrous +animal, was coming down the path. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment I wondered where I could have seen that ungainly shape, +that arched back with triangular fringes along it, that strange +bird-like head held close to the ground. Then it came back, to me. It +was the stegosaurus—the very creature which Maple White had preserved +in his sketch-book, and which had been the first object which arrested +the attention of Challenger! There he was—perhaps the very specimen +which the American artist had encountered. The ground shook beneath +his tremendous weight, and his gulpings of water resounded through the +still night. For five minutes he was so close to my rock that by +stretching out my hand I could have touched the hideous waving hackles +upon his back. Then he lumbered away and was lost among the boulders. +</P> + +<P> +Looking at my watch, I saw that it was half-past two o'clock, and high +time, therefore, that I started upon my homeward journey. There was no +difficulty about the direction in which I should return for all along I +had kept the little brook upon my left, and it opened into the central +lake within a stone's-throw of the boulder upon which I had been lying. +I set off, therefore, in high spirits, for I felt that I had done good +work and was bringing back a fine budget of news for my companions. +Foremost of all, of course, were the sight of the fiery caves and the +certainty that some troglodytic race inhabited them. But besides that +I could speak from experience of the central lake. I could testify +that it was full of strange creatures, and I had seen several land +forms of primeval life which we had not before encountered. I +reflected as I walked that few men in the world could have spent a +stranger night or added more to human knowledge in the course of it. +</P> + +<P> +I was plodding up the slope, turning these thoughts over in my mind, +and had reached a point which may have been half-way to home, when my +mind was brought back to my own position by a strange noise behind me. +It was something between a snore and a growl, low, deep, and +exceedingly menacing. Some strange creature was evidently near me, but +nothing could be seen, so I hastened more rapidly upon my way. I had +traversed half a mile or so when suddenly the sound was repeated, still +behind me, but louder and more menacing than before. My heart stood +still within me as it flashed across me that the beast, whatever it +was, must surely be after ME. My skin grew cold and my hair rose at +the thought. That these monsters should tear each other to pieces was +a part of the strange struggle for existence, but that they should turn +upon modern man, that they should deliberately track and hunt down the +predominant human, was a staggering and fearsome thought. I remembered +again the blood-beslobbered face which we had seen in the glare of Lord +John's torch, like some horrible vision from the deepest circle of +Dante's hell. With my knees shaking beneath me, I stood and glared +with starting eyes down the moonlit path which lay behind me. All was +quiet as in a dream landscape. Silver clearings and the black patches +of the bushes—nothing else could I see. Then from out of the silence, +imminent and threatening, there came once more that low, throaty +croaking, far louder and closer than before. There could no longer be +a doubt. Something was on my trail, and was closing in upon me every +minute. +</P> + +<P> +I stood like a man paralyzed, still staring at the ground which I had +traversed. Then suddenly I saw it. There was movement among the +bushes at the far end of the clearing which I had just traversed. A +great dark shadow disengaged itself and hopped out into the clear +moonlight. I say "hopped" advisedly, for the beast moved like a +kangaroo, springing along in an erect position upon its powerful hind +legs, while its front ones were held bent in front of it. It was of +enormous size and power, like an erect elephant, but its movements, in +spite of its bulk, were exceedingly alert. For a moment, as I saw its +shape, I hoped that it was an iguanodon, which I knew to be harmless, +but, ignorant as I was, I soon saw that this was a very different +creature. Instead of the gentle, deer-shaped head of the great +three-toed leaf-eater, this beast had a broad, squat, toad-like face +like that which had alarmed us in our camp. His ferocious cry and the +horrible energy of his pursuit both assured me that this was surely one +of the great flesh-eating dinosaurs, the most terrible beasts which +have ever walked this earth. As the huge brute loped along it dropped +forward upon its fore-paws and brought its nose to the ground every +twenty yards or so. It was smelling out my trail. Sometimes, for an +instant, it was at fault. Then it would catch it up again and come +bounding swiftly along the path I had taken. +</P> + +<P> +Even now when I think of that nightmare the sweat breaks out upon my +brow. What could I do? My useless fowling-piece was in my hand. What +help could I get from that? I looked desperately round for some rock +or tree, but I was in a bushy jungle with nothing higher than a sapling +within sight, while I knew that the creature behind me could tear down +an ordinary tree as though it were a reed. My only possible chance lay +in flight. I could not move swiftly over the rough, broken ground, but +as I looked round me in despair I saw a well-marked, hard-beaten path +which ran across in front of me. We had seen several of the sort, the +runs of various wild beasts, during our expeditions. Along this I +could perhaps hold my own, for I was a fast runner, and in excellent +condition. Flinging away my useless gun, I set myself to do such a +half-mile as I have never done before or since. My limbs ached, my +chest heaved, I felt that my throat would burst for want of air, and +yet with that horror behind me I ran and I ran and ran. At last I +paused, hardly able to move. For a moment I thought that I had thrown +him off. The path lay still behind me. And then suddenly, with a +crashing and a rending, a thudding of giant feet and a panting of +monster lungs the beast was upon me once more. He was at my very +heels. I was lost. +</P> + +<P> +Madman that I was to linger so long before I fled! Up to then he had +hunted by scent, and his movement was slow. But he had actually seen +me as I started to run. From then onwards he had hunted by sight, for +the path showed him where I had gone. Now, as he came round the curve, +he was springing in great bounds. The moonlight shone upon his huge +projecting eyes, the row of enormous teeth in his open mouth, and the +gleaming fringe of claws upon his short, powerful forearms. With a +scream of terror I turned and rushed wildly down the path. Behind me +the thick, gasping breathing of the creature sounded louder and louder. +His heavy footfall was beside me. Every instant I expected to feel his +grip upon my back. And then suddenly there came a crash—I was falling +through space, and everything beyond was darkness and rest. +</P> + +<P> +As I emerged from my unconsciousness—which could not, I think, have +lasted more than a few minutes—I was aware of a most dreadful and +penetrating smell. Putting out my hand in the darkness I came upon +something which felt like a huge lump of meat, while my other hand +closed upon a large bone. Up above me there was a circle of starlit +sky, which showed me that I was lying at the bottom of a deep pit. +Slowly I staggered to my feet and felt myself all over. I was stiff +and sore from head to foot, but there was no limb which would not move, +no joint which would not bend. As the circumstances of my fall came +back into my confused brain, I looked up in terror, expecting to see +that dreadful head silhouetted against the paling sky. There was no +sign of the monster, however, nor could I hear any sound from above. I +began to walk slowly round, therefore, feeling in every direction to +find out what this strange place could be into which I had been so +opportunely precipitated. +</P> + +<P> +It was, as I have said, a pit, with sharply-sloping walls and a level +bottom about twenty feet across. This bottom was littered with great +gobbets of flesh, most of which was in the last state of putridity. +The atmosphere was poisonous and horrible. After tripping and +stumbling over these lumps of decay, I came suddenly against something +hard, and I found that an upright post was firmly fixed in the center +of the hollow. It was so high that I could not reach the top of it +with my hand, and it appeared to be covered with grease. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly I remembered that I had a tin box of wax-vestas in my pocket. +Striking one of them, I was able at last to form some opinion of this +place into which I had fallen. There could be no question as to its +nature. It was a trap—made by the hand of man. The post in the +center, some nine feet long, was sharpened at the upper end, and was +black with the stale blood of the creatures who had been impaled upon +it. The remains scattered about were fragments of the victims, which +had been cut away in order to clear the stake for the next who might +blunder in. I remembered that Challenger had declared that man could +not exist upon the plateau, since with his feeble weapons he could not +hold his own against the monsters who roamed over it. But now it was +clear enough how it could be done. In their narrow-mouthed caves the +natives, whoever they might be, had refuges into which the huge +saurians could not penetrate, while with their developed brains they +were capable of setting such traps, covered with branches, across the +paths which marked the run of the animals as would destroy them in +spite of all their strength and activity. Man was always the master. +</P> + +<P> +The sloping wall of the pit was not difficult for an active man to +climb, but I hesitated long before I trusted myself within reach of the +dreadful creature which had so nearly destroyed me. How did I know +that he was not lurking in the nearest clump of bushes, waiting for my +reappearance? I took heart, however, as I recalled a conversation +between Challenger and Summerlee upon the habits of the great saurians. +Both were agreed that the monsters were practically brainless, that +there was no room for reason in their tiny cranial cavities, and that +if they have disappeared from the rest of the world it was assuredly on +account of their own stupidity, which made it impossible for them to +adapt themselves to changing conditions. +</P> + +<P> +To lie in wait for me now would mean that the creature had appreciated +what had happened to me, and this in turn would argue some power +connecting cause and effect. Surely it was more likely that a +brainless creature, acting solely by vague predatory instinct, would +give up the chase when I disappeared, and, after a pause of +astonishment, would wander away in search of some other prey? I +clambered to the edge of the pit and looked over. The stars were +fading, the sky was whitening, and the cold wind of morning blew +pleasantly upon my face. I could see or hear nothing of my enemy. +Slowly I climbed out and sat for a while upon the ground, ready to +spring back into my refuge if any danger should appear. Then, +reassured by the absolute stillness and by the growing light, I took my +courage in both hands and stole back along the path which I had come. +Some distance down it I picked up my gun, and shortly afterwards struck +the brook which was my guide. So, with many a frightened backward +glance, I made for home. +</P> + +<P> +And suddenly there came something to remind me of my absent companions. +In the clear, still morning air there sounded far away the sharp, hard +note of a single rifle-shot. I paused and listened, but there was +nothing more. For a moment I was shocked at the thought that some +sudden danger might have befallen them. But then a simpler and more +natural explanation came to my mind. It was now broad daylight. No +doubt my absence had been noticed. They had imagined, that I was lost +in the woods, and had fired this shot to guide me home. It is true +that we had made a strict resolution against firing, but if it seemed +to them that I might be in danger they would not hesitate. It was for +me now to hurry on as fast as possible, and so to reassure them. +</P> + +<P> +I was weary and spent, so my progress was not so fast as I wished; but +at last I came into regions which I knew. There was the swamp of the +pterodactyls upon my left; there in front of me was the glade of the +iguanodons. Now I was in the last belt of trees which separated me +from Fort Challenger. I raised my voice in a cheery shout to allay +their fears. No answering greeting came back to me. My heart sank at +that ominous stillness. I quickened my pace into a run. The zareba +rose before me, even as I had left it, but the gate was open. I rushed +in. In the cold, morning light it was a fearful sight which met my +eyes. Our effects were scattered in wild confusion over the ground; my +comrades had disappeared, and close to the smouldering ashes of our +fire the grass was stained crimson with a hideous pool of blood. +</P> + +<P> +I was so stunned by this sudden shock that for a time I must have +nearly lost my reason. I have a vague recollection, as one remembers a +bad dream, of rushing about through the woods all round the empty camp, +calling wildly for my companions. No answer came back from the silent +shadows. The horrible thought that I might never see them again, that +I might find myself abandoned all alone in that dreadful place, with no +possible way of descending into the world below, that I might live and +die in that nightmare country, drove me to desperation. I could have +torn my hair and beaten my head in my despair. Only now did I realize +how I had learned to lean upon my companions, upon the serene +self-confidence of Challenger, and upon the masterful, humorous +coolness of Lord John Roxton. Without them I was like a child in the +dark, helpless and powerless. I did not know which way to turn or what +I should do first. +</P> + +<P> +After a period, during which I sat in bewilderment, I set myself to try +and discover what sudden misfortune could have befallen my companions. +The whole disordered appearance of the camp showed that there had been +some sort of attack, and the rifle-shot no doubt marked the time when +it had occurred. That there should have been only one shot showed that +it had been all over in an instant. The rifles still lay upon the +ground, and one of them—Lord John's—had the empty cartridge in the +breech. The blankets of Challenger and of Summerlee beside the fire +suggested that they had been asleep at the time. The cases of +ammunition and of food were scattered about in a wild litter, together +with our unfortunate cameras and plate-carriers, but none of them were +missing. On the other hand, all the exposed provisions—and I +remembered that there were a considerable quantity of them—were gone. +They were animals, then, and not natives, who had made the inroad, for +surely the latter would have left nothing behind. +</P> + +<P> +But if animals, or some single terrible animal, then what had become of +my comrades? A ferocious beast would surely have destroyed them and +left their remains. It is true that there was that one hideous pool of +blood, which told of violence. Such a monster as had pursued me during +the night could have carried away a victim as easily as a cat would a +mouse. In that case the others would have followed in pursuit. But +then they would assuredly have taken their rifles with them. The more +I tried to think it out with my confused and weary brain the less could +I find any plausible explanation. I searched round in the forest, but +could see no tracks which could help me to a conclusion. Once I lost +myself, and it was only by good luck, and after an hour of wandering, +that I found the camp once more. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly a thought came to me and brought some little comfort to my +heart. I was not absolutely alone in the world. Down at the bottom of +the cliff, and within call of me, was waiting the faithful Zambo. I +went to the edge of the plateau and looked over. Sure enough, he was +squatting among his blankets beside his fire in his little camp. But, +to my amazement, a second man was seated in front of him. For an +instant my heart leaped for joy, as I thought that one of my comrades +had made his way safely down. But a second glance dispelled the hope. +The rising sun shone red upon the man's skin. He was an Indian. I +shouted loudly and waved my handkerchief. Presently Zambo looked up, +waved his hand, and turned to ascend the pinnacle. In a short time he +was standing close to me and listening with deep distress to the story +which I told him. +</P> + +<P> +"Devil got them for sure, Massa Malone," said he. "You got into the +devil's country, sah, and he take you all to himself. You take advice, +Massa Malone, and come down quick, else he get you as well." +</P> + +<P> +"How can I come down, Zambo?" +</P> + +<P> +"You get creepers from trees, Massa Malone. Throw them over here. I +make fast to this stump, and so you have bridge." +</P> + +<P> +"We have thought of that. There are no creepers here which could bear +us." +</P> + +<P> +"Send for ropes, Massa Malone." +</P> + +<P> +"Who can I send, and where?" +</P> + +<P> +"Send to Indian villages, sah. Plenty hide rope in Indian village. +Indian down below; send him." +</P> + +<P> +"Who is he? +</P> + +<P> +"One of our Indians. Other ones beat him and take away his pay. He +come back to us. Ready now to take letter, bring rope,—anything." +</P> + +<P> +To take a letter! Why not? Perhaps he might bring help; but in any +case he would ensure that our lives were not spent for nothing, and +that news of all that we had won for Science should reach our friends +at home. I had two completed letters already waiting. I would spend +the day in writing a third, which would bring my experiences absolutely +up to date. The Indian could bear this back to the world. I ordered +Zambo, therefore, to come again in the evening, and I spent my +miserable and lonely day in recording my own adventures of the night +before. I also drew up a note, to be given to any white merchant or +captain of a steam-boat whom the Indian could find, imploring them to +see that ropes were sent to us, since our lives must depend upon it. +These documents I threw to Zambo in the evening, and also my purse, +which contained three English sovereigns. These were to be given to +the Indian, and he was promised twice as much if he returned with the +ropes. +</P> + +<P> +So now you will understand, my dear Mr. McArdle, how this communication +reaches you, and you will also know the truth, in case you never hear +again from your unfortunate correspondent. To-night I am too weary and +too depressed to make my plans. To-morrow I must think out some way by +which I shall keep in touch with this camp, and yet search round for +any traces of my unhappy friends. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "A Sight which I shall Never Forget" +</H3> + +<P> +Just as the sun was setting upon that melancholy night I saw the lonely +figure of the Indian upon the vast plain beneath me, and I watched him, +our one faint hope of salvation, until he disappeared in the rising +mists of evening which lay, rose-tinted from the setting sun, between +the far-off river and me. +</P> + +<P> +It was quite dark when I at last turned back to our stricken camp, and +my last vision as I went was the red gleam of Zambo's fire, the one +point of light in the wide world below, as was his faithful presence in +my own shadowed soul. And yet I felt happier than I had done since +this crushing blow had fallen upon me, for it was good to think that +the world should know what we had done, so that at the worst our names +should not perish with our bodies, but should go down to posterity +associated with the result of our labors. +</P> + +<P> +It was an awesome thing to sleep in that ill-fated camp; and yet it was +even more unnerving to do so in the jungle. One or the other it must +be. Prudence, on the one hand, warned me that I should remain on +guard, but exhausted Nature, on the other, declared that I should do +nothing of the kind. I climbed up on to a limb of the great gingko +tree, but there was no secure perch on its rounded surface, and I +should certainly have fallen off and broken my neck the moment I began +to doze. I got down, therefore, and pondered over what I should do. +Finally, I closed the door of the zareba, lit three separate fires in a +triangle, and having eaten a hearty supper dropped off into a profound +sleep, from which I had a strange and most welcome awakening. In the +early morning, just as day was breaking, a hand was laid upon my arm, +and starting up, with all my nerves in a tingle and my hand feeling for +a rifle, I gave a cry of joy as in the cold gray light I saw Lord John +Roxton kneeling beside me. +</P> + +<P> +It was he—and yet it was not he. I had left him calm in his bearing, +correct in his person, prim in his dress. Now he was pale and +wild-eyed, gasping as he breathed like one who has run far and fast. +His gaunt face was scratched and bloody, his clothes were hanging in +rags, and his hat was gone. I stared in amazement, but he gave me no +chance for questions. He was grabbing at our stores all the time he +spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Quick, young fellah! Quick!" he cried. "Every moment counts. Get +the rifles, both of them. I have the other two. Now, all the +cartridges you can gather. Fill up your pockets. Now, some food. +Half a dozen tins will do. That's all right! Don't wait to talk or +think. Get a move on, or we are done!" +</P> + +<P> +Still half-awake, and unable to imagine what it all might mean, I found +myself hurrying madly after him through the wood, a rifle under each +arm and a pile of various stores in my hands. He dodged in and out +through the thickest of the scrub until he came to a dense clump of +brush-wood. Into this he rushed, regardless of thorns, and threw +himself into the heart of it, pulling me down by his side. +</P> + +<P> +"There!" he panted. "I think we are safe here. They'll make for the +camp as sure as fate. It will be their first idea. But this should +puzzle 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"What is it all?" I asked, when I had got my breath. "Where are the +professors? And who is it that is after us?" +</P> + +<P> +"The ape-men," he cried. "My God, what brutes! Don't raise your +voice, for they have long ears—sharp eyes, too, but no power of scent, +so far as I could judge, so I don't think they can sniff us out. Where +have you been, young fellah? You were well out of it." +</P> + +<P> +In a few sentences I whispered what I had done. +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty bad," said he, when he had heard of the dinosaur and the pit. +"It isn't quite the place for a rest cure. What? But I had no idea +what its possibilities were until those devils got hold of us. The +man-eatin' Papuans had me once, but they are Chesterfields compared to +this crowd." +</P> + +<P> +"How did it happen?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It was in the early mornin'. Our learned friends were just stirrin'. +Hadn't even begun to argue yet. Suddenly it rained apes. They came +down as thick as apples out of a tree. They had been assemblin' in the +dark, I suppose, until that great tree over our heads was heavy with +them. I shot one of them through the belly, but before we knew where +we were they had us spread-eagled on our backs. I call them apes, but +they carried sticks and stones in their hands and jabbered talk to each +other, and ended up by tyin' our hands with creepers, so they are ahead +of any beast that I have seen in my wanderin's. Ape-men—that's what +they are—Missin' Links, and I wish they had stayed missin'. They +carried off their wounded comrade—he was bleedin' like a pig—and then +they sat around us, and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in their +faces. They were big fellows, as big as a man and a deal stronger. +Curious glassy gray eyes they have, under red tufts, and they just sat +and gloated and gloated. Challenger is no chicken, but even he was +cowed. He managed to struggle to his feet, and yelled out at them to +have done with it and get it over. I think he had gone a bit off his +head at the suddenness of it, for he raged and cursed at them like a +lunatic. If they had been a row of his favorite Pressmen he could not +have slanged them worse." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what did they do?" I was enthralled by the strange story which +my companion was whispering into my ear, while all the time his keen +eyes were shooting in every direction and his hand grasping his cocked +rifle. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought it was the end of us, but instead of that it started them on +a new line. They all jabbered and chattered together. Then one of +them stood out beside Challenger. You'll smile, young fellah, but 'pon +my word they might have been kinsmen. I couldn't have believed it if I +hadn't seen it with my own eyes. This old ape-man—he was their +chief—was a sort of red Challenger, with every one of our friend's +beauty points, only just a trifle more so. He had the short body, the +big shoulders, the round chest, no neck, a great ruddy frill of a +beard, the tufted eyebrows, the 'What do you want, damn you!' look +about the eyes, and the whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood by +Challenger and put his paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete. +Summerlee was a bit hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. The +ape-men laughed too—or at least they put up the devil of a +cacklin'—and they set to work to drag us off through the forest. They +wouldn't touch the guns and things—thought them dangerous, I +expect—but they carried away all our loose food. Summerlee and I got +some rough handlin' on the way—there's my skin and my clothes to prove +it—for they took us a bee-line through the brambles, and their own +hides are like leather. But Challenger was all right. Four of them +carried him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor. What's +that?" +</P> + +<P> +It was a strange clicking noise in the distance not unlike castanets. +</P> + +<P> +"There they go!" said my companion, slipping cartridges into the second +double barrelled "Express." "Load them all up, young fellah my lad, +for we're not going to be taken alive, and don't you think it! That's +the row they make when they are excited. By George! they'll have +something to excite them if they put us up. The 'Last Stand of the +Grays' won't be in it. 'With their rifles grasped in their stiffened +hands, mid a ring of the dead and dyin',' as some fathead sings. Can +you hear them now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very far away." +</P> + +<P> +"That little lot will do no good, but I expect their search parties are +all over the wood. Well, I was telling you my tale of woe. They got +us soon to this town of theirs—about a thousand huts of branches and +leaves in a great grove of trees near the edge of the cliff. It's +three or four miles from here. The filthy beasts fingered me all over, +and I feel as if I should never be clean again. They tied us up—the +fellow who handled me could tie like a bosun—and there we lay with our +toes up, beneath a tree, while a great brute stood guard over us with a +club in his hand. When I say 'we' I mean Summerlee and myself. Old +Challenger was up a tree, eatin' pines and havin' the time of his life. +I'm bound to say that he managed to get some fruit to us, and with his +own hands he loosened our bonds. If you'd seen him sitting up in that +tree hob-nobbin' with his twin brother—and singin' in that rollin' +bass of his, 'Ring out, wild bells,' cause music of any kind seemed to +put 'em in a good humor, you'd have smiled; but we weren't in much mood +for laughin', as you can guess. They were inclined, within limits, to +let him do what he liked, but they drew the line pretty sharply at us. +It was a mighty consolation to us all to know that you were runnin' +loose and had the archives in your keepin'. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now, young fellah, I'll tell you what will surprise you. You +say you saw signs of men, and fires, traps, and the like. Well, we +have seen the natives themselves. Poor devils they were, down-faced +little chaps, and had enough to make them so. It seems that the humans +hold one side of this plateau—over yonder, where you saw the +caves—and the ape-men hold this side, and there is bloody war between +them all the time. That's the situation, so far as I could follow it. +Well, yesterday the ape-men got hold of a dozen of the humans and +brought them in as prisoners. You never heard such a jabberin' and +shriekin' in your life. The men were little red fellows, and had been +bitten and clawed so that they could hardly walk. The ape-men put two +of them to death there and then—fairly pulled the arm off one of +them—it was perfectly beastly. Plucky little chaps they are, and +hardly gave a squeak. But it turned us absolutely sick. Summerlee +fainted, and even Challenger had as much as he could stand. I think +they have cleared, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +We listened intently, but nothing save the calling of the birds broke +the deep peace of the forest. Lord Roxton went on with his story. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you have had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad. It +was catchin' those Indians that put you clean out of their heads, else +they would have been back to the camp for you as sure as fate and +gathered you in. Of course, as you said, they have been watchin' us +from the beginnin' out of that tree, and they knew perfectly well that +we were one short. However, they could think only of this new haul; so +it was I, and not a bunch of apes, that dropped in on you in the +morning. Well, we had a horrid business afterwards. My God! what a +nightmare the whole thing is! You remember the great bristle of sharp +canes down below where we found the skeleton of the American? Well, +that is just under ape-town, and that's the jumpin'-off place of their +prisoners. I expect there's heaps of skeletons there, if we looked for +'em. They have a sort of clear parade-ground on the top, and they make +a proper ceremony about it. One by one the poor devils have to jump, +and the game is to see whether they are merely dashed to pieces or +whether they get skewered on the canes. They took us out to see it, +and the whole tribe lined up on the edge. Four of the Indians jumped, +and the canes went through 'em like knittin' needles through a pat of +butter. No wonder we found that poor Yankee's skeleton with the canes +growin' between his ribs. It was horrible—but it was doocedly +interestin' too. We were all fascinated to see them take the dive, +even when we thought it would be our turn next on the spring-board. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it wasn't. They kept six of the Indians up for to-day—that's +how I understood it—but I fancy we were to be the star performers in +the show. Challenger might get off, but Summerlee and I were in the +bill. Their language is more than half signs, and it was not hard to +follow them. So I thought it was time we made a break for it. I had +been plottin' it out a bit, and had one or two things clear in my mind. +It was all on me, for Summerlee was useless and Challenger not much +better. The only time they got together they got slangin' because they +couldn't agree upon the scientific classification of these red-headed +devils that had got hold of us. One said it was the dryopithecus of +Java, the other said it was pithecanthropus. Madness, I call +it—Loonies, both. But, as I say, I had thought out one or two points +that were helpful. One was that these brutes could not run as fast as +a man in the open. They have short, bandy legs, you see, and heavy +bodies. Even Challenger could give a few yards in a hundred to the +best of them, and you or I would be a perfect Shrubb. Another point +was that they knew nothin' about guns. I don't believe they ever +understood how the fellow I shot came by his hurt. If we could get at +our guns there was no sayin' what we could do. +</P> + +<P> +"So I broke away early this mornin', gave my guard a kick in the tummy +that laid him out, and sprinted for the camp. There I got you and the +guns, and here we are." +</P> + +<P> +"But the professors!" I cried, in consternation. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we must just go back and fetch 'em. I couldn't bring 'em with +me. Challenger was up the tree, and Summerlee was not fit for the +effort. The only chance was to get the guns and try a rescue. Of +course they may scupper them at once in revenge. I don't think they +would touch Challenger, but I wouldn't answer for Summerlee. But they +would have had him in any case. Of that I am certain. So I haven't +made matters any worse by boltin'. But we are honor bound to go back +and have them out or see it through with them. So you can make up your +soul, young fellah my lad, for it will be one way or the other before +evenin'." +</P> + +<P> +I have tried to imitate here Lord Roxton's jerky talk, his short, +strong sentences, the half-humorous, half-reckless tone that ran +through it all. But he was a born leader. As danger thickened his +jaunty manner would increase, his speech become more racy, his cold +eyes glitter into ardent life, and his Don Quixote moustache bristle +with joyous excitement. His love of danger, his intense appreciation +of the drama of an adventure—all the more intense for being held +tightly in—his consistent view that every peril in life is a form of +sport, a fierce game betwixt you and Fate, with Death as a forfeit, +made him a wonderful companion at such hours. If it were not for our +fears as to the fate of our companions, it would have been a positive +joy to throw myself with such a man into such an affair. We were +rising from our brushwood hiding-place when suddenly I felt his grip +upon my arm. +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" he whispered, "here they come!" +</P> + +<P> +From where we lay we could look down a brown aisle, arched with green, +formed by the trunks and branches. Along this a party of the ape-men +were passing. They went in single file, with bent legs and rounded +backs, their hands occasionally touching the ground, their heads +turning to left and right as they trotted along. Their crouching gait +took away from their height, but I should put them at five feet or so, +with long arms and enormous chests. Many of them carried sticks, and +at the distance they looked like a line of very hairy and deformed +human beings. For a moment I caught this clear glimpse of them. Then +they were lost among the bushes. +</P> + +<P> +"Not this time," said Lord John, who had caught up his rifle. "Our +best chance is to lie quiet until they have given up the search. Then +we shall see whether we can't get back to their town and hit 'em where +it hurts most. Give 'em an hour and we'll march." +</P> + +<P> +We filled in the time by opening one of our food tins and making sure +of our breakfast. Lord Roxton had had nothing but some fruit since the +morning before and ate like a starving man. Then, at last, our pockets +bulging with cartridges and a rifle in each hand, we started off upon +our mission of rescue. Before leaving it we carefully marked our +little hiding-place among the brush-wood and its bearing to Fort +Challenger, that we might find it again if we needed it. We slunk +through the bushes in silence until we came to the very edge of the +cliff, close to the old camp. There we halted, and Lord John gave me +some idea of his plans. +</P> + +<P> +"So long as we are among the thick trees these swine are our masters," +said he. "They can see us and we cannot see them. But in the open it +is different. There we can move faster than they. So we must stick to +the open all we can. The edge of the plateau has fewer large trees +than further inland. So that's our line of advance. Go slowly, keep +your eyes open and your rifle ready. Above all, never let them get you +prisoner while there is a cartridge left—that's my last word to you, +young fellah." +</P> + +<P> +When we reached the edge of the cliff I looked over and saw our good +old black Zambo sitting smoking on a rock below us. I would have given +a great deal to have hailed him and told him how we were placed, but it +was too dangerous, lest we should be heard. The woods seemed to be +full of the ape-men; again and again we heard their curious clicking +chatter. At such times we plunged into the nearest clump of bushes and +lay still until the sound had passed away. Our advance, therefore, was +very slow, and two hours at least must have passed before I saw by Lord +John's cautious movements that we must be close to our destination. He +motioned to me to lie still, and he crawled forward himself. In a +minute he was back again, his face quivering with eagerness. +</P> + +<P> +"Come!" said he. "Come quick! I hope to the Lord we are not too late +already!" +</P> + +<P> +I found myself shaking with nervous excitement as I scrambled forward +and lay down beside him, looking out through the bushes at a clearing +which stretched before us. +</P> + +<P> +It was a sight which I shall never forget until my dying day—so weird, +so impossible, that I do not know how I am to make you realize it, or +how in a few years I shall bring myself to believe in it if I live to +sit once more on a lounge in the Savage Club and look out on the drab +solidity of the Embankment. I know that it will seem then to be some +wild nightmare, some delirium of fever. Yet I will set it down now, +while it is still fresh in my memory, and one at least, the man who lay +in the damp grasses by my side, will know if I have lied. +</P> + +<P> +A wide, open space lay before us—some hundreds of yards across—all +green turf and low bracken growing to the very edge of the cliff. +Round this clearing there was a semi-circle of trees with curious huts +built of foliage piled one above the other among the branches. A +rookery, with every nest a little house, would best convey the idea. +The openings of these huts and the branches of the trees were thronged +with a dense mob of ape-people, whom from their size I took to be the +females and infants of the tribe. They formed the background of the +picture, and were all looking out with eager interest at the same scene +which fascinated and bewildered us. +</P> + +<P> +In the open, and near the edge of the cliff, there had assembled a +crowd of some hundred of these shaggy, red-haired creatures, many of +them of immense size, and all of them horrible to look upon. There was +a certain discipline among them, for none of them attempted to break +the line which had been formed. In front there stood a small group of +Indians—little, clean-limbed, red fellows, whose skins glowed like +polished bronze in the strong sunlight. A tall, thin white man was +standing beside them, his head bowed, his arms folded, his whole +attitude expressive of his horror and dejection. There was no +mistaking the angular form of Professor Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +In front of and around this dejected group of prisoners were several +ape-men, who watched them closely and made all escape impossible. +Then, right out from all the others and close to the edge of the cliff, +were two figures, so strange, and under other circumstances so +ludicrous, that they absorbed my attention. The one was our comrade, +Professor Challenger. The remains of his coat still hung in strips +from his shoulders, but his shirt had been all torn out, and his great +beard merged itself in the black tangle which covered his mighty chest. +He had lost his hat, and his hair, which had grown long in our +wanderings, was flying in wild disorder. A single day seemed to have +changed him from the highest product of modern civilization to the most +desperate savage in South America. Beside him stood his master, the +king of the ape-men. In all things he was, as Lord John had said, the +very image of our Professor, save that his coloring was red instead of +black. The same short, broad figure, the same heavy shoulders, the +same forward hang of the arms, the same bristling beard merging itself +in the hairy chest. Only above the eyebrows, where the sloping +forehead and low, curved skull of the ape-man were in sharp contrast to +the broad brow and magnificent cranium of the European, could one see +any marked difference. At every other point the king was an absurd +parody of the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +All this, which takes me so long to describe, impressed itself upon me +in a few seconds. Then we had very different things to think of, for +an active drama was in progress. Two of the ape-men had seized one of +the Indians out of the group and dragged him forward to the edge of the +cliff. The king raised his hand as a signal. They caught the man by +his leg and arm, and swung him three times backwards and forwards with +tremendous violence. Then, with a frightful heave they shot the poor +wretch over the precipice. With such force did they throw him that he +curved high in the air before beginning to drop. As he vanished from +sight, the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to the +edge of the precipice, and there was a long pause of absolute silence, +broken by a mad yell of delight. They sprang about, tossing their +long, hairy arms in the air and howling with exultation. Then they +fell back from the edge, formed themselves again into line, and waited +for the next victim. +</P> + +<P> +This time it was Summerlee. Two of his guards caught him by the wrists +and pulled him brutally to the front. His thin figure and long limbs +struggled and fluttered like a chicken being dragged from a coop. +Challenger had turned to the king and waved his hands frantically +before him. He was begging, pleading, imploring for his comrade's +life. The ape-man pushed him roughly aside and shook his head. It was +the last conscious movement he was to make upon earth. Lord John's +rifle cracked, and the king sank down, a tangled red sprawling thing, +upon the ground. +</P> + +<P> +"Shoot into the thick of them! Shoot! sonny, shoot!" cried my +companion. +</P> + +<P> +There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man. +I am tenderhearted by nature, and have found my eyes moist many a time +over the scream of a wounded hare. Yet the blood lust was on me now. +I found myself on my feet emptying one magazine, then the other, +clicking open the breech to re-load, snapping it to again, while +cheering and yelling with pure ferocity and joy of slaughter as I did +so. With our four guns the two of us made a horrible havoc. Both the +guards who held Summerlee were down, and he was staggering about like a +drunken man in his amazement, unable to realize that he was a free man. +The dense mob of ape-men ran about in bewilderment, marveling whence +this storm of death was coming or what it might mean. They waved, +gesticulated, screamed, and tripped up over those who had fallen. +Then, with a sudden impulse, they all rushed in a howling crowd to the +trees for shelter, leaving the ground behind them spotted with their +stricken comrades. The prisoners were left for the moment standing +alone in the middle of the clearing. +</P> + +<P> +Challenger's quick brain had grasped the situation. He seized the +bewildered Summerlee by the arm, and they both ran towards us. Two of +their guards bounded after them and fell to two bullets from Lord John. +We ran forward into the open to meet our friends, and pressed a loaded +rifle into the hands of each. But Summerlee was at the end of his +strength. He could hardly totter. Already the ape-men were recovering +from their panic. They were coming through the brushwood and +threatening to cut us off. Challenger and I ran Summerlee along, one +at each of his elbows, while Lord John covered our retreat, firing +again and again as savage heads snarled at us out of the bushes. For a +mile or more the chattering brutes were at our very heels. Then the +pursuit slackened, for they learned our power and would no longer face +that unerring rifle. When we had at last reached the camp, we looked +back and found ourselves alone. +</P> + +<P> +So it seemed to us; and yet we were mistaken. We had hardly closed the +thornbush door of our zareba, clasped each other's hands, and thrown +ourselves panting upon the ground beside our spring, when we heard a +patter of feet and then a gentle, plaintive crying from outside our +entrance. Lord Roxton rushed forward, rifle in hand, and threw it +open. There, prostrate upon their faces, lay the little red figures of +the four surviving Indians, trembling with fear of us and yet imploring +our protection. With an expressive sweep of his hands one of them +pointed to the woods around them, and indicated that they were full of +danger. Then, darting forward, he threw his arms round Lord John's +legs, and rested his face upon them. +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" cried our peer, pulling at his moustache in great +perplexity, "I say—what the deuce are we to do with these people? Get +up, little chappie, and take your face off my boots." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee was sitting up and stuffing some tobacco into his old briar. +</P> + +<P> +"We've got to see them safe," said he. "You've pulled us all out of +the jaws of death. My word! it was a good bit of work!" +</P> + +<P> +"Admirable!" cried Challenger. "Admirable! Not only we as +individuals, but European science collectively, owe you a deep debt of +gratitude for what you have done. I do not hesitate to say that the +disappearance of Professor Summerlee and myself would have left an +appreciable gap in modern zoological history. Our young friend here +and you have done most excellently well." +</P> + +<P> +He beamed at us with the old paternal smile, but European science would +have been somewhat amazed could they have seen their chosen child, the +hope of the future, with his tangled, unkempt head, his bare chest, and +his tattered clothes. He had one of the meat-tins between his knees, +and sat with a large piece of cold Australian mutton between his +fingers. The Indian looked up at him, and then, with a little yelp, +cringed to the ground and clung to Lord John's leg. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you be scared, my bonnie boy," said Lord John, patting the +matted head in front of him. "He can't stick your appearance, +Challenger; and, by George! I don't wonder. All right, little chap, +he's only a human, just the same as the rest of us." +</P> + +<P> +"Really, sir!" cried the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's lucky for you, Challenger, that you ARE a little out of the +ordinary. If you hadn't been so like the king——" +</P> + +<P> +"Upon my word, Lord John, you allow yourself great latitude." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's a fact." +</P> + +<P> +"I beg, sir, that you will change the subject. Your remarks are +irrelevant and unintelligible. The question before us is what are we +to do with these Indians? The obvious thing is to escort them home, if +we knew where their home was." +</P> + +<P> +"There is no difficulty about that," said I. "They live in the caves +on the other side of the central lake." +</P> + +<P> +"Our young friend here knows where they live. I gather that it is some +distance." +</P> + +<P> +"A good twenty miles," said I. +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee gave a groan. +</P> + +<P> +"I, for one, could never get there. Surely I hear those brutes still +howling upon our track." +</P> + +<P> +As he spoke, from the dark recesses of the woods we heard far away the +jabbering cry of the ape-men. The Indians once more set up a feeble +wail of fear. +</P> + +<P> +"We must move, and move quick!" said Lord John. "You help Summerlee, +young fellah. These Indians will carry stores. Now, then, come along +before they can see us." +</P> + +<P> +In less than half-an-hour we had reached our brushwood retreat and +concealed ourselves. All day we heard the excited calling of the +ape-men in the direction of our old camp, but none of them came our +way, and the tired fugitives, red and white, had a long, deep sleep. I +was dozing myself in the evening when someone plucked my sleeve, and I +found Challenger kneeling beside me. +</P> + +<P> +"You keep a diary of these events, and you expect eventually to publish +it, Mr. Malone," said he, with solemnity. +</P> + +<P> +"I am only here as a Press reporter," I answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. You may have heard some rather fatuous remarks of Lord John +Roxton's which seemed to imply that there was some—some +resemblance——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I heard them." +</P> + +<P> +"I need not say that any publicity given to such an idea—any levity in +your narrative of what occurred—would be exceedingly offensive to me." +</P> + +<P> +"I will keep well within the truth." +</P> + +<P> +"Lord John's observations are frequently exceedingly fanciful, and he +is capable of attributing the most absurd reasons to the respect which +is always shown by the most undeveloped races to dignity and character. +You follow my meaning?" +</P> + +<P> +"Entirely." +</P> + +<P> +"I leave the matter to your discretion." Then, after a long pause, he +added: "The king of the ape-men was really a creature of great +distinction—a most remarkably handsome and intelligent personality. +Did it not strike you?" +</P> + +<P> +"A most remarkable creature," said I. +</P> + +<P> +And the Professor, much eased in his mind, settled down to his slumber +once more. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Those Were the Real Conquests" +</H3> + +<P> +We had imagined that our pursuers, the ape-men, knew nothing of our +brush-wood hiding-place, but we were soon to find out our mistake. +There was no sound in the woods—not a leaf moved upon the trees, and +all was peace around us—but we should have been warned by our first +experience how cunningly and how patiently these creatures can watch +and wait until their chance comes. Whatever fate may be mine through +life, I am very sure that I shall never be nearer death than I was that +morning. But I will tell you the thing in its due order. +</P> + +<P> +We all awoke exhausted after the terrific emotions and scanty food of +yesterday. Summerlee was still so weak that it was an effort for him +to stand; but the old man was full of a sort of surly courage which +would never admit defeat. A council was held, and it was agreed that +we should wait quietly for an hour or two where we were, have our +much-needed breakfast, and then make our way across the plateau and +round the central lake to the caves where my observations had shown +that the Indians lived. We relied upon the fact that we could count +upon the good word of those whom we had rescued to ensure a warm +welcome from their fellows. Then, with our mission accomplished and +possessing a fuller knowledge of the secrets of Maple White Land, we +should turn our whole thoughts to the vital problem of our escape and +return. Even Challenger was ready to admit that we should then have +done all for which we had come, and that our first duty from that time +onwards was to carry back to civilization the amazing discoveries we +had made. +</P> + +<P> +We were able now to take a more leisurely view of the Indians whom we +had rescued. They were small men, wiry, active, and well-built, with +lank black hair tied up in a bunch behind their heads with a leathern +thong, and leathern also were their loin-clothes. Their faces were +hairless, well formed, and good-humored. The lobes of their ears, +hanging ragged and bloody, showed that they had been pierced for some +ornaments which their captors had torn out. Their speech, though +unintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as they pointed +to each other and uttered the word "Accala" many times over, we +gathered that this was the name of the nation. Occasionally, with +faces which were convulsed with fear and hatred, they shook their +clenched hands at the woods round and cried: "Doda! Doda!" which was +surely their term for their enemies. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you make of them, Challenger?" asked Lord John. "One thing is +very clear to me, and that is that the little chap with the front of +his head shaved is a chief among them." +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed evident that this man stood apart from the others, and +that they never ventured to address him without every sign of deep +respect. He seemed to be the youngest of them all, and yet, so proud +and high was his spirit that, upon Challenger laying his great hand +upon his head, he started like a spurred horse and, with a quick flash +of his dark eyes, moved further away from the Professor. Then, placing +his hand upon his breast and holding himself with great dignity, he +uttered the word "Maretas" several times. The Professor, unabashed, +seized the nearest Indian by the shoulder and proceeded to lecture upon +him as if he were a potted specimen in a class-room. +</P> + +<P> +"The type of these people," said he in his sonorous fashion, "whether +judged by cranial capacity, facial angle, or any other test, cannot be +regarded as a low one; on the contrary, we must place it as +considerably higher in the scale than many South American tribes which +I can mention. On no possible supposition can we explain the evolution +of such a race in this place. For that matter, so great a gap +separates these ape-men from the primitive animals which have survived +upon this plateau, that it is inadmissible to think that they could +have developed where we find them." +</P> + +<P> +"Then where the dooce did they drop from?" asked Lord John. +</P> + +<P> +"A question which will, no doubt, be eagerly discussed in every +scientific society in Europe and America," the Professor answered. "My +own reading of the situation for what it is worth—" he inflated his +chest enormously and looked insolently around him at the words—"is +that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions of this +country up to the vertebrate stage, the old types surviving and living +on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find such modern creatures +as the tapir—an animal with quite a respectable length of +pedigree—the great deer, and the ant-eater in the companionship of +reptilian forms of jurassic type. So much is clear. And now come the +ape-men and the Indian. What is the scientific mind to think of their +presence? I can only account for it by an invasion from outside. It +is probable that there existed an anthropoid ape in South America, who +in past ages found his way to this place, and that he developed into +the creatures we have seen, some of which"—here he looked hard at +me—"were of an appearance and shape which, if it had been accompanied +by corresponding intelligence, would, I do not hesitate to say, have +reflected credit upon any living race. As to the Indians I cannot +doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. Under the +stress of famine or of conquest they have made their way up here. +Faced by ferocious creatures which they had never before seen, they +took refuge in the caves which our young friend has described, but they +have no doubt had a bitter fight to hold their own against wild beasts, +and especially against the ape-men who would regard them as intruders, +and wage a merciless war upon them with a cunning which the larger +beasts would lack. Hence the fact that their numbers appear to be +limited. Well, gentlemen, have I read you the riddle aright, or is +there any point which you would query?" +</P> + +<P> +Professor Summerlee for once was too depressed to argue, though he +shook his head violently as a token of general disagreement. Lord John +merely scratched his scanty locks with the remark that he couldn't put +up a fight as he wasn't in the same weight or class. For my own part I +performed my usual role of bringing things down to a strictly prosaic +and practical level by the remark that one of the Indians was missing. +</P> + +<P> +"He has gone to fetch some water," said Lord Roxton. "We fitted him up +with an empty beef tin and he is off." +</P> + +<P> +"To the old camp?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No, to the brook. It's among the trees there. It can't be more than +a couple of hundred yards. But the beggar is certainly taking his +time." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go and look after him," said I. I picked up my rifle and +strolled in the direction of the brook, leaving my friends to lay out +the scanty breakfast. It may seem to you rash that even for so short a +distance I should quit the shelter of our friendly thicket, but you +will remember that we were many miles from Ape-town, that so far as we +knew the creatures had not discovered our retreat, and that in any case +with a rifle in my hands I had no fear of them. I had not yet learned +their cunning or their strength. +</P> + +<P> +I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, but there +was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it. I was making my +way through this at a point which was just out of sight of my +companions, when, under one of the trees, I noticed something red +huddled among the bushes. As I approached it, I was shocked to see +that it was the dead body of the missing Indian. He lay upon his side, +his limbs drawn up, and his head screwed round at a most unnatural +angle, so that he seemed to be looking straight over his own shoulder. +I gave a cry to warn my friends that something was amiss, and running +forwards I stooped over the body. Surely my guardian angel was very +near me then, for some instinct of fear, or it may have been some faint +rustle of leaves, made me glance upwards. Out of the thick green +foliage which hung low over my head, two long muscular arms covered +with reddish hair were slowly descending. Another instant and the +great stealthy hands would have been round my throat. I sprang +backwards, but quick as I was, those hands were quicker still. Through +my sudden spring they missed a fatal grip, but one of them caught the +back of my neck and the other one my face. I threw my hands up to +protect my throat, and the next moment the huge paw had slid down my +face and closed over them. I was lifted lightly from the ground, and I +felt an intolerable pressure forcing my head back and back until the +strain upon the cervical spine was more than I could bear. My senses +swam, but I still tore at the hand and forced it out from my chin. +Looking up I saw a frightful face with cold inexorable light blue eyes +looking down into mine. There was something hypnotic in those terrible +eyes. I could struggle no longer. As the creature felt me grow limp +in his grasp, two white canines gleamed for a moment at each side of +the vile mouth, and the grip tightened still more upon my chin, forcing +it always upwards and back. A thin, oval-tinted mist formed before my +eyes and little silvery bells tinkled in my ears. Dully and far off I +heard the crack of a rifle and was feebly aware of the shock as I was +dropped to the earth, where I lay without sense or motion. +</P> + +<P> +I awoke to find myself on my back upon the grass in our lair within the +thicket. Someone had brought the water from the brook, and Lord John +was sprinkling my head with it, while Challenger and Summerlee were +propping me up, with concern in their faces. For a moment I had a +glimpse of the human spirits behind their scientific masks. It was +really shock, rather than any injury, which had prostrated me, and in +half-an-hour, in spite of aching head and stiff neck, I was sitting up +and ready for anything. +</P> + +<P> +"But you've had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad," said +Lord Roxton. "When I heard your cry and ran forward, and saw your head +twisted half-off and your stohwassers kickin' in the air, I thought we +were one short. I missed the beast in my flurry, but he dropped you +all right and was off like a streak. By George! I wish I had fifty +men with rifles. I'd clear out the whole infernal gang of them and +leave this country a bit cleaner than we found it." +</P> + +<P> +It was clear now that the ape-men had in some way marked us down, and +that we were watched on every side. We had not so much to fear from +them during the day, but they would be very likely to rush us by night; +so the sooner we got away from their neighborhood the better. On three +sides of us was absolute forest, and there we might find ourselves in +an ambush. But on the fourth side—that which sloped down in the +direction of the lake—there was only low scrub, with scattered trees +and occasional open glades. It was, in fact, the route which I had +myself taken in my solitary journey, and it led us straight for the +Indian caves. This then must for every reason be our road. +</P> + +<P> +One great regret we had, and that was to leave our old camp behind us, +not only for the sake of the stores which remained there, but even more +because we were losing touch with Zambo, our link with the outside +world. However, we had a fair supply of cartridges and all our guns, +so, for a time at least, we could look after ourselves, and we hoped +soon to have a chance of returning and restoring our communications +with our negro. He had faithfully promised to stay where he was, and +we had not a doubt that he would be as good as his word. +</P> + +<P> +It was in the early afternoon that we started upon our journey. The +young chief walked at our head as our guide, but refused indignantly to +carry any burden. Behind him came the two surviving Indians with our +scanty possessions upon their backs. We four white men walked in the +rear with rifles loaded and ready. As we started there broke from the +thick silent woods behind us a sudden great ululation of the ape-men, +which may have been a cheer of triumph at our departure or a jeer of +contempt at our flight. Looking back we saw only the dense screen of +trees, but that long-drawn yell told us how many of our enemies lurked +among them. We saw no sign of pursuit, however, and soon we had got +into more open country and beyond their power. +</P> + +<P> +As I tramped along, the rearmost of the four, I could not help smiling +at the appearance of my three companions in front. Was this the +luxurious Lord John Roxton who had sat that evening in the Albany +amidst his Persian rugs and his pictures in the pink radiance of the +tinted lights? And was this the imposing Professor who had swelled +behind the great desk in his massive study at Enmore Park? And, +finally, could this be the austere and prim figure which had risen +before the meeting at the Zoological Institute? No three tramps that +one could have met in a Surrey lane could have looked more hopeless and +bedraggled. We had, it is true, been only a week or so upon the top of +the plateau, but all our spare clothing was in our camp below, and the +one week had been a severe one upon us all, though least to me who had +not to endure the handling of the ape-men. My three friends had all +lost their hats, and had now bound handkerchiefs round their heads, +their clothes hung in ribbons about them, and their unshaven grimy +faces were hardly to be recognized. Both Summerlee and Challenger were +limping heavily, while I still dragged my feet from weakness after the +shock of the morning, and my neck was as stiff as a board from the +murderous grip that held it. We were indeed a sorry crew, and I did +not wonder to see our Indian companions glance back at us occasionally +with horror and amazement on their faces. +</P> + +<P> +In the late afternoon we reached the margin of the lake, and as we +emerged from the bush and saw the sheet of water stretching before us +our native friends set up a shrill cry of joy and pointed eagerly in +front of them. It was indeed a wonderful sight which lay before us. +Sweeping over the glassy surface was a great flotilla of canoes coming +straight for the shore upon which we stood. They were some miles out +when we first saw them, but they shot forward with great swiftness, and +were soon so near that the rowers could distinguish our persons. +Instantly a thunderous shout of delight burst from them, and we saw +them rise from their seats, waving their paddles and spears madly in +the air. Then bending to their work once more, they flew across the +intervening water, beached their boats upon the sloping sand, and +rushed up to us, prostrating themselves with loud cries of greeting +before the young chief. Finally one of them, an elderly man, with a +necklace and bracelet of great lustrous glass beads and the skin of +some beautiful mottled amber-colored animal slung over his shoulders, +ran forward and embraced most tenderly the youth whom we had saved. He +then looked at us and asked some questions, after which he stepped up +with much dignity and embraced us also each in turn. Then, at his +order, the whole tribe lay down upon the ground before us in homage. +Personally I felt shy and uncomfortable at this obsequious adoration, +and I read the same feeling in the faces of Roxton and Summerlee, but +Challenger expanded like a flower in the sun. +</P> + +<P> +"They may be undeveloped types," said he, stroking his beard and +looking round at them, "but their deportment in the presence of their +superiors might be a lesson to some of our more advanced Europeans. +Strange how correct are the instincts of the natural man!" +</P> + +<P> +It was clear that the natives had come out upon the war-path, for every +man carried his spear—a long bamboo tipped with bone—his bow and +arrows, and some sort of club or stone battle-axe slung at his side. +Their dark, angry glances at the woods from which we had come, and the +frequent repetition of the word "Doda," made it clear enough that this +was a rescue party who had set forth to save or revenge the old chief's +son, for such we gathered that the youth must be. A council was now +held by the whole tribe squatting in a circle, whilst we sat near on a +slab of basalt and watched their proceedings. Two or three warriors +spoke, and finally our young friend made a spirited harangue with such +eloquent features and gestures that we could understand it all as +clearly as if we had known his language. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the use of returning?" he said. "Sooner or later the thing +must be done. Your comrades have been murdered. What if I have +returned safe? These others have been done to death. There is no +safety for any of us. We are assembled now and ready." Then he pointed +to us. "These strange men are our friends. They are great fighters, +and they hate the ape-men even as we do. They command," here he +pointed up to heaven, "the thunder and the lightning. When shall we +have such a chance again? Let us go forward, and either die now or +live for the future in safety. How else shall we go back unashamed to +our women?" +</P> + +<P> +The little red warriors hung upon the words of the speaker, and when he +had finished they burst into a roar of applause, waving their rude +weapons in the air. The old chief stepped forward to us, and asked us +some questions, pointing at the same time to the woods. Lord John made +a sign to him that he should wait for an answer and then he turned to +us. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's up to you to say what you will do," said he; "for my part I +have a score to settle with these monkey-folk, and if it ends by wiping +them off the face of the earth I don't see that the earth need fret +about it. I'm goin' with our little red pals and I mean to see them +through the scrap. What do you say, young fellah?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I will come." +</P> + +<P> +"And you, Challenger?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will assuredly co-operate." +</P> + +<P> +"And you, Summerlee?" +</P> + +<P> +"We seem to be drifting very far from the object of this expedition, +Lord John. I assure you that I little thought when I left my +professional chair in London that it was for the purpose of heading a +raid of savages upon a colony of anthropoid apes." +</P> + +<P> +"To such base uses do we come," said Lord John, smiling. "But we are +up against it, so what's the decision?" +</P> + +<P> +"It seems a most questionable step," said Summerlee, argumentative to +the last, "but if you are all going, I hardly see how I can remain +behind." +</P> + +<P> +"Then it is settled," said Lord John, and turning to the chief he +nodded and slapped his rifle. +</P> + +<P> +The old fellow clasped our hands, each in turn, while his men cheered +louder than ever. It was too late to advance that night, so the +Indians settled down into a rude bivouac. On all sides their fires +began to glimmer and smoke. Some of them who had disappeared into the +jungle came back presently driving a young iguanodon before them. Like +the others, it had a daub of asphalt upon its shoulder, and it was only +when we saw one of the natives step forward with the air of an owner +and give his consent to the beast's slaughter that we understood at +last that these great creatures were as much private property as a herd +of cattle, and that these symbols which had so perplexed us were +nothing more than the marks of the owner. Helpless, torpid, and +vegetarian, with great limbs but a minute brain, they could be rounded +up and driven by a child. In a few minutes the huge beast had been cut +up and slabs of him were hanging over a dozen camp fires, together with +great scaly ganoid fish which had been speared in the lake. +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee had lain down and slept upon the sand, but we others roamed +round the edge of the water, seeking to learn something more of this +strange country. Twice we found pits of blue clay, such as we had +already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls. These were old volcanic +vents, and for some reason excited the greatest interest in Lord John. +What attracted Challenger, on the other hand, was a bubbling, gurgling +mud geyser, where some strange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon +the surface. He thrust a hollow reed into it and cried out with +delight like a schoolboy then he was able, on touching it with a +lighted match, to cause a sharp explosion and a blue flame at the far +end of the tube. Still more pleased was he when, inverting a leathern +pouch over the end of the reed, and so filling it with the gas, he was +able to send it soaring up into the air. +</P> + +<P> +"An inflammable gas, and one markedly lighter than the atmosphere. I +should say beyond doubt that it contained a considerable proportion of +free hydrogen. The resources of G. E. C. are not yet exhausted, my +young friend. I may yet show you how a great mind molds all Nature to +its use." He swelled with some secret purpose, but would say no more. +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing which we could see upon the shore which seemed to me +so wonderful as the great sheet of water before us. Our numbers and +our noise had frightened all living creatures away, and save for a few +pterodactyls, which soared round high above our heads while they waited +for the carrion, all was still around the camp. But it was different +out upon the rose-tinted waters of the central lake. It boiled and +heaved with strange life. Great slate-colored backs and high serrated +dorsal fins shot up with a fringe of silver, and then rolled down into +the depths again. The sand-banks far out were spotted with uncouth +crawling forms, huge turtles, strange saurians, and one great flat +creature like a writhing, palpitating mat of black greasy leather, +which flopped its way slowly to the lake. Here and there high serpent +heads projected out of the water, cutting swiftly through it with a +little collar of foam in front, and a long swirling wake behind, rising +and falling in graceful, swan-like undulations as they went. It was +not until one of these creatures wriggled on to a sand-bank within a +few hundred yards of us, and exposed a barrel-shaped body and huge +flippers behind the long serpent neck, that Challenger, and Summerlee, +who had joined us, broke out into their duet of wonder and admiration. +</P> + +<P> +"Plesiosaurus! A fresh-water plesiosaurus!" cried Summerlee. "That I +should have lived to see such a sight! We are blessed, my dear +Challenger, above all zoologists since the world began!" +</P> + +<P> +It was not until the night had fallen, and the fires of our savage +allies glowed red in the shadows, that our two men of science could be +dragged away from the fascinations of that primeval lake. Even in the +darkness as we lay upon the strand, we heard from time to time the +snort and plunge of the huge creatures who lived therein. +</P> + +<P> +At earliest dawn our camp was astir and an hour later we had started +upon our memorable expedition. Often in my dreams have I thought that +I might live to be a war correspondent. In what wildest one could I +have conceived the nature of the campaign which it should be my lot to +report! Here then is my first despatch from a field of battle: +</P> + +<P> +Our numbers had been reinforced during the night by a fresh batch of +natives from the caves, and we may have been four or five hundred +strong when we made our advance. A fringe of scouts was thrown out in +front, and behind them the whole force in a solid column made their way +up the long slope of the bush country until we were near the edge of +the forest. Here they spread out into a long straggling line of +spearmen and bowmen. Roxton and Summerlee took their position upon the +right flank, while Challenger and I were on the left. It was a host of +the stone age that we were accompanying to battle—we with the last +word of the gunsmith's art from St. James' Street and the Strand. +</P> + +<P> +We had not long to wait for our enemy. A wild shrill clamor rose from +the edge of the wood and suddenly a body of ape-men rushed out with +clubs and stones, and made for the center of the Indian line. It was a +valiant move but a foolish one, for the great bandy-legged creatures +were slow of foot, while their opponents were as active as cats. It +was horrible to see the fierce brutes with foaming mouths and glaring +eyes, rushing and grasping, but forever missing their elusive enemies, +while arrow after arrow buried itself in their hides. One great fellow +ran past me roaring with pain, with a dozen darts sticking from his +chest and ribs. In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, and he fell +sprawling among the aloes. But this was the only shot fired, for the +attack had been on the center of the line, and the Indians there had +needed no help of ours in repulsing it. Of all the ape-men who had +rushed out into the open, I do not think that one got back to cover. +</P> + +<P> +But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. For an +hour or more after we entered the wood, there was a desperate struggle +in which for a time we hardly held our own. Springing out from among +the scrub the ape-men with huge clubs broke in upon the Indians and +often felled three or four of them before they could be speared. Their +frightful blows shattered everything upon which they fell. One of them +knocked Summerlee's rifle to matchwood and the next would have crushed +his skull had an Indian not stabbed the beast to the heart. Other +ape-men in the trees above us hurled down stones and logs of wood, +occasionally dropping bodily on to our ranks and fighting furiously +until they were felled. Once our allies broke under the pressure, and +had it not been for the execution done by our rifles they would +certainly have taken to their heels. But they were gallantly rallied +by their old chief and came on with such a rush that the ape-men began +in turn to give way. Summerlee was weaponless, but I was emptying my +magazine as quick as I could fire, and on the further flank we heard +the continuous cracking of our companion's rifles. +</P> + +<P> +Then in a moment came the panic and the collapse. Screaming and +howling, the great creatures rushed away in all directions through the +brushwood, while our allies yelled in their savage delight, following +swiftly after their flying enemies. All the feuds of countless +generations, all the hatreds and cruelties of their narrow history, all +the memories of ill-usage and persecution were to be purged that day. +At last man was to be supreme and the man-beast to find forever his +allotted place. Fly as they would the fugitives were too slow to +escape from the active savages, and from every side in the tangled +woods we heard the exultant yells, the twanging of bows, and the crash +and thud as ape-men were brought down from their hiding-places in the +trees. +</P> + +<P> +I was following the others, when I found that Lord John and Challenger +had come across to join us. +</P> + +<P> +"It's over," said Lord John. "I think we can leave the tidying up to +them. Perhaps the less we see of it the better we shall sleep." +</P> + +<P> +Challenger's eyes were shining with the lust of slaughter. +</P> + +<P> +"We have been privileged," he cried, strutting about like a gamecock, +"to be present at one of the typical decisive battles of history—the +battles which have determined the fate of the world. What, my friends, +is the conquest of one nation by another? It is meaningless. Each +produces the same result. But those fierce fights, when in the dawn of +the ages the cave-dwellers held their own against the tiger folk, or +the elephants first found that they had a master, those were the real +conquests—the victories that count. By this strange turn of fate we +have seen and helped to decide even such a contest. Now upon this +plateau the future must ever be for man." +</P> + +<P> +It needed a robust faith in the end to justify such tragic means. As +we advanced together through the woods we found the ape-men lying +thick, transfixed with spears or arrows. Here and there a little group +of shattered Indians marked where one of the anthropoids had turned to +bay, and sold his life dearly. Always in front of us we heard the +yelling and roaring which showed the direction of the pursuit. The +ape-men had been driven back to their city, they had made a last stand +there, once again they had been broken, and now we were in time to see +the final fearful scene of all. Some eighty or a hundred males, the +last survivors, had been driven across that same little clearing which +led to the edge of the cliff, the scene of our own exploit two days +before. As we arrived the Indians, a semicircle of spearmen, had +closed in on them, and in a minute it was over, Thirty or forty died +where they stood. The others, screaming and clawing, were thrust over +the precipice, and went hurtling down, as their prisoners had of old, +on to the sharp bamboos six hundred feet below. It was as Challenger +had said, and the reign of man was assured forever in Maple White Land. +The males were exterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and +young were driven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of +untold centuries had reached its bloody end. +</P> + +<P> +For us the victory brought much advantage. Once again we were able to +visit our camp and get at our stores. Once more also we were able to +communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified by the spectacle from +afar of an avalanche of apes falling from the edge of the cliff. +</P> + +<P> +"Come away, Massas, come away!" he cried, his eyes starting from his +head. "The debbil get you sure if you stay up there." +</P> + +<P> +"It is the voice of sanity!" said Summerlee with conviction. "We have +had adventures enough and they are neither suitable to our character or +our position. I hold you to your word, Challenger. From now onwards +you devote your energies to getting us out of this horrible country and +back once more to civilization." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "Our Eyes have seen Great Wonders" +</H3> + +<P> +I write this from day to day, but I trust that before I come to the end +of it, I may be able to say that the light shines, at last, through our +clouds. We are held here with no clear means of making our escape, and +bitterly we chafe against it. Yet, I can well imagine that the day may +come when we may be glad that we were kept, against our will, to see +something more of the wonders of this singular place, and of the +creatures who inhabit it. +</P> + +<P> +The victory of the Indians and the annihilation of the ape-men, marked +the turning point of our fortunes. From then onwards, we were in truth +masters of the plateau, for the natives looked upon us with a mixture +of fear and gratitude, since by our strange powers we had aided them to +destroy their hereditary foe. For their own sakes they would, perhaps, +be glad to see the departure of such formidable and incalculable +people, but they have not themselves suggested any way by which we may +reach the plains below. There had been, so far as we could follow +their signs, a tunnel by which the place could be approached, the lower +exit of which we had seen from below. By this, no doubt, both ape-men +and Indians had at different epochs reached the top, and Maple White +with his companion had taken the same way. Only the year before, +however, there had been a terrific earthquake, and the upper end of the +tunnel had fallen in and completely disappeared. The Indians now could +only shake their heads and shrug their shoulders when we expressed by +signs our desire to descend. It may be that they cannot, but it may +also be that they will not, help us to get away. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of the victorious campaign the surviving ape-folk were +driven across the plateau (their wailings were horrible) and +established in the neighborhood of the Indian caves, where they would, +from now onwards, be a servile race under the eyes of their masters. +It was a rude, raw, primeval version of the Jews in Babylon or the +Israelites in Egypt. At night we could hear from amid the trees the +long-drawn cry, as some primitive Ezekiel mourned for fallen greatness +and recalled the departed glories of Ape Town. Hewers of wood and +drawers of water, such were they from now onwards. +</P> + +<P> +We had returned across the plateau with our allies two days after the +battle, and made our camp at the foot of their cliffs. They would have +had us share their caves with them, but Lord John would by no means +consent to it considering that to do so would put us in their power if +they were treacherously disposed. We kept our independence, therefore, +and had our weapons ready for any emergency, while preserving the most +friendly relations. We also continually visited their caves, which +were most remarkable places, though whether made by man or by Nature we +have never been able to determine. They were all on the one stratum, +hollowed out of some soft rock which lay between the volcanic basalt +forming the ruddy cliffs above them, and the hard granite which formed +their base. +</P> + +<P> +The openings were about eighty feet above the ground, and were led up +to by long stone stairs, so narrow and steep that no large animal could +mount them. Inside they were warm and dry, running in straight +passages of varying length into the side of the hill, with smooth gray +walls decorated with many excellent pictures done with charred sticks +and representing the various animals of the plateau. If every living +thing were swept from the country the future explorer would find upon +the walls of these caves ample evidence of the strange fauna—the +dinosaurs, iguanodons, and fish lizards—which had lived so recently +upon earth. +</P> + +<P> +Since we had learned that the huge iguanodons were kept as tame herds +by their owners, and were simply walking meat-stores, we had conceived +that man, even with his primitive weapons, had established his +ascendancy upon the plateau. We were soon to discover that it was not +so, and that he was still there upon tolerance. +</P> + +<P> +It was on the third day after our forming our camp near the Indian +caves that the tragedy occurred. Challenger and Summerlee had gone off +together that day to the lake where some of the natives, under their +direction, were engaged in harpooning specimens of the great lizards. +Lord John and I had remained in our camp, while a number of the Indians +were scattered about upon the grassy slope in front of the caves +engaged in different ways. Suddenly there was a shrill cry of alarm, +with the word "Stoa" resounding from a hundred tongues. From every +side men, women, and children were rushing wildly for shelter, swarming +up the staircases and into the caves in a mad stampede. +</P> + +<P> +Looking up, we could see them waving their arms from the rocks above +and beckoning to us to join them in their refuge. We had both seized +our magazine rifles and ran out to see what the danger could be. +Suddenly from the near belt of trees there broke forth a group of +twelve or fifteen Indians, running for their lives, and at their very +heels two of those frightful monsters which had disturbed our camp and +pursued me upon my solitary journey. In shape they were like horrible +toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of +an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant. We had never +before seen them save at night, and indeed they are nocturnal animals +save when disturbed in their lairs, as these had been. We now stood +amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty skins were of a +curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight struck them with an +ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved. +</P> + +<P> +We had little time to watch them, however, for in an instant they had +overtaken the fugitives and were making a dire slaughter among them. +Their method was to fall forward with their full weight upon each in +turn, leaving him crushed and mangled, to bound on after the others. +The wretched Indians screamed with terror, but were helpless, run as +they would, before the relentless purpose and horrible activity of +these monstrous creatures. One after another they went down, and there +were not half-a-dozen surviving by the time my companion and I could +come to their help. But our aid was of little avail and only involved +us in the same peril. At the range of a couple of hundred yards we +emptied our magazines, firing bullet after bullet into the beasts, but +with no more effect than if we were pelting them with pellets of paper. +Their slow reptilian natures cared nothing for wounds, and the springs +of their lives, with no special brain center but scattered throughout +their spinal cords, could not be tapped by any modern weapons. The +most that we could do was to check their progress by distracting their +attention with the flash and roar of our guns, and so to give both the +natives and ourselves time to reach the steps which led to safety. But +where the conical explosive bullets of the twentieth century were of no +avail, the poisoned arrows of the natives, dipped in the juice of +strophanthus and steeped afterwards in decayed carrion, could succeed. +Such arrows were of little avail to the hunter who attacked the beast, +because their action in that torpid circulation was slow, and before +its powers failed it could certainly overtake and slay its assailant. +But now, as the two monsters hounded us to the very foot of the stairs, +a drift of darts came whistling from every chink in the cliff above +them. In a minute they were feathered with them, and yet with no sign +of pain they clawed and slobbered with impotent rage at the steps which +would lead them to their victims, mounting clumsily up for a few yards +and then sliding down again to the ground. But at last the poison +worked. One of them gave a deep rumbling groan and dropped his huge +squat head on to the earth. The other bounded round in an eccentric +circle with shrill, wailing cries, and then lying down writhed in agony +for some minutes before it also stiffened and lay still. With yells of +triumph the Indians came flocking down from their caves and danced a +frenzied dance of victory round the dead bodies, in mad joy that two +more of the most dangerous of all their enemies had been slain. That +night they cut up and removed the bodies, not to eat—for the poison +was still active—but lest they should breed a pestilence. The great +reptilian hearts, however, each as large as a cushion, still lay there, +beating slowly and steadily, with a gentle rise and fall, in horrible +independent life. It was only upon the third day that the ganglia ran +down and the dreadful things were still. +</P> + +<P> +Some day, when I have a better desk than a meat-tin and more helpful +tools than a worn stub of pencil and a last, tattered note-book, I will +write some fuller account of the Accala Indians—of our life amongst +them, and of the glimpses which we had of the strange conditions of +wondrous Maple White Land. Memory, at least, will never fail me, for +so long as the breath of life is in me, every hour and every action of +that period will stand out as hard and clear as do the first strange +happenings of our childhood. No new impressions could efface those +which are so deeply cut. When the time comes I will describe that +wondrous moonlit night upon the great lake when a young +ichthyosaurus—a strange creature, half seal, half fish, to look at, +with bone-covered eyes on each side of his snout, and a third eye fixed +upon the top of his head—was entangled in an Indian net, and nearly +upset our canoe before we towed it ashore; the same night that a green +water-snake shot out from the rushes and carried off in its coils the +steersman of Challenger's canoe. I will tell, too, of the great +nocturnal white thing—to this day we do not know whether it was beast +or reptile—which lived in a vile swamp to the east of the lake, and +flitted about with a faint phosphorescent glimmer in the darkness. The +Indians were so terrified at it that they would not go near the place, +and, though we twice made expeditions and saw it each time, we could +not make our way through the deep marsh in which it lived. I can only +say that it seemed to be larger than a cow and had the strangest musky +odor. I will tell also of the huge bird which chased Challenger to the +shelter of the rocks one day—a great running bird, far taller than an +ostrich, with a vulture-like neck and cruel head which made it a +walking death. As Challenger climbed to safety one dart of that savage +curving beak shore off the heel of his boot as if it had been cut with +a chisel. This time at least modern weapons prevailed and the great +creature, twelve feet from head to foot—phororachus its name, +according to our panting but exultant Professor—went down before Lord +Roxton's rifle in a flurry of waving feathers and kicking limbs, with +two remorseless yellow eyes glaring up from the midst of it. May I +live to see that flattened vicious skull in its own niche amid the +trophies of the Albany. Finally, I will assuredly give some account of +the toxodon, the giant ten-foot guinea pig, with projecting chisel +teeth, which we killed as it drank in the gray of the morning by the +side of the lake. +</P> + +<P> +All this I shall some day write at fuller length, and amidst these more +stirring days I would tenderly sketch in these lovely summer evenings, +when with the deep blue sky above us we lay in good comradeship among +the long grasses by the wood and marveled at the strange fowl that +swept over us and the quaint new creatures which crept from their +burrows to watch us, while above us the boughs of the bushes were heavy +with luscious fruit, and below us strange and lovely flowers peeped at +us from among the herbage; or those long moonlit nights when we lay out +upon the shimmering surface of the great lake and watched with wonder +and awe the huge circles rippling out from the sudden splash of some +fantastic monster; or the greenish gleam, far down in the deep water, +of some strange creature upon the confines of darkness. These are the +scenes which my mind and my pen will dwell upon in every detail at some +future day. +</P> + +<P> +But, you will ask, why these experiences and why this delay, when you +and your comrades should have been occupied day and night in the +devising of some means by which you could return to the outer world? +My answer is, that there was not one of us who was not working for this +end, but that our work had been in vain. One fact we had very speedily +discovered: The Indians would do nothing to help us. In every other +way they were our friends—one might almost say our devoted slaves—but +when it was suggested that they should help us to make and carry a +plank which would bridge the chasm, or when we wished to get from them +thongs of leather or liana to weave ropes which might help us, we were +met by a good-humored, but an invincible, refusal. They would smile, +twinkle their eyes, shake their heads, and there was the end of it. +Even the old chief met us with the same obstinate denial, and it was +only Maretas, the youngster whom we had saved, who looked wistfully at +us and told us by his gestures that he was grieved for our thwarted +wishes. Ever since their crowning triumph with the ape-men they looked +upon us as supermen, who bore victory in the tubes of strange weapons, +and they believed that so long as we remained with them good fortune +would be theirs. A little red-skinned wife and a cave of our own were +freely offered to each of us if we would but forget our own people and +dwell forever upon the plateau. So far all had been kindly, however +far apart our desires might be; but we felt well assured that our +actual plans of a descent must be kept secret, for we had reason to +fear that at the last they might try to hold us by force. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of the danger from dinosaurs (which is not great save at +night, for, as I may have said before, they are mostly nocturnal in +their habits) I have twice in the last three weeks been over to our old +camp in order to see our negro who still kept watch and ward below the +cliff. My eyes strained eagerly across the great plain in the hope of +seeing afar off the help for which we had prayed. But the long +cactus-strewn levels still stretched away, empty and bare, to the +distant line of the cane-brake. +</P> + +<P> +"They will soon come now, Massa Malone. Before another week pass +Indian come back and bring rope and fetch you down." Such was the +cheery cry of our excellent Zambo. +</P> + +<P> +I had one strange experience as I came from this second visit which had +involved my being away for a night from my companions. I was returning +along the well-remembered route, and had reached a spot within a mile +or so of the marsh of the pterodactyls, when I saw an extraordinary +object approaching me. It was a man who walked inside a framework made +of bent canes so that he was enclosed on all sides in a bell-shaped +cage. As I drew nearer I was more amazed still to see that it was Lord +John Roxton. When he saw me he slipped from under his curious +protection and came towards me laughing, and yet, as I thought, with +some confusion in his manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, young fellah," said he, "who would have thought of meetin' you +up here?" +</P> + +<P> +"What in the world are you doing?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Visitin' my friends, the pterodactyls," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"But why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Interestin' beasts, don't you think? But unsociable! Nasty rude ways +with strangers, as you may remember. So I rigged this framework which +keeps them from bein' too pressin' in their attentions." +</P> + +<P> +"But what do you want in the swamp?" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at me with a very questioning eye, and I read hesitation in +his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think other people besides Professors can want to know +things?" he said at last. "I'm studyin' the pretty dears. That's +enough for you." +</P> + +<P> +"No offense," said I. +</P> + +<P> +His good-humor returned and he laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"No offense, young fellah. I'm goin' to get a young devil chick for +Challenger. That's one of my jobs. No, I don't want your company. +I'm safe in this cage, and you are not. So long, and I'll be back in +camp by night-fall." +</P> + +<P> +He turned away and I left him wandering on through the wood with his +extraordinary cage around him. +</P> + +<P> +If Lord John's behavior at this time was strange, that of Challenger +was more so. I may say that he seemed to possess an extraordinary +fascination for the Indian women, and that he always carried a large +spreading palm branch with which he beat them off as if they were +flies, when their attentions became too pressing. To see him walking +like a comic opera Sultan, with this badge of authority in his hand, +his black beard bristling in front of him, his toes pointing at each +step, and a train of wide-eyed Indian girls behind him, clad in their +slender drapery of bark cloth, is one of the most grotesque of all the +pictures which I will carry back with me. As to Summerlee, he was +absorbed in the insect and bird life of the plateau, and spent his +whole time (save that considerable portion which was devoted to abusing +Challenger for not getting us out of our difficulties) in cleaning and +mounting his specimens. +</P> + +<P> +Challenger had been in the habit of walking off by himself every +morning and returning from time to time with looks of portentous +solemnity, as one who bears the full weight of a great enterprise upon +his shoulders. One day, palm branch in hand, and his crowd of adoring +devotees behind him, he led us down to his hidden work-shop and took us +into the secret of his plans. +</P> + +<P> +The place was a small clearing in the center of a palm grove. In this +was one of those boiling mud geysers which I have already described. +Around its edge were scattered a number of leathern thongs cut from +iguanodon hide, and a large collapsed membrane which proved to be the +dried and scraped stomach of one of the great fish lizards from the +lake. This huge sack had been sewn up at one end and only a small +orifice left at the other. Into this opening several bamboo canes had +been inserted and the other ends of these canes were in contact with +conical clay funnels which collected the gas bubbling up through the +mud of the geyser. Soon the flaccid organ began to slowly expand and +show such a tendency to upward movements that Challenger fastened the +cords which held it to the trunks of the surrounding trees. In half an +hour a good-sized gas-bag had been formed, and the jerking and +straining upon the thongs showed that it was capable of considerable +lift. Challenger, like a glad father in the presence of his +first-born, stood smiling and stroking his beard, in silent, +self-satisfied content as he gazed at the creation of his brain. It +was Summerlee who first broke the silence. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't mean us to go up in that thing, Challenger?" said he, in an +acid voice. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean, my dear Summerlee, to give you such a demonstration of its +powers that after seeing it you will, I am sure, have no hesitation in +trusting yourself to it." +</P> + +<P> +"You can put it right out of your head now, at once," said Summerlee +with decision, "nothing on earth would induce me to commit such a +folly. Lord John, I trust that you will not countenance such madness?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dooced ingenious, I call it," said our peer. "I'd like to see how it +works." +</P> + +<P> +"So you shall," said Challenger. "For some days I have exerted my +whole brain force upon the problem of how we shall descend from these +cliffs. We have satisfied ourselves that we cannot climb down and that +there is no tunnel. We are also unable to construct any kind of bridge +which may take us back to the pinnacle from which we came. How then +shall I find a means to convey us? Some little time ago I had remarked +to our young friend here that free hydrogen was evolved from the +geyser. The idea of a balloon naturally followed. I was, I will +admit, somewhat baffled by the difficulty of discovering an envelope to +contain the gas, but the contemplation of the immense entrails of these +reptiles supplied me with a solution to the problem. Behold the +result!" +</P> + +<P> +He put one hand in the front of his ragged jacket and pointed proudly +with the other. +</P> + +<P> +By this time the gas-bag had swollen to a goodly rotundity and was +jerking strongly upon its lashings. +</P> + +<P> +"Midsummer madness!" snorted Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +Lord John was delighted with the whole idea. "Clever old dear, ain't +he?" he whispered to me, and then louder to Challenger. "What about a +car?" +</P> + +<P> +"The car will be my next care. I have already planned how it is to be +made and attached. Meanwhile I will simply show you how capable my +apparatus is of supporting the weight of each of us." +</P> + +<P> +"All of us, surely?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, it is part of my plan that each in turn shall descend as in a +parachute, and the balloon be drawn back by means which I shall have no +difficulty in perfecting. If it will support the weight of one and let +him gently down, it will have done all that is required of it. I will +now show you its capacity in that direction." +</P> + +<P> +He brought out a lump of basalt of a considerable size, constructed in +the middle so that a cord could be easily attached to it. This cord +was the one which we had brought with us on to the plateau after we had +used it for climbing the pinnacle. It was over a hundred feet long, +and though it was thin it was very strong. He had prepared a sort of +collar of leather with many straps depending from it. This collar was +placed over the dome of the balloon, and the hanging thongs were +gathered together below, so that the pressure of any weight would be +diffused over a considerable surface. Then the lump of basalt was +fastened to the thongs, and the rope was allowed to hang from the end +of it, being passed three times round the Professor's arm. +</P> + +<P> +"I will now," said Challenger, with a smile of pleased anticipation, +"demonstrate the carrying power of my balloon." As he said so he cut +with a knife the various lashings that held it. +</P> + +<P> +Never was our expedition in more imminent danger of complete +annihilation. The inflated membrane shot up with frightful velocity +into the air. In an instant Challenger was pulled off his feet and +dragged after it. I had just time to throw my arms round his ascending +waist when I was myself whipped up into the air. Lord John had me with +a rat-trap grip round the legs, but I felt that he also was coming off +the ground. For a moment I had a vision of four adventurers floating +like a string of sausages over the land that they had explored. But, +happily, there were limits to the strain which the rope would stand, +though none apparently to the lifting powers of this infernal machine. +There was a sharp crack, and we were in a heap upon the ground with +coils of rope all over us. When we were able to stagger to our feet we +saw far off in the deep blue sky one dark spot where the lump of basalt +was speeding upon its way. +</P> + +<P> +"Splendid!" cried the undaunted Challenger, rubbing his injured arm. +"A most thorough and satisfactory demonstration! I could not have +anticipated such a success. Within a week, gentlemen, I promise that a +second balloon will be prepared, and that you can count upon taking in +safety and comfort the first stage of our homeward journey." So far I +have written each of the foregoing events as it occurred. Now I am +rounding off my narrative from the old camp, where Zambo has waited so +long, with all our difficulties and dangers left like a dream behind us +upon the summit of those vast ruddy crags which tower above our heads. +We have descended in safety, though in a most unexpected fashion, and +all is well with us. In six weeks or two months we shall be in London, +and it is possible that this letter may not reach you much earlier than +we do ourselves. Already our hearts yearn and our spirits fly towards +the great mother city which holds so much that is dear to us. +</P> + +<P> +It was on the very evening of our perilous adventure with Challenger's +home-made balloon that the change came in our fortunes. I have said +that the one person from whom we had had some sign of sympathy in our +attempts to get away was the young chief whom we had rescued. He alone +had no desire to hold us against our will in a strange land. He had +told us as much by his expressive language of signs. That evening, +after dusk, he came down to our little camp, handed me (for some reason +he had always shown his attentions to me, perhaps because I was the one +who was nearest his age) a small roll of the bark of a tree, and then +pointing solemnly up at the row of caves above him, he had put his +finger to his lips as a sign of secrecy and had stolen back again to +his people. +</P> + +<P> +I took the slip of bark to the firelight and we examined it together. +It was about a foot square, and on the inner side there was a singular +arrangement of lines, which I here reproduce: +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +They were neatly done in charcoal upon the white surface, and looked to +me at first sight like some sort of rough musical score. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever it is, I can swear that it is of importance to us," said I. +"I could read that on his face as he gave it." +</P> + +<P> +"Unless we have come upon a primitive practical joker," Summerlee +suggested, "which I should think would be one of the most elementary +developments of man." +</P> + +<P> +"It is clearly some sort of script," said Challenger. +</P> + +<P> +"Looks like a guinea puzzle competition," remarked Lord John, craning +his neck to have a look at it. Then suddenly he stretched out his hand +and seized the puzzle. +</P> + +<P> +"By George!" he cried, "I believe I've got it. The boy guessed right +the very first time. See here! How many marks are on that paper? +Eighteen. Well, if you come to think of it there are eighteen cave +openings on the hill-side above us." +</P> + +<P> +"He pointed up to the caves when he gave it to me," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that settles it. This is a chart of the caves. What! Eighteen +of them all in a row, some short, some deep, some branching, same as we +saw them. It's a map, and here's a cross on it. What's the cross for? +It is placed to mark one that is much deeper than the others." +</P> + +<P> +"One that goes through," I cried. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe our young friend has read the riddle," said Challenger. "If +the cave does not go through I do not understand why this person, who +has every reason to mean us well, should have drawn our attention to +it. But if it does go through and comes out at the corresponding point +on the other side, we should not have more than a hundred feet to +descend." +</P> + +<P> +"A hundred feet!" grumbled Summerlee. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, our rope is still more than a hundred feet long," I cried. +"Surely we could get down." +</P> + +<P> +"How about the Indians in the cave?" Summerlee objected. +</P> + +<P> +"There are no Indians in any of the caves above our heads," said I. +"They are all used as barns and store-houses. Why should we not go up +now at once and spy out the land?" +</P> + +<P> +There is a dry bituminous wood upon the plateau—a species of +araucaria, according to our botanist—which is always used by the +Indians for torches. Each of us picked up a faggot of this, and we +made our way up weed-covered steps to the particular cave which was +marked in the drawing. It was, as I had said, empty, save for a great +number of enormous bats, which flapped round our heads as we advanced +into it. As we had no desire to draw the attention of the Indians to +our proceedings, we stumbled along in the dark until we had gone round +several curves and penetrated a considerable distance into the cavern. +Then, at last, we lit our torches. It was a beautiful dry tunnel with +smooth gray walls covered with native symbols, a curved roof which +arched over our heads, and white glistening sand beneath our feet. We +hurried eagerly along it until, with a deep groan of bitter +disappointment, we were brought to a halt. A sheer wall of rock had +appeared before us, with no chink through which a mouse could have +slipped. There was no escape for us there. +</P> + +<P> +We stood with bitter hearts staring at this unexpected obstacle. It +was not the result of any convulsion, as in the case of the ascending +tunnel. The end wall was exactly like the side ones. It was, and had +always been, a cul-de-sac. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind, my friends," said the indomitable Challenger. "You have +still my firm promise of a balloon." +</P> + +<P> +Summerlee groaned. +</P> + +<P> +"Can we be in the wrong cave?" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"No use, young fellah," said Lord John, with his finger on the chart. +"Seventeen from the right and second from the left. This is the cave +sure enough." +</P> + +<P> +I looked at the mark to which his finger pointed, and I gave a sudden +cry of joy. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe I have it! Follow me! Follow me!" +</P> + +<P> +I hurried back along the way we had come, my torch in my hand. "Here," +said I, pointing to some matches upon the ground, "is where we lit up." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is marked as a forked cave, and in the darkness we passed the +fork before the torches were lit. On the right side as we go out we +should find the longer arm." +</P> + +<P> +It was as I had said. We had not gone thirty yards before a great +black opening loomed in the wall. We turned into it to find that we +were in a much larger passage than before. Along it we hurried in +breathless impatience for many hundreds of yards. Then, suddenly, in +the black darkness of the arch in front of us we saw a gleam of dark +red light. We stared in amazement. A sheet of steady flame seemed to +cross the passage and to bar our way. We hastened towards it. No +sound, no heat, no movement came from it, but still the great luminous +curtain glowed before us, silvering all the cave and turning the sand +to powdered jewels, until as we drew closer it discovered a circular +edge. +</P> + +<P> +"The moon, by George!" cried Lord John. "We are through, boys! We are +through!" +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed the full moon which shone straight down the aperture +which opened upon the cliffs. It was a small rift, not larger than a +window, but it was enough for all our purposes. As we craned our necks +through it we could see that the descent was not a very difficult one, +and that the level ground was no very great way below us. It was no +wonder that from below we had not observed the place, as the cliffs +curved overhead and an ascent at the spot would have seemed so +impossible as to discourage close inspection. We satisfied ourselves +that with the help of our rope we could find our way down, and then +returned, rejoicing, to our camp to make our preparations for the next +evening. +</P> + +<P> +What we did we had to do quickly and secretly, since even at this last +hour the Indians might hold us back. Our stores we would leave behind +us, save only our guns and cartridges. But Challenger had some +unwieldy stuff which he ardently desired to take with him, and one +particular package, of which I may not speak, which gave us more labor +than any. Slowly the day passed, but when the darkness fell we were +ready for our departure. With much labor we got our things up the +steps, and then, looking back, took one last long survey of that +strange land, soon I fear to be vulgarized, the prey of hunter and +prospector, but to each of us a dreamland of glamour and romance, a +land where we had dared much, suffered much, and learned much—OUR +land, as we shall ever fondly call it. Along upon our left the +neighboring caves each threw out its ruddy cheery firelight into the +gloom. From the slope below us rose the voices of the Indians as they +laughed and sang. Beyond was the long sweep of the woods, and in the +center, shimmering vaguely through the gloom, was the great lake, the +mother of strange monsters. Even as we looked a high whickering cry, +the call of some weird animal, rang clear out of the darkness. It was +the very voice of Maple White Land bidding us good-bye. We turned and +plunged into the cave which led to home. +</P> + +<P> +Two hours later, we, our packages, and all we owned, were at the foot +of the cliff. Save for Challenger's luggage we had never a difficulty. +Leaving it all where we descended, we started at once for Zambo's camp. +In the early morning we approached it, but only to find, to our +amazement, not one fire but a dozen upon the plain. The rescue party +had arrived. There were twenty Indians from the river, with stakes, +ropes, and all that could be useful for bridging the chasm. At least +we shall have no difficulty now in carrying our packages, when +to-morrow we begin to make our way back to the Amazon. +</P> + +<P> +And so, in humble and thankful mood, I close this account. Our eyes +have seen great wonders and our souls are chastened by what we have +endured. Each is in his own way a better and deeper man. It may be +that when we reach Para we shall stop to refit. If we do, this letter +will be a mail ahead. If not, it will reach London on the very day +that I do. In either case, my dear Mr. McArdle, I hope very soon to +shake you by the hand. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + "A Procession! A Procession!" +</H3> + +<P> +I should wish to place upon record here our gratitude to all our +friends upon the Amazon for the very great kindness and hospitality +which was shown to us upon our return journey. Very particularly would +I thank Senhor Penalosa and other officials of the Brazilian Government +for the special arrangements by which we were helped upon our way, and +Senhor Pereira of Para, to whose forethought we owe the complete outfit +for a decent appearance in the civilized world which we found ready for +us at that town. It seemed a poor return for all the courtesy which we +encountered that we should deceive our hosts and benefactors, but under +the circumstances we had really no alternative, and I hereby tell them +that they will only waste their time and their money if they attempt to +follow upon our traces. Even the names have been altered in our +accounts, and I am very sure that no one, from the most careful study +of them, could come within a thousand miles of our unknown land. +</P> + +<P> +The excitement which had been caused through those parts of South +America which we had to traverse was imagined by us to be purely local, +and I can assure our friends in England that we had no notion of the +uproar which the mere rumor of our experiences had caused through +Europe. It was not until the Ivernia was within five hundred miles of +Southampton that the wireless messages from paper after paper and +agency after agency, offering huge prices for a short return message as +to our actual results, showed us how strained was the attention not +only of the scientific world but of the general public. It was agreed +among us, however, that no definite statement should be given to the +Press until we had met the members of the Zoological Institute, since +as delegates it was our clear duty to give our first report to the body +from which we had received our commission of investigation. Thus, +although we found Southampton full of Pressmen, we absolutely refused +to give any information, which had the natural effect of focussing +public attention upon the meeting which was advertised for the evening +of November 7th. For this gathering, the Zoological Hall which had +been the scene of the inception of our task was found to be far too +small, and it was only in the Queen's Hall in Regent Street that +accommodation could be found. It is now common knowledge the promoters +might have ventured upon the Albert Hall and still found their space +too scanty. +</P> + +<P> +It was for the second evening after our arrival that the great meeting +had been fixed. For the first, we had each, no doubt, our own pressing +personal affairs to absorb us. Of mine I cannot yet speak. It may be +that as it stands further from me I may think of it, and even speak of +it, with less emotion. I have shown the reader in the beginning of +this narrative where lay the springs of my action. It is but right, +perhaps, that I should carry on the tale and show also the results. +And yet the day may come when I would not have it otherwise. At least +I have been driven forth to take part in a wondrous adventure, and I +cannot but be thankful to the force that drove me. +</P> + +<P> +And now I turn to the last supreme eventful moment of our adventure. +As I was racking my brain as to how I should best describe it, my eyes +fell upon the issue of my own Journal for the morning of the 8th of +November with the full and excellent account of my friend and +fellow-reporter Macdona. What can I do better than transcribe his +narrative—head-lines and all? I admit that the paper was exuberant in +the matter, out of compliment to its own enterprise in sending a +correspondent, but the other great dailies were hardly less full in +their account. Thus, then, friend Mac in his report: +</P> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE NEW WORLD<BR> +GREAT MEETING AT THE QUEEN'S HALL<BR> +SCENES OF UPROAR<BR> +EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT<BR> +WHAT WAS IT?<BR> +NOCTURNAL RIOT IN REGENT STREET<BR> +(Special) +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P> +"The much-discussed meeting of the Zoological Institute, convened to +hear the report of the Committee of Investigation sent out last year to +South America to test the assertions made by Professor Challenger as to +the continued existence of prehistoric life upon that Continent, was +held last night in the greater Queen's Hall, and it is safe to say that +it is likely to be a red letter date in the history of Science, for the +proceedings were of so remarkable and sensational a character that no +one present is ever likely to forget them." (Oh, brother scribe +Macdona, what a monstrous opening sentence!) "The tickets were +theoretically confined to members and their friends, but the latter is +an elastic term, and long before eight o'clock, the hour fixed for the +commencement of the proceedings, all parts of the Great Hall were +tightly packed. The general public, however, which most unreasonably +entertained a grievance at having been excluded, stormed the doors at a +quarter to eight, after a prolonged melee in which several people were +injured, including Inspector Scoble of H. Division, whose leg was +unfortunately broken. After this unwarrantable invasion, which not +only filled every passage, but even intruded upon the space set apart +for the Press, it is estimated that nearly five thousand people awaited +the arrival of the travelers. When they eventually appeared, they took +their places in the front of a platform which already contained all the +leading scientific men, not only of this country, but of France and of +Germany. Sweden was also represented, in the person of Professor +Sergius, the famous Zoologist of the University of Upsala. The +entrance of the four heroes of the occasion was the signal for a +remarkable demonstration of welcome, the whole audience rising and +cheering for some minutes. An acute observer might, however, have +detected some signs of dissent amid the applause, and gathered that the +proceedings were likely to become more lively than harmonious. It may +safely be prophesied, however, that no one could have foreseen the +extraordinary turn which they were actually to take. +</P> + +<P> +"Of the appearance of the four wanderers little need be said, since +their photographs have for some time been appearing in all the papers. +They bear few traces of the hardships which they are said to have +undergone. Professor Challenger's beard may be more shaggy, Professor +Summerlee's features more ascetic, Lord John Roxton's figure more +gaunt, and all three may be burned to a darker tint than when they left +our shores, but each appeared to be in most excellent health. As to +our own representative, the well-known athlete and international Rugby +football player, E. D. Malone, he looks trained to a hair, and as he +surveyed the crowd a smile of good-humored contentment pervaded his +honest but homely face." (All right, Mac, wait till I get you alone!) +</P> + +<P> +"When quiet had been restored and the audience resumed their seats +after the ovation which they had given to the travelers, the chairman, +the Duke of Durham, addressed the meeting. 'He would not,' he said, +'stand for more than a moment between that vast assembly and the treat +which lay before them. It was not for him to anticipate what Professor +Summerlee, who was the spokesman of the committee, had to say to them, +but it was common rumor that their expedition had been crowned by +extraordinary success.' (Applause.) 'Apparently the age of romance +was not dead, and there was common ground upon which the wildest +imaginings of the novelist could meet the actual scientific +investigations of the searcher for truth. He would only add, before he +sat down, that he rejoiced—and all of them would rejoice—that these +gentlemen had returned safe and sound from their difficult and +dangerous task, for it cannot be denied that any disaster to such an +expedition would have inflicted a well-nigh irreparable loss to the +cause of Zoological science.' (Great applause, in which Professor +Challenger was observed to join.) +</P> + +<P> +"Professor Summerlee's rising was the signal for another extraordinary +outbreak of enthusiasm, which broke out again at intervals throughout +his address. That address will not be given in extenso in these +columns, for the reason that a full account of the whole adventures of +the expedition is being published as a supplement from the pen of our +own special correspondent. Some general indications will therefore +suffice. Having described the genesis of their journey, and paid a +handsome tribute to his friend Professor Challenger, coupled with an +apology for the incredulity with which his assertions, now fully +vindicated, had been received, he gave the actual course of their +journey, carefully withholding such information as would aid the public +in any attempt to locate this remarkable plateau. Having described, in +general terms, their course from the main river up to the time that +they actually reached the base of the cliffs, he enthralled his hearers +by his account of the difficulties encountered by the expedition in +their repeated attempts to mount them, and finally described how they +succeeded in their desperate endeavors, which cost the lives of their +two devoted half-breed servants." (This amazing reading of the affair +was the result of Summerlee's endeavors to avoid raising any +questionable matter at the meeting.) +</P> + +<P> +"Having conducted his audience in fancy to the summit, and marooned +them there by reason of the fall of their bridge, the Professor +proceeded to describe both the horrors and the attractions of that +remarkable land. Of personal adventures he said little, but laid +stress upon the rich harvest reaped by Science in the observations of +the wonderful beast, bird, insect, and plant life of the plateau. +Peculiarly rich in the coleoptera and in the lepidoptera, forty-six new +species of the one and ninety-four of the other had been secured in the +course of a few weeks. It was, however, in the larger animals, and +especially in the larger animals supposed to have been long extinct, +that the interest of the public was naturally centered. Of these he +was able to give a goodly list, but had little doubt that it would be +largely extended when the place had been more thoroughly investigated. +He and his companions had seen at least a dozen creatures, most of them +at a distance, which corresponded with nothing at present known to +Science. These would in time be duly classified and examined. He +instanced a snake, the cast skin of which, deep purple in color, was +fifty-one feet in length, and mentioned a white creature, supposed to +be mammalian, which gave forth well-marked phosphorescence in the +darkness; also a large black moth, the bite of which was supposed by +the Indians to be highly poisonous. Setting aside these entirely new +forms of life, the plateau was very rich in known prehistoric forms, +dating back in some cases to early Jurassic times. Among these he +mentioned the gigantic and grotesque stegosaurus, seen once by Mr. +Malone at a drinking-place by the lake, and drawn in the sketch-book of +that adventurous American who had first penetrated this unknown world. +He described also the iguanodon and the pterodactyl—two of the first +of the wonders which they had encountered. He then thrilled the +assembly by some account of the terrible carnivorous dinosaurs, which +had on more than one occasion pursued members of the party, and which +were the most formidable of all the creatures which they had +encountered. Thence he passed to the huge and ferocious bird, the +phororachus, and to the great elk which still roams upon this upland. +It was not, however, until he sketched the mysteries of the central +lake that the full interest and enthusiasm of the audience were +aroused. One had to pinch oneself to be sure that one was awake as one +heard this sane and practical Professor in cold measured tones +describing the monstrous three-eyed fish-lizards and the huge +water-snakes which inhabit this enchanted sheet of water. Next he +touched upon the Indians, and upon the extraordinary colony of +anthropoid apes, which might be looked upon as an advance upon the +pithecanthropus of Java, and as coming therefore nearer than any known +form to that hypothetical creation, the missing link. Finally he +described, amongst some merriment, the ingenious but highly dangerous +aeronautic invention of Professor Challenger, and wound up a most +memorable address by an account of the methods by which the committee +did at last find their way back to civilization. +</P> + +<P> +"It had been hoped that the proceedings would end there, and that a +vote of thanks and congratulation, moved by Professor Sergius, of +Upsala University, would be duly seconded and carried; but it was soon +evident that the course of events was not destined to flow so smoothly. +Symptoms of opposition had been evident from time to time during the +evening, and now Dr. James Illingworth, of Edinburgh, rose in the +center of the hall. Dr. Illingworth asked whether an amendment should +not be taken before a resolution. +</P> + +<P> +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Yes, sir, if there must be an amendment.' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Your Grace, there must be an amendment.' +</P> + +<P> +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Then let us take it at once.' +</P> + +<P> +"PROFESSOR SUMMERLEE (springing to his feet): 'Might I explain, your +Grace, that this man is my personal enemy ever since our controversy in +the Quarterly Journal of Science as to the true nature of Bathybius?' +</P> + +<P> +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'I fear I cannot go into personal matters. Proceed.' +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Illingworth was imperfectly heard in part of his remarks on +account of the strenuous opposition of the friends of the explorers. +Some attempts were also made to pull him down. Being a man of enormous +physique, however, and possessed of a very powerful voice, he dominated +the tumult and succeeded in finishing his speech. It was clear, from +the moment of his rising, that he had a number of friends and +sympathizers in the hall, though they formed a minority in the +audience. The attitude of the greater part of the public might be +described as one of attentive neutrality. +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Illingworth began his remarks by expressing his high appreciation +of the scientific work both of Professor Challenger and of Professor +Summerlee. He much regretted that any personal bias should have been +read into his remarks, which were entirely dictated by his desire for +scientific truth. His position, in fact, was substantially the same as +that taken up by Professor Summerlee at the last meeting. At that last +meeting Professor Challenger had made certain assertions which had been +queried by his colleague. Now this colleague came forward himself with +the same assertions and expected them to remain unquestioned. Was this +reasonable? ('Yes,' 'No,' and prolonged interruption, during which +Professor Challenger was heard from the Press box to ask leave from the +chairman to put Dr. Illingworth into the street.) A year ago one man +said certain things. Now four men said other and more startling ones. +Was this to constitute a final proof where the matters in question were +of the most revolutionary and incredible character? There had been +recent examples of travelers arriving from the unknown with certain +tales which had been too readily accepted. Was the London Zoological +Institute to place itself in this position? He admitted that the +members of the committee were men of character. But human nature was +very complex. Even Professors might be misled by the desire for +notoriety. Like moths, we all love best to flutter in the light. +Heavy-game shots liked to be in a position to cap the tales of their +rivals, and journalists were not averse from sensational coups, even +when imagination had to aid fact in the process. Each member of the +committee had his own motive for making the most of his results. +('Shame! shame!') He had no desire to be offensive. ('You are!' and +interruption.) The corroboration of these wondrous tales was really of +the most slender description. What did it amount to? Some +photographs. {Was it possible that in this age of ingenious +manipulation photographs could be accepted as evidence?} What more? +We have a story of a flight and a descent by ropes which precluded the +production of larger specimens. It was ingenious, but not convincing. +It was understood that Lord John Roxton claimed to have the skull of a +phororachus. He could only say that he would like to see that skull. +</P> + +<P> +"LORD JOHN ROXTON: 'Is this fellow calling me a liar?' (Uproar.) +</P> + +<P> +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Order! order! Dr. Illingworth, I must direct you to +bring your remarks to a conclusion and to move your amendment.' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Your Grace, I have more to say, but I bow to your +ruling. I move, then, that, while Professor Summerlee be thanked for +his interesting address, the whole matter shall be regarded as +'non-proven,' and shall be referred back to a larger, and possibly more +reliable Committee of Investigation.' +</P> + +<P> +"It is difficult to describe the confusion caused by this amendment. A +large section of the audience expressed their indignation at such a +slur upon the travelers by noisy shouts of dissent and cries of, 'Don't +put it!' 'Withdraw!' 'Turn him out!' On the other hand, the +malcontents—and it cannot be denied that they were fairly +numerous—cheered for the amendment, with cries of 'Order!' 'Chair!' +and 'Fair play!' A scuffle broke out in the back benches, and blows +were freely exchanged among the medical students who crowded that part +of the hall. It was only the moderating influence of the presence of +large numbers of ladies which prevented an absolute riot. Suddenly, +however, there was a pause, a hush, and then complete silence. +Professor Challenger was on his feet. His appearance and manner are +peculiarly arresting, and as he raised his hand for order the whole +audience settled down expectantly to give him a hearing. +</P> + +<P> +"'It will be within the recollection of many present,' said Professor +Challenger, 'that similar foolish and unmannerly scenes marked the last +meeting at which I have been able to address them. On that occasion +Professor Summerlee was the chief offender, and though he is now +chastened and contrite, the matter could not be entirely forgotten. I +have heard to-night similar, but even more offensive, sentiments from +the person who has just sat down, and though it is a conscious effort +of self-effacement to come down to that person's mental level, I will +endeavor to do so, in order to allay any reasonable doubt which could +possibly exist in the minds of anyone.' (Laughter and interruption.) +'I need not remind this audience that, though Professor Summerlee, as +the head of the Committee of Investigation, has been put up to speak +to-night, still it is I who am the real prime mover in this business, +and that it is mainly to me that any successful result must be +ascribed. I have safely conducted these three gentlemen to the spot +mentioned, and I have, as you have heard, convinced them of the +accuracy of my previous account. We had hoped that we should find upon +our return that no one was so dense as to dispute our joint +conclusions. Warned, however, by my previous experience, I have not +come without such proofs as may convince a reasonable man. As +explained by Professor Summerlee, our cameras have been tampered with +by the ape-men when they ransacked our camp, and most of our negatives +ruined.' (Jeers, laughter, and 'Tell us another!' from the back.) 'I +have mentioned the ape-men, and I cannot forbear from saying that some +of the sounds which now meet my ears bring back most vividly to my +recollection my experiences with those interesting creatures.' +(Laughter.) 'In spite of the destruction of so many invaluable +negatives, there still remains in our collection a certain number of +corroborative photographs showing the conditions of life upon the +plateau. Did they accuse them of having forged these photographs?' (A +voice, 'Yes,' and considerable interruption which ended in several men +being put out of the hall.) 'The negatives were open to the inspection +of experts. But what other evidence had they? Under the conditions of +their escape it was naturally impossible to bring a large amount of +baggage, but they had rescued Professor Summerlee's collections of +butterflies and beetles, containing many new species. Was this not +evidence?' (Several voices, 'No.') 'Who said no?' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (rising): 'Our point is that such a collection might +have been made in other places than a prehistoric plateau.' (Applause.) +</P> + +<P> +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'No doubt, sir, we have to bow to your +scientific authority, although I must admit that the name is +unfamiliar. Passing, then, both the photographs and the entomological +collection, I come to the varied and accurate information which we +bring with us upon points which have never before been elucidated. For +example, upon the domestic habits of the pterodactyl—'(A voice: +'Bosh,' and uproar)—'I say, that upon the domestic habits of the +pterodactyl we can throw a flood of light. I can exhibit to you from +my portfolio a picture of that creature taken from life which would +convince you——' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'No picture could convince us of anything.' +</P> + +<P> +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'You would require to see the thing itself?' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Undoubtedly.' +</P> + +<P> +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'And you would accept that?' +</P> + +<P> +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (laughing): 'Beyond a doubt.' +</P> + +<P> +"It was at this point that the sensation of the evening arose—a +sensation so dramatic that it can never have been paralleled in the +history of scientific gatherings. Professor Challenger raised his hand +in the air as a signal, and at once our colleague, Mr. E. D. Malone, +was observed to rise and to make his way to the back of the platform. +An instant later he re-appeared in company of a gigantic negro, the two +of them bearing between them a large square packing-case. It was +evidently of great weight, and was slowly carried forward and placed in +front of the Professor's chair. All sound had hushed in the audience +and everyone was absorbed in the spectacle before them. Professor +Challenger drew off the top of the case, which formed a sliding lid. +Peering down into the box he snapped his fingers several times and was +heard from the Press seat to say, 'Come, then, pretty, pretty!' in a +coaxing voice. An instant later, with a scratching, rattling sound, a +most horrible and loathsome creature appeared from below and perched +itself upon the side of the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke +of Durham into the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not +distract the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the +creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad +medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, +with two small red eyes as bright as points of burning coal. Its long, +savage mouth, which was held half-open, was full of a double row of +shark-like teeth. Its shoulders were humped, and round them were +draped what appeared to be a faded gray shawl. It was the devil of our +childhood in person. There was a turmoil in the audience—someone +screamed, two ladies in the front row fell senseless from their chairs, +and there was a general movement upon the platform to follow their +chairman into the orchestra. For a moment there was danger of a +general panic. Professor Challenger threw up his hands to still the +commotion, but the movement alarmed the creature beside him. Its +strange shawl suddenly unfurled, spread, and fluttered as a pair of +leathery wings. Its owner grabbed at its legs, but too late to hold +it. It had sprung from the perch and was circling slowly round the +Queen's Hall with a dry, leathery flapping of its ten-foot wings, while +a putrid and insidious odor pervaded the room. The cries of the people +in the galleries, who were alarmed at the near approach of those +glowing eyes and that murderous beak, excited the creature to a frenzy. +Faster and faster it flew, beating against walls and chandeliers in a +blind frenzy of alarm. 'The window! For heaven's sake shut that +window!' roared the Professor from the platform, dancing and wringing +his hands in an agony of apprehension. Alas, his warning was too late! +In a moment the creature, beating and bumping along the wall like a +huge moth within a gas-shade, came upon the opening, squeezed its +hideous bulk through it, and was gone. Professor Challenger fell back +into his chair with his face buried in his hands, while the audience +gave one long, deep sigh of relief as they realized that the incident +was over. +</P> + +<P> +"Then—oh! how shall one describe what took place then—when the full +exuberance of the majority and the full reaction of the minority united +to make one great wave of enthusiasm, which rolled from the back of the +hall, gathering volume as it came, swept over the orchestra, submerged +the platform, and carried the four heroes away upon its crest?" (Good +for you, Mac!) "If the audience had done less than justice, surely it +made ample amends. Every one was on his feet. Every one was moving, +shouting, gesticulating. A dense crowd of cheering men were round the +four travelers. 'Up with them! up with them!' cried a hundred voices. +In a moment four figures shot up above the crowd. In vain they strove +to break loose. They were held in their lofty places of honor. It +would have been hard to let them down if it had been wished, so dense +was the crowd around them. 'Regent Street! Regent Street!' sounded +the voices. There was a swirl in the packed multitude, and a slow +current, bearing the four upon their shoulders, made for the door. Out +in the street the scene was extraordinary. An assemblage of not less +than a hundred thousand people was waiting. The close-packed throng +extended from the other side of the Langham Hotel to Oxford Circus. A +roar of acclamation greeted the four adventurers as they appeared, high +above the heads of the people, under the vivid electric lamps outside +the hall. 'A procession! A procession!' was the cry. In a dense +phalanx, blocking the streets from side to side, the crowd set forth, +taking the route of Regent Street, Pall Mall, St. James's Street, and +Piccadilly. The whole central traffic of London was held up, and many +collisions were reported between the demonstrators upon the one side +and the police and taxi-cabmen upon the other. Finally, it was not +until after midnight that the four travelers were released at the +entrance to Lord John Roxton's chambers in the Albany, and that the +exuberant crowd, having sung 'They are Jolly Good Fellows' in chorus, +concluded their program with 'God Save the King.' So ended one of the +most remarkable evenings that London has seen for a considerable time." +</P> + +<P> +So far my friend Macdona; and it may be taken as a fairly accurate, if +florid, account of the proceedings. As to the main incident, it was a +bewildering surprise to the audience, but not, I need hardly say, to +us. The reader will remember how I met Lord John Roxton upon the very +occasion when, in his protective crinoline, he had gone to bring the +"Devil's chick" as he called it, for Professor Challenger. I have +hinted also at the trouble which the Professor's baggage gave us when +we left the plateau, and had I described our voyage I might have said a +good deal of the worry we had to coax with putrid fish the appetite of +our filthy companion. If I have not said much about it before, it was, +of course, that the Professor's earnest desire was that no possible +rumor of the unanswerable argument which we carried should be allowed +to leak out until the moment came when his enemies were to be confuted. +</P> + +<P> +One word as to the fate of the London pterodactyl. Nothing can be said +to be certain upon this point. There is the evidence of two frightened +women that it perched upon the roof of the Queen's Hall and remained +there like a diabolical statue for some hours. The next day it came +out in the evening papers that Private Miles, of the Coldstream Guards, +on duty outside Marlborough House, had deserted his post without leave, +and was therefore courtmartialed. Private Miles' account, that he +dropped his rifle and took to his heels down the Mall because on +looking up he had suddenly seen the devil between him and the moon, was +not accepted by the Court, and yet it may have a direct bearing upon +the point at issue. The only other evidence which I can adduce is from +the log of the SS. Friesland, a Dutch-American liner, which asserts +that at nine next morning, Start Point being at the time ten miles upon +their starboard quarter, they were passed by something between a flying +goat and a monstrous bat, which was heading at a prodigious pace south +and west. If its homing instinct led it upon the right line, there can +be no doubt that somewhere out in the wastes of the Atlantic the last +European pterodactyl found its end. +</P> + +<P> +And Gladys—oh, my Gladys!—Gladys of the mystic lake, now to be +re-named the Central, for never shall she have immortality through me. +Did I not always see some hard fiber in her nature? Did I not, even at +the time when I was proud to obey her behest, feel that it was surely a +poor love which could drive a lover to his death or the danger of it? +Did I not, in my truest thoughts, always recurring and always +dismissed, see past the beauty of the face, and, peering into the soul, +discern the twin shadows of selfishness and of fickleness glooming at +the back of it? Did she love the heroic and the spectacular for its +own noble sake, or was it for the glory which might, without effort or +sacrifice, be reflected upon herself? Or are these thoughts the vain +wisdom which comes after the event? It was the shock of my life. For +a moment it had turned me to a cynic. But already, as I write, a week +has passed, and we have had our momentous interview with Lord John +Roxton and—well, perhaps things might be worse. +</P> + +<P> +Let me tell it in a few words. No letter or telegram had come to me at +Southampton, and I reached the little villa at Streatham about ten +o'clock that night in a fever of alarm. Was she dead or alive? Where +were all my nightly dreams of the open arms, the smiling face, the +words of praise for her man who had risked his life to humor her whim? +Already I was down from the high peaks and standing flat-footed upon +earth. Yet some good reasons given might still lift me to the clouds +once more. I rushed down the garden path, hammered at the door, heard +the voice of Gladys within, pushed past the staring maid, and strode +into the sitting-room. She was seated in a low settee under the shaded +standard lamp by the piano. In three steps I was across the room and +had both her hands in mine. +</P> + +<P> +"Gladys!" I cried, "Gladys!" +</P> + +<P> +She looked up with amazement in her face. She was altered in some +subtle way. The expression of her eyes, the hard upward stare, the set +of the lips, was new to me. She drew back her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Gladys!" I cried. "What is the matter? You are my Gladys, are you +not—little Gladys Hungerton?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said she, "I am Gladys Potts. Let me introduce you to my +husband." +</P> + +<P> +How absurd life is! I found myself mechanically bowing and shaking +hands with a little ginger-haired man who was coiled up in the deep +arm-chair which had once been sacred to my own use. We bobbed and +grinned in front of each other. +</P> + +<P> +"Father lets us stay here. We are getting our house ready," said +Gladys. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't get my letter at Para, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I got no letter." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what a pity! It would have made all clear." +</P> + +<P> +"It is quite clear," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"I've told William all about you," said she. "We have no secrets. I +am so sorry about it. But it couldn't have been so very deep, could +it, if you could go off to the other end of the world and leave me here +alone. You're not crabby, are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, not at all. I think I'll go." +</P> + +<P> +"Have some refreshment," said the little man, and he added, in a +confidential way, "It's always like this, ain't it? And must be unless +you had polygamy, only the other way round; you understand." He laughed +like an idiot, while I made for the door. +</P> + +<P> +I was through it, when a sudden fantastic impulse came upon me, and I +went back to my successful rival, who looked nervously at the electric +push. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you answer a question?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, within reason," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you do it? Have you searched for hidden treasure, or +discovered a pole, or done time on a pirate, or flown the Channel, or +what? Where is the glamour of romance? How did you get it?" +</P> + +<P> +He stared at me with a hopeless expression upon his vacuous, +good-natured, scrubby little face. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think all this is a little too personal?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, just one question," I cried. "What are you? What is your +profession?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am a solicitor's clerk," said he. "Second man at Johnson and +Merivale's, 41 Chancery Lane." +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night!" said I, and vanished, like all disconsolate and +broken-hearted heroes, into the darkness, with grief and rage and +laughter all simmering within me like a boiling pot. +</P> + +<P> +One more little scene, and I have done. Last night we all supped at +Lord John Roxton's rooms, and sitting together afterwards we smoked in +good comradeship and talked our adventures over. It was strange under +these altered surroundings to see the old, well-known faces and +figures. There was Challenger, with his smile of condescension, his +drooping eyelids, his intolerant eyes, his aggressive beard, his huge +chest, swelling and puffing as he laid down the law to Summerlee. And +Summerlee, too, there he was with his short briar between his thin +moustache and his gray goat's-beard, his worn face protruded in eager +debate as he queried all Challenger's propositions. Finally, there was +our host, with his rugged, eagle face, and his cold, blue, glacier eyes +with always a shimmer of devilment and of humor down in the depths of +them. Such is the last picture of them that I have carried away. +</P> + +<P> +It was after supper, in his own sanctum—the room of the pink radiance +and the innumerable trophies—that Lord John Roxton had something to +say to us. From a cupboard he had brought an old cigar-box, and this +he laid before him on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"There's one thing," said he, "that maybe I should have spoken about +before this, but I wanted to know a little more clearly where I was. +No use to raise hopes and let them down again. But it's facts, not +hopes, with us now. You may remember that day we found the pterodactyl +rookery in the swamp—what? Well, somethin' in the lie of the land +took my notice. Perhaps it has escaped you, so I will tell you. It +was a volcanic vent full of blue clay." The Professors nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now, in the whole world I've only had to do with one place that +was a volcanic vent of blue clay. That was the great De Beers Diamond +Mine of Kimberley—what? So you see I got diamonds into my head. I +rigged up a contraption to hold off those stinking beasts, and I spent +a happy day there with a spud. This is what I got." +</P> + +<P> +He opened his cigar-box, and tilting it over he poured about twenty or +thirty rough stones, varying from the size of beans to that of +chestnuts, on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you think I should have told you then. Well, so I should, +only I know there are a lot of traps for the unwary, and that stones +may be of any size and yet of little value where color and consistency +are clean off. Therefore, I brought them back, and on the first day at +home I took one round to Spink's, and asked him to have it roughly cut +and valued." +</P> + +<P> +He took a pill-box from his pocket, and spilled out of it a beautiful +glittering diamond, one of the finest stones that I have ever seen. +</P> + +<P> +"There's the result," said he. "He prices the lot at a minimum of two +hundred thousand pounds. Of course it is fair shares between us. I +won't hear of anythin' else. Well, Challenger, what will you do with +your fifty thousand?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you really persist in your generous view," said the Professor, "I +should found a private museum, which has long been one of my dreams." +</P> + +<P> +"And you, Summerlee?" +</P> + +<P> +"I would retire from teaching, and so find time for my final +classification of the chalk fossils." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll use my own," said Lord John Roxton, "in fitting a well-formed +expedition and having another look at the dear old plateau. As to you, +young fellah, you, of course, will spend yours in gettin' married." +</P> + +<P> +"Not just yet," said I, with a rueful smile. "I think, if you will +have me, that I would rather go with you." +</P> + +<P> +Lord Roxton said nothing, but a brown hand was stretched out to me +across the table. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST WORLD *** + +***** This file should be named 139-h.htm or 139-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/139/ + +Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Lost World + +Author: Arthur Conan Doyle + +Release Date: June 19, 2008 [EBook #139] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + + THE LOST WORLD + + I have wrought my simple plan + If I give one hour of joy + To the boy who's half a man, + Or the man who's half a boy. + + + + The Lost World + + + By + + SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE + + COPYRIGHT, 1912 + + + + Foreword + + Mr. E. D. Malone desires to state that + both the injunction for restraint and the + libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly + by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being + satisfied that no criticism or comment in + this book is meant in an offensive spirit, + has guaranteed that he will place no + impediment to its publication and circulation. + + + + + + Contents + +CHAPTER + + I. "THERE ARE HEROISMS ALL ROUND US" + II. "TRY YOUR LUCK WITH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER" + III. "HE IS A PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE PERSON" + IV. "IT'S JUST THE VERY BIGGEST THING IN THE WORLD" + V. "QUESTION!" + VI. "I WAS THE FLAIL OF THE LORD" + VII. "TO-MORROW WE DISAPPEAR INTO THE UNKNOWN" + VIII. "THE OUTLYING PICKETS OF THE NEW WORLD" + IX. "WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN IT?" + X. "THE MOST WONDERFUL THINGS HAVE HAPPENED" + XI. "FOR ONCE I WAS THE HERO" + XII. "IT WAS DREADFUL IN THE FOREST" + XIII. "A SIGHT I SHALL NEVER FORGET" + XIV. "THOSE WERE THE REAL CONQUESTS" + XV. "OUR EYES HAVE SEEN GREAT WONDERS" + XVI. "A PROCESSION! A PROCESSION!" + + + + + THE LOST WORLD + + + + + The Lost World + + CHAPTER I + + "There Are Heroisms All Round Us" + +Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon +earth,--a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly +good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If +anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the +thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really +believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a +week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his +views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an +authority. + +For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup +about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the +depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange. + +"Suppose," he cried with feeble violence, "that all the debts in the +world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted +upon,--what under our present conditions would happen then?" + +I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon +which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, +which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in +my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic +meeting. + +At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! All +that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which +will send him on a forlorn hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse +alternating in his mind. + +She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the +red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been +friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same +comradeship which I might have established with one of my +fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,--perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, +and perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too +frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where +the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, +heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in +hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing +figure--these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the +true signals of passion. Even in my short life I had learned as much +as that--or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct. + +Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be cold +and hard; but such a thought was treason. That delicately bronzed +skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large +liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,--all the stigmata of passion +were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found +the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should +have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She +could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted +brother. + +So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long +and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, +and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof. "I have a +presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you +wouldn't; for things are so much nicer as they are." + +I drew my chair a little nearer. "Now, how did you know that I was +going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder. + +"Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was +ever taken unawares? But--oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and +so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don't you feel how splendid it +is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to +face as we have talked?" + +"I don't know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with--with the +station-master." I can't imagine how that official came into the +matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing. "That does not +satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you, and your head on my +breast, and--oh, Gladys, I want----" + +She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to +demonstrate some of my wants. "You've spoiled everything, Ned," she +said. "It's all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing +comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you control yourself?" + +"I didn't invent it," I pleaded. "It's nature. It's love." + +"Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never felt +it." + +"But you must--you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you +were made for love! You must love!" + +"One must wait till it comes." + +"But why can't you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?" + +She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand--such a gracious, +stooping attitude it was--and she pressed back my head. Then she +looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile. + +"No it isn't that," she said at last. "You're not a conceited boy by +nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. It's deeper." + +"My character?" + +She nodded severely. + +"What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. No, really, +I won't if you'll only sit down!" + +She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my +mind than her whole-hearted confidence. How primitive and bestial it +looks when you put it down in black and white!--and perhaps after all +it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat down. + +"Now tell me what's amiss with me?" + +"I'm in love with somebody else," said she. + +It was my turn to jump out of my chair. + +"It's nobody in particular," she explained, laughing at the expression +of my face: "only an ideal. I've never met the kind of man I mean." + +"Tell me about him. What does he look like?" + +"Oh, he might look very much like you." + +"How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I +don't do? Just say the word,--teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, +theosophist, superman. I'll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only +give me an idea what would please you." + +She laughed at the elasticity of my character. "Well, in the first +place, I don't think my ideal would speak like that," said she. "He +would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a +silly girl's whim. But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who +could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a +man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I +should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be +reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! When I read his wife's +life of him I could so understand her love! And Lady Stanley! Did you +ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? +These are the sort of men that a woman could worship with all her soul, +and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honored +by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds." + +She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down +the whole level of the interview. I gripped myself hard, and went on +with the argument. + +"We can't all be Stanleys and Burtons," said I; "besides, we don't get +the chance,--at least, I never had the chance. If I did, I should try +to take it." + +"But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I +mean that he makes his own chances. You can't hold him back. I've +never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There are heroisms +all round us waiting to be done. It's for men to do them, and for +women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. Look at that +young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. It was blowing a +gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on +starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four +hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I +mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have +envied her! That's what I should like to be,--envied for my man." + +"I'd have done it to please you." + +"But you shouldn't do it merely to please me. You should do it because +you can't help yourself, because it's natural to you, because the man +in you is crying out for heroic expression. Now, when you described +the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and +helped those people, in spite of the choke-damp?" + +"I did." + +"You never said so." + +"There was nothing worth bucking about." + +"I didn't know." She looked at me with rather more interest. "That +was brave of you." + +"I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the +things are." + +"What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. +But, still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that +mine." She gave me her hand; but with such sweetness and dignity that +I could only stoop and kiss it. "I dare say I am merely a foolish +woman with a young girl's fancies. And yet it is so real with me, so +entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I +marry, I do want to marry a famous man!" + +"Why should you not?" I cried. "It is women like you who brace men up. +Give me a chance, and see if I will take it! Besides, as you say, men +ought to MAKE their own chances, and not wait until they are given. +Look at Clive--just a clerk, and he conquered India! By George! I'll +do something in the world yet!" + +She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. "Why not?" she said. +"You have everything a man could have,--youth, health, strength, +education, energy. I was sorry you spoke. And now I am glad--so +glad--if it wakens these thoughts in you!" + +"And if I do----" + +Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. "Not another word, +Sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour +ago; only I hadn't the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when +you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again." + +And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing +the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager +determination that not another day should elapse before I should find +some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who--who in all this wide +world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was +to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it? + +And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have +nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no +narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world +with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the +desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight +of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and +ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the +great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the office +of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant +unit, with the settled determination that very night, if possible, to +find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness, +was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own +glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to +ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + "Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger" + +I always liked McArdle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, red-headed news +editor, and I rather hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was +the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian +height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an +international crisis or a split in the Cabinet. Sometimes we saw him +passing in lonely majesty to his inner sanctum, with his eyes staring +vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He +was above and beyond us. But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it +was he that we knew. The old man nodded as I entered the room, and he +pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead. + +"Well, Mr. Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very well," +said he in his kindly Scotch accent. + +I thanked him. + +"The colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwark fire. You +have the true descreeptive touch. What did you want to see me about?" + +"To ask a favor." + +He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine. "Tut, tut! What is it?" + +"Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for +the paper? I would do my best to put it through and get you some good +copy." + +"What sort of meesion had you in your mind, Mr. Malone?" + +"Well, Sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. I really +would do my very best. The more difficult it was, the better it would +suit me." + +"You seem very anxious to lose your life." + +"To justify my life, Sir." + +"Dear me, Mr. Malone, this is very--very exalted. I'm afraid the day +for this sort of thing is rather past. The expense of the 'special +meesion' business hardly justifies the result, and, of course, in any +case it would only be an experienced man with a name that would command +public confidence who would get such an order. The big blank spaces in +the map are all being filled in, and there's no room for romance +anywhere. Wait a bit, though!" he added, with a sudden smile upon his +face. "Talking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea. What +about exposing a fraud--a modern Munchausen--and making him +rideeculous? You could show him up as the liar that he is! Eh, man, +it would be fine. How does it appeal to you?" + +"Anything--anywhere--I care nothing." + +McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes. + +"I wonder whether you could get on friendly--or at least on talking +terms with the fellow," he said, at last. "You seem to have a sort of +genius for establishing relations with people--seempathy, I suppose, or +animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something. I am conscious +of it myself." + +"You are very good, sir." + +"So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger, of +Enmore Park?" + +I dare say I looked a little startled. + +"Challenger!" I cried. "Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist! +Wasn't he the man who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph?" + +The news editor smiled grimly. + +"Do you mind? Didn't you say it was adventures you were after?" + +"It is all in the way of business, sir," I answered. + +"Exactly. I don't suppose he can always be so violent as that. I'm +thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the +wrong fashion. You may have better luck, or more tact in handling him. +There's something in your line there, I am sure, and the Gazette should +work it." + +"I really know nothing about him," said I. "I only remember his name +in connection with the police-court proceedings, for striking Blundell." + +"I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr. Malone. I've had my eye on +the Professor for some little time." He took a paper from a drawer. +"Here is a summary of his record. I give it you briefly:-- + +"'Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863. Educ.: Largs +Academy; Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. +Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. +Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year. Winner of +Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign Member of'--well, +quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type--'Societe Belge, +American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc. Ex-President +Palaeontological Society. Section H, British Association'--so on, so +on!--'Publications: "Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuck +Skulls"; "Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution"; and numerous papers, +including "The underlying fallacy of Weissmannism," which caused heated +discussion at the Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations: Walking, +Alpine climbing. Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.' + +"There, take it with you. I've nothing more for you to-night." + +I pocketed the slip of paper. + +"One moment, sir," I said, as I realized that it was a pink bald head, +and not a red face, which was fronting me. "I am not very clear yet +why I am to interview this gentleman. What has he done?" + +The face flashed back again. + +"Went to South America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago. Came +back last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to +say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a vague way, but +somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. +Something wonderful happened--or the man's a champion liar, which is +the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to +be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, +and heaves reporters down the stairs. In my opinion he's just a +homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. +Malone. Now, off you run, and see what you can make of him. You're +big enough to look after yourself. Anyway, you are all safe. +Employers' Liability Act, you know." + +A grinning red face turned once more into a pink oval, fringed with +gingery fluff; the interview was at an end. + +I walked across to the Savage Club, but instead of turning into it I +leaned upon the railings of Adelphi Terrace and gazed thoughtfully for +a long time at the brown, oily river. I can always think most sanely +and clearly in the open air. I took out the list of Professor +Challenger's exploits, and I read it over under the electric lamp. +Then I had what I can only regard as an inspiration. As a Pressman, I +felt sure from what I had been told that I could never hope to get into +touch with this cantankerous Professor. But these recriminations, +twice mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean that he was +a fanatic in science. Was there not an exposed margin there upon which +he might be accessible? I would try. + +I entered the club. It was just after eleven, and the big room was +fairly full, though the rush had not yet set in. I noticed a tall, +thin, angular man seated in an arm-chair by the fire. He turned as I +drew my chair up to him. It was the man of all others whom I should +have chosen--Tarp Henry, of the staff of Nature, a thin, dry, leathery +creature, who was full, to those who knew him, of kindly humanity. I +plunged instantly into my subject. + +"What do you know of Professor Challenger?" + +"Challenger?" He gathered his brows in scientific disapproval. +"Challenger was the man who came with some cock-and-bull story from +South America." + +"What story?" + +"Oh, it was rank nonsense about some queer animals he had discovered. +I believe he has retracted since. Anyhow, he has suppressed it all. +He gave an interview to Reuter's, and there was such a howl that he saw +it wouldn't do. It was a discreditable business. There were one or +two folk who were inclined to take him seriously, but he soon choked +them off." + +"How?" + +"Well, by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior. There was +poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent a message: +'The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments to +Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favor if he would +do them the honor to come to their next meeting.' The answer was +unprintable." + +"You don't say?" + +"Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: 'Professor Challenger +presents his compliments to the President of the Zoological Institute, +and would take it as a personal favor if he would go to the devil.'" + +"Good Lord!" + +"Yes, I expect that's what old Wadley said. I remember his wail at the +meeting, which began: 'In fifty years experience of scientific +intercourse----' It quite broke the old man up." + +"Anything more about Challenger?" + +"Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a +nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take serious +notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye. I'm a +frontiersman from the extreme edge of the Knowable, and I feel quite +out of place when I leave my study and come into touch with all you +great, rough, hulking creatures. I'm too detached to talk scandal, and +yet at scientific conversaziones I HAVE heard something of Challenger, +for he is one of those men whom nobody can ignore. He's as clever as +they make 'em--a full-charged battery of force and vitality, but a +quarrelsome, ill-conditioned faddist, and unscrupulous at that. He had +gone the length of faking some photographs over the South American +business." + +"You say he is a faddist. What is his particular fad?" + +"He has a thousand, but the latest is something about Weissmann and +Evolution. He had a fearful row about it in Vienna, I believe." + +"Can't you tell me the point?" + +"Not at the moment, but a translation of the proceedings exists. We +have it filed at the office. Would you care to come?" + +"It's just what I want. I have to interview the fellow, and I need +some lead up to him. It's really awfully good of you to give me a +lift. I'll go with you now, if it is not too late." + + +Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a huge +tome in front of me, which had been opened at the article "Weissmann +versus Darwin," with the sub heading, "Spirited Protest at Vienna. +Lively Proceedings." My scientific education having been somewhat +neglected, I was unable to follow the whole argument, but it was +evident that the English Professor had handled his subject in a very +aggressive fashion, and had thoroughly annoyed his Continental +colleagues. "Protests," "Uproar," and "General appeal to the Chairman" +were three of the first brackets which caught my eye. Most of the +matter might have been written in Chinese for any definite meaning that +it conveyed to my brain. + +"I wish you could translate it into English for me," I said, +pathetically, to my help-mate. + +"Well, it is a translation." + +"Then I'd better try my luck with the original." + +"It is certainly rather deep for a layman." + +"If I could only get a single good, meaty sentence which seemed to +convey some sort of definite human idea, it would serve my turn. Ah, +yes, this one will do. I seem in a vague way almost to understand it. +I'll copy it out. This shall be my link with the terrible Professor." + +"Nothing else I can do?" + +"Well, yes; I propose to write to him. If I could frame the letter +here, and use your address it would give atmosphere." + +"We'll have the fellow round here making a row and breaking the +furniture." + +"No, no; you'll see the letter--nothing contentious, I assure you." + +"Well, that's my chair and desk. You'll find paper there. I'd like to +censor it before it goes." + +It took some doing, but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a bad job +when it was finished. I read it aloud to the critical bacteriologist +with some pride in my handiwork. + + +"DEAR PROFESSOR CHALLENGER," it said, "As a humble student of Nature, I +have always taken the most profound interest in your speculations as to +the differences between Darwin and Weissmann. I have recently had +occasion to refresh my memory by re-reading----" + + +"You infernal liar!" murmured Tarp Henry. + + +--"by re-reading your masterly address at Vienna. That lucid and +admirable statement seems to be the last word in the matter. There is +one sentence in it, however--namely: 'I protest strongly against the +insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that each separate id is a +microcosm possessed of an historical architecture elaborated slowly +through the series of generations.' Have you no desire, in view of +later research, to modify this statement? Do you not think that it is +over-accentuated? With your permission, I would ask the favor of an +interview, as I feel strongly upon the subject, and have certain +suggestions which I could only elaborate in a personal conversation. +With your consent, I trust to have the honor of calling at eleven +o'clock the day after to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. + +"I remain, Sir, with assurances of profound respect, yours very truly, + +EDWARD D. MALONE." + + +"How's that?" I asked, triumphantly. + +"Well if your conscience can stand it----" + +"It has never failed me yet." + +"But what do you mean to do?" + +"To get there. Once I am in his room I may see some opening. I may +even go the length of open confession. If he is a sportsman he will be +tickled." + +"Tickled, indeed! He's much more likely to do the tickling. Chain +mail, or an American football suit--that's what you'll want. Well, +good-bye. I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning--if +he ever deigns to answer you. He is a violent, dangerous, cantankerous +character, hated by everyone who comes across him, and the butt of the +students, so far as they dare take a liberty with him. Perhaps it +would be best for you if you never heard from the fellow at all." + + + + + CHAPTER III + + "He is a Perfectly Impossible Person" + +My friend's fear or hope was not destined to be realized. When I +called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington +postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a +handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing. The contents were +as follows:-- + + + "ENMORE PARK, W. + +"SIR,--I have duly received your note, in which you claim to endorse my +views, although I am not aware that they are dependent upon endorsement +either from you or anyone else. You have ventured to use the word +'speculation' with regard to my statement upon the subject of +Darwinism, and I would call your attention to the fact that such a word +in such a connection is offensive to a degree. The context convinces +me, however, that you have sinned rather through ignorance and +tactlessness than through malice, so I am content to pass the matter +by. You quote an isolated sentence from my lecture, and appear to have +some difficulty in understanding it. I should have thought that only a +sub-human intelligence could have failed to grasp the point, but if it +really needs amplification I shall consent to see you at the hour +named, though visits and visitors of every sort are exceeding +distasteful to me. As to your suggestion that I may modify my opinion, +I would have you know that it is not my habit to do so after a +deliberate expression of my mature views. You will kindly show the +envelope of this letter to my man, Austin, when you call, as he has to +take every precaution to shield me from the intrusive rascals who call +themselves 'journalists.' + + "Yours faithfully, + "GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER." + + +This was the letter that I read aloud to Tarp Henry, who had come down +early to hear the result of my venture. His only remark was, "There's +some new stuff, cuticura or something, which is better than arnica." +Some people have such extraordinary notions of humor. + +It was nearly half-past ten before I had received my message, but a +taxicab took me round in good time for my appointment. It was an +imposing porticoed house at which we stopped, and the heavily-curtained +windows gave every indication of wealth upon the part of this +formidable Professor. The door was opened by an odd, swarthy, dried-up +person of uncertain age, with a dark pilot jacket and brown leather +gaiters. I found afterwards that he was the chauffeur, who filled the +gaps left by a succession of fugitive butlers. He looked me up and +down with a searching light blue eye. + +"Expected?" he asked. + +"An appointment." + +"Got your letter?" + +I produced the envelope. + +"Right!" He seemed to be a person of few words. Following him down +the passage I was suddenly interrupted by a small woman, who stepped +out from what proved to be the dining-room door. She was a bright, +vivacious, dark-eyed lady, more French than English in her type. + +"One moment," she said. "You can wait, Austin. Step in here, sir. +May I ask if you have met my husband before?" + +"No, madam, I have not had the honor." + +"Then I apologize to you in advance. I must tell you that he is a +perfectly impossible person--absolutely impossible. If you are +forewarned you will be the more ready to make allowances." + +"It is most considerate of you, madam." + +"Get quickly out of the room if he seems inclined to be violent. Don't +wait to argue with him. Several people have been injured through doing +that. Afterwards there is a public scandal and it reflects upon me and +all of us. I suppose it wasn't about South America you wanted to see +him?" + +I could not lie to a lady. + +"Dear me! That is his most dangerous subject. You won't believe a +word he says--I'm sure I don't wonder. But don't tell him so, for it +makes him very violent. Pretend to believe him, and you may get +through all right. Remember he believes it himself. Of that you may +be assured. A more honest man never lived. Don't wait any longer or +he may suspect. If you find him dangerous--really dangerous--ring the +bell and hold him off until I come. Even at his worst I can usually +control him." + +With these encouraging words the lady handed me over to the taciturn +Austin, who had waited like a bronze statue of discretion during our +short interview, and I was conducted to the end of the passage. There +was a tap at a door, a bull's bellow from within, and I was face to +face with the Professor. + +He sat in a rotating chair behind a broad table, which was covered with +books, maps, and diagrams. As I entered, his seat spun round to face +me. His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something +strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his +size which took one's breath away--his size and his imposing presence. +His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. +I am sure that his top-hat, had I ever ventured to don it, would have +slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face +and beard which I associate with an Assyrian bull; the former florid, +the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped +and rippling down over his chest. The hair was peculiar, plastered +down in front in a long, curving wisp over his massive forehead. The +eyes were blue-gray under great black tufts, very clear, very critical, +and very masterful. A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a +barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table, save +for two enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a +bellowing, roaring, rumbling voice made up my first impression of the +notorious Professor Challenger. + +"Well?" said he, with a most insolent stare. "What now?" + +I must keep up my deception for at least a little time longer, +otherwise here was evidently an end of the interview. + +"You were good enough to give me an appointment, sir," said I, humbly, +producing his envelope. + +He took my letter from his desk and laid it out before him. + +"Oh, you are the young person who cannot understand plain English, are +you? My general conclusions you are good enough to approve, as I +understand?" + +"Entirely, sir--entirely!" I was very emphatic. + +"Dear me! That strengthens my position very much, does it not? Your +age and appearance make your support doubly valuable. Well, at least +you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna, whose gregarious +grunt is, however, not more offensive than the isolated effort of the +British hog." He glared at me as the present representative of the +beast. + +"They seem to have behaved abominably," said I. + +"I assure you that I can fight my own battles, and that I have no +possible need of your sympathy. Put me alone, sir, and with my back to +the wall. G. E. C. is happiest then. Well, sir, let us do what we can +to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is +inexpressibly irksome to me. You had, as I have been led to believe, +some comments to make upon the proposition which I advanced in my +thesis." + +There was a brutal directness about his methods which made evasion +difficult. I must still make play and wait for a better opening. It +had seemed simple enough at a distance. Oh, my Irish wits, could they +not help me now, when I needed help so sorely? He transfixed me with +two sharp, steely eyes. "Come, come!" he rumbled. + +"I am, of course, a mere student," said I, with a fatuous smile, +"hardly more, I might say, than an earnest inquirer. At the same time, +it seemed to me that you were a little severe upon Weissmann in this +matter. Has not the general evidence since that date tended to--well, +to strengthen his position?" + +"What evidence?" He spoke with a menacing calm. + +"Well, of course, I am aware that there is not any what you might call +DEFINITE evidence. I alluded merely to the trend of modern thought and +the general scientific point of view, if I might so express it." + +He leaned forward with great earnestness. + +"I suppose you are aware," said he, checking off points upon his +fingers, "that the cranial index is a constant factor?" + +"Naturally," said I. + +"And that telegony is still sub judice?" + +"Undoubtedly." + +"And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?" + +"Why, surely!" I cried, and gloried in my own audacity. + +"But what does that prove?" he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice. + +"Ah, what indeed?" I murmured. "What does it prove?" + +"Shall I tell you?" he cooed. + +"Pray do." + +"It proves," he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, "that you are the +damnedest imposter in London--a vile, crawling journalist, who has no +more science than he has decency in his composition!" + +He had sprung to his feet with a mad rage in his eyes. Even at that +moment of tension I found time for amazement at the discovery that he +was quite a short man, his head not higher than my shoulder--a stunted +Hercules whose tremendous vitality had all run to depth, breadth, and +brain. + +"Gibberish!" he cried, leaning forward, with his fingers on the table +and his face projecting. "That's what I have been talking to you, +sir--scientific gibberish! Did you think you could match cunning with +me--you with your walnut of a brain? You think you are omnipotent, you +infernal scribblers, don't you? That your praise can make a man and +your blame can break him? We must all bow to you, and try to get a +favorable word, must we? This man shall have a leg up, and this man +shall have a dressing down! Creeping vermin, I know you! You've got +out of your station. Time was when your ears were clipped. You've +lost your sense of proportion. Swollen gas-bags! I'll keep you in +your proper place. Yes, sir, you haven't got over G. E. C. There's +one man who is still your master. He warned you off, but if you WILL +come, by the Lord you do it at your own risk. Forfeit, my good Mr. +Malone, I claim forfeit! You have played a rather dangerous game, and +it strikes me that you have lost it." + +"Look here, sir," said I, backing to the door and opening it; "you can +be as abusive as you like. But there is a limit. You shall not +assault me." + +"Shall I not?" He was slowly advancing in a peculiarly menacing way, +but he stopped now and put his big hands into the side-pockets of a +rather boyish short jacket which he wore. "I have thrown several of +you out of the house. You will be the fourth or fifth. Three pound +fifteen each--that is how it averaged. Expensive, but very necessary. +Now, sir, why should you not follow your brethren? I rather think you +must." He resumed his unpleasant and stealthy advance, pointing his +toes as he walked, like a dancing master. + +I could have bolted for the hall door, but it would have been too +ignominious. Besides, a little glow of righteous anger was springing +up within me. I had been hopelessly in the wrong before, but this +man's menaces were putting me in the right. + +"I'll trouble you to keep your hands off, sir. I'll not stand it." + +"Dear me!" His black moustache lifted and a white fang twinkled in a +sneer. "You won't stand it, eh?" + +"Don't be such a fool, Professor!" I cried. "What can you hope for? +I'm fifteen stone, as hard as nails, and play center three-quarter +every Saturday for the London Irish. I'm not the man----" + +It was at that moment that he rushed me. It was lucky that I had +opened the door, or we should have gone through it. We did a +Catharine-wheel together down the passage. Somehow we gathered up a +chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street. My +mouth was full of his beard, our arms were locked, our bodies +intertwined, and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us. +The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went with a back +somersault down the front steps. I have seen the two Macs attempt +something of the kind at the halls, but it appears to take some +practise to do it without hurting oneself. The chair went to matchwood +at the bottom, and we rolled apart into the gutter. He sprang to his +feet, waving his fists and wheezing like an asthmatic. + +"Had enough?" he panted. + +"You infernal bully!" I cried, as I gathered myself together. + +Then and there we should have tried the thing out, for he was +effervescing with fight, but fortunately I was rescued from an odious +situation. A policeman was beside us, his notebook in his hand. + +"What's all this? You ought to be ashamed" said the policeman. It was +the most rational remark which I had heard in Enmore Park. "Well," he +insisted, turning to me, "what is it, then?" + +"This man attacked me," said I. + +"Did you attack him?" asked the policeman. + +The Professor breathed hard and said nothing. + +"It's not the first time, either," said the policeman, severely, +shaking his head. "You were in trouble last month for the same thing. +You've blackened this young man's eye. Do you give him in charge, sir?" + +I relented. + +"No," said I, "I do not." + +"What's that?" said the policeman. + +"I was to blame myself. I intruded upon him. He gave me fair warning." + +The policeman snapped up his notebook. + +"Don't let us have any more such goings-on," said he. "Now, then! +Move on, there, move on!" This to a butcher's boy, a maid, and one or +two loafers who had collected. He clumped heavily down the street, +driving this little flock before him. The Professor looked at me, and +there was something humorous at the back of his eyes. + +"Come in!" said he. "I've not done with you yet." + +The speech had a sinister sound, but I followed him none the less into +the house. The man-servant, Austin, like a wooden image, closed the +door behind us. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + "It's Just the very Biggest Thing in the World" + +Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger darted out from the +dining-room. The small woman was in a furious temper. She barred her +husband's way like an enraged chicken in front of a bulldog. It was +evident that she had seen my exit, but had not observed my return. + +"You brute, George!" she screamed. "You've hurt that nice young man." + +He jerked backwards with his thumb. + +"Here he is, safe and sound behind me." + +She was confused, but not unduly so. + +"I am so sorry, I didn't see you." + +"I assure you, madam, that it is all right." + +"He has marked your poor face! Oh, George, what a brute you are! +Nothing but scandals from one end of the week to the other. Everyone +hating and making fun of you. You've finished my patience. This ends +it." + +"Dirty linen," he rumbled. + +"It's not a secret," she cried. "Do you suppose that the whole +street--the whole of London, for that matter---- Get away, Austin, we +don't want you here. Do you suppose they don't all talk about you? +Where is your dignity? You, a man who should have been Regius +Professor at a great University with a thousand students all revering +you. Where is your dignity, George?" + +"How about yours, my dear?" + +"You try me too much. A ruffian--a common brawling ruffian--that's +what you have become." + +"Be good, Jessie." + +"A roaring, raging bully!" + +"That's done it! Stool of penance!" said he. + +To my amazement he stooped, picked her up, and placed her sitting upon +a high pedestal of black marble in the angle of the hall. It was at +least seven feet high, and so thin that she could hardly balance upon +it. A more absurd object than she presented cocked up there with her +face convulsed with anger, her feet dangling, and her body rigid for +fear of an upset, I could not imagine. + +"Let me down!" she wailed. + +"Say 'please.'" + +"You brute, George! Let me down this instant!" + +"Come into the study, Mr. Malone." + +"Really, sir----!" said I, looking at the lady. + +"Here's Mr. Malone pleading for you, Jessie. Say 'please,' and down +you come." + +"Oh, you brute! Please! please!" + +He took her down as if she had been a canary. + +"You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. He will +have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra dozen among our +neighbors. 'Strange story of high life'--you felt fairly high on that +pedestal, did you not? Then a sub-title, 'Glimpse of a singular +menage.' He's a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone, a carrion eater, like all +of his kind--porcus ex grege diaboli--a swine from the devil's herd. +That's it, Malone--what?" + +"You are really intolerable!" said I, hotly. + +He bellowed with laughter. + +"We shall have a coalition presently," he boomed, looking from his wife +to me and puffing out his enormous chest. Then, suddenly altering his +tone, "Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone. I called you +back for some more serious purpose than to mix you up with our little +domestic pleasantries. Run away, little woman, and don't fret." He +placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders. "All that you say is +perfectly true. I should be a better man if I did what you advise, but +I shouldn't be quite George Edward Challenger. There are plenty of +better men, my dear, but only one G. E. C. So make the best of him." +He suddenly gave her a resounding kiss, which embarrassed me even more +than his violence had done. "Now, Mr. Malone," he continued, with a +great accession of dignity, "this way, if YOU please." + +We re-entered the room which we had left so tumultuously ten minutes +before. The Professor closed the door carefully behind us, motioned me +into an arm-chair, and pushed a cigar-box under my nose. + +"Real San Juan Colorado," he said. "Excitable people like you are the +better for narcotics. Heavens! don't bite it! Cut--and cut with +reverence! Now lean back, and listen attentively to whatever I may +care to say to you. If any remark should occur to you, you can reserve +it for some more opportune time. + +"First of all, as to your return to my house after your most +justifiable expulsion"--he protruded his beard, and stared at me as one +who challenges and invites contradiction--"after, as I say, your +well-merited expulsion. The reason lay in your answer to that most +officious policeman, in which I seemed to discern some glimmering of +good feeling upon your part--more, at any rate, than I am accustomed to +associate with your profession. In admitting that the fault of the +incident lay with you, you gave some evidence of a certain mental +detachment and breadth of view which attracted my favorable notice. +The sub-species of the human race to which you unfortunately belong has +always been below my mental horizon. Your words brought you suddenly +above it. You swam up into my serious notice. For this reason I asked +you to return with me, as I was minded to make your further +acquaintance. You will kindly deposit your ash in the small Japanese +tray on the bamboo table which stands at your left elbow." + +All this he boomed forth like a professor addressing his class. He had +swung round his revolving chair so as to face me, and he sat all puffed +out like an enormous bull-frog, his head laid back and his eyes +half-covered by supercilious lids. Now he suddenly turned himself +sideways, and all I could see of him was tangled hair with a red, +protruding ear. He was scratching about among the litter of papers +upon his desk. He faced me presently with what looked like a very +tattered sketch-book in his hand. + +"I am going to talk to you about South America," said he. "No comments +if you please. First of all, I wish you to understand that nothing I +tell you now is to be repeated in any public way unless you have my +express permission. That permission will, in all human probability, +never be given. Is that clear?" + +"It is very hard," said I. "Surely a judicious account----" + +He replaced the notebook upon the table. + +"That ends it," said he. "I wish you a very good morning." + +"No, no!" I cried. "I submit to any conditions. So far as I can see, +I have no choice." + +"None in the world," said he. + +"Well, then, I promise." + +"Word of honor?" + +"Word of honor." + +He looked at me with doubt in his insolent eyes. + +"After all, what do I know about your honor?" said he. + +"Upon my word, sir," I cried, angrily, "you take very great liberties! +I have never been so insulted in my life." + +He seemed more interested than annoyed at my outbreak. + +"Round-headed," he muttered. "Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, black-haired, +with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume?" + +"I am an Irishman, sir." + +"Irish Irish?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"That, of course, explains it. Let me see; you have given me your +promise that my confidence will be respected? That confidence, I may +say, will be far from complete. But I am prepared to give you a few +indications which will be of interest. In the first place, you are +probably aware that two years ago I made a journey to South +America--one which will be classical in the scientific history of the +world? The object of my journey was to verify some conclusions of +Wallace and of Bates, which could only be done by observing their +reported facts under the same conditions in which they had themselves +noted them. If my expedition had no other results it would still have +been noteworthy, but a curious incident occurred to me while there +which opened up an entirely fresh line of inquiry. + +"You are aware--or probably, in this half-educated age, you are not +aware--that the country round some parts of the Amazon is still only +partially explored, and that a great number of tributaries, some of +them entirely uncharted, run into the main river. It was my business +to visit this little-known back-country and to examine its fauna, which +furnished me with the materials for several chapters for that great and +monumental work upon zoology which will be my life's justification. I +was returning, my work accomplished, when I had occasion to spend a +night at a small Indian village at a point where a certain +tributary--the name and position of which I withhold--opens into the +main river. The natives were Cucama Indians, an amiable but degraded +race, with mental powers hardly superior to the average Londoner. I +had effected some cures among them upon my way up the river, and had +impressed them considerably with my personality, so that I was not +surprised to find myself eagerly awaited upon my return. I gathered +from their signs that someone had urgent need of my medical services, +and I followed the chief to one of his huts. When I entered I found +that the sufferer to whose aid I had been summoned had that instant +expired. He was, to my surprise, no Indian, but a white man; indeed, I +may say a very white man, for he was flaxen-haired and had some +characteristics of an albino. He was clad in rags, was very emaciated, +and bore every trace of prolonged hardship. So far as I could +understand the account of the natives, he was a complete stranger to +them, and had come upon their village through the woods alone and in +the last stage of exhaustion. + +"The man's knapsack lay beside the couch, and I examined the contents. +His name was written upon a tab within it--Maple White, Lake Avenue, +Detroit, Michigan. It is a name to which I am prepared always to lift +my hat. It is not too much to say that it will rank level with my own +when the final credit of this business comes to be apportioned. + +"From the contents of the knapsack it was evident that this man had +been an artist and poet in search of effects. There were scraps of +verse. I do not profess to be a judge of such things, but they +appeared to me to be singularly wanting in merit. There were also some +rather commonplace pictures of river scenery, a paint-box, a box of +colored chalks, some brushes, that curved bone which lies upon my +inkstand, a volume of Baxter's 'Moths and Butterflies,' a cheap +revolver, and a few cartridges. Of personal equipment he either had +none or he had lost it in his journey. Such were the total effects of +this strange American Bohemian. + +"I was turning away from him when I observed that something projected +from the front of his ragged jacket. It was this sketch-book, which +was as dilapidated then as you see it now. Indeed, I can assure you +that a first folio of Shakespeare could not be treated with greater +reverence than this relic has been since it came into my possession. I +hand it to you now, and I ask you to take it page by page and to +examine the contents." + +He helped himself to a cigar and leaned back with a fiercely critical +pair of eyes, taking note of the effect which this document would +produce. + +I had opened the volume with some expectation of a revelation, though +of what nature I could not imagine. The first page was disappointing, +however, as it contained nothing but the picture of a very fat man in a +pea-jacket, with the legend, "Jimmy Colver on the Mail-boat," written +beneath it. There followed several pages which were filled with small +sketches of Indians and their ways. Then came a picture of a cheerful +and corpulent ecclesiastic in a shovel hat, sitting opposite a very +thin European, and the inscription: "Lunch with Fra Cristofero at +Rosario." Studies of women and babies accounted for several more +pages, and then there was an unbroken series of animal drawings with +such explanations as "Manatee upon Sandbank," "Turtles and Their Eggs," +"Black Ajouti under a Miriti Palm"--the matter disclosing some sort of +pig-like animal; and finally came a double page of studies of +long-snouted and very unpleasant saurians. I could make nothing of it, +and said so to the Professor. + +"Surely these are only crocodiles?" + +"Alligators! Alligators! There is hardly such a thing as a true +crocodile in South America. The distinction between them----" + +"I meant that I could see nothing unusual--nothing to justify what you +have said." + +He smiled serenely. + +"Try the next page," said he. + +I was still unable to sympathize. It was a full-page sketch of a +landscape roughly tinted in color--the kind of painting which an +open-air artist takes as a guide to a future more elaborate effort. +There was a pale-green foreground of feathery vegetation, which sloped +upwards and ended in a line of cliffs dark red in color, and curiously +ribbed like some basaltic formations which I have seen. They extended +in an unbroken wall right across the background. At one point was an +isolated pyramidal rock, crowned by a great tree, which appeared to be +separated by a cleft from the main crag. Behind it all, a blue +tropical sky. A thin green line of vegetation fringed the summit of +the ruddy cliff. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"It is no doubt a curious formation," said I "but I am not geologist +enough to say that it is wonderful." + +"Wonderful!" he repeated. "It is unique. It is incredible. No one on +earth has ever dreamed of such a possibility. Now the next." + +I turned it over, and gave an exclamation of surprise. There was a +full-page picture of the most extraordinary creature that I had ever +seen. It was the wild dream of an opium smoker, a vision of delirium. +The head was like that of a fowl, the body that of a bloated lizard, +the trailing tail was furnished with upward-turned spikes, and the +curved back was edged with a high serrated fringe, which looked like a +dozen cocks' wattles placed behind each other. In front of this +creature was an absurd mannikin, or dwarf, in human form, who stood +staring at it. + +"Well, what do you think of that?" cried the Professor, rubbing his +hands with an air of triumph. + +"It is monstrous--grotesque." + +"But what made him draw such an animal?" + +"Trade gin, I should think." + +"Oh, that's the best explanation you can give, is it?" + +"Well, sir, what is yours?" + +"The obvious one that the creature exists. That is actually sketched +from the life." + +I should have laughed only that I had a vision of our doing another +Catharine-wheel down the passage. + +"No doubt," said I, "no doubt," as one humors an imbecile. "I confess, +however," I added, "that this tiny human figure puzzles me. If it were +an Indian we could set it down as evidence of some pigmy race in +America, but it appears to be a European in a sun-hat." + +The Professor snorted like an angry buffalo. "You really touch the +limit," said he. "You enlarge my view of the possible. Cerebral +paresis! Mental inertia! Wonderful!" + +He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of energy, +for if you were going to be angry with this man you would be angry all +the time. I contented myself with smiling wearily. "It struck me that +the man was small," said I. + +"Look here!" he cried, leaning forward and dabbing a great hairy +sausage of a finger on to the picture. "You see that plant behind the +animal; I suppose you thought it was a dandelion or a Brussels +sprout--what? Well, it is a vegetable ivory palm, and they run to +about fifty or sixty feet. Don't you see that the man is put in for a +purpose? He couldn't really have stood in front of that brute and +lived to draw it. He sketched himself in to give a scale of heights. +He was, we will say, over five feet high. The tree is ten times +bigger, which is what one would expect." + +"Good heavens!" I cried. "Then you think the beast was---- Why, +Charing Cross station would hardly make a kennel for such a brute!" + +"Apart from exaggeration, he is certainly a well-grown specimen," said +the Professor, complacently. + +"But," I cried, "surely the whole experience of the human race is not +to be set aside on account of a single sketch"--I had turned over the +leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more in the book--"a +single sketch by a wandering American artist who may have done it under +hashish, or in the delirium of fever, or simply in order to gratify a +freakish imagination. You can't, as a man of science, defend such a +position as that." + +For answer the Professor took a book down from a shelf. + +"This is an excellent monograph by my gifted friend, Ray Lankester!" +said he. "There is an illustration here which would interest you. Ah, +yes, here it is! The inscription beneath it runs: 'Probable +appearance in life of the Jurassic Dinosaur Stegosaurus. The hind leg +alone is twice as tall as a full-grown man.' Well, what do you make of +that?" + +He handed me the open book. I started as I looked at the picture. In +this reconstructed animal of a dead world there was certainly a very +great resemblance to the sketch of the unknown artist. + +"That is certainly remarkable," said I. + +"But you won't admit that it is final?" + +"Surely it might be a coincidence, or this American may have seen a +picture of the kind and carried it in his memory. It would be likely +to recur to a man in a delirium." + +"Very good," said the Professor, indulgently; "we leave it at that. I +will now ask you to look at this bone." He handed over the one which he +had already described as part of the dead man's possessions. It was +about six inches long, and thicker than my thumb, with some indications +of dried cartilage at one end of it. + +"To what known creature does that bone belong?" asked the Professor. + +I examined it with care and tried to recall some half-forgotten +knowledge. + +"It might be a very thick human collar-bone," I said. + +My companion waved his hand in contemptuous deprecation. + +"The human collar-bone is curved. This is straight. There is a groove +upon its surface showing that a great tendon played across it, which +could not be the case with a clavicle." + +"Then I must confess that I don't know what it is." + +"You need not be ashamed to expose your ignorance, for I don't suppose +the whole South Kensington staff could give a name to it." He took a +little bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box. "So far as I am a +judge this human bone is the analogue of the one which you hold in your +hand. That will give you some idea of the size of the creature. You +will observe from the cartilage that this is no fossil specimen, but +recent. What do you say to that?" + +"Surely in an elephant----" + +He winced as if in pain. + +"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these days +of Board schools----" + +"Well," I interrupted, "any large South American animal--a tapir, for +example." + +"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of my +business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of any +other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very large, a very +strong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animal which exists upon the +face of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science. +You are still unconvinced?" + +"I am at least deeply interested." + +"Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason lurking +in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. We will now +leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imagine +that I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeper +into the matter. There were indications as to the direction from which +the dead traveler had come. Indian legends would alone have been my +guide, for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among all +the riverine tribes. You have heard, no doubt, of Curupuri?" + +"Never." + +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods, something terrible, something +malevolent, something to be avoided. None can describe its shape or +nature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. Now all tribes +agree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives. It was the same +direction from which the American had come. Something terrible lay +that way. It was my business to find out what it was." + +"What did you do?" My flippancy was all gone. This massive man +compelled one's attention and respect. + +"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives--a reluctance which +extends even to talk upon the subject--and by judicious persuasion and +gifts, aided, I will admit, by some threats of coercion, I got two of +them to act as guides. After many adventures which I need not +describe, and after traveling a distance which I will not mention, in a +direction which I withhold, we came at last to a tract of country which +has never been described, nor, indeed, visited save by my unfortunate +predecessor. Would you kindly look at this?" + +He handed me a photograph--half-plate size. + +"The unsatisfactory appearance of it is due to the fact," said he, +"that on descending the river the boat was upset and the case which +contained the undeveloped films was broken, with disastrous results. +Nearly all of them were totally ruined--an irreparable loss. This is +one of the few which partially escaped. This explanation of +deficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept. There was talk +of faking. I am not in a mood to argue such a point." + +The photograph was certainly very off-colored. An unkind critic might +easily have misinterpreted that dim surface. It was a dull gray +landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realized +that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactly +like an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping, +tree-clad plain in the foreground. + +"I believe it is the same place as the painted picture," said I. + +"It is the same place," the Professor answered. "I found traces of the +fellow's camp. Now look at this." + +It was a nearer view of the same scene, though the photograph was +extremely defective. I could distinctly see the isolated, tree-crowned +pinnacle of rock which was detached from the crag. + +"I have no doubt of it at all," said I. + +"Well, that is something gained," said he. "We progress, do we not? +Now, will you please look at the top of that rocky pinnacle? Do you +observe something there?" + +"An enormous tree." + +"But on the tree?" + +"A large bird," said I. + +He handed me a lens. + +"Yes," I said, peering through it, "a large bird stands on the tree. +It appears to have a considerable beak. I should say it was a pelican." + +"I cannot congratulate you upon your eyesight," said the Professor. +"It is not a pelican, nor, indeed, is it a bird. It may interest you +to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen. It was +the only absolute proof of my experiences which I was able to bring +away with me." + +"You have it, then?" Here at last was tangible corroboration. + +"I had it. It was unfortunately lost with so much else in the same +boat accident which ruined my photographs. I clutched at it as it +disappeared in the swirl of the rapids, and part of its wing was left +in my hand. I was insensible when washed ashore, but the miserable +remnant of my superb specimen was still intact; I now lay it before +you." + +From a drawer he produced what seemed to me to be the upper portion of +the wing of a large bat. It was at least two feet in length, a curved +bone, with a membranous veil beneath it. + +"A monstrous bat!" I suggested. + +"Nothing of the sort," said the Professor, severely. "Living, as I do, +in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have conceived +that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it +possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative +anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the forearm, while the wing +of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between? +Now, in this case, the bone is certainly not the forearm, and you can +see for yourself that this is a single membrane hanging upon a single +bone, and therefore that it cannot belong to a bat. But if it is +neither bird nor bat, what is it?" + +My small stock of knowledge was exhausted. + +"I really do not know," said I. + +He opened the standard work to which he had already referred me. + +"Here," said he, pointing to the picture of an extraordinary flying +monster, "is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon, or +pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Jurassic period. On the next page +is a diagram of the mechanism of its wing. Kindly compare it with the +specimen in your hand." + +A wave of amazement passed over me as I looked. I was convinced. +There could be no getting away from it. The cumulative proof was +overwhelming. The sketch, the photographs, the narrative, and now the +actual specimen--the evidence was complete. I said so--I said so +warmly, for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man. He leaned +back in his chair with drooping eyelids and a tolerant smile, basking +in this sudden gleam of sunshine. + +"It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of!" said I, though +it was my journalistic rather than my scientific enthusiasm that was +roused. "It is colossal. You are a Columbus of science who has +discovered a lost world. I'm awfully sorry if I seemed to doubt you. +It was all so unthinkable. But I understand evidence when I see it, +and this should be good enough for anyone." + +The Professor purred with satisfaction. + +"And then, sir, what did you do next?" + +"It was the wet season, Mr. Malone, and my stores were exhausted. I +explored some portion of this huge cliff, but I was unable to find any +way to scale it. The pyramidal rock upon which I saw and shot the +pterodactyl was more accessible. Being something of a cragsman, I did +manage to get half way to the top of that. From that height I had a +better idea of the plateau upon the top of the crags. It appeared to +be very large; neither to east nor to west could I see any end to the +vista of green-capped cliffs. Below, it is a swampy, jungly region, +full of snakes, insects, and fever. It is a natural protection to this +singular country." + +"Did you see any other trace of life?" + +"No, sir, I did not; but during the week that we lay encamped at the +base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above." + +"But the creature that the American drew? How do you account for that?" + +"We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summit and +seen it there. We know, therefore, that there is a way up. We know +equally that it must be a very difficult one, otherwise the creatures +would have come down and overrun the surrounding country. Surely that +is clear?" + +"But how did they come to be there?" + +"I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one," said the +Professor; "there can only be one explanation. South America is, as +you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single point in the +interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great, sudden +volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, are basaltic, and +therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps as Sussex, has been +lifted up en bloc with all its living contents, and cut off by +perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all +the rest of the continent. What is the result? Why, the ordinary laws +of Nature are suspended. The various checks which influence the +struggle for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or +altered. Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear. You will +observe that both the pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic, and +therefore of a great age in the order of life. They have been +artificially conserved by those strange accidental conditions." + +"But surely your evidence is conclusive. You have only to lay it +before the proper authorities." + +"So in my simplicity, I had imagined," said the Professor, bitterly. +"I can only tell you that it was not so, that I was met at every turn +by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. It is +not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man, or to seek to prove a fact if +my word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to +show such corroborative proofs as I possess. The subject became +hateful to me--I would not speak of it. When men like yourself, who +represent the foolish curiosity of the public, came to disturb my +privacy I was unable to meet them with dignified reserve. By nature I +am, I admit, somewhat fiery, and under provocation I am inclined to be +violent. I fear you may have remarked it." + +I nursed my eye and was silent. + +"My wife has frequently remonstrated with me upon the subject, and yet +I fancy that any man of honor would feel the same. To-night, however, +I propose to give an extreme example of the control of the will over +the emotions. I invite you to be present at the exhibition." He +handed me a card from his desk. "You will perceive that Mr. Percival +Waldron, a naturalist of some popular repute, is announced to lecture +at eight-thirty at the Zoological Institute's Hall upon 'The Record of +the Ages.' I have been specially invited to be present upon the +platform, and to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing +so, I shall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, to +throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the audience +and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply into the matter. +Nothing contentious, you understand, but only an indication that there +are greater deeps beyond. I shall hold myself strongly in leash, and +see whether by this self-restraint I attain a more favorable result." + +"And I may come?" I asked eagerly. + +"Why, surely," he answered, cordially. He had an enormously massive +genial manner, which was almost as overpowering as his violence. His +smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing, when his cheeks would +suddenly bunch into two red apples, between his half-closed eyes and +his great black beard. "By all means, come. It will be a comfort to +me to know that I have one ally in the hall, however inefficient and +ignorant of the subject he may be. I fancy there will be a large +audience, for Waldron, though an absolute charlatan, has a considerable +popular following. Now, Mr. Malone, I have given you rather more of my +time than I had intended. The individual must not monopolize what is +meant for the world. I shall be pleased to see you at the lecture +to-night. In the meantime, you will understand that no public use is +to be made of any of the material that I have given you." + +"But Mr. McArdle--my news editor, you know--will want to know what I +have done." + +"Tell him what you like. You can say, among other things, that if he +sends anyone else to intrude upon me I shall call upon him with a +riding-whip. But I leave it to you that nothing of all this appears in +print. Very good. Then the Zoological Institute's Hall at +eight-thirty to-night." I had a last impression of red cheeks, blue +rippling beard, and intolerant eyes, as he waved me out of the room. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + "Question!" + +What with the physical shocks incidental to my first interview with +Professor Challenger and the mental ones which accompanied the second, +I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I found myself in +Enmore Park once more. In my aching head the one thought was throbbing +that there really was truth in this man's story, that it was of +tremendous consequence, and that it would work up into inconceivable +copy for the Gazette when I could obtain permission to use it. A +taxicab was waiting at the end of the road, so I sprang into it and +drove down to the office. McArdle was at his post as usual. + +"Well," he cried, expectantly, "what may it run to? I'm thinking, +young man, you have been in the wars. Don't tell me that he assaulted +you." + +"We had a little difference at first." + +"What a man it is! What did you do?" + +"Well, he became more reasonable and we had a chat. But I got nothing +out of him--nothing for publication." + +"I'm not so sure about that. You got a black eye out of him, and +that's for publication. We can't have this reign of terror, Mr. +Malone. We must bring the man to his bearings. I'll have a leaderette +on him to-morrow that will raise a blister. Just give me the material +and I will engage to brand the fellow for ever. Professor +Munchausen--how's that for an inset headline? Sir John Mandeville +redivivus--Cagliostro--all the imposters and bullies in history. I'll +show him up for the fraud he is." + +"I wouldn't do that, sir." + +"Why not?" + +"Because he is not a fraud at all." + +"What!" roared McArdle. "You don't mean to say you really believe this +stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great sea sairpents?" + +"Well, I don't know about that. I don't think he makes any claims of +that kind. But I do believe he has got something new." + +"Then for Heaven's sake, man, write it up!" + +"I'm longing to, but all I know he gave me in confidence and on +condition that I didn't." I condensed into a few sentences the +Professor's narrative. "That's how it stands." + +McArdle looked deeply incredulous. + +"Well, Mr. Malone," he said at last, "about this scientific meeting +to-night; there can be no privacy about that, anyhow. I don't suppose +any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has been reported already +a dozen times, and no one is aware that Challenger will speak. We may +get a scoop, if we are lucky. You'll be there in any case, so you'll +just give us a pretty full report. I'll keep space up to midnight." + +My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the Savage Club +with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. He +listened with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared with +laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me. + +"My dear chap, things don't happen like that in real life. People +don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence. +Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as full of tricks as the +monkey-house at the Zoo. It's all bosh." + +"But the American poet?" + +"He never existed." + +"I saw his sketch-book." + +"Challenger's sketch-book." + +"You think he drew that animal?" + +"Of course he did. Who else?" + +"Well, then, the photographs?" + +"There was nothing in the photographs. By your own admission you only +saw a bird." + +"A pterodactyl." + +"That's what HE says. He put the pterodactyl into your head." + +"Well, then, the bones?" + +"First one out of an Irish stew. Second one vamped up for the +occasion. If you are clever and know your business you can fake a bone +as easily as you can a photograph." + +I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps, after all, I had been premature in my +acquiescence. Then I had a sudden happy thought. + +"Will you come to the meeting?" I asked. + +Tarp Henry looked thoughtful. + +"He is not a popular person, the genial Challenger," said he. "A lot +of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he is about +the best-hated man in London. If the medical students turn out there +will be no end of a rag. I don't want to get into a bear-garden." + +"You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case." + +"Well, perhaps it's only fair. All right. I'm your man for the +evening." + +When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than I +had expected. A line of electric broughams discharged their little +cargoes of white-bearded professors, while the dark stream of humbler +pedestrians, who crowded through the arched door-way, showed that the +audience would be popular as well as scientific. Indeed, it became +evident to us as soon as we had taken our seats that a youthful and +even boyish spirit was abroad in the gallery and the back portions of +the hall. Looking behind me, I could see rows of faces of the familiar +medical student type. Apparently the great hospitals had each sent +down their contingent. The behavior of the audience at present was +good-humored, but mischievous. Scraps of popular songs were chorused +with an enthusiasm which was a strange prelude to a scientific lecture, +and there was already a tendency to personal chaff which promised a +jovial evening to others, however embarrassing it might be to the +recipients of these dubious honors. + +Thus, when old Doctor Meldrum, with his well-known curly-brimmed +opera-hat, appeared upon the platform, there was such a universal query +of "Where DID you get that tile?" that he hurriedly removed it, and +concealed it furtively under his chair. When gouty Professor Wadley +limped down to his seat there were general affectionate inquiries from +all parts of the hall as to the exact state of his poor toe, which +caused him obvious embarrassment. The greatest demonstration of all, +however, was at the entrance of my new acquaintance, Professor +Challenger, when he passed down to take his place at the extreme end of +the front row of the platform. Such a yell of welcome broke forth when +his black beard first protruded round the corner that I began to +suspect Tarp Henry was right in his surmise, and that this assemblage +was there not merely for the sake of the lecture, but because it had +got rumored abroad that the famous Professor would take part in the +proceedings. + +There was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance among the front +benches of well-dressed spectators, as though the demonstration of the +students in this instance was not unwelcome to them. That greeting +was, indeed, a frightful outburst of sound, the uproar of the carnivora +cage when the step of the bucket-bearing keeper is heard in the +distance. There was an offensive tone in it, perhaps, and yet in the +main it struck me as mere riotous outcry, the noisy reception of one +who amused and interested them, rather than of one they disliked or +despised. Challenger smiled with weary and tolerant contempt, as a +kindly man would meet the yapping of a litter of puppies. He sat +slowly down, blew out his chest, passed his hand caressingly down his +beard, and looked with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at the +crowded hall before him. The uproar of his advent had not yet died +away when Professor Ronald Murray, the chairman, and Mr. Waldron, the +lecturer, threaded their way to the front, and the proceedings began. + +Professor Murray will, I am sure, excuse me if I say that he has the +common fault of most Englishmen of being inaudible. Why on earth +people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take +the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange +mysteries of modern life. Their methods are as reasonable as to try to +pour some precious stuff from the spring to the reservoir through a +non-conducting pipe, which could by the least effort be opened. +Professor Murray made several profound remarks to his white tie and to +the water-carafe upon the table, with a humorous, twinkling aside to +the silver candlestick upon his right. Then he sat down, and Mr. +Waldron, the famous popular lecturer, rose amid a general murmur of +applause. He was a stern, gaunt man, with a harsh voice, and an +aggressive manner, but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate +the ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was +intelligible and even interesting to the lay public, with a happy knack +of being funny about the most unlikely objects, so that the precession +of the Equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly +humorous process as treated by him. + +It was a bird's-eye view of creation, as interpreted by science, which, +in language always clear and sometimes picturesque, he unfolded before +us. He told us of the globe, a huge mass of flaming gas, flaring +through the heavens. Then he pictured the solidification, the cooling, +the wrinkling which formed the mountains, the steam which turned to +water, the slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played +the inexplicable drama of life. On the origin of life itself he was +discreetly vague. That the germs of it could hardly have survived the +original roasting was, he declared, fairly certain. Therefore it had +come later. Had it built itself out of the cooling, inorganic elements +of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived from outside +upon a meteor? It was hardly conceivable. On the whole, the wisest +man was the least dogmatic upon the point. We could not--or at least +we had not succeeded up to date in making organic life in our +laboratories out of inorganic materials. The gulf between the dead and +the living was something which our chemistry could not as yet bridge. +But there was a higher and subtler chemistry of Nature, which, working +with great forces over long epochs, might well produce results which +were impossible for us. There the matter must be left. + +This brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, beginning +low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures, then up rung by rung +through reptiles and fishes, till at last we came to a kangaroo-rat, a +creature which brought forth its young alive, the direct ancestor of +all mammals, and presumably, therefore, of everyone in the audience. +("No, no," from a sceptical student in the back row.) If the young +gentleman in the red tie who cried "No, no," and who presumably claimed +to have been hatched out of an egg, would wait upon him after the +lecture, he would be glad to see such a curiosity. (Laughter.) It was +strange to think that the climax of all the age-long process of Nature +had been the creation of that gentleman in the red tie. But had the +process stopped? Was this gentleman to be taken as the final type--the +be-all and end-all of development? He hoped that he would not hurt the +feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that, +whatever virtues that gentleman might possess in private life, still +the vast processes of the universe were not fully justified if they +were to end entirely in his production. Evolution was not a spent +force, but one still working, and even greater achievements were in +store. + +Having thus, amid a general titter, played very prettily with his +interrupter, the lecturer went back to his picture of the past, the +drying of the seas, the emergence of the sand-bank, the sluggish, +viscous life which lay upon their margins, the overcrowded lagoons, the +tendency of the sea creatures to take refuge upon the mud-flats, the +abundance of food awaiting them, their consequent enormous growth. +"Hence, ladies and gentlemen," he added, "that frightful brood of +saurians which still affright our eyes when seen in the Wealden or in +the Solenhofen slates, but which were fortunately extinct long before +the first appearance of mankind upon this planet." + +"Question!" boomed a voice from the platform. + +Mr. Waldron was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid humor, as +exemplified upon the gentleman with the red tie, which made it perilous +to interrupt him. But this interjection appeared to him so absurd that +he was at a loss how to deal with it. So looks the Shakespearean who +is confronted by a rancid Baconian, or the astronomer who is assailed +by a flat-earth fanatic. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his +voice, repeated slowly the words: "Which were extinct before the +coming of man." + +"Question!" boomed the voice once more. + +Waldron looked with amazement along the line of professors upon the +platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, who leaned +back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused expression, as if he +were smiling in his sleep. + +"I see!" said Waldron, with a shrug. "It is my friend Professor +Challenger," and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this was a +final explanation and no more need be said. + +But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever path the lecturer +took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably to lead him to some +assertion as to extinct or prehistoric life which instantly brought the +same bulls' bellow from the Professor. The audience began to +anticipate it and to roar with delight when it came. The packed +benches of students joined in, and every time Challenger's beard +opened, before any sound could come forth, there was a yell of +"Question!" from a hundred voices, and an answering counter cry of +"Order!" and "Shame!" from as many more. Waldron, though a hardened +lecturer and a strong man, became rattled. He hesitated, stammered, +repeated himself, got snarled in a long sentence, and finally turned +furiously upon the cause of his troubles. + +"This is really intolerable!" he cried, glaring across the platform. +"I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to cease these ignorant and +unmannerly interruptions." + +There was a hush over the hall, the students rigid with delight at +seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves. +Challenger levered his bulky figure slowly out of his chair. + +"I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldron," he said, "to cease to make +assertions which are not in strict accordance with scientific fact." + +The words unloosed a tempest. "Shame! Shame!" "Give him a hearing!" +"Put him out!" "Shove him off the platform!" "Fair play!" emerged +from a general roar of amusement or execration. The chairman was on +his feet flapping both his hands and bleating excitedly. "Professor +Challenger--personal--views--later," were the solid peaks above his +clouds of inaudible mutter. The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his +beard, and relapsed into his chair. Waldron, very flushed and warlike, +continued his observations. Now and then, as he made an assertion, he +shot a venomous glance at his opponent, who seemed to be slumbering +deeply, with the same broad, happy smile upon his face. + +At last the lecture came to an end--I am inclined to think that it was +a premature one, as the peroration was hurried and disconnected. The +thread of the argument had been rudely broken, and the audience was +restless and expectant. Waldron sat down, and, after a chirrup from +the chairman, Professor Challenger rose and advanced to the edge of the +platform. In the interests of my paper I took down his speech verbatim. + +"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, amid a sustained interruption from +the back. "I beg pardon--Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children--I must +apologize, I had inadvertently omitted a considerable section of this +audience" (tumult, during which the Professor stood with one hand +raised and his enormous head nodding sympathetically, as if he were +bestowing a pontifical blessing upon the crowd), "I have been selected +to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and +imaginative address to which we have just listened. There are points +in it with which I disagree, and it has been my duty to indicate them +as they arose, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished his +object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting account +of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. Popular +lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron" (here he beamed +and blinked at the lecturer) "will excuse me when I say that they are +necessarily both superficial and misleading, since they have to be +graded to the comprehension of an ignorant audience." (Ironical +cheering.) "Popular lecturers are in their nature parasitic." (Angry +gesture of protest from Mr. Waldron.) "They exploit for fame or cash +the work which has been done by their indigent and unknown brethren. +One smallest new fact obtained in the laboratory, one brick built into +the temple of science, far outweighs any second-hand exposition which +passes an idle hour, but can leave no useful result behind it. I put +forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to disparage Mr. +Waldron in particular, but that you may not lose your sense of +proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest." (At this point +Mr. Waldron whispered to the chairman, who half rose and said something +severely to his water-carafe.) "But enough of this!" (Loud and +prolonged cheers.) "Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. +What is the particular point upon which I, as an original investigator, +have challenged our lecturer's accuracy? It is upon the permanence of +certain types of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this +subject as an amateur, nor, I may add, as a popular lecturer, but I +speak as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely +to facts, when I say that Mr. Waldron is very wrong in supposing that +because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric animal, +therefore these creatures no longer exist. They are indeed, as he has +said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use the expression, our +contemporary ancestors, who can still be found with all their hideous +and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and hardihood +to seek their haunts. Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic, +monsters who would hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest +mammals, still exist." (Cries of "Bosh!" "Prove it!" "How do YOU know?" +"Question!") "How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited +their secret haunts. I know because I have seen some of them." +(Applause, uproar, and a voice, "Liar!") "Am I a liar?" (General +hearty and noisy assent.) "Did I hear someone say that I was a liar? +Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up that I may know +him?" (A voice, "Here he is, sir!" and an inoffensive little person in +spectacles, struggling violently, was held up among a group of +students.) "Did you venture to call me a liar?" ("No, sir, no!" +shouted the accused, and disappeared like a jack-in-the-box.) "If any +person in this hall dares to doubt my veracity, I shall be glad to have +a few words with him after the lecture." ("Liar!") "Who said that?" +(Again the inoffensive one plunging desperately, was elevated high into +the air.) "If I come down among you----" (General chorus of "Come, +love, come!" which interrupted the proceedings for some moments, while +the chairman, standing up and waving both his arms, seemed to be +conducting the music. The Professor, with his face flushed, his +nostrils dilated, and his beard bristling, was now in a proper Berserk +mood.) "Every great discoverer has been met with the same +incredulity--the sure brand of a generation of fools. When great facts +are laid before you, you have not the intuition, the imagination which +would help you to understand them. You can only throw mud at the men +who have risked their lives to open new fields to science. You +persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin, and I----" (Prolonged +cheering and complete interruption.) + +All this is from my hurried notes taken at the time, which give little +notion of the absolute chaos to which the assembly had by this time +been reduced. So terrific was the uproar that several ladies had +already beaten a hurried retreat. Grave and reverend seniors seemed to +have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as the students, and I saw +white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate +Professor. The whole great audience seethed and simmered like a +boiling pot. The Professor took a step forward and raised both his +hands. There was something so big and arresting and virile in the man +that the clatter and shouting died gradually away before his commanding +gesture and his masterful eyes. He seemed to have a definite message. +They hushed to hear it. + +"I will not detain you," he said. "It is not worth it. Truth is +truth, and the noise of a number of foolish young men--and, I fear I +must add, of their equally foolish seniors--cannot affect the matter. +I claim that I have opened a new field of science. You dispute it." +(Cheers.) "Then I put you to the test. Will you accredit one or more +of your own number to go out as your representatives and test my +statement in your name?" + +Mr. Summerlee, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose among +the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man, with the withered aspect of a +theologian. He wished, he said, to ask Professor Challenger whether +the results to which he had alluded in his remarks had been obtained +during a journey to the headwaters of the Amazon made by him two years +before. + +Professor Challenger answered that they had. + +Mr. Summerlee desired to know how it was that Professor Challenger +claimed to have made discoveries in those regions which had been +overlooked by Wallace, Bates, and other previous explorers of +established scientific repute. + +Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerlee appeared to be +confusing the Amazon with the Thames; that it was in reality a somewhat +larger river; that Mr. Summerlee might be interested to know that with +the Orinoco, which communicated with it, some fifty thousand miles of +country were opened up, and that in so vast a space it was not +impossible for one person to find what another had missed. + +Mr. Summerlee declared, with an acid smile, that he fully appreciated +the difference between the Thames and the Amazon, which lay in the fact +that any assertion about the former could be tested, while about the +latter it could not. He would be obliged if Professor Challenger would +give the latitude and the longitude of the country in which prehistoric +animals were to be found. + +Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information for good +reasons of his own, but would be prepared to give it with proper +precautions to a committee chosen from the audience. Would Mr. +Summerlee serve on such a committee and test his story in person? + +Mr. Summerlee: "Yes, I will." (Great cheering.) + +Professor Challenger: "Then I guarantee that I will place in your +hands such material as will enable you to find your way. It is only +right, however, since Mr. Summerlee goes to check my statement that I +should have one or more with him who may check his. I will not +disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers. Mr. +Summerlee will need a younger colleague. May I ask for volunteers?" + +It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him. +Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to +pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in my +dreams? But Gladys--was it not the very opportunity of which she +spoke? Gladys would have told me to go. I had sprung to my feet. I +was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my +companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, "Sit +down, Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself." At the same time I +was aware that a tall, thin man, with dark gingery hair, a few seats in +front of me, was also upon his feet. He glared back at me with hard +angry eyes, but I refused to give way. + +"I will go, Mr. Chairman," I kept repeating over and over again. + +"Name! Name!" cried the audience. + +"My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily +Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness." + +"What is YOUR name, sir?" the chairman asked of my tall rival. + +"I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon, I know all +the ground, and have special qualifications for this investigation." + +"Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveler is, of +course, world-famous," said the chairman; "at the same time it would +certainly be as well to have a member of the Press upon such an +expedition." + +"Then I move," said Professor Challenger, "that both these gentlemen be +elected, as representatives of this meeting, to accompany Professor +Summerlee upon his journey to investigate and to report upon the truth +of my statements." + +And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided, and I found +myself borne away in the human current which swirled towards the door, +with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so +suddenly before it. As I emerged from the hall I was conscious for a +moment of a rush of laughing students--down the pavement, and of an arm +wielding a heavy umbrella, which rose and fell in the midst of them. +Then, amid a mixture of groans and cheers, Professor Challenger's +electric brougham slid from the curb, and I found myself walking under +the silvery lights of Regent Street, full of thoughts of Gladys and of +wonder as to my future. + +Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow. I turned, and found myself +looking into the humorous, masterful eyes of the tall, thin man who had +volunteered to be my companion on this strange quest. + +"Mr. Malone, I understand," said he. "We are to be companions--what? +My rooms are just over the road, in the Albany. Perhaps you would have +the kindness to spare me half an hour, for there are one or two things +that I badly want to say to you." + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + "I was the Flail of the Lord" + +Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the +dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery. At the end of a long +drab passage my new acquaintance pushed open a door and turned on an +electric switch. A number of lamps shining through tinted shades +bathed the whole great room before us in a ruddy radiance. Standing in +the doorway and glancing round me, I had a general impression of +extraordinary comfort and elegance combined with an atmosphere of +masculine virility. Everywhere there were mingled the luxury of the +wealthy man of taste and the careless untidiness of the bachelor. Rich +furs and strange iridescent mats from some Oriental bazaar were +scattered upon the floor. Pictures and prints which even my +unpractised eyes could recognize as being of great price and rarity +hung thick upon the walls. Sketches of boxers, of ballet-girls, and of +racehorses alternated with a sensuous Fragonard, a martial Girardet, +and a dreamy Turner. But amid these varied ornaments there were +scattered the trophies which brought back strongly to my recollection +the fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great all-round sportsmen +and athletes of his day. A dark-blue oar crossed with a cherry-pink +one above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man, +while the foils and boxing-gloves above and below them were the tools +of a man who had won supremacy with each. Like a dado round the room +was the jutting line of splendid heavy game-heads, the best of their +sort from every quarter of the world, with the rare white rhinoceros of +the Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all. + +In the center of the rich red carpet was a black and gold Louis Quinze +table, a lovely antique, now sacrilegiously desecrated with marks of +glasses and the scars of cigar-stumps. On it stood a silver tray of +smokables and a burnished spirit-stand, from which and an adjacent +siphon my silent host proceeded to charge two high glasses. Having +indicated an arm-chair to me and placed my refreshment near it, he +handed me a long, smooth Havana. Then, seating himself opposite to me, +he looked at me long and fixedly with his strange, twinkling, reckless +eyes--eyes of a cold light blue, the color of a glacier lake. + +Through the thin haze of my cigar-smoke I noted the details of a face +which was already familiar to me from many photographs--the +strongly-curved nose, the hollow, worn cheeks, the dark, ruddy hair, +thin at the top, the crisp, virile moustaches, the small, aggressive +tuft upon his projecting chin. Something there was of Napoleon III., +something of Don Quixote, and yet again something which was the essence +of the English country gentleman, the keen, alert, open-air lover of +dogs and of horses. His skin was of a rich flower-pot red from sun and +wind. His eyebrows were tufted and overhanging, which gave those +naturally cold eyes an almost ferocious aspect, an impression which was +increased by his strong and furrowed brow. In figure he was spare, but +very strongly built--indeed, he had often proved that there were few +men in England capable of such sustained exertions. His height was a +little over six feet, but he seemed shorter on account of a peculiar +rounding of the shoulders. Such was the famous Lord John Roxton as he +sat opposite to me, biting hard upon his cigar and watching me steadily +in a long and embarrassing silence. + +"Well," said he, at last, "we've gone and done it, young fellah my +lad." (This curious phrase he pronounced as if it were all one +word--"young-fellah-me-lad.") "Yes, we've taken a jump, you an' me. I +suppose, now, when you went into that room there was no such notion in +your head--what?" + +"No thought of it." + +"The same here. No thought of it. And here we are, up to our necks in +the tureen. Why, I've only been back three weeks from Uganda, and +taken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. Pretty goin's +on--what? How does it hit you?" + +"Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a journalist on +the Gazette." + +"Of course--you said so when you took it on. By the way, I've got a +small job for you, if you'll help me." + +"With pleasure." + +"Don't mind takin' a risk, do you?" + +"What is the risk?" + +"Well, it's Ballinger--he's the risk. You've heard of him?" + +"No." + +"Why, young fellah, where HAVE you lived? Sir John Ballinger is the +best gentleman jock in the north country. I could hold him on the flat +at my best, but over jumps he's my master. Well, it's an open secret +that when he's out of trainin' he drinks hard--strikin' an average, he +calls it. He got delirium on Toosday, and has been ragin' like a devil +ever since. His room is above this. The doctors say that it is all up +with the old dear unless some food is got into him, but as he lies in +bed with a revolver on his coverlet, and swears he will put six of the +best through anyone that comes near him, there's been a bit of a strike +among the serving-men. He's a hard nail, is Jack, and a dead shot, +too, but you can't leave a Grand National winner to die like +that--what?" + +"What do you mean to do, then?" I asked. + +"Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be dozin', +and at the worst he can only wing one of us, and the other should have +him. If we can get his bolster-cover round his arms and then 'phone up +a stomach-pump, we'll give the old dear the supper of his life." + +It was a rather desperate business to come suddenly into one's day's +work. I don't think that I am a particularly brave man. I have an +Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terrible +than they are. On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror of +cowardice and with a terror of such a stigma. I dare say that I could +throw myself over a precipice, like the Hun in the history books, if my +courage to do it were questioned, and yet it would surely be pride and +fear, rather than courage, which would be my inspiration. Therefore, +although every nerve in my body shrank from the whisky-maddened figure +which I pictured in the room above, I still answered, in as careless a +voice as I could command, that I was ready to go. Some further remark +of Lord Roxton's about the danger only made me irritable. + +"Talking won't make it any better," said I. "Come on." + +I rose from my chair and he from his. Then with a little confidential +chuckle of laughter, he patted me two or three times on the chest, +finally pushing me back into my chair. + +"All right, sonny my lad--you'll do," said he. I looked up in surprise. + +"I saw after Jack Ballinger myself this mornin'. He blew a hole in the +skirt of my kimono, bless his shaky old hand, but we got a jacket on +him, and he's to be all right in a week. I say, young fellah, I hope +you don't mind--what? You see, between you an' me close-tiled, I look +on this South American business as a mighty serious thing, and if I +have a pal with me I want a man I can bank on. So I sized you down, +and I'm bound to say that you came well out of it. You see, it's all +up to you and me, for this old Summerlee man will want dry-nursin' from +the first. By the way, are you by any chance the Malone who is +expected to get his Rugby cap for Ireland?" + +"A reserve, perhaps." + +"I thought I remembered your face. Why, I was there when you got that +try against Richmond--as fine a swervin' run as I saw the whole season. +I never miss a Rugby match if I can help it, for it is the manliest +game we have left. Well, I didn't ask you in here just to talk sport. +We've got to fix our business. Here are the sailin's, on the first +page of the Times. There's a Booth boat for Para next Wednesday week, +and if the Professor and you can work it, I think we should take +it--what? Very good, I'll fix it with him. What about your outfit?" + +"My paper will see to that." + +"Can you shoot?" + +"About average Territorial standard." + +"Good Lord! as bad as that? It's the last thing you young fellahs +think of learnin'. You're all bees without stings, so far as lookin' +after the hive goes. You'll look silly, some o' these days, when +someone comes along an' sneaks the honey. But you'll need to hold your +gun straight in South America, for, unless our friend the Professor is +a madman or a liar, we may see some queer things before we get back. +What gun have you?" + +He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught a +glimpse of glistening rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes of an +organ. + +"I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery," said he. + +One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening and +shutting them with a snap and a clang, and then patting them as he put +them back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would fondle her +children. + +"This is a Bland's .577 axite express," said he. "I got that big +fellow with it." He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. "Ten more +yards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection. + + 'On that conical bullet his one chance hangs, + 'Tis the weak one's advantage fair.' + +Hope you know your Gordon, for he's the poet of the horse and the gun +and the man that handles both. Now, here's a useful tool--.470, +telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to three-fifty. +That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave-drivers three years +ago. I was the flail of the Lord up in those parts, I may tell you, +though you won't find it in any Blue-book. There are times, young +fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and +justice, or you never feel clean again. That's why I made a little war +on my own. Declared it myself, waged it myself, ended it myself. Each +of those nicks is for a slave murderer--a good row of them--what? That +big one is for Pedro Lopez, the king of them all, that I killed in a +backwater of the Putomayo River. Now, here's something that would do +for you." He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle. "Well +rubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip. +You can trust your life to that." He handed it to me and closed the +door of his oak cabinet. + +"By the way," he continued, coming back to his chair, "what do you know +of this Professor Challenger?" + +"I never saw him till to-day." + +"Well, neither did I. It's funny we should both sail under sealed +orders from a man we don't know. He seemed an uppish old bird. His +brothers of science don't seem too fond of him, either. How came you +to take an interest in the affair?" + +I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he listened +intently. Then he drew out a map of South America and laid it on the +table. + +"I believe every single word he said to you was the truth," said he, +earnestly, "and, mind you, I have something to go on when I speak like +that. South America is a place I love, and I think, if you take it +right through from Darien to Fuego, it's the grandest, richest, most +wonderful bit of earth upon this planet. People don't know it yet, and +don't realize what it may become. I've been up an' down it from end to +end, and had two dry seasons in those very parts, as I told you when I +spoke of the war I made on the slave-dealers. Well, when I was up +there I heard some yarns of the same kind--traditions of Indians and +the like, but with somethin' behind them, no doubt. The more you knew +of that country, young fellah, the more you would understand that +anythin' was possible--ANYTHIN'! There are just some narrow +water-lanes along which folk travel, and outside that it is all +darkness. Now, down here in the Matto Grande"--he swept his cigar over +a part of the map--"or up in this corner where three countries meet, +nothin' would surprise me. As that chap said to-night, there are +fifty-thousand miles of water-way runnin' through a forest that is very +near the size of Europe. You and I could be as far away from each +other as Scotland is from Constantinople, and yet each of us be in the +same great Brazilian forest. Man has just made a track here and a +scrape there in the maze. Why, the river rises and falls the best part +of forty feet, and half the country is a morass that you can't pass +over. Why shouldn't somethin' new and wonderful lie in such a country? +And why shouldn't we be the men to find it out? Besides," he added, +his queer, gaunt face shining with delight, "there's a sportin' risk in +every mile of it. I'm like an old golf-ball--I've had all the white +paint knocked off me long ago. Life can whack me about now, and it +can't leave a mark. But a sportin' risk, young fellah, that's the salt +of existence. Then it's worth livin' again. We're all gettin' a deal +too soft and dull and comfy. Give me the great waste lands and the +wide spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin' to look for that's +worth findin'. I've tried war and steeplechasin' and aeroplanes, but +this huntin' of beasts that look like a lobster-supper dream is a +brand-new sensation." He chuckled with glee at the prospect. + +Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this new acquaintance, but he is to +be my comrade for many a day, and so I have tried to set him down as I +first saw him, with his quaint personality and his queer little tricks +of speech and of thought. It was only the need of getting in the +account of my meeting which drew me at last from his company. I left +him seated amid his pink radiance, oiling the lock of his favorite +rifle, while he still chuckled to himself at the thought of the +adventures which awaited us. It was very clear to me that if dangers +lay before us I could not in all England have found a cooler head or a +braver spirit with which to share them. + +That night, wearied as I was after the wonderful happenings of the day, +I sat late with McArdle, the news editor, explaining to him the whole +situation, which he thought important enough to bring next morning +before the notice of Sir George Beaumont, the chief. It was agreed +that I should write home full accounts of my adventures in the shape of +successive letters to McArdle, and that these should either be edited +for the Gazette as they arrived, or held back to be published later, +according to the wishes of Professor Challenger, since we could not yet +know what conditions he might attach to those directions which should +guide us to the unknown land. In response to a telephone inquiry, we +received nothing more definite than a fulmination against the Press, +ending up with the remark that if we would notify our boat he would +hand us any directions which he might think it proper to give us at the +moment of starting. A second question from us failed to elicit any +answer at all, save a plaintive bleat from his wife to the effect that +her husband was in a very violent temper already, and that she hoped we +would do nothing to make it worse. A third attempt, later in the day, +provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent message from the Central +Exchange that Professor Challenger's receiver had been shattered. +After that we abandoned all attempt at communication. + +And now my patient readers, I can address you directly no longer. From +now onwards (if, indeed, any continuation of this narrative should ever +reach you) it can only be through the paper which I represent. In the +hands of the editor I leave this account of the events which have led +up to one of the most remarkable expeditions of all time, so that if I +never return to England there shall be some record as to how the affair +came about. I am writing these last lines in the saloon of the Booth +liner Francisca, and they will go back by the pilot to the keeping of +Mr. McArdle. Let me draw one last picture before I close the +notebook--a picture which is the last memory of the old country which I +bear away with me. It is a wet, foggy morning in the late spring; a +thin, cold rain is falling. Three shining mackintoshed figures are +walking down the quay, making for the gang-plank of the great liner +from which the blue-peter is flying. In front of them a porter pushes +a trolley piled high with trunks, wraps, and gun-cases. Professor +Summerlee, a long, melancholy figure, walks with dragging steps and +drooping head, as one who is already profoundly sorry for himself. +Lord John Roxton steps briskly, and his thin, eager face beams forth +between his hunting-cap and his muffler. As for myself, I am glad to +have got the bustling days of preparation and the pangs of leave-taking +behind me, and I have no doubt that I show it in my bearing. Suddenly, +just as we reach the vessel, there is a shout behind us. It is +Professor Challenger, who had promised to see us off. He runs after +us, a puffing, red-faced, irascible figure. + +"No thank you," says he; "I should much prefer not to go aboard. I +have only a few words to say to you, and they can very well be said +where we are. I beg you not to imagine that I am in any way indebted +to you for making this journey. I would have you to understand that it +is a matter of perfect indifference to me, and I refuse to entertain +the most remote sense of personal obligation. Truth is truth, and +nothing which you can report can affect it in any way, though it may +excite the emotions and allay the curiosity of a number of very +ineffectual people. My directions for your instruction and guidance +are in this sealed envelope. You will open it when you reach a town +upon the Amazon which is called Manaos, but not until the date and hour +which is marked upon the outside. Have I made myself clear? I leave +the strict observance of my conditions entirely to your honor. No, Mr. +Malone, I will place no restriction upon your correspondence, since the +ventilation of the facts is the object of your journey; but I demand +that you shall give no particulars as to your exact destination, and +that nothing be actually published until your return. Good-bye, sir. +You have done something to mitigate my feelings for the loathsome +profession to which you unhappily belong. Good-bye, Lord John. +Science is, as I understand, a sealed book to you; but you may +congratulate yourself upon the hunting-field which awaits you. You +will, no doubt, have the opportunity of describing in the Field how you +brought down the rocketing dimorphodon. And good-bye to you also, +Professor Summerlee. If you are still capable of self-improvement, of +which I am frankly unconvinced, you will surely return to London a +wiser man." + +So he turned upon his heel, and a minute later from the deck I could +see his short, squat figure bobbing about in the distance as he made +his way back to his train. Well, we are well down Channel now. +There's the last bell for letters, and it's good-bye to the pilot. +We'll be "down, hull-down, on the old trail" from now on. God bless +all we leave behind us, and send us safely back. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + "To-morrow we Disappear into the Unknown" + +I will not bore those whom this narrative may reach by an account of +our luxurious voyage upon the Booth liner, nor will I tell of our +week's stay at Para (save that I should wish to acknowledge the great +kindness of the Pereira da Pinta Company in helping us to get together +our equipment). I will also allude very briefly to our river journey, +up a wide, slow-moving, clay-tinted stream, in a steamer which was +little smaller than that which had carried us across the Atlantic. +Eventually we found ourselves through the narrows of Obidos and reached +the town of Manaos. Here we were rescued from the limited attractions +of the local inn by Mr. Shortman, the representative of the British and +Brazilian Trading Company. In his hospitable Fazenda we spent our time +until the day when we were empowered to open the letter of instructions +given to us by Professor Challenger. Before I reach the surprising +events of that date I would desire to give a clearer sketch of my +comrades in this enterprise, and of the associates whom we had already +gathered together in South America. I speak freely, and I leave the +use of my material to your own discretion, Mr. McArdle, since it is +through your hands that this report must pass before it reaches the +world. + +The scientific attainments of Professor Summerlee are too well known +for me to trouble to recapitulate them. He is better equipped for a +rough expedition of this sort than one would imagine at first sight. +His tall, gaunt, stringy figure is insensible to fatigue, and his dry, +half-sarcastic, and often wholly unsympathetic manner is uninfluenced +by any change in his surroundings. Though in his sixty-sixth year, I +have never heard him express any dissatisfaction at the occasional +hardships which we have had to encounter. I had regarded his presence +as an encumbrance to the expedition, but, as a matter of fact, I am now +well convinced that his power of endurance is as great as my own. In +temper he is naturally acid and sceptical. From the beginning he has +never concealed his belief that Professor Challenger is an absolute +fraud, that we are all embarked upon an absurd wild-goose chase and +that we are likely to reap nothing but disappointment and danger in +South America, and corresponding ridicule in England. Such are the +views which, with much passionate distortion of his thin features and +wagging of his thin, goat-like beard, he poured into our ears all the +way from Southampton to Manaos. Since landing from the boat he has +obtained some consolation from the beauty and variety of the insect and +bird life around him, for he is absolutely whole-hearted in his +devotion to science. He spends his days flitting through the woods +with his shot-gun and his butterfly-net, and his evenings in mounting +the many specimens he has acquired. Among his minor peculiarities are +that he is careless as to his attire, unclean in his person, +exceedingly absent-minded in his habits, and addicted to smoking a +short briar pipe, which is seldom out of his mouth. He has been upon +several scientific expeditions in his youth (he was with Robertson in +Papua), and the life of the camp and the canoe is nothing fresh to him. + +Lord John Roxton has some points in common with Professor Summerlee, +and others in which they are the very antithesis to each other. He is +twenty years younger, but has something of the same spare, scraggy +physique. As to his appearance, I have, as I recollect, described it +in that portion of my narrative which I have left behind me in London. +He is exceedingly neat and prim in his ways, dresses always with great +care in white drill suits and high brown mosquito-boots, and shaves at +least once a day. Like most men of action, he is laconic in speech, +and sinks readily into his own thoughts, but he is always quick to +answer a question or join in a conversation, talking in a queer, jerky, +half-humorous fashion. His knowledge of the world, and very especially +of South America, is surprising, and he has a whole-hearted belief in +the possibilities of our journey which is not to be dashed by the +sneers of Professor Summerlee. He has a gentle voice and a quiet +manner, but behind his twinkling blue eyes there lurks a capacity for +furious wrath and implacable resolution, the more dangerous because +they are held in leash. He spoke little of his own exploits in Brazil +and Peru, but it was a revelation to me to find the excitement which +was caused by his presence among the riverine natives, who looked upon +him as their champion and protector. The exploits of the Red Chief, as +they called him, had become legends among them, but the real facts, as +far as I could learn them, were amazing enough. + +These were that Lord John had found himself some years before in that +no-man's-land which is formed by the half-defined frontiers between +Peru, Brazil, and Columbia. In this great district the wild rubber +tree flourishes, and has become, as in the Congo, a curse to the +natives which can only be compared to their forced labor under the +Spaniards upon the old silver mines of Darien. A handful of villainous +half-breeds dominated the country, armed such Indians as would support +them, and turned the rest into slaves, terrorizing them with the most +inhuman tortures in order to force them to gather the india-rubber, +which was then floated down the river to Para. Lord John Roxton +expostulated on behalf of the wretched victims, and received nothing +but threats and insults for his pains. He then formally declared war +against Pedro Lopez, the leader of the slave-drivers, enrolled a band +of runaway slaves in his service, armed them, and conducted a campaign, +which ended by his killing with his own hands the notorious half-breed +and breaking down the system which he represented. + +No wonder that the ginger-headed man with the silky voice and the free +and easy manners was now looked upon with deep interest upon the banks +of the great South American river, though the feelings he inspired were +naturally mixed, since the gratitude of the natives was equaled by the +resentment of those who desired to exploit them. One useful result of +his former experiences was that he could talk fluently in the Lingoa +Geral, which is the peculiar talk, one-third Portuguese and two-thirds +Indian, which is current all over Brazil. + +I have said before that Lord John Roxton was a South Americomaniac. He +could not speak of that great country without ardor, and this ardor was +infectious, for, ignorant as I was, he fixed my attention and +stimulated my curiosity. How I wish I could reproduce the glamour of +his discourses, the peculiar mixture of accurate knowledge and of racy +imagination which gave them their fascination, until even the +Professor's cynical and sceptical smile would gradually vanish from his +thin face as he listened. He would tell the history of the mighty +river so rapidly explored (for some of the first conquerors of Peru +actually crossed the entire continent upon its waters), and yet so +unknown in regard to all that lay behind its ever-changing banks. + +"What is there?" he would cry, pointing to the north. "Wood and marsh +and unpenetrated jungle. Who knows what it may shelter? And there to +the south? A wilderness of swampy forest, where no white man has ever +been. The unknown is up against us on every side. Outside the narrow +lines of the rivers what does anyone know? Who will say what is +possible in such a country? Why should old man Challenger not be +right?" At which direct defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear +upon Professor Summerlee's face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic +head in unsympathetic silence, behind the cloud of his briar-root pipe. + + +So much, for the moment, for my two white companions, whose characters +and limitations will be further exposed, as surely as my own, as this +narrative proceeds. But already we have enrolled certain retainers who +may play no small part in what is to come. The first is a gigantic +negro named Zambo, who is a black Hercules, as willing as any horse, +and about as intelligent. Him we enlisted at Para, on the +recommendation of the steamship company, on whose vessels he had +learned to speak a halting English. + +It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two half-breeds +from up the river, just come down with a cargo of redwood. They were +swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce, as active and wiry as panthers. +Both of them had spent their lives in those upper waters of the Amazon +which we were about to explore, and it was this recommendation which +had caused Lord John to engage them. One of them, Gomez, had the +further advantage that he could speak excellent English. These men +were willing to act as our personal servants, to cook, to row, or to +make themselves useful in any way at a payment of fifteen dollars a +month. Besides these, we had engaged three Mojo Indians from Bolivia, +who are the most skilful at fishing and boat work of all the river +tribes. The chief of these we called Mojo, after his tribe, and the +others are known as Jose and Fernando. Three white men, then, two +half-breeds, one negro, and three Indians made up the personnel of the +little expedition which lay waiting for its instructions at Manaos +before starting upon its singular quest. + +At last, after a weary week, the day had come and the hour. I ask you +to picture the shaded sitting-room of the Fazenda St. Ignatio, two +miles inland from the town of Manaos. Outside lay the yellow, brassy +glare of the sunshine, with the shadows of the palm trees as black and +definite as the trees themselves. The air was calm, full of the +eternal hum of insects, a tropical chorus of many octaves, from the +deep drone of the bee to the high, keen pipe of the mosquito. Beyond +the veranda was a small cleared garden, bounded with cactus hedges and +adorned with clumps of flowering shrubs, round which the great blue +butterflies and the tiny humming-birds fluttered and darted in +crescents of sparkling light. Within we were seated round the cane +table, on which lay a sealed envelope. Inscribed upon it, in the +jagged handwriting of Professor Challenger, were the words:-- + + +"Instructions to Lord John Roxton and party. To be opened at Manaos +upon July 15th, at 12 o'clock precisely." + + +Lord John had placed his watch upon the table beside him. + +"We have seven more minutes," said he. "The old dear is very precise." + +Professor Summerlee gave an acid smile as he picked up the envelope in +his gaunt hand. + +"What can it possibly matter whether we open it now or in seven +minutes?" said he. "It is all part and parcel of the same system of +quackery and nonsense, for which I regret to say that the writer is +notorious." + +"Oh, come, we must play the game accordin' to rules," said Lord John. +"It's old man Challenger's show and we are here by his good will, so it +would be rotten bad form if we didn't follow his instructions to the +letter." + +"A pretty business it is!" cried the Professor, bitterly. "It struck +me as preposterous in London, but I'm bound to say that it seems even +more so upon closer acquaintance. I don't know what is inside this +envelope, but, unless it is something pretty definite, I shall be much +tempted to take the next down-river boat and catch the Bolivia at Para. +After all, I have some more responsible work in the world than to run +about disproving the assertions of a lunatic. Now, Roxton, surely it +is time." + +"Time it is," said Lord John. "You can blow the whistle." He took up +the envelope and cut it with his penknife. From it he drew a folded +sheet of paper. This he carefully opened out and flattened on the +table. It was a blank sheet. He turned it over. Again it was blank. +We looked at each other in a bewildered silence, which was broken by a +discordant burst of derisive laughter from Professor Summerlee. + +"It is an open admission," he cried. "What more do you want? The +fellow is a self-confessed humbug. We have only to return home and +report him as the brazen imposter that he is." + +"Invisible ink!" I suggested. + +"I don't think!" said Lord Roxton, holding the paper to the light. +"No, young fellah my lad, there is no use deceiving yourself. I'll go +bail for it that nothing has ever been written upon this paper." + +"May I come in?" boomed a voice from the veranda. + +The shadow of a squat figure had stolen across the patch of sunlight. +That voice! That monstrous breadth of shoulder! We sprang to our feet +with a gasp of astonishment as Challenger, in a round, boyish straw-hat +with a colored ribbon--Challenger, with his hands in his jacket-pockets +and his canvas shoes daintily pointing as he walked--appeared in the +open space before us. He threw back his head, and there he stood in +the golden glow with all his old Assyrian luxuriance of beard, all his +native insolence of drooping eyelids and intolerant eyes. + +"I fear," said he, taking out his watch, "that I am a few minutes too +late. When I gave you this envelope I must confess that I had never +intended that you should open it, for it had been my fixed intention to +be with you before the hour. The unfortunate delay can be apportioned +between a blundering pilot and an intrusive sandbank. I fear that it +has given my colleague, Professor Summerlee, occasion to blaspheme." + +"I am bound to say, sir," said Lord John, with some sternness of voice, +"that your turning up is a considerable relief to us, for our mission +seemed to have come to a premature end. Even now I can't for the life +of me understand why you should have worked it in so extraordinary a +manner." + +Instead of answering, Professor Challenger entered, shook hands with +myself and Lord John, bowed with ponderous insolence to Professor +Summerlee, and sank back into a basket-chair, which creaked and swayed +beneath his weight. + +"Is all ready for your journey?" he asked. + +"We can start to-morrow." + +"Then so you shall. You need no chart of directions now, since you +will have the inestimable advantage of my own guidance. From the first +I had determined that I would myself preside over your investigation. +The most elaborate charts would, as you will readily admit, be a poor +substitute for my own intelligence and advice. As to the small ruse +which I played upon you in the matter of the envelope, it is clear +that, had I told you all my intentions, I should have been forced to +resist unwelcome pressure to travel out with you." + +"Not from me, sir!" exclaimed Professor Summerlee, heartily. "So long +as there was another ship upon the Atlantic." + +Challenger waved him away with his great hairy hand. + +"Your common sense will, I am sure, sustain my objection and realize +that it was better that I should direct my own movements and appear +only at the exact moment when my presence was needed. That moment has +now arrived. You are in safe hands. You will not now fail to reach +your destination. From henceforth I take command of this expedition, +and I must ask you to complete your preparations to-night, so that we +may be able to make an early start in the morning. My time is of +value, and the same thing may be said, no doubt, in a lesser degree of +your own. I propose, therefore, that we push on as rapidly as +possible, until I have demonstrated what you have come to see." + +Lord John Roxton has chartered a large steam launch, the Esmeralda, +which was to carry us up the river. So far as climate goes, it was +immaterial what time we chose for our expedition, as the temperature +ranges from seventy-five to ninety degrees both summer and winter, with +no appreciable difference in heat. In moisture, however, it is +otherwise; from December to May is the period of the rains, and during +this time the river slowly rises until it attains a height of nearly +forty feet above its low-water mark. It floods the banks, extends in +great lagoons over a monstrous waste of country, and forms a huge +district, called locally the Gapo, which is for the most part too +marshy for foot-travel and too shallow for boating. About June the +waters begin to fall, and are at their lowest at October or November. +Thus our expedition was at the time of the dry season, when the great +river and its tributaries were more or less in a normal condition. + +The current of the river is a slight one, the drop being not greater +than eight inches in a mile. No stream could be more convenient for +navigation, since the prevailing wind is south-east, and sailing boats +may make a continuous progress to the Peruvian frontier, dropping down +again with the current. In our own case the excellent engines of the +Esmeralda could disregard the sluggish flow of the stream, and we made +as rapid progress as if we were navigating a stagnant lake. For three +days we steamed north-westwards up a stream which even here, a thousand +miles from its mouth, was still so enormous that from its center the +two banks were mere shadows upon the distant skyline. On the fourth +day after leaving Manaos we turned into a tributary which at its mouth +was little smaller than the main stream. It narrowed rapidly, however, +and after two more days' steaming we reached an Indian village, where +the Professor insisted that we should land, and that the Esmeralda +should be sent back to Manaos. We should soon come upon rapids, he +explained, which would make its further use impossible. He added +privately that we were now approaching the door of the unknown country, +and that the fewer whom we took into our confidence the better it would +be. To this end also he made each of us give our word of honor that we +would publish or say nothing which would give any exact clue as to the +whereabouts of our travels, while the servants were all solemnly sworn +to the same effect. It is for this reason that I am compelled to be +vague in my narrative, and I would warn my readers that in any map or +diagram which I may give the relation of places to each other may be +correct, but the points of the compass are carefully confused, so that +in no way can it be taken as an actual guide to the country. Professor +Challenger's reasons for secrecy may be valid or not, but we had no +choice but to adopt them, for he was prepared to abandon the whole +expedition rather than modify the conditions upon which he would guide +us. + +It was August 2nd when we snapped our last link with the outer world by +bidding farewell to the Esmeralda. Since then four days have passed, +during which we have engaged two large canoes from the Indians, made of +so light a material (skins over a bamboo framework) that we should be +able to carry them round any obstacle. These we have loaded with all +our effects, and have engaged two additional Indians to help us in the +navigation. I understand that they are the very two--Ataca and Ipetu +by name--who accompanied Professor Challenger upon his previous +journey. They appeared to be terrified at the prospect of repeating +it, but the chief has patriarchal powers in these countries, and if the +bargain is good in his eyes the clansman has little choice in the +matter. + +So to-morrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am +transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to +those who are interested in our fate. I have, according to our +arrangement, addressed it to you, my dear Mr. McArdle, and I leave it +to your discretion to delete, alter, or do what you like with it. From +the assurance of Professor Challenger's manner--and in spite of the +continued scepticism of Professor Summerlee--I have no doubt that our +leader will make good his statement, and that we are really on the eve +of some most remarkable experiences. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + "The Outlying Pickets of the New World" + +Our friends at home may well rejoice with us, for we are at our goal, +and up to a point, at least, we have shown that the statement of +Professor Challenger can be verified. We have not, it is true, +ascended the plateau, but it lies before us, and even Professor +Summerlee is in a more chastened mood. Not that he will for an instant +admit that his rival could be right, but he is less persistent in his +incessant objections, and has sunk for the most part into an observant +silence. I must hark back, however, and continue my narrative from +where I dropped it. We are sending home one of our local Indians who +is injured, and I am committing this letter to his charge, with +considerable doubts in my mind as to whether it will ever come to hand. + +When I wrote last we were about to leave the Indian village where we +had been deposited by the Esmeralda. I have to begin my report by bad +news, for the first serious personal trouble (I pass over the incessant +bickerings between the Professors) occurred this evening, and might +have had a tragic ending. I have spoken of our English-speaking +half-breed, Gomez--a fine worker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, I +fancy, with the vice of curiosity, which is common enough among such +men. On the last evening he seems to have hid himself near the hut in +which we were discussing our plans, and, being observed by our huge +negro Zambo, who is as faithful as a dog and has the hatred which all +his race bear to the half-breeds, he was dragged out and carried into +our presence. Gomez whipped out his knife, however, and but for the +huge strength of his captor, which enabled him to disarm him with one +hand, he would certainly have stabbed him. The matter has ended in +reprimands, the opponents have been compelled to shake hands, and there +is every hope that all will be well. As to the feuds of the two +learned men, they are continuous and bitter. It must be admitted that +Challenger is provocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acid +tongue, which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that he +never cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river, as +it was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He is convinced, of +course, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. Summerlee rejoined, +however, with a sour smile, by saying that he understood that Millbank +Prison had been pulled down. Challenger's conceit is too colossal to +allow him to be really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and +repeated "Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a +child. Indeed, they are children both--the one wizened and +cantankerous, the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a +brain which has put him in the front rank of his scientific age. +Brain, character, soul--only as one sees more of life does one +understand how distinct is each. + +The very next day we did actually make our start upon this remarkable +expedition. We found that all our possessions fitted very easily into +the two canoes, and we divided our personnel, six in each, taking the +obvious precaution in the interests of peace of putting one Professor +into each canoe. Personally, I was with Challenger, who was in a +beatific humor, moving about as one in a silent ecstasy and beaming +benevolence from every feature. I have had some experience of him in +other moods, however, and shall be the less surprised when the +thunderstorms suddenly come up amidst the sunshine. If it is +impossible to be at your ease, it is equally impossible to be dull in +his company, for one is always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as to +what sudden turn his formidable temper may take. + +For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundreds of +yards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that one could +usually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are, half of them, +of this nature, while the other half are whitish and opaque, the +difference depending upon the class of country through which they have +flowed. The dark indicate vegetable decay, while the others point to +clayey soil. Twice we came across rapids, and in each case made a +portage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either side +were primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of the +second growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes +through them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The +height of the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything +which I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards in +magnificent columns until, at an enormous distance above our heads, we +could dimly discern the spot where they threw out their side-branches +into Gothic upward curves which coalesced to form one great matted roof +of verdure, through which only an occasional golden ray of sunshine +shot downwards to trace a thin dazzling line of light amidst the +majestic obscurity. As we walked noiselessly amid the thick, soft +carpet of decaying vegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comes +upon us in the twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger's +full-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should have been +ignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men of science +pointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, and the redwood +trees, with all that profusion of various plants which has made this +continent the chief supplier to the human race of those gifts of Nature +which depend upon the vegetable world, while it is the most backward in +those products which come from animal life. Vivid orchids and +wonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and +where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, +the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of +ipomaea, the effect was as a dream of fairyland. In these great wastes +of forest, life, which abhors darkness, struggles ever upwards to the +light. Every plant, even the smaller ones, curls and writhes to the +green surface, twining itself round its stronger and taller brethren in +the effort. Climbing plants are monstrous and luxuriant, but others +which have never been known to climb elsewhere learn the art as an +escape from that somber shadow, so that the common nettle, the jasmine, +and even the jacitara palm tree can be seen circling the stems of the +cedars and striving to reach their crowns. Of animal life there was no +movement amid the majestic vaulted aisles which stretched from us as we +walked, but a constant movement far above our heads told of that +multitudinous world of snake and monkey, bird and sloth, which lived in +the sunshine, and looked down in wonder at our tiny, dark, stumbling +figures in the obscure depths immeasurably below them. At dawn and at +sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parrakeets broke +into shrill chatter, but during the hot hours of the day only the full +drone of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear, +while nothing moved amid the solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading +away into the darkness which held us in. Once some bandy-legged, +lurching creature, an ant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid the +shadows. It was the only sign of earth life which I saw in this great +Amazonian forest. + +And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not far +from us in those mysterious recesses. On the third day out we were +aware of a singular deep throbbing in the air, rhythmic and solemn, +coming and going fitfully throughout the morning. The two boats were +paddling within a few yards of each other when first we heard it, and +our Indians remained motionless, as if they had been turned to bronze, +listening intently with expressions of terror upon their faces. + +"What is it, then?" I asked. + +"Drums," said Lord John, carelessly; "war drums. I have heard them +before." + +"Yes, sir, war drums," said Gomez, the half-breed. "Wild Indians, +bravos, not mansos; they watch us every mile of the way; kill us if +they can." + +"How can they watch us?" I asked, gazing into the dark, motionless void. + +The half-breed shrugged his broad shoulders. + +"The Indians know. They have their own way. They watch us. They talk +the drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can." + +By the afternoon of that day--my pocket diary shows me that it was +Tuesday, August 18th--at least six or seven drums were throbbing from +various points. Sometimes they beat quickly, sometimes slowly, +sometimes in obvious question and answer, one far to the east breaking +out in a high staccato rattle, and being followed after a pause by a +deep roll from the north. There was something indescribably +nerve-shaking and menacing in that constant mutter, which seemed to +shape itself into the very syllables of the half-breed, endlessly +repeated, "We will kill you if we can. We will kill you if we can." +No one ever moved in the silent woods. All the peace and soothing of +quiet Nature lay in that dark curtain of vegetation, but away from +behind there came ever the one message from our fellow-man. "We will +kill you if we can," said the men in the east. "We will kill you if we +can," said the men in the north. + +All day the drums rumbled and whispered, while their menace reflected +itself in the faces of our colored companions. Even the hardy, +swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however, that day once +for all that both Summerlee and Challenger possessed that highest type +of bravery, the bravery of the scientific mind. Theirs was the spirit +which upheld Darwin among the gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace among +the head-hunters of Malaya. It is decreed by a merciful Nature that +the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if +it be steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merely +personal considerations. All day amid that incessant and mysterious +menace our two Professors watched every bird upon the wing, and every +shrub upon the bank, with many a sharp wordy contention, when the snarl +of Summerlee came quick upon the deep growl of Challenger, but with no +more sense of danger and no more reference to drum-beating Indians than +if they were seated together in the smoking-room of the Royal Society's +Club in St. James's Street. Once only did they condescend to discuss +them. + +"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking his thumb +towards the reverberating wood. + +"No doubt, sir," Summerlee answered. "Like all such tribes, I shall +expect to find them of poly-synthetic speech and of Mongolian type." + +"Polysynthetic certainly," said Challenger, indulgently. "I am not +aware that any other type of language exists in this continent, and I +have notes of more than a hundred. The Mongolian theory I regard with +deep suspicion." + +"I should have thought that even a limited knowledge of comparative +anatomy would have helped to verify it," said Summerlee, bitterly. + +Challenger thrust out his aggressive chin until he was all beard and +hat-rim. "No doubt, sir, a limited knowledge would have that effect. +When one's knowledge is exhaustive, one comes to other conclusions." +They glared at each other in mutual defiance, while all round rose the +distant whisper, "We will kill you--we will kill you if we can." + +That night we moored our canoes with heavy stones for anchors in the +center of the stream, and made every preparation for a possible attack. +Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we pushed upon our way, the +drum-beating dying out behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoon +we came to a very steep rapid, more than a mile long--the very one in +which Professor Challenger had suffered disaster upon his first +journey. I confess that the sight of it consoled me, for it was really +the first direct corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his +story. The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores +through the brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we four +whites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and any danger +coming from the woods. Before evening we had successfully passed the +rapids, and made our way some ten miles above them, where we anchored +for the night. At this point I reckoned that we had come not less than +a hundred miles up the tributary from the main stream. + +It was in the early forenoon of the next day that we made the great +departure. Since dawn Professor Challenger had been acutely uneasy, +continually scanning each bank of the river. Suddenly he gave an +exclamation of satisfaction and pointed to a single tree, which +projected at a peculiar angle over the side of the stream. + +"What do you make of that?" he asked. + +"It is surely an Assai palm," said Summerlee. + +"Exactly. It was an Assai palm which I took for my landmark. The +secret opening is half a mile onwards upon the other side of the river. +There is no break in the trees. That is the wonder and the mystery of +it. There where you see light-green rushes instead of dark-green +undergrowth, there between the great cotton woods, that is my private +gate into the unknown. Push through, and you will understand." + +It was indeed a wonderful place. Having reached the spot marked by a +line of light-green rushes, we poled out two canoes through them for +some hundreds of yards, and eventually emerged into a placid and +shallow stream, running clear and transparent over a sandy bottom. It +may have been twenty yards across, and was banked in on each side by +most luxuriant vegetation. No one who had not observed that for a +short distance reeds had taken the place of shrubs, could possibly have +guessed the existence of such a stream or dreamed of the fairyland +beyond. + +For a fairyland it was--the most wonderful that the imagination of man +could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a +natural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a golden +twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but +marvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above +filtered and tempered in its fall. Clear as crystal, motionless as a +sheet of glass, green as the edge of an iceberg, it stretched in front +of us under its leafy archway, every stroke of our paddles sending a +thousand ripples across its shining surface. It was a fitting avenue +to a land of wonders. All sign of the Indians had passed away, but +animal life was more frequent, and the tameness of the creatures showed +that they knew nothing of the hunter. Fuzzy little black-velvet +monkeys, with snow-white teeth and gleaming, mocking eyes, chattered at +us as we passed. With a dull, heavy splash an occasional cayman +plunged in from the bank. Once a dark, clumsy tapir stared at us from +a gap in the bushes, and then lumbered away through the forest; once, +too, the yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid the +brushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over its +tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds, +stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and +white, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the +crystal water was alive with fish of every shape and color. + +For three days we made our way up this tunnel of hazy green sunshine. +On the longer stretches one could hardly tell as one looked ahead where +the distant green water ended and the distant green archway began. The +deep peace of this strange waterway was unbroken by any sign of man. + +"No Indian here. Too much afraid. Curupuri," said Gomez. + +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods," Lord John explained. "It's a +name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think that there is +something fearsome in this direction, and therefore they avoid it." + +On the third day it became evident that our journey in the canoes could +not last much longer, for the stream was rapidly growing more shallow. +Twice in as many hours we stuck upon the bottom. Finally we pulled the +boats up among the brushwood and spent the night on the bank of the +river. In the morning Lord John and I made our way for a couple of +miles through the forest, keeping parallel with the stream; but as it +grew ever shallower we returned and reported, what Professor Challenger +had already suspected, that we had reached the highest point to which +the canoes could be brought. We drew them up, therefore, and concealed +them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so that we should +find them again. Then we distributed the various burdens among +us--guns, ammunition, food, a tent, blankets, and the rest--and, +shouldering our packages, we set forth upon the more laborious stage of +our journey. + +An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outset of our +new stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining us issued +directions to the whole party, much to the evident discontent of +Summerlee. Now, upon his assigning some duty to his fellow-Professor +(it was only the carrying of an aneroid barometer), the matter suddenly +came to a head. + +"May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in what capacity +you take it upon yourself to issue these orders?" + +Challenger glared and bristled. + +"I do it, Professor Summerlee, as leader of this expedition." + +"I am compelled to tell you, sir, that I do not recognize you in that +capacity." + +"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm. "Perhaps you would +define my exact position." + +"Yes, sir. You are a man whose veracity is upon trial, and this +committee is here to try it. You walk, sir, with your judges." + +"Dear me!" said Challenger, seating himself on the side of one of the +canoes. "In that case you will, of course, go on your way, and I will +follow at my leisure. If I am not the leader you cannot expect me to +lead." + +Thank heaven that there were two sane men--Lord John Roxton and +myself--to prevent the petulance and folly of our learned Professors +from sending us back empty-handed to London. Such arguing and pleading +and explaining before we could get them mollified! Then at last +Summerlee, with his sneer and his pipe, would move forwards, and +Challenger would come rolling and grumbling after. By some good +fortune we discovered about this time that both our savants had the +very poorest opinion of Dr. Illingworth of Edinburgh. Thenceforward +that was our one safety, and every strained situation was relieved by +our introducing the name of the Scotch zoologist, when both our +Professors would form a temporary alliance and friendship in their +detestation and abuse of this common rival. + +Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soon found +that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it lost itself +in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into which we sank up to +our knees. The place was horribly haunted by clouds of mosquitoes and +every form of flying pest, so we were glad to find solid ground again +and to make a circuit among the trees, which enabled us to outflank +this pestilent morass, which droned like an organ in the distance, so +loud was it with insect life. + +On the second day after leaving our canoes we found that the whole +character of the country changed. Our road was persistently upwards, +and as we ascended the woods became thinner and lost their tropical +luxuriance. The huge trees of the alluvial Amazonian plain gave place +to the Phoenix and coco palms, growing in scattered clumps, with thick +brushwood between. In the damper hollows the Mauritia palms threw out +their graceful drooping fronds. We traveled entirely by compass, and +once or twice there were differences of opinion between Challenger and +the two Indians, when, to quote the Professor's indignant words, the +whole party agreed to "trust the fallacious instincts of undeveloped +savages rather than the highest product of modern European culture." +That we were justified in doing so was shown upon the third day, when +Challenger admitted that he recognized several landmarks of his former +journey, and in one spot we actually came upon four fire-blackened +stones, which must have marked a camping-place. + +The road still ascended, and we crossed a rock-studded slope which took +two days to traverse. The vegetation had again changed, and only the +vegetable ivory tree remained, with a great profusion of wonderful +orchids, among which I learned to recognize the rare Nuttonia +Vexillaria and the glorious pink and scarlet blossoms of Cattleya and +odontoglossum. Occasional brooks with pebbly bottoms and fern-draped +banks gurgled down the shallow gorges in the hill, and offered good +camping-grounds every evening on the banks of some rock-studded pool, +where swarms of little blue-backed fish, about the size and shape of +English trout, gave us a delicious supper. + +On the ninth day after leaving the canoes, having done, as I reckon, +about a hundred and twenty miles, we began to emerge from the trees, +which had grown smaller until they were mere shrubs. Their place was +taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which grew so thickly that we +could only penetrate it by cutting a pathway with the machetes and +billhooks of the Indians. It took us a long day, traveling from seven +in the morning till eight at night, with only two breaks of one hour +each, to get through this obstacle. Anything more monotonous and +wearying could not be imagined, for, even at the most open places, I +could not see more than ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision +was limited to the back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me, +and to the yellow wall within a foot of me on either side. From above +came one thin knife-edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our heads +one saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky. I do +not know what kind of creatures inhabit such a thicket, but several +times we heard the plunging of large, heavy animals quite close to us. +From their sounds Lord John judged them to be some form of wild cattle. +Just as night fell we cleared the belt of bamboos, and at once formed +our camp, exhausted by the interminable day. + +Early next morning we were again afoot, and found that the character of +the country had changed once again. Behind us was the wall of bamboo, +as definite as if it marked the course of a river. In front was an +open plain, sloping slightly upwards and dotted with clumps of +tree-ferns, the whole curving before us until it ended in a long, +whale-backed ridge. This we reached about midday, only to find a +shallow valley beyond, rising once again into a gentle incline which +led to a low, rounded sky-line. It was here, while we crossed the +first of these hills, that an incident occurred which may or may not +have been important. + +Professor Challenger, who with the two local Indians was in the van of +the party, stopped suddenly and pointed excitedly to the right. As he +did so we saw, at the distance of a mile or so, something which +appeared to be a huge gray bird flap slowly up from the ground and skim +smoothly off, flying very low and straight, until it was lost among the +tree-ferns. + +"Did you see it?" cried Challenger, in exultation. "Summerlee, did you +see it?" + +His colleague was staring at the spot where the creature had +disappeared. + +"What do you claim that it was?" he asked. + +"To the best of my belief, a pterodactyl." + +Summerlee burst into derisive laughter "A pter-fiddlestick!" said he. +"It was a stork, if ever I saw one." + +Challenger was too furious to speak. He simply swung his pack upon his +back and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreast of me, +however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. He had his +Zeiss glasses in his hand. + +"I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won't +undertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as a +sportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes on in my +life." + +So there the matter stands. Are we really just at the edge of the +unknown, encountering the outlying pickets of this lost world of which +our leader speaks? I give you the incident as it occurred and you will +know as much as I do. It stands alone, for we saw nothing more which +could be called remarkable. + +And now, my readers, if ever I have any, I have brought you up the +broad river, and through the screen of rushes, and down the green +tunnel, and up the long slope of palm trees, and through the bamboo +brake, and across the plain of tree-ferns. At last our destination lay +in full sight of us. When we had crossed the second ridge we saw +before us an irregular, palm-studded plain, and then the line of high +red cliffs which I have seen in the picture. There it lies, even as I +write, and there can be no question that it is the same. At the +nearest point it is about seven miles from our present camp, and it +curves away, stretching as far as I can see. Challenger struts about +like a prize peacock, and Summerlee is silent, but still sceptical. +Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. Meanwhile, as +Jose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, insists upon returning, +I send this letter back in his charge, and only hope that it may +eventually come to hand. I will write again as the occasion serves. I +have enclosed with this a rough chart of our journey, which may have +the effect of making the account rather easier to understand. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + "Who could have Foreseen it?" + +A dreadful thing has happened to us. Who could have foreseen it? I +cannot foresee any end to our troubles. It may be that we are +condemned to spend our whole lives in this strange, inaccessible place. +I am still so confused that I can hardly think clearly of the facts of +the present or of the chances of the future. To my astounded senses +the one seems most terrible and the other as black as night. + +No men have ever found themselves in a worse position; nor is there any +use in disclosing to you our exact geographical situation and asking +our friends for a relief party. Even if they could send one, our fate +will in all human probability be decided long before it could arrive in +South America. + +We are, in truth, as far from any human aid as if we were in the moon. +If we are to win through, it is only our own qualities which can save +us. I have as companions three remarkable men, men of great +brain-power and of unshaken courage. There lies our one and only hope. +It is only when I look upon the untroubled faces of my comrades that I +see some glimmer through the darkness. Outwardly I trust that I appear +as unconcerned as they. Inwardly I am filled with apprehension. + +Let me give you, with as much detail as I can, the sequence of events +which have led us to this catastrophe. + +When I finished my last letter I stated that we were within seven miles +from an enormous line of ruddy cliffs, which encircled, beyond all +doubt, the plateau of which Professor Challenger spoke. Their height, +as we approached them, seemed to me in some places to be greater than +he had stated--running up in parts to at least a thousand feet--and +they were curiously striated, in a manner which is, I believe, +characteristic of basaltic upheavals. Something of the sort is to be +seen in Salisbury Crags at Edinburgh. The summit showed every sign of +a luxuriant vegetation, with bushes near the edge, and farther back +many high trees. There was no indication of any life that we could see. + +That night we pitched our camp immediately under the cliff--a most wild +and desolate spot. The crags above us were not merely perpendicular, +but curved outwards at the top, so that ascent was out of the question. +Close to us was the high thin pinnacle of rock which I believe I +mentioned earlier in this narrative. It is like a broad red church +spire, the top of it being level with the plateau, but a great chasm +gaping between. On the summit of it there grew one high tree. Both +pinnacle and cliff were comparatively low--some five or six hundred +feet, I should think. + +"It was on that," said Professor Challenger, pointing to this tree, +"that the pterodactyl was perched. I climbed half-way up the rock +before I shot him. I am inclined to think that a good mountaineer like +myself could ascend the rock to the top, though he would, of course, be +no nearer to the plateau when he had done so." + +As Challenger spoke of his pterodactyl I glanced at Professor +Summerlee, and for the first time I seemed to see some signs of a +dawning credulity and repentance. There was no sneer upon his thin +lips, but, on the contrary, a gray, drawn look of excitement and +amazement. Challenger saw it, too, and reveled in the first taste of +victory. + +"Of course," said he, with his clumsy and ponderous sarcasm, +"Professor Summerlee will understand that when I speak of a pterodactyl +I mean a stork--only it is the kind of stork which has no feathers, a +leathery skin, membranous wings, and teeth in its jaws." He grinned +and blinked and bowed until his colleague turned and walked away. + +In the morning, after a frugal breakfast of coffee and manioc--we had +to be economical of our stores--we held a council of war as to the best +method of ascending to the plateau above us. + +Challenger presided with a solemnity as if he were the Lord Chief +Justice on the Bench. Picture him seated upon a rock, his absurd +boyish straw hat tilted on the back of his head, his supercilious eyes +dominating us from under his drooping lids, his great black beard +wagging as he slowly defined our present situation and our future +movements. + +Beneath him you might have seen the three of us--myself, sunburnt, +young, and vigorous after our open-air tramp; Summerlee, solemn but +still critical, behind his eternal pipe; Lord John, as keen as a +razor-edge, with his supple, alert figure leaning upon his rifle, and +his eager eyes fixed eagerly upon the speaker. Behind us were grouped +the two swarthy half-breeds and the little knot of Indians, while in +front and above us towered those huge, ruddy ribs of rocks which kept +us from our goal. + +"I need not say," said our leader, "that on the occasion of my last +visit I exhausted every means of climbing the cliff, and where I failed +I do not think that anyone else is likely to succeed, for I am +something of a mountaineer. I had none of the appliances of a +rock-climber with me, but I have taken the precaution to bring them +now. With their aid I am positive I could climb that detached pinnacle +to the summit; but so long as the main cliff overhangs, it is vain to +attempt ascending that. I was hurried upon my last visit by the +approach of the rainy season and by the exhaustion of my supplies. +These considerations limited my time, and I can only claim that I have +surveyed about six miles of the cliff to the east of us, finding no +possible way up. What, then, shall we now do?" + +"There seems to be only one reasonable course," said Professor +Summerlee. "If you have explored the east, we should travel along the +base of the cliff to the west, and seek for a practicable point for our +ascent." + +"That's it," said Lord John. "The odds are that this plateau is of no +great size, and we shall travel round it until we either find an easy +way up it, or come back to the point from which we started." + +"I have already explained to our young friend here," said Challenger +(he has a way of alluding to me as if I were a school child ten years +old), "that it is quite impossible that there should be an easy way up +anywhere, for the simple reason that if there were the summit would not +be isolated, and those conditions would not obtain which have effected +so singular an interference with the general laws of survival. Yet I +admit that there may very well be places where an expert human climber +may reach the summit, and yet a cumbrous and heavy animal be unable to +descend. It is certain that there is a point where an ascent is +possible." + +"How do you know that, sir?" asked Summerlee, sharply. + +"Because my predecessor, the American Maple White, actually made such +an ascent. How otherwise could he have seen the monster which he +sketched in his notebook?" + +"There you reason somewhat ahead of the proved facts," said the +stubborn Summerlee. "I admit your plateau, because I have seen it; but +I have not as yet satisfied myself that it contains any form of life +whatever." + +"What you admit, sir, or what you do not admit, is really of +inconceivably small importance. I am glad to perceive that the plateau +itself has actually obtruded itself upon your intelligence." He glanced +up at it, and then, to our amazement, he sprang from his rock, and, +seizing Summerlee by the neck, he tilted his face into the air. "Now +sir!" he shouted, hoarse with excitement. "Do I help you to realize +that the plateau contains some animal life?" + +I have said that a thick fringe of green overhung the edge of the +cliff. Out of this there had emerged a black, glistening object. As +it came slowly forth and overhung the chasm, we saw that it was a very +large snake with a peculiar flat, spade-like head. It wavered and +quivered above us for a minute, the morning sun gleaming upon its +sleek, sinuous coils. Then it slowly drew inwards and disappeared. + +Summerlee had been so interested that he had stood unresisting while +Challenger tilted his head into the air. Now he shook his colleague +off and came back to his dignity. + +"I should be glad, Professor Challenger," said he, "if you could see +your way to make any remarks which may occur to you without seizing me +by the chin. Even the appearance of a very ordinary rock python does +not appear to justify such a liberty." + +"But there is life upon the plateau all the same," his colleague +replied in triumph. "And now, having demonstrated this important +conclusion so that it is clear to anyone, however prejudiced or obtuse, +I am of opinion that we cannot do better than break up our camp and +travel to westward until we find some means of ascent." + +The ground at the foot of the cliff was rocky and broken so that the +going was slow and difficult. Suddenly we came, however, upon +something which cheered our hearts. It was the site of an old +encampment, with several empty Chicago meat tins, a bottle labeled +"Brandy," a broken tin-opener, and a quantity of other travelers' +debris. A crumpled, disintegrated newspaper revealed itself as the +Chicago Democrat, though the date had been obliterated. + +"Not mine," said Challenger. "It must be Maple White's." + +Lord John had been gazing curiously at a great tree-fern which +overshadowed the encampment. "I say, look at this," said he. "I +believe it is meant for a sign-post." + +A slip of hard wood had been nailed to the tree in such a way as to +point to the westward. + +"Most certainly a sign-post," said Challenger. "What else? Finding +himself upon a dangerous errand, our pioneer has left this sign so that +any party which follows him may know the way he has taken. Perhaps we +shall come upon some other indications as we proceed." + +We did indeed, but they were of a terrible and most unexpected nature. +Immediately beneath the cliff there grew a considerable patch of high +bamboo, like that which we had traversed in our journey. Many of these +stems were twenty feet high, with sharp, strong tops, so that even as +they stood they made formidable spears. We were passing along the edge +of this cover when my eye was caught by the gleam of something white +within it. Thrusting in my head between the stems, I found myself +gazing at a fleshless skull. The whole skeleton was there, but the +skull had detached itself and lay some feet nearer to the open. + +With a few blows from the machetes of our Indians we cleared the spot +and were able to study the details of this old tragedy. Only a few +shreds of clothes could still be distinguished, but there were the +remains of boots upon the bony feet, and it was very clear that the +dead man was a European. A gold watch by Hudson, of New York, and a +chain which held a stylographic pen, lay among the bones. There was +also a silver cigarette-case, with "J. C., from A. E. S.," upon the +lid. The state of the metal seemed to show that the catastrophe had +occurred no great time before. + +"Who can he be?" asked Lord John. "Poor devil! every bone in his body +seems to be broken." + +"And the bamboo grows through his smashed ribs," said Summerlee. "It +is a fast-growing plant, but it is surely inconceivable that this body +could have been here while the canes grew to be twenty feet in length." + +"As to the man's identity," said Professor Challenger, "I have no doubt +whatever upon that point. As I made my way up the river before I +reached you at the fazenda I instituted very particular inquiries about +Maple White. At Para they knew nothing. Fortunately, I had a definite +clew, for there was a particular picture in his sketch-book which +showed him taking lunch with a certain ecclesiastic at Rosario. This +priest I was able to find, and though he proved a very argumentative +fellow, who took it absurdly amiss that I should point out to him the +corrosive effect which modern science must have upon his beliefs, he +none the less gave me some positive information. Maple White passed +Rosario four years ago, or two years before I saw his dead body. He +was not alone at the time, but there was a friend, an American named +James Colver, who remained in the boat and did not meet this +ecclesiastic. I think, therefore, that there can be no doubt that we +are now looking upon the remains of this James Colver." + +"Nor," said Lord John, "is there much doubt as to how he met his death. +He has fallen or been chucked from the top, and so been impaled. How +else could he come by his broken bones, and how could he have been +stuck through by these canes with their points so high above our heads?" + +A hush came over us as we stood round these shattered remains and +realized the truth of Lord John Roxton's words. The beetling head of +the cliff projected over the cane-brake. Undoubtedly he had fallen +from above. But had he fallen? Had it been an accident? Or--already +ominous and terrible possibilities began to form round that unknown +land. + +We moved off in silence, and continued to coast round the line of +cliffs, which were as even and unbroken as some of those monstrous +Antarctic ice-fields which I have seen depicted as stretching from +horizon to horizon and towering high above the mast-heads of the +exploring vessel. + +In five miles we saw no rift or break. And then suddenly we perceived +something which filled us with new hope. In a hollow of the rock, +protected from rain, there was drawn a rough arrow in chalk, pointing +still to the westwards. + +"Maple White again," said Professor Challenger. "He had some +presentiment that worthy footsteps would follow close behind him." + +"He had chalk, then?" + +"A box of colored chalks was among the effects I found in his knapsack. +I remember that the white one was worn to a stump." + +"That is certainly good evidence," said Summerlee. "We can only accept +his guidance and follow on to the westward." + +We had proceeded some five more miles when again we saw a white arrow +upon the rocks. It was at a point where the face of the cliff was for +the first time split into a narrow cleft. Inside the cleft was a +second guidance mark, which pointed right up it with the tip somewhat +elevated, as if the spot indicated were above the level of the ground. + +It was a solemn place, for the walls were so gigantic and the slit of +blue sky so narrow and so obscured by a double fringe of verdure, that +only a dim and shadowy light penetrated to the bottom. We had had no +food for many hours, and were very weary with the stony and irregular +journey, but our nerves were too strung to allow us to halt. We +ordered the camp to be pitched, however, and, leaving the Indians to +arrange it, we four, with the two half-breeds, proceeded up the narrow +gorge. + +It was not more than forty feet across at the mouth, but it rapidly +closed until it ended in an acute angle, too straight and smooth for an +ascent. Certainly it was not this which our pioneer had attempted to +indicate. We made our way back--the whole gorge was not more than a +quarter of a mile deep--and then suddenly the quick eyes of Lord John +fell upon what we were seeking. High up above our heads, amid the dark +shadows, there was one circle of deeper gloom. Surely it could only be +the opening of a cave. + +The base of the cliff was heaped with loose stones at the spot, and it +was not difficult to clamber up. When we reached it, all doubt was +removed. Not only was it an opening into the rock, but on the side of +it there was marked once again the sign of the arrow. Here was the +point, and this the means by which Maple White and his ill-fated +comrade had made their ascent. + +We were too excited to return to the camp, but must make our first +exploration at once. Lord John had an electric torch in his knapsack, +and this had to serve us as light. He advanced, throwing his little +clear circlet of yellow radiance before him, while in single file we +followed at his heels. + +The cave had evidently been water-worn, the sides being smooth and the +floor covered with rounded stones. It was of such a size that a single +man could just fit through by stooping. For fifty yards it ran almost +straight into the rock, and then it ascended at an angle of forty-five. +Presently this incline became even steeper, and we found ourselves +climbing upon hands and knees among loose rubble which slid from +beneath us. Suddenly an exclamation broke from Lord Roxton. + +"It's blocked!" said he. + +Clustering behind him we saw in the yellow field of light a wall of +broken basalt which extended to the ceiling. + +"The roof has fallen in!" + +In vain we dragged out some of the pieces. The only effect was that +the larger ones became detached and threatened to roll down the +gradient and crush us. It was evident that the obstacle was far beyond +any efforts which we could make to remove it. The road by which Maple +White had ascended was no longer available. + +Too much cast down to speak, we stumbled down the dark tunnel and made +our way back to the camp. + +One incident occurred, however, before we left the gorge, which is of +importance in view of what came afterwards. + +We had gathered in a little group at the bottom of the chasm, some +forty feet beneath the mouth of the cave, when a huge rock rolled +suddenly downwards--and shot past us with tremendous force. It was the +narrowest escape for one or all of us. We could not ourselves see +whence the rock had come, but our half-breed servants, who were still +at the opening of the cave, said that it had flown past them, and must +therefore have fallen from the summit. Looking upwards, we could see +no sign of movement above us amidst the green jungle which topped the +cliff. There could be little doubt, however, that the stone was aimed +at us, so the incident surely pointed to humanity--and malevolent +humanity--upon the plateau. + +We withdrew hurriedly from the chasm, our minds full of this new +development and its bearing upon our plans. The situation was +difficult enough before, but if the obstructions of Nature were +increased by the deliberate opposition of man, then our case was indeed +a hopeless one. And yet, as we looked up at that beautiful fringe of +verdure only a few hundreds of feet above our heads, there was not one +of us who could conceive the idea of returning to London until we had +explored it to its depths. + +On discussing the situation, we determined that our best course was to +continue to coast round the plateau in the hope of finding some other +means of reaching the top. The line of cliffs, which had decreased +considerably in height, had already begun to trend from west to north, +and if we could take this as representing the arc of a circle, the +whole circumference could not be very great. At the worst, then, we +should be back in a few days at our starting-point. + +We made a march that day which totaled some two-and-twenty miles, +without any change in our prospects. I may mention that our aneroid +shows us that in the continual incline which we have ascended since we +abandoned our canoes we have risen to no less than three thousand feet +above sea-level. Hence there is a considerable change both in the +temperature and in the vegetation. We have shaken off some of that +horrible insect life which is the bane of tropical travel. A few palms +still survive, and many tree-ferns, but the Amazonian trees have been +all left behind. It was pleasant to see the convolvulus, the +passion-flower, and the begonia, all reminding me of home, here among +these inhospitable rocks. There was a red begonia just the same color +as one that is kept in a pot in the window of a certain villa in +Streatham--but I am drifting into private reminiscence. + +That night--I am still speaking of the first day of our +circumnavigation of the plateau--a great experience awaited us, and one +which for ever set at rest any doubt which we could have had as to the +wonders so near us. + +You will realize as you read it, my dear Mr. McArdle, and possibly for +the first time that the paper has not sent me on a wild-goose chase, +and that there is inconceivably fine copy waiting for the world +whenever we have the Professor's leave to make use of it. I shall not +dare to publish these articles unless I can bring back my proofs to +England, or I shall be hailed as the journalistic Munchausen of all +time. I have no doubt that you feel the same way yourself, and that +you would not care to stake the whole credit of the Gazette upon this +adventure until we can meet the chorus of criticism and scepticism +which such articles must of necessity elicit. So this wonderful +incident, which would make such a headline for the old paper, must +still wait its turn in the editorial drawer. + +And yet it was all over in a flash, and there was no sequel to it, save +in our own convictions. + +What occurred was this. Lord John had shot an ajouti--which is a +small, pig-like animal--and, half of it having been given to the +Indians, we were cooking the other half upon our fire. There is a +chill in the air after dark, and we had all drawn close to the blaze. +The night was moonless, but there were some stars, and one could see +for a little distance across the plain. Well, suddenly out of the +darkness, out of the night, there swooped something with a swish like +an aeroplane. The whole group of us were covered for an instant by a +canopy of leathery wings, and I had a momentary vision of a long, +snake-like neck, a fierce, red, greedy eye, and a great snapping beak, +filled, to my amazement, with little, gleaming teeth. The next instant +it was gone--and so was our dinner. A huge black shadow, twenty feet +across, skimmed up into the air; for an instant the monster wings +blotted out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliff +above us. We all sat in amazed silence round the fire, like the heroes +of Virgil when the Harpies came down upon them. It was Summerlee who +was the first to speak. + +"Professor Challenger," said he, in a solemn voice, which quavered with +emotion, "I owe you an apology. Sir, I am very much in the wrong, and +I beg that you will forget what is past." + +It was handsomely said, and the two men for the first time shook hands. +So much we have gained by this clear vision of our first pterodactyl. +It was worth a stolen supper to bring two such men together. + +But if prehistoric life existed upon the plateau it was not +superabundant, for we had no further glimpse of it during the next +three days. During this time we traversed a barren and forbidding +country, which alternated between stony desert and desolate marshes +full of many wild-fowl, upon the north and east of the cliffs. From +that direction the place is really inaccessible, and, were it not for a +hardish ledge which runs at the very base of the precipice, we should +have had to turn back. Many times we were up to our waists in the +slime and blubber of an old, semi-tropical swamp. To make matters +worse, the place seemed to be a favorite breeding-place of the Jaracaca +snake, the most venomous and aggressive in South America. Again and +again these horrible creatures came writhing and springing towards us +across the surface of this putrid bog, and it was only by keeping our +shot-guns for ever ready that we could feel safe from them. One +funnel-shaped depression in the morass, of a livid green in color from +some lichen which festered in it, will always remain as a nightmare +memory in my mind. It seems to have been a special nest of these +vermins, and the slopes were alive with them, all writhing in our +direction, for it is a peculiarity of the Jaracaca that he will always +attack man at first sight. There were too many for us to shoot, so we +fairly took to our heels and ran until we were exhausted. I shall +always remember as we looked back how far behind we could see the heads +and necks of our horrible pursuers rising and falling amid the reeds. +Jaracaca Swamp we named it in the map which we are constructing. + +The cliffs upon the farther side had lost their ruddy tint, being +chocolate-brown in color; the vegetation was more scattered along the +top of them, and they had sunk to three or four hundred feet in height, +but in no place did we find any point where they could be ascended. If +anything, they were more impossible than at the first point where we +had met them. Their absolute steepness is indicated in the photograph +which I took over the stony desert. + +"Surely," said I, as we discussed the situation, "the rain must find +its way down somehow. There are bound to be water-channels in the +rocks." + +"Our young friend has glimpses of lucidity," said Professor Challenger, +patting me upon the shoulder. + +"The rain must go somewhere," I repeated. + +"He keeps a firm grip upon actuality. The only drawback is that we +have conclusively proved by ocular demonstration that there are no +water channels down the rocks." + +"Where, then, does it go?" I persisted. + +"I think it may be fairly assumed that if it does not come outwards it +must run inwards." + +"Then there is a lake in the center." + +"So I should suppose." + +"It is more than likely that the lake may be an old crater," said +Summerlee. "The whole formation is, of course, highly volcanic. But, +however that may be, I should expect to find the surface of the plateau +slope inwards with a considerable sheet of water in the center, which +may drain off, by some subterranean channel, into the marshes of the +Jaracaca Swamp." + +"Or evaporation might preserve an equilibrium," remarked Challenger, +and the two learned men wandered off into one of their usual scientific +arguments, which were as comprehensible as Chinese to the layman. + +On the sixth day we completed our first circuit of the cliffs, and +found ourselves back at the first camp, beside the isolated pinnacle of +rock. We were a disconsolate party, for nothing could have been more +minute than our investigation, and it was absolutely certain that there +was no single point where the most active human being could possibly +hope to scale the cliff. The place which Maple White's chalk-marks had +indicated as his own means of access was now entirely impassable. + +What were we to do now? Our stores of provisions, supplemented by our +guns, were holding out well, but the day must come when they would need +replenishment. In a couple of months the rains might be expected, and +we should be washed out of our camp. The rock was harder than marble, +and any attempt at cutting a path for so great a height was more than +our time or resources would admit. No wonder that we looked gloomily +at each other that night, and sought our blankets with hardly a word +exchanged. I remember that as I dropped off to sleep my last +recollection was that Challenger was squatting, like a monstrous +bull-frog, by the fire, his huge head in his hands, sunk apparently in +the deepest thought, and entirely oblivious to the good-night which I +wished him. + +But it was a very different Challenger who greeted us in the morning--a +Challenger with contentment and self-congratulation shining from his +whole person. He faced us as we assembled for breakfast with a +deprecating false modesty in his eyes, as who should say, "I know that +I deserve all that you can say, but I pray you to spare my blushes by +not saying it." His beard bristled exultantly, his chest was thrown +out, and his hand was thrust into the front of his jacket. So, in his +fancy, may he see himself sometimes, gracing the vacant pedestal in +Trafalgar Square, and adding one more to the horrors of the London +streets. + +"Eureka!" he cried, his teeth shining through his beard. "Gentlemen, +you may congratulate me and we may congratulate each other. The +problem is solved." + +"You have found a way up?" + +"I venture to think so." + +"And where?" + +For answer he pointed to the spire-like pinnacle upon our right. + +Our faces--or mine, at least--fell as we surveyed it. That it could be +climbed we had our companion's assurance. But a horrible abyss lay +between it and the plateau. + +"We can never get across," I gasped. + +"We can at least all reach the summit," said he. "When we are up I may +be able to show you that the resources of an inventive mind are not yet +exhausted." + +After breakfast we unpacked the bundle in which our leader had brought +his climbing accessories. From it he took a coil of the strongest and +lightest rope, a hundred and fifty feet in length, with climbing irons, +clamps, and other devices. Lord John was an experienced mountaineer, +and Summerlee had done some rough climbing at various times, so that I +was really the novice at rock-work of the party; but my strength and +activity may have made up for my want of experience. + +It was not in reality a very stiff task, though there were moments +which made my hair bristle upon my head. The first half was perfectly +easy, but from there upwards it became continually steeper until, for +the last fifty feet, we were literally clinging with our fingers and +toes to tiny ledges and crevices in the rock. I could not have +accomplished it, nor could Summerlee, if Challenger had not gained the +summit (it was extraordinary to see such activity in so unwieldy a +creature) and there fixed the rope round the trunk of the considerable +tree which grew there. With this as our support, we were soon able to +scramble up the jagged wall until we found ourselves upon the small +grassy platform, some twenty-five feet each way, which formed the +summit. + +The first impression which I received when I had recovered my breath +was of the extraordinary view over the country which we had traversed. +The whole Brazilian plain seemed to lie beneath us, extending away and +away until it ended in dim blue mists upon the farthest sky-line. In +the foreground was the long slope, strewn with rocks and dotted with +tree-ferns; farther off in the middle distance, looking over the +saddle-back hill, I could just see the yellow and green mass of bamboos +through which we had passed; and then, gradually, the vegetation +increased until it formed the huge forest which extended as far as the +eyes could reach, and for a good two thousand miles beyond. + +I was still drinking in this wonderful panorama when the heavy hand of +the Professor fell upon my shoulder. + +"This way, my young friend," said he; "vestigia nulla retrorsum. Never +look rearwards, but always to our glorious goal." + +The level of the plateau, when I turned, was exactly that on which we +stood, and the green bank of bushes, with occasional trees, was so near +that it was difficult to realize how inaccessible it remained. At a +rough guess the gulf was forty feet across, but, so far as I could see, +it might as well have been forty miles. I placed one arm round the +trunk of the tree and leaned over the abyss. Far down were the small +dark figures of our servants, looking up at us. The wall was +absolutely precipitous, as was that which faced me. + +"This is indeed curious," said the creaking voice of Professor +Summerlee. + +I turned, and found that he was examining with great interest the tree +to which I clung. That smooth bark and those small, ribbed leaves +seemed familiar to my eyes. "Why," I cried, "it's a beech!" + +"Exactly," said Summerlee. "A fellow-countryman in a far land." + +"Not only a fellow-countryman, my good sir," said Challenger, "but +also, if I may be allowed to enlarge your simile, an ally of the first +value. This beech tree will be our saviour." + +"By George!" cried Lord John, "a bridge!" + +"Exactly, my friends, a bridge! It is not for nothing that I expended +an hour last night in focusing my mind upon the situation. I have some +recollection of once remarking to our young friend here that G. E. C. +is at his best when his back is to the wall. Last night you will admit +that all our backs were to the wall. But where will-power and +intellect go together, there is always a way out. A drawbridge had to +be found which could be dropped across the abyss. Behold it!" + +It was certainly a brilliant idea. The tree was a good sixty feet in +height, and if it only fell the right way it would easily cross the +chasm. Challenger had slung the camp axe over his shoulder when he +ascended. Now he handed it to me. + +"Our young friend has the thews and sinews," said he. "I think he will +be the most useful at this task. I must beg, however, that you will +kindly refrain from thinking for yourself, and that you will do exactly +what you are told." + +Under his direction I cut such gashes in the sides of the trees as +would ensure that it should fall as we desired. It had already a +strong, natural tilt in the direction of the plateau, so that the +matter was not difficult. Finally I set to work in earnest upon the +trunk, taking turn and turn with Lord John. In a little over an hour +there was a loud crack, the tree swayed forward, and then crashed over, +burying its branches among the bushes on the farther side. The severed +trunk rolled to the very edge of our platform, and for one terrible +second we all thought it was over. It balanced itself, however, a few +inches from the edge, and there was our bridge to the unknown. + +All of us, without a word, shook hands with Professor Challenger, who +raised his straw hat and bowed deeply to each in turn. + +"I claim the honor," said he, "to be the first to cross to the unknown +land--a fitting subject, no doubt, for some future historical painting." + +He had approached the bridge when Lord John laid his hand upon his coat. + +"My dear chap," said he, "I really cannot allow it." + +"Cannot allow it, sir!" The head went back and the beard forward. + +"When it is a matter of science, don't you know, I follow your lead +because you are by way of bein' a man of science. But it's up to you +to follow me when you come into my department." + +"Your department, sir?" + +"We all have our professions, and soldierin' is mine. We are, +accordin' to my ideas, invadin' a new country, which may or may not be +chock-full of enemies of sorts. To barge blindly into it for want of a +little common sense and patience isn't my notion of management." + +The remonstrance was too reasonable to be disregarded. Challenger +tossed his head and shrugged his heavy shoulders. + +"Well, sir, what do you propose?" + +"For all I know there may be a tribe of cannibals waitin' for +lunch-time among those very bushes," said Lord John, looking across the +bridge. "It's better to learn wisdom before you get into a +cookin'-pot; so we will content ourselves with hopin' that there is no +trouble waitin' for us, and at the same time we will act as if there +were. Malone and I will go down again, therefore, and we will fetch up +the four rifles, together with Gomez and the other. One man can then +go across and the rest will cover him with guns, until he sees that it +is safe for the whole crowd to come along." + +Challenger sat down upon the cut stump and groaned his impatience; but +Summerlee and I were of one mind that Lord John was our leader when +such practical details were in question. The climb was a more simple +thing now that the rope dangled down the face of the worst part of the +ascent. Within an hour we had brought up the rifles and a shot-gun. +The half-breeds had ascended also, and under Lord John's orders they +had carried up a bale of provisions in case our first exploration +should be a long one. We had each bandoliers of cartridges. + +"Now, Challenger, if you really insist upon being the first man in," +said Lord John, when every preparation was complete. + +"I am much indebted to you for your gracious permission," said the +angry Professor; for never was a man so intolerant of every form of +authority. "Since you are good enough to allow it, I shall most +certainly take it upon myself to act as pioneer upon this occasion." + +Seating himself with a leg overhanging the abyss on each side, and his +hatchet slung upon his back, Challenger hopped his way across the trunk +and was soon at the other side. He clambered up and waved his arms in +the air. + +"At last!" he cried; "at last!" + +I gazed anxiously at him, with a vague expectation that some terrible +fate would dart at him from the curtain of green behind him. But all +was quiet, save that a strange, many-colored bird flew up from under +his feet and vanished among the trees. + +Summerlee was the second. His wiry energy is wonderful in so frail a +frame. He insisted upon having two rifles slung upon his back, so that +both Professors were armed when he had made his transit. I came next, +and tried hard not to look down into the horrible gulf over which I was +passing. Summerlee held out the butt-end of his rifle, and an instant +later I was able to grasp his hand. As to Lord John, he walked +across--actually walked without support! He must have nerves of iron. + +And there we were, the four of us, upon the dreamland, the lost world, +of Maple White. To all of us it seemed the moment of our supreme +triumph. Who could have guessed that it was the prelude to our supreme +disaster? Let me say in a few words how the crushing blow fell upon us. + +We had turned away from the edge, and had penetrated about fifty yards +of close brushwood, when there came a frightful rending crash from +behind us. With one impulse we rushed back the way that we had come. +The bridge was gone! + +Far down at the base of the cliff I saw, as I looked over, a tangled +mass of branches and splintered trunk. It was our beech tree. Had the +edge of the platform crumbled and let it through? For a moment this +explanation was in all our minds. The next, from the farther side of +the rocky pinnacle before us a swarthy face, the face of Gomez the +half-breed, was slowly protruded. Yes, it was Gomez, but no longer the +Gomez of the demure smile and the mask-like expression. Here was a +face with flashing eyes and distorted features, a face convulsed with +hatred and with the mad joy of gratified revenge. + +"Lord Roxton!" he shouted. "Lord John Roxton!" + +"Well," said our companion, "here I am." + +A shriek of laughter came across the abyss. + +"Yes, there you are, you English dog, and there you will remain! I +have waited and waited, and now has come my chance. You found it hard +to get up; you will find it harder to get down. You cursed fools, you +are trapped, every one of you!" + +We were too astounded to speak. We could only stand there staring in +amazement. A great broken bough upon the grass showed whence he had +gained his leverage to tilt over our bridge. The face had vanished, +but presently it was up again, more frantic than before. + +"We nearly killed you with a stone at the cave," he cried; "but this is +better. It is slower and more terrible. Your bones will whiten up +there, and none will know where you lie or come to cover them. As you +lie dying, think of Lopez, whom you shot five years ago on the Putomayo +River. I am his brother, and, come what will I will die happy now, for +his memory has been avenged." A furious hand was shaken at us, and then +all was quiet. + +Had the half-breed simply wrought his vengeance and then escaped, all +might have been well with him. It was that foolish, irresistible Latin +impulse to be dramatic which brought his own downfall. Roxton, the man +who had earned himself the name of the Flail of the Lord through three +countries, was not one who could be safely taunted. The half-breed was +descending on the farther side of the pinnacle; but before he could +reach the ground Lord John had run along the edge of the plateau and +gained a point from which he could see his man. There was a single +crack of his rifle, and, though we saw nothing, we heard the scream and +then the distant thud of the falling body. Roxton came back to us with +a face of granite. + +"I have been a blind simpleton," said he, bitterly, "It's my folly +that has brought you all into this trouble. I should have remembered +that these people have long memories for blood-feuds, and have been +more upon my guard." + +"What about the other one? It took two of them to lever that tree over +the edge." + +"I could have shot him, but I let him go. He may have had no part in +it. Perhaps it would have been better if I had killed him, for he +must, as you say, have lent a hand." + +Now that we had the clue to his action, each of us could cast back and +remember some sinister act upon the part of the half-breed--his +constant desire to know our plans, his arrest outside our tent when he +was over-hearing them, the furtive looks of hatred which from time to +time one or other of us had surprised. We were still discussing it, +endeavoring to adjust our minds to these new conditions, when a +singular scene in the plain below arrested our attention. + +A man in white clothes, who could only be the surviving half-breed, was +running as one does run when Death is the pacemaker. Behind him, only +a few yards in his rear, bounded the huge ebony figure of Zambo, our +devoted negro. Even as we looked, he sprang upon the back of the +fugitive and flung his arms round his neck. They rolled on the ground +together. An instant afterwards Zambo rose, looked at the prostrate +man, and then, waving his hand joyously to us, came running in our +direction. The white figure lay motionless in the middle of the great +plain. + +Our two traitors had been destroyed, but the mischief that they had +done lived after them. By no possible means could we get back to the +pinnacle. We had been natives of the world; now we were natives of the +plateau. The two things were separate and apart. There was the plain +which led to the canoes. Yonder, beyond the violet, hazy horizon, was +the stream which led back to civilization. But the link between was +missing. No human ingenuity could suggest a means of bridging the +chasm which yawned between ourselves and our past lives. One instant +had altered the whole conditions of our existence. + +It was at such a moment that I learned the stuff of which my three +comrades were composed. They were grave, it is true, and thoughtful, +but of an invincible serenity. For the moment we could only sit among +the bushes in patience and wait the coming of Zambo. Presently his +honest black face topped the rocks and his Herculean figure emerged +upon the top of the pinnacle. + +"What I do now?" he cried. "You tell me and I do it." + +It was a question which it was easier to ask than to answer. One thing +only was clear. He was our one trusty link with the outside world. On +no account must he leave us. + +"No no!" he cried. "I not leave you. Whatever come, you always find +me here. But no able to keep Indians. Already they say too much +Curupuri live on this place, and they go home. Now you leave them me +no able to keep them." + +It was a fact that our Indians had shown in many ways of late that they +were weary of their journey and anxious to return. We realized that +Zambo spoke the truth, and that it would be impossible for him to keep +them. + +"Make them wait till to-morrow, Zambo," I shouted; "then I can send +letter back by them." + +"Very good, sarr! I promise they wait till to-morrow," said the negro. +"But what I do for you now?" + +There was plenty for him to do, and admirably the faithful fellow did +it. First of all, under our directions, he undid the rope from the +tree-stump and threw one end of it across to us. It was not thicker +than a clothes-line, but it was of great strength, and though we could +not make a bridge of it, we might well find it invaluable if we had any +climbing to do. He then fastened his end of the rope to the package of +supplies which had been carried up, and we were able to drag it across. +This gave us the means of life for at least a week, even if we found +nothing else. Finally he descended and carried up two other packets of +mixed goods--a box of ammunition and a number of other things, all of +which we got across by throwing our rope to him and hauling it back. +It was evening when he at last climbed down, with a final assurance +that he would keep the Indians till next morning. + +And so it is that I have spent nearly the whole of this our first night +upon the plateau writing up our experiences by the light of a single +candle-lantern. + +We supped and camped at the very edge of the cliff, quenching our +thirst with two bottles of Apollinaris which were in one of the cases. +It is vital to us to find water, but I think even Lord John himself had +had adventures enough for one day, and none of us felt inclined to make +the first push into the unknown. We forbore to light a fire or to make +any unnecessary sound. + +To-morrow (or to-day, rather, for it is already dawn as I write) we +shall make our first venture into this strange land. When I shall be +able to write again--or if I ever shall write again--I know not. +Meanwhile, I can see that the Indians are still in their place, and I +am sure that the faithful Zambo will be here presently to get my +letter. I only trust that it will come to hand. + + +P.S.--The more I think the more desperate does our position seem. I +see no possible hope of our return. If there were a high tree near the +edge of the plateau we might drop a return bridge across, but there is +none within fifty yards. Our united strength could not carry a trunk +which would serve our purpose. The rope, of course, is far too short +that we could descend by it. No, our position is hopeless--hopeless! + + + + + CHAPTER X + + "The most Wonderful Things have Happened" + +The most wonderful things have happened and are continually happening +to us. All the paper that I possess consists of five old note-books +and a lot of scraps, and I have only the one stylographic pencil; but +so long as I can move my hand I will continue to set down our +experiences and impressions, for, since we are the only men of the +whole human race to see such things, it is of enormous importance that +I should record them whilst they are fresh in my memory and before that +fate which seems to be constantly impending does actually overtake us. +Whether Zambo can at last take these letters to the river, or whether I +shall myself in some miraculous way carry them back with me, or, +finally, whether some daring explorer, coming upon our tracks with the +advantage, perhaps, of a perfected monoplane, should find this bundle +of manuscript, in any case I can see that what I am writing is destined +to immortality as a classic of true adventure. + +On the morning after our being trapped upon the plateau by the +villainous Gomez we began a new stage in our experiences. The first +incident in it was not such as to give me a very favorable opinion of +the place to which we had wandered. As I roused myself from a short +nap after day had dawned, my eyes fell upon a most singular appearance +upon my own leg. My trouser had slipped up, exposing a few inches of +my skin above my sock. On this there rested a large, purplish grape. +Astonished at the sight, I leaned forward to pick it off, when, to my +horror, it burst between my finger and thumb, squirting blood in every +direction. My cry of disgust had brought the two professors to my side. + +"Most interesting," said Summerlee, bending over my shin. "An enormous +blood-tick, as yet, I believe, unclassified." + +"The first-fruits of our labors," said Challenger in his booming, +pedantic fashion. "We cannot do less than call it Ixodes Maloni. The +very small inconvenience of being bitten, my young friend, cannot, I am +sure, weigh with you as against the glorious privilege of having your +name inscribed in the deathless roll of zoology. Unhappily you have +crushed this fine specimen at the moment of satiation." + +"Filthy vermin!" I cried. + +Professor Challenger raised his great eyebrows in protest, and placed a +soothing paw upon my shoulder. + +"You should cultivate the scientific eye and the detached scientific +mind," said he. "To a man of philosophic temperament like myself the +blood-tick, with its lancet-like proboscis and its distending stomach, +is as beautiful a work of Nature as the peacock or, for that matter, +the aurora borealis. It pains me to hear you speak of it in so +unappreciative a fashion. No doubt, with due diligence, we can secure +some other specimen." + +"There can be no doubt of that," said Summerlee, grimly, "for one has +just disappeared behind your shirt-collar." + +Challenger sprang into the air bellowing like a bull, and tore +frantically at his coat and shirt to get them off. Summerlee and I +laughed so that we could hardly help him. At last we exposed that +monstrous torso (fifty-four inches, by the tailor's tape). His body +was all matted with black hair, out of which jungle we picked the +wandering tick before it had bitten him. But the bushes round were +full of the horrible pests, and it was clear that we must shift our +camp. + +But first of all it was necessary to make our arrangements with the +faithful negro, who appeared presently on the pinnacle with a number of +tins of cocoa and biscuits, which he tossed over to us. Of the stores +which remained below he was ordered to retain as much as would keep him +for two months. The Indians were to have the remainder as a reward for +their services and as payment for taking our letters back to the +Amazon. Some hours later we saw them in single file far out upon the +plain, each with a bundle on his head, making their way back along the +path we had come. Zambo occupied our little tent at the base of the +pinnacle, and there he remained, our one link with the world below. + +And now we had to decide upon our immediate movements. We shifted our +position from among the tick-laden bushes until we came to a small +clearing thickly surrounded by trees upon all sides. There were some +flat slabs of rock in the center, with an excellent well close by, and +there we sat in cleanly comfort while we made our first plans for the +invasion of this new country. Birds were calling among the +foliage--especially one with a peculiar whooping cry which was new to +us--but beyond these sounds there were no signs of life. + +Our first care was to make some sort of list of our own stores, so that +we might know what we had to rely upon. What with the things we had +ourselves brought up and those which Zambo had sent across on the rope, +we were fairly well supplied. Most important of all, in view of the +dangers which might surround us, we had our four rifles and one +thousand three hundred rounds, also a shot-gun, but not more than a +hundred and fifty medium pellet cartridges. In the matter of +provisions we had enough to last for several weeks, with a sufficiency +of tobacco and a few scientific implements, including a large telescope +and a good field-glass. All these things we collected together in the +clearing, and as a first precaution, we cut down with our hatchet and +knives a number of thorny bushes, which we piled round in a circle some +fifteen yards in diameter. This was to be our headquarters for the +time--our place of refuge against sudden danger and the guard-house for +our stores. Fort Challenger, we called it. + +It was midday before we had made ourselves secure, but the heat was not +oppressive, and the general character of the plateau, both in its +temperature and in its vegetation, was almost temperate. The beech, +the oak, and even the birch were to be found among the tangle of trees +which girt us in. One huge gingko tree, topping all the others, shot +its great limbs and maidenhair foliage over the fort which we had +constructed. In its shade we continued our discussion, while Lord +John, who had quickly taken command in the hour of action, gave us his +views. + +"So long as neither man nor beast has seen or heard us, we are safe," +said he. "From the time they know we are here our troubles begin. +There are no signs that they have found us out as yet. So our game +surely is to lie low for a time and spy out the land. We want to have +a good look at our neighbors before we get on visitin' terms." + +"But we must advance," I ventured to remark. + +"By all means, sonny my boy! We will advance. But with common sense. +We must never go so far that we can't get back to our base. Above all, +we must never, unless it is life or death, fire off our guns." + +"But YOU fired yesterday," said Summerlee. + +"Well, it couldn't be helped. However, the wind was strong and blew +outwards. It is not likely that the sound could have traveled far into +the plateau. By the way, what shall we call this place? I suppose it +is up to us to give it a name?" + +There were several suggestions, more or less happy, but Challenger's +was final. + +"It can only have one name," said he. "It is called after the pioneer +who discovered it. It is Maple White Land." + +Maple White Land it became, and so it is named in that chart which has +become my special task. So it will, I trust, appear in the atlas of +the future. + +The peaceful penetration of Maple White Land was the pressing subject +before us. We had the evidence of our own eyes that the place was +inhabited by some unknown creatures, and there was that of Maple +White's sketch-book to show that more dreadful and more dangerous +monsters might still appear. That there might also prove to be human +occupants and that they were of a malevolent character was suggested by +the skeleton impaled upon the bamboos, which could not have got there +had it not been dropped from above. Our situation, stranded without +possibility of escape in such a land, was clearly full of danger, and +our reasons endorsed every measure of caution which Lord John's +experience could suggest. Yet it was surely impossible that we should +halt on the edge of this world of mystery when our very souls were +tingling with impatience to push forward and to pluck the heart from it. + +We therefore blocked the entrance to our zareba by filling it up with +several thorny bushes, and left our camp with the stores entirely +surrounded by this protecting hedge. We then slowly and cautiously set +forth into the unknown, following the course of the little stream which +flowed from our spring, as it should always serve us as a guide on our +return. + +Hardly had we started when we came across signs that there were indeed +wonders awaiting us. After a few hundred yards of thick forest, +containing many trees which were quite unknown to me, but which +Summerlee, who was the botanist of the party, recognized as forms of +conifera and of cycadaceous plants which have long passed away in the +world below, we entered a region where the stream widened out and +formed a considerable bog. High reeds of a peculiar type grew thickly +before us, which were pronounced to be equisetacea, or mare's-tails, +with tree-ferns scattered amongst them, all of them swaying in a brisk +wind. Suddenly Lord John, who was walking first, halted with uplifted +hand. + +"Look at this!" said he. "By George, this must be the trail of the +father of all birds!" + +An enormous three-toed track was imprinted in the soft mud before us. +The creature, whatever it was, had crossed the swamp and had passed on +into the forest. We all stopped to examine that monstrous spoor. If +it were indeed a bird--and what animal could leave such a mark?--its +foot was so much larger than an ostrich's that its height upon the same +scale must be enormous. Lord John looked eagerly round him and slipped +two cartridges into his elephant-gun. + +"I'll stake my good name as a shikarree," said he, "that the track is a +fresh one. The creature has not passed ten minutes. Look how the +water is still oozing into that deeper print! By Jove! See, here is +the mark of a little one!" + +Sure enough, smaller tracks of the same general form were running +parallel to the large ones. + +"But what do you make of this?" cried Professor Summerlee, +triumphantly, pointing to what looked like the huge print of a +five-fingered human hand appearing among the three-toed marks. + +"Wealden!" cried Challenger, in an ecstasy. "I've seen them in the +Wealden clay. It is a creature walking erect upon three-toed feet, and +occasionally putting one of its five-fingered forepaws upon the ground. +Not a bird, my dear Roxton--not a bird." + +"A beast?" + +"No; a reptile--a dinosaur. Nothing else could have left such a track. +They puzzled a worthy Sussex doctor some ninety years ago; but who in +the world could have hoped--hoped--to have seen a sight like that?" + +His words died away into a whisper, and we all stood in motionless +amazement. Following the tracks, we had left the morass and passed +through a screen of brushwood and trees. Beyond was an open glade, and +in this were five of the most extraordinary creatures that I have ever +seen. Crouching down among the bushes, we observed them at our leisure. + +There were, as I say, five of them, two being adults and three young +ones. In size they were enormous. Even the babies were as big as +elephants, while the two large ones were far beyond all creatures I +have ever seen. They had slate-colored skin, which was scaled like a +lizard's and shimmered where the sun shone upon it. All five were +sitting up, balancing themselves upon their broad, powerful tails and +their huge three-toed hind-feet, while with their small five-fingered +front-feet they pulled down the branches upon which they browsed. I do +not know that I can bring their appearance home to you better than by +saying that they looked like monstrous kangaroos, twenty feet in +length, and with skins like black crocodiles. + +I do not know how long we stayed motionless gazing at this marvelous +spectacle. A strong wind blew towards us and we were well concealed, +so there was no chance of discovery. From time to time the little ones +played round their parents in unwieldy gambols, the great beasts +bounding into the air and falling with dull thuds upon the earth. The +strength of the parents seemed to be limitless, for one of them, having +some difficulty in reaching a bunch of foliage which grew upon a +considerable-sized tree, put his fore-legs round the trunk and tore it +down as if it had been a sapling. The action seemed, as I thought, to +show not only the great development of its muscles, but also the small +one of its brain, for the whole weight came crashing down upon the top +of it, and it uttered a series of shrill yelps to show that, big as it +was, there was a limit to what it could endure. The incident made it +think, apparently, that the neighborhood was dangerous, for it slowly +lurched off through the wood, followed by its mate and its three +enormous infants. We saw the shimmering slaty gleam of their skins +between the tree-trunks, and their heads undulating high above the +brush-wood. Then they vanished from our sight. + +I looked at my comrades. Lord John was standing at gaze with his +finger on the trigger of his elephant-gun, his eager hunter's soul +shining from his fierce eyes. What would he not give for one such head +to place between the two crossed oars above the mantelpiece in his +snuggery at the Albany! And yet his reason held him in, for all our +exploration of the wonders of this unknown land depended upon our +presence being concealed from its inhabitants. The two professors were +in silent ecstasy. In their excitement they had unconsciously seized +each other by the hand, and stood like two little children in the +presence of a marvel, Challenger's cheeks bunched up into a seraphic +smile, and Summerlee's sardonic face softening for the moment into +wonder and reverence. + +"Nunc dimittis!" he cried at last. "What will they say in England of +this?" + +"My dear Summerlee, I will tell you with great confidence exactly what +they will say in England," said Challenger. "They will say that you +are an infernal liar and a scientific charlatan, exactly as you and +others said of me." + +"In the face of photographs?" + +"Faked, Summerlee! Clumsily faked!" + +"In the face of specimens?" + +"Ah, there we may have them! Malone and his filthy Fleet Street crew +may be all yelping our praises yet. August the twenty-eighth--the day +we saw five live iguanodons in a glade of Maple White Land. Put it +down in your diary, my young friend, and send it to your rag." + +"And be ready to get the toe-end of the editorial boot in return," said +Lord John. "Things look a bit different from the latitude of London, +young fellah my lad. There's many a man who never tells his +adventures, for he can't hope to be believed. Who's to blame them? +For this will seem a bit of a dream to ourselves in a month or two. +WHAT did you say they were?" + +"Iguanodons," said Summerlee. "You'll find their footmarks all over +the Hastings sands, in Kent, and in Sussex. The South of England was +alive with them when there was plenty of good lush green-stuff to keep +them going. Conditions have changed, and the beasts died. Here it +seems that the conditions have not changed, and the beasts have lived." + +"If ever we get out of this alive, I must have a head with me," said +Lord John. "Lord, how some of that Somaliland-Uganda crowd would turn +a beautiful pea-green if they saw it! I don't know what you chaps +think, but it strikes me that we are on mighty thin ice all this time." + +I had the same feeling of mystery and danger around us. In the gloom +of the trees there seemed a constant menace and as we looked up into +their shadowy foliage vague terrors crept into one's heart. It is true +that these monstrous creatures which we had seen were lumbering, +inoffensive brutes which were unlikely to hurt anyone, but in this +world of wonders what other survivals might there not be--what fierce, +active horrors ready to pounce upon us from their lair among the rocks +or brushwood? I knew little of prehistoric life, but I had a clear +remembrance of one book which I had read in which it spoke of creatures +who would live upon our lions and tigers as a cat lives upon mice. +What if these also were to be found in the woods of Maple White Land! + +It was destined that on this very morning--our first in the new +country--we were to find out what strange hazards lay around us. It +was a loathsome adventure, and one of which I hate to think. If, as +Lord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will remain with us as a +dream, then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will forever be our +nightmare. Let me set down exactly what occurred. + +We passed very slowly through the woods, partly because Lord Roxton +acted as scout before he would let us advance, and partly because at +every second step one or other of our professors would fall, with a cry +of wonder, before some flower or insect which presented him with a new +type. We may have traveled two or three miles in all, keeping to the +right of the line of the stream, when we came upon a considerable +opening in the trees. A belt of brushwood led up to a tangle of +rocks--the whole plateau was strewn with boulders. We were walking +slowly towards these rocks, among bushes which reached over our waists, +when we became aware of a strange low gabbling and whistling sound, +which filled the air with a constant clamor and appeared to come from +some spot immediately before us. Lord John held up his hand as a +signal for us to stop, and he made his way swiftly, stooping and +running, to the line of rocks. We saw him peep over them and give a +gesture of amazement. Then he stood staring as if forgetting us, so +utterly entranced was he by what he saw. Finally he waved us to come +on, holding up his hand as a signal for caution. His whole bearing +made me feel that something wonderful but dangerous lay before us. + +Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into which +we gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been one of the +smaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped and at +the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of +green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes. It was a weird +place in itself, but its occupants made it seem like a scene from the +Seven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of pterodactyls. +There were hundreds of them congregated within view. All the bottom +area round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with +hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. From +this crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shocking +clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odor +which turned us sick. But above, perched each upon its own stone, +tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than +actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless +save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their +rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge, membranous +wings were closed by folding their fore-arms, so that they sat like +gigantic old women, wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and with +their ferocious heads protruding above them. Large and small, not less +than a thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us. + +Our professors would gladly have stayed there all day, so entranced +were they by this opportunity of studying the life of a prehistoric +age. They pointed out the fish and dead birds lying about among the +rocks as proving the nature of the food of these creatures, and I heard +them congratulating each other on having cleared up the point why the +bones of this flying dragon are found in such great numbers in certain +well-defined areas, as in the Cambridge Green-sand, since it was now +seen that, like penguins, they lived in gregarious fashion. + +Finally, however, Challenger, bent upon proving some point which +Summerlee had contested, thrust his head over the rock and nearly +brought destruction upon us all. In an instant the nearest male gave a +shrill, whistling cry, and flapped its twenty-foot span of leathery +wings as it soared up into the air. The females and young ones huddled +together beside the water, while the whole circle of sentinels rose one +after the other and sailed off into the sky. It was a wonderful sight +to see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideous +appearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes +above us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could +afford to linger. At first the great brutes flew round in a huge ring, +as if to make sure what the exact extent of the danger might be. Then, +the flight grew lower and the circle narrower, until they were whizzing +round and round us, the dry, rustling flap of their huge slate-colored +wings filling the air with a volume of sound that made me think of +Hendon aerodrome upon a race day. + +"Make for the wood and keep together," cried Lord John, clubbing his +rifle. "The brutes mean mischief." + +The moment we attempted to retreat the circle closed in upon us, until +the tips of the wings of those nearest to us nearly touched our faces. +We beat at them with the stocks of our guns, but there was nothing +solid or vulnerable to strike. Then suddenly out of the whizzing, +slate-colored circle a long neck shot out, and a fierce beak made a +thrust at us. Another and another followed. Summerlee gave a cry and +put his hand to his face, from which the blood was streaming. I felt a +prod at the back of my neck, and turned dizzy with the shock. +Challenger fell, and as I stooped to pick him up I was again struck +from behind and dropped on the top of him. At the same instant I heard +the crash of Lord John's elephant-gun, and, looking up, saw one of the +creatures with a broken wing struggling upon the ground, spitting and +gurgling at us with a wide-opened beak and blood-shot, goggled eyes, +like some devil in a medieval picture. Its comrades had flown higher +at the sudden sound, and were circling above our heads. + +"Now," cried Lord John, "now for our lives!" + +We staggered through the brushwood, and even as we reached the trees +the harpies were on us again. Summerlee was knocked down, but we tore +him up and rushed among the trunks. Once there we were safe, for those +huge wings had no space for their sweep beneath the branches. As we +limped homewards, sadly mauled and discomfited, we saw them for a long +time flying at a great height against the deep blue sky above our +heads, soaring round and round, no bigger than wood-pigeons, with their +eyes no doubt still following our progress. At last, however, as we +reached the thicker woods they gave up the chase, and we saw them no +more. + +"A most interesting and convincing experience," said Challenger, as we +halted beside the brook and he bathed a swollen knee. "We are +exceptionally well informed, Summerlee, as to the habits of the enraged +pterodactyl." + +Summerlee was wiping the blood from a cut in his forehead, while I was +tying up a nasty stab in the muscle of the neck. Lord John had the +shoulder of his coat torn away, but the creature's teeth had only +grazed the flesh. + +"It is worth noting," Challenger continued, "that our young friend has +received an undoubted stab, while Lord John's coat could only have been +torn by a bite. In my own case, I was beaten about the head by their +wings, so we have had a remarkable exhibition of their various methods +of offence." + +"It has been touch and go for our lives," said Lord John, gravely, "and +I could not think of a more rotten sort of death than to be outed by +such filthy vermin. I was sorry to fire my rifle, but, by Jove! there +was no great choice." + +"We should not be here if you hadn't," said I, with conviction. + +"It may do no harm," said he. "Among these woods there must be many +loud cracks from splitting or falling trees which would be just like +the sound of a gun. But now, if you are of my opinion, we have had +thrills enough for one day, and had best get back to the surgical box +at the camp for some carbolic. Who knows what venom these beasts may +have in their hideous jaws?" + +But surely no men ever had just such a day since the world began. Some +fresh surprise was ever in store for us. When, following the course of +our brook, we at last reached our glade and saw the thorny barricade of +our camp, we thought that our adventures were at an end. But we had +something more to think of before we could rest. The gate of Fort +Challenger had been untouched, the walls were unbroken, and yet it had +been visited by some strange and powerful creature in our absence. No +foot-mark showed a trace of its nature, and only the overhanging branch +of the enormous ginko tree suggested how it might have come and gone; +but of its malevolent strength there was ample evidence in the +condition of our stores. They were strewn at random all over the +ground, and one tin of meat had been crushed into pieces so as to +extract the contents. A case of cartridges had been shattered into +matchwood, and one of the brass shells lay shredded into pieces beside +it. Again the feeling of vague horror came upon our souls, and we +gazed round with frightened eyes at the dark shadows which lay around +us, in all of which some fearsome shape might be lurking. How good it +was when we were hailed by the voice of Zambo, and, going to the edge +of the plateau, saw him sitting grinning at us upon the top of the +opposite pinnacle. + +"All well, Massa Challenger, all well!" he cried. "Me stay here. No +fear. You always find me when you want." + +His honest black face, and the immense view before us, which carried us +half-way back to the affluent of the Amazon, helped us to remember that +we really were upon this earth in the twentieth century, and had not by +some magic been conveyed to some raw planet in its earliest and wildest +state. How difficult it was to realize that the violet line upon the +far horizon was well advanced to that great river upon which huge +steamers ran, and folk talked of the small affairs of life, while we, +marooned among the creatures of a bygone age, could but gaze towards it +and yearn for all that it meant! + +One other memory remains with me of this wonderful day, and with it I +will close this letter. The two professors, their tempers aggravated +no doubt by their injuries, had fallen out as to whether our assailants +were of the genus pterodactylus or dimorphodon, and high words had +ensued. To avoid their wrangling I moved some little way apart, and +was seated smoking upon the trunk of a fallen tree, when Lord John +strolled over in my direction. + +"I say, Malone," said he, "do you remember that place where those +beasts were?" + +"Very clearly." + +"A sort of volcanic pit, was it not?" + +"Exactly," said I. + +"Did you notice the soil?" + +"Rocks." + +"But round the water--where the reeds were?" + +"It was a bluish soil. It looked like clay." + +"Exactly. A volcanic tube full of blue clay." + +"What of that?" I asked. + +"Oh, nothing, nothing," said he, and strolled back to where the voices +of the contending men of science rose in a prolonged duet, the high, +strident note of Summerlee rising and falling to the sonorous bass of +Challenger. I should have thought no more of Lord John's remark were +it not that once again that night I heard him mutter to himself: "Blue +clay--clay in a volcanic tube!" They were the last words I heard before +I dropped into an exhausted sleep. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + "For once I was the Hero" + +Lord John Roxton was right when he thought that some specially toxic +quality might lie in the bite of the horrible creatures which had +attacked us. On the morning after our first adventure upon the +plateau, both Summerlee and I were in great pain and fever, while +Challenger's knee was so bruised that he could hardly limp. We kept to +our camp all day, therefore, Lord John busying himself, with such help +as we could give him, in raising the height and thickness of the thorny +walls which were our only defense. I remember that during the whole +long day I was haunted by the feeling that we were closely observed, +though by whom or whence I could give no guess. + +So strong was the impression that I told Professor Challenger of it, +who put it down to the cerebral excitement caused by my fever. Again +and again I glanced round swiftly, with the conviction that I was about +to see something, but only to meet the dark tangle of our hedge or the +solemn and cavernous gloom of the great trees which arched above our +heads. And yet the feeling grew ever stronger in my own mind that +something observant and something malevolent was at our very elbow. I +thought of the Indian superstition of the Curupuri--the dreadful, +lurking spirit of the woods--and I could have imagined that his +terrible presence haunted those who had invaded his most remote and +sacred retreat. + +That night (our third in Maple White Land) we had an experience which +left a fearful impression upon our minds, and made us thankful that +Lord John had worked so hard in making our retreat impregnable. We +were all sleeping round our dying fire when we were aroused--or, +rather, I should say, shot out of our slumbers--by a succession of the +most frightful cries and screams to which I have ever listened. I know +no sound to which I could compare this amazing tumult, which seemed to +come from some spot within a few hundred yards of our camp. It was as +ear-splitting as any whistle of a railway-engine; but whereas the +whistle is a clear, mechanical, sharp-edged sound, this was far deeper +in volume and vibrant with the uttermost strain of agony and horror. +We clapped our hands to our ears to shut out that nerve-shaking appeal. +A cold sweat broke out over my body, and my heart turned sick at the +misery of it. All the woes of tortured life, all its stupendous +indictment of high heaven, its innumerable sorrows, seemed to be +centered and condensed into that one dreadful, agonized cry. And then, +under this high-pitched, ringing sound there was another, more +intermittent, a low, deep-chested laugh, a growling, throaty gurgle of +merriment which formed a grotesque accompaniment to the shriek with +which it was blended. For three or four minutes on end the fearsome +duet continued, while all the foliage rustled with the rising of +startled birds. Then it shut off as suddenly as it began. For a long +time we sat in horrified silence. Then Lord John threw a bundle of +twigs upon the fire, and their red glare lit up the intent faces of my +companions and flickered over the great boughs above our heads. + +"What was it?" I whispered. + +"We shall know in the morning," said Lord John. "It was close to +us--not farther than the glade." + +"We have been privileged to overhear a prehistoric tragedy, the sort of +drama which occurred among the reeds upon the border of some Jurassic +lagoon, when the greater dragon pinned the lesser among the slime," +said Challenger, with more solemnity than I had ever heard in his +voice. "It was surely well for man that he came late in the order of +creation. There were powers abroad in earlier days which no courage +and no mechanism of his could have met. What could his sling, his +throwing-stick, or his arrow avail him against such forces as have been +loose to-night? Even with a modern rifle it would be all odds on the +monster." + +"I think I should back my little friend," said Lord John, caressing his +Express. "But the beast would certainly have a good sporting chance." + +Summerlee raised his hand. + +"Hush!" he cried. "Surely I hear something?" + +From the utter silence there emerged a deep, regular pat-pat. It was +the tread of some animal--the rhythm of soft but heavy pads placed +cautiously upon the ground. It stole slowly round the camp, and then +halted near our gateway. There was a low, sibilant rise and fall--the +breathing of the creature. Only our feeble hedge separated us from +this horror of the night. Each of us had seized his rifle, and Lord +John had pulled out a small bush to make an embrasure in the hedge. + +"By George!" he whispered. "I think I can see it!" + +I stooped and peered over his shoulder through the gap. Yes, I could +see it, too. In the deep shadow of the tree there was a deeper shadow +yet, black, inchoate, vague--a crouching form full of savage vigor and +menace. It was no higher than a horse, but the dim outline suggested +vast bulk and strength. That hissing pant, as regular and full-volumed +as the exhaust of an engine, spoke of a monstrous organism. Once, as +it moved, I thought I saw the glint of two terrible, greenish eyes. +There was an uneasy rustling, as if it were crawling slowly forward. + +"I believe it is going to spring!" said I, cocking my rifle. + +"Don't fire! Don't fire!" whispered Lord John. "The crash of a gun in +this silent night would be heard for miles. Keep it as a last card." + +"If it gets over the hedge we're done," said Summerlee, and his voice +crackled into a nervous laugh as he spoke. + +"No, it must not get over," cried Lord John; "but hold your fire to the +last. Perhaps I can make something of the fellow. I'll chance it, +anyhow." + +It was as brave an act as ever I saw a man do. He stooped to the fire, +picked up a blazing branch, and slipped in an instant through a +sallyport which he had made in our gateway. The thing moved forward +with a dreadful snarl. Lord John never hesitated, but, running towards +it with a quick, light step, he dashed the flaming wood into the +brute's face. For one moment I had a vision of a horrible mask like a +giant toad's, of a warty, leprous skin, and of a loose mouth all +beslobbered with fresh blood. The next, there was a crash in the +underwood and our dreadful visitor was gone. + +"I thought he wouldn't face the fire," said Lord John, laughing, as he +came back and threw his branch among the faggots. + +"You should not have taken such a risk!" we all cried. + +"There was nothin' else to be done. If he had got among us we should +have shot each other in tryin' to down him. On the other hand, if we +had fired through the hedge and wounded him he would soon have been on +the top of us--to say nothin' of giving ourselves away. On the whole, +I think that we are jolly well out of it. What was he, then?" + +Our learned men looked at each other with some hesitation. + +"Personally, I am unable to classify the creature with any certainty," +said Summerlee, lighting his pipe from the fire. + +"In refusing to commit yourself you are but showing a proper scientific +reserve," said Challenger, with massive condescension. "I am not +myself prepared to go farther than to say in general terms that we have +almost certainly been in contact to-night with some form of carnivorous +dinosaur. I have already expressed my anticipation that something of +the sort might exist upon this plateau." + +"We have to bear in mind," remarked Summerlee, "that there are many +prehistoric forms which have never come down to us. It would be rash +to suppose that we can give a name to all that we are likely to meet." + +"Exactly. A rough classification may be the best that we can attempt. +To-morrow some further evidence may help us to an identification. +Meantime we can only renew our interrupted slumbers." + +"But not without a sentinel," said Lord John, with decision. "We can't +afford to take chances in a country like this. Two-hour spells in the +future, for each of us." + +"Then I'll just finish my pipe in starting the first one," said +Professor Summerlee; and from that time onwards we never trusted +ourselves again without a watchman. + +In the morning it was not long before we discovered the source of the +hideous uproar which had aroused us in the night. The iguanodon glade +was the scene of a horrible butchery. From the pools of blood and the +enormous lumps of flesh scattered in every direction over the green +sward we imagined at first that a number of animals had been killed, +but on examining the remains more closely we discovered that all this +carnage came from one of these unwieldy monsters, which had been +literally torn to pieces by some creature not larger, perhaps, but far +more ferocious, than itself. + +Our two professors sat in absorbed argument, examining piece after +piece, which showed the marks of savage teeth and of enormous claws. + +"Our judgment must still be in abeyance," said Professor Challenger, +with a huge slab of whitish-colored flesh across his knee. "The +indications would be consistent with the presence of a saber-toothed +tiger, such as are still found among the breccia of our caverns; but +the creature actually seen was undoubtedly of a larger and more +reptilian character. Personally, I should pronounce for allosaurus." + +"Or megalosaurus," said Summerlee. + +"Exactly. Any one of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs would meet the +case. Among them are to be found all the most terrible types of animal +life that have ever cursed the earth or blessed a museum." He laughed +sonorously at his own conceit, for, though he had little sense of +humor, the crudest pleasantry from his own lips moved him always to +roars of appreciation. + +"The less noise the better," said Lord Roxton, curtly. "We don't know +who or what may be near us. If this fellah comes back for his +breakfast and catches us here we won't have so much to laugh at. By +the way, what is this mark upon the iguanodon's hide?" + +On the dull, scaly, slate-colored skin somewhere above the shoulder, +there was a singular black circle of some substance which looked like +asphalt. None of us could suggest what it meant, though Summerlee was +of opinion that he had seen something similar upon one of the young +ones two days before. Challenger said nothing, but looked pompous and +puffy, as if he could if he would, so that finally Lord John asked his +opinion direct. + +"If your lordship will graciously permit me to open my mouth, I shall +be happy to express my sentiments," said he, with elaborate sarcasm. +"I am not in the habit of being taken to task in the fashion which +seems to be customary with your lordship. I was not aware that it was +necessary to ask your permission before smiling at a harmless +pleasantry." + +It was not until he had received his apology that our touchy friend +would suffer himself to be appeased. When at last his ruffled feelings +were at ease, he addressed us at some length from his seat upon a +fallen tree, speaking, as his habit was, as if he were imparting most +precious information to a class of a thousand. + +"With regard to the marking," said he, "I am inclined to agree with my +friend and colleague, Professor Summerlee, that the stains are from +asphalt. As this plateau is, in its very nature, highly volcanic, and +as asphalt is a substance which one associates with Plutonic forces, I +cannot doubt that it exists in the free liquid state, and that the +creatures may have come in contact with it. A much more important +problem is the question as to the existence of the carnivorous monster +which has left its traces in this glade. We know roughly that this +plateau is not larger than an average English county. Within this +confined space a certain number of creatures, mostly types which have +passed away in the world below, have lived together for innumerable +years. Now, it is very clear to me that in so long a period one would +have expected that the carnivorous creatures, multiplying unchecked, +would have exhausted their food supply and have been compelled to +either modify their flesh-eating habits or die of hunger. This we see +has not been so. We can only imagine, therefore, that the balance of +Nature is preserved by some check which limits the numbers of these +ferocious creatures. One of the many interesting problems, therefore, +which await our solution is to discover what that check may be and how +it operates. I venture to trust that we may have some future +opportunity for the closer study of the carnivorous dinosaurs." + +"And I venture to trust we may not," I observed. + +The Professor only raised his great eyebrows, as the schoolmaster meets +the irrelevant observation of the naughty boy. + +"Perhaps Professor Summerlee may have an observation to make," he said, +and the two savants ascended together into some rarefied scientific +atmosphere, where the possibilities of a modification of the birth-rate +were weighed against the decline of the food supply as a check in the +struggle for existence. + +That morning we mapped out a small portion of the plateau, avoiding the +swamp of the pterodactyls, and keeping to the east of our brook instead +of to the west. In that direction the country was still thickly +wooded, with so much undergrowth that our progress was very slow. + +I have dwelt up to now upon the terrors of Maple White Land; but there +was another side to the subject, for all that morning we wandered among +lovely flowers--mostly, as I observed, white or yellow in color, these +being, as our professors explained, the primitive flower-shades. In +many places the ground was absolutely covered with them, and as we +walked ankle-deep on that wonderful yielding carpet, the scent was +almost intoxicating in its sweetness and intensity. The homely English +bee buzzed everywhere around us. Many of the trees under which we +passed had their branches bowed down with fruit, some of which were of +familiar sorts, while other varieties were new. By observing which of +them were pecked by the birds we avoided all danger of poison and added +a delicious variety to our food reserve. In the jungle which we +traversed were numerous hard-trodden paths made by the wild beasts, and +in the more marshy places we saw a profusion of strange footmarks, +including many of the iguanodon. Once in a grove we observed several +of these great creatures grazing, and Lord John, with his glass, was +able to report that they also were spotted with asphalt, though in a +different place to the one which we had examined in the morning. What +this phenomenon meant we could not imagine. + +We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, and a +wild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks. Once, through a +break in the trees, we saw a clear shoulder of green hill some distance +away, and across this a large dun-colored animal was traveling at a +considerable pace. It passed so swiftly that we were unable to say +what it was; but if it were a deer, as was claimed by Lord John, it +must have been as large as those monstrous Irish elk which are still +dug up from time to time in the bogs of my native land. + +Ever since the mysterious visit which had been paid to our camp we +always returned to it with some misgivings. However, on this occasion +we found everything in order. + +That evening we had a grand discussion upon our present situation and +future plans, which I must describe at some length, as it led to a new +departure by which we were enabled to gain a more complete knowledge of +Maple White Land than might have come in many weeks of exploring. It +was Summerlee who opened the debate. All day he had been querulous in +manner, and now some remark of Lord John's as to what we should do on +the morrow brought all his bitterness to a head. + +"What we ought to be doing to-day, to-morrow, and all the time," said +he, "is finding some way out of the trap into which we have fallen. +You are all turning your brains towards getting into this country. I +say that we should be scheming how to get out of it." + +"I am surprised, sir," boomed Challenger, stroking his majestic beard, +"that any man of science should commit himself to so ignoble a +sentiment. You are in a land which offers such an inducement to the +ambitious naturalist as none ever has since the world began, and you +suggest leaving it before we have acquired more than the most +superficial knowledge of it or of its contents. I expected better +things of you, Professor Summerlee." + +"You must remember," said Summerlee, sourly, "that I have a large class +in London who are at present at the mercy of an extremely inefficient +locum tenens. This makes my situation different from yours, Professor +Challenger, since, so far as I know, you have never been entrusted with +any responsible educational work." + +"Quite so," said Challenger. "I have felt it to be a sacrilege to +divert a brain which is capable of the highest original research to any +lesser object. That is why I have sternly set my face against any +proffered scholastic appointment." + +"For example?" asked Summerlee, with a sneer; but Lord John hastened to +change the conversation. + +"I must say," said he, "that I think it would be a mighty poor thing to +go back to London before I know a great deal more of this place than I +do at present." + +"I could never dare to walk into the back office of my paper and face +old McArdle," said I. (You will excuse the frankness of this report, +will you not, sir?) "He'd never forgive me for leaving such +unexhausted copy behind me. Besides, so far as I can see it is not +worth discussing, since we can't get down, even if we wanted." + +"Our young friend makes up for many obvious mental lacunae by some +measure of primitive common sense," remarked Challenger. "The +interests of his deplorable profession are immaterial to us; but, as he +observes, we cannot get down in any case, so it is a waste of energy to +discuss it." + +"It is a waste of energy to do anything else," growled Summerlee from +behind his pipe. "Let me remind you that we came here upon a perfectly +definite mission, entrusted to us at the meeting of the Zoological +Institute in London. That mission was to test the truth of Professor +Challenger's statements. Those statements, as I am bound to admit, we +are now in a position to endorse. Our ostensible work is therefore +done. As to the detail which remains to be worked out upon this +plateau, it is so enormous that only a large expedition, with a very +special equipment, could hope to cope with it. Should we attempt to do +so ourselves, the only possible result must be that we shall never +return with the important contribution to science which we have already +gained. Professor Challenger has devised means for getting us on to +this plateau when it appeared to be inaccessible; I think that we +should now call upon him to use the same ingenuity in getting us back +to the world from which we came." + +I confess that as Summerlee stated his view it struck me as altogether +reasonable. Even Challenger was affected by the consideration that his +enemies would never stand confuted if the confirmation of his +statements should never reach those who had doubted them. + +"The problem of the descent is at first sight a formidable one," said +he, "and yet I cannot doubt that the intellect can solve it. I am +prepared to agree with our colleague that a protracted stay in Maple +White Land is at present inadvisable, and that the question of our +return will soon have to be faced. I absolutely refuse to leave, +however, until we have made at least a superficial examination of this +country, and are able to take back with us something in the nature of a +chart." + +Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience. + +"We have spent two long days in exploration," said he, "and we are no +wiser as to the actual geography of the place than when we started. It +is clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it would take months to +penetrate it and to learn the relations of one part to another. If +there were some central peak it would be different, but it all slopes +downwards, so far as we can see. The farther we go the less likely it +is that we will get any general view." + +It was at that moment that I had my inspiration. My eyes chanced to +light upon the enormous gnarled trunk of the gingko tree which cast its +huge branches over us. Surely, if its bole exceeded that of all +others, its height must do the same. If the rim of the plateau was +indeed the highest point, then why should this mighty tree not prove to +be a watchtower which commanded the whole country? Now, ever since I +ran wild as a lad in Ireland I have been a bold and skilled +tree-climber. My comrades might be my masters on the rocks, but I knew +that I would be supreme among those branches. Could I only get my legs +on to the lowest of the giant off-shoots, then it would be strange +indeed if I could not make my way to the top. My comrades were +delighted at my idea. + +"Our young friend," said Challenger, bunching up the red apples of his +cheeks, "is capable of acrobatic exertions which would be impossible to +a man of a more solid, though possibly of a more commanding, +appearance. I applaud his resolution." + +"By George, young fellah, you've put your hand on it!" said Lord John, +clapping me on the back. "How we never came to think of it before I +can't imagine! There's not more than an hour of daylight left, but if +you take your notebook you may be able to get some rough sketch of the +place. If we put these three ammunition cases under the branch, I will +soon hoist you on to it." + +He stood on the boxes while I faced the trunk, and was gently raising +me when Challenger sprang forward and gave me such a thrust with his +huge hand that he fairly shot me into the tree. With both arms +clasping the branch, I scrambled hard with my feet until I had worked, +first my body, and then my knees, onto it. There were three excellent +off-shoots, like huge rungs of a ladder, above my head, and a tangle of +convenient branches beyond, so that I clambered onwards with such speed +that I soon lost sight of the ground and had nothing but foliage +beneath me. Now and then I encountered a check, and once I had to shin +up a creeper for eight or ten feet, but I made excellent progress, and +the booming of Challenger's voice seemed to be a great distance beneath +me. The tree was, however, enormous, and, looking upwards, I could see +no thinning of the leaves above my head. There was some thick, +bush-like clump which seemed to be a parasite upon a branch up which I +was swarming. I leaned my head round it in order to see what was +beyond, and I nearly fell out of the tree in my surprise and horror at +what I saw. + +A face was gazing into mine--at the distance of only a foot or two. +The creature that owned it had been crouching behind the parasite, and +had looked round it at the same instant that I did. It was a human +face--or at least it was far more human than any monkey's that I have +ever seen. It was long, whitish, and blotched with pimples, the nose +flattened, and the lower jaw projecting, with a bristle of coarse +whiskers round the chin. The eyes, which were under thick and heavy +brows, were bestial and ferocious, and as it opened its mouth to snarl +what sounded like a curse at me I observed that it had curved, sharp +canine teeth. For an instant I read hatred and menace in the evil +eyes. Then, as quick as a flash, came an expression of overpowering +fear. There was a crash of broken boughs as it dived wildly down into +the tangle of green. I caught a glimpse of a hairy body like that of a +reddish pig, and then it was gone amid a swirl of leaves and branches. + +"What's the matter?" shouted Roxton from below. "Anything wrong with +you?" + +"Did you see it?" I cried, with my arms round the branch and all my +nerves tingling. + +"We heard a row, as if your foot had slipped. What was it?" + +I was so shocked at the sudden and strange appearance of this ape-man +that I hesitated whether I should not climb down again and tell my +experience to my companions. But I was already so far up the great +tree that it seemed a humiliation to return without having carried out +my mission. + +After a long pause, therefore, to recover my breath and my courage, I +continued my ascent. Once I put my weight upon a rotten branch and +swung for a few seconds by my hands, but in the main it was all easy +climbing. Gradually the leaves thinned around me, and I was aware, +from the wind upon my face, that I had topped all the trees of the +forest. I was determined, however, not to look about me before I had +reached the very highest point, so I scrambled on until I had got so +far that the topmost branch was bending beneath my weight. There I +settled into a convenient fork, and, balancing myself securely, I found +myself looking down at a most wonderful panorama of this strange +country in which we found ourselves. + +The sun was just above the western sky-line, and the evening was a +particularly bright and clear one, so that the whole extent of the +plateau was visible beneath me. It was, as seen from this height, of +an oval contour, with a breadth of about thirty miles and a width of +twenty. Its general shape was that of a shallow funnel, all the sides +sloping down to a considerable lake in the center. This lake may have +been ten miles in circumference, and lay very green and beautiful in +the evening light, with a thick fringe of reeds at its edges, and with +its surface broken by several yellow sandbanks, which gleamed golden in +the mellow sunshine. A number of long dark objects, which were too +large for alligators and too long for canoes, lay upon the edges of +these patches of sand. With my glass I could clearly see that they +were alive, but what their nature might be I could not imagine. + +From the side of the plateau on which we were, slopes of woodland, with +occasional glades, stretched down for five or six miles to the central +lake. I could see at my very feet the glade of the iguanodons, and +farther off was a round opening in the trees which marked the swamp of +the pterodactyls. On the side facing me, however, the plateau +presented a very different aspect. There the basalt cliffs of the +outside were reproduced upon the inside, forming an escarpment about +two hundred feet high, with a woody slope beneath it. Along the base +of these red cliffs, some distance above the ground, I could see a +number of dark holes through the glass, which I conjectured to be the +mouths of caves. At the opening of one of these something white was +shimmering, but I was unable to make out what it was. I sat charting +the country until the sun had set and it was so dark that I could no +longer distinguish details. Then I climbed down to my companions +waiting for me so eagerly at the bottom of the great tree. For once I +was the hero of the expedition. Alone I had thought of it, and alone I +had done it; and here was the chart which would save us a month's blind +groping among unknown dangers. Each of them shook me solemnly by the +hand. + +But before they discussed the details of my map I had to tell them of +my encounter with the ape-man among the branches. + +"He has been there all the time," said I. + +"How do you know that?" asked Lord John. + +"Because I have never been without that feeling that something +malevolent was watching us. I mentioned it to you, Professor +Challenger." + +"Our young friend certainly said something of the kind. He is also the +one among us who is endowed with that Celtic temperament which would +make him sensitive to such impressions." + +"The whole theory of telepathy----" began Summerlee, filling his pipe. + +"Is too vast to be now discussed," said Challenger, with decision. +"Tell me, now," he added, with the air of a bishop addressing a +Sunday-school, "did you happen to observe whether the creature could +cross its thumb over its palm?" + +"No, indeed." + +"Had it a tail?" + +"No." + +"Was the foot prehensile?" + +"I do not think it could have made off so fast among the branches if it +could not get a grip with its feet." + +"In South America there are, if my memory serves me--you will check the +observation, Professor Summerlee--some thirty-six species of monkeys, +but the anthropoid ape is unknown. It is clear, however, that he +exists in this country, and that he is not the hairy, gorilla-like +variety, which is never seen out of Africa or the East." (I was +inclined to interpolate, as I looked at him, that I had seen his first +cousin in Kensington.) "This is a whiskered and colorless type, the +latter characteristic pointing to the fact that he spends his days in +arboreal seclusion. The question which we have to face is whether he +approaches more closely to the ape or the man. In the latter case, he +may well approximate to what the vulgar have called the 'missing link.' +The solution of this problem is our immediate duty." + +"It is nothing of the sort," said Summerlee, abruptly. "Now that, +through the intelligence and activity of Mr. Malone" (I cannot help +quoting the words), "we have got our chart, our one and only immediate +duty is to get ourselves safe and sound out of this awful place." + +"The flesh-pots of civilization," groaned Challenger. + +"The ink-pots of civilization, sir. It is our task to put on record +what we have seen, and to leave the further exploration to others. You +all agreed as much before Mr. Malone got us the chart." + +"Well," said Challenger, "I admit that my mind will be more at ease +when I am assured that the result of our expedition has been conveyed +to our friends. How we are to get down from this place I have not as +yet an idea. I have never yet encountered any problem, however, which +my inventive brain was unable to solve, and I promise you that +to-morrow I will turn my attention to the question of our descent." +And so the matter was allowed to rest. + +But that evening, by the light of the fire and of a single candle, the +first map of the lost world was elaborated. Every detail which I had +roughly noted from my watch-tower was drawn out in its relative place. +Challenger's pencil hovered over the great blank which marked the lake. + +"What shall we call it?" he asked. + +"Why should you not take the chance of perpetuating your own name?" +said Summerlee, with his usual touch of acidity. + +"I trust, sir, that my name will have other and more personal claims +upon posterity," said Challenger, severely. "Any ignoramus can hand +down his worthless memory by imposing it upon a mountain or a river. I +need no such monument." + +Summerlee, with a twisted smile, was about to make some fresh assault +when Lord John hastened to intervene. + +"It's up to you, young fellah, to name the lake," said he. "You saw it +first, and, by George, if you choose to put 'Lake Malone' on it, no one +has a better right." + +"By all means. Let our young friend give it a name," said Challenger. + +"Then," said I, blushing, I dare say, as I said it, "let it be named +Lake Gladys." + +"Don't you think the Central Lake would be more descriptive?" remarked +Summerlee. + +"I should prefer Lake Gladys." + +Challenger looked at me sympathetically, and shook his great head in +mock disapproval. "Boys will be boys," said he. "Lake Gladys let it +be." + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + "It was Dreadful in the Forest" + +I have said--or perhaps I have not said, for my memory plays me sad +tricks these days--that I glowed with pride when three such men as my +comrades thanked me for having saved, or at least greatly helped, the +situation. As the youngster of the party, not merely in years, but in +experience, character, knowledge, and all that goes to make a man, I +had been overshadowed from the first. And now I was coming into my +own. I warmed at the thought. Alas! for the pride which goes before a +fall! That little glow of self-satisfaction, that added measure of +self-confidence, were to lead me on that very night to the most +dreadful experience of my life, ending with a shock which turns my +heart sick when I think of it. + +It came about in this way. I had been unduly excited by the adventure +of the tree, and sleep seemed to be impossible. Summerlee was on +guard, sitting hunched over our small fire, a quaint, angular figure, +his rifle across his knees and his pointed, goat-like beard wagging +with each weary nod of his head. Lord John lay silent, wrapped in the +South American poncho which he wore, while Challenger snored with a +roll and rattle which reverberated through the woods. The full moon +was shining brightly, and the air was crisply cold. What a night for a +walk! And then suddenly came the thought, "Why not?" Suppose I stole +softly away, suppose I made my way down to the central lake, suppose I +was back at breakfast with some record of the place--would I not in +that case be thought an even more worthy associate? Then, if Summerlee +carried the day and some means of escape were found, we should return +to London with first-hand knowledge of the central mystery of the +plateau, to which I alone, of all men, would have penetrated. I thought +of Gladys, with her "There are heroisms all round us." I seemed to hear +her voice as she said it. I thought also of McArdle. What a three +column article for the paper! What a foundation for a career! A +correspondentship in the next great war might be within my reach. I +clutched at a gun--my pockets were full of cartridges--and, parting the +thorn bushes at the gate of our zareba, quickly slipped out. My last +glance showed me the unconscious Summerlee, most futile of sentinels, +still nodding away like a queer mechanical toy in front of the +smouldering fire. + +I had not gone a hundred yards before I deeply repented my rashness. I +may have said somewhere in this chronicle that I am too imaginative to +be a really courageous man, but that I have an overpowering fear of +seeming afraid. This was the power which now carried me onwards. I +simply could not slink back with nothing done. Even if my comrades +should not have missed me, and should never know of my weakness, there +would still remain some intolerable self-shame in my own soul. And yet +I shuddered at the position in which I found myself, and would have +given all I possessed at that moment to have been honorably free of the +whole business. + +It was dreadful in the forest. The trees grew so thickly and their +foliage spread so widely that I could see nothing of the moon-light +save that here and there the high branches made a tangled filigree +against the starry sky. As the eyes became more used to the obscurity +one learned that there were different degrees of darkness among the +trees--that some were dimly visible, while between and among them there +were coal-black shadowed patches, like the mouths of caves, from which +I shrank in horror as I passed. I thought of the despairing yell of +the tortured iguanodon--that dreadful cry which had echoed through the +woods. I thought, too, of the glimpse I had in the light of Lord +John's torch of that bloated, warty, blood-slavering muzzle. Even now +I was on its hunting-ground. At any instant it might spring upon me +from the shadows--this nameless and horrible monster. I stopped, and, +picking a cartridge from my pocket, I opened the breech of my gun. As +I touched the lever my heart leaped within me. It was the shot-gun, +not the rifle, which I had taken! + +Again the impulse to return swept over me. Here, surely, was a most +excellent reason for my failure--one for which no one would think the +less of me. But again the foolish pride fought against that very word. +I could not--must not--fail. After all, my rifle would probably have +been as useless as a shot-gun against such dangers as I might meet. If +I were to go back to camp to change my weapon I could hardly expect to +enter and to leave again without being seen. In that case there would +be explanations, and my attempt would no longer be all my own. After a +little hesitation, then, I screwed up my courage and continued upon my +way, my useless gun under my arm. + +The darkness of the forest had been alarming, but even worse was the +white, still flood of moonlight in the open glade of the iguanodons. +Hid among the bushes, I looked out at it. None of the great brutes +were in sight. Perhaps the tragedy which had befallen one of them had +driven them from their feeding-ground. In the misty, silvery night I +could see no sign of any living thing. Taking courage, therefore, I +slipped rapidly across it, and among the jungle on the farther side I +picked up once again the brook which was my guide. It was a cheery +companion, gurgling and chuckling as it ran, like the dear old +trout-stream in the West Country where I have fished at night in my +boyhood. So long as I followed it down I must come to the lake, and so +long as I followed it back I must come to the camp. Often I had to +lose sight of it on account of the tangled brush-wood, but I was always +within earshot of its tinkle and splash. + +As one descended the slope the woods became thinner, and bushes, with +occasional high trees, took the place of the forest. I could make good +progress, therefore, and I could see without being seen. I passed +close to the pterodactyl swamp, and as I did so, with a dry, crisp, +leathery rattle of wings, one of these great creatures--it was twenty +feet at least from tip to tip--rose up from somewhere near me and +soared into the air. As it passed across the face of the moon the +light shone clearly through the membranous wings, and it looked like a +flying skeleton against the white, tropical radiance. I crouched low +among the bushes, for I knew from past experience that with a single +cry the creature could bring a hundred of its loathsome mates about my +ears. It was not until it had settled again that I dared to steal +onwards upon my journey. + +The night had been exceedingly still, but as I advanced I became +conscious of a low, rumbling sound, a continuous murmur, somewhere in +front of me. This grew louder as I proceeded, until at last it was +clearly quite close to me. When I stood still the sound was constant, +so that it seemed to come from some stationary cause. It was like a +boiling kettle or the bubbling of some great pot. Soon I came upon the +source of it, for in the center of a small clearing I found a lake--or +a pool, rather, for it was not larger than the basin of the Trafalgar +Square fountain--of some black, pitch-like stuff, the surface of which +rose and fell in great blisters of bursting gas. The air above it was +shimmering with heat, and the ground round was so hot that I could +hardly bear to lay my hand on it. It was clear that the great volcanic +outburst which had raised this strange plateau so many years ago had +not yet entirely spent its forces. Blackened rocks and mounds of lava +I had already seen everywhere peeping out from amid the luxuriant +vegetation which draped them, but this asphalt pool in the jungle was +the first sign that we had of actual existing activity on the slopes of +the ancient crater. I had no time to examine it further for I had need +to hurry if I were to be back in camp in the morning. + +It was a fearsome walk, and one which will be with me so long as memory +holds. In the great moonlight clearings I slunk along among the +shadows on the margin. In the jungle I crept forward, stopping with a +beating heart whenever I heard, as I often did, the crash of breaking +branches as some wild beast went past. Now and then great shadows +loomed up for an instant and were gone--great, silent shadows which +seemed to prowl upon padded feet. How often I stopped with the +intention of returning, and yet every time my pride conquered my fear, +and sent me on again until my object should be attained. + +At last (my watch showed that it was one in the morning) I saw the +gleam of water amid the openings of the jungle, and ten minutes later I +was among the reeds upon the borders of the central lake. I was +exceedingly dry, so I lay down and took a long draught of its waters, +which were fresh and cold. There was a broad pathway with many tracks +upon it at the spot which I had found, so that it was clearly one of +the drinking-places of the animals. Close to the water's edge there +was a huge isolated block of lava. Up this I climbed, and, lying on +the top, I had an excellent view in every direction. + +The first thing which I saw filled me with amazement. When I described +the view from the summit of the great tree, I said that on the farther +cliff I could see a number of dark spots, which appeared to be the +mouths of caves. Now, as I looked up at the same cliffs, I saw discs +of light in every direction, ruddy, clearly-defined patches, like the +port-holes of a liner in the darkness. For a moment I thought it was +the lava-glow from some volcanic action; but this could not be so. Any +volcanic action would surely be down in the hollow and not high among +the rocks. What, then, was the alternative? It was wonderful, and yet +it must surely be. These ruddy spots must be the reflection of fires +within the caves--fires which could only be lit by the hand of man. +There were human beings, then, upon the plateau. How gloriously my +expedition was justified! Here was news indeed for us to bear back +with us to London! + +For a long time I lay and watched these red, quivering blotches of +light. I suppose they were ten miles off from me, yet even at that +distance one could observe how, from time to time, they twinkled or +were obscured as someone passed before them. What would I not have +given to be able to crawl up to them, to peep in, and to take back some +word to my comrades as to the appearance and character of the race who +lived in so strange a place! It was out of the question for the +moment, and yet surely we could not leave the plateau until we had some +definite knowledge upon the point. + +Lake Gladys--my own lake--lay like a sheet of quicksilver before me, +with a reflected moon shining brightly in the center of it. It was +shallow, for in many places I saw low sandbanks protruding above the +water. Everywhere upon the still surface I could see signs of life, +sometimes mere rings and ripples in the water, sometimes the gleam of a +great silver-sided fish in the air, sometimes the arched, slate-colored +back of some passing monster. Once upon a yellow sandbank I saw a +creature like a huge swan, with a clumsy body and a high, flexible +neck, shuffling about upon the margin. Presently it plunged in, and +for some time I could see the arched neck and darting head undulating +over the water. Then it dived, and I saw it no more. + +My attention was soon drawn away from these distant sights and brought +back to what was going on at my very feet. Two creatures like large +armadillos had come down to the drinking-place, and were squatting at +the edge of the water, their long, flexible tongues like red ribbons +shooting in and out as they lapped. A huge deer, with branching horns, +a magnificent creature which carried itself like a king, came down with +its doe and two fawns and drank beside the armadillos. No such deer +exist anywhere else upon earth, for the moose or elks which I have seen +would hardly have reached its shoulders. Presently it gave a warning +snort, and was off with its family among the reeds, while the +armadillos also scuttled for shelter. A new-comer, a most monstrous +animal, was coming down the path. + +For a moment I wondered where I could have seen that ungainly shape, +that arched back with triangular fringes along it, that strange +bird-like head held close to the ground. Then it came back, to me. It +was the stegosaurus--the very creature which Maple White had preserved +in his sketch-book, and which had been the first object which arrested +the attention of Challenger! There he was--perhaps the very specimen +which the American artist had encountered. The ground shook beneath +his tremendous weight, and his gulpings of water resounded through the +still night. For five minutes he was so close to my rock that by +stretching out my hand I could have touched the hideous waving hackles +upon his back. Then he lumbered away and was lost among the boulders. + +Looking at my watch, I saw that it was half-past two o'clock, and high +time, therefore, that I started upon my homeward journey. There was no +difficulty about the direction in which I should return for all along I +had kept the little brook upon my left, and it opened into the central +lake within a stone's-throw of the boulder upon which I had been lying. +I set off, therefore, in high spirits, for I felt that I had done good +work and was bringing back a fine budget of news for my companions. +Foremost of all, of course, were the sight of the fiery caves and the +certainty that some troglodytic race inhabited them. But besides that +I could speak from experience of the central lake. I could testify +that it was full of strange creatures, and I had seen several land +forms of primeval life which we had not before encountered. I +reflected as I walked that few men in the world could have spent a +stranger night or added more to human knowledge in the course of it. + +I was plodding up the slope, turning these thoughts over in my mind, +and had reached a point which may have been half-way to home, when my +mind was brought back to my own position by a strange noise behind me. +It was something between a snore and a growl, low, deep, and +exceedingly menacing. Some strange creature was evidently near me, but +nothing could be seen, so I hastened more rapidly upon my way. I had +traversed half a mile or so when suddenly the sound was repeated, still +behind me, but louder and more menacing than before. My heart stood +still within me as it flashed across me that the beast, whatever it +was, must surely be after ME. My skin grew cold and my hair rose at +the thought. That these monsters should tear each other to pieces was +a part of the strange struggle for existence, but that they should turn +upon modern man, that they should deliberately track and hunt down the +predominant human, was a staggering and fearsome thought. I remembered +again the blood-beslobbered face which we had seen in the glare of Lord +John's torch, like some horrible vision from the deepest circle of +Dante's hell. With my knees shaking beneath me, I stood and glared +with starting eyes down the moonlit path which lay behind me. All was +quiet as in a dream landscape. Silver clearings and the black patches +of the bushes--nothing else could I see. Then from out of the silence, +imminent and threatening, there came once more that low, throaty +croaking, far louder and closer than before. There could no longer be +a doubt. Something was on my trail, and was closing in upon me every +minute. + +I stood like a man paralyzed, still staring at the ground which I had +traversed. Then suddenly I saw it. There was movement among the +bushes at the far end of the clearing which I had just traversed. A +great dark shadow disengaged itself and hopped out into the clear +moonlight. I say "hopped" advisedly, for the beast moved like a +kangaroo, springing along in an erect position upon its powerful hind +legs, while its front ones were held bent in front of it. It was of +enormous size and power, like an erect elephant, but its movements, in +spite of its bulk, were exceedingly alert. For a moment, as I saw its +shape, I hoped that it was an iguanodon, which I knew to be harmless, +but, ignorant as I was, I soon saw that this was a very different +creature. Instead of the gentle, deer-shaped head of the great +three-toed leaf-eater, this beast had a broad, squat, toad-like face +like that which had alarmed us in our camp. His ferocious cry and the +horrible energy of his pursuit both assured me that this was surely one +of the great flesh-eating dinosaurs, the most terrible beasts which +have ever walked this earth. As the huge brute loped along it dropped +forward upon its fore-paws and brought its nose to the ground every +twenty yards or so. It was smelling out my trail. Sometimes, for an +instant, it was at fault. Then it would catch it up again and come +bounding swiftly along the path I had taken. + +Even now when I think of that nightmare the sweat breaks out upon my +brow. What could I do? My useless fowling-piece was in my hand. What +help could I get from that? I looked desperately round for some rock +or tree, but I was in a bushy jungle with nothing higher than a sapling +within sight, while I knew that the creature behind me could tear down +an ordinary tree as though it were a reed. My only possible chance lay +in flight. I could not move swiftly over the rough, broken ground, but +as I looked round me in despair I saw a well-marked, hard-beaten path +which ran across in front of me. We had seen several of the sort, the +runs of various wild beasts, during our expeditions. Along this I +could perhaps hold my own, for I was a fast runner, and in excellent +condition. Flinging away my useless gun, I set myself to do such a +half-mile as I have never done before or since. My limbs ached, my +chest heaved, I felt that my throat would burst for want of air, and +yet with that horror behind me I ran and I ran and ran. At last I +paused, hardly able to move. For a moment I thought that I had thrown +him off. The path lay still behind me. And then suddenly, with a +crashing and a rending, a thudding of giant feet and a panting of +monster lungs the beast was upon me once more. He was at my very +heels. I was lost. + +Madman that I was to linger so long before I fled! Up to then he had +hunted by scent, and his movement was slow. But he had actually seen +me as I started to run. From then onwards he had hunted by sight, for +the path showed him where I had gone. Now, as he came round the curve, +he was springing in great bounds. The moonlight shone upon his huge +projecting eyes, the row of enormous teeth in his open mouth, and the +gleaming fringe of claws upon his short, powerful forearms. With a +scream of terror I turned and rushed wildly down the path. Behind me +the thick, gasping breathing of the creature sounded louder and louder. +His heavy footfall was beside me. Every instant I expected to feel his +grip upon my back. And then suddenly there came a crash--I was falling +through space, and everything beyond was darkness and rest. + +As I emerged from my unconsciousness--which could not, I think, have +lasted more than a few minutes--I was aware of a most dreadful and +penetrating smell. Putting out my hand in the darkness I came upon +something which felt like a huge lump of meat, while my other hand +closed upon a large bone. Up above me there was a circle of starlit +sky, which showed me that I was lying at the bottom of a deep pit. +Slowly I staggered to my feet and felt myself all over. I was stiff +and sore from head to foot, but there was no limb which would not move, +no joint which would not bend. As the circumstances of my fall came +back into my confused brain, I looked up in terror, expecting to see +that dreadful head silhouetted against the paling sky. There was no +sign of the monster, however, nor could I hear any sound from above. I +began to walk slowly round, therefore, feeling in every direction to +find out what this strange place could be into which I had been so +opportunely precipitated. + +It was, as I have said, a pit, with sharply-sloping walls and a level +bottom about twenty feet across. This bottom was littered with great +gobbets of flesh, most of which was in the last state of putridity. +The atmosphere was poisonous and horrible. After tripping and +stumbling over these lumps of decay, I came suddenly against something +hard, and I found that an upright post was firmly fixed in the center +of the hollow. It was so high that I could not reach the top of it +with my hand, and it appeared to be covered with grease. + +Suddenly I remembered that I had a tin box of wax-vestas in my pocket. +Striking one of them, I was able at last to form some opinion of this +place into which I had fallen. There could be no question as to its +nature. It was a trap--made by the hand of man. The post in the +center, some nine feet long, was sharpened at the upper end, and was +black with the stale blood of the creatures who had been impaled upon +it. The remains scattered about were fragments of the victims, which +had been cut away in order to clear the stake for the next who might +blunder in. I remembered that Challenger had declared that man could +not exist upon the plateau, since with his feeble weapons he could not +hold his own against the monsters who roamed over it. But now it was +clear enough how it could be done. In their narrow-mouthed caves the +natives, whoever they might be, had refuges into which the huge +saurians could not penetrate, while with their developed brains they +were capable of setting such traps, covered with branches, across the +paths which marked the run of the animals as would destroy them in +spite of all their strength and activity. Man was always the master. + +The sloping wall of the pit was not difficult for an active man to +climb, but I hesitated long before I trusted myself within reach of the +dreadful creature which had so nearly destroyed me. How did I know +that he was not lurking in the nearest clump of bushes, waiting for my +reappearance? I took heart, however, as I recalled a conversation +between Challenger and Summerlee upon the habits of the great saurians. +Both were agreed that the monsters were practically brainless, that +there was no room for reason in their tiny cranial cavities, and that +if they have disappeared from the rest of the world it was assuredly on +account of their own stupidity, which made it impossible for them to +adapt themselves to changing conditions. + +To lie in wait for me now would mean that the creature had appreciated +what had happened to me, and this in turn would argue some power +connecting cause and effect. Surely it was more likely that a +brainless creature, acting solely by vague predatory instinct, would +give up the chase when I disappeared, and, after a pause of +astonishment, would wander away in search of some other prey? I +clambered to the edge of the pit and looked over. The stars were +fading, the sky was whitening, and the cold wind of morning blew +pleasantly upon my face. I could see or hear nothing of my enemy. +Slowly I climbed out and sat for a while upon the ground, ready to +spring back into my refuge if any danger should appear. Then, +reassured by the absolute stillness and by the growing light, I took my +courage in both hands and stole back along the path which I had come. +Some distance down it I picked up my gun, and shortly afterwards struck +the brook which was my guide. So, with many a frightened backward +glance, I made for home. + +And suddenly there came something to remind me of my absent companions. +In the clear, still morning air there sounded far away the sharp, hard +note of a single rifle-shot. I paused and listened, but there was +nothing more. For a moment I was shocked at the thought that some +sudden danger might have befallen them. But then a simpler and more +natural explanation came to my mind. It was now broad daylight. No +doubt my absence had been noticed. They had imagined, that I was lost +in the woods, and had fired this shot to guide me home. It is true +that we had made a strict resolution against firing, but if it seemed +to them that I might be in danger they would not hesitate. It was for +me now to hurry on as fast as possible, and so to reassure them. + +I was weary and spent, so my progress was not so fast as I wished; but +at last I came into regions which I knew. There was the swamp of the +pterodactyls upon my left; there in front of me was the glade of the +iguanodons. Now I was in the last belt of trees which separated me +from Fort Challenger. I raised my voice in a cheery shout to allay +their fears. No answering greeting came back to me. My heart sank at +that ominous stillness. I quickened my pace into a run. The zareba +rose before me, even as I had left it, but the gate was open. I rushed +in. In the cold, morning light it was a fearful sight which met my +eyes. Our effects were scattered in wild confusion over the ground; my +comrades had disappeared, and close to the smouldering ashes of our +fire the grass was stained crimson with a hideous pool of blood. + +I was so stunned by this sudden shock that for a time I must have +nearly lost my reason. I have a vague recollection, as one remembers a +bad dream, of rushing about through the woods all round the empty camp, +calling wildly for my companions. No answer came back from the silent +shadows. The horrible thought that I might never see them again, that +I might find myself abandoned all alone in that dreadful place, with no +possible way of descending into the world below, that I might live and +die in that nightmare country, drove me to desperation. I could have +torn my hair and beaten my head in my despair. Only now did I realize +how I had learned to lean upon my companions, upon the serene +self-confidence of Challenger, and upon the masterful, humorous +coolness of Lord John Roxton. Without them I was like a child in the +dark, helpless and powerless. I did not know which way to turn or what +I should do first. + +After a period, during which I sat in bewilderment, I set myself to try +and discover what sudden misfortune could have befallen my companions. +The whole disordered appearance of the camp showed that there had been +some sort of attack, and the rifle-shot no doubt marked the time when +it had occurred. That there should have been only one shot showed that +it had been all over in an instant. The rifles still lay upon the +ground, and one of them--Lord John's--had the empty cartridge in the +breech. The blankets of Challenger and of Summerlee beside the fire +suggested that they had been asleep at the time. The cases of +ammunition and of food were scattered about in a wild litter, together +with our unfortunate cameras and plate-carriers, but none of them were +missing. On the other hand, all the exposed provisions--and I +remembered that there were a considerable quantity of them--were gone. +They were animals, then, and not natives, who had made the inroad, for +surely the latter would have left nothing behind. + +But if animals, or some single terrible animal, then what had become of +my comrades? A ferocious beast would surely have destroyed them and +left their remains. It is true that there was that one hideous pool of +blood, which told of violence. Such a monster as had pursued me during +the night could have carried away a victim as easily as a cat would a +mouse. In that case the others would have followed in pursuit. But +then they would assuredly have taken their rifles with them. The more +I tried to think it out with my confused and weary brain the less could +I find any plausible explanation. I searched round in the forest, but +could see no tracks which could help me to a conclusion. Once I lost +myself, and it was only by good luck, and after an hour of wandering, +that I found the camp once more. + +Suddenly a thought came to me and brought some little comfort to my +heart. I was not absolutely alone in the world. Down at the bottom of +the cliff, and within call of me, was waiting the faithful Zambo. I +went to the edge of the plateau and looked over. Sure enough, he was +squatting among his blankets beside his fire in his little camp. But, +to my amazement, a second man was seated in front of him. For an +instant my heart leaped for joy, as I thought that one of my comrades +had made his way safely down. But a second glance dispelled the hope. +The rising sun shone red upon the man's skin. He was an Indian. I +shouted loudly and waved my handkerchief. Presently Zambo looked up, +waved his hand, and turned to ascend the pinnacle. In a short time he +was standing close to me and listening with deep distress to the story +which I told him. + +"Devil got them for sure, Massa Malone," said he. "You got into the +devil's country, sah, and he take you all to himself. You take advice, +Massa Malone, and come down quick, else he get you as well." + +"How can I come down, Zambo?" + +"You get creepers from trees, Massa Malone. Throw them over here. I +make fast to this stump, and so you have bridge." + +"We have thought of that. There are no creepers here which could bear +us." + +"Send for ropes, Massa Malone." + +"Who can I send, and where?" + +"Send to Indian villages, sah. Plenty hide rope in Indian village. +Indian down below; send him." + +"Who is he? + +"One of our Indians. Other ones beat him and take away his pay. He +come back to us. Ready now to take letter, bring rope,--anything." + +To take a letter! Why not? Perhaps he might bring help; but in any +case he would ensure that our lives were not spent for nothing, and +that news of all that we had won for Science should reach our friends +at home. I had two completed letters already waiting. I would spend +the day in writing a third, which would bring my experiences absolutely +up to date. The Indian could bear this back to the world. I ordered +Zambo, therefore, to come again in the evening, and I spent my +miserable and lonely day in recording my own adventures of the night +before. I also drew up a note, to be given to any white merchant or +captain of a steam-boat whom the Indian could find, imploring them to +see that ropes were sent to us, since our lives must depend upon it. +These documents I threw to Zambo in the evening, and also my purse, +which contained three English sovereigns. These were to be given to +the Indian, and he was promised twice as much if he returned with the +ropes. + +So now you will understand, my dear Mr. McArdle, how this communication +reaches you, and you will also know the truth, in case you never hear +again from your unfortunate correspondent. To-night I am too weary and +too depressed to make my plans. To-morrow I must think out some way by +which I shall keep in touch with this camp, and yet search round for +any traces of my unhappy friends. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + "A Sight which I shall Never Forget" + +Just as the sun was setting upon that melancholy night I saw the lonely +figure of the Indian upon the vast plain beneath me, and I watched him, +our one faint hope of salvation, until he disappeared in the rising +mists of evening which lay, rose-tinted from the setting sun, between +the far-off river and me. + +It was quite dark when I at last turned back to our stricken camp, and +my last vision as I went was the red gleam of Zambo's fire, the one +point of light in the wide world below, as was his faithful presence in +my own shadowed soul. And yet I felt happier than I had done since +this crushing blow had fallen upon me, for it was good to think that +the world should know what we had done, so that at the worst our names +should not perish with our bodies, but should go down to posterity +associated with the result of our labors. + +It was an awesome thing to sleep in that ill-fated camp; and yet it was +even more unnerving to do so in the jungle. One or the other it must +be. Prudence, on the one hand, warned me that I should remain on +guard, but exhausted Nature, on the other, declared that I should do +nothing of the kind. I climbed up on to a limb of the great gingko +tree, but there was no secure perch on its rounded surface, and I +should certainly have fallen off and broken my neck the moment I began +to doze. I got down, therefore, and pondered over what I should do. +Finally, I closed the door of the zareba, lit three separate fires in a +triangle, and having eaten a hearty supper dropped off into a profound +sleep, from which I had a strange and most welcome awakening. In the +early morning, just as day was breaking, a hand was laid upon my arm, +and starting up, with all my nerves in a tingle and my hand feeling for +a rifle, I gave a cry of joy as in the cold gray light I saw Lord John +Roxton kneeling beside me. + +It was he--and yet it was not he. I had left him calm in his bearing, +correct in his person, prim in his dress. Now he was pale and +wild-eyed, gasping as he breathed like one who has run far and fast. +His gaunt face was scratched and bloody, his clothes were hanging in +rags, and his hat was gone. I stared in amazement, but he gave me no +chance for questions. He was grabbing at our stores all the time he +spoke. + +"Quick, young fellah! Quick!" he cried. "Every moment counts. Get +the rifles, both of them. I have the other two. Now, all the +cartridges you can gather. Fill up your pockets. Now, some food. +Half a dozen tins will do. That's all right! Don't wait to talk or +think. Get a move on, or we are done!" + +Still half-awake, and unable to imagine what it all might mean, I found +myself hurrying madly after him through the wood, a rifle under each +arm and a pile of various stores in my hands. He dodged in and out +through the thickest of the scrub until he came to a dense clump of +brush-wood. Into this he rushed, regardless of thorns, and threw +himself into the heart of it, pulling me down by his side. + +"There!" he panted. "I think we are safe here. They'll make for the +camp as sure as fate. It will be their first idea. But this should +puzzle 'em." + +"What is it all?" I asked, when I had got my breath. "Where are the +professors? And who is it that is after us?" + +"The ape-men," he cried. "My God, what brutes! Don't raise your +voice, for they have long ears--sharp eyes, too, but no power of scent, +so far as I could judge, so I don't think they can sniff us out. Where +have you been, young fellah? You were well out of it." + +In a few sentences I whispered what I had done. + +"Pretty bad," said he, when he had heard of the dinosaur and the pit. +"It isn't quite the place for a rest cure. What? But I had no idea +what its possibilities were until those devils got hold of us. The +man-eatin' Papuans had me once, but they are Chesterfields compared to +this crowd." + +"How did it happen?" I asked. + +"It was in the early mornin'. Our learned friends were just stirrin'. +Hadn't even begun to argue yet. Suddenly it rained apes. They came +down as thick as apples out of a tree. They had been assemblin' in the +dark, I suppose, until that great tree over our heads was heavy with +them. I shot one of them through the belly, but before we knew where +we were they had us spread-eagled on our backs. I call them apes, but +they carried sticks and stones in their hands and jabbered talk to each +other, and ended up by tyin' our hands with creepers, so they are ahead +of any beast that I have seen in my wanderin's. Ape-men--that's what +they are--Missin' Links, and I wish they had stayed missin'. They +carried off their wounded comrade--he was bleedin' like a pig--and then +they sat around us, and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in their +faces. They were big fellows, as big as a man and a deal stronger. +Curious glassy gray eyes they have, under red tufts, and they just sat +and gloated and gloated. Challenger is no chicken, but even he was +cowed. He managed to struggle to his feet, and yelled out at them to +have done with it and get it over. I think he had gone a bit off his +head at the suddenness of it, for he raged and cursed at them like a +lunatic. If they had been a row of his favorite Pressmen he could not +have slanged them worse." + +"Well, what did they do?" I was enthralled by the strange story which +my companion was whispering into my ear, while all the time his keen +eyes were shooting in every direction and his hand grasping his cocked +rifle. + +"I thought it was the end of us, but instead of that it started them on +a new line. They all jabbered and chattered together. Then one of +them stood out beside Challenger. You'll smile, young fellah, but 'pon +my word they might have been kinsmen. I couldn't have believed it if I +hadn't seen it with my own eyes. This old ape-man--he was their +chief--was a sort of red Challenger, with every one of our friend's +beauty points, only just a trifle more so. He had the short body, the +big shoulders, the round chest, no neck, a great ruddy frill of a +beard, the tufted eyebrows, the 'What do you want, damn you!' look +about the eyes, and the whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood by +Challenger and put his paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete. +Summerlee was a bit hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. The +ape-men laughed too--or at least they put up the devil of a +cacklin'--and they set to work to drag us off through the forest. They +wouldn't touch the guns and things--thought them dangerous, I +expect--but they carried away all our loose food. Summerlee and I got +some rough handlin' on the way--there's my skin and my clothes to prove +it--for they took us a bee-line through the brambles, and their own +hides are like leather. But Challenger was all right. Four of them +carried him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor. What's +that?" + +It was a strange clicking noise in the distance not unlike castanets. + +"There they go!" said my companion, slipping cartridges into the second +double barrelled "Express." "Load them all up, young fellah my lad, +for we're not going to be taken alive, and don't you think it! That's +the row they make when they are excited. By George! they'll have +something to excite them if they put us up. The 'Last Stand of the +Grays' won't be in it. 'With their rifles grasped in their stiffened +hands, mid a ring of the dead and dyin',' as some fathead sings. Can +you hear them now?" + +"Very far away." + +"That little lot will do no good, but I expect their search parties are +all over the wood. Well, I was telling you my tale of woe. They got +us soon to this town of theirs--about a thousand huts of branches and +leaves in a great grove of trees near the edge of the cliff. It's +three or four miles from here. The filthy beasts fingered me all over, +and I feel as if I should never be clean again. They tied us up--the +fellow who handled me could tie like a bosun--and there we lay with our +toes up, beneath a tree, while a great brute stood guard over us with a +club in his hand. When I say 'we' I mean Summerlee and myself. Old +Challenger was up a tree, eatin' pines and havin' the time of his life. +I'm bound to say that he managed to get some fruit to us, and with his +own hands he loosened our bonds. If you'd seen him sitting up in that +tree hob-nobbin' with his twin brother--and singin' in that rollin' +bass of his, 'Ring out, wild bells,' cause music of any kind seemed to +put 'em in a good humor, you'd have smiled; but we weren't in much mood +for laughin', as you can guess. They were inclined, within limits, to +let him do what he liked, but they drew the line pretty sharply at us. +It was a mighty consolation to us all to know that you were runnin' +loose and had the archives in your keepin'. + +"Well, now, young fellah, I'll tell you what will surprise you. You +say you saw signs of men, and fires, traps, and the like. Well, we +have seen the natives themselves. Poor devils they were, down-faced +little chaps, and had enough to make them so. It seems that the humans +hold one side of this plateau--over yonder, where you saw the +caves--and the ape-men hold this side, and there is bloody war between +them all the time. That's the situation, so far as I could follow it. +Well, yesterday the ape-men got hold of a dozen of the humans and +brought them in as prisoners. You never heard such a jabberin' and +shriekin' in your life. The men were little red fellows, and had been +bitten and clawed so that they could hardly walk. The ape-men put two +of them to death there and then--fairly pulled the arm off one of +them--it was perfectly beastly. Plucky little chaps they are, and +hardly gave a squeak. But it turned us absolutely sick. Summerlee +fainted, and even Challenger had as much as he could stand. I think +they have cleared, don't you?" + +We listened intently, but nothing save the calling of the birds broke +the deep peace of the forest. Lord Roxton went on with his story. + +"I think you have had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad. It +was catchin' those Indians that put you clean out of their heads, else +they would have been back to the camp for you as sure as fate and +gathered you in. Of course, as you said, they have been watchin' us +from the beginnin' out of that tree, and they knew perfectly well that +we were one short. However, they could think only of this new haul; so +it was I, and not a bunch of apes, that dropped in on you in the +morning. Well, we had a horrid business afterwards. My God! what a +nightmare the whole thing is! You remember the great bristle of sharp +canes down below where we found the skeleton of the American? Well, +that is just under ape-town, and that's the jumpin'-off place of their +prisoners. I expect there's heaps of skeletons there, if we looked for +'em. They have a sort of clear parade-ground on the top, and they make +a proper ceremony about it. One by one the poor devils have to jump, +and the game is to see whether they are merely dashed to pieces or +whether they get skewered on the canes. They took us out to see it, +and the whole tribe lined up on the edge. Four of the Indians jumped, +and the canes went through 'em like knittin' needles through a pat of +butter. No wonder we found that poor Yankee's skeleton with the canes +growin' between his ribs. It was horrible--but it was doocedly +interestin' too. We were all fascinated to see them take the dive, +even when we thought it would be our turn next on the spring-board. + +"Well, it wasn't. They kept six of the Indians up for to-day--that's +how I understood it--but I fancy we were to be the star performers in +the show. Challenger might get off, but Summerlee and I were in the +bill. Their language is more than half signs, and it was not hard to +follow them. So I thought it was time we made a break for it. I had +been plottin' it out a bit, and had one or two things clear in my mind. +It was all on me, for Summerlee was useless and Challenger not much +better. The only time they got together they got slangin' because they +couldn't agree upon the scientific classification of these red-headed +devils that had got hold of us. One said it was the dryopithecus of +Java, the other said it was pithecanthropus. Madness, I call +it--Loonies, both. But, as I say, I had thought out one or two points +that were helpful. One was that these brutes could not run as fast as +a man in the open. They have short, bandy legs, you see, and heavy +bodies. Even Challenger could give a few yards in a hundred to the +best of them, and you or I would be a perfect Shrubb. Another point +was that they knew nothin' about guns. I don't believe they ever +understood how the fellow I shot came by his hurt. If we could get at +our guns there was no sayin' what we could do. + +"So I broke away early this mornin', gave my guard a kick in the tummy +that laid him out, and sprinted for the camp. There I got you and the +guns, and here we are." + +"But the professors!" I cried, in consternation. + +"Well, we must just go back and fetch 'em. I couldn't bring 'em with +me. Challenger was up the tree, and Summerlee was not fit for the +effort. The only chance was to get the guns and try a rescue. Of +course they may scupper them at once in revenge. I don't think they +would touch Challenger, but I wouldn't answer for Summerlee. But they +would have had him in any case. Of that I am certain. So I haven't +made matters any worse by boltin'. But we are honor bound to go back +and have them out or see it through with them. So you can make up your +soul, young fellah my lad, for it will be one way or the other before +evenin'." + +I have tried to imitate here Lord Roxton's jerky talk, his short, +strong sentences, the half-humorous, half-reckless tone that ran +through it all. But he was a born leader. As danger thickened his +jaunty manner would increase, his speech become more racy, his cold +eyes glitter into ardent life, and his Don Quixote moustache bristle +with joyous excitement. His love of danger, his intense appreciation +of the drama of an adventure--all the more intense for being held +tightly in--his consistent view that every peril in life is a form of +sport, a fierce game betwixt you and Fate, with Death as a forfeit, +made him a wonderful companion at such hours. If it were not for our +fears as to the fate of our companions, it would have been a positive +joy to throw myself with such a man into such an affair. We were +rising from our brushwood hiding-place when suddenly I felt his grip +upon my arm. + +"By George!" he whispered, "here they come!" + +From where we lay we could look down a brown aisle, arched with green, +formed by the trunks and branches. Along this a party of the ape-men +were passing. They went in single file, with bent legs and rounded +backs, their hands occasionally touching the ground, their heads +turning to left and right as they trotted along. Their crouching gait +took away from their height, but I should put them at five feet or so, +with long arms and enormous chests. Many of them carried sticks, and +at the distance they looked like a line of very hairy and deformed +human beings. For a moment I caught this clear glimpse of them. Then +they were lost among the bushes. + +"Not this time," said Lord John, who had caught up his rifle. "Our +best chance is to lie quiet until they have given up the search. Then +we shall see whether we can't get back to their town and hit 'em where +it hurts most. Give 'em an hour and we'll march." + +We filled in the time by opening one of our food tins and making sure +of our breakfast. Lord Roxton had had nothing but some fruit since the +morning before and ate like a starving man. Then, at last, our pockets +bulging with cartridges and a rifle in each hand, we started off upon +our mission of rescue. Before leaving it we carefully marked our +little hiding-place among the brush-wood and its bearing to Fort +Challenger, that we might find it again if we needed it. We slunk +through the bushes in silence until we came to the very edge of the +cliff, close to the old camp. There we halted, and Lord John gave me +some idea of his plans. + +"So long as we are among the thick trees these swine are our masters," +said he. "They can see us and we cannot see them. But in the open it +is different. There we can move faster than they. So we must stick to +the open all we can. The edge of the plateau has fewer large trees +than further inland. So that's our line of advance. Go slowly, keep +your eyes open and your rifle ready. Above all, never let them get you +prisoner while there is a cartridge left--that's my last word to you, +young fellah." + +When we reached the edge of the cliff I looked over and saw our good +old black Zambo sitting smoking on a rock below us. I would have given +a great deal to have hailed him and told him how we were placed, but it +was too dangerous, lest we should be heard. The woods seemed to be +full of the ape-men; again and again we heard their curious clicking +chatter. At such times we plunged into the nearest clump of bushes and +lay still until the sound had passed away. Our advance, therefore, was +very slow, and two hours at least must have passed before I saw by Lord +John's cautious movements that we must be close to our destination. He +motioned to me to lie still, and he crawled forward himself. In a +minute he was back again, his face quivering with eagerness. + +"Come!" said he. "Come quick! I hope to the Lord we are not too late +already!" + +I found myself shaking with nervous excitement as I scrambled forward +and lay down beside him, looking out through the bushes at a clearing +which stretched before us. + +It was a sight which I shall never forget until my dying day--so weird, +so impossible, that I do not know how I am to make you realize it, or +how in a few years I shall bring myself to believe in it if I live to +sit once more on a lounge in the Savage Club and look out on the drab +solidity of the Embankment. I know that it will seem then to be some +wild nightmare, some delirium of fever. Yet I will set it down now, +while it is still fresh in my memory, and one at least, the man who lay +in the damp grasses by my side, will know if I have lied. + +A wide, open space lay before us--some hundreds of yards across--all +green turf and low bracken growing to the very edge of the cliff. +Round this clearing there was a semi-circle of trees with curious huts +built of foliage piled one above the other among the branches. A +rookery, with every nest a little house, would best convey the idea. +The openings of these huts and the branches of the trees were thronged +with a dense mob of ape-people, whom from their size I took to be the +females and infants of the tribe. They formed the background of the +picture, and were all looking out with eager interest at the same scene +which fascinated and bewildered us. + +In the open, and near the edge of the cliff, there had assembled a +crowd of some hundred of these shaggy, red-haired creatures, many of +them of immense size, and all of them horrible to look upon. There was +a certain discipline among them, for none of them attempted to break +the line which had been formed. In front there stood a small group of +Indians--little, clean-limbed, red fellows, whose skins glowed like +polished bronze in the strong sunlight. A tall, thin white man was +standing beside them, his head bowed, his arms folded, his whole +attitude expressive of his horror and dejection. There was no +mistaking the angular form of Professor Summerlee. + +In front of and around this dejected group of prisoners were several +ape-men, who watched them closely and made all escape impossible. +Then, right out from all the others and close to the edge of the cliff, +were two figures, so strange, and under other circumstances so +ludicrous, that they absorbed my attention. The one was our comrade, +Professor Challenger. The remains of his coat still hung in strips +from his shoulders, but his shirt had been all torn out, and his great +beard merged itself in the black tangle which covered his mighty chest. +He had lost his hat, and his hair, which had grown long in our +wanderings, was flying in wild disorder. A single day seemed to have +changed him from the highest product of modern civilization to the most +desperate savage in South America. Beside him stood his master, the +king of the ape-men. In all things he was, as Lord John had said, the +very image of our Professor, save that his coloring was red instead of +black. The same short, broad figure, the same heavy shoulders, the +same forward hang of the arms, the same bristling beard merging itself +in the hairy chest. Only above the eyebrows, where the sloping +forehead and low, curved skull of the ape-man were in sharp contrast to +the broad brow and magnificent cranium of the European, could one see +any marked difference. At every other point the king was an absurd +parody of the Professor. + +All this, which takes me so long to describe, impressed itself upon me +in a few seconds. Then we had very different things to think of, for +an active drama was in progress. Two of the ape-men had seized one of +the Indians out of the group and dragged him forward to the edge of the +cliff. The king raised his hand as a signal. They caught the man by +his leg and arm, and swung him three times backwards and forwards with +tremendous violence. Then, with a frightful heave they shot the poor +wretch over the precipice. With such force did they throw him that he +curved high in the air before beginning to drop. As he vanished from +sight, the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to the +edge of the precipice, and there was a long pause of absolute silence, +broken by a mad yell of delight. They sprang about, tossing their +long, hairy arms in the air and howling with exultation. Then they +fell back from the edge, formed themselves again into line, and waited +for the next victim. + +This time it was Summerlee. Two of his guards caught him by the wrists +and pulled him brutally to the front. His thin figure and long limbs +struggled and fluttered like a chicken being dragged from a coop. +Challenger had turned to the king and waved his hands frantically +before him. He was begging, pleading, imploring for his comrade's +life. The ape-man pushed him roughly aside and shook his head. It was +the last conscious movement he was to make upon earth. Lord John's +rifle cracked, and the king sank down, a tangled red sprawling thing, +upon the ground. + +"Shoot into the thick of them! Shoot! sonny, shoot!" cried my +companion. + +There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man. +I am tenderhearted by nature, and have found my eyes moist many a time +over the scream of a wounded hare. Yet the blood lust was on me now. +I found myself on my feet emptying one magazine, then the other, +clicking open the breech to re-load, snapping it to again, while +cheering and yelling with pure ferocity and joy of slaughter as I did +so. With our four guns the two of us made a horrible havoc. Both the +guards who held Summerlee were down, and he was staggering about like a +drunken man in his amazement, unable to realize that he was a free man. +The dense mob of ape-men ran about in bewilderment, marveling whence +this storm of death was coming or what it might mean. They waved, +gesticulated, screamed, and tripped up over those who had fallen. +Then, with a sudden impulse, they all rushed in a howling crowd to the +trees for shelter, leaving the ground behind them spotted with their +stricken comrades. The prisoners were left for the moment standing +alone in the middle of the clearing. + +Challenger's quick brain had grasped the situation. He seized the +bewildered Summerlee by the arm, and they both ran towards us. Two of +their guards bounded after them and fell to two bullets from Lord John. +We ran forward into the open to meet our friends, and pressed a loaded +rifle into the hands of each. But Summerlee was at the end of his +strength. He could hardly totter. Already the ape-men were recovering +from their panic. They were coming through the brushwood and +threatening to cut us off. Challenger and I ran Summerlee along, one +at each of his elbows, while Lord John covered our retreat, firing +again and again as savage heads snarled at us out of the bushes. For a +mile or more the chattering brutes were at our very heels. Then the +pursuit slackened, for they learned our power and would no longer face +that unerring rifle. When we had at last reached the camp, we looked +back and found ourselves alone. + +So it seemed to us; and yet we were mistaken. We had hardly closed the +thornbush door of our zareba, clasped each other's hands, and thrown +ourselves panting upon the ground beside our spring, when we heard a +patter of feet and then a gentle, plaintive crying from outside our +entrance. Lord Roxton rushed forward, rifle in hand, and threw it +open. There, prostrate upon their faces, lay the little red figures of +the four surviving Indians, trembling with fear of us and yet imploring +our protection. With an expressive sweep of his hands one of them +pointed to the woods around them, and indicated that they were full of +danger. Then, darting forward, he threw his arms round Lord John's +legs, and rested his face upon them. + +"By George!" cried our peer, pulling at his moustache in great +perplexity, "I say--what the deuce are we to do with these people? Get +up, little chappie, and take your face off my boots." + +Summerlee was sitting up and stuffing some tobacco into his old briar. + +"We've got to see them safe," said he. "You've pulled us all out of +the jaws of death. My word! it was a good bit of work!" + +"Admirable!" cried Challenger. "Admirable! Not only we as +individuals, but European science collectively, owe you a deep debt of +gratitude for what you have done. I do not hesitate to say that the +disappearance of Professor Summerlee and myself would have left an +appreciable gap in modern zoological history. Our young friend here +and you have done most excellently well." + +He beamed at us with the old paternal smile, but European science would +have been somewhat amazed could they have seen their chosen child, the +hope of the future, with his tangled, unkempt head, his bare chest, and +his tattered clothes. He had one of the meat-tins between his knees, +and sat with a large piece of cold Australian mutton between his +fingers. The Indian looked up at him, and then, with a little yelp, +cringed to the ground and clung to Lord John's leg. + +"Don't you be scared, my bonnie boy," said Lord John, patting the +matted head in front of him. "He can't stick your appearance, +Challenger; and, by George! I don't wonder. All right, little chap, +he's only a human, just the same as the rest of us." + +"Really, sir!" cried the Professor. + +"Well, it's lucky for you, Challenger, that you ARE a little out of the +ordinary. If you hadn't been so like the king----" + +"Upon my word, Lord John, you allow yourself great latitude." + +"Well, it's a fact." + +"I beg, sir, that you will change the subject. Your remarks are +irrelevant and unintelligible. The question before us is what are we +to do with these Indians? The obvious thing is to escort them home, if +we knew where their home was." + +"There is no difficulty about that," said I. "They live in the caves +on the other side of the central lake." + +"Our young friend here knows where they live. I gather that it is some +distance." + +"A good twenty miles," said I. + +Summerlee gave a groan. + +"I, for one, could never get there. Surely I hear those brutes still +howling upon our track." + +As he spoke, from the dark recesses of the woods we heard far away the +jabbering cry of the ape-men. The Indians once more set up a feeble +wail of fear. + +"We must move, and move quick!" said Lord John. "You help Summerlee, +young fellah. These Indians will carry stores. Now, then, come along +before they can see us." + +In less than half-an-hour we had reached our brushwood retreat and +concealed ourselves. All day we heard the excited calling of the +ape-men in the direction of our old camp, but none of them came our +way, and the tired fugitives, red and white, had a long, deep sleep. I +was dozing myself in the evening when someone plucked my sleeve, and I +found Challenger kneeling beside me. + +"You keep a diary of these events, and you expect eventually to publish +it, Mr. Malone," said he, with solemnity. + +"I am only here as a Press reporter," I answered. + +"Exactly. You may have heard some rather fatuous remarks of Lord John +Roxton's which seemed to imply that there was some--some +resemblance----" + +"Yes, I heard them." + +"I need not say that any publicity given to such an idea--any levity in +your narrative of what occurred--would be exceedingly offensive to me." + +"I will keep well within the truth." + +"Lord John's observations are frequently exceedingly fanciful, and he +is capable of attributing the most absurd reasons to the respect which +is always shown by the most undeveloped races to dignity and character. +You follow my meaning?" + +"Entirely." + +"I leave the matter to your discretion." Then, after a long pause, he +added: "The king of the ape-men was really a creature of great +distinction--a most remarkably handsome and intelligent personality. +Did it not strike you?" + +"A most remarkable creature," said I. + +And the Professor, much eased in his mind, settled down to his slumber +once more. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + "Those Were the Real Conquests" + +We had imagined that our pursuers, the ape-men, knew nothing of our +brush-wood hiding-place, but we were soon to find out our mistake. +There was no sound in the woods--not a leaf moved upon the trees, and +all was peace around us--but we should have been warned by our first +experience how cunningly and how patiently these creatures can watch +and wait until their chance comes. Whatever fate may be mine through +life, I am very sure that I shall never be nearer death than I was that +morning. But I will tell you the thing in its due order. + +We all awoke exhausted after the terrific emotions and scanty food of +yesterday. Summerlee was still so weak that it was an effort for him +to stand; but the old man was full of a sort of surly courage which +would never admit defeat. A council was held, and it was agreed that +we should wait quietly for an hour or two where we were, have our +much-needed breakfast, and then make our way across the plateau and +round the central lake to the caves where my observations had shown +that the Indians lived. We relied upon the fact that we could count +upon the good word of those whom we had rescued to ensure a warm +welcome from their fellows. Then, with our mission accomplished and +possessing a fuller knowledge of the secrets of Maple White Land, we +should turn our whole thoughts to the vital problem of our escape and +return. Even Challenger was ready to admit that we should then have +done all for which we had come, and that our first duty from that time +onwards was to carry back to civilization the amazing discoveries we +had made. + +We were able now to take a more leisurely view of the Indians whom we +had rescued. They were small men, wiry, active, and well-built, with +lank black hair tied up in a bunch behind their heads with a leathern +thong, and leathern also were their loin-clothes. Their faces were +hairless, well formed, and good-humored. The lobes of their ears, +hanging ragged and bloody, showed that they had been pierced for some +ornaments which their captors had torn out. Their speech, though +unintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as they pointed +to each other and uttered the word "Accala" many times over, we +gathered that this was the name of the nation. Occasionally, with +faces which were convulsed with fear and hatred, they shook their +clenched hands at the woods round and cried: "Doda! Doda!" which was +surely their term for their enemies. + +"What do you make of them, Challenger?" asked Lord John. "One thing is +very clear to me, and that is that the little chap with the front of +his head shaved is a chief among them." + +It was indeed evident that this man stood apart from the others, and +that they never ventured to address him without every sign of deep +respect. He seemed to be the youngest of them all, and yet, so proud +and high was his spirit that, upon Challenger laying his great hand +upon his head, he started like a spurred horse and, with a quick flash +of his dark eyes, moved further away from the Professor. Then, placing +his hand upon his breast and holding himself with great dignity, he +uttered the word "Maretas" several times. The Professor, unabashed, +seized the nearest Indian by the shoulder and proceeded to lecture upon +him as if he were a potted specimen in a class-room. + +"The type of these people," said he in his sonorous fashion, "whether +judged by cranial capacity, facial angle, or any other test, cannot be +regarded as a low one; on the contrary, we must place it as +considerably higher in the scale than many South American tribes which +I can mention. On no possible supposition can we explain the evolution +of such a race in this place. For that matter, so great a gap +separates these ape-men from the primitive animals which have survived +upon this plateau, that it is inadmissible to think that they could +have developed where we find them." + +"Then where the dooce did they drop from?" asked Lord John. + +"A question which will, no doubt, be eagerly discussed in every +scientific society in Europe and America," the Professor answered. "My +own reading of the situation for what it is worth--" he inflated his +chest enormously and looked insolently around him at the words--"is +that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions of this +country up to the vertebrate stage, the old types surviving and living +on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find such modern creatures +as the tapir--an animal with quite a respectable length of +pedigree--the great deer, and the ant-eater in the companionship of +reptilian forms of jurassic type. So much is clear. And now come the +ape-men and the Indian. What is the scientific mind to think of their +presence? I can only account for it by an invasion from outside. It +is probable that there existed an anthropoid ape in South America, who +in past ages found his way to this place, and that he developed into +the creatures we have seen, some of which"--here he looked hard at +me--"were of an appearance and shape which, if it had been accompanied +by corresponding intelligence, would, I do not hesitate to say, have +reflected credit upon any living race. As to the Indians I cannot +doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. Under the +stress of famine or of conquest they have made their way up here. +Faced by ferocious creatures which they had never before seen, they +took refuge in the caves which our young friend has described, but they +have no doubt had a bitter fight to hold their own against wild beasts, +and especially against the ape-men who would regard them as intruders, +and wage a merciless war upon them with a cunning which the larger +beasts would lack. Hence the fact that their numbers appear to be +limited. Well, gentlemen, have I read you the riddle aright, or is +there any point which you would query?" + +Professor Summerlee for once was too depressed to argue, though he +shook his head violently as a token of general disagreement. Lord John +merely scratched his scanty locks with the remark that he couldn't put +up a fight as he wasn't in the same weight or class. For my own part I +performed my usual role of bringing things down to a strictly prosaic +and practical level by the remark that one of the Indians was missing. + +"He has gone to fetch some water," said Lord Roxton. "We fitted him up +with an empty beef tin and he is off." + +"To the old camp?" I asked. + +"No, to the brook. It's among the trees there. It can't be more than +a couple of hundred yards. But the beggar is certainly taking his +time." + +"I'll go and look after him," said I. I picked up my rifle and +strolled in the direction of the brook, leaving my friends to lay out +the scanty breakfast. It may seem to you rash that even for so short a +distance I should quit the shelter of our friendly thicket, but you +will remember that we were many miles from Ape-town, that so far as we +knew the creatures had not discovered our retreat, and that in any case +with a rifle in my hands I had no fear of them. I had not yet learned +their cunning or their strength. + +I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, but there +was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it. I was making my +way through this at a point which was just out of sight of my +companions, when, under one of the trees, I noticed something red +huddled among the bushes. As I approached it, I was shocked to see +that it was the dead body of the missing Indian. He lay upon his side, +his limbs drawn up, and his head screwed round at a most unnatural +angle, so that he seemed to be looking straight over his own shoulder. +I gave a cry to warn my friends that something was amiss, and running +forwards I stooped over the body. Surely my guardian angel was very +near me then, for some instinct of fear, or it may have been some faint +rustle of leaves, made me glance upwards. Out of the thick green +foliage which hung low over my head, two long muscular arms covered +with reddish hair were slowly descending. Another instant and the +great stealthy hands would have been round my throat. I sprang +backwards, but quick as I was, those hands were quicker still. Through +my sudden spring they missed a fatal grip, but one of them caught the +back of my neck and the other one my face. I threw my hands up to +protect my throat, and the next moment the huge paw had slid down my +face and closed over them. I was lifted lightly from the ground, and I +felt an intolerable pressure forcing my head back and back until the +strain upon the cervical spine was more than I could bear. My senses +swam, but I still tore at the hand and forced it out from my chin. +Looking up I saw a frightful face with cold inexorable light blue eyes +looking down into mine. There was something hypnotic in those terrible +eyes. I could struggle no longer. As the creature felt me grow limp +in his grasp, two white canines gleamed for a moment at each side of +the vile mouth, and the grip tightened still more upon my chin, forcing +it always upwards and back. A thin, oval-tinted mist formed before my +eyes and little silvery bells tinkled in my ears. Dully and far off I +heard the crack of a rifle and was feebly aware of the shock as I was +dropped to the earth, where I lay without sense or motion. + +I awoke to find myself on my back upon the grass in our lair within the +thicket. Someone had brought the water from the brook, and Lord John +was sprinkling my head with it, while Challenger and Summerlee were +propping me up, with concern in their faces. For a moment I had a +glimpse of the human spirits behind their scientific masks. It was +really shock, rather than any injury, which had prostrated me, and in +half-an-hour, in spite of aching head and stiff neck, I was sitting up +and ready for anything. + +"But you've had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad," said +Lord Roxton. "When I heard your cry and ran forward, and saw your head +twisted half-off and your stohwassers kickin' in the air, I thought we +were one short. I missed the beast in my flurry, but he dropped you +all right and was off like a streak. By George! I wish I had fifty +men with rifles. I'd clear out the whole infernal gang of them and +leave this country a bit cleaner than we found it." + +It was clear now that the ape-men had in some way marked us down, and +that we were watched on every side. We had not so much to fear from +them during the day, but they would be very likely to rush us by night; +so the sooner we got away from their neighborhood the better. On three +sides of us was absolute forest, and there we might find ourselves in +an ambush. But on the fourth side--that which sloped down in the +direction of the lake--there was only low scrub, with scattered trees +and occasional open glades. It was, in fact, the route which I had +myself taken in my solitary journey, and it led us straight for the +Indian caves. This then must for every reason be our road. + +One great regret we had, and that was to leave our old camp behind us, +not only for the sake of the stores which remained there, but even more +because we were losing touch with Zambo, our link with the outside +world. However, we had a fair supply of cartridges and all our guns, +so, for a time at least, we could look after ourselves, and we hoped +soon to have a chance of returning and restoring our communications +with our negro. He had faithfully promised to stay where he was, and +we had not a doubt that he would be as good as his word. + +It was in the early afternoon that we started upon our journey. The +young chief walked at our head as our guide, but refused indignantly to +carry any burden. Behind him came the two surviving Indians with our +scanty possessions upon their backs. We four white men walked in the +rear with rifles loaded and ready. As we started there broke from the +thick silent woods behind us a sudden great ululation of the ape-men, +which may have been a cheer of triumph at our departure or a jeer of +contempt at our flight. Looking back we saw only the dense screen of +trees, but that long-drawn yell told us how many of our enemies lurked +among them. We saw no sign of pursuit, however, and soon we had got +into more open country and beyond their power. + +As I tramped along, the rearmost of the four, I could not help smiling +at the appearance of my three companions in front. Was this the +luxurious Lord John Roxton who had sat that evening in the Albany +amidst his Persian rugs and his pictures in the pink radiance of the +tinted lights? And was this the imposing Professor who had swelled +behind the great desk in his massive study at Enmore Park? And, +finally, could this be the austere and prim figure which had risen +before the meeting at the Zoological Institute? No three tramps that +one could have met in a Surrey lane could have looked more hopeless and +bedraggled. We had, it is true, been only a week or so upon the top of +the plateau, but all our spare clothing was in our camp below, and the +one week had been a severe one upon us all, though least to me who had +not to endure the handling of the ape-men. My three friends had all +lost their hats, and had now bound handkerchiefs round their heads, +their clothes hung in ribbons about them, and their unshaven grimy +faces were hardly to be recognized. Both Summerlee and Challenger were +limping heavily, while I still dragged my feet from weakness after the +shock of the morning, and my neck was as stiff as a board from the +murderous grip that held it. We were indeed a sorry crew, and I did +not wonder to see our Indian companions glance back at us occasionally +with horror and amazement on their faces. + +In the late afternoon we reached the margin of the lake, and as we +emerged from the bush and saw the sheet of water stretching before us +our native friends set up a shrill cry of joy and pointed eagerly in +front of them. It was indeed a wonderful sight which lay before us. +Sweeping over the glassy surface was a great flotilla of canoes coming +straight for the shore upon which we stood. They were some miles out +when we first saw them, but they shot forward with great swiftness, and +were soon so near that the rowers could distinguish our persons. +Instantly a thunderous shout of delight burst from them, and we saw +them rise from their seats, waving their paddles and spears madly in +the air. Then bending to their work once more, they flew across the +intervening water, beached their boats upon the sloping sand, and +rushed up to us, prostrating themselves with loud cries of greeting +before the young chief. Finally one of them, an elderly man, with a +necklace and bracelet of great lustrous glass beads and the skin of +some beautiful mottled amber-colored animal slung over his shoulders, +ran forward and embraced most tenderly the youth whom we had saved. He +then looked at us and asked some questions, after which he stepped up +with much dignity and embraced us also each in turn. Then, at his +order, the whole tribe lay down upon the ground before us in homage. +Personally I felt shy and uncomfortable at this obsequious adoration, +and I read the same feeling in the faces of Roxton and Summerlee, but +Challenger expanded like a flower in the sun. + +"They may be undeveloped types," said he, stroking his beard and +looking round at them, "but their deportment in the presence of their +superiors might be a lesson to some of our more advanced Europeans. +Strange how correct are the instincts of the natural man!" + +It was clear that the natives had come out upon the war-path, for every +man carried his spear--a long bamboo tipped with bone--his bow and +arrows, and some sort of club or stone battle-axe slung at his side. +Their dark, angry glances at the woods from which we had come, and the +frequent repetition of the word "Doda," made it clear enough that this +was a rescue party who had set forth to save or revenge the old chief's +son, for such we gathered that the youth must be. A council was now +held by the whole tribe squatting in a circle, whilst we sat near on a +slab of basalt and watched their proceedings. Two or three warriors +spoke, and finally our young friend made a spirited harangue with such +eloquent features and gestures that we could understand it all as +clearly as if we had known his language. + +"What is the use of returning?" he said. "Sooner or later the thing +must be done. Your comrades have been murdered. What if I have +returned safe? These others have been done to death. There is no +safety for any of us. We are assembled now and ready." Then he pointed +to us. "These strange men are our friends. They are great fighters, +and they hate the ape-men even as we do. They command," here he +pointed up to heaven, "the thunder and the lightning. When shall we +have such a chance again? Let us go forward, and either die now or +live for the future in safety. How else shall we go back unashamed to +our women?" + +The little red warriors hung upon the words of the speaker, and when he +had finished they burst into a roar of applause, waving their rude +weapons in the air. The old chief stepped forward to us, and asked us +some questions, pointing at the same time to the woods. Lord John made +a sign to him that he should wait for an answer and then he turned to +us. + +"Well, it's up to you to say what you will do," said he; "for my part I +have a score to settle with these monkey-folk, and if it ends by wiping +them off the face of the earth I don't see that the earth need fret +about it. I'm goin' with our little red pals and I mean to see them +through the scrap. What do you say, young fellah?" + +"Of course I will come." + +"And you, Challenger?" + +"I will assuredly co-operate." + +"And you, Summerlee?" + +"We seem to be drifting very far from the object of this expedition, +Lord John. I assure you that I little thought when I left my +professional chair in London that it was for the purpose of heading a +raid of savages upon a colony of anthropoid apes." + +"To such base uses do we come," said Lord John, smiling. "But we are +up against it, so what's the decision?" + +"It seems a most questionable step," said Summerlee, argumentative to +the last, "but if you are all going, I hardly see how I can remain +behind." + +"Then it is settled," said Lord John, and turning to the chief he +nodded and slapped his rifle. + +The old fellow clasped our hands, each in turn, while his men cheered +louder than ever. It was too late to advance that night, so the +Indians settled down into a rude bivouac. On all sides their fires +began to glimmer and smoke. Some of them who had disappeared into the +jungle came back presently driving a young iguanodon before them. Like +the others, it had a daub of asphalt upon its shoulder, and it was only +when we saw one of the natives step forward with the air of an owner +and give his consent to the beast's slaughter that we understood at +last that these great creatures were as much private property as a herd +of cattle, and that these symbols which had so perplexed us were +nothing more than the marks of the owner. Helpless, torpid, and +vegetarian, with great limbs but a minute brain, they could be rounded +up and driven by a child. In a few minutes the huge beast had been cut +up and slabs of him were hanging over a dozen camp fires, together with +great scaly ganoid fish which had been speared in the lake. + +Summerlee had lain down and slept upon the sand, but we others roamed +round the edge of the water, seeking to learn something more of this +strange country. Twice we found pits of blue clay, such as we had +already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls. These were old volcanic +vents, and for some reason excited the greatest interest in Lord John. +What attracted Challenger, on the other hand, was a bubbling, gurgling +mud geyser, where some strange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon +the surface. He thrust a hollow reed into it and cried out with +delight like a schoolboy then he was able, on touching it with a +lighted match, to cause a sharp explosion and a blue flame at the far +end of the tube. Still more pleased was he when, inverting a leathern +pouch over the end of the reed, and so filling it with the gas, he was +able to send it soaring up into the air. + +"An inflammable gas, and one markedly lighter than the atmosphere. I +should say beyond doubt that it contained a considerable proportion of +free hydrogen. The resources of G. E. C. are not yet exhausted, my +young friend. I may yet show you how a great mind molds all Nature to +its use." He swelled with some secret purpose, but would say no more. + +There was nothing which we could see upon the shore which seemed to me +so wonderful as the great sheet of water before us. Our numbers and +our noise had frightened all living creatures away, and save for a few +pterodactyls, which soared round high above our heads while they waited +for the carrion, all was still around the camp. But it was different +out upon the rose-tinted waters of the central lake. It boiled and +heaved with strange life. Great slate-colored backs and high serrated +dorsal fins shot up with a fringe of silver, and then rolled down into +the depths again. The sand-banks far out were spotted with uncouth +crawling forms, huge turtles, strange saurians, and one great flat +creature like a writhing, palpitating mat of black greasy leather, +which flopped its way slowly to the lake. Here and there high serpent +heads projected out of the water, cutting swiftly through it with a +little collar of foam in front, and a long swirling wake behind, rising +and falling in graceful, swan-like undulations as they went. It was +not until one of these creatures wriggled on to a sand-bank within a +few hundred yards of us, and exposed a barrel-shaped body and huge +flippers behind the long serpent neck, that Challenger, and Summerlee, +who had joined us, broke out into their duet of wonder and admiration. + +"Plesiosaurus! A fresh-water plesiosaurus!" cried Summerlee. "That I +should have lived to see such a sight! We are blessed, my dear +Challenger, above all zoologists since the world began!" + +It was not until the night had fallen, and the fires of our savage +allies glowed red in the shadows, that our two men of science could be +dragged away from the fascinations of that primeval lake. Even in the +darkness as we lay upon the strand, we heard from time to time the +snort and plunge of the huge creatures who lived therein. + +At earliest dawn our camp was astir and an hour later we had started +upon our memorable expedition. Often in my dreams have I thought that +I might live to be a war correspondent. In what wildest one could I +have conceived the nature of the campaign which it should be my lot to +report! Here then is my first despatch from a field of battle: + +Our numbers had been reinforced during the night by a fresh batch of +natives from the caves, and we may have been four or five hundred +strong when we made our advance. A fringe of scouts was thrown out in +front, and behind them the whole force in a solid column made their way +up the long slope of the bush country until we were near the edge of +the forest. Here they spread out into a long straggling line of +spearmen and bowmen. Roxton and Summerlee took their position upon the +right flank, while Challenger and I were on the left. It was a host of +the stone age that we were accompanying to battle--we with the last +word of the gunsmith's art from St. James' Street and the Strand. + +We had not long to wait for our enemy. A wild shrill clamor rose from +the edge of the wood and suddenly a body of ape-men rushed out with +clubs and stones, and made for the center of the Indian line. It was a +valiant move but a foolish one, for the great bandy-legged creatures +were slow of foot, while their opponents were as active as cats. It +was horrible to see the fierce brutes with foaming mouths and glaring +eyes, rushing and grasping, but forever missing their elusive enemies, +while arrow after arrow buried itself in their hides. One great fellow +ran past me roaring with pain, with a dozen darts sticking from his +chest and ribs. In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, and he fell +sprawling among the aloes. But this was the only shot fired, for the +attack had been on the center of the line, and the Indians there had +needed no help of ours in repulsing it. Of all the ape-men who had +rushed out into the open, I do not think that one got back to cover. + +But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. For an +hour or more after we entered the wood, there was a desperate struggle +in which for a time we hardly held our own. Springing out from among +the scrub the ape-men with huge clubs broke in upon the Indians and +often felled three or four of them before they could be speared. Their +frightful blows shattered everything upon which they fell. One of them +knocked Summerlee's rifle to matchwood and the next would have crushed +his skull had an Indian not stabbed the beast to the heart. Other +ape-men in the trees above us hurled down stones and logs of wood, +occasionally dropping bodily on to our ranks and fighting furiously +until they were felled. Once our allies broke under the pressure, and +had it not been for the execution done by our rifles they would +certainly have taken to their heels. But they were gallantly rallied +by their old chief and came on with such a rush that the ape-men began +in turn to give way. Summerlee was weaponless, but I was emptying my +magazine as quick as I could fire, and on the further flank we heard +the continuous cracking of our companion's rifles. + +Then in a moment came the panic and the collapse. Screaming and +howling, the great creatures rushed away in all directions through the +brushwood, while our allies yelled in their savage delight, following +swiftly after their flying enemies. All the feuds of countless +generations, all the hatreds and cruelties of their narrow history, all +the memories of ill-usage and persecution were to be purged that day. +At last man was to be supreme and the man-beast to find forever his +allotted place. Fly as they would the fugitives were too slow to +escape from the active savages, and from every side in the tangled +woods we heard the exultant yells, the twanging of bows, and the crash +and thud as ape-men were brought down from their hiding-places in the +trees. + +I was following the others, when I found that Lord John and Challenger +had come across to join us. + +"It's over," said Lord John. "I think we can leave the tidying up to +them. Perhaps the less we see of it the better we shall sleep." + +Challenger's eyes were shining with the lust of slaughter. + +"We have been privileged," he cried, strutting about like a gamecock, +"to be present at one of the typical decisive battles of history--the +battles which have determined the fate of the world. What, my friends, +is the conquest of one nation by another? It is meaningless. Each +produces the same result. But those fierce fights, when in the dawn of +the ages the cave-dwellers held their own against the tiger folk, or +the elephants first found that they had a master, those were the real +conquests--the victories that count. By this strange turn of fate we +have seen and helped to decide even such a contest. Now upon this +plateau the future must ever be for man." + +It needed a robust faith in the end to justify such tragic means. As +we advanced together through the woods we found the ape-men lying +thick, transfixed with spears or arrows. Here and there a little group +of shattered Indians marked where one of the anthropoids had turned to +bay, and sold his life dearly. Always in front of us we heard the +yelling and roaring which showed the direction of the pursuit. The +ape-men had been driven back to their city, they had made a last stand +there, once again they had been broken, and now we were in time to see +the final fearful scene of all. Some eighty or a hundred males, the +last survivors, had been driven across that same little clearing which +led to the edge of the cliff, the scene of our own exploit two days +before. As we arrived the Indians, a semicircle of spearmen, had +closed in on them, and in a minute it was over, Thirty or forty died +where they stood. The others, screaming and clawing, were thrust over +the precipice, and went hurtling down, as their prisoners had of old, +on to the sharp bamboos six hundred feet below. It was as Challenger +had said, and the reign of man was assured forever in Maple White Land. +The males were exterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and +young were driven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of +untold centuries had reached its bloody end. + +For us the victory brought much advantage. Once again we were able to +visit our camp and get at our stores. Once more also we were able to +communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified by the spectacle from +afar of an avalanche of apes falling from the edge of the cliff. + +"Come away, Massas, come away!" he cried, his eyes starting from his +head. "The debbil get you sure if you stay up there." + +"It is the voice of sanity!" said Summerlee with conviction. "We have +had adventures enough and they are neither suitable to our character or +our position. I hold you to your word, Challenger. From now onwards +you devote your energies to getting us out of this horrible country and +back once more to civilization." + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + "Our Eyes have seen Great Wonders" + +I write this from day to day, but I trust that before I come to the end +of it, I may be able to say that the light shines, at last, through our +clouds. We are held here with no clear means of making our escape, and +bitterly we chafe against it. Yet, I can well imagine that the day may +come when we may be glad that we were kept, against our will, to see +something more of the wonders of this singular place, and of the +creatures who inhabit it. + +The victory of the Indians and the annihilation of the ape-men, marked +the turning point of our fortunes. From then onwards, we were in truth +masters of the plateau, for the natives looked upon us with a mixture +of fear and gratitude, since by our strange powers we had aided them to +destroy their hereditary foe. For their own sakes they would, perhaps, +be glad to see the departure of such formidable and incalculable +people, but they have not themselves suggested any way by which we may +reach the plains below. There had been, so far as we could follow +their signs, a tunnel by which the place could be approached, the lower +exit of which we had seen from below. By this, no doubt, both ape-men +and Indians had at different epochs reached the top, and Maple White +with his companion had taken the same way. Only the year before, +however, there had been a terrific earthquake, and the upper end of the +tunnel had fallen in and completely disappeared. The Indians now could +only shake their heads and shrug their shoulders when we expressed by +signs our desire to descend. It may be that they cannot, but it may +also be that they will not, help us to get away. + +At the end of the victorious campaign the surviving ape-folk were +driven across the plateau (their wailings were horrible) and +established in the neighborhood of the Indian caves, where they would, +from now onwards, be a servile race under the eyes of their masters. +It was a rude, raw, primeval version of the Jews in Babylon or the +Israelites in Egypt. At night we could hear from amid the trees the +long-drawn cry, as some primitive Ezekiel mourned for fallen greatness +and recalled the departed glories of Ape Town. Hewers of wood and +drawers of water, such were they from now onwards. + +We had returned across the plateau with our allies two days after the +battle, and made our camp at the foot of their cliffs. They would have +had us share their caves with them, but Lord John would by no means +consent to it considering that to do so would put us in their power if +they were treacherously disposed. We kept our independence, therefore, +and had our weapons ready for any emergency, while preserving the most +friendly relations. We also continually visited their caves, which +were most remarkable places, though whether made by man or by Nature we +have never been able to determine. They were all on the one stratum, +hollowed out of some soft rock which lay between the volcanic basalt +forming the ruddy cliffs above them, and the hard granite which formed +their base. + +The openings were about eighty feet above the ground, and were led up +to by long stone stairs, so narrow and steep that no large animal could +mount them. Inside they were warm and dry, running in straight +passages of varying length into the side of the hill, with smooth gray +walls decorated with many excellent pictures done with charred sticks +and representing the various animals of the plateau. If every living +thing were swept from the country the future explorer would find upon +the walls of these caves ample evidence of the strange fauna--the +dinosaurs, iguanodons, and fish lizards--which had lived so recently +upon earth. + +Since we had learned that the huge iguanodons were kept as tame herds +by their owners, and were simply walking meat-stores, we had conceived +that man, even with his primitive weapons, had established his +ascendancy upon the plateau. We were soon to discover that it was not +so, and that he was still there upon tolerance. + +It was on the third day after our forming our camp near the Indian +caves that the tragedy occurred. Challenger and Summerlee had gone off +together that day to the lake where some of the natives, under their +direction, were engaged in harpooning specimens of the great lizards. +Lord John and I had remained in our camp, while a number of the Indians +were scattered about upon the grassy slope in front of the caves +engaged in different ways. Suddenly there was a shrill cry of alarm, +with the word "Stoa" resounding from a hundred tongues. From every +side men, women, and children were rushing wildly for shelter, swarming +up the staircases and into the caves in a mad stampede. + +Looking up, we could see them waving their arms from the rocks above +and beckoning to us to join them in their refuge. We had both seized +our magazine rifles and ran out to see what the danger could be. +Suddenly from the near belt of trees there broke forth a group of +twelve or fifteen Indians, running for their lives, and at their very +heels two of those frightful monsters which had disturbed our camp and +pursued me upon my solitary journey. In shape they were like horrible +toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of +an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant. We had never +before seen them save at night, and indeed they are nocturnal animals +save when disturbed in their lairs, as these had been. We now stood +amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty skins were of a +curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight struck them with an +ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved. + +We had little time to watch them, however, for in an instant they had +overtaken the fugitives and were making a dire slaughter among them. +Their method was to fall forward with their full weight upon each in +turn, leaving him crushed and mangled, to bound on after the others. +The wretched Indians screamed with terror, but were helpless, run as +they would, before the relentless purpose and horrible activity of +these monstrous creatures. One after another they went down, and there +were not half-a-dozen surviving by the time my companion and I could +come to their help. But our aid was of little avail and only involved +us in the same peril. At the range of a couple of hundred yards we +emptied our magazines, firing bullet after bullet into the beasts, but +with no more effect than if we were pelting them with pellets of paper. +Their slow reptilian natures cared nothing for wounds, and the springs +of their lives, with no special brain center but scattered throughout +their spinal cords, could not be tapped by any modern weapons. The +most that we could do was to check their progress by distracting their +attention with the flash and roar of our guns, and so to give both the +natives and ourselves time to reach the steps which led to safety. But +where the conical explosive bullets of the twentieth century were of no +avail, the poisoned arrows of the natives, dipped in the juice of +strophanthus and steeped afterwards in decayed carrion, could succeed. +Such arrows were of little avail to the hunter who attacked the beast, +because their action in that torpid circulation was slow, and before +its powers failed it could certainly overtake and slay its assailant. +But now, as the two monsters hounded us to the very foot of the stairs, +a drift of darts came whistling from every chink in the cliff above +them. In a minute they were feathered with them, and yet with no sign +of pain they clawed and slobbered with impotent rage at the steps which +would lead them to their victims, mounting clumsily up for a few yards +and then sliding down again to the ground. But at last the poison +worked. One of them gave a deep rumbling groan and dropped his huge +squat head on to the earth. The other bounded round in an eccentric +circle with shrill, wailing cries, and then lying down writhed in agony +for some minutes before it also stiffened and lay still. With yells of +triumph the Indians came flocking down from their caves and danced a +frenzied dance of victory round the dead bodies, in mad joy that two +more of the most dangerous of all their enemies had been slain. That +night they cut up and removed the bodies, not to eat--for the poison +was still active--but lest they should breed a pestilence. The great +reptilian hearts, however, each as large as a cushion, still lay there, +beating slowly and steadily, with a gentle rise and fall, in horrible +independent life. It was only upon the third day that the ganglia ran +down and the dreadful things were still. + +Some day, when I have a better desk than a meat-tin and more helpful +tools than a worn stub of pencil and a last, tattered note-book, I will +write some fuller account of the Accala Indians--of our life amongst +them, and of the glimpses which we had of the strange conditions of +wondrous Maple White Land. Memory, at least, will never fail me, for +so long as the breath of life is in me, every hour and every action of +that period will stand out as hard and clear as do the first strange +happenings of our childhood. No new impressions could efface those +which are so deeply cut. When the time comes I will describe that +wondrous moonlit night upon the great lake when a young +ichthyosaurus--a strange creature, half seal, half fish, to look at, +with bone-covered eyes on each side of his snout, and a third eye fixed +upon the top of his head--was entangled in an Indian net, and nearly +upset our canoe before we towed it ashore; the same night that a green +water-snake shot out from the rushes and carried off in its coils the +steersman of Challenger's canoe. I will tell, too, of the great +nocturnal white thing--to this day we do not know whether it was beast +or reptile--which lived in a vile swamp to the east of the lake, and +flitted about with a faint phosphorescent glimmer in the darkness. The +Indians were so terrified at it that they would not go near the place, +and, though we twice made expeditions and saw it each time, we could +not make our way through the deep marsh in which it lived. I can only +say that it seemed to be larger than a cow and had the strangest musky +odor. I will tell also of the huge bird which chased Challenger to the +shelter of the rocks one day--a great running bird, far taller than an +ostrich, with a vulture-like neck and cruel head which made it a +walking death. As Challenger climbed to safety one dart of that savage +curving beak shore off the heel of his boot as if it had been cut with +a chisel. This time at least modern weapons prevailed and the great +creature, twelve feet from head to foot--phororachus its name, +according to our panting but exultant Professor--went down before Lord +Roxton's rifle in a flurry of waving feathers and kicking limbs, with +two remorseless yellow eyes glaring up from the midst of it. May I +live to see that flattened vicious skull in its own niche amid the +trophies of the Albany. Finally, I will assuredly give some account of +the toxodon, the giant ten-foot guinea pig, with projecting chisel +teeth, which we killed as it drank in the gray of the morning by the +side of the lake. + +All this I shall some day write at fuller length, and amidst these more +stirring days I would tenderly sketch in these lovely summer evenings, +when with the deep blue sky above us we lay in good comradeship among +the long grasses by the wood and marveled at the strange fowl that +swept over us and the quaint new creatures which crept from their +burrows to watch us, while above us the boughs of the bushes were heavy +with luscious fruit, and below us strange and lovely flowers peeped at +us from among the herbage; or those long moonlit nights when we lay out +upon the shimmering surface of the great lake and watched with wonder +and awe the huge circles rippling out from the sudden splash of some +fantastic monster; or the greenish gleam, far down in the deep water, +of some strange creature upon the confines of darkness. These are the +scenes which my mind and my pen will dwell upon in every detail at some +future day. + +But, you will ask, why these experiences and why this delay, when you +and your comrades should have been occupied day and night in the +devising of some means by which you could return to the outer world? +My answer is, that there was not one of us who was not working for this +end, but that our work had been in vain. One fact we had very speedily +discovered: The Indians would do nothing to help us. In every other +way they were our friends--one might almost say our devoted slaves--but +when it was suggested that they should help us to make and carry a +plank which would bridge the chasm, or when we wished to get from them +thongs of leather or liana to weave ropes which might help us, we were +met by a good-humored, but an invincible, refusal. They would smile, +twinkle their eyes, shake their heads, and there was the end of it. +Even the old chief met us with the same obstinate denial, and it was +only Maretas, the youngster whom we had saved, who looked wistfully at +us and told us by his gestures that he was grieved for our thwarted +wishes. Ever since their crowning triumph with the ape-men they looked +upon us as supermen, who bore victory in the tubes of strange weapons, +and they believed that so long as we remained with them good fortune +would be theirs. A little red-skinned wife and a cave of our own were +freely offered to each of us if we would but forget our own people and +dwell forever upon the plateau. So far all had been kindly, however +far apart our desires might be; but we felt well assured that our +actual plans of a descent must be kept secret, for we had reason to +fear that at the last they might try to hold us by force. + +In spite of the danger from dinosaurs (which is not great save at +night, for, as I may have said before, they are mostly nocturnal in +their habits) I have twice in the last three weeks been over to our old +camp in order to see our negro who still kept watch and ward below the +cliff. My eyes strained eagerly across the great plain in the hope of +seeing afar off the help for which we had prayed. But the long +cactus-strewn levels still stretched away, empty and bare, to the +distant line of the cane-brake. + +"They will soon come now, Massa Malone. Before another week pass +Indian come back and bring rope and fetch you down." Such was the +cheery cry of our excellent Zambo. + +I had one strange experience as I came from this second visit which had +involved my being away for a night from my companions. I was returning +along the well-remembered route, and had reached a spot within a mile +or so of the marsh of the pterodactyls, when I saw an extraordinary +object approaching me. It was a man who walked inside a framework made +of bent canes so that he was enclosed on all sides in a bell-shaped +cage. As I drew nearer I was more amazed still to see that it was Lord +John Roxton. When he saw me he slipped from under his curious +protection and came towards me laughing, and yet, as I thought, with +some confusion in his manner. + +"Well, young fellah," said he, "who would have thought of meetin' you +up here?" + +"What in the world are you doing?" I asked. + +"Visitin' my friends, the pterodactyls," said he. + +"But why?" + +"Interestin' beasts, don't you think? But unsociable! Nasty rude ways +with strangers, as you may remember. So I rigged this framework which +keeps them from bein' too pressin' in their attentions." + +"But what do you want in the swamp?" + +He looked at me with a very questioning eye, and I read hesitation in +his face. + +"Don't you think other people besides Professors can want to know +things?" he said at last. "I'm studyin' the pretty dears. That's +enough for you." + +"No offense," said I. + +His good-humor returned and he laughed. + +"No offense, young fellah. I'm goin' to get a young devil chick for +Challenger. That's one of my jobs. No, I don't want your company. +I'm safe in this cage, and you are not. So long, and I'll be back in +camp by night-fall." + +He turned away and I left him wandering on through the wood with his +extraordinary cage around him. + +If Lord John's behavior at this time was strange, that of Challenger +was more so. I may say that he seemed to possess an extraordinary +fascination for the Indian women, and that he always carried a large +spreading palm branch with which he beat them off as if they were +flies, when their attentions became too pressing. To see him walking +like a comic opera Sultan, with this badge of authority in his hand, +his black beard bristling in front of him, his toes pointing at each +step, and a train of wide-eyed Indian girls behind him, clad in their +slender drapery of bark cloth, is one of the most grotesque of all the +pictures which I will carry back with me. As to Summerlee, he was +absorbed in the insect and bird life of the plateau, and spent his +whole time (save that considerable portion which was devoted to abusing +Challenger for not getting us out of our difficulties) in cleaning and +mounting his specimens. + +Challenger had been in the habit of walking off by himself every +morning and returning from time to time with looks of portentous +solemnity, as one who bears the full weight of a great enterprise upon +his shoulders. One day, palm branch in hand, and his crowd of adoring +devotees behind him, he led us down to his hidden work-shop and took us +into the secret of his plans. + +The place was a small clearing in the center of a palm grove. In this +was one of those boiling mud geysers which I have already described. +Around its edge were scattered a number of leathern thongs cut from +iguanodon hide, and a large collapsed membrane which proved to be the +dried and scraped stomach of one of the great fish lizards from the +lake. This huge sack had been sewn up at one end and only a small +orifice left at the other. Into this opening several bamboo canes had +been inserted and the other ends of these canes were in contact with +conical clay funnels which collected the gas bubbling up through the +mud of the geyser. Soon the flaccid organ began to slowly expand and +show such a tendency to upward movements that Challenger fastened the +cords which held it to the trunks of the surrounding trees. In half an +hour a good-sized gas-bag had been formed, and the jerking and +straining upon the thongs showed that it was capable of considerable +lift. Challenger, like a glad father in the presence of his +first-born, stood smiling and stroking his beard, in silent, +self-satisfied content as he gazed at the creation of his brain. It +was Summerlee who first broke the silence. + +"You don't mean us to go up in that thing, Challenger?" said he, in an +acid voice. + +"I mean, my dear Summerlee, to give you such a demonstration of its +powers that after seeing it you will, I am sure, have no hesitation in +trusting yourself to it." + +"You can put it right out of your head now, at once," said Summerlee +with decision, "nothing on earth would induce me to commit such a +folly. Lord John, I trust that you will not countenance such madness?" + +"Dooced ingenious, I call it," said our peer. "I'd like to see how it +works." + +"So you shall," said Challenger. "For some days I have exerted my +whole brain force upon the problem of how we shall descend from these +cliffs. We have satisfied ourselves that we cannot climb down and that +there is no tunnel. We are also unable to construct any kind of bridge +which may take us back to the pinnacle from which we came. How then +shall I find a means to convey us? Some little time ago I had remarked +to our young friend here that free hydrogen was evolved from the +geyser. The idea of a balloon naturally followed. I was, I will +admit, somewhat baffled by the difficulty of discovering an envelope to +contain the gas, but the contemplation of the immense entrails of these +reptiles supplied me with a solution to the problem. Behold the +result!" + +He put one hand in the front of his ragged jacket and pointed proudly +with the other. + +By this time the gas-bag had swollen to a goodly rotundity and was +jerking strongly upon its lashings. + +"Midsummer madness!" snorted Summerlee. + +Lord John was delighted with the whole idea. "Clever old dear, ain't +he?" he whispered to me, and then louder to Challenger. "What about a +car?" + +"The car will be my next care. I have already planned how it is to be +made and attached. Meanwhile I will simply show you how capable my +apparatus is of supporting the weight of each of us." + +"All of us, surely?" + +"No, it is part of my plan that each in turn shall descend as in a +parachute, and the balloon be drawn back by means which I shall have no +difficulty in perfecting. If it will support the weight of one and let +him gently down, it will have done all that is required of it. I will +now show you its capacity in that direction." + +He brought out a lump of basalt of a considerable size, constructed in +the middle so that a cord could be easily attached to it. This cord +was the one which we had brought with us on to the plateau after we had +used it for climbing the pinnacle. It was over a hundred feet long, +and though it was thin it was very strong. He had prepared a sort of +collar of leather with many straps depending from it. This collar was +placed over the dome of the balloon, and the hanging thongs were +gathered together below, so that the pressure of any weight would be +diffused over a considerable surface. Then the lump of basalt was +fastened to the thongs, and the rope was allowed to hang from the end +of it, being passed three times round the Professor's arm. + +"I will now," said Challenger, with a smile of pleased anticipation, +"demonstrate the carrying power of my balloon." As he said so he cut +with a knife the various lashings that held it. + +Never was our expedition in more imminent danger of complete +annihilation. The inflated membrane shot up with frightful velocity +into the air. In an instant Challenger was pulled off his feet and +dragged after it. I had just time to throw my arms round his ascending +waist when I was myself whipped up into the air. Lord John had me with +a rat-trap grip round the legs, but I felt that he also was coming off +the ground. For a moment I had a vision of four adventurers floating +like a string of sausages over the land that they had explored. But, +happily, there were limits to the strain which the rope would stand, +though none apparently to the lifting powers of this infernal machine. +There was a sharp crack, and we were in a heap upon the ground with +coils of rope all over us. When we were able to stagger to our feet we +saw far off in the deep blue sky one dark spot where the lump of basalt +was speeding upon its way. + +"Splendid!" cried the undaunted Challenger, rubbing his injured arm. +"A most thorough and satisfactory demonstration! I could not have +anticipated such a success. Within a week, gentlemen, I promise that a +second balloon will be prepared, and that you can count upon taking in +safety and comfort the first stage of our homeward journey." So far I +have written each of the foregoing events as it occurred. Now I am +rounding off my narrative from the old camp, where Zambo has waited so +long, with all our difficulties and dangers left like a dream behind us +upon the summit of those vast ruddy crags which tower above our heads. +We have descended in safety, though in a most unexpected fashion, and +all is well with us. In six weeks or two months we shall be in London, +and it is possible that this letter may not reach you much earlier than +we do ourselves. Already our hearts yearn and our spirits fly towards +the great mother city which holds so much that is dear to us. + +It was on the very evening of our perilous adventure with Challenger's +home-made balloon that the change came in our fortunes. I have said +that the one person from whom we had had some sign of sympathy in our +attempts to get away was the young chief whom we had rescued. He alone +had no desire to hold us against our will in a strange land. He had +told us as much by his expressive language of signs. That evening, +after dusk, he came down to our little camp, handed me (for some reason +he had always shown his attentions to me, perhaps because I was the one +who was nearest his age) a small roll of the bark of a tree, and then +pointing solemnly up at the row of caves above him, he had put his +finger to his lips as a sign of secrecy and had stolen back again to +his people. + +I took the slip of bark to the firelight and we examined it together. +It was about a foot square, and on the inner side there was a singular +arrangement of lines, which I here reproduce: + + +They were neatly done in charcoal upon the white surface, and looked to +me at first sight like some sort of rough musical score. + +"Whatever it is, I can swear that it is of importance to us," said I. +"I could read that on his face as he gave it." + +"Unless we have come upon a primitive practical joker," Summerlee +suggested, "which I should think would be one of the most elementary +developments of man." + +"It is clearly some sort of script," said Challenger. + +"Looks like a guinea puzzle competition," remarked Lord John, craning +his neck to have a look at it. Then suddenly he stretched out his hand +and seized the puzzle. + +"By George!" he cried, "I believe I've got it. The boy guessed right +the very first time. See here! How many marks are on that paper? +Eighteen. Well, if you come to think of it there are eighteen cave +openings on the hill-side above us." + +"He pointed up to the caves when he gave it to me," said I. + +"Well, that settles it. This is a chart of the caves. What! Eighteen +of them all in a row, some short, some deep, some branching, same as we +saw them. It's a map, and here's a cross on it. What's the cross for? +It is placed to mark one that is much deeper than the others." + +"One that goes through," I cried. + +"I believe our young friend has read the riddle," said Challenger. "If +the cave does not go through I do not understand why this person, who +has every reason to mean us well, should have drawn our attention to +it. But if it does go through and comes out at the corresponding point +on the other side, we should not have more than a hundred feet to +descend." + +"A hundred feet!" grumbled Summerlee. + +"Well, our rope is still more than a hundred feet long," I cried. +"Surely we could get down." + +"How about the Indians in the cave?" Summerlee objected. + +"There are no Indians in any of the caves above our heads," said I. +"They are all used as barns and store-houses. Why should we not go up +now at once and spy out the land?" + +There is a dry bituminous wood upon the plateau--a species of +araucaria, according to our botanist--which is always used by the +Indians for torches. Each of us picked up a faggot of this, and we +made our way up weed-covered steps to the particular cave which was +marked in the drawing. It was, as I had said, empty, save for a great +number of enormous bats, which flapped round our heads as we advanced +into it. As we had no desire to draw the attention of the Indians to +our proceedings, we stumbled along in the dark until we had gone round +several curves and penetrated a considerable distance into the cavern. +Then, at last, we lit our torches. It was a beautiful dry tunnel with +smooth gray walls covered with native symbols, a curved roof which +arched over our heads, and white glistening sand beneath our feet. We +hurried eagerly along it until, with a deep groan of bitter +disappointment, we were brought to a halt. A sheer wall of rock had +appeared before us, with no chink through which a mouse could have +slipped. There was no escape for us there. + +We stood with bitter hearts staring at this unexpected obstacle. It +was not the result of any convulsion, as in the case of the ascending +tunnel. The end wall was exactly like the side ones. It was, and had +always been, a cul-de-sac. + +"Never mind, my friends," said the indomitable Challenger. "You have +still my firm promise of a balloon." + +Summerlee groaned. + +"Can we be in the wrong cave?" I suggested. + +"No use, young fellah," said Lord John, with his finger on the chart. +"Seventeen from the right and second from the left. This is the cave +sure enough." + +I looked at the mark to which his finger pointed, and I gave a sudden +cry of joy. + +"I believe I have it! Follow me! Follow me!" + +I hurried back along the way we had come, my torch in my hand. "Here," +said I, pointing to some matches upon the ground, "is where we lit up." + +"Exactly." + +"Well, it is marked as a forked cave, and in the darkness we passed the +fork before the torches were lit. On the right side as we go out we +should find the longer arm." + +It was as I had said. We had not gone thirty yards before a great +black opening loomed in the wall. We turned into it to find that we +were in a much larger passage than before. Along it we hurried in +breathless impatience for many hundreds of yards. Then, suddenly, in +the black darkness of the arch in front of us we saw a gleam of dark +red light. We stared in amazement. A sheet of steady flame seemed to +cross the passage and to bar our way. We hastened towards it. No +sound, no heat, no movement came from it, but still the great luminous +curtain glowed before us, silvering all the cave and turning the sand +to powdered jewels, until as we drew closer it discovered a circular +edge. + +"The moon, by George!" cried Lord John. "We are through, boys! We are +through!" + +It was indeed the full moon which shone straight down the aperture +which opened upon the cliffs. It was a small rift, not larger than a +window, but it was enough for all our purposes. As we craned our necks +through it we could see that the descent was not a very difficult one, +and that the level ground was no very great way below us. It was no +wonder that from below we had not observed the place, as the cliffs +curved overhead and an ascent at the spot would have seemed so +impossible as to discourage close inspection. We satisfied ourselves +that with the help of our rope we could find our way down, and then +returned, rejoicing, to our camp to make our preparations for the next +evening. + +What we did we had to do quickly and secretly, since even at this last +hour the Indians might hold us back. Our stores we would leave behind +us, save only our guns and cartridges. But Challenger had some +unwieldy stuff which he ardently desired to take with him, and one +particular package, of which I may not speak, which gave us more labor +than any. Slowly the day passed, but when the darkness fell we were +ready for our departure. With much labor we got our things up the +steps, and then, looking back, took one last long survey of that +strange land, soon I fear to be vulgarized, the prey of hunter and +prospector, but to each of us a dreamland of glamour and romance, a +land where we had dared much, suffered much, and learned much--OUR +land, as we shall ever fondly call it. Along upon our left the +neighboring caves each threw out its ruddy cheery firelight into the +gloom. From the slope below us rose the voices of the Indians as they +laughed and sang. Beyond was the long sweep of the woods, and in the +center, shimmering vaguely through the gloom, was the great lake, the +mother of strange monsters. Even as we looked a high whickering cry, +the call of some weird animal, rang clear out of the darkness. It was +the very voice of Maple White Land bidding us good-bye. We turned and +plunged into the cave which led to home. + +Two hours later, we, our packages, and all we owned, were at the foot +of the cliff. Save for Challenger's luggage we had never a difficulty. +Leaving it all where we descended, we started at once for Zambo's camp. +In the early morning we approached it, but only to find, to our +amazement, not one fire but a dozen upon the plain. The rescue party +had arrived. There were twenty Indians from the river, with stakes, +ropes, and all that could be useful for bridging the chasm. At least +we shall have no difficulty now in carrying our packages, when +to-morrow we begin to make our way back to the Amazon. + +And so, in humble and thankful mood, I close this account. Our eyes +have seen great wonders and our souls are chastened by what we have +endured. Each is in his own way a better and deeper man. It may be +that when we reach Para we shall stop to refit. If we do, this letter +will be a mail ahead. If not, it will reach London on the very day +that I do. In either case, my dear Mr. McArdle, I hope very soon to +shake you by the hand. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + "A Procession! A Procession!" + +I should wish to place upon record here our gratitude to all our +friends upon the Amazon for the very great kindness and hospitality +which was shown to us upon our return journey. Very particularly would +I thank Senhor Penalosa and other officials of the Brazilian Government +for the special arrangements by which we were helped upon our way, and +Senhor Pereira of Para, to whose forethought we owe the complete outfit +for a decent appearance in the civilized world which we found ready for +us at that town. It seemed a poor return for all the courtesy which we +encountered that we should deceive our hosts and benefactors, but under +the circumstances we had really no alternative, and I hereby tell them +that they will only waste their time and their money if they attempt to +follow upon our traces. Even the names have been altered in our +accounts, and I am very sure that no one, from the most careful study +of them, could come within a thousand miles of our unknown land. + +The excitement which had been caused through those parts of South +America which we had to traverse was imagined by us to be purely local, +and I can assure our friends in England that we had no notion of the +uproar which the mere rumor of our experiences had caused through +Europe. It was not until the Ivernia was within five hundred miles of +Southampton that the wireless messages from paper after paper and +agency after agency, offering huge prices for a short return message as +to our actual results, showed us how strained was the attention not +only of the scientific world but of the general public. It was agreed +among us, however, that no definite statement should be given to the +Press until we had met the members of the Zoological Institute, since +as delegates it was our clear duty to give our first report to the body +from which we had received our commission of investigation. Thus, +although we found Southampton full of Pressmen, we absolutely refused +to give any information, which had the natural effect of focussing +public attention upon the meeting which was advertised for the evening +of November 7th. For this gathering, the Zoological Hall which had +been the scene of the inception of our task was found to be far too +small, and it was only in the Queen's Hall in Regent Street that +accommodation could be found. It is now common knowledge the promoters +might have ventured upon the Albert Hall and still found their space +too scanty. + +It was for the second evening after our arrival that the great meeting +had been fixed. For the first, we had each, no doubt, our own pressing +personal affairs to absorb us. Of mine I cannot yet speak. It may be +that as it stands further from me I may think of it, and even speak of +it, with less emotion. I have shown the reader in the beginning of +this narrative where lay the springs of my action. It is but right, +perhaps, that I should carry on the tale and show also the results. +And yet the day may come when I would not have it otherwise. At least +I have been driven forth to take part in a wondrous adventure, and I +cannot but be thankful to the force that drove me. + +And now I turn to the last supreme eventful moment of our adventure. +As I was racking my brain as to how I should best describe it, my eyes +fell upon the issue of my own Journal for the morning of the 8th of +November with the full and excellent account of my friend and +fellow-reporter Macdona. What can I do better than transcribe his +narrative--head-lines and all? I admit that the paper was exuberant in +the matter, out of compliment to its own enterprise in sending a +correspondent, but the other great dailies were hardly less full in +their account. Thus, then, friend Mac in his report: + + + THE NEW WORLD + GREAT MEETING AT THE QUEEN'S HALL + SCENES OF UPROAR + EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT + WHAT WAS IT? + NOCTURNAL RIOT IN REGENT STREET + (Special) + + +"The much-discussed meeting of the Zoological Institute, convened to +hear the report of the Committee of Investigation sent out last year to +South America to test the assertions made by Professor Challenger as to +the continued existence of prehistoric life upon that Continent, was +held last night in the greater Queen's Hall, and it is safe to say that +it is likely to be a red letter date in the history of Science, for the +proceedings were of so remarkable and sensational a character that no +one present is ever likely to forget them." (Oh, brother scribe +Macdona, what a monstrous opening sentence!) "The tickets were +theoretically confined to members and their friends, but the latter is +an elastic term, and long before eight o'clock, the hour fixed for the +commencement of the proceedings, all parts of the Great Hall were +tightly packed. The general public, however, which most unreasonably +entertained a grievance at having been excluded, stormed the doors at a +quarter to eight, after a prolonged melee in which several people were +injured, including Inspector Scoble of H. Division, whose leg was +unfortunately broken. After this unwarrantable invasion, which not +only filled every passage, but even intruded upon the space set apart +for the Press, it is estimated that nearly five thousand people awaited +the arrival of the travelers. When they eventually appeared, they took +their places in the front of a platform which already contained all the +leading scientific men, not only of this country, but of France and of +Germany. Sweden was also represented, in the person of Professor +Sergius, the famous Zoologist of the University of Upsala. The +entrance of the four heroes of the occasion was the signal for a +remarkable demonstration of welcome, the whole audience rising and +cheering for some minutes. An acute observer might, however, have +detected some signs of dissent amid the applause, and gathered that the +proceedings were likely to become more lively than harmonious. It may +safely be prophesied, however, that no one could have foreseen the +extraordinary turn which they were actually to take. + +"Of the appearance of the four wanderers little need be said, since +their photographs have for some time been appearing in all the papers. +They bear few traces of the hardships which they are said to have +undergone. Professor Challenger's beard may be more shaggy, Professor +Summerlee's features more ascetic, Lord John Roxton's figure more +gaunt, and all three may be burned to a darker tint than when they left +our shores, but each appeared to be in most excellent health. As to +our own representative, the well-known athlete and international Rugby +football player, E. D. Malone, he looks trained to a hair, and as he +surveyed the crowd a smile of good-humored contentment pervaded his +honest but homely face." (All right, Mac, wait till I get you alone!) + +"When quiet had been restored and the audience resumed their seats +after the ovation which they had given to the travelers, the chairman, +the Duke of Durham, addressed the meeting. 'He would not,' he said, +'stand for more than a moment between that vast assembly and the treat +which lay before them. It was not for him to anticipate what Professor +Summerlee, who was the spokesman of the committee, had to say to them, +but it was common rumor that their expedition had been crowned by +extraordinary success.' (Applause.) 'Apparently the age of romance +was not dead, and there was common ground upon which the wildest +imaginings of the novelist could meet the actual scientific +investigations of the searcher for truth. He would only add, before he +sat down, that he rejoiced--and all of them would rejoice--that these +gentlemen had returned safe and sound from their difficult and +dangerous task, for it cannot be denied that any disaster to such an +expedition would have inflicted a well-nigh irreparable loss to the +cause of Zoological science.' (Great applause, in which Professor +Challenger was observed to join.) + +"Professor Summerlee's rising was the signal for another extraordinary +outbreak of enthusiasm, which broke out again at intervals throughout +his address. That address will not be given in extenso in these +columns, for the reason that a full account of the whole adventures of +the expedition is being published as a supplement from the pen of our +own special correspondent. Some general indications will therefore +suffice. Having described the genesis of their journey, and paid a +handsome tribute to his friend Professor Challenger, coupled with an +apology for the incredulity with which his assertions, now fully +vindicated, had been received, he gave the actual course of their +journey, carefully withholding such information as would aid the public +in any attempt to locate this remarkable plateau. Having described, in +general terms, their course from the main river up to the time that +they actually reached the base of the cliffs, he enthralled his hearers +by his account of the difficulties encountered by the expedition in +their repeated attempts to mount them, and finally described how they +succeeded in their desperate endeavors, which cost the lives of their +two devoted half-breed servants." (This amazing reading of the affair +was the result of Summerlee's endeavors to avoid raising any +questionable matter at the meeting.) + +"Having conducted his audience in fancy to the summit, and marooned +them there by reason of the fall of their bridge, the Professor +proceeded to describe both the horrors and the attractions of that +remarkable land. Of personal adventures he said little, but laid +stress upon the rich harvest reaped by Science in the observations of +the wonderful beast, bird, insect, and plant life of the plateau. +Peculiarly rich in the coleoptera and in the lepidoptera, forty-six new +species of the one and ninety-four of the other had been secured in the +course of a few weeks. It was, however, in the larger animals, and +especially in the larger animals supposed to have been long extinct, +that the interest of the public was naturally centered. Of these he +was able to give a goodly list, but had little doubt that it would be +largely extended when the place had been more thoroughly investigated. +He and his companions had seen at least a dozen creatures, most of them +at a distance, which corresponded with nothing at present known to +Science. These would in time be duly classified and examined. He +instanced a snake, the cast skin of which, deep purple in color, was +fifty-one feet in length, and mentioned a white creature, supposed to +be mammalian, which gave forth well-marked phosphorescence in the +darkness; also a large black moth, the bite of which was supposed by +the Indians to be highly poisonous. Setting aside these entirely new +forms of life, the plateau was very rich in known prehistoric forms, +dating back in some cases to early Jurassic times. Among these he +mentioned the gigantic and grotesque stegosaurus, seen once by Mr. +Malone at a drinking-place by the lake, and drawn in the sketch-book of +that adventurous American who had first penetrated this unknown world. +He described also the iguanodon and the pterodactyl--two of the first +of the wonders which they had encountered. He then thrilled the +assembly by some account of the terrible carnivorous dinosaurs, which +had on more than one occasion pursued members of the party, and which +were the most formidable of all the creatures which they had +encountered. Thence he passed to the huge and ferocious bird, the +phororachus, and to the great elk which still roams upon this upland. +It was not, however, until he sketched the mysteries of the central +lake that the full interest and enthusiasm of the audience were +aroused. One had to pinch oneself to be sure that one was awake as one +heard this sane and practical Professor in cold measured tones +describing the monstrous three-eyed fish-lizards and the huge +water-snakes which inhabit this enchanted sheet of water. Next he +touched upon the Indians, and upon the extraordinary colony of +anthropoid apes, which might be looked upon as an advance upon the +pithecanthropus of Java, and as coming therefore nearer than any known +form to that hypothetical creation, the missing link. Finally he +described, amongst some merriment, the ingenious but highly dangerous +aeronautic invention of Professor Challenger, and wound up a most +memorable address by an account of the methods by which the committee +did at last find their way back to civilization. + +"It had been hoped that the proceedings would end there, and that a +vote of thanks and congratulation, moved by Professor Sergius, of +Upsala University, would be duly seconded and carried; but it was soon +evident that the course of events was not destined to flow so smoothly. +Symptoms of opposition had been evident from time to time during the +evening, and now Dr. James Illingworth, of Edinburgh, rose in the +center of the hall. Dr. Illingworth asked whether an amendment should +not be taken before a resolution. + +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Yes, sir, if there must be an amendment.' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Your Grace, there must be an amendment.' + +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Then let us take it at once.' + +"PROFESSOR SUMMERLEE (springing to his feet): 'Might I explain, your +Grace, that this man is my personal enemy ever since our controversy in +the Quarterly Journal of Science as to the true nature of Bathybius?' + +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'I fear I cannot go into personal matters. Proceed.' + +"Dr. Illingworth was imperfectly heard in part of his remarks on +account of the strenuous opposition of the friends of the explorers. +Some attempts were also made to pull him down. Being a man of enormous +physique, however, and possessed of a very powerful voice, he dominated +the tumult and succeeded in finishing his speech. It was clear, from +the moment of his rising, that he had a number of friends and +sympathizers in the hall, though they formed a minority in the +audience. The attitude of the greater part of the public might be +described as one of attentive neutrality. + +"Dr. Illingworth began his remarks by expressing his high appreciation +of the scientific work both of Professor Challenger and of Professor +Summerlee. He much regretted that any personal bias should have been +read into his remarks, which were entirely dictated by his desire for +scientific truth. His position, in fact, was substantially the same as +that taken up by Professor Summerlee at the last meeting. At that last +meeting Professor Challenger had made certain assertions which had been +queried by his colleague. Now this colleague came forward himself with +the same assertions and expected them to remain unquestioned. Was this +reasonable? ('Yes,' 'No,' and prolonged interruption, during which +Professor Challenger was heard from the Press box to ask leave from the +chairman to put Dr. Illingworth into the street.) A year ago one man +said certain things. Now four men said other and more startling ones. +Was this to constitute a final proof where the matters in question were +of the most revolutionary and incredible character? There had been +recent examples of travelers arriving from the unknown with certain +tales which had been too readily accepted. Was the London Zoological +Institute to place itself in this position? He admitted that the +members of the committee were men of character. But human nature was +very complex. Even Professors might be misled by the desire for +notoriety. Like moths, we all love best to flutter in the light. +Heavy-game shots liked to be in a position to cap the tales of their +rivals, and journalists were not averse from sensational coups, even +when imagination had to aid fact in the process. Each member of the +committee had his own motive for making the most of his results. +('Shame! shame!') He had no desire to be offensive. ('You are!' and +interruption.) The corroboration of these wondrous tales was really of +the most slender description. What did it amount to? Some +photographs. {Was it possible that in this age of ingenious +manipulation photographs could be accepted as evidence?} What more? +We have a story of a flight and a descent by ropes which precluded the +production of larger specimens. It was ingenious, but not convincing. +It was understood that Lord John Roxton claimed to have the skull of a +phororachus. He could only say that he would like to see that skull. + +"LORD JOHN ROXTON: 'Is this fellow calling me a liar?' (Uproar.) + +"THE CHAIRMAN: 'Order! order! Dr. Illingworth, I must direct you to +bring your remarks to a conclusion and to move your amendment.' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Your Grace, I have more to say, but I bow to your +ruling. I move, then, that, while Professor Summerlee be thanked for +his interesting address, the whole matter shall be regarded as +'non-proven,' and shall be referred back to a larger, and possibly more +reliable Committee of Investigation.' + +"It is difficult to describe the confusion caused by this amendment. A +large section of the audience expressed their indignation at such a +slur upon the travelers by noisy shouts of dissent and cries of, 'Don't +put it!' 'Withdraw!' 'Turn him out!' On the other hand, the +malcontents--and it cannot be denied that they were fairly +numerous--cheered for the amendment, with cries of 'Order!' 'Chair!' +and 'Fair play!' A scuffle broke out in the back benches, and blows +were freely exchanged among the medical students who crowded that part +of the hall. It was only the moderating influence of the presence of +large numbers of ladies which prevented an absolute riot. Suddenly, +however, there was a pause, a hush, and then complete silence. +Professor Challenger was on his feet. His appearance and manner are +peculiarly arresting, and as he raised his hand for order the whole +audience settled down expectantly to give him a hearing. + +"'It will be within the recollection of many present,' said Professor +Challenger, 'that similar foolish and unmannerly scenes marked the last +meeting at which I have been able to address them. On that occasion +Professor Summerlee was the chief offender, and though he is now +chastened and contrite, the matter could not be entirely forgotten. I +have heard to-night similar, but even more offensive, sentiments from +the person who has just sat down, and though it is a conscious effort +of self-effacement to come down to that person's mental level, I will +endeavor to do so, in order to allay any reasonable doubt which could +possibly exist in the minds of anyone.' (Laughter and interruption.) +'I need not remind this audience that, though Professor Summerlee, as +the head of the Committee of Investigation, has been put up to speak +to-night, still it is I who am the real prime mover in this business, +and that it is mainly to me that any successful result must be +ascribed. I have safely conducted these three gentlemen to the spot +mentioned, and I have, as you have heard, convinced them of the +accuracy of my previous account. We had hoped that we should find upon +our return that no one was so dense as to dispute our joint +conclusions. Warned, however, by my previous experience, I have not +come without such proofs as may convince a reasonable man. As +explained by Professor Summerlee, our cameras have been tampered with +by the ape-men when they ransacked our camp, and most of our negatives +ruined.' (Jeers, laughter, and 'Tell us another!' from the back.) 'I +have mentioned the ape-men, and I cannot forbear from saying that some +of the sounds which now meet my ears bring back most vividly to my +recollection my experiences with those interesting creatures.' +(Laughter.) 'In spite of the destruction of so many invaluable +negatives, there still remains in our collection a certain number of +corroborative photographs showing the conditions of life upon the +plateau. Did they accuse them of having forged these photographs?' (A +voice, 'Yes,' and considerable interruption which ended in several men +being put out of the hall.) 'The negatives were open to the inspection +of experts. But what other evidence had they? Under the conditions of +their escape it was naturally impossible to bring a large amount of +baggage, but they had rescued Professor Summerlee's collections of +butterflies and beetles, containing many new species. Was this not +evidence?' (Several voices, 'No.') 'Who said no?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (rising): 'Our point is that such a collection might +have been made in other places than a prehistoric plateau.' (Applause.) + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'No doubt, sir, we have to bow to your +scientific authority, although I must admit that the name is +unfamiliar. Passing, then, both the photographs and the entomological +collection, I come to the varied and accurate information which we +bring with us upon points which have never before been elucidated. For +example, upon the domestic habits of the pterodactyl--'(A voice: +'Bosh,' and uproar)--'I say, that upon the domestic habits of the +pterodactyl we can throw a flood of light. I can exhibit to you from +my portfolio a picture of that creature taken from life which would +convince you----' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'No picture could convince us of anything.' + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'You would require to see the thing itself?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: 'Undoubtedly.' + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: 'And you would accept that?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (laughing): 'Beyond a doubt.' + +"It was at this point that the sensation of the evening arose--a +sensation so dramatic that it can never have been paralleled in the +history of scientific gatherings. Professor Challenger raised his hand +in the air as a signal, and at once our colleague, Mr. E. D. Malone, +was observed to rise and to make his way to the back of the platform. +An instant later he re-appeared in company of a gigantic negro, the two +of them bearing between them a large square packing-case. It was +evidently of great weight, and was slowly carried forward and placed in +front of the Professor's chair. All sound had hushed in the audience +and everyone was absorbed in the spectacle before them. Professor +Challenger drew off the top of the case, which formed a sliding lid. +Peering down into the box he snapped his fingers several times and was +heard from the Press seat to say, 'Come, then, pretty, pretty!' in a +coaxing voice. An instant later, with a scratching, rattling sound, a +most horrible and loathsome creature appeared from below and perched +itself upon the side of the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke +of Durham into the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not +distract the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the +creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad +medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, +with two small red eyes as bright as points of burning coal. Its long, +savage mouth, which was held half-open, was full of a double row of +shark-like teeth. Its shoulders were humped, and round them were +draped what appeared to be a faded gray shawl. It was the devil of our +childhood in person. There was a turmoil in the audience--someone +screamed, two ladies in the front row fell senseless from their chairs, +and there was a general movement upon the platform to follow their +chairman into the orchestra. For a moment there was danger of a +general panic. Professor Challenger threw up his hands to still the +commotion, but the movement alarmed the creature beside him. Its +strange shawl suddenly unfurled, spread, and fluttered as a pair of +leathery wings. Its owner grabbed at its legs, but too late to hold +it. It had sprung from the perch and was circling slowly round the +Queen's Hall with a dry, leathery flapping of its ten-foot wings, while +a putrid and insidious odor pervaded the room. The cries of the people +in the galleries, who were alarmed at the near approach of those +glowing eyes and that murderous beak, excited the creature to a frenzy. +Faster and faster it flew, beating against walls and chandeliers in a +blind frenzy of alarm. 'The window! For heaven's sake shut that +window!' roared the Professor from the platform, dancing and wringing +his hands in an agony of apprehension. Alas, his warning was too late! +In a moment the creature, beating and bumping along the wall like a +huge moth within a gas-shade, came upon the opening, squeezed its +hideous bulk through it, and was gone. Professor Challenger fell back +into his chair with his face buried in his hands, while the audience +gave one long, deep sigh of relief as they realized that the incident +was over. + +"Then--oh! how shall one describe what took place then--when the full +exuberance of the majority and the full reaction of the minority united +to make one great wave of enthusiasm, which rolled from the back of the +hall, gathering volume as it came, swept over the orchestra, submerged +the platform, and carried the four heroes away upon its crest?" (Good +for you, Mac!) "If the audience had done less than justice, surely it +made ample amends. Every one was on his feet. Every one was moving, +shouting, gesticulating. A dense crowd of cheering men were round the +four travelers. 'Up with them! up with them!' cried a hundred voices. +In a moment four figures shot up above the crowd. In vain they strove +to break loose. They were held in their lofty places of honor. It +would have been hard to let them down if it had been wished, so dense +was the crowd around them. 'Regent Street! Regent Street!' sounded +the voices. There was a swirl in the packed multitude, and a slow +current, bearing the four upon their shoulders, made for the door. Out +in the street the scene was extraordinary. An assemblage of not less +than a hundred thousand people was waiting. The close-packed throng +extended from the other side of the Langham Hotel to Oxford Circus. A +roar of acclamation greeted the four adventurers as they appeared, high +above the heads of the people, under the vivid electric lamps outside +the hall. 'A procession! A procession!' was the cry. In a dense +phalanx, blocking the streets from side to side, the crowd set forth, +taking the route of Regent Street, Pall Mall, St. James's Street, and +Piccadilly. The whole central traffic of London was held up, and many +collisions were reported between the demonstrators upon the one side +and the police and taxi-cabmen upon the other. Finally, it was not +until after midnight that the four travelers were released at the +entrance to Lord John Roxton's chambers in the Albany, and that the +exuberant crowd, having sung 'They are Jolly Good Fellows' in chorus, +concluded their program with 'God Save the King.' So ended one of the +most remarkable evenings that London has seen for a considerable time." + +So far my friend Macdona; and it may be taken as a fairly accurate, if +florid, account of the proceedings. As to the main incident, it was a +bewildering surprise to the audience, but not, I need hardly say, to +us. The reader will remember how I met Lord John Roxton upon the very +occasion when, in his protective crinoline, he had gone to bring the +"Devil's chick" as he called it, for Professor Challenger. I have +hinted also at the trouble which the Professor's baggage gave us when +we left the plateau, and had I described our voyage I might have said a +good deal of the worry we had to coax with putrid fish the appetite of +our filthy companion. If I have not said much about it before, it was, +of course, that the Professor's earnest desire was that no possible +rumor of the unanswerable argument which we carried should be allowed +to leak out until the moment came when his enemies were to be confuted. + +One word as to the fate of the London pterodactyl. Nothing can be said +to be certain upon this point. There is the evidence of two frightened +women that it perched upon the roof of the Queen's Hall and remained +there like a diabolical statue for some hours. The next day it came +out in the evening papers that Private Miles, of the Coldstream Guards, +on duty outside Marlborough House, had deserted his post without leave, +and was therefore courtmartialed. Private Miles' account, that he +dropped his rifle and took to his heels down the Mall because on +looking up he had suddenly seen the devil between him and the moon, was +not accepted by the Court, and yet it may have a direct bearing upon +the point at issue. The only other evidence which I can adduce is from +the log of the SS. Friesland, a Dutch-American liner, which asserts +that at nine next morning, Start Point being at the time ten miles upon +their starboard quarter, they were passed by something between a flying +goat and a monstrous bat, which was heading at a prodigious pace south +and west. If its homing instinct led it upon the right line, there can +be no doubt that somewhere out in the wastes of the Atlantic the last +European pterodactyl found its end. + +And Gladys--oh, my Gladys!--Gladys of the mystic lake, now to be +re-named the Central, for never shall she have immortality through me. +Did I not always see some hard fiber in her nature? Did I not, even at +the time when I was proud to obey her behest, feel that it was surely a +poor love which could drive a lover to his death or the danger of it? +Did I not, in my truest thoughts, always recurring and always +dismissed, see past the beauty of the face, and, peering into the soul, +discern the twin shadows of selfishness and of fickleness glooming at +the back of it? Did she love the heroic and the spectacular for its +own noble sake, or was it for the glory which might, without effort or +sacrifice, be reflected upon herself? Or are these thoughts the vain +wisdom which comes after the event? It was the shock of my life. For +a moment it had turned me to a cynic. But already, as I write, a week +has passed, and we have had our momentous interview with Lord John +Roxton and--well, perhaps things might be worse. + +Let me tell it in a few words. No letter or telegram had come to me at +Southampton, and I reached the little villa at Streatham about ten +o'clock that night in a fever of alarm. Was she dead or alive? Where +were all my nightly dreams of the open arms, the smiling face, the +words of praise for her man who had risked his life to humor her whim? +Already I was down from the high peaks and standing flat-footed upon +earth. Yet some good reasons given might still lift me to the clouds +once more. I rushed down the garden path, hammered at the door, heard +the voice of Gladys within, pushed past the staring maid, and strode +into the sitting-room. She was seated in a low settee under the shaded +standard lamp by the piano. In three steps I was across the room and +had both her hands in mine. + +"Gladys!" I cried, "Gladys!" + +She looked up with amazement in her face. She was altered in some +subtle way. The expression of her eyes, the hard upward stare, the set +of the lips, was new to me. She drew back her hands. + +"What do you mean?" she said. + +"Gladys!" I cried. "What is the matter? You are my Gladys, are you +not--little Gladys Hungerton?" + +"No," said she, "I am Gladys Potts. Let me introduce you to my +husband." + +How absurd life is! I found myself mechanically bowing and shaking +hands with a little ginger-haired man who was coiled up in the deep +arm-chair which had once been sacred to my own use. We bobbed and +grinned in front of each other. + +"Father lets us stay here. We are getting our house ready," said +Gladys. + +"Oh, yes," said I. + +"You didn't get my letter at Para, then?" + +"No, I got no letter." + +"Oh, what a pity! It would have made all clear." + +"It is quite clear," said I. + +"I've told William all about you," said she. "We have no secrets. I +am so sorry about it. But it couldn't have been so very deep, could +it, if you could go off to the other end of the world and leave me here +alone. You're not crabby, are you?" + +"No, no, not at all. I think I'll go." + +"Have some refreshment," said the little man, and he added, in a +confidential way, "It's always like this, ain't it? And must be unless +you had polygamy, only the other way round; you understand." He laughed +like an idiot, while I made for the door. + +I was through it, when a sudden fantastic impulse came upon me, and I +went back to my successful rival, who looked nervously at the electric +push. + +"Will you answer a question?" I asked. + +"Well, within reason," said he. + +"How did you do it? Have you searched for hidden treasure, or +discovered a pole, or done time on a pirate, or flown the Channel, or +what? Where is the glamour of romance? How did you get it?" + +He stared at me with a hopeless expression upon his vacuous, +good-natured, scrubby little face. + +"Don't you think all this is a little too personal?" he said. + +"Well, just one question," I cried. "What are you? What is your +profession?" + +"I am a solicitor's clerk," said he. "Second man at Johnson and +Merivale's, 41 Chancery Lane." + +"Good-night!" said I, and vanished, like all disconsolate and +broken-hearted heroes, into the darkness, with grief and rage and +laughter all simmering within me like a boiling pot. + +One more little scene, and I have done. Last night we all supped at +Lord John Roxton's rooms, and sitting together afterwards we smoked in +good comradeship and talked our adventures over. It was strange under +these altered surroundings to see the old, well-known faces and +figures. There was Challenger, with his smile of condescension, his +drooping eyelids, his intolerant eyes, his aggressive beard, his huge +chest, swelling and puffing as he laid down the law to Summerlee. And +Summerlee, too, there he was with his short briar between his thin +moustache and his gray goat's-beard, his worn face protruded in eager +debate as he queried all Challenger's propositions. Finally, there was +our host, with his rugged, eagle face, and his cold, blue, glacier eyes +with always a shimmer of devilment and of humor down in the depths of +them. Such is the last picture of them that I have carried away. + +It was after supper, in his own sanctum--the room of the pink radiance +and the innumerable trophies--that Lord John Roxton had something to +say to us. From a cupboard he had brought an old cigar-box, and this +he laid before him on the table. + +"There's one thing," said he, "that maybe I should have spoken about +before this, but I wanted to know a little more clearly where I was. +No use to raise hopes and let them down again. But it's facts, not +hopes, with us now. You may remember that day we found the pterodactyl +rookery in the swamp--what? Well, somethin' in the lie of the land +took my notice. Perhaps it has escaped you, so I will tell you. It +was a volcanic vent full of blue clay." The Professors nodded. + +"Well, now, in the whole world I've only had to do with one place that +was a volcanic vent of blue clay. That was the great De Beers Diamond +Mine of Kimberley--what? So you see I got diamonds into my head. I +rigged up a contraption to hold off those stinking beasts, and I spent +a happy day there with a spud. This is what I got." + +He opened his cigar-box, and tilting it over he poured about twenty or +thirty rough stones, varying from the size of beans to that of +chestnuts, on the table. + +"Perhaps you think I should have told you then. Well, so I should, +only I know there are a lot of traps for the unwary, and that stones +may be of any size and yet of little value where color and consistency +are clean off. Therefore, I brought them back, and on the first day at +home I took one round to Spink's, and asked him to have it roughly cut +and valued." + +He took a pill-box from his pocket, and spilled out of it a beautiful +glittering diamond, one of the finest stones that I have ever seen. + +"There's the result," said he. "He prices the lot at a minimum of two +hundred thousand pounds. Of course it is fair shares between us. I +won't hear of anythin' else. Well, Challenger, what will you do with +your fifty thousand?" + +"If you really persist in your generous view," said the Professor, "I +should found a private museum, which has long been one of my dreams." + +"And you, Summerlee?" + +"I would retire from teaching, and so find time for my final +classification of the chalk fossils." + +"I'll use my own," said Lord John Roxton, "in fitting a well-formed +expedition and having another look at the dear old plateau. As to you, +young fellah, you, of course, will spend yours in gettin' married." + +"Not just yet," said I, with a rueful smile. "I think, if you will +have me, that I would rather go with you." + +Lord Roxton said nothing, but a brown hand was stretched out to me +across the table. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST WORLD *** + +***** This file should be named 139.txt or 139.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/139/ + +Produced by Judith Boss. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + THE LOST WORLD + + I have wrought my simple plan + If I give one hour of joy + To the boy who's half a man, + Or the man who's half a boy. + + + + The Lost World + + By SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE + + COPYRIGHT, 1912 + + Foreword + + Mr. E. D. Malone desires to state that + both the injunction for restraint and the + libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly + by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being + satisfied that no criticism or comment in + this book is meant in an offensive spirit, + has guaranteed that he will place no + impediment to its publication and circulation. + + + + + + Contents + +CHAPTER + I. "THERE ARE HEROISMS ALL ROUND US" + II. "TRY YOUR LUCK WITH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER" + III. "HE IS A PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE PERSON" + IV. "IT'S JUST THE VERY BIGGEST THING IN THE WORLD" + V. "QUESTION!" + VI. "I WAS THE FLAIL OF THE LORD" + VII. "TO-MORROW WE DISAPPEAR INTO THE UNKNOWN" +VIII. "THE OUTLYING PICKETS OF THE NEW WORLD" + IX. "WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN IT? + X. "THE MOST WONDERFUL THINGS HAVE HAPPENED" + XI. "FOR ONCE I WAS THE HERO" + XII. "IT WAS DREADFUL IN THE FOREST" +XIII. "A SIGHT I SHALL NEVER FORGET" + XIV. "THOSE WERE THE REAL CONQUESTS" + XV. "OUR EYES HAVE SEEN GREAT WONDERS" + XVI. "A PROCESSION! A PROCESSION!" + + + + + THE LOST WORLD + + + + + The Lost World + + CHAPTER I + + "There Are Heroisms All Round Us" + +Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person +upon earth,--a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, +perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own +silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it +would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am +convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round +to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his +company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism, +a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority. + +For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous +chirrup about bad money driving out good, the token value of +silver, the depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards +of exchange. + +"Suppose," he cried with feeble violence, "that all the debts in +the world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment +insisted upon,--what under our present conditions would happen then?" + +I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, +upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual +levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any +reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the +room to dress for a Masonic meeting. + +At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! +All that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the +signal which will send him on a forlorn hope; hope of victory and +fear of repulse alternating in his mind. + +She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined +against the red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how +aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends; but never could I +get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established +with one of my fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,--perfectly +frank, perfectly kindly, and perfectly unsexual. My instincts +are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. +It is no compliment to a man. Where the real sex feeling begins, +timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old wicked +days when love and violence went often hand in hand. The bent +head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figure-- +these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the true +signals of passion. Even in my short life I had learned as much as +that--or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct. + +Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be +cold and hard; but such a thought was treason. That delicately +bronzed skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, +the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,--all the +stigmata of passion were there. But I was sadly conscious that +up to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth. +However, come what might, I should have done with suspense and +bring matters to a head to-night. She could but refuse me, and +better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother. + +So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the +long and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked +round at me, and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof. +"I have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do +wish you wouldn't; for things are so much nicer as they are." + +I drew my chair a little nearer. "Now, how did you know that I +was going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder. + +"Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world +was ever taken unawares? But--oh, Ned, our friendship has been so +good and so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don't you feel how +splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able +to talk face to face as we have talked?" + +"I don't know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with-- +with the station-master." I can't imagine how that official came +into the matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing. +"That does not satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you, +and your head on my breast, and--oh, Gladys, I want----" + +She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed +to demonstrate some of my wants. "You've spoiled everything, +Ned," she said. "It's all so beautiful and natural until this +kind of thing comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you +control yourself?" + +"I didn't invent it," I pleaded. "It's nature. It's love." + +"Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never +felt it." + +"But you must--you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, +you were made for love! You must love!" + +"One must wait till it comes." + +"But why can't you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?" + +She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand--such a gracious, +stooping attitude it was--and she pressed back my head. Then she +looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile. + +"No it isn't that," she said at last. "You're not a conceited +boy by nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. +It's deeper." + +"My character?" + +She nodded severely. + +"What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. +No, really, I won't if you'll only sit down!" + +She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to +my mind than her whole-hearted confidence. How primitive and +bestial it looks when you put it down in black and white!--and +perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. +Anyhow, she sat down. + +"Now tell me what's amiss with me?" + +"I'm in love with somebody else," said she. + +It was my turn to jump out of my chair. + +"It's nobody in particular," she explained, laughing at the +expression of my face: "only an ideal. I've never met the kind +of man I mean." + +"Tell me about him. What does he look like?" + +"Oh, he might look very much like you." + +"How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that +I don't do? Just say the word,--teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, +theosophist, superman. I'll have a try at it, Gladys, if you +will only give me an idea what would please you." + +She laughed at the elasticity of my character. "Well, in the +first place, I don't think my ideal would speak like that," +said she. "He would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt +himself to a silly girl's whim. But, above all, he must be a man +who could do, who could act, who could look Death in the face and +have no fear of him, a man of great deeds and strange experiences. +It is never a man that I should love, but always the glories he had +won; for they would be reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! +When I read his wife's life of him I could so understand her love! +And Lady Stanley! Did you ever read the wonderful last chapter +of that book about her husband? These are the sort of men that +a woman could worship with all her soul, and yet be the greater, +not the less, on account of her love, honored by all the world +as the inspirer of noble deeds." + +She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought +down the whole level of the interview. I gripped myself hard, +and went on with the argument. + +"We can't all be Stanleys and Burtons," said I; "besides, we +don't get the chance,--at least, I never had the chance. If I +did, I should try to take it." + +"But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of +man I mean that he makes his own chances. You can't hold him back. +I've never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There are +heroisms all round us waiting to be done. It's for men to do them, +and for women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. +Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. +It was blowing a gale of wind; but because he was announced to go +he insisted on starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles +in twenty-four hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was +the kind of man I mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other +women must have envied her! That's what I should like to be,--envied +for my man." + +"I'd have done it to please you." + +"But you shouldn't do it merely to please me. You should do it +because you can't help yourself, because it's natural to you, +because the man in you is crying out for heroic expression. +Now, when you described the Wigan coal explosion last month, +could you not have gone down and helped those people, in spite +of the choke-damp?" + +"I did." + +"You never said so." + +"There was nothing worth bucking about." + +"I didn't know." She looked at me with rather more interest. +"That was brave of you." + +"I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the +things are." + +"What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out +of it. But, still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went +down that mine." She gave me her hand; but with such sweetness +and dignity that I could only stoop and kiss it. "I dare say I +am merely a foolish woman with a young girl's fancies. And yet +it is so real with me, so entirely part of my very self, that I +cannot help acting upon it. If I marry, I do want to marry a +famous man!" + +"Why should you not?" I cried. "It is women like you who brace +men up. Give me a chance, and see if I will take it! Besides, as +you say, men ought to MAKE their own chances, and not wait until +they are given. Look at Clive--just a clerk, and he conquered +India! By George! I'll do something in the world yet!" + +She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. "Why not?" she said. +"You have everything a man could have,--youth, health, strength, +education, energy. I was sorry you spoke. And now I am glad--so +glad--if it wakens these thoughts in you!" + +"And if I do----" + +Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. "Not another +word, Sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty +half an hour ago; only I hadn't the heart to remind you. Some day, +perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk +it over again." + +And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening +pursuing the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and +with the eager determination that not another day should elapse +before I should find some deed which was worthy of my lady. +But who--who in all this wide world could ever have imagined the +incredible shape which that deed was to take, or the strange +steps by which I was led to the doing of it? + +And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to +have nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have +been no narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out +into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round +him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any +which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did +from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic +twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards. +Behold me, then, at the office of the Daily Gazette, on the staff +of which I was a most insignificant unit, with the settled +determination that very night, if possible, to find the quest +which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness, was it +selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her +own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but +never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love. + + + CHAPTER II + + "Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger" + +I always liked McArdle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, +red-headed news editor, and I rather hoped that he liked me. +Of course, Beaumont was the real boss; but he lived in the +rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian height from which he could +distinguish nothing smaller than an international crisis or a +split in the Cabinet. Sometimes we saw him passing in lonely +majesty to his inner sanctum, with his eyes staring vaguely and +his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He was +above and beyond us. But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and +it was he that we knew. The old man nodded as I entered the +room, and he pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead. + +"Well, Mr. Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very +well," said he in his kindly Scotch accent. + +I thanked him. + +"The colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwark fire. +You have the true descreeptive touch. What did you want to see +me about?" + +"To ask a favor." + +He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine. "Tut, tut! What is it?" + +"Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some +mission for the paper? I would do my best to put it through and +get you some good copy." + +"What sort of meesion had you in your mind, Mr. Malone?" + +"Well, Sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. +I really would do my very best. The more difficult it was, the +better it would suit me." + +"You seem very anxious to lose your life." + +"To justify my life, Sir." + +"Dear me, Mr. Malone, this is very--very exalted. I'm afraid the +day for this sort of thing is rather past. The expense of the +`special meesion' business hardly justifies the result, and, of +course, in any case it would only be an experienced man with a +name that would command public confidence who would get such +an order. The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, +and there's no room for romance anywhere. Wait a bit, though!" +he added, with a sudden smile upon his face. "Talking of the +blank spaces of the map gives me an idea. What about exposing a +fraud--a modern Munchausen--and making him rideeculous? You could +show him up as the liar that he is! Eh, man, it would be fine. +How does it appeal to you?" + +"Anything--anywhere--I care nothing." + +McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes. + +"I wonder whether you could get on friendly--or at least on +talking terms with the fellow," he said, at last. "You seem to +have a sort of genius for establishing relations with +people--seempathy, I suppose, or animal magnetism, or youthful +vitality, or something. I am conscious of it myself." + +"You are very good, sir." + +"So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger, +of Enmore Park?" + +I dare say I looked a little startled. + +"Challenger!" I cried. "Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist! +Wasn't he the man who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph?" + +The news editor smiled grimly. + +"Do you mind? Didn't you say it was adventures you were after?" + +"It is all in the way of business, sir," I answered. + +"Exactly. I don't suppose he can always be so violent as that. +I'm thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or +in the wrong fashion. You may have better luck, or more tact in +handling him. There's something in your line there, I am sure, +and the Gazette should work it." + +"I really know nothing about him," said I. "I only remember his +name in connection with the police-court proceedings, for +striking Blundell." + +"I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr. Malone. I've had my +eye on the Professor for some little time." He took a paper from +a drawer. "Here is a summary of his record. I give it you briefly:-- + +"`Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863. Educ.: +Largs Academy; Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. +Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. +Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year. Winner of +Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign Member of'--well, +quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type--`Societe +Belge, American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc. +Ex-President Palaeontological Society. Section H, British +Association'--so on, so on!--`Publications: "Some Observations +Upon a Series of Kalmuck Skulls"; "Outlines of Vertebrate +Evolution"; and numerous papers, including "The underlying +fallacy of Weissmannism," which caused heated discussion at +the Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations: Walking, +Alpine climbing. Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.' + +"There, take it with you. I've nothing more for you to-night." + +I pocketed the slip of paper. + +"One moment, sir," I said, as I realized that it was a pink bald +head, and not a red face, which was fronting me. "I am not very +clear yet why I am to interview this gentleman. What has he done?" + +The face flashed back again. + +"Went to South America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago. +Came back last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but +refused to say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a +vague way, but somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut +up like an oyster. Something wonderful happened--or the man's a +champion liar, which is the more probable supposeetion. Had some +damaged photographs, said to be fakes. Got so touchy that he +assaults anyone who asks questions, and heaves reporters down +the stairs. In my opinion he's just a homicidal megalomaniac with +a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. Malone. Now, off you +run, and see what you can make of him. You're big enough to look +after yourself. Anyway, you are all safe. Employers' Liability +Act, you know." + +A grinning red face turned once more into a pink oval, fringed +with gingery fluff; the interview was at an end. + +I walked across to the Savage Club, but instead of turning into +it I leaned upon the railings of Adelphi Terrace and gazed +thoughtfully for a long time at the brown, oily river. I can +always think most sanely and clearly in the open air. I took out +the list of Professor Challenger's exploits, and I read it over +under the electric lamp. Then I had what I can only regard as +an inspiration. As a Pressman, I felt sure from what I had been +told that I could never hope to get into touch with this +cantankerous Professor. But these recriminations, twice +mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean that he was +a fanatic in science. Was there not an exposed margin there upon +which he might be accessible? I would try. + +I entered the club. It was just after eleven, and the big room +was fairly full, though the rush had not yet set in. I noticed +a tall, thin, angular man seated in an arm-chair by the fire. +He turned as I drew my chair up to him. It was the man of all +others whom I should have chosen--Tarp Henry, of the staff of +Nature, a thin, dry, leathery creature, who was full, to those who +knew him, of kindly humanity. I plunged instantly into my subject. + +"What do you know of Professor Challenger?" + +"Challenger?" He gathered his brows in scientific disapproval. +"Challenger was the man who came with some cock-and-bull story +from South America." + +"What story?" + +"Oh, it was rank nonsense about some queer animals he had discovered. +I believe he has retracted since. Anyhow, he has suppressed it all. +He gave an interview to Reuter's, and there was such a howl that he +saw it wouldn't do. It was a discreditable business. There were +one or two folk who were inclined to take him seriously, but he soon +choked them off." + +"How?" + +"Well, by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior. +There was poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent +a message: `The President of the Zoological Institute presents +his compliments to Professor Challenger, and would take it as a +personal favor if he would do them the honor to come to their +next meeting.' The answer was unprintable." + +"You don't say?" + +"Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: `Professor +Challenger presents his compliments to the President of the +Zoological Institute, and would take it as a personal favor if he +would go to the devil.'" + +"Good Lord!" + +"Yes, I expect that's what old Wadley said. I remember his wail +at the meeting, which began: `In fifty years experience of +scientific intercourse----' It quite broke the old man up." + +"Anything more about Challenger?" + +"Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a +nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take +serious notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye. +I'm a frontiersman from the extreme edge of the Knowable, and I feel +quite out of place when I leave my study and come into touch with +all you great, rough, hulking creatures. I'm too detached to +talk scandal, and yet at scientific conversaziones I HAVE heard +something of Challenger, for he is one of those men whom nobody +can ignore. He's as clever as they make 'em--a full-charged +battery of force and vitality, but a quarrelsome, ill-conditioned +faddist, and unscrupulous at that. He had gone the length of +faking some photographs over the South American business." + +"You say he is a faddist. What is his particular fad?" + +"He has a thousand, but the latest is something about Weissmann +and Evolution. He had a fearful row about it in Vienna, I believe." + +"Can't you tell me the point?" + +"Not at the moment, but a translation of the proceedings exists. +We have it filed at the office. Would you care to come?" + +"It's just what I want. I have to interview the fellow, and I +need some lead up to him. It's really awfully good of you to +give me a lift. I'll go with you now, if it is not too late." + + +Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a +huge tome in front of me, which had been opened at the article +"Weissmann versus Darwin," with the sub heading, "Spirited +Protest at Vienna. Lively Proceedings." My scientific education +having been somewhat neglected, I was unable to follow the whole +argument, but it was evident that the English Professor had +handled his subject in a very aggressive fashion, and had +thoroughly annoyed his Continental colleagues. "Protests," +"Uproar," and "General appeal to the Chairman" were three of the +first brackets which caught my eye. Most of the matter might +have been written in Chinese for any definite meaning that it +conveyed to my brain. + +"I wish you could translate it into English for me," I said, +pathetically, to my help-mate. + +"Well, it is a translation." + +"Then I'd better try my luck with the original." + +"It is certainly rather deep for a layman." + +"If I could only get a single good, meaty sentence which seemed +to convey some sort of definite human idea, it would serve my turn. +Ah, yes, this one will do. I seem in a vague way almost to +understand it. I'll copy it out. This shall be my link with +the terrible Professor." + +"Nothing else I can do?" + +"Well, yes; I propose to write to him. If I could frame the +letter here, and use your address it would give atmosphere." + +"We'll have the fellow round here making a row and breaking +the furniture." + +"No, no; you'll see the letter--nothing contentious, I assure you." + +"Well, that's my chair and desk. You'll find paper there. I'd like +to censor it before it goes." + +It took some doing, but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a +bad job when it was finished. I read it aloud to the critical +bacteriologist with some pride in my handiwork. + + +"DEAR PROFESSOR CHALLENGER," it said, "As a humble student of +Nature, I have always taken the most profound interest in your +speculations as to the differences between Darwin and Weissmann. +I have recently had occasion to refresh my memory by re-reading----" + + +"You infernal liar!" murmured Tarp Henry. + + +--"by re-reading your masterly address at Vienna. That lucid and +admirable statement seems to be the last word in the matter. +There is one sentence in it, however--namely: `I protest strongly +against the insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that +each separate id is a microcosm possessed of an historical +architecture elaborated slowly through the series of generations.' +Have you no desire, in view of later research, to modify +this statement? Do you not think that it is over-accentuated? +With your permission, I would ask the favor of an interview, +as I feel strongly upon the subject, and have certain suggestions +which I could only elaborate in a personal conversation. With your +consent, I trust to have the honor of calling at eleven o'clock +the day after to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. + +"I remain, Sir, with assurances of profound respect, +yours very truly, + EDWARD D. MALONE." + + +"How's that?" I asked, triumphantly. + +"Well if your conscience can stand it----" + +"It has never failed me yet." + +"But what do you mean to do?" + +"To get there. Once I am in his room I may see some opening. +I may even go the length of open confession. If he is a sportsman +he will be tickled." + +"Tickled, indeed! He's much more likely to do the tickling. +Chain mail, or an American football suit--that's what you'll want. +Well, good-bye. I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday +morning--if he ever deigns to answer you. He is a violent, +dangerous, cantankerous character, hated by everyone who comes +across him, and the butt of the students, so far as they dare +take a liberty with him. Perhaps it would be best for you if +you never heard from the fellow at all." + + + CHAPTER III + + "He is a Perfectly Impossible Person" + +My friend's fear or hope was not destined to be realized. When I +called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington +postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a +handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing. The contents +were as follows:-- + + + "ENMORE PARK, W. + +"SIR,--I have duly received your note, in which you claim to +endorse my views, although I am not aware that they are dependent +upon endorsement either from you or anyone else. You have +ventured to use the word `speculation' with regard to my +statement upon the subject of Darwinism, and I would call your +attention to the fact that such a word in such a connection is +offensive to a degree. The context convinces me, however, that +you have sinned rather through ignorance and tactlessness than +through malice, so I am content to pass the matter by. You quote +an isolated sentence from my lecture, and appear to have some +difficulty in understanding it. I should have thought that only +a sub-human intelligence could have failed to grasp the point, +but if it really needs amplification I shall consent to see you +at the hour named, though visits and visitors of every sort are +exceeding distasteful to me. As to your suggestion that I may +modify my opinion, I would have you know that it is not my habit to +do so after a deliberate expression of my mature views. You will +kindly show the envelope of this letter to my man, Austin, when +you call, as he has to take every precaution to shield me from +the intrusive rascals who call themselves `journalists.' + "Yours faithfully, + "GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER." + + +This was the letter that I read aloud to Tarp Henry, who had come +down early to hear the result of my venture. His only remark +was, "There's some new stuff, cuticura or something, which is +better than arnica." Some people have such extraordinary notions +of humor. + +It was nearly half-past ten before I had received my message, but +a taxicab took me round in good time for my appointment. It was +an imposing porticoed house at which we stopped, and the +heavily-curtained windows gave every indication of wealth upon +the part of this formidable Professor. The door was opened by an +odd, swarthy, dried-up person of uncertain age, with a dark pilot +jacket and brown leather gaiters. I found afterwards that he was +the chauffeur, who filled the gaps left by a succession of +fugitive butlers. He looked me up and down with a searching +light blue eye. + +"Expected?" he asked. + +"An appointment." + +"Got your letter?" + +I produced the envelope. + +"Right!" He seemed to be a person of few words. Following him +down the passage I was suddenly interrupted by a small woman, who +stepped out from what proved to be the dining-room door. She was +a bright, vivacious, dark-eyed lady, more French than English in +her type. + +"One moment," she said. "You can wait, Austin. Step in here, sir. +May I ask if you have met my husband before?" + +"No, madam, I have not had the honor." + +"Then I apologize to you in advance. I must tell you that he is +a perfectly impossible person--absolutely impossible. If you +are forewarned you will be the more ready to make allowances." + +"It is most considerate of you, madam." + +"Get quickly out of the room if he seems inclined to be violent. +Don't wait to argue with him. Several people have been injured +through doing that. Afterwards there is a public scandal and it +reflects upon me and all of us. I suppose it wasn't about South +America you wanted to see him?" + +I could not lie to a lady. + +"Dear me! That is his most dangerous subject. You won't believe +a word he says--I'm sure I don't wonder. But don't tell him so, +for it makes him very violent. Pretend to believe him, and you +may get through all right. Remember he believes it himself. +Of that you may be assured. A more honest man never lived. +Don't wait any longer or he may suspect. If you find him +dangerous--really dangerous--ring the bell and hold him off until +I come. Even at his worst I can usually control him." + +With these encouraging words the lady handed me over to the +taciturn Austin, who had waited like a bronze statue of +discretion during our short interview, and I was conducted to the +end of the passage. There was a tap at a door, a bull's bellow +from within, and I was face to face with the Professor. + +He sat in a rotating chair behind a broad table, which was +covered with books, maps, and diagrams. As I entered, his seat +spun round to face me. His appearance made me gasp. I was +prepared for something strange, but not for so overpowering a +personality as this. It was his size which took one's breath +away--his size and his imposing presence. His head was enormous, +the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. I am sure that +his top-hat, had I ever ventured to don it, would have slipped +over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face and +beard which I associate with an Assyrian bull; the former florid, +the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, +spade-shaped and rippling down over his chest. The hair was +peculiar, plastered down in front in a long, curving wisp over +his massive forehead. The eyes were blue-gray under great black +tufts, very clear, very critical, and very masterful. A huge +spread of shoulders and a chest like a barrel were the other +parts of him which appeared above the table, save for two +enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a +bellowing, roaring, rumbling voice made up my first impression +of the notorious Professor Challenger. + +"Well?" said he, with a most insolent stare. "What now?" + +I must keep up my deception for at least a little time longer, +otherwise here was evidently an end of the interview. + +"You were good enough to give me an appointment, sir," said I, +humbly, producing his envelope. + +He took my letter from his desk and laid it out before him. + +"Oh, you are the young person who cannot understand plain +English, are you? My general conclusions you are good enough +to approve, as I understand?" + +"Entirely, sir--entirely!" I was very emphatic. + +"Dear me! That strengthens my position very much, does it not? +Your age and appearance make your support doubly valuable. Well, at +least you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna, whose +gregarious grunt is, however, not more offensive than the isolated +effort of the British hog." He glared at me as the present +representative of the beast. + +"They seem to have behaved abominably," said I. + +"I assure you that I can fight my own battles, and that I have no +possible need of your sympathy. Put me alone, sir, and with my +back to the wall. G. E. C. is happiest then. Well, sir, let us +do what we can to curtail this visit, which can hardly be +agreeable to you, and is inexpressibly irksome to me. You had, +as I have been led to believe, some comments to make upon the +proposition which I advanced in my thesis." + +There was a brutal directness about his methods which made +evasion difficult. I must still make play and wait for a +better opening. It had seemed simple enough at a distance. +Oh, my Irish wits, could they not help me now, when I needed +help so sorely? He transfixed me with two sharp, steely eyes. +"Come, come!" he rumbled. + +"I am, of course, a mere student," said I, with a fatuous smile, +"hardly more, I might say, than an earnest inquirer. At the same +time, it seemed to me that you were a little severe upon +Weissmann in this matter. Has not the general evidence since +that date tended to--well, to strengthen his position?" + +"What evidence?" He spoke with a menacing calm. + +"Well, of course, I am aware that there is not any what you might +call DEFINITE evidence. I alluded merely to the trend of modern +thought and the general scientific point of view, if I might so +express it." + +He leaned forward with great earnestness. + +"I suppose you are aware," said he, checking off points upon his +fingers, "that the cranial index is a constant factor?" + +"Naturally," said I. + +"And that telegony is still sub judice?" + +"Undoubtedly." + +"And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?" + +"Why, surely!" I cried, and gloried in my own audacity. + +"But what does that prove?" he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice. + +"Ah, what indeed?" I murmured. "What does it prove?" + +"Shall I tell you?" he cooed. + +"Pray do." + +"It proves," he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, "that +you are the damnedest imposter in London--a vile, crawling +journalist, who has no more science than he has decency in +his composition!" + +He had sprung to his feet with a mad rage in his eyes. Even at +that moment of tension I found time for amazement at the +discovery that he was quite a short man, his head not higher than +my shoulder--a stunted Hercules whose tremendous vitality had all +run to depth, breadth, and brain. + +"Gibberish!" he cried, leaning forward, with his fingers on the +table and his face projecting. "That's what I have been talking +to you, sir--scientific gibberish! Did you think you could match +cunning with me--you with your walnut of a brain? You think you +are omnipotent, you infernal scribblers, don't you? That your +praise can make a man and your blame can break him? We must all +bow to you, and try to get a favorable word, must we? This man +shall have a leg up, and this man shall have a dressing down! +Creeping vermin, I know you! You've got out of your station. +Time was when your ears were clipped. You've lost your sense of +proportion. Swollen gas-bags! I'll keep you in your proper place. +Yes, sir, you haven't got over G. E. C. There's one man who is +still your master. He warned you off, but if you WILL come, by +the Lord you do it at your own risk. Forfeit, my good Mr. Malone, +I claim forfeit! You have played a rather dangerous game, and it +strikes me that you have lost it." + +"Look here, sir," said I, backing to the door and opening it; +"you can be as abusive as you like. But there is a limit. +You shall not assault me." + +"Shall I not?" He was slowly advancing in a peculiarly menacing +way, but he stopped now and put his big hands into the +side-pockets of a rather boyish short jacket which he wore. +"I have thrown several of you out of the house. You will be the +fourth or fifth. Three pound fifteen each--that is how it averaged. +Expensive, but very necessary. Now, sir, why should you not +follow your brethren? I rather think you must." He resumed his +unpleasant and stealthy advance, pointing his toes as he walked, +like a dancing master. + +I could have bolted for the hall door, but it would have been +too ignominious. Besides, a little glow of righteous anger was +springing up within me. I had been hopelessly in the wrong +before, but this man's menaces were putting me in the right. + +"I'll trouble you to keep your hands off, sir. I'll not stand it." + +"Dear me!" His black moustache lifted and a white fang twinkled +in a sneer. "You won't stand it, eh?" + +"Don't be such a fool, Professor!" I cried. "What can you hope for? +I'm fifteen stone, as hard as nails, and play center three-quarter +every Saturday for the London Irish. I'm not the man----" + +It was at that moment that he rushed me. It was lucky that I had +opened the door, or we should have gone through it. We did a +Catharine-wheel together down the passage. Somehow we gathered +up a chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street. +My mouth was full of his beard, our arms were locked, our bodies +intertwined, and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us. +The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went with +a back somersault down the front steps. I have seen the two Macs +attempt something of the kind at the halls, but it appears to take +some practise to do it without hurting oneself. The chair went +to matchwood at the bottom, and we rolled apart into the gutter. +He sprang to his feet, waving his fists and wheezing like an asthmatic. + +"Had enough?" he panted. + +"You infernal bully!" I cried, as I gathered myself together. + +Then and there we should have tried the thing out, for he was +effervescing with fight, but fortunately I was rescued from an +odious situation. A policeman was beside us, his notebook in +his hand. + +"What's all this? You ought to be ashamed" said the policeman. +It was the most rational remark which I had heard in Enmore Park. +"Well," he insisted, turning to me, "what is it, then?" + +"This man attacked me," said I. + +"Did you attack him?" asked the policeman. + +The Professor breathed hard and said nothing. + +"It's not the first time, either," said the policeman, severely, +shaking his head. "You were in trouble last month for the same thing. +You've blackened this young man's eye. Do you give him in charge, sir?" + +I relented. + +"No," said I, "I do not." + +"What's that?" said the policeman. + +"I was to blame myself. I intruded upon him. He gave me fair warning." + +The policeman snapped up his notebook. + +"Don't let us have any more such goings-on," said he. "Now, then! +Move on, there, move on!" This to a butcher's boy, a maid, and +one or two loafers who had collected. He clumped heavily down +the street, driving this little flock before him. The Professor +looked at me, and there was something humorous at the back of his eyes. + +"Come in!" said he. "I've not done with you yet." + +The speech had a sinister sound, but I followed him none the less +into the house. The man-servant, Austin, like a wooden image, +closed the door behind us. + + + CHAPTER IV + + "It's Just the very Biggest Thing in the World" + +Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger darted out from +the dining-room. The small woman was in a furious temper. +She barred her husband's way like an enraged chicken in front of +a bulldog. It was evident that she had seen my exit, but had not +observed my return. + +"You brute, George!" she screamed. "You've hurt that nice young man." + +He jerked backwards with his thumb. + +"Here he is, safe and sound behind me." + +She was confused, but not unduly so. + +"I am so sorry, I didn't see you." + +"I assure you, madam, that it is all right." + +"He has marked your poor face! Oh, George, what a brute you are! +Nothing but scandals from one end of the week to the other. +Everyone hating and making fun of you. You've finished my patience. +This ends it." + +"Dirty linen," he rumbled. + +"It's not a secret," she cried. "Do you suppose that the whole +street--the whole of London, for that matter---- Get away, Austin, +we don't want you here. Do you suppose they don't all talk about you? +Where is your dignity? You, a man who should have been Regius +Professor at a great University with a thousand students all +revering you. Where is your dignity, George?" + +"How about yours, my dear?" + +"You try me too much. A ruffian--a common brawling ruffian-- +that's what you have become." + +"Be good, Jessie." + +"A roaring, raging bully!" + +"That's done it! Stool of penance!" said he. + +To my amazement he stooped, picked her up, and placed her sitting +upon a high pedestal of black marble in the angle of the hall. +It was at least seven feet high, and so thin that she could hardly +balance upon it. A more absurd object than she presented cocked +up there with her face convulsed with anger, her feet dangling, +and her body rigid for fear of an upset, I could not imagine. + +"Let me down!" she wailed. + +"Say `please.'" + +"You brute, George! Let me down this instant!" + +"Come into the study, Mr. Malone." + +"Really, sir----!" said I, looking at the lady. + +"Here's Mr. Malone pleading for you, Jessie. +Say `please,' and down you come." + +"Oh, you brute! Please! please!" + +"You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. +He will have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra +dozen among our neighbors. `Strange story of high life'--you +felt fairly high on that pedestal, did you not? Then a sub-title, +`Glimpse of a singular menage.' He's a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone, +a carrion eater, like all of his kind--porcus ex grege diaboli-- +a swine from the devil's herd. That's it, Malone--what?" + +"You are really intolerable!" said I, hotly. + +He bellowed with laughter. + +"We shall have a coalition presently," he boomed, looking from +his wife to me and puffing out his enormous chest. Then, suddenly +altering his tone, "Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone. +I called you back for some more serious purpose than to mix you +up with our little domestic pleasantries. Run away, little woman, +and don't fret." He placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders. +"All that you say is perfectly true. I should be a better man if +I did what you advise, but I shouldn't be quite George +Edward Challenger. There are plenty of better men, my dear, but +only one G. E. C. So make the best of him." He suddenly gave her +a resounding kiss, which embarrassed me even more than his violence +had done. "Now, Mr. Malone," he continued, with a great accession +of dignity, "this way, if YOU please." + +We re-entered the room which we had left so tumultuously ten +minutes before. The Professor closed the door carefully behind +us, motioned me into an arm-chair, and pushed a cigar-box under +my nose. + +"Real San Juan Colorado," he said. "Excitable people like you +are the better for narcotics. Heavens! don't bite it! Cut--and +cut with reverence! Now lean back, and listen attentively to +whatever I may care to say to you. If any remark should occur to +you, you can reserve it for some more opportune time. + +"First of all, as to your return to my house after your most +justifiable expulsion"--he protruded his beard, and stared at me +as one who challenges and invites contradiction--"after, as I +say, your well-merited expulsion. The reason lay in your answer +to that most officious policeman, in which I seemed to discern +some glimmering of good feeling upon your part--more, at any +rate, than I am accustomed to associate with your profession. +In admitting that the fault of the incident lay with you, you gave +some evidence of a certain mental detachment and breadth of view +which attracted my favorable notice. The sub-species of the +human race to which you unfortunately belong has always been +below my mental horizon. Your words brought you suddenly above it. +You swam up into my serious notice. For this reason I asked you +to return with me, as I was minded to make your further acquaintance. +You will kindly deposit your ash in the small Japanese tray on the +bamboo table which stands at your left elbow." + +All this he boomed forth like a professor addressing his class. +He had swung round his revolving chair so as to face me, and he +sat all puffed out like an enormous bull-frog, his head laid back +and his eyes half-covered by supercilious lids. Now he suddenly +turned himself sideways, and all I could see of him was tangled +hair with a red, protruding ear. He was scratching about among +the litter of papers upon his desk. He faced me presently with +what looked like a very tattered sketch-book in his hand. + +"I am going to talk to you about South America," said he. +"No comments if you please. First of all, I wish you to understand +that nothing I tell you now is to be repeated in any public way +unless you have my express permission. That permission will, in +all human probability, never be given. Is that clear?" + +"It is very hard," said I. "Surely a judicious account----" + +He replaced the notebook upon the table. + +"That ends it," said he. "I wish you a very good morning." + +"No, no!" I cried. "I submit to any conditions. So far as I can +see, I have no choice." + +"None in the world," said he. + +"Well, then, I promise." + +"Word of honor?" + +"Word of honor." + +He looked at me with doubt in his insolent eyes. + +"After all, what do I know about your honor?" said he. + +"Upon my word, sir," I cried, angrily, "you take very great liberties! +I have never been so insulted in my life." + +He seemed more interested than annoyed at my outbreak. + +"Round-headed," he muttered. "Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, +black-haired, with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume?" + +"I am an Irishman, sir." + +"Irish Irish?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"That, of course, explains it. Let me see; you have given me +your promise that my confidence will be respected? That confidence, +I may say, will be far from complete. But I am prepared to give +you a few indications which will be of interest. In the first +place, you are probably aware that two years ago I made a journey +to South America--one which will be classical in the scientific +history of the world? The object of my journey was to verify some +conclusions of Wallace and of Bates, which could only be done by +observing their reported facts under the same conditions in which +they had themselves noted them. If my expedition had no other +results it would still have been noteworthy, but a curious incident +occurred to me while there which opened up an entirely fresh line +of inquiry. + +"You are aware--or probably, in this half-educated age, you are +not aware--that the country round some parts of the Amazon is +still only partially explored, and that a great number of +tributaries, some of them entirely uncharted, run into the +main river. It was my business to visit this little-known +back-country and to examine its fauna, which furnished me with +the materials for several chapters for that great and monumental +work upon zoology which will be my life's justification. I was +returning, my work accomplished, when I had occasion to spend a +night at a small Indian village at a point where a certain +tributary--the name and position of which I withhold--opens +into the main river. The natives were Cucama Indians, an amiable +but degraded race, with mental powers hardly superior to the +average Londoner. I had effected some cures among them upon my +way up the river, and had impressed them considerably with my +personality, so that I was not surprised to find myself eagerly +awaited upon my return. I gathered from their signs that someone +had urgent need of my medical services, and I followed the chief +to one of his huts. When I entered I found that the sufferer to +whose aid I had been summoned had that instant expired. He was, +to my surprise, no Indian, but a white man; indeed, I may say a +very white man, for he was flaxen-haired and had some +characteristics of an albino. He was clad in rags, was very +emaciated, and bore every trace of prolonged hardship. So far as +I could understand the account of the natives, he was a complete +stranger to them, and had come upon their village through the +woods alone and in the last stage of exhaustion. + +"The man's knapsack lay beside the couch, and I examined the contents. +His name was written upon a tab within it--Maple White, Lake +Avenue, Detroit, Michigan. It is a name to which I am prepared +always to lift my hat. It is not too much to say that it will +rank level with my own when the final credit of this business +comes to be apportioned. + +"From the contents of the knapsack it was evident that this man +had been an artist and poet in search of effects. There were +scraps of verse. I do not profess to be a judge of such things, +but they appeared to me to be singularly wanting in merit. +There were also some rather commonplace pictures of river scenery, +a paint-box, a box of colored chalks, some brushes, that curved +bone which lies upon my inkstand, a volume of Baxter's `Moths and +Butterflies,' a cheap revolver, and a few cartridges. Of personal +equipment he either had none or he had lost it in his journey. +Such were the total effects of this strange American Bohemian. + +"I was turning away from him when I observed that something +projected from the front of his ragged jacket. It was this +sketch-book, which was as dilapidated then as you see it now. +Indeed, I can assure you that a first folio of Shakespeare could +not be treated with greater reverence than this relic has been +since it came into my possession. I hand it to you now, and I +ask you to take it page by page and to examine the contents." + +He helped himself to a cigar and leaned back with a fiercely +critical pair of eyes, taking note of the effect which this +document would produce. + +I had opened the volume with some expectation of a revelation, +though of what nature I could not imagine. The first page was +disappointing, however, as it contained nothing but the picture +of a very fat man in a pea-jacket, with the legend, "Jimmy Colver +on the Mail-boat," written beneath it. There followed several pages +which were filled with small sketches of Indians and their ways. +Then came a picture of a cheerful and corpulent ecclesiastic in +a shovel hat, sitting opposite a very thin European, and the +inscription: "Lunch with Fra Cristofero at Rosario." Studies of +women and babies accounted for several more pages, and then there +was an unbroken series of animal drawings with such explanations +as "Manatee upon Sandbank," "Turtles and Their Eggs," "Black Ajouti +under a Miriti Palm"--the matter disclosing some sort of pig-like +animal; and finally came a double page of studies of long-snouted +and very unpleasant saurians. I could make nothing of it, and said +so to the Professor. + +"Surely these are only crocodiles?" + +"Alligators! Alligators! There is hardly such a thing as a true +crocodile in South America. The distinction between them----" + +"I meant that I could see nothing unusual--nothing to justify +what you have said." + +He smiled serenely. + +"Try the next page," said he. + +I was still unable to sympathize. It was a full-page sketch of a +landscape roughly tinted in color--the kind of painting which an +open-air artist takes as a guide to a future more elaborate effort. +There was a pale-green foreground of feathery vegetation, which +sloped upwards and ended in a line of cliffs dark red in color, and +curiously ribbed like some basaltic formations which I have seen. +They extended in an unbroken wall right across the background. +At one point was an isolated pyramidal rock, crowned by a great +tree, which appeared to be separated by a cleft from the main crag. +Behind it all, a blue tropical sky. A thin green line of vegetation +fringed the summit of the ruddy cliff. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"It is no doubt a curious formation," said I "but I am not +geologist enough to say that it is wonderful." + +"Wonderful!" he repeated. "It is unique. It is incredible. No one +on earth has ever dreamed of such a possibility. Now the next." + +I turned it over, and gave an exclamation of surprise. There was +a full-page picture of the most extraordinary creature that I had +ever seen. It was the wild dream of an opium smoker, a vision +of delirium. The head was like that of a fowl, the body that of +a bloated lizard, the trailing tail was furnished with upward- +turned spikes, and the curved back was edged with a high serrated +fringe, which looked like a dozen cocks' wattles placed behind +each other. In front of this creature was an absurd mannikin, +or dwarf, in human form, who stood staring at it. + +"Well, what do you think of that?" cried the Professor, rubbing +his hands with an air of triumph. + +"It is monstrous--grotesque." + +"But what made him draw such an animal?" + +"Trade gin, I should think." + +"Oh, that's the best explanation you can give, is it?" + +"Well, sir, what is yours?" + +"The obvious one that the creature exists. That is actually +sketched from the life." + +I should have laughed only that I had a vision of our doing +another Catharine-wheel down the passage. + +"No doubt," said I, "no doubt," as one humors an imbecile. +"I confess, however," I added, "that this tiny human figure +puzzles me. If it were an Indian we could set it down as +evidence of some pigmy race in America, but it appears to be +a European in a sun-hat." + +The Professor snorted like an angry buffalo. "You really touch +the limit," said he. "You enlarge my view of the possible. +Cerebral paresis! Mental inertia! Wonderful!" + +He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of +energy, for if you were going to be angry with this man you would +be angry all the time. I contented myself with smiling wearily. +"It struck me that the man was small," said I. + +"Look here!" he cried, leaning forward and dabbing a great hairy +sausage of a finger on to the picture. "You see that plant +behind the animal; I suppose you thought it was a dandelion or a +Brussels sprout--what? Well, it is a vegetable ivory palm, and +they run to about fifty or sixty feet. Don't you see that the man +is put in for a purpose? He couldn't really have stood in front of +that brute and lived to draw it. He sketched himself in to give a +scale of heights. He was, we will say, over five feet high. +The tree is ten times bigger, which is what one would expect." + +"Good heavens!" I cried. "Then you think the beast was---- Why, +Charing Cross station would hardly make a kennel for such a brute!" + +"Apart from exaggeration, he is certainly a well-grown specimen," +said the Professor, complacently. + +"But," I cried, "surely the whole experience of the human race is +not to be set aside on account of a single sketch"--I had turned +over the leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more in +the book--"a single sketch by a wandering American artist who may +have done it under hashish, or in the delirium of fever, or +simply in order to gratify a freakish imagination. You can't, as +a man of science, defend such a position as that." + +For answer the Professor took a book down from a shelf. + +"This is an excellent monograph by my gifted friend, Ray Lankester!" +said he. "There is an illustration here which would interest you. +Ah, yes, here it is! The inscription beneath it runs: `Probable +appearance in life of the Jurassic Dinosaur Stegosaurus. The hind +leg alone is twice as tall as a full-grown man.' Well, what do you +make of that?" + +He handed me the open book. I started as I looked at the picture. +In this reconstructed animal of a dead world there was certainly +a very great resemblance to the sketch of the unknown artist. + +"That is certainly remarkable," said I. + +"But you won't admit that it is final?" + +"Surely it might be a coincidence, or this American may have seen +a picture of the kind and carried it in his memory. It would be +likely to recur to a man in a delirium." + +"Very good," said the Professor, indulgently; "we leave it at that. +I will now ask you to look at this bone." He handed over the one +which he had already described as part of the dead man's possessions. +It was about six inches long, and thicker than my thumb, with some +indications of dried cartilage at one end of it. + +"To what known creature does that bone belong?" asked the Professor. + +I examined it with care and tried to recall some half- +forgotten knowledge. + +"It might be a very thick human collar-bone," I said. + +My companion waved his hand in contemptuous deprecation. + +"The human collar-bone is curved. This is straight. There is a +groove upon its surface showing that a great tendon played across +it, which could not be the case with a clavicle." + +"Then I must confess that I don't know what it is." + +"You need not be ashamed to expose your ignorance, for I don't +suppose the whole South Kensington staff could give a name to it." +He took a little bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box. +"So far as I am a judge this human bone is the analogue of the +one which you hold in your hand. That will give you some idea of +the size of the creature. You will observe from the cartilage that +this is no fossil specimen, but recent. What do you say to that?" + +"Surely in an elephant----" + +He winced as if in pain. + +"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these +days of Board schools----" + +"Well," I interrupted, "any large South American animal--a tapir, +for example." + +"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of +my business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or +of any other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very +large, a very strong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animal +which exists upon the face of the earth, but has not yet come +under the notice of science. You are still unconvinced?" + +"I am at least deeply interested." + +"Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason +lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. +We will now leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. +You can imagine that I could hardly come away from the Amazon +without probing deeper into the matter. There were indications +as to the direction from which the dead traveler had come. +Indian legends would alone have been my guide, for I found that +rumors of a strange land were common among all the riverine tribes. +You have heard, no doubt, of Curupuri?" + +"Never." + +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods, something terrible, +something malevolent, something to be avoided. None can describe +its shape or nature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. +Now all tribes agree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives. +It was the same direction from which the American had come. +Something terrible lay that way. It was my business to find out +what it was." + +"What did you do?" My flippancy was all gone. This massive man +compelled one's attention and respect. + +"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives--a reluctance +which extends even to talk upon the subject--and by judicious +persuasion and gifts, aided, I will admit, by some threats of +coercion, I got two of them to act as guides. After many +adventures which I need not describe, and after traveling a +distance which I will not mention, in a direction which I +withhold, we came at last to a tract of country which has +never been described, nor, indeed, visited save by my +unfortunate predecessor. Would you kindly look at this?" + +He handed me a photograph--half-plate size. + +"The unsatisfactory appearance of it is due to the fact," said he, +"that on descending the river the boat was upset and the case which +contained the undeveloped films was broken, with disastrous results. +Nearly all of them were totally ruined--an irreparable loss. +This is one of the few which partially escaped. This explanation +of deficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept. There was +talk of faking. I am not in a mood to argue such a point." + +The photograph was certainly very off-colored. An unkind critic +might easily have misinterpreted that dim surface. It was a dull +gray landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I +realized that it represented a long and enormously high line of +cliffs exactly like an immense cataract seen in the distance, +with a sloping, tree-clad plain in the foreground. + +"I believe it is the same place as the painted picture," said I. + +"It is the same place," the Professor answered. "I found traces +of the fellow's camp. Now look at this." + +It was a nearer view of the same scene, though the photograph was +extremely defective. I could distinctly see the isolated, +tree-crowned pinnacle of rock which was detached from the crag. + +"I have no doubt of it at all," said I. + +"Well, that is something gained," said he. "We progress, do we not? +Now, will you please look at the top of that rocky pinnacle? +Do you observe something there?" + +"An enormous tree." + +"But on the tree?" + +"A large bird," said I. + +He handed me a lens. + +"Yes," I said, peering through it, "a large bird stands on the tree. +It appears to have a considerable beak. I should say it was a pelican." + +"I cannot congratulate you upon your eyesight," said the Professor. +"It is not a pelican, nor, indeed, is it a bird. It may interest +you to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen. +It was the only absolute proof of my experiences which I was able +to bring away with me." + +"You have it, then?" Here at last was tangible corroboration. + +"I had it. It was unfortunately lost with so much else in the +same boat accident which ruined my photographs. I clutched at it +as it disappeared in the swirl of the rapids, and part of its +wing was left in my hand. I was insensible when washed ashore, +but the miserable remnant of my superb specimen was still intact; +I now lay it before you." + +From a drawer he produced what seemed to me to be the upper +portion of the wing of a large bat. It was at least two feet in +length, a curved bone, with a membranous veil beneath it. + +"A monstrous bat!" I suggested. + +"Nothing of the sort," said the Professor, severely. "Living, as +I do, in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have +conceived that the first principles of zoology were so little known. +Is it possible that you do not know the elementary fact in +comparative anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the +forearm, while the wing of a bat consists of three elongated +fingers with membranes between? Now, in this case, the bone is +certainly not the forearm, and you can see for yourself that this +is a single membrane hanging upon a single bone, and therefore +that it cannot belong to a bat. But if it is neither bird nor +bat, what is it?" + +My small stock of knowledge was exhausted. + +"I really do not know," said I. + +He opened the standard work to which he had already referred me. + +"Here," said he, pointing to the picture of an extraordinary +flying monster, "is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon, +or pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Jurassic period. On the +next page is a diagram of the mechanism of its wing. Kindly compare +it with the specimen in your hand." + +A wave of amazement passed over me as I looked. I was convinced. +There could be no getting away from it. The cumulative proof +was overwhelming. The sketch, the photographs, the narrative, and +now the actual specimen--the evidence was complete. I said so--I +said so warmly, for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man. +He leaned back in his chair with drooping eyelids and a tolerant +smile, basking in this sudden gleam of sunshine. + +"It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of!" said I, +though it was my journalistic rather than my scientific +enthusiasm that was roused. "It is colossal. You are a Columbus +of science who has discovered a lost world. I'm awfully sorry if +I seemed to doubt you. It was all so unthinkable. But I +understand evidence when I see it, and this should be good enough +for anyone." + +The Professor purred with satisfaction. + +"And then, sir, what did you do next?" + +"It was the wet season, Mr. Malone, and my stores were exhausted. +I explored some portion of this huge cliff, but I was unable to +find any way to scale it. The pyramidal rock upon which I saw +and shot the pterodactyl was more accessible. Being something of +a cragsman, I did manage to get half way to the top of that. +From that height I had a better idea of the plateau upon the top +of the crags. It appeared to be very large; neither to east nor +to west could I see any end to the vista of green-capped cliffs. +Below, it is a swampy, jungly region, full of snakes, insects, +and fever. It is a natural protection to this singular country." + +"Did you see any other trace of life?" + +"No, sir, I did not; but during the week that we lay encamped at +the base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above." + +"But the creature that the American drew? How do you account +for that?" + +"We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summit +and seen it there. We know, therefore, that there is a way up. +We know equally that it must be a very difficult one, otherwise the +creatures would have come down and overrun the surrounding country. +Surely that is clear?" + +"But how did they come to be there?" + +"I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one," said the +Professor; "there can only be one explanation. South America is, +as you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single point +in the interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great, +sudden volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, are +basaltic, and therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps as +Sussex, has been lifted up en bloc with all its living contents, +and cut off by perpendicular precipices of a hardness which +defies erosion from all the rest of the continent. What is +the result? Why, the ordinary laws of Nature are suspended. +The various checks which influence the struggle for existence in +the world at large are all neutralized or altered. Creatures survive +which would otherwise disappear. You will observe that both the +pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic, and therefore of a +great age in the order of life. They have been artificially +conserved by those strange accidental conditions." + +"But surely your evidence is conclusive. You have only to lay it +before the proper authorities." + +"So in my simplicity, I had imagined," said the Professor, bitterly. +"I can only tell you that it was not so, that I was met at every +turn by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. +It is not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man, or to seek to prove +a fact if my word has been doubted. After the first I have not +condescended to show such corroborative proofs as I possess. +The subject became hateful to me--I would not speak of it. +When men like yourself, who represent the foolish curiosity +of the public, came to disturb my privacy I was unable to meet +them with dignified reserve. By nature I am, I admit, somewhat +fiery, and under provocation I am inclined to be violent. I fear +you may have remarked it." + +I nursed my eye and was silent. + +"My wife has frequently remonstrated with me upon the subject, +and yet I fancy that any man of honor would feel the same. +To-night, however, I propose to give an extreme example of the +control of the will over the emotions. I invite you to be +present at the exhibition." He handed me a card from his desk. +"You will perceive that Mr. Percival Waldron, a naturalist of +some popular repute, is announced to lecture at eight-thirty at +the Zoological Institute's Hall upon `The Record of the Ages.' +I have been specially invited to be present upon the platform, and +to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing so, I +shall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, to +throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the +audience and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply into +the matter. Nothing contentious, you understand, but only an +indication that there are greater deeps beyond. I shall hold +myself strongly in leash, and see whether by this self-restraint +I attain a more favorable result." + +"And I may come?" I asked eagerly. + +"Why, surely," he answered, cordially. He had an enormously +massive genial manner, which was almost as overpowering as +his violence. His smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing, +when his cheeks would suddenly bunch into two red apples, between +his half-closed eyes and his great black beard. "By all means, come. +It will be a comfort to me to know that I have one ally in the +hall, however inefficient and ignorant of the subject he may be. +I fancy there will be a large audience, for Waldron, though an +absolute charlatan, has a considerable popular following. Now, Mr. +Malone, I have given you rather more of my time than I had intended. +The individual must not monopolize what is meant for the world. +I shall be pleased to see you at the lecture to-night. In the +meantime, you will understand that no public use is to be made +of any of the material that I have given you." + +"But Mr. McArdle--my news editor, you know--will want to know +what I have done." + +"Tell him what you like. You can say, among other things, that +if he sends anyone else to intrude upon me I shall call upon him +with a riding-whip. But I leave it to you that nothing of all +this appears in print. Very good. Then the Zoological +Institute's Hall at eight-thirty to-night." I had a last +impression of red cheeks, blue rippling beard, and intolerant +eyes, as he waved me out of the room. + + + CHAPTER V + + "Question!" + +What with the physical shocks incidental to my first interview +with Professor Challenger and the mental ones which accompanied +the second, I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I +found myself in Enmore Park once more. In my aching head the one +thought was throbbing that there really was truth in this man's +story, that it was of tremendous consequence, and that it would +work up into inconceivable copy for the Gazette when I could +obtain permission to use it. A taxicab was waiting at the end of +the road, so I sprang into it and drove down to the office. +McArdle was at his post as usual. + +"Well," he cried, expectantly, "what may it run to? I'm thinking, +young man, you have been in the wars. Don't tell me that he +assaulted you." + +"We had a little difference at first." + +"What a man it is! What did you do?" + +"Well, he became more reasonable and we had a chat. But I got +nothing out of him--nothing for publication." + +"I'm not so sure about that. You got a black eye out of him, +and that's for publication. We can't have this reign of terror, +Mr. Malone. We must bring the man to his bearings. I'll have a +leaderette on him to-morrow that will raise a blister. Just give +me the material and I will engage to brand the fellow for ever. +Professor Munchausen--how's that for an inset headline? Sir John +Mandeville redivivus--Cagliostro--all the imposters and bullies +in history. I'll show him up for the fraud he is." + +"I wouldn't do that, sir." + +"Why not?" + +"Because he is not a fraud at all." + +"What!" roared McArdle. "You don't mean to say you really +believe this stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great +sea sairpents?" + +"Well, I don't know about that. I don't think he makes any +claims of that kind. But I do believe he has got something new." + +"Then for Heaven's sake, man, write it up!" + +"I'm longing to, but all I know he gave me in confidence and on +condition that I didn't." I condensed into a few sentences the +Professor's narrative. "That's how it stands." + +McArdle looked deeply incredulous. + +"Well, Mr. Malone," he said at last, "about this scientific +meeting to-night; there can be no privacy about that, anyhow. +I don't suppose any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has +been reported already a dozen times, and no one is aware that +Challenger will speak. We may get a scoop, if we are lucky. +You'll be there in any case, so you'll just give us a pretty +full report. I'll keep space up to midnight." + +My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the Savage +Club with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. +He listened with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared +with laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me. + +"My dear chap, things don't happen like that in real life. +People don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose +their evidence. Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as +full of tricks as the monkey-house at the Zoo. It's all bosh." + +"But the American poet?" + +"He never existed." + +"I saw his sketch-book." + +"Challenger's sketch-book." + +"You think he drew that animal?" + +"Of course he did. Who else?" + +"Well, then, the photographs?" + +"There was nothing in the photographs. By your own admission you +only saw a bird." + +"A pterodactyl." + +"That's what HE says. He put the pterodactyl into your head." + +"Well, then, the bones?" + +"First one out of an Irish stew. Second one vamped up for +the occasion. If you are clever and know your business you +can fake a bone as easily as you can a photograph." + +I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps, after all, I had been premature +in my acquiescence. Then I had a sudden happy thought. + +"Will you come to the meeting?" I asked. + +Tarp Henry looked thoughtful. + +"He is not a popular person, the genial Challenger," said he. +"A lot of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he +is about the best-hated man in London. If the medical students +turn out there will be no end of a rag. I don't want to get into +a bear-garden." + +"You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case." + +"Well, perhaps it's only fair. All right. I'm your man for +the evening." + +When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse +than I had expected. A line of electric broughams discharged +their little cargoes of white-bearded professors, while the dark +stream of humbler pedestrians, who crowded through the arched +door-way, showed that the audience would be popular as well +as scientific. Indeed, it became evident to us as soon as we had +taken our seats that a youthful and even boyish spirit was abroad +in the gallery and the back portions of the hall. Looking behind +me, I could see rows of faces of the familiar medical student type. +Apparently the great hospitals had each sent down their contingent. +The behavior of the audience at present was good-humored, +but mischievous. Scraps of popular songs were chorused with +an enthusiasm which was a strange prelude to a scientific lecture, +and there was already a tendency to personal chaff which promised +a jovial evening to others, however embarrassing it might be to +the recipients of these dubious honors. + +Thus, when old Doctor Meldrum, with his well-known curly-brimmed +opera-hat, appeared upon the platform, there was such a universal +query of "Where DID you get that tile?" that he hurriedly removed +it, and concealed it furtively under his chair. When gouty +Professor Wadley limped down to his seat there were general +affectionate inquiries from all parts of the hall as to the exact +state of his poor toe, which caused him obvious embarrassment. +The greatest demonstration of all, however, was at the entrance +of my new acquaintance, Professor Challenger, when he passed down to +take his place at the extreme end of the front row of the platform. +Such a yell of welcome broke forth when his black beard first +protruded round the corner that I began to suspect Tarp Henry +was right in his surmise, and that this assemblage was there not +merely for the sake of the lecture, but because it had got rumored +abroad that the famous Professor would take part in the proceedings. + +There was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance among the +front benches of well-dressed spectators, as though the +demonstration of the students in this instance was not unwelcome +to them. That greeting was, indeed, a frightful outburst of +sound, the uproar of the carnivora cage when the step of the +bucket-bearing keeper is heard in the distance. There was an +offensive tone in it, perhaps, and yet in the main it struck me +as mere riotous outcry, the noisy reception of one who amused and +interested them, rather than of one they disliked or despised. +Challenger smiled with weary and tolerant contempt, as a kindly +man would meet the yapping of a litter of puppies. He sat slowly +down, blew out his chest, passed his hand caressingly down his +beard, and looked with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at +the crowded hall before him. The uproar of his advent had not +yet died away when Professor Ronald Murray, the chairman, and Mr. +Waldron, the lecturer, threaded their way to the front, and the +proceedings began. + +Professor Murray will, I am sure, excuse me if I say that he has +the common fault of most Englishmen of being inaudible. Why on +earth people who have something to say which is worth hearing +should not take the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard +is one of the strange mysteries of modern life. Their methods +are as reasonable as to try to pour some precious stuff from the +spring to the reservoir through a non-conducting pipe, which +could by the least effort be opened. Professor Murray made +several profound remarks to his white tie and to the water-carafe +upon the table, with a humorous, twinkling aside to the silver +candlestick upon his right. Then he sat down, and Mr. Waldron, +the famous popular lecturer, rose amid a general murmur of applause. +He was a stern, gaunt man, with a harsh voice, and an aggressive +manner, but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate the +ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was +intelligible and even interesting to the lay public, with a +happy knack of being funny about the most unlikely objects, +so that the precession of the Equinox or the formation of a +vertebrate became a highly humorous process as treated by him. + +It was a bird's-eye view of creation, as interpreted by science, +which, in language always clear and sometimes picturesque, he +unfolded before us. He told us of the globe, a huge mass of +flaming gas, flaring through the heavens. Then he pictured the +solidification, the cooling, the wrinkling which formed the +mountains, the steam which turned to water, the slow preparation +of the stage upon which was to be played the inexplicable drama +of life. On the origin of life itself he was discreetly vague. +That the germs of it could hardly have survived the original +roasting was, he declared, fairly certain. Therefore it had +come later. Had it built itself out of the cooling, inorganic +elements of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived +from outside upon a meteor? It was hardly conceivable. On the +whole, the wisest man was the least dogmatic upon the point. +We could not--or at least we had not succeeded up to date in +making organic life in our laboratories out of inorganic materials. +The gulf between the dead and the living was something which our +chemistry could not as yet bridge. But there was a higher and +subtler chemistry of Nature, which, working with great forces +over long epochs, might well produce results which were impossible +for us. There the matter must be left. + +This brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, +beginning low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures, then up +rung by rung through reptiles and fishes, till at last we came to +a kangaroo-rat, a creature which brought forth its young alive, +the direct ancestor of all mammals, and presumably, therefore, of +everyone in the audience. ("No, no," from a sceptical student in +the back row.) If the young gentleman in the red tie who cried +"No, no," and who presumably claimed to have been hatched out of +an egg, would wait upon him after the lecture, he would be glad +to see such a curiosity. (Laughter.) It was strange to think that +the climax of all the age-long process of Nature had been the creation +of that gentleman in the red tie. But had the process stopped? +Was this gentleman to be taken as the final type--the be-all and +end-all of development? He hoped that he would not hurt the +feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that, +whatever virtues that gentleman might possess in private life, +still the vast processes of the universe were not fully justified +if they were to end entirely in his production. Evolution was +not a spent force, but one still working, and even greater +achievements were in store. + +Having thus, amid a general titter, played very prettily with his +interrupter, the lecturer went back to his picture of the past, +the drying of the seas, the emergence of the sand-bank, the +sluggish, viscous life which lay upon their margins, the +overcrowded lagoons, the tendency of the sea creatures to take +refuge upon the mud-flats, the abundance of food awaiting them, +their consequent enormous growth. "Hence, ladies and gentlemen," +he added, "that frightful brood of saurians which still affright +our eyes when seen in the Wealden or in the Solenhofen slates, +but which were fortunately extinct long before the first +appearance of mankind upon this planet." + +"Question!" boomed a voice from the platform. + +Mr. Waldron was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid +humor, as exemplified upon the gentleman with the red tie, which +made it perilous to interrupt him. But this interjection +appeared to him so absurd that he was at a loss how to deal +with it. So looks the Shakespearean who is confronted by a +rancid Baconian, or the astronomer who is assailed by a flat- +earth fanatic. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his +voice, repeated slowly the words: "Which were extinct before +the coming of man." + +"Question!" boomed the voice once more. + +Waldron looked with amazement along the line of professors upon +the platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, +who leaned back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused +expression, as if he were smiling in his sleep. + +"I see!" said Waldron, with a shrug. "It is my friend Professor +Challenger," and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this +was a final explanation and no more need be said. + +But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever path the +lecturer took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably to +lead him to some assertion as to extinct or prehistoric life +which instantly brought the same bulls' bellow from the Professor. +The audience began to anticipate it and to roar with delight when +it came. The packed benches of students joined in, and every +time Challenger's beard opened, before any sound could come forth, +there was a yell of "Question!" from a hundred voices, and an +answering counter cry of "Order!" and "Shame!" from as many more. +Waldron, though a hardened lecturer and a strong man, became rattled. +He hesitated, stammered, repeated himself, got snarled in a long +sentence, and finally turned furiously upon the cause of his troubles. + +"This is really intolerable!" he cried, glaring across the platform. +"I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to cease these ignorant and +unmannerly interruptions." + +There was a hush over the hall, the students rigid with delight +at seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves. +Challenger levered his bulky figure slowly out of his chair. + +"I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldron," he said, "to cease to make +assertions which are not in strict accordance with scientific fact." + +The words unloosed a tempest. "Shame! Shame!" "Give him a +hearing!" "Put him out!" "Shove him off the platform!" "Fair +play!" emerged from a general roar of amusement or execration. +The chairman was on his feet flapping both his hands and +bleating excitedly. "Professor Challenger--personal--views-- +later," were the solid peaks above his clouds of inaudible mutter. +The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his beard, and relapsed +into his chair. Waldron, very flushed and warlike, continued +his observations. Now and then, as he made an assertion, he shot +a venomous glance at his opponent, who seemed to be slumbering +deeply, with the same broad, happy smile upon his face. + +At last the lecture came to an end--I am inclined to think +that it was a premature one, as the peroration was hurried +and disconnected. The thread of the argument had been rudely +broken, and the audience was restless and expectant. Waldron sat +down, and, after a chirrup from the chairman, Professor Challenger +rose and advanced to the edge of the platform. In the interests +of my paper I took down his speech verbatim. + +"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, amid a sustained interruption +from the back. "I beg pardon--Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children--I +must apologize, I had inadvertently omitted a considerable +section of this audience" (tumult, during which the Professor +stood with one hand raised and his enormous head nodding +sympathetically, as if he were bestowing a pontifical blessing +upon the crowd), "I have been selected to move a vote of thanks +to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and imaginative address +to which we have just listened. There are points in it with +which I disagree, and it has been my duty to indicate them as +they arose, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished his +object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting +account of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. +Popular lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron" +(here he beamed and blinked at the lecturer) "will excuse me when +I say that they are necessarily both superficial and misleading, +since they have to be graded to the comprehension of an +ignorant audience." (Ironical cheering.) "Popular lecturers +are in their nature parasitic." (Angry gesture of protest from +Mr. Waldron.) "They exploit for fame or cash the work which has +been done by their indigent and unknown brethren. One smallest +new fact obtained in the laboratory, one brick built into the +temple of science, far outweighs any second-hand exposition which +passes an idle hour, but can leave no useful result behind it. +I put forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to +disparage Mr. Waldron in particular, but that you may not lose +your sense of proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest." +(At this point Mr. Waldron whispered to the chairman, who half rose +and said something severely to his water-carafe.) "But enough +of this!" (Loud and prolonged cheers.) "Let me pass to some +subject of wider interest. What is the particular point upon +which I, as an original investigator, have challenged our +lecturer's accuracy? It is upon the permanence of certain types +of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this subject +as an amateur, nor, I may add, as a popular lecturer, but I speak +as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely +to facts, when I say that Mr. Waldron is very wrong in supposing +that because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric +animal, therefore these creatures no longer exist. They are +indeed, as he has said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use +the expression, our contemporary ancestors, who can still be +found with all their hideous and formidable characteristics if +one has but the energy and hardihood to seek their haunts. +Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic, monsters who would +hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest mammals, still exist." +(Cries of "Bosh!" "Prove it!" "How do YOU know?" "Question!") +"How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited their +secret haunts. I know because I have seen some of them." +(Applause, uproar, and a voice, "Liar!") "Am I a liar?" +(General hearty and noisy assent.) "Did I hear someone say that I +was a liar? Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up +that I may know him?" (A voice, "Here he is, sir!" and an +inoffensive little person in spectacles, struggling violently, +was held up among a group of students.) "Did you venture to call +me a liar?" ("No, sir, no!" shouted the accused, and disappeared +like a jack-in-the-box.) "If any person in this hall dares to +doubt my veracity, I shall be glad to have a few words with him +after the lecture." ("Liar!") "Who said that?" (Again the +inoffensive one plunging desperately, was elevated high into the air.) +"If I come down among you----" (General chorus of "Come, love, come!" +which interrupted the proceedings for some moments, while the +chairman, standing up and waving both his arms, seemed to be +conducting the music. The Professor, with his face flushed, +his nostrils dilated, and his beard bristling, was now in a +proper Berserk mood.) "Every great discoverer has been met with +the same incredulity--the sure brand of a generation of fools. +When great facts are laid before you, you have not the intuition, +the imagination which would help you to understand them. You can +only throw mud at the men who have risked their lives to open new +fields to science. You persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin, +and I----" (Prolonged cheering and complete interruption.) + +All this is from my hurried notes taken at the time, which give +little notion of the absolute chaos to which the assembly had by +this time been reduced. So terrific was the uproar that several +ladies had already beaten a hurried retreat. Grave and reverend +seniors seemed to have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as +the students, and I saw white-bearded men rising and shaking +their fists at the obdurate Professor. The whole great audience +seethed and simmered like a boiling pot. The Professor took a +step forward and raised both his hands. There was something so +big and arresting and virile in the man that the clatter and +shouting died gradually away before his commanding gesture and +his masterful eyes. He seemed to have a definite message. +They hushed to hear it. + +"I will not detain you," he said. "It is not worth it. Truth is +truth, and the noise of a number of foolish young men--and, I +fear I must add, of their equally foolish seniors--cannot affect +the matter. I claim that I have opened a new field of science. +You dispute it." (Cheers.) "Then I put you to the test. Will you +accredit one or more of your own number to go out as your +representatives and test my statement in your name?" + +Mr. Summerlee, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose +among the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man, with the withered +aspect of a theologian. He wished, he said, to ask Professor +Challenger whether the results to which he had alluded in his +remarks had been obtained during a journey to the headwaters of +the Amazon made by him two years before. + +Professor Challenger answered that they had. + +Mr. Summerlee desired to know how it was that Professor +Challenger claimed to have made discoveries in those regions +which had been overlooked by Wallace, Bates, and other previous +explorers of established scientific repute. + +Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerlee appeared to be +confusing the Amazon with the Thames; that it was in reality a +somewhat larger river; that Mr. Summerlee might be interested to +know that with the Orinoco, which communicated with it, some +fifty thousand miles of country were opened up, and that in so +vast a space it was not impossible for one person to find what +another had missed. + +Mr. Summerlee declared, with an acid smile, that he fully +appreciated the difference between the Thames and the Amazon, +which lay in the fact that any assertion about the former could be +tested, while about the latter it could not. He would be obliged +if Professor Challenger would give the latitude and the longitude +of the country in which prehistoric animals were to be found. + +Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information +for good reasons of his own, but would be prepared to give it +with proper precautions to a committee chosen from the audience. +Would Mr. Summerlee serve on such a committee and test his story +in person? + +Mr. Summerlee: "Yes, I will." (Great cheering.) + +Professor Challenger: "Then I guarantee that I will place in +your hands such material as will enable you to find your way. +It is only right, however, since Mr. Summerlee goes to check my +statement that I should have one or more with him who may check his. +I will not disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers. +Mr. Summerlee will need a younger colleague. May I ask for volunteers?" + +It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him. +Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to +pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in +my dreams? But Gladys--was it not the very opportunity of which +she spoke? Gladys would have told me to go. I had sprung to my feet. +I was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my +companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, +"Sit down, Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself." At the +same time I was aware that a tall, thin man, with dark gingery hair, +a few seats in front of me, was also upon his feet. He glared back +at me with hard angry eyes, but I refused to give way. + +"I will go, Mr. Chairman," I kept repeating over and over again. + +"Name! Name!" cried the audience. + +"My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily +Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness." + +"What is YOUR name, sir?" the chairman asked of my tall rival. + +"I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon, +I know all the ground, and have special qualifications for +this investigation." + +"Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveler is, +of course, world-famous," said the chairman; "at the same time it +would certainly be as well to have a member of the Press upon +such an expedition." + +"Then I move," said Professor Challenger, "that both these +gentlemen be elected, as representatives of this meeting, to +accompany Professor Summerlee upon his journey to investigate and +to report upon the truth of my statements." + +And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided, and I +found myself borne away in the human current which swirled +towards the door, with my mind half stunned by the vast new +project which had risen so suddenly before it. As I emerged from +the hall I was conscious for a moment of a rush of laughing +students--down the pavement, and of an arm wielding a heavy +umbrella, which rose and fell in the midst of them. Then, amid a +mixture of groans and cheers, Professor Challenger's electric +brougham slid from the curb, and I found myself walking under the +silvery lights of Regent Street, full of thoughts of Gladys and +of wonder as to my future. + +Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow. I turned, and found +myself looking into the humorous, masterful eyes of the tall, thin +man who had volunteered to be my companion on this strange quest. + +"Mr. Malone, I understand," said he. "We are to be +companions--what? My rooms are just over the road, in the Albany. +Perhaps you would have the kindness to spare me half an hour, for +there are one or two things that I badly want to say to you." + + + CHAPTER VI + + "I was the Flail of the Lord" + +Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and +through the dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery. +At the end of a long drab passage my new acquaintance pushed open +a door and turned on an electric switch. A number of lamps shining +through tinted shades bathed the whole great room before us in a +ruddy radiance. Standing in the doorway and glancing round me, I +had a general impression of extraordinary comfort and elegance +combined with an atmosphere of masculine virility. Everywhere there +were mingled the luxury of the wealthy man of taste and the +careless untidiness of the bachelor. Rich furs and strange +iridescent mats from some Oriental bazaar were scattered upon +the floor. Pictures and prints which even my unpractised eyes +could recognize as being of great price and rarity hung thick upon +the walls. Sketches of boxers, of ballet-girls, and of racehorses +alternated with a sensuous Fragonard, a martial Girardet, and a +dreamy Turner. But amid these varied ornaments there were +scattered the trophies which brought back strongly to my +recollection the fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great +all-round sportsmen and athletes of his day. A dark-blue oar +crossed with a cherry-pink one above his mantel-piece spoke of +the old Oxonian and Leander man, while the foils and +boxing-gloves above and below them were the tools of a man who +had won supremacy with each. Like a dado round the room was the +jutting line of splendid heavy game-heads, the best of their sort +from every quarter of the world, with the rare white rhinoceros +of the Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all. + +In the center of the rich red carpet was a black and gold Louis +Quinze table, a lovely antique, now sacrilegiously desecrated +with marks of glasses and the scars of cigar-stumps. On it stood +a silver tray of smokables and a burnished spirit-stand, from +which and an adjacent siphon my silent host proceeded to charge +two high glasses. Having indicated an arm-chair to me and placed +my refreshment near it, he handed me a long, smooth Havana. +Then, seating himself opposite to me, he looked at me long and +fixedly with his strange, twinkling, reckless eyes--eyes of a +cold light blue, the color of a glacier lake. + +Through the thin haze of my cigar-smoke I noted the details of a +face which was already familiar to me from many photographs--the +strongly-curved nose, the hollow, worn cheeks, the dark, ruddy +hair, thin at the top, the crisp, virile moustaches, the small, +aggressive tuft upon his projecting chin. Something there was of +Napoleon III., something of Don Quixote, and yet again something +which was the essence of the English country gentleman, the keen, +alert, open-air lover of dogs and of horses. His skin was of a +rich flower-pot red from sun and wind. His eyebrows were tufted +and overhanging, which gave those naturally cold eyes an almost +ferocious aspect, an impression which was increased by his strong +and furrowed brow. In figure he was spare, but very strongly +built--indeed, he had often proved that there were few men in +England capable of such sustained exertions. His height was a +little over six feet, but he seemed shorter on account of a +peculiar rounding of the shoulders. Such was the famous Lord +John Roxton as he sat opposite to me, biting hard upon his cigar +and watching me steadily in a long and embarrassing silence. + +"Well," said he, at last, "we've gone and done it, young fellah +my lad." (This curious phrase he pronounced as if it were all one +word--"young-fellah-me-lad.") "Yes, we've taken a jump, you an' me. +I suppose, now, when you went into that room there was no such +notion in your head--what?" + +"No thought of it." + +"The same here. No thought of it. And here we are, up to our +necks in the tureen. Why, I've only been back three weeks from +Uganda, and taken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. +Pretty goin's on--what? How does it hit you?" + +"Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a +journalist on the Gazette." + +"Of course--you said so when you took it on. By the way, I've +got a small job for you, if you'll help me." + +"With pleasure." + +"Don't mind takin' a risk, do you?" + +"What is the risk?" + +"Well, it's Ballinger--he's the risk. You've heard of him?" + +"No." + +"Why, young fellah, where HAVE you lived? Sir John Ballinger +is the best gentleman jock in the north country. I could hold +him on the flat at my best, but over jumps he's my master. +Well, it's an open secret that when he's out of trainin' he drinks +hard--strikin' an average, he calls it. He got delirium on +Toosday, and has been ragin' like a devil ever since. His room +is above this. The doctors say that it is all up with the old +dear unless some food is got into him, but as he lies in bed with +a revolver on his coverlet, and swears he will put six of the +best through anyone that comes near him, there's been a bit of a +strike among the serving-men. He's a hard nail, is Jack, and a +dead shot, too, but you can't leave a Grand National winner to +die like that--what?" + +"What do you mean to do, then?" I asked. + +"Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be +dozin', and at the worst he can only wing one of us, and the +other should have him. If we can get his bolster-cover round his +arms and then 'phone up a stomach-pump, we'll give the old dear +the supper of his life." + +It was a rather desperate business to come suddenly into one's +day's work. I don't think that I am a particularly brave man. +I have an Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried +more terrible than they are. On the other hand, I was brought up +with a horror of cowardice and with a terror of such a stigma. +I dare say that I could throw myself over a precipice, like the Hun +in the history books, if my courage to do it were questioned, and +yet it would surely be pride and fear, rather than courage, which +would be my inspiration. Therefore, although every nerve in my +body shrank from the whisky-maddened figure which I pictured in +the room above, I still answered, in as careless a voice as I +could command, that I was ready to go. Some further remark of +Lord Roxton's about the danger only made me irritable. + +"Talking won't make it any better," said I. "Come on." + +I rose from my chair and he from his. Then with a little +confidential chuckle of laughter, he patted me two or three times +on the chest, finally pushing me back into my chair. + +"All right, sonny my lad--you'll do," said he. I looked up +in surprise. + +"I saw after Jack Ballinger myself this mornin'. He blew a hole +in the skirt of my kimono, bless his shaky old hand, but we got a +jacket on him, and he's to be all right in a week. I say, young +fellah, I hope you don't mind--what? You see, between you an' me +close-tiled, I look on this South American business as a mighty +serious thing, and if I have a pal with me I want a man I can +bank on. So I sized you down, and I'm bound to say that you came +well out of it. You see, it's all up to you and me, for this old +Summerlee man will want dry-nursin' from the first. By the way, +are you by any chance the Malone who is expected to get his Rugby +cap for Ireland?" + +"A reserve, perhaps." + +"I thought I remembered your face. Why, I was there when you got +that try against Richmond--as fine a swervin' run as I saw the +whole season. I never miss a Rugby match if I can help it, for +it is the manliest game we have left. Well, I didn't ask you in +here just to talk sport. We've got to fix our business. Here are +the sailin's, on the first page of the Times. There's a Booth boat +for Para next Wednesday week, and if the Professor and you can work +it, I think we should take it--what? Very good, I'll fix it with him. +What about your outfit?" + +"My paper will see to that." + +"Can you shoot?" + +"About average Territorial standard." + +"Good Lord! as bad as that? It's the last thing you young fellahs +think of learnin'. You're all bees without stings, so far as +lookin' after the hive goes. You'll look silly, some o' these +days, when someone comes along an' sneaks the honey. But you'll +need to hold your gun straight in South America, for, unless our +friend the Professor is a madman or a liar, we may see some queer +things before we get back. What gun have you?" + +He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught +a glimpse of glistening rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes +of an organ. + +"I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery," said he. + +One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening +and shutting them with a snap and a clang, and then patting them +as he put them back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would +fondle her children. + +"This is a Bland's .577 axite express," said he. "I got that big +fellow with it." He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. "Ten more +yards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection. + + `On that conical bullet his one chance hangs, + 'Tis the weak one's advantage fair.' + +Hope you know your Gordon, for he's the poet of the horse and +the gun and the man that handles both. Now, here's a useful +tool--.470, telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to +three-fifty. That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian +slave-drivers three years ago. I was the flail of the Lord up in +those parts, I may tell you, though you won't find it in any +Blue-book. There are times, young fellah, when every one of us +must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel +clean again. That's why I made a little war on my own. Declared it +myself, waged it myself, ended it myself. Each of those nicks +is for a slave murderer--a good row of them--what? That big one +is for Pedro Lopez, the king of them all, that I killed in a +backwater of the Putomayo River. Now, here's something that +would do for you." He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle. +"Well rubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to +the clip. You can trust your life to that." He handed it to me +and closed the door of his oak cabinet. + +"By the way," he continued, coming back to his chair, "what do +you know of this Professor Challenger?" + +"I never saw him till to-day." + +"Well, neither did I. It's funny we should both sail under sealed +orders from a man we don't know. He seemed an uppish old bird. +His brothers of science don't seem too fond of him, either. +How came you to take an interest in the affair?" + +I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he +listened intently. Then he drew out a map of South America +and laid it on the table. + +"I believe every single word he said to you was the truth," said +he, earnestly, "and, mind you, I have something to go on when I +speak like that. South America is a place I love, and I think, +if you take it right through from Darien to Fuego, it's the +grandest, richest, most wonderful bit of earth upon this planet. +People don't know it yet, and don't realize what it may become. +I've been up an' down it from end to end, and had two dry +seasons in those very parts, as I told you when I spoke of the +war I made on the slave-dealers. Well, when I was up there I +heard some yarns of the same kind--traditions of Indians and the +like, but with somethin' behind them, no doubt. The more you +knew of that country, young fellah, the more you would understand +that anythin' was possible--ANYTHIN'1. There are just some narrow +water-lanes along which folk travel, and outside that it is +all darkness. Now, down here in the Matto Grande"--he swept his +cigar over a part of the map--"or up in this corner where three +countries meet, nothin' would surprise me. As that chap said +to-night, there are fifty-thousand miles of water-way runnin' +through a forest that is very near the size of Europe. You and +I could be as far away from each other as Scotland is from +Constantinople, and yet each of us be in the same great Brazilian forest. +Man has just made a track here and a scrape there in the maze. +Why, the river rises and falls the best part of forty feet, +and half the country is a morass that you can't pass over. +Why shouldn't somethin' new and wonderful lie in such a country? +And why shouldn't we be the men to find it out? Besides," he +added, his queer, gaunt face shining with delight, "there's a +sportin' risk in every mile of it. I'm like an old golf-ball-- +I've had all the white paint knocked off me long ago. +Life can whack me about now, and it can't leave a mark. But a +sportin' risk, young fellah, that's the salt of existence. +Then it's worth livin' again. We're all gettin' a deal too soft +and dull and comfy. Give me the great waste lands and the wide +spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin' to look for that's +worth findin'. I've tried war and steeplechasin' and aeroplanes, +but this huntin' of beasts that look like a lobster-supper dream +is a brand-new sensation." He chuckled with glee at the prospect. + +Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this new acquaintance, but he +is to be my comrade for many a day, and so I have tried to set +him down as I first saw him, with his quaint personality and his +queer little tricks of speech and of thought. It was only the +need of getting in the account of my meeting which drew me at +last from his company. I left him seated amid his pink radiance, +oiling the lock of his favorite rifle, while he still chuckled to +himself at the thought of the adventures which awaited us. It was +very clear to me that if dangers lay before us I could not in all +England have found a cooler head or a braver spirit with which to +share them. + +That night, wearied as I was after the wonderful happenings of +the day, I sat late with McArdle, the news editor, explaining to +him the whole situation, which he thought important enough to +bring next morning before the notice of Sir George Beaumont, +the chief. It was agreed that I should write home full accounts +of my adventures in the shape of successive letters to McArdle, +and that these should either be edited for the Gazette as they +arrived, or held back to be published later, according to the +wishes of Professor Challenger, since we could not yet know what +conditions he might attach to those directions which should guide +us to the unknown land. In response to a telephone inquiry, we +received nothing more definite than a fulmination against the +Press, ending up with the remark that if we would notify our boat +he would hand us any directions which he might think it proper to +give us at the moment of starting. A second question from us +failed to elicit any answer at all, save a plaintive bleat from +his wife to the effect that her husband was in a very violent +temper already, and that she hoped we would do nothing to make +it worse. A third attempt, later in the day, provoked a terrific +crash, and a subsequent message from the Central Exchange that +Professor Challenger's receiver had been shattered. After that +we abandoned all attempt at communication. + +And now my patient readers, I can address you directly no longer. +From now onwards (if, indeed, any continuation of this narrative +should ever reach you) it can only be through the paper which +I represent. In the hands of the editor I leave this account +of the events which have led up to one of the most remarkable +expeditions of all time, so that if I never return to England +there shall be some record as to how the affair came about. I am +writing these last lines in the saloon of the Booth liner +Francisca, and they will go back by the pilot to the keeping of +Mr. McArdle. Let me draw one last picture before I close the +notebook--a picture which is the last memory of the old country +which I bear away with me. It is a wet, foggy morning in the late +spring; a thin, cold rain is falling. Three shining mackintoshed +figures are walking down the quay, making for the gang-plank of +the great liner from which the blue-peter is flying. In front of +them a porter pushes a trolley piled high with trunks, wraps, +and gun-cases. Professor Summerlee, a long, melancholy figure, +walks with dragging steps and drooping head, as one who is already +profoundly sorry for himself. Lord John Roxton steps briskly, +and his thin, eager face beams forth between his hunting-cap and +his muffler. As for myself, I am glad to have got the bustling +days of preparation and the pangs of leave-taking behind me, and +I have no doubt that I show it in my bearing. Suddenly, just as +we reach the vessel, there is a shout behind us. It is Professor +Challenger, who had promised to see us off. He runs after us, a +puffing, red-faced, irascible figure. + +"No thank you," says he; "I should much prefer not to go aboard. +I have only a few words to say to you, and they can very well be +said where we are. I beg you not to imagine that I am in any way +indebted to you for making this journey. I would have you to +understand that it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, and +I refuse to entertain the most remote sense of personal obligation. +Truth is truth, and nothing which you can report can affect it in +any way, though it may excite the emotions and allay the curiosity +of a number of very ineffectual people. My directions for your +instruction and guidance are in this sealed envelope. You will +open it when you reach a town upon the Amazon which is called +Manaos, but not until the date and hour which is marked upon +the outside. Have I made myself clear? I leave the strict +observance of my conditions entirely to your honor. No, Mr. Malone, +I will place no restriction upon your correspondence, since +the ventilation of the facts is the object of your journey; but +I demand that you shall give no particulars as to your exact +destination, and that nothing be actually published until your return. +Good-bye, sir. You have done something to mitigate my feelings +for the loathsome profession to which you unhappily belong. +Good-bye, Lord John. Science is, as I understand, a sealed book +to you; but you may congratulate yourself upon the hunting-field +which awaits you. You will, no doubt, have the opportunity of +describing in the Field how you brought down the rocketing dimorphodon. +And good-bye to you also, Professor Summerlee. If you are still +capable of self-improvement, of which I am frankly unconvinced, +you will surely return to London a wiser man." + +So he turned upon his heel, and a minute later from the deck I +could see his short, squat figure bobbing about in the distance +as he made his way back to his train. Well, we are well down +Channel now. There's the last bell for letters, and it's +good-bye to the pilot. We'll be "down, hull-down, on the old +trail" from now on. God bless all we leave behind us, and send +us safely back. + + + CHAPTER VII + + "To-morrow we Disappear into the Unknown" + +I will not bore those whom this narrative may reach by an account +of our luxurious voyage upon the Booth liner, nor will I tell of +our week's stay at Para (save that I should wish to acknowledge +the great kindness of the Pereira da Pinta Company in helping us +to get together our equipment). I will also allude very briefly +to our river journey, up a wide, slow-moving, clay-tinted stream, +in a steamer which was little smaller than that which had carried +us across the Atlantic. Eventually we found ourselves through +the narrows of Obidos and reached the town of Manaos. Here we +were rescued from the limited attractions of the local inn by +Mr. Shortman, the representative of the British and Brazilian +Trading Company. In his hospital Fazenda we spent our time until +the day when we were empowered to open the letter of instructions +given to us by Professor Challenger. Before I reach the surprising +events of that date I would desire to give a clearer sketch of my +comrades in this enterprise, and of the associates whom we had +already gathered together in South America. I speak freely, and +I leave the use of my material to your own discretion, Mr. +McArdle, since it is through your hands that this report must +pass before it reaches the world. + +The scientific attainments of Professor Summerlee are too well +known for me to trouble to recapitulate them. He is better +equipped for a rough expedition of this sort than one would +imagine at first sight. His tall, gaunt, stringy figure is +insensible to fatigue, and his dry, half-sarcastic, and often +wholly unsympathetic manner is uninfluenced by any change in +his surroundings. Though in his sixty-sixth year, I have never +heard him express any dissatisfaction at the occasional hardships +which we have had to encounter. I had regarded his presence as an +encumbrance to the expedition, but, as a matter of fact, I am now +well convinced that his power of endurance is as great as my own. +In temper he is naturally acid and sceptical. From the beginning +he has never concealed his belief that Professor Challenger is +an absolute fraud, that we are all embarked upon an absurd +wild-goose chase and that we are likely to reap nothing but +disappointment and danger in South America, and corresponding +ridicule in England. Such are the views which, with much +passionate distortion of his thin features and wagging of his +thin, goat-like beard, he poured into our ears all the way from +Southampton to Manaos. Since landing from the boat he has +obtained some consolation from the beauty and variety of the +insect and bird life around him, for he is absolutely +whole-hearted in his devotion to science. He spends his days +flitting through the woods with his shot-gun and his +butterfly-net, and his evenings in mounting the many specimens +he has acquired. Among his minor peculiarities are that he is +careless as to his attire, unclean in his person, exceedingly +absent-minded in his habits, and addicted to smoking a short +briar pipe, which is seldom out of his mouth. He has been upon +several scientific expeditions in his youth (he was with +Robertson in Papua), and the life of the camp and the canoe is +nothing fresh to him. + +Lord John Roxton has some points in common with Professor +Summerlee, and others in which they are the very antithesis to +each other. He is twenty years younger, but has something of the +same spare, scraggy physique. As to his appearance, I have, as I +recollect, described it in that portion of my narrative which I +have left behind me in London. He is exceedingly neat and prim +in his ways, dresses always with great care in white drill suits +and high brown mosquito-boots, and shaves at least once a day. +Like most men of action, he is laconic in speech, and sinks +readily into his own thoughts, but he is always quick to answer a +question or join in a conversation, talking in a queer, jerky, +half-humorous fashion. His knowledge of the world, and very +especially of South America, is surprising, and he has a +whole-hearted belief in the possibilities of our journey which is +not to be dashed by the sneers of Professor Summerlee. He has a +gentle voice and a quiet manner, but behind his twinkling blue +eyes there lurks a capacity for furious wrath and implacable +resolution, the more dangerous because they are held in leash. +He spoke little of his own exploits in Brazil and Peru, but it +was a revelation to me to find the excitement which was caused by +his presence among the riverine natives, who looked upon him as +their champion and protector. The exploits of the Red Chief, as +they called him, had become legends among them, but the real +facts, as far as I could learn them, were amazing enough. + +These were that Lord John had found himself some years before in +that no-man's-land which is formed by the half-defined frontiers +between Peru, Brazil, and Columbia. In this great district the +wild rubber tree flourishes, and has become, as in the Congo, a +curse to the natives which can only be compared to their forced +labor under the Spaniards upon the old silver mines of Darien. +A handful of villainous half-breeds dominated the country, armed +such Indians as would support them, and turned the rest into +slaves, terrorizing them with the most inhuman tortures in order +to force them to gather the india-rubber, which was then floated +down the river to Para. Lord John Roxton expostulated on behalf +of the wretched victims, and received nothing but threats and +insults for his pains. He then formally declared war against +Pedro Lopez, the leader of the slave-drivers, enrolled a band of +runaway slaves in his service, armed them, and conducted a +campaign, which ended by his killing with his own hands the +notorious half-breed and breaking down the system which he represented. + +No wonder that the ginger-headed man with the silky voice and the +free and easy manners was now looked upon with deep interest upon +the banks of the great South American river, though the feelings +he inspired were naturally mixed, since the gratitude of the +natives was equaled by the resentment of those who desired to +exploit them. One useful result of his former experiences was +that he could talk fluently in the Lingoa Geral, which is the +peculiar talk, one-third Portuguese and two-thirds Indian, which +is current all over Brazil. + +I have said before that Lord John Roxton was a South Americomaniac. +He could not speak of that great country without ardor, and this +ardor was infectious, for, ignorant as I was, he fixed my +attention and stimulated my curiosity. How I wish I could +reproduce the glamour of his discourses, the peculiar mixture +of accurate knowledge and of racy imagination which gave them +their fascination, until even the Professor's cynical and +sceptical smile would gradually vanish from his thin face as +he listened. He would tell the history of the mighty river so +rapidly explored (for some of the first conquerors of Peru +actually crossed the entire continent upon its waters), and yet +so unknown in regard to all that lay behind its ever-changing banks. + +"What is there?" he would cry, pointing to the north. "Wood and +marsh and unpenetrated jungle. Who knows what it may shelter? +And there to the south? A wilderness of swampy forest, where +no white man has ever been. The unknown is up against us on +every side. Outside the narrow lines of the rivers what does +anyone know? Who will say what is possible in such a country? +Why should old man Challenger not be right?" At which direct +defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear upon Professor +Summerlee's face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic head +in unsympathetic silence, behind the cloud of his briar-root pipe. + + +So much, for the moment, for my two white companions, whose +characters and limitations will be further exposed, as surely as +my own, as this narrative proceeds. But already we have enrolled +certain retainers who may play no small part in what is to come. +The first is a gigantic negro named Zambo, who is a black +Hercules, as willing as any horse, and about as intelligent. +Him we enlisted at Para, on the recommendation of the steamship +company, on whose vessels he had learned to speak a halting English. + +It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two +half-breeds from up the river, just come down with a cargo +of redwood. They were swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce, +as active and wiry as panthers. Both of them had spent their +lives in those upper waters of the Amazon which we were about +to explore, and it was this recommendation which had caused Lord +John to engage them. One of them, Gomez, had the further +advantage that he could speak excellent English. These men were +willing to act as our personal servants, to cook, to row, or to +make themselves useful in any way at a payment of fifteen dollars +a month. Besides these, we had engaged three Mojo Indians from +Bolivia, who are the most skilful at fishing and boat work of all +the river tribes. The chief of these we called Mojo, after his +tribe, and the others are known as Jose and Fernando. Three white +men, then, two half-breeds, one negro, and three Indians made up +the personnel of the little expedition which lay waiting for its +instructions at Manaos before starting upon its singular quest. + +At last, after a weary week, the day had come and the hour. +I ask you to picture the shaded sitting-room of the Fazenda St. +Ignatio, two miles inland from the town of Manaos. Outside lay +the yellow, brassy glare of the sunshine, with the shadows of the +palm trees as black and definite as the trees themselves. The air +was calm, full of the eternal hum of insects, a tropical chorus +of many octaves, from the deep drone of the bee to the high, +keen pipe of the mosquito. Beyond the veranda was a small +cleared garden, bounded with cactus hedges and adorned with +clumps of flowering shrubs, round which the great blue butterflies +and the tiny humming-birds fluttered and darted in crescents of +sparkling light. Within we were seated round the cane table, +on which lay a sealed envelope. Inscribed upon it, in the jagged +handwriting of Professor Challenger, were the words:-- + + +"Instructions to Lord John Roxton and party. To be opened at +Manaos upon July 15th, at 12 o'clock precisely." + + +Lord John had placed his watch upon the table beside him. + +"We have seven more minutes," said he. "The old dear is very precise." + +Professor Summerlee gave an acid smile as he picked up the +envelope in his gaunt hand. + +"What can it possibly matter whether we open it now or in seven +minutes?" said he. "It is all part and parcel of the same system +of quackery and nonsense, for which I regret to say that the +writer is notorious." + +"Oh, come, we must play the game accordin' to rules," said Lord John. +"It's old man Challenger's show and we are here by his good will, +so it would be rotten bad form if we didn't follow his instructions +to the letter." + +"A pretty business it is!" cried the Professor, bitterly. +"It struck me as preposterous in London, but I'm bound to say +that it seems even more so upon closer acquaintance. I don't +know what is inside this envelope, but, unless it is something +pretty definite, I shall be much tempted to take the next down- +river boat and catch the Bolivia at Para. After all, I have +some more responsible work in the world than to run about +disproving the assertions of a lunatic. Now, Roxton, surely +it is time." + +"Time it is," said Lord John. "You can blow the whistle." +He took up the envelope and cut it with his penknife. From it +he drew a folded sheet of paper. This he carefully opened out +and flattened on the table. It was a blank sheet. He turned +it over. Again it was blank. We looked at each other in a +bewildered silence, which was broken by a discordant burst of +derisive laughter from Professor Summerlee. + +"It is an open admission," he cried. "What more do you want? +The fellow is a self-confessed humbug. We have only to return +home and report him as the brazen imposter that he is." + +"Invisible ink!" I suggested. + +"I don't think!" said Lord Roxton, holding the paper to the light. +"No, young fellah my lad, there is no use deceiving yourself. +I'll go bail for it that nothing has ever been written upon +this paper." + +"May I come in?" boomed a voice from the veranda. + +The shadow of a squat figure had stolen across the patch of sunlight. +That voice! That monstrous breadth of shoulder! We sprang to our +feet with a gasp of astonishment as Challenger, in a round, boyish +straw-hat with a colored ribbon--Challenger, with his hands in his +jacket-pockets and his canvas shoes daintily pointing as he walked-- +appeared in the open space before us. He threw back his head, and +there he stood in the golden glow with all his old Assyrian +luxuriance of beard, all his native insolence of drooping eyelids +and intolerant eyes. + +"I fear," said he, taking out his watch, "that I am a few minutes +too late. When I gave you this envelope I must confess that I +had never intended that you should open it, for it had been my +fixed intention to be with you before the hour. The unfortunate +delay can be apportioned between a blundering pilot and an +intrusive sandbank. I fear that it has given my colleague, +Professor Summerlee, occasion to blaspheme." + +"I am bound to say, sir," said Lord John, with some sternness of +voice, "that your turning up is a considerable relief to us, for +our mission seemed to have come to a premature end. Even now I +can't for the life of me understand why you should have worked it +in so extraordinary a manner." + +Instead of answering, Professor Challenger entered, shook hands +with myself and Lord John, bowed with ponderous insolence to +Professor Summerlee, and sank back into a basket-chair, which +creaked and swayed beneath his weight. + +"Is all ready for your journey?" he asked. + +"We can start to-morrow." + +"Then so you shall. You need no chart of directions now, since +you will have the inestimable advantage of my own guidance. +From the first I had determined that I would myself preside over +your investigation. The most elaborate charts would, as you +will readily admit, be a poor substitute for my own intelligence +and advice. As to the small ruse which I played upon you in the +matter of the envelope, it is clear that, had I told you all my +intentions, I should have been forced to resist unwelcome +pressure to travel out with you." + +"Not from me, sir!" exclaimed Professor Summerlee, heartily. +"So long as there was another ship upon the Atlantic." + +Challenger waved him away with his great hairy hand. + +"Your common sense will, I am sure, sustain my objection and +realize that it was better that I should direct my own movements +and appear only at the exact moment when my presence was needed. +That moment has now arrived. You are in safe hands. You will +not now fail to reach your destination. From henceforth I take +command of this expedition, and I must ask you to complete your +preparations to-night, so that we may be able to make an early +start in the morning. My time is of value, and the same thing +may be said, no doubt, in a lesser degree of your own. I propose, +therefore, that we push on as rapidly as possible, until I have +demonstrated what you have come to see." + +Lord John Roxton has chartered a large steam launch, the Esmeralda, +which was to carry us up the river. So far as climate goes, it +was immaterial what time we chose for our expedition, as the +temperature ranges from seventy-five to ninety degrees both +summer and winter, with no appreciable difference in heat. +In moisture, however, it is otherwise; from December to May is +the period of the rains, and during this time the river slowly +rises until it attains a height of nearly forty feet above its +low-water mark. It floods the banks, extends in great lagoons +over a monstrous waste of country, and forms a huge district, +called locally the Gapo, which is for the most part too marshy +for foot-travel and too shallow for boating. About June the +waters begin to fall, and are at their lowest at October +or November. Thus our expedition was at the time of the dry +season, when the great river and its tributaries were more or +less in a normal condition. + +The current of the river is a slight one, the drop being not +greater than eight inches in a mile. No stream could be more +convenient for navigation, since the prevailing wind is +south-east, and sailing boats may make a continuous progress to +the Peruvian frontier, dropping down again with the current. +In our own case the excellent engines of the Esmeralda could +disregard the sluggish flow of the stream, and we made as rapid +progress as if we were navigating a stagnant lake. For three +days we steamed north-westwards up a stream which even here, a +thousand miles from its mouth, was still so enormous that from +its center the two banks were mere shadows upon the distant skyline. +On the fourth day after leaving Manaos we turned into a tributary +which at its mouth was little smaller than the main stream. +It narrowed rapidly, however, and after two more days' steaming +we reached an Indian village, where the Professor insisted that +we should land, and that the Esmeralda should be sent back to Manaos. +We should soon come upon rapids, he explained, which would make its +further use impossible. He added privately that we were now +approaching the door of the unknown country, and that the fewer +whom we took into our confidence the better it would be. To this +end also he made each of us give our word of honor that we would +publish or say nothing which would give any exact clue as to the +whereabouts of our travels, while the servants were all solemnly +sworn to the same effect. It is for this reason that I am +compelled to be vague in my narrative, and I would warn my readers +that in any map or diagram which I may give the relation of places +to each other may be correct, but the points of the compass are +carefully confused, so that in no way can it be taken as an actual +guide to the country. Professor Challenger's reasons for secrecy +may be valid or not, but we had no choice but to adopt them, +for he was prepared to abandon the whole expedition rather than +modify the conditions upon which he would guide us. + +It was August 2nd when we snapped our last link with the outer +world by bidding farewell to the Esmeralda. Since then four days +have passed, during which we have engaged two large canoes from +the Indians, made of so light a material (skins over a bamboo +framework) that we should be able to carry them round any obstacle. +These we have loaded with all our effects, and have engaged two +additional Indians to help us in the navigation. I understand +that they are the very two--Ataca and Ipetu by name--who +accompanied Professor Challenger upon his previous journey. +They appeared to be terrified at the prospect of repeating it, +but the chief has patriarchal powers in these countries, and +if the bargain is good in his eyes the clansman has little +choice in the matter. + +So to-morrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am +transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word +to those who are interested in our fate. I have, according to +our arrangement, addressed it to you, my dear Mr. McArdle, and I +leave it to your discretion to delete, alter, or do what you like +with it. From the assurance of Professor Challenger's manner--and +in spite of the continued scepticism of Professor Summerlee--I +have no doubt that our leader will make good his statement, and +that we are really on the eve of some most remarkable experiences. + + + CHAPTER VIII + + "The Outlying Pickets of the New World" + +Our friends at home may well rejoice with us, for we are at our +goal, and up to a point, at least, we have shown that the +statement of Professor Challenger can be verified. We have not, +it is true, ascended the plateau, but it lies before us, and even +Professor Summerlee is in a more chastened mood. Not that he +will for an instant admit that his rival could be right, but he +is less persistent in his incessant objections, and has sunk for +the most part into an observant silence. I must hark back, +however, and continue my narrative from where I dropped it. +We are sending home one of our local Indians who is injured, +and I am committing this letter to his charge, with considerable +doubts in my mind as to whether it will ever come to hand. + +When I wrote last we were about to leave the Indian village where +we had been deposited by the Esmeralda. I have to begin my +report by bad news, for the first serious personal trouble +(I pass over the incessant bickerings between the Professors) +occurred this evening, and might have had a tragic ending. +I have spoken of our English-speaking half-breed, Gomez--a fine +worker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, I fancy, with the +vice of curiosity, which is common enough among such men. On the +last evening he seems to have hid himself near the hut in which +we were discussing our plans, and, being observed by our huge +negro Zambo, who is as faithful as a dog and has the hatred which +all his race bear to the half-breeds, he was dragged out and +carried into our presence. Gomez whipped out his knife, however, +and but for the huge strength of his captor, which enabled him to +disarm him with one hand, he would certainly have stabbed him. +The matter has ended in reprimands, the opponents have been +compelled to shake hands, and there is every hope that all will +be well. As to the feuds of the two learned men, they are +continuous and bitter. It must be admitted that Challenger is +provocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acid tongue, +which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that he +never cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river, +as it was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He is +convinced, of course, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. +Summerlee rejoined, however, with a sour smile, by saying +that he understood that Millbank Prison had been pulled down. +Challenger's conceit is too colossal to allow him to be +really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and repeated +"Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a child. +Indeed, they are children both--the one wizened and cantankerous, +the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a brain which +has put him in the front rank of his scientific age. Brain, character, +soul--only as one sees more of life does one understand how distinct +is each. + +The very next day we did actually make our start upon this +remarkable expedition. We found that all our possessions fitted +very easily into the two canoes, and we divided our personnel, +six in each, taking the obvious precaution in the interests of +peace of putting one Professor into each canoe. Personally, I +was with Challenger, who was in a beatific humor, moving about as +one in a silent ecstasy and beaming benevolence from every feature. +I have had some experience of him in other moods, however, and +shall be the less surprised when the thunderstorms suddenly +come up amidst the sunshine. If it is impossible to be at your +ease, it is equally impossible to be dull in his company, for one +is always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as to what sudden +turn his formidable temper may take. + +For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundreds +of yards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that one +could usually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are, +half of them, of this nature, while the other half are whitish +and opaque, the difference depending upon the class of country +through which they have flowed. The dark indicate vegetable +decay, while the others point to clayey soil. Twice we came +across rapids, and in each case made a portage of half a mile or +so to avoid them. The woods on either side were primeval, which +are more easily penetrated than woods of the second growth, and +we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes through them. +How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The height of +the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything which +I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards in +magnificent columns until, at an enormous distance above our +heads, we could dimly discern the spot where they threw out their +side-branches into Gothic upward curves which coalesced to form +one great matted roof of verdure, through which only an +occasional golden ray of sunshine shot downwards to trace a thin +dazzling line of light amidst the majestic obscurity. As we +walked noiselessly amid the thick, soft carpet of decaying +vegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comes upon us in +the twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger's +full-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should have +been ignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men of +science pointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, and +the redwood trees, with all that profusion of various plants +which has made this continent the chief supplier to the human +race of those gifts of Nature which depend upon the vegetable +world, while it is the most backward in those products which come +from animal life. Vivid orchids and wonderful colored lichens +smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and where a wandering +shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, the scarlet +star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of ipomaea, +the effect was as a dream of fairyland. In these great wastes of +forest, life, which abhors darkness, struggles ever upwards to +the light. Every plant, even the smaller ones, curls and writhes +to the green surface, twining itself round its stronger and +taller brethren in the effort. Climbing plants are monstrous and +luxuriant, but others which have never been known to climb +elsewhere learn the art as an escape from that somber shadow, so +that the common nettle, the jasmine, and even the jacitara palm +tree can be seen circling the stems of the cedars and striving to +reach their crowns. Of animal life there was no movement amid +the majestic vaulted aisles which stretched from us as we walked, +but a constant movement far above our heads told of that +multitudinous world of snake and monkey, bird and sloth, which +lived in the sunshine, and looked down in wonder at our tiny, dark, +stumbling figures in the obscure depths immeasurably below them. +At dawn and at sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and +the parrakeets broke into shrill chatter, but during the hot +hours of the day only the full drone of insects, like the beat of +a distant surf, filled the ear, while nothing moved amid the +solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading away into the darkness +which held us in. Once some bandy-legged, lurching creature, an +ant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid the shadows. It was the +only sign of earth life which I saw in this great Amazonian forest. + +And yet there were indications that even human life itself was +not far from us in those mysterious recesses. On the third day +out we were aware of a singular deep throbbing in the air, +rhythmic and solemn, coming and going fitfully throughout +the morning. The two boats were paddling within a few yards +of each other when first we heard it, and our Indians remained +motionless, as if they had been turned to bronze, listening +intently with expressions of terror upon their faces. + +"What is it, then?" I asked. + +"Drums," said Lord John, carelessly; "war drums. I have heard +them before." + +"Yes, sir, war drums," said Gomez, the half-breed. "Wild Indians, +bravos, not mansos; they watch us every mile of the way; kill us +if they can." + +"How can they watch us?" I asked, gazing into the dark, +motionless void. + +The half-breed shrugged his broad shoulders. + +"The Indians know. They have their own way. They watch us. +They talk the drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can." + +By the afternoon of that day--my pocket diary shows me that it +was Tuesday, August 18th--at least six or seven drums were +throbbing from various points. Sometimes they beat quickly, +sometimes slowly, sometimes in obvious question and answer, one +far to the east breaking out in a high staccato rattle, and being +followed after a pause by a deep roll from the north. There was +something indescribably nerve-shaking and menacing in that +constant mutter, which seemed to shape itself into the very +syllables of the half-breed, endlessly repeated, "We will kill +you if we can. We will kill you if we can." No one ever moved in +the silent woods. All the peace and soothing of quiet Nature lay +in that dark curtain of vegetation, but away from behind there +came ever the one message from our fellow-man. "We will kill you +if we can," said the men in the east. "We will kill you if we +can," said the men in the north. + +All day the drums rumbled and whispered, while their menace +reflected itself in the faces of our colored companions. Even the +hardy, swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however, +that day once for all that both Summerlee and Challenger +possessed that highest type of bravery, the bravery of the +scientific mind. Theirs was the spirit which upheld Darwin among +the gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace among the head-hunters +of Malaya. It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human brain +cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if it be +steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merely +personal considerations. All day amid that incessant and +mysterious menace our two Professors watched every bird upon the +wing, and every shrub upon the bank, with many a sharp wordy +contention, when the snarl of Summerlee came quick upon the deep +growl of Challenger, but with no more sense of danger and no more +reference to drum-beating Indians than if they were seated +together in the smoking-room of the Royal Society's Club in St. +James's Street. Once only did they condescend to discuss them. + +"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking his +thumb towards the reverberating wood. + +"No doubt, sir," Summerlee answered. "Like all such tribes, I +shall expect to find them of poly-synthetic speech and of +Mongolian type." + +"Polysynthetic certainly," said Challenger, indulgently. "I am +not aware that any other type of language exists in this continent, +and I have notes of more than a hundred. The Mongolian theory +I regard with deep suspicion." + +"I should have thought that even a limited knowledge of +comparative anatomy would have helped to verify it," said +Summerlee, bitterly. + +Challenger thrust out his aggressive chin until he was all beard +and hat-rim. "No doubt, sir, a limited knowledge would have +that effect. When one's knowledge is exhaustive, one comes to +other conclusions." They glared at each other in mutual defiance, +while all round rose the distant whisper, "We will kill you--we +will kill you if we can." + +That night we moored our canoes with heavy stones for anchors in +the center of the stream, and made every preparation for a +possible attack. Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we +pushed upon our way, the drum-beating dying out behind us. +About three o'clock in the afternoon we came to a very steep rapid, +more than a mile long--the very one in which Professor Challenger +had suffered disaster upon his first journey. I confess that the +sight of it consoled me, for it was really the first direct +corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his story. +The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores through +the brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we four +whites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and any +danger coming from the woods. Before evening we had successfully +passed the rapids, and made our way some ten miles above them, +where we anchored for the night. At this point I reckoned that +we had come not less than a hundred miles up the tributary from +the main stream. + +It was in the early forenoon of the next day that we made the +great departure. Since dawn Professor Challenger had been +acutely uneasy, continually scanning each bank of the river. +Suddenly he gave an exclamation of satisfaction and pointed to a +single tree, which projected at a peculiar angle over the side of +the stream. + +"What do you make of that?" he asked. + +"It is surely an Assai palm," said Summerlee. + +"Exactly. It was an Assai palm which I took for my landmark. +The secret opening is half a mile onwards upon the other side of +the river. There is no break in the trees. That is the wonder +and the mystery of it. There where you see light-green rushes +instead of dark-green undergrowth, there between the great cotton +woods, that is my private gate into the unknown. Push through, +and you will understand." + +It was indeed a wonderful place. Having reached the spot marked +by a line of light-green rushes, we poled out two canoes through +them for some hundreds of yards, and eventually emerged into a +placid and shallow stream, running clear and transparent over a +sandy bottom. It may have been twenty yards across, and was +banked in on each side by most luxuriant vegetation. No one who +had not observed that for a short distance reeds had taken the +place of shrubs, could possibly have guessed the existence of +such a stream or dreamed of the fairyland beyond. + +For a fairyland it was--the most wonderful that the imagination +of man could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, +interlacing into a natural pergola, and through this tunnel of +verdure in a golden twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, +beautiful in itself, but marvelous from the strange tints thrown +by the vivid light from above filtered and tempered in its fall. +Clear as crystal, motionless as a sheet of glass, green as the +edge of an iceberg, it stretched in front of us under its leafy +archway, every stroke of our paddles sending a thousand ripples +across its shining surface. It was a fitting avenue to a land +of wonders. All sign of the Indians had passed away, but animal +life was more frequent, and the tameness of the creatures showed +that they knew nothing of the hunter. Fuzzy little black-velvet +monkeys, with snow-white teeth and gleaming, mocking eyes, +chattered at us as we passed. With a dull, heavy splash an +occasional cayman plunged in from the bank. Once a dark, clumsy +tapir stared at us from a gap in the bushes, and then lumbered +away through the forest; once, too, the yellow, sinuous form of a +great puma whisked amid the brushwood, and its green, baleful +eyes glared hatred at us over its tawny shoulder. Bird life was +abundant, especially the wading birds, stork, heron, and ibis +gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and white, upon every +log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the crystal +water was alive with fish of every shape and color. + +For three days we made our way up this tunnel of hazy +green sunshine. On the longer stretches one could hardly +tell as one looked ahead where the distant green water ended +and the distant green archway began. The deep peace of this +strange waterway was unbroken by any sign of man. + +"No Indian here. Too much afraid. Curupuri," said Gomez. + +"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods," Lord John explained. +"It's a name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think that +there is something fearsome in this direction, and therefore they +avoid it." + +On the third day it became evident that our journey in the canoes +could not last much longer, for the stream was rapidly growing +more shallow. Twice in as many hours we stuck upon the bottom. +Finally we pulled the boats up among the brushwood and spent the +night on the bank of the river. In the morning Lord John and I +made our way for a couple of miles through the forest, keeping +parallel with the stream; but as it grew ever shallower we +returned and reported, what Professor Challenger had already +suspected, that we had reached the highest point to which the +canoes could be brought. We drew them up, therefore, and +concealed them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so +that we should find them again. Then we distributed the various +burdens among us--guns, ammunition, food, a tent, blankets, and +the rest--and, shouldering our packages, we set forth upon the +more laborious stage of our journey. + +An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outset +of our new stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining us +issued directions to the whole party, much to the evident +discontent of Summerlee. Now, upon his assigning some duty to +his fellow-Professor (it was only the carrying of an aneroid +barometer), the matter suddenly came to a head. + +"May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in what +capacity you take it upon yourself to issue these orders?" + +Challenger glared and bristled. + +"I do it, Professor Summerlee, as leader of this expedition." + +"I am compelled to tell you, sir, that I do not recognize you in +that capacity." + +"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm. "Perhaps you +would define my exact position." + +"Yes, sir. You are a man whose veracity is upon trial, and this +committee is here to try it. You walk, sir, with your judges." + +"Dear me!" said Challenger, seating himself on the side of one of +the canoes. "In that case you will, of course, go on your way, +and I will follow at my leisure. If I am not the leader you +cannot expect me to lead." + +Thank heaven that there were two sane men--Lord John Roxton +and myself--to prevent the petulance and folly of our learned +Professors from sending us back empty-handed to London. +Such arguing and pleading and explaining before we could get +them mollified! Then at last Summerlee, with his sneer and his +pipe, would move forwards, and Challenger would come rolling and +grumbling after. By some good fortune we discovered about this +time that both our savants had the very poorest opinion of Dr. +Illingworth of Edinburgh. Thenceforward that was our one safety, +and every strained situation was relieved by our introducing the +name of the Scotch zoologist, when both our Professors would form +a temporary alliance and friendship in their detestation and +abuse of this common rival. + +Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soon +found that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it +lost itself in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into +which we sank up to our knees. The place was horribly haunted +by clouds of mosquitoes and every form of flying pest, so we were +glad to find solid ground again and to make a circuit among the +trees, which enabled us to outflank this pestilent morass, which +droned like an organ in the distance, so loud was it with insect life. + +On the second day after leaving our canoes we found that the +whole character of the country changed. Our road was +persistently upwards, and as we ascended the woods became +thinner and lost their tropical luxuriance. The huge trees of +the alluvial Amazonian plain gave place to the Phoenix and coco +palms, growing in scattered clumps, with thick brushwood between. +In the damper hollows the Mauritia palms threw out their graceful +drooping fronds. We traveled entirely by compass, and once or +twice there were differences of opinion between Challenger and +the two Indians, when, to quote the Professor's indignant words, +the whole party agreed to "trust the fallacious instincts of +undeveloped savages rather than the highest product of modern +European culture." That we were justified in doing so was shown +upon the third day, when Challenger admitted that he recognized +several landmarks of his former journey, and in one spot we +actually came upon four fire-blackened stones, which must have +marked a camping-place. + +The road still ascended, and we crossed a rock-studded slope +which took two days to traverse. The vegetation had again +changed, and only the vegetable ivory tree remained, with a +great profusion of wonderful orchids, among which I learned to +recognize the rare Nuttonia Vexillaria and the glorious pink and +scarlet blossoms of Cattleya and odontoglossum. Occasional brooks +with pebbly bottoms and fern-draped banks gurgled down the shallow +gorges in the hill, and offered good camping-grounds every evening +on the banks of some rock-studded pool, where swarms of little +blue-backed fish, about the size and shape of English trout, +gave us a delicious supper. + +On the ninth day after leaving the canoes, having done, as I +reckon, about a hundred and twenty miles, we began to emerge from +the trees, which had grown smaller until they were mere shrubs. +Their place was taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which +grew so thickly that we could only penetrate it by cutting a +pathway with the machetes and billhooks of the Indians. It took +us a long day, traveling from seven in the morning till eight at +night, with only two breaks of one hour each, to get through +this obstacle. Anything more monotonous and wearying could not be +imagined, for, even at the most open places, I could not see more +than ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision was limited to +the back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me, and to the +yellow wall within a foot of me on either side. From above came +one thin knife-edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our heads +one saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky. +I do not know what kind of creatures inhabit such a thicket, but +several times we heard the plunging of large, heavy animals quite +close to us. From their sounds Lord John judged them to be some +form of wild cattle. Just as night fell we cleared the belt of +bamboos, and at once formed our camp, exhausted by the +interminable day. + +Early next morning we were again afoot, and found that the +character of the country had changed once again. Behind us was +the wall of bamboo, as definite as if it marked the course of +a river. In front was an open plain, sloping slightly upwards +and dotted with clumps of tree-ferns, the whole curving before +us until it ended in a long, whale-backed ridge. This we reached +about midday, only to find a shallow valley beyond, rising once +again into a gentle incline which led to a low, rounded sky-line. +It was here, while we crossed the first of these hills, that an +incident occurred which may or may not have been important. + +Professor Challenger, who with the two local Indians was in the van +of the party, stopped suddenly and pointed excitedly to the right. +As he did so we saw, at the distance of a mile or so, something +which appeared to be a huge gray bird flap slowly up from the +ground and skim smoothly off, flying very low and straight, until +it was lost among the tree-ferns. + +"Did you see it?" cried Challenger, in exultation. "Summerlee, did +you see it?" + +His colleague was staring at the spot where the creature had disappeared. + +"What do you claim that it was?" he asked. + +"To the best of my belief, a pterodactyl." + +Summerlee burst into derisive laughter "A pter-fiddlestick!" said he. +"It was a stork, if ever I saw one." + +Challenger was too furious to speak. He simply swung his pack +upon his back and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreast +of me, however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. +He had his Zeiss glasses in his hand. + +"I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won't +undertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as a +sportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes on in +my life." + +So there the matter stands. Are we really just at the edge of +the unknown, encountering the outlying pickets of this lost world +of which our leader speaks? I give you the incident as it +occurred and you will know as much as I do. It stands alone, for +we saw nothing more which could be called remarkable. + +And now, my readers, if ever I have any, I have brought you up +the broad river, and through the screen of rushes, and down the +green tunnel, and up the long slope of palm trees, and through +the bamboo brake, and across the plain of tree-ferns. At last +our destination lay in full sight of us. When we had crossed +the second ridge we saw before us an irregular, palm-studded +plain, and then the line of high red cliffs which I have seen +in the picture. There it lies, even as I write, and there can +be no question that it is the same. At the nearest point it is +about seven miles from our present camp, and it curves away, +stretching as far as I can see. Challenger struts about like +a prize peacock, and Summerlee is silent, but still sceptical. +Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. +Meanwhile, as Jose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, +insists upon returning, I send this letter back in his charge, +and only hope that it may eventually come to hand. I will write +again as the occasion serves. I have enclosed with this a rough +chart of our journey, which may have the effect of making the +account rather easier to understand. + + + CHAPTER IX + + "Who could have Foreseen it?" + +A dreadful thing has happened to us. Who could have foreseen it? +I cannot foresee any end to our troubles. It may be that we are +condemned to spend our whole lives in this strange, inaccessible place. +I am still so confused that I can hardly think clearly of the facts +of the present or of the chances of the future. To my astounded +senses the one seems most terrible and the other as black as night. + +No men have ever found themselves in a worse position; nor is +there any use in disclosing to you our exact geographical +situation and asking our friends for a relief party. Even if +they could send one, our fate will in all human probability be +decided long before it could arrive in South America. + +We are, in truth, as far from any human aid as if we were in +the moon. If we are to win through, it is only our own qualities +which can save us. I have as companions three remarkable men, men +of great brain-power and of unshaken courage. There lies our one +and only hope. It is only when I look upon the untroubled faces +of my comrades that I see some glimmer through the darkness. +Outwardly I trust that I appear as unconcerned as they. Inwardly I +am filled with apprehension. + +Let me give you, with as much detail as I can, the sequence of +events which have led us to this catastrophe. + +When I finished my last letter I stated that we were within seven +miles from an enormous line of ruddy cliffs, which encircled, +beyond all doubt, the plateau of which Professor Challenger spoke. +Their height, as we approached them, seemed to me in some places +to be greater than he had stated--running up in parts to at least +a thousand feet--and they were curiously striated, in a manner +which is, I believe, characteristic of basaltic upheavals. +Something of the sort is to be seen in Salisbury Crags at Edinburgh. +The summit showed every sign of a luxuriant vegetation, with bushes +near the edge, and farther back many high trees. There was no +indication of any life that we could see. + +That night we pitched our camp immediately under the cliff--a +most wild and desolate spot. The crags above us were not merely +perpendicular, but curved outwards at the top, so that ascent was +out of the question. Close to us was the high thin pinnacle of +rock which I believe I mentioned earlier in this narrative. It is +like a broad red church spire, the top of it being level with the +plateau, but a great chasm gaping between. On the summit of it +there grew one high tree. Both pinnacle and cliff were +comparatively low--some five or six hundred feet, I should think. + +"It was on that," said Professor Challenger, pointing to this +tree, "that the pterodactyl was perched. I climbed half-way up +the rock before I shot him. I am inclined to think that a good +mountaineer like myself could ascend the rock to the top, though +he would, of course, be no nearer to the plateau when he had done so." + +As Challenger spoke of his pterodactyl I glanced at Professor +Summerlee, and for the first time I seemed to see some signs of a +dawning credulity and repentance. There was no sneer upon his +thin lips, but, on the contrary, a gray, drawn look of excitement +and amazement. Challenger saw it, too, and reveled in the first +taste of victory. + +"Of course," said he, with his clumsy and ponderous sarcasm, +"Professor Summerlee will understand that when I speak of a +pterodactyl I mean a stork--only it is the kind of stork which +has no feathers, a leathery skin, membranous wings, and teeth in +its jaws." He grinned and blinked and bowed until his colleague +turned and walked away. + +In the morning, after a frugal breakfast of coffee and manioc--we +had to be economical of our stores--we held a council of war as +to the best method of ascending to the plateau above us. + +Challenger presided with a solemnity as if he were the Lord Chief +Justice on the Bench. Picture him seated upon a rock, his absurd +boyish straw hat tilted on the back of his head, his supercilious +eyes dominating us from under his drooping lids, his great black +beard wagging as he slowly defined our present situation and our +future movements. + +Beneath him you might have seen the three of us--myself, +sunburnt, young, and vigorous after our open-air tramp; +Summerlee, solemn but still critical, behind his eternal pipe; +Lord John, as keen as a razor-edge, with his supple, alert figure +leaning upon his rifle, and his eager eyes fixed eagerly upon +the speaker. Behind us were grouped the two swarthy half-breeds +and the little knot of Indians, while in front and above us towered +those huge, ruddy ribs of rocks which kept us from our goal. + +"I need not say," said our leader, "that on the occasion of my +last visit I exhausted every means of climbing the cliff, and +where I failed I do not think that anyone else is likely to +succeed, for I am something of a mountaineer. I had none of the +appliances of a rock-climber with me, but I have taken the +precaution to bring them now. With their aid I am positive I +could climb that detached pinnacle to the summit; but so long as +the main cliff overhangs, it is vain to attempt ascending that. +I was hurried upon my last visit by the approach of the rainy +season and by the exhaustion of my supplies. These considerations +limited my time, and I can only claim that I have surveyed about +six miles of the cliff to the east of us, finding no possible +way up. What, then, shall we now do?" + +"There seems to be only one reasonable course," said Professor Summerlee. +"If you have explored the east, we should travel along the base of the +cliff to the west, and seek for a practicable point for our ascent." + +"That's it," said Lord John. "The odds are that this plateau is of +no great size, and we shall travel round it until we either find an +easy way up it, or come back to the point from which we started." + +"I have already explained to our young friend here," said +Challenger (he has a way of alluding to me as if I were a school +child ten years old), "that it is quite impossible that there +should be an easy way up anywhere, for the simple reason that if +there were the summit would not be isolated, and those conditions +would not obtain which have effected so singular an interference +with the general laws of survival. Yet I admit that there may +very well be places where an expert human climber may reach the +summit, and yet a cumbrous and heavy animal be unable to descend. +It is certain that there is a point where an ascent is possible." + +"How do you know that, sir?" asked Summerlee, sharply. + +"Because my predecessor, the American Maple White, actually made +such an ascent. How otherwise could he have seen the monster +which he sketched in his notebook?" + +"There you reason somewhat ahead of the proved facts," said the +stubborn Summerlee. "I admit your plateau, because I have seen +it; but I have not as yet satisfied myself that it contains any +form of life whatever." + +"What you admit, sir, or what you do not admit, is really of +inconceivably small importance. I am glad to perceive that the +plateau itself has actually obtruded itself upon your intelligence." +He glanced up at it, and then, to our amazement, he sprang from his +rock, and, seizing Summerlee by the neck, he tilted his face into +the air. "Now sir!" he shouted, hoarse with excitement. "Do I +help you to realize that the plateau contains some animal life?" + +I have said that a thick fringe of green overhung the edge of the cliff. +Out of this there had emerged a black, glistening object. As it came +slowly forth and overhung the chasm, we saw that it was a very large +snake with a peculiar flat, spade-like head. It wavered and quivered +above us for a minute, the morning sun gleaming upon its sleek, +sinuous coils. Then it slowly drew inwards and disappeared. + +Summerlee had been so interested that he had stood unresisting +while Challenger tilted his head into the air. Now he shook his +colleague off and came back to his dignity. + +"I should be glad, Professor Challenger," said he, "if you could +see your way to make any remarks which may occur to you without +seizing me by the chin. Even the appearance of a very ordinary +rock python does not appear to justify such a liberty." + +"But there is life upon the plateau all the same," his colleague +replied in triumph. "And now, having demonstrated this important +conclusion so that it is clear to anyone, however prejudiced or +obtuse, I am of opinion that we cannot do better than break up +our camp and travel to westward until we find some means of ascent." + +The ground at the foot of the cliff was rocky and broken so that +the going was slow and difficult. Suddenly we came, however, +upon something which cheered our hearts. It was the site of an +old encampment, with several empty Chicago meat tins, a bottle +labeled "Brandy," a broken tin-opener, and a quantity of other +travelers' debris. A crumpled, disintegrated newspaper revealed +itself as the Chicago Democrat, though the date had been obliterated. + +"Not mine," said Challenger. "It must be Maple White's." + +Lord John had been gazing curiously at a great tree-fern which +overshadowed the encampment. "I say, look at this," said he. +"I believe it is meant for a sign-post." + +A slip of hard wood had been nailed to the tree in such a way as +to point to the westward. + +"Most certainly a sign-post," said Challenger. "What else? +Finding himself upon a dangerous errand, our pioneer has left +this sign so that any party which follows him may know the way he +has taken. Perhaps we shall come upon some other indications as +we proceed." + +We did indeed, but they were of a terrible and most unexpected nature. +Immediately beneath the cliff there grew a considerable patch of high +bamboo, like that which we had traversed in our journey. Many of +these stems were twenty feet high, with sharp, strong tops, so that +even as they stood they made formidable spears. We were passing +along the edge of this cover when my eye was caught by the gleam of +something white within it. Thrusting in my head between the stems, +I found myself gazing at a fleshless skull. The whole skeleton was +there, but the skull had detached itself and lay some feet nearer to +the open. + +With a few blows from the machetes of our Indians we cleared the +spot and were able to study the details of this old tragedy. +Only a few shreds of clothes could still be distinguished, but +there were the remains of boots upon the bony feet, and it was +very clear that the dead man was a European. A gold watch by +Hudson, of New York, and a chain which held a stylographic pen, +lay among the bones. There was also a silver cigarette-case, +with "J. C., from A. E. S.," upon the lid. The state of the +metal seemed to show that the catastrophe had occurred no great +time before. + +"Who can he be?" asked Lord John. "Poor devil! every bone in his +body seems to be broken." + +"And the bamboo grows through his smashed ribs," said Summerlee. +"It is a fast-growing plant, but it is surely inconceivable that +this body could have been here while the canes grew to be twenty +feet in length." + +"As to the man's identity," said Professor Challenger, "I have no +doubt whatever upon that point. As I made my way up the river +before I reached you at the fazenda I instituted very particular +inquiries about Maple White. At Para they knew nothing. +Fortunately, I had a definite clew, for there was a particular +picture in his sketch-book which showed him taking lunch with a +certain ecclesiastic at Rosario. This priest I was able to find, +and though he proved a very argumentative fellow, who took it +absurdly amiss that I should point out to him the corrosive +effect which modern science must have upon his beliefs, he none +the less gave me some positive information. Maple White passed +Rosario four years ago, or two years before I saw his dead body. +He was not alone at the time, but there was a friend, an American +named James Colver, who remained in the boat and did not meet +this ecclesiastic. I think, therefore, that there can be no doubt +that we are now looking upon the remains of this James Colver." + +"Nor," said Lord John, "is there much doubt as to how he met +his death. He has fallen or been chucked from the top, and so +been impaled. How else could he come by his broken bones, and +how could he have been stuck through by these canes with their +points so high above our heads?" + +A hush came over us as we stood round these shattered remains and +realized the truth of Lord John Roxton's words. The beetling +head of the cliff projected over the cane-brake. Undoubtedly he +had fallen from above. But had he fallen? Had it been an accident? +Or--already ominous and terrible possibilities began to form round +that unknown land. + +We moved off in silence, and continued to coast round the line +of cliffs, which were as even and unbroken as some of those +monstrous Antarctic ice-fields which I have seen depicted as +stretching from horizon to horizon and towering high above the +mast-heads of the exploring vessel. + +In five miles we saw no rift or break. And then suddenly we +perceived something which filled us with new hope. In a hollow +of the rock, protected from rain, there was drawn a rough arrow +in chalk, pointing still to the westwards. + +"Maple White again," said Professor Challenger. "He had some +presentiment that worthy footsteps would follow close behind him." + +"He had chalk, then?" + +"A box of colored chalks was among the effects I found in +his knapsack. I remember that the white one was worn to a stump." + +"That is certainly good evidence," said Summerlee. "We can only +accept his guidance and follow on to the westward." + +We had proceeded some five more miles when again we saw a white +arrow upon the rocks. It was at a point where the face of the +cliff was for the first time split into a narrow cleft. Inside the +cleft was a second guidance mark, which pointed right up it with +the tip somewhat elevated, as if the spot indicated were above +the level of the ground. + +It was a solemn place, for the walls were so gigantic and the +slit of blue sky so narrow and so obscured by a double fringe +of verdure, that only a dim and shadowy light penetrated to +the bottom. We had had no food for many hours, and were very +weary with the stony and irregular journey, but our nerves were +too strung to allow us to halt. We ordered the camp to be pitched, +however, and, leaving the Indians to arrange it, we four, with +the two half-breeds, proceeded up the narrow gorge. + +It was not more than forty feet across at the mouth, but it +rapidly closed until it ended in an acute angle, too straight +and smooth for an ascent. Certainly it was not this which our +pioneer had attempted to indicate. We made our way back--the +whole gorge was not more than a quarter of a mile deep--and +then suddenly the quick eyes of Lord John fell upon what we +were seeking. High up above our heads, amid the dark shadows, +there was one circle of deeper gloom. Surely it could only be +the opening of a cave. + +The base of the cliff was heaped with loose stones at the spot, +and it was not difficult to clamber up. When we reached it, all +doubt was removed. Not only was it an opening into the rock, but +on the side of it there was marked once again the sign of the arrow. +Here was the point, and this the means by which Maple White and his +ill-fated comrade had made their ascent. + +We were too excited to return to the camp, but must make our +first exploration at once. Lord John had an electric torch in +his knapsack, and this had to serve us as light. He advanced, +throwing his little clear circlet of yellow radiance before him, +while in single file we followed at his heels. + +The cave had evidently been water-worn, the sides being smooth +and the floor covered with rounded stones. It was of such a size +that a single man could just fit through by stooping. For fifty +yards it ran almost straight into the rock, and then it ascended +at an angle of forty-five. Presently this incline became even +steeper, and we found ourselves climbing upon hands and knees +among loose rubble which slid from beneath us. Suddenly an +exclamation broke from Lord Roxton. + +"It's blocked!" said he. + +Clustering behind him we saw in the yellow field of light a wall +of broken basalt which extended to the ceiling. + +"The roof has fallen in!" + +In vain we dragged out some of the pieces. The only effect was +that the larger ones became detached and threatened to roll down +the gradient and crush us. It was evident that the obstacle was +far beyond any efforts which we could make to remove it. The road +by which Maple White had ascended was no longer available. + +Too much cast down to speak, we stumbled down the dark tunnel and +made our way back to the camp. + +One incident occurred, however, before we left the gorge, which +is of importance in view of what came afterwards. + +We had gathered in a little group at the bottom of the chasm, +some forty feet beneath the mouth of the cave, when a huge rock +rolled suddenly downwards--and shot past us with tremendous force. +It was the narrowest escape for one or all of us. We could not +ourselves see whence the rock had come, but our half-breed +servants, who were still at the opening of the cave, said that +it had flown past them, and must therefore have fallen from +the summit. Looking upwards, we could see no sign of movement +above us amidst the green jungle which topped the cliff. +There could be little doubt, however, that the stone was aimed +at us, so the incident surely pointed to humanity--and malevolent +humanity--upon the plateau. + +We withdrew hurriedly from the chasm, our minds full of this new +development and its bearing upon our plans. The situation was +difficult enough before, but if the obstructions of Nature were +increased by the deliberate opposition of man, then our case was +indeed a hopeless one. And yet, as we looked up at that +beautiful fringe of verdure only a few hundreds of feet above +our heads, there was not one of us who could conceive the idea +of returning to London until we had explored it to its depths. + +On discussing the situation, we determined that our best course +was to continue to coast round the plateau in the hope of finding +some other means of reaching the top. The line of cliffs, which +had decreased considerably in height, had already begun to trend +from west to north, and if we could take this as representing the +arc of a circle, the whole circumference could not be very great. +At the worst, then, we should be back in a few days at our +starting-point. + +We made a march that day which totaled some two-and-twenty miles, +without any change in our prospects. I may mention that our +aneroid shows us that in the continual incline which we have +ascended since we abandoned our canoes we have risen to no less +than three thousand feet above sea-level. Hence there is a +considerable change both in the temperature and in the vegetation. +We have shaken off some of that horrible insect life which is +the bane of tropical travel. A few palms still survive, and many +tree-ferns, but the Amazonian trees have been all left behind. +It was pleasant to see the convolvulus, the passion-flower, and +the begonia, all reminding me of home, here among these +inhospitable rocks. There was a red begonia just the same color +as one that is kept in a pot in the window of a certain villa +in Streatham--but I am drifting into private reminiscence. + +That night--I am still speaking of the first day of our +circumnavigation of the plateau--a great experience awaited us, +and one which for ever set at rest any doubt which we could have +had as to the wonders so near us. + +You will realize as you read it, my dear Mr. McArdle, and +possibly for the first time that the paper has not sent me on a +wild-goose chase, and that there is inconceivably fine copy +waiting for the world whenever we have the Professor's leave to +make use of it. I shall not dare to publish these articles +unless I can bring back my proofs to England, or I shall be +hailed as the journalistic Munchausen of all time. I have no +doubt that you feel the same way yourself, and that you would not +care to stake the whole credit of the Gazette upon this adventure +until we can meet the chorus of criticism and scepticism which +such articles must of necessity elicit. So this wonderful +incident, which would make such a headline for the old paper, +must still wait its turn in the editorial drawer. + +And yet it was all over in a flash, and there was no sequel to it, +save in our own convictions. + +What occurred was this. Lord John had shot an ajouti--which is a +small, pig-like animal--and, half of it having been given to the +Indians, we were cooking the other half upon our fire. There is +a chill in the air after dark, and we had all drawn close to +the blaze. The night was moonless, but there were some stars, +and one could see for a little distance across the plain. +Well, suddenly out of the darkness, out of the night, there swooped +something with a swish like an aeroplane. The whole group of us +were covered for an instant by a canopy of leathery wings, and I +had a momentary vision of a long, snake-like neck, a fierce, red, +greedy eye, and a great snapping beak, filled, to my amazement, +with little, gleaming teeth. The next instant it was gone--and +so was our dinner. A huge black shadow, twenty feet across, +skimmed up into the air; for an instant the monster wings blotted +out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliff +above us. We all sat in amazed silence round the fire, like the +heroes of Virgil when the Harpies came down upon them. It was +Summerlee who was the first to speak. + +"Professor Challenger," said he, in a solemn voice, which +quavered with emotion, "I owe you an apology. Sir, I am very +much in the wrong, and I beg that you will forget what is past." + +It was handsomely said, and the two men for the first time shook hands. +So much we have gained by this clear vision of our first pterodactyl. +It was worth a stolen supper to bring two such men together. + +But if prehistoric life existed upon the plateau it was not +superabundant, for we had no further glimpse of it during the +next three days. During this time we traversed a barren and +forbidding country, which alternated between stony desert and +desolate marshes full of many wild-fowl, upon the north and +east of the cliffs. From that direction the place is really +inaccessible, and, were it not for a hardish ledge which runs at +the very base of the precipice, we should have had to turn back. +Many times we were up to our waists in the slime and blubber of +an old, semi-tropical swamp. To make matters worse, the place +seemed to be a favorite breeding-place of the Jaracaca snake, the +most venomous and aggressive in South America. Again and again +these horrible creatures came writhing and springing towards us +across the surface of this putrid bog, and it was only by keeping +our shot-guns for ever ready that we could feel safe from them. +One funnel-shaped depression in the morass, of a livid green in +color from some lichen which festered in it, will always remain +as a nightmare memory in my mind. It seems to have been a +special nest of these vermins, and the slopes were alive with +them, all writhing in our direction, for it is a peculiarity +of the Jaracaca that he will always attack man at first sight. +There were too many for us to shoot, so we fairly took to our +heels and ran until we were exhausted. I shall always remember +as we looked back how far behind we could see the heads and necks +of our horrible pursuers rising and falling amid the reeds. +Jaracaca Swamp we named it in the map which we are constructing. + +The cliffs upon the farther side had lost their ruddy tint, being +chocolate-brown in color; the vegetation was more scattered along +the top of them, and they had sunk to three or four hundred feet +in height, but in no place did we find any point where they could +be ascended. If anything, they were more impossible than at the +first point where we had met them. Their absolute steepness is +indicated in the photograph which I took over the stony desert. + +"Surely," said I, as we discussed the situation, "the rain must +find its way down somehow. There are bound to be water-channels +in the rocks." + +"Our young friend has glimpses of lucidity," said Professor +Challenger, patting me upon the shoulder. + +"The rain must go somewhere," I repeated. + +"He keeps a firm grip upon actuality. The only drawback is that +we have conclusively proved by ocular demonstration that there +are no water channels down the rocks." + +"Where, then, does it go?" I persisted. + +"I think it may be fairly assumed that if it does not come +outwards it must run inwards." + +"Then there is a lake in the center." + +"So I should suppose." + +"It is more than likely that the lake may be an old crater," +said Summerlee. "The whole formation is, of course, highly volcanic. +But, however that may be, I should expect to find the surface of the +plateau slope inwards with a considerable sheet of water in the center, +which may drain off, by some subterranean channel, into the marshes +of the Jaracaca Swamp." + +"Or evaporation might preserve an equilibrium," remarked +Challenger, and the two learned men wandered off into one of +their usual scientific arguments, which were as comprehensible as +Chinese to the layman. + +On the sixth day we completed our first circuit of the cliffs, +and found ourselves back at the first camp, beside the isolated +pinnacle of rock. We were a disconsolate party, for nothing +could have been more minute than our investigation, and it was +absolutely certain that there was no single point where the most +active human being could possibly hope to scale the cliff. +The place which Maple White's chalk-marks had indicated as his +own means of access was now entirely impassable. + +What were we to do now? Our stores of provisions, supplemented by +our guns, were holding out well, but the day must come when they +would need replenishment. In a couple of months the rains might +be expected, and we should be washed out of our camp. The rock +was harder than marble, and any attempt at cutting a path for so +great a height was more than our time or resources would admit. +No wonder that we looked gloomily at each other that night, and +sought our blankets with hardly a word exchanged. I remember +that as I dropped off to sleep my last recollection was that +Challenger was squatting, like a monstrous bull-frog, by the fire, +his huge head in his hands, sunk apparently in the deepest thought, +and entirely oblivious to the good-night which I wished him. + +But it was a very different Challenger who greeted us in the +morning--a Challenger with contentment and self-congratulation +shining from his whole person. He faced us as we assembled for +breakfast with a deprecating false modesty in his eyes, as who +should say, "I know that I deserve all that you can say, but I +pray you to spare my blushes by not saying it." His beard +bristled exultantly, his chest was thrown out, and his hand was +thrust into the front of his jacket. So, in his fancy, may he +see himself sometimes, gracing the vacant pedestal in Trafalgar +Square, and adding one more to the horrors of the London streets. + +"Eureka!" he cried, his teeth shining through his beard. +"Gentlemen, you may congratulate me and we may congratulate +each other. The problem is solved." + +"You have found a way up?" + +"I venture to think so." + +"And where?" + +For answer he pointed to the spire-like pinnacle upon our right. + +Our faces--or mine, at least--fell as we surveyed it. That it +could be climbed we had our companion's assurance. But a horrible +abyss lay between it and the plateau. + +"We can never get across," I gasped. + +"We can at least all reach the summit," said he. "When we are up +I may be able to show you that the resources of an inventive mind +are not yet exhausted." + +After breakfast we unpacked the bundle in which our leader had +brought his climbing accessories. From it he took a coil of the +strongest and lightest rope, a hundred and fifty feet in length, +with climbing irons, clamps, and other devices. Lord John was +an experienced mountaineer, and Summerlee had done some rough +climbing at various times, so that I was really the novice at +rock-work of the party; but my strength and activity may have +made up for my want of experience. + +It was not in reality a very stiff task, though there were +moments which made my hair bristle upon my head. The first half +was perfectly easy, but from there upwards it became continually +steeper until, for the last fifty feet, we were literally +clinging with our fingers and toes to tiny ledges and crevices in +the rock. I could not have accomplished it, nor could Summerlee, +if Challenger had not gained the summit (it was extraordinary to +see such activity in so unwieldy a creature) and there fixed the +rope round the trunk of the considerable tree which grew there. +With this as our support, we were soon able to scramble up the +jagged wall until we found ourselves upon the small grassy +platform, some twenty-five feet each way, which formed the summit. + +The first impression which I received when I had recovered my +breath was of the extraordinary view over the country which we +had traversed. The whole Brazilian plain seemed to lie beneath +us, extending away and away until it ended in dim blue mists upon +the farthest sky-line. In the foreground was the long slope, +strewn with rocks and dotted with tree-ferns; farther off in the +middle distance, looking over the saddle-back hill, I could just +see the yellow and green mass of bamboos through which we had +passed; and then, gradually, the vegetation increased until it +formed the huge forest which extended as far as the eyes could +reach, and for a good two thousand miles beyond. + +I was still drinking in this wonderful panorama when the heavy +hand of the Professor fell upon my shoulder. + +"This way, my young friend," said he; "vestigia nulla retrorsum. +Never look rearwards, but always to our glorious goal." + +The level of the plateau, when I turned, was exactly that on +which we stood, and the green bank of bushes, with occasional +trees, was so near that it was difficult to realize how +inaccessible it remained. At a rough guess the gulf was forty +feet across, but, so far as I could see, it might as well have +been forty miles. I placed one arm round the trunk of the tree +and leaned over the abyss. Far down were the small dark figures +of our servants, looking up at us. The wall was absolutely +precipitous, as was that which faced me. + +"This is indeed curious," said the creaking voice of Professor Summerlee. + +I turned, and found that he was examining with great interest the +tree to which I clung. That smooth bark and those small, ribbed +leaves seemed familiar to my eyes. "Why," I cried, "it's a beech!" + +"Exactly," said Summerlee. "A fellow-countryman in a far land." + +"Not only a fellow-countryman, my good sir," said Challenger, +"but also, if I may be allowed to enlarge your simile, an ally of +the first value. This beech tree will be our saviour." + +"By George!" cried Lord John, "a bridge!" + +"Exactly, my friends, a bridge! It is not for nothing that +I expended an hour last night in focusing my mind upon +the situation. I have some recollection of once remarking +to our young friend here that G. E. C. is at his best when +his back is to the wall. Last night you will admit that all +our backs were to the wall. But where will-power and intellect +go together, there is always a way out. A drawbridge had to be +found which could be dropped across the abyss. Behold it!" + +It was certainly a brilliant idea. The tree was a good sixty +feet in height, and if it only fell the right way it would easily +cross the chasm. Challenger had slung the camp axe over his +shoulder when he ascended. Now he handed it to me. + +"Our young friend has the thews and sinews," said he. "I think +he will be the most useful at this task. I must beg, however, +that you will kindly refrain from thinking for yourself, and that +you will do exactly what you are told." + +Under his direction I cut such gashes in the sides of the trees +as would ensure that it should fall as we desired. It had +already a strong, natural tilt in the direction of the plateau, +so that the matter was not difficult. Finally I set to work in +earnest upon the trunk, taking turn and turn with Lord John. +In a little over an hour there was a loud crack, the tree swayed +forward, and then crashed over, burying its branches among the +bushes on the farther side. The severed trunk rolled to the very +edge of our platform, and for one terrible second we all thought +it was over. It balanced itself, however, a few inches from the +edge, and there was our bridge to the unknown. + +All of us, without a word, shook hands with Professor Challenger, +who raised his straw hat and bowed deeply to each in turn. + +"I claim the honor," said he, "to be the first to cross to the +unknown land--a fitting subject, no doubt, for some future +historical painting." + +He had approached the bridge when Lord John laid his hand upon +his coat. + +"My dear chap," said he, "I really cannot allow it." + +"Cannot allow it, sir!" The head went back and the beard forward. + +"When it is a matter of science, don't you know, I follow your +lead because you are by way of bein' a man of science. But it's +up to you to follow me when you come into my department." + +"Your department, sir?" + +"We all have our professions, and soldierin' is mine. We are, +accordin' to my ideas, invadin' a new country, which may or may +not be chock-full of enemies of sorts. To barge blindly into it +for want of a little common sense and patience isn't my notion +of management." + +The remonstrance was too reasonable to be disregarded. +Challenger tossed his head and shrugged his heavy shoulders. + +"Well, sir, what do you propose?" + +"For all I know there may be a tribe of cannibals waitin' for +lunch-time among those very bushes," said Lord John, looking +across the bridge. "It's better to learn wisdom before you get +into a cookin'-pot; so we will content ourselves with hopin' that +there is no trouble waitin' for us, and at the same time we will +act as if there were. Malone and I will go down again, therefore, +and we will fetch up the four rifles, together with Gomez and +the other. One man can then go across and the rest will cover +him with guns, until he sees that it is safe for the whole crowd +to come along." + +Challenger sat down upon the cut stump and groaned his +impatience; but Summerlee and I were of one mind that Lord John +was our leader when such practical details were in question. +The climb was a more simple thing now that the rope dangled down +the face of the worst part of the ascent. Within an hour we had +brought up the rifles and a shot-gun. The half-breeds had ascended +also, and under Lord John's orders they had carried up a bale of +provisions in case our first exploration should be a long one. +We had each bandoliers of cartridges. + +"Now, Challenger, if you really insist upon being the first man +in," said Lord John, when every preparation was complete. + +"I am much indebted to you for your gracious permission," said +the angry Professor; for never was a man so intolerant of every +form of authority. "Since you are good enough to allow it, I +shall most certainly take it upon myself to act as pioneer upon +this occasion." + +Seating himself with a leg overhanging the abyss on each side, +and his hatchet slung upon his back, Challenger hopped his way +across the trunk and was soon at the other side. He clambered +up and waved his arms in the air. + +"At last!" he cried; "at last!" + +I gazed anxiously at him, with a vague expectation that some +terrible fate would dart at him from the curtain of green +behind him. But all was quiet, save that a strange, many- +colored bird flew up from under his feet and vanished among +the trees. + +Summerlee was the second. His wiry energy is wonderful in so frail +a frame. He insisted upon having two rifles slung upon his back, +so that both Professors were armed when he had made his transit. +I came next, and tried hard not to look down into the horrible +gulf over which I was passing. Summerlee held out the butt-end +of his rifle, and an instant later I was able to grasp his hand. +As to Lord John, he walked across--actually walked without support! +He must have nerves of iron. + +And there we were, the four of us, upon the dreamland, the lost +world, of Maple White. To all of us it seemed the moment of our +supreme triumph. Who could have guessed that it was the prelude +to our supreme disaster? Let me say in a few words how the +crushing blow fell upon us. + +We had turned away from the edge, and had penetrated about fifty +yards of close brushwood, when there came a frightful rending +crash from behind us. With one impulse we rushed back the way +that we had come. The bridge was gone! + +Far down at the base of the cliff I saw, as I looked over, a +tangled mass of branches and splintered trunk. It was our +beech tree. Had the edge of the platform crumbled and let +it through? For a moment this explanation was in all our minds. +The next, from the farther side of the rocky pinnacle before us +a swarthy face, the face of Gomez the half-breed, was +slowly protruded. Yes, it was Gomez, but no longer the Gomez +of the demure smile and the mask-like expression. Here was a +face with flashing eyes and distorted features, a face convulsed +with hatred and with the mad joy of gratified revenge. + +"Lord Roxton!" he shouted. "Lord John Roxton!" + +"Well," said our companion, "here I am." + +A shriek of laughter came across the abyss. + +"Yes, there you are, you English dog, and there you will remain! +I have waited and waited, and now has come my chance. You found +it hard to get up; you will find it harder to get down. You cursed +fools, you are trapped, every one of you!" + +We were too astounded to speak. We could only stand there staring +in amazement. A great broken bough upon the grass showed whence +he had gained his leverage to tilt over our bridge. The face had +vanished, but presently it was up again, more frantic than before. + +"We nearly killed you with a stone at the cave," he cried; "but +this is better. It is slower and more terrible. Your bones will +whiten up there, and none will know where you lie or come to +cover them. As you lie dying, think of Lopez, whom you shot five +years ago on the Putomayo River. I am his brother, and, come +what will I will die happy now, for his memory has been avenged." +A furious hand was shaken at us, and then all was quiet. + +Had the half-breed simply wrought his vengeance and then escaped, +all might have been well with him. It was that foolish, +irresistible Latin impulse to be dramatic which brought his +own downfall. Roxton, the man who had earned himself the name of +the Flail of the Lord through three countries, was not one who +could be safely taunted. The half-breed was descending on the +farther side of the pinnacle; but before he could reach the ground +Lord John had run along the edge of the plateau and gained a point +from which he could see his man. There was a single crack of his +rifle, and, though we saw nothing, we heard the scream and then +the distant thud of the falling body. Roxton came back to us with +a face of granite. + +"I have been a blind simpleton," said he, bitterly, "It's my +folly that has brought you all into this trouble. I should have +remembered that these people have long memories for blood-feuds, +and have been more upon my guard." + +"What about the other one? It took two of them to lever that tree +over the edge." + +"I could have shot him, but I let him go. He may have had no +part in it. Perhaps it would have been better if I had killed +him, for he must, as you say, have lent a hand." + +Now that we had the clue to his action, each of us could cast +back and remember some sinister act upon the part of the +half-breed--his constant desire to know our plans, his arrest +outside our tent when he was over-hearing them, the furtive +looks of hatred which from time to time one or other of us +had surprised. We were still discussing it, endeavoring to adjust +our minds to these new conditions, when a singular scene in the +plain below arrested our attention. + +A man in white clothes, who could only be the surviving half- +breed, was running as one does run when Death is the pacemaker. +Behind him, only a few yards in his rear, bounded the huge +ebony figure of Zambo, our devoted negro. Even as we looked, +he sprang upon the back of the fugitive and flung his arms +round his neck. They rolled on the ground together. An instant +afterwards Zambo rose, looked at the prostrate man, and then, +waving his hand joyously to us, came running in our direction. +The white figure lay motionless in the middle of the great plain. + +Our two traitors had been destroyed, but the mischief that they +had done lived after them. By no possible means could we get back +to the pinnacle. We had been natives of the world; now we were +natives of the plateau. The two things were separate and apart. +There was the plain which led to the canoes. Yonder, beyond the +violet, hazy horizon, was the stream which led back to civilization. +But the link between was missing. No human ingenuity could suggest +a means of bridging the chasm which yawned between ourselves and +our past lives. One instant had altered the whole conditions of +our existence. + +It was at such a moment that I learned the stuff of which my +three comrades were composed. They were grave, it is true, and +thoughtful, but of an invincible serenity. For the moment we +could only sit among the bushes in patience and wait the coming +of Zambo. Presently his honest black face topped the rocks and +his Herculean figure emerged upon the top of the pinnacle. + +"What I do now?" he cried. "You tell me and I do it." + +It was a question which it was easier to ask than to answer. +One thing only was clear. He was our one trusty link with the +outside world. On no account must he leave us. + +"No no!" he cried. "I not leave you. Whatever come, you always +find me here. But no able to keep Indians. Already they say too +much Curupuri live on this place, and they go home. Now you +leave them me no able to keep them." + +It was a fact that our Indians had shown in many ways of late +that they were weary of their journey and anxious to return. +We realized that Zambo spoke the truth, and that it would be +impossible for him to keep them. + +"Make them wait till to-morrow, Zambo," I shouted; "then I can +send letter back by them." + +"Very good, sarr! I promise they wait till to-morrow," said the negro. +"But what I do for you now?" + +There was plenty for him to do, and admirably the faithful fellow +did it. First of all, under our directions, he undid the rope +from the tree-stump and threw one end of it across to us. It was +not thicker than a clothes-line, but it was of great strength, +and though we could not make a bridge of it, we might well find +it invaluable if we had any climbing to do. He then fastened his +end of the rope to the package of supplies which had been carried +up, and we were able to drag it across. This gave us the means +of life for at least a week, even if we found nothing else. +Finally he descended and carried up two other packets of mixed +goods--a box of ammunition and a number of other things, all of +which we got across by throwing our rope to him and hauling it back. +It was evening when he at last climbed down, with a final assurance +that he would keep the Indians till next morning. + +And so it is that I have spent nearly the whole of this our first +night upon the plateau writing up our experiences by the light of +a single candle-lantern. + +We supped and camped at the very edge of the cliff, quenching +our thirst with two bottles of Apollinaris which were in one of +the cases. It is vital to us to find water, but I think even Lord +John himself had had adventures enough for one day, and none of us +felt inclined to make the first push into the unknown. We forbore +to light a fire or to make any unnecessary sound. + +To-morrow (or to-day, rather, for it is already dawn as I write) +we shall make our first venture into this strange land. When I +shall be able to write again--or if I ever shall write again--I +know not. Meanwhile, I can see that the Indians are still in +their place, and I am sure that the faithful Zambo will be here +presently to get my letter. I only trust that it will come to hand. + + +P.S.--The more I think the more desperate does our position seem. +I see no possible hope of our return. If there were a high tree +near the edge of the plateau we might drop a return bridge +across, but there is none within fifty yards. Our united +strength could not carry a trunk which would serve our purpose. +The rope, of course, is far too short that we could descend by it. +No, our position is hopeless--hopeless! + + + CHAPTER X + + "The most Wonderful Things have Happened" + +The most wonderful things have happened and are continually +happening to us. All the paper that I possess consists of five +old note-books and a lot of scraps, and I have only the one +stylographic pencil; but so long as I can move my hand I will +continue to set down our experiences and impressions, for, since +we are the only men of the whole human race to see such things, +it is of enormous importance that I should record them whilst +they are fresh in my memory and before that fate which seems to +be constantly impending does actually overtake us. Whether Zambo +can at last take these letters to the river, or whether I shall +myself in some miraculous way carry them back with me, or, +finally, whether some daring explorer, coming upon our tracks +with the advantage, perhaps, of a perfected monoplane, should +find this bundle of manuscript, in any case I can see that what I +am writing is destined to immortality as a classic of true adventure. + +On the morning after our being trapped upon the plateau by +the villainous Gomez we began a new stage in our experiences. +The first incident in it was not such as to give me a very +favorable opinion of the place to which we had wandered. As I +roused myself from a short nap after day had dawned, my eyes fell +upon a most singular appearance upon my own leg. My trouser had +slipped up, exposing a few inches of my skin above my sock. +On this there rested a large, purplish grape. Astonished at the +sight, I leaned forward to pick it off, when, to my horror, it burst +between my finger and thumb, squirting blood in every direction. +My cry of disgust had brought the two professors to my side. + +"Most interesting," said Summerlee, bending over my shin. +"An enormous blood-tick, as yet, I believe, unclassified." + +"The first-fruits of our labors," said Challenger in his booming, +pedantic fashion. "We cannot do less than call it Ixodes Maloni. +The very small inconvenience of being bitten, my young friend, +cannot, I am sure, weigh with you as against the glorious +privilege of having your name inscribed in the deathless roll +of zoology. Unhappily you have crushed this fine specimen at +the moment of satiation." + +"Filthy vermin!" I cried. + +Professor Challenger raised his great eyebrows in protest, and +placed a soothing paw upon my shoulder. + +"You should cultivate the scientific eye and the detached +scientific mind," said he. "To a man of philosophic temperament +like myself the blood-tick, with its lancet-like proboscis and +its distending stomach, is as beautiful a work of Nature as the +peacock or, for that matter, the aurora borealis. It pains me to +hear you speak of it in so unappreciative a fashion. No doubt, +with due diligence, we can secure some other specimen." + +"There can be no doubt of that," said Summerlee, grimly, "for one +has just disappeared behind your shirt-collar." + +Challenger sprang into the air bellowing like a bull, and tore +frantically at his coat and shirt to get them off. Summerlee and +I laughed so that we could hardly help him. At last we exposed +that monstrous torso (fifty-four inches, by the tailor's tape). +His body was all matted with black hair, out of which jungle we +picked the wandering tick before it had bitten him. But the +bushes round were full of the horrible pests, and it was clear +that we must shift our camp. + +But first of all it was necessary to make our arrangements with +the faithful negro, who appeared presently on the pinnacle with a +number of tins of cocoa and biscuits, which he tossed over to us. +Of the stores which remained below he was ordered to retain as +much as would keep him for two months. The Indians were to have +the remainder as a reward for their services and as payment for +taking our letters back to the Amazon. Some hours later we saw +them in single file far out upon the plain, each with a bundle on +his head, making their way back along the path we had come. +Zambo occupied our little tent at the base of the pinnacle, and +there he remained, our one link with the world below. + +And now we had to decide upon our immediate movements. We shifted +our position from among the tick-laden bushes until we came to a +small clearing thickly surrounded by trees upon all sides. +There were some flat slabs of rock in the center, with an +excellent well close by, and there we sat in cleanly comfort +while we made our first plans for the invasion of this new country. +Birds were calling among the foliage--especially one with a +peculiar whooping cry which was new to us--but beyond these +sounds there were no signs of life. + +Our first care was to make some sort of list of our own stores, +so that we might know what we had to rely upon. What with the +things we had ourselves brought up and those which Zambo had sent +across on the rope, we were fairly well supplied. Most important +of all, in view of the dangers which might surround us, we had our +four rifles and one thousand three hundred rounds, also a shot-gun, +but not more than a hundred and fifty medium pellet cartridges. +In the matter of provisions we had enough to last for several +weeks, with a sufficiency of tobacco and a few scientific +implements, including a large telescope and a good field-glass. +All these things we collected together in the clearing, and as +a first precaution, we cut down with our hatchet and knives a +number of thorny bushes, which we piled round in a circle some +fifteen yards in diameter. This was to be our headquarters for +the time--our place of refuge against sudden danger and the +guard-house for our stores. Fort Challenger, we called it. + +It was midday before we had made ourselves secure, but the heat +was not oppressive, and the general character of the plateau, both +in its temperature and in its vegetation, was almost temperate. +The beech, the oak, and even the birch were to be found among +the tangle of trees which girt us in. One huge gingko tree, +topping all the others, shot its great limbs and maidenhair +foliage over the fort which we had constructed. In its shade +we continued our discussion, while Lord John, who had quickly +taken command in the hour of action, gave us his views. + +"So long as neither man nor beast has seen or heard us, we are +safe," said he. "From the time they know we are here our +troubles begin. There are no signs that they have found us out +as yet. So our game surely is to lie low for a time and spy out +the land. We want to have a good look at our neighbors before we +get on visitin' terms." + +"But we must advance," I ventured to remark. + +"By all means, sonny my boy! We will advance. But with +common sense. We must never go so far that we can't get back +to our base. Above all, we must never, unless it is life or +death, fire off our guns." + +"But YOU fired yesterday," said Summerlee. + +"Well, it couldn't be helped. However, the wind was strong and +blew outwards. It is not likely that the sound could have +traveled far into the plateau. By the way, what shall we call +this place? I suppose it is up to us to give it a name?" + +There were several suggestions, more or less happy, but +Challenger's was final. + +"It can only have one name," said he. "It is called after the +pioneer who discovered it. It is Maple White Land." + +Maple White Land it became, and so it is named in that chart +which has become my special task. So it will, I trust, appear +in the atlas of the future. + +The peaceful penetration of Maple White Land was the pressing +subject before us. We had the evidence of our own eyes that the +place was inhabited by some unknown creatures, and there was that +of Maple White's sketch-book to show that more dreadful and more +dangerous monsters might still appear. That there might also +prove to be human occupants and that they were of a malevolent +character was suggested by the skeleton impaled upon the bamboos, +which could not have got there had it not been dropped from above. +Our situation, stranded without possibility of escape in such a +land, was clearly full of danger, and our reasons endorsed every +measure of caution which Lord John's experience could suggest. +Yet it was surely impossible that we should halt on the edge of +this world of mystery when our very souls were tingling with +impatience to push forward and to pluck the heart from it. + +We therefore blocked the entrance to our zareba by filling it up +with several thorny bushes, and left our camp with the stores +entirely surrounded by this protecting hedge. We then slowly and +cautiously set forth into the unknown, following the course of +the little stream which flowed from our spring, as it should +always serve us as a guide on our return. + +Hardly had we started when we came across signs that there were +indeed wonders awaiting us. After a few hundred yards of thick +forest, containing many trees which were quite unknown to me, but +which Summerlee, who was the botanist of the party, recognized as +forms of conifera and of cycadaceous plants which have long +passed away in the world below, we entered a region where the +stream widened out and formed a considerable bog. High reeds of +a peculiar type grew thickly before us, which were pronounced to +be equisetacea, or mare's-tails, with tree-ferns scattered +amongst them, all of them swaying in a brisk wind. Suddenly Lord +John, who was walking first, halted with uplifted hand. + +"Look at this!" said he. "By George, this must be the trail of +the father of all birds!" + +An enormous three-toed track was imprinted in the soft mud before us. +The creature, whatever it was, had crossed the swamp and had passed +on into the forest. We all stopped to examine that monstrous spoor. +If it were indeed a bird--and what animal could leave such a mark?-- +its foot was so much larger than an ostrich's that its height upon +the same scale must be enormous. Lord John looked eagerly round him +and slipped two cartridges into his elephant-gun. + +"I'll stake my good name as a shikarree," said he, "that the +track is a fresh one. The creature has not passed ten minutes. +Look how the water is still oozing into that deeper print! +By Jove! See, here is the mark of a little one!" + +Sure enough, smaller tracks of the same general form were running +parallel to the large ones. + +"But what do you make of this?" cried Professor Summerlee, +triumphantly, pointing to what looked like the huge print of a +five-fingered human hand appearing among the three-toed marks. + +"Wealden!" cried Challenger, in an ecstasy. "I've seen them in +the Wealden clay. It is a creature walking erect upon three-toed +feet, and occasionally putting one of its five-fingered forepaws +upon the ground. Not a bird, my dear Roxton--not a bird." + +"A beast?" + +"No; a reptile--a dinosaur. Nothing else could have left such +a track. They puzzled a worthy Sussex doctor some ninety years +ago; but who in the world could have hoped--hoped--to have seen a +sight like that?" + +His words died away into a whisper, and we all stood in +motionless amazement. Following the tracks, we had left the +morass and passed through a screen of brushwood and trees. +Beyond was an open glade, and in this were five of the most +extraordinary creatures that I have ever seen. Crouching down +among the bushes, we observed them at our leisure. + +There were, as I say, five of them, two being adults and three +young ones. In size they were enormous. Even the babies were as +big as elephants, while the two large ones were far beyond all +creatures I have ever seen. They had slate-colored skin, which +was scaled like a lizard's and shimmered where the sun shone +upon it. All five were sitting up, balancing themselves upon their +broad, powerful tails and their huge three-toed hind-feet, while +with their small five-fingered front-feet they pulled down the +branches upon which they browsed. I do not know that I can bring +their appearance home to you better than by saying that they +looked like monstrous kangaroos, twenty feet in length, and with +skins like black crocodiles. + +I do not know how long we stayed motionless gazing at this +marvelous spectacle. A strong wind blew towards us and we were +well concealed, so there was no chance of discovery. From time +to time the little ones played round their parents in unwieldy +gambols, the great beasts bounding into the air and falling with +dull thuds upon the earth. The strength of the parents seemed to +be limitless, for one of them, having some difficulty in reaching +a bunch of foliage which grew upon a considerable-sized tree, put +his fore-legs round the trunk and tore it down as if it had been +a sapling. The action seemed, as I thought, to show not only the +great development of its muscles, but also the small one of its +brain, for the whole weight came crashing down upon the top of +it, and it uttered a series of shrill yelps to show that, big as +it was, there was a limit to what it could endure. The incident +made it think, apparently, that the neighborhood was dangerous, +for it slowly lurched off through the wood, followed by its mate +and its three enormous infants. We saw the shimmering slaty +gleam of their skins between the tree-trunks, and their heads +undulating high above the brush-wood. Then they vanished from +our sight. + +I looked at my comrades. Lord John was standing at gaze with his +finger on the trigger of his elephant-gun, his eager hunter's +soul shining from his fierce eyes. What would he not give for +one such head to place between the two crossed oars above the +mantelpiece in his snuggery at the Albany! And yet his reason +held him in, for all our exploration of the wonders of this +unknown land depended upon our presence being concealed from +its inhabitants. The two professors were in silent ecstasy. +In their excitement they had unconsciously seized each other by +the hand, and stood like two little children in the presence of a +marvel, Challenger's cheeks bunched up into a seraphic smile, and +Summerlee's sardonic face softening for the moment into wonder +and reverence. + +"Nunc dimittis!" he cried at last. "What will they say in +England of this?" + +"My dear Summerlee, I will tell you with great confidence exactly +what they will say in England," said Challenger. "They will say +that you are an infernal liar and a scientific charlatan, exactly +as you and others said of me." + +"In the face of photographs?" + +"Faked, Summerlee! Clumsily faked!" + +"In the face of specimens?" + +"Ah, there we may have them! Malone and his filthy Fleet Street +crew may be all yelping our praises yet. August the twenty-eighth-- +the day we saw five live iguanodons in a glade of Maple White Land. +Put it down in your diary, my young friend, and send it to your rag." + +"And be ready to get the toe-end of the editorial boot in +return," said Lord John. "Things look a bit different from the +latitude of London, young fellah my lad. There's many a man who +never tells his adventures, for he can't hope to be believed. +Who's to blame them? For this will seem a bit of a dream to +ourselves in a month or two. WHAT did you say they were?" + +"Iguanodons," said Summerlee. "You'll find their footmarks all +over the Hastings sands, in Kent, and in Sussex. The South of +England was alive with them when there was plenty of good lush +green-stuff to keep them going. Conditions have changed, and the +beasts died. Here it seems that the conditions have not changed, +and the beasts have lived." + +"If ever we get out of this alive, I must have a head with me," +said Lord John. "Lord, how some of that Somaliland-Uganda crowd +would turn a beautiful pea-green if they saw it! I don't know +what you chaps think, but it strikes me that we are on mighty +thin ice all this time." + +I had the same feeling of mystery and danger around us. In the +gloom of the trees there seemed a constant menace and as we +looked up into their shadowy foliage vague terrors crept into +one's heart. It is true that these monstrous creatures which we +had seen were lumbering, inoffensive brutes which were unlikely +to hurt anyone, but in this world of wonders what other survivals +might there not be--what fierce, active horrors ready to pounce +upon us from their lair among the rocks or brushwood? I knew +little of prehistoric life, but I had a clear remembrance of one +book which I had read in which it spoke of creatures who would +live upon our lions and tigers as a cat lives upon mice. What if +these also were to be found in the woods of Maple White Land! + +It was destined that on this very morning--our first in the new +country--we were to find out what strange hazards lay around us. +It was a loathsome adventure, and one of which I hate to think. +If, as Lord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will remain +with us as a dream, then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will +forever be our nightmare. Let me set down exactly what occurred. + +We passed very slowly through the woods, partly because Lord +Roxton acted as scout before he would let us advance, and partly +because at every second step one or other of our professors would +fall, with a cry of wonder, before some flower or insect which +presented him with a new type. We may have traveled two or three +miles in all, keeping to the right of the line of the stream, +when we came upon a considerable opening in the trees. A belt +of brushwood led up to a tangle of rocks--the whole plateau was +strewn with boulders. We were walking slowly towards these +rocks, among bushes which reached over our waists, when we became +aware of a strange low gabbling and whistling sound, which filled +the air with a constant clamor and appeared to come from some +spot immediately before us. Lord John held up his hand as a +signal for us to stop, and he made his way swiftly, stooping and +running, to the line of rocks. We saw him peep over them and +give a gesture of amazement. Then he stood staring as if +forgetting us, so utterly entranced was he by what he saw. +Finally he waved us to come on, holding up his hand as a signal +for caution. His whole bearing made me feel that something +wonderful but dangerous lay before us. + +Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into +which we gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been +one of the smaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was +bowl-shaped and at the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where +we lay, were pools of green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed +with bullrushes. It was a weird place in itself, but its +occupants made it seem like a scene from the Seven Circles of Dante. +The place was a rookery of pterodactyls. There were hundreds of +them congregated within view. All the bottom area round the +water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with hideous +mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. From this +crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the +shocking clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, +musty odor which turned us sick. But above, perched each upon +its own stone, tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried +specimens than actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, +absolutely motionless save for the rolling of their red eyes or +an occasional snap of their rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went +past them. Their huge, membranous wings were closed by folding +their fore-arms, so that they sat like gigantic old women, +wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and with their ferocious +heads protruding above them. Large and small, not less than a +thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us. + +Our professors would gladly have stayed there all day, so +entranced were they by this opportunity of studying the life of a +prehistoric age. They pointed out the fish and dead birds lying +about among the rocks as proving the nature of the food of these +creatures, and I heard them congratulating each other on having +cleared up the point why the bones of this flying dragon are +found in such great numbers in certain well-defined areas, as in +the Cambridge Green-sand, since it was now seen that, like penguins, +they lived in gregarious fashion. + +Finally, however, Challenger, bent upon proving some point which +Summerlee had contested, thrust his head over the rock and nearly +brought destruction upon us all. In an instant the nearest male +gave a shrill, whistling cry, and flapped its twenty-foot span of +leathery wings as it soared up into the air. The females and +young ones huddled together beside the water, while the whole +circle of sentinels rose one after the other and sailed off into +the sky. It was a wonderful sight to see at least a hundred +creatures of such enormous size and hideous appearance all +swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes above +us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could +afford to linger. At first the great brutes flew round in a huge +ring, as if to make sure what the exact extent of the danger +might be. Then, the flight grew lower and the circle narrower, +until they were whizzing round and round us, the dry, rustling +flap of their huge slate-colored wings filling the air with a +volume of sound that made me think of Hendon aerodrome upon a +race day. + +"Make for the wood and keep together," cried Lord John, clubbing +his rifle. "The brutes mean mischief." + +The moment we attempted to retreat the circle closed in upon us, +until the tips of the wings of those nearest to us nearly touched +our faces. We beat at them with the stocks of our guns, but +there was nothing solid or vulnerable to strike. Then suddenly +out of the whizzing, slate-colored circle a long neck shot out, and +a fierce beak made a thrust at us. Another and another followed. +Summerlee gave a cry and put his hand to his face, from which the +blood was streaming. I felt a prod at the back of my neck, and +turned dizzy with the shock. Challenger fell, and as I stooped +to pick him up I was again struck from behind and dropped on the +top of him. At the same instant I heard the crash of Lord John's +elephant-gun, and, looking up, saw one of the creatures with a +broken wing struggling upon the ground, spitting and gurgling at +us with a wide-opened beak and blood-shot, goggled eyes, like some +devil in a medieval picture. Its comrades had flown higher at the +sudden sound, and were circling above our heads. + +"Now," cried Lord John, "now for our lives!" + +We staggered through the brushwood, and even as we reached the +trees the harpies were on us again. Summerlee was knocked down, +but we tore him up and rushed among the trunks. Once there we +were safe, for those huge wings had no space for their sweep +beneath the branches. As we limped homewards, sadly mauled and +discomfited, we saw them for a long time flying at a great height +against the deep blue sky above our heads, soaring round and +round, no bigger than wood-pigeons, with their eyes no doubt +still following our progress. At last, however, as we reached +the thicker woods they gave up the chase, and we saw them no more. + +"A most interesting and convincing experience," said Challenger, +as we halted beside the brook and he bathed a swollen knee. +"We are exceptionally well informed, Summerlee, as to the habits +of the enraged pterodactyl." + +Summerlee was wiping the blood from a cut in his forehead, while +I was tying up a nasty stab in the muscle of the neck. Lord John +had the shoulder of his coat torn away, but the creature's teeth +had only grazed the flesh. + +"It is worth noting," Challenger continued, "that our young +friend has received an undoubted stab, while Lord John's coat +could only have been torn by a bite. In my own case, I was +beaten about the head by their wings, so we have had a remarkable +exhibition of their various methods of offence." + +"It has been touch and go for our lives," said Lord John, +gravely, "and I could not think of a more rotten sort of death +than to be outed by such filthy vermin. I was sorry to fire my +rifle, but, by Jove! there was no great choice." + +"We should not be here if you hadn't," said I, with conviction. + +"It may do no harm," said he. "Among these woods there must be +many loud cracks from splitting or falling trees which would be +just like the sound of a gun. But now, if you are of my opinion, +we have had thrills enough for one day, and had best get back to +the surgical box at the camp for some carbolic. Who knows what +venom these beasts may have in their hideous jaws?" + +But surely no men ever had just such a day since the world began. +Some fresh surprise was ever in store for us. When, following +the course of our brook, we at last reached our glade and saw +the thorny barricade of our camp, we thought that our adventures +were at an end. But we had something more to think of before we +could rest. The gate of Fort Challenger had been untouched, the +walls were unbroken, and yet it had been visited by some strange +and powerful creature in our absence. No foot-mark showed a trace +of its nature, and only the overhanging branch of the enormous +ginko tree suggested how it might have come and gone; but of its +malevolent strength there was ample evidence in the condition of +our stores. They were strewn at random all over the ground, and +one tin of meat had been crushed into pieces so as to extract +the contents. A case of cartridges had been shattered into +matchwood, and one of the brass shells lay shredded into pieces +beside it. Again the feeling of vague horror came upon our +souls, and we gazed round with frightened eyes at the dark +shadows which lay around us, in all of which some fearsome shape +might be lurking. How good it was when we were hailed by the +voice of Zambo, and, going to the edge of the plateau, saw him +sitting grinning at us upon the top of the opposite pinnacle. + +"All well, Massa Challenger, all well!" he cried. "Me stay here. +No fear. You always find me when you want." + +His honest black face, and the immense view before us, which +carried us half-way back to the affluent of the Amazon, helped us +to remember that we really were upon this earth in the twentieth +century, and had not by some magic been conveyed to some raw +planet in its earliest and wildest state. How difficult it was +to realize that the violet line upon the far horizon was well +advanced to that great river upon which huge steamers ran, and +folk talked of the small affairs of life, while we, marooned +among the creatures of a bygone age, could but gaze towards it +and yearn for all that it meant! + +One other memory remains with me of this wonderful day, and with +it I will close this letter. The two professors, their tempers +aggravated no doubt by their injuries, had fallen out as to +whether our assailants were of the genus pterodactylus or +dimorphodon, and high words had ensued. To avoid their wrangling +I moved some little way apart, and was seated smoking upon the +trunk of a fallen tree, when Lord John strolled over in my direction. + +"I say, Malone," said he, "do you remember that place where those +beasts were?" + +"Very clearly." + +"A sort of volcanic pit, was it not?" + +"Exactly," said I. + +"Did you notice the soil?" + +"Rocks." + +"But round the water--where the reeds were?" + +"It was a bluish soil. It looked like clay." + +"Exactly. A volcanic tube full of blue clay." + +"What of that?" I asked. + +"Oh, nothing, nothing," said he, and strolled back to where the +voices of the contending men of science rose in a prolonged duet, +the high, strident note of Summerlee rising and falling to the +sonorous bass of Challenger. I should have thought no more of +Lord John's remark were it not that once again that night I +heard him mutter to himself: "Blue clay--clay in a volcanic tube!" +They were the last words I heard before I dropped into an +exhausted sleep. + + + CHAPTER XI + + "For once I was the Hero" + +Lord John Roxton was right when he thought that some specially +toxic quality might lie in the bite of the horrible creatures +which had attacked us. On the morning after our first adventure +upon the plateau, both Summerlee and I were in great pain and +fever, while Challenger's knee was so bruised that he could +hardly limp. We kept to our camp all day, therefore, Lord John +busying himself, with such help as we could give him, in raising +the height and thickness of the thorny walls which were our +only defense. I remember that during the whole long day I was +haunted by the feeling that we were closely observed, though by +whom or whence I could give no guess. + +So strong was the impression that I told Professor Challenger of +it, who put it down to the cerebral excitement caused by my fever. +Again and again I glanced round swiftly, with the conviction that +I was about to see something, but only to meet the dark tangle of +our hedge or the solemn and cavernous gloom of the great trees +which arched above our heads. And yet the feeling grew ever +stronger in my own mind that something observant and something +malevolent was at our very elbow. I thought of the Indian +superstition of the Curupuri--the dreadful, lurking spirit of +the woods--and I could have imagined that his terrible presence +haunted those who had invaded his most remote and sacred retreat. + +That night (our third in Maple White Land) we had an experience +which left a fearful impression upon our minds, and made us +thankful that Lord John had worked so hard in making our +retreat impregnable. We were all sleeping round our dying fire +when we were aroused--or, rather, I should say, shot out of our +slumbers--by a succession of the most frightful cries and screams +to which I have ever listened. I know no sound to which I could +compare this amazing tumult, which seemed to come from some spot +within a few hundred yards of our camp. It was as ear-splitting +as any whistle of a railway-engine; but whereas the whistle is a +clear, mechanical, sharp-edged sound, this was far deeper in volume +and vibrant with the uttermost strain of agony and horror. We clapped +our hands to our ears to shut out that nerve-shaking appeal. A cold +sweat broke out over my body, and my heart turned sick at the misery +of it. All the woes of tortured life, all its stupendous indictment +of high heaven, its innumerable sorrows, seemed to be centered and +condensed into that one dreadful, agonized cry. And then, under +this high-pitched, ringing sound there was another, more intermittent, +a low, deep-chested laugh, a growling, throaty gurgle of merriment +which formed a grotesque accompaniment to the shriek with which it +was blended. For three or four minutes on end the fearsome duet +continued, while all the foliage rustled with the rising of +startled birds. Then it shut off as suddenly as it began. For a +long time we sat in horrified silence. Then Lord John threw a bundle +of twigs upon the fire, and their red glare lit up the intent faces +of my companions and flickered over the great boughs above our heads. + +"What was it?" I whispered. + +"We shall know in the morning," said Lord John. "It was close +to us--not farther than the glade." + +"We have been privileged to overhear a prehistoric tragedy, the +sort of drama which occurred among the reeds upon the border of +some Jurassic lagoon, when the greater dragon pinned the lesser +among the slime," said Challenger, with more solemnity than I had +ever heard in his voice. "It was surely well for man that he +came late in the order of creation. There were powers abroad in +earlier days which no courage and no mechanism of his could have met. +What could his sling, his throwing-stick, or his arrow avail him +against such forces as have been loose to-night? Even with a +modern rifle it would be all odds on the monster." + +"I think I should back my little friend," said Lord John, +caressing his Express. "But the beast would certainly have a +good sporting chance." + +Summerlee raised his hand. + +"Hush!" he cried. "Surely I hear something?" + +From the utter silence there emerged a deep, regular pat-pat. +It was the tread of some animal--the rhythm of soft but heavy pads +placed cautiously upon the ground. It stole slowly round the +camp, and then halted near our gateway. There was a low, sibilant +rise and fall--the breathing of the creature. Only our feeble +hedge separated us from this horror of the night. Each of us +had seized his rifle, and Lord John had pulled out a small bush +to make an embrasure in the hedge. + +"By George!" he whispered. "I think I can see it!" + +I stooped and peered over his shoulder through the gap. Yes, I +could see it, too. In the deep shadow of the tree there was a +deeper shadow yet, black, inchoate, vague--a crouching form full +of savage vigor and menace. It was no higher than a horse, but +the dim outline suggested vast bulk and strength. That hissing +pant, as regular and full-volumed as the exhaust of an engine, +spoke of a monstrous organism. Once, as it moved, I thought I +saw the glint of two terrible, greenish eyes. There was an +uneasy rustling, as if it were crawling slowly forward. + +"I believe it is going to spring!" said I, cocking my rifle. + +"Don't fire! Don't fire!" whispered Lord John. "The crash of a +gun in this silent night would be heard for miles. Keep it as a +last card." + +"If it gets over the hedge we're done," said Summerlee, and his +voice crackled into a nervous laugh as he spoke. + +"No, it must not get over," cried Lord John; "but hold your +fire to the last. Perhaps I can make something of the fellow. +I'll chance it, anyhow." + +It was as brave an act as ever I saw a man do. He stooped to +the fire, picked up a blazing branch, and slipped in an instant +through a sallyport which he had made in our gateway. The thing +moved forward with a dreadful snarl. Lord John never hesitated, +but, running towards it with a quick, light step, he dashed the +flaming wood into the brute's face. For one moment I had a +vision of a horrible mask like a giant toad's, of a warty, +leprous skin, and of a loose mouth all beslobbered with fresh blood. +The next, there was a crash in the underwood and our dreadful +visitor was gone. + +"I thought he wouldn't face the fire," said Lord John, laughing, +as he came back and threw his branch among the faggots. + +"You should not have taken such a risk!" we all cried. + +"There was nothin' else to be done. If he had got among us we +should have shot each other in tryin' to down him. On the other +hand, if we had fired through the hedge and wounded him he would +soon have been on the top of us--to say nothin' of giving +ourselves away. On the whole, I think that we are jolly well out +of it. What was he, then?" + +Our learned men looked at each other with some hesitation. + +"Personally, I am unable to classify the creature with any +certainty," said Summerlee, lighting his pipe from the fire. + +"In refusing to commit yourself you are but showing a proper +scientific reserve," said Challenger, with massive condescension. +"I am not myself prepared to go farther than to say in general +terms that we have almost certainly been in contact to-night with +some form of carnivorous dinosaur. I have already expressed my +anticipation that something of the sort might exist upon this plateau." + +"We have to bear in mind," remarked Summerlee, "that there are many +prehistoric forms which have never come down to us. It would be +rash to suppose that we can give a name to all that we are likely +to meet." + +"Exactly. A rough classification may be the best that we can attempt. +To-morrow some further evidence may help us to an identification. +Meantime we can only renew our interrupted slumbers." + +"But not without a sentinel," said Lord John, with decision. +"We can't afford to take chances in a country like this. +Two-hour spells in the future, for each of us." + +"Then I'll just finish my pipe in starting the first one," said +Professor Summerlee; and from that time onwards we never trusted +ourselves again without a watchman. + +In the morning it was not long before we discovered the source +of the hideous uproar which had aroused us in the night. +The iguanodon glade was the scene of a horrible butchery. +From the pools of blood and the enormous lumps of flesh +scattered in every direction over the green sward we imagined +at first that a number of animals had been killed, but on +examining the remains more closely we discovered that all this +carnage came from one of these unwieldy monsters, which had been +literally torn to pieces by some creature not larger, perhaps, +but far more ferocious, than itself. + +Our two professors sat in absorbed argument, examining piece +after piece, which showed the marks of savage teeth and of +enormous claws. + +"Our judgment must still be in abeyance," said Professor +Challenger, with a huge slab of whitish-colored flesh across +his knee. "The indications would be consistent with the presence +of a saber-toothed tiger, such as are still found among the breccia +of our caverns; but the creature actually seen was undoubtedly of +a larger and more reptilian character. Personally, I should +pronounce for allosaurus." + +"Or megalosaurus," said Summerlee. + +"Exactly. Any one of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs would meet +the case. Among them are to be found all the most terrible types +of animal life that have ever cursed the earth or blessed a museum." +He laughed sonorously at his own conceit, for, though he had little +sense of humor, the crudest pleasantry from his own lips moved him +always to roars of appreciation. + +"The less noise the better," said Lord Roxton, curtly. "We don't +know who or what may be near us. If this fellah comes back for +his breakfast and catches us here we won't have so much to laugh at. +By the way, what is this mark upon the iguanodon's hide?" + +On the dull, scaly, slate-colored skin somewhere above the +shoulder, there was a singular black circle of some substance +which looked like asphalt. None of us could suggest what it +meant, though Summerlee was of opinion that he had seen +something similar upon one of the young ones two days before. +Challenger said nothing, but looked pompous and puffy, as if he +could if he would, so that finally Lord John asked his opinion direct. + +"If your lordship will graciously permit me to open my mouth, +I shall be happy to express my sentiments," said he, with +elaborate sarcasm. "I am not in the habit of being taken to task +in the fashion which seems to be customary with your lordship. +I was not aware that it was necessary to ask your permission +before smiling at a harmless pleasantry." + +It was not until he had received his apology that our touchy +friend would suffer himself to be appeased. When at last his +ruffled feelings were at ease, he addressed us at some length from +his seat upon a fallen tree, speaking, as his habit was, as if he +were imparting most precious information to a class of a thousand. + +"With regard to the marking," said he, "I am inclined to agree +with my friend and colleague, Professor Summerlee, that the +stains are from asphalt. As this plateau is, in its very nature, +highly volcanic, and as asphalt is a substance which one +associates with Plutonic forces, I cannot doubt that it exists in +the free liquid state, and that the creatures may have come in +contact with it. A much more important problem is the question +as to the existence of the carnivorous monster which has left its +traces in this glade. We know roughly that this plateau is not +larger than an average English county. Within this confined +space a certain number of creatures, mostly types which have +passed away in the world below, have lived together for +innumerable years. Now, it is very clear to me that in so long a +period one would have expected that the carnivorous creatures, +multiplying unchecked, would have exhausted their food supply and +have been compelled to either modify their flesh-eating habits +or die of hunger. This we see has not been so. We can only +imagine, therefore, that the balance of Nature is preserved by +some check which limits the numbers of these ferocious creatures. +One of the many interesting problems, therefore, which await our +solution is to discover what that check may be and how it operates. +I venture to trust that we may have some future opportunity for +the closer study of the carnivorous dinosaurs." + +"And I venture to trust we may not," I observed. + +The Professor only raised his great eyebrows, as the schoolmaster +meets the irrelevant observation of the naughty boy. + +"Perhaps Professor Summerlee may have an observation to make," he +said, and the two savants ascended together into some rarefied +scientific atmosphere, where the possibilities of a modification +of the birth-rate were weighed against the decline of the food +supply as a check in the struggle for existence. + +That morning we mapped out a small portion of the plateau, +avoiding the swamp of the pterodactyls, and keeping to the east +of our brook instead of to the west. In that direction the +country was still thickly wooded, with so much undergrowth that +our progress was very slow. + +I have dwelt up to now upon the terrors of Maple White Land; but +there was another side to the subject, for all that morning we +wandered among lovely flowers--mostly, as I observed, white or +yellow in color, these being, as our professors explained, the +primitive flower-shades. In many places the ground was +absolutely covered with them, and as we walked ankle-deep on that +wonderful yielding carpet, the scent was almost intoxicating in +its sweetness and intensity. The homely English bee buzzed +everywhere around us. Many of the trees under which we passed +had their branches bowed down with fruit, some of which were of +familiar sorts, while other varieties were new. By observing +which of them were pecked by the birds we avoided all danger of +poison and added a delicious variety to our food reserve. In the +jungle which we traversed were numerous hard-trodden paths made +by the wild beasts, and in the more marshy places we saw a +profusion of strange footmarks, including many of the iguanodon. +Once in a grove we observed several of these great creatures +grazing, and Lord John, with his glass, was able to report that +they also were spotted with asphalt, though in a different place +to the one which we had examined in the morning. What this +phenomenon meant we could not imagine. + +We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, +and a wild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks. +Once, through a break in the trees, we saw a clear shoulder of +green hill some distance away, and across this a large dun-colored +animal was traveling at a considerable pace. It passed so swiftly +that we were unable to say what it was; but if it were a deer, as +was claimed by Lord John, it must have been as large as those +monstrous Irish elk which are still dug up from time to time in +the bogs of my native land. + +Ever since the mysterious visit which had been paid to our camp +we always returned to it with some misgivings. However, on this +occasion we found everything in order. + +That evening we had a grand discussion upon our present situation +and future plans, which I must describe at some length, as it led +to a new departure by which we were enabled to gain a more +complete knowledge of Maple White Land than might have come in +many weeks of exploring. It was Summerlee who opened the debate. +All day he had been querulous in manner, and now some remark of +Lord John's as to what we should do on the morrow brought all his +bitterness to a head. + +"What we ought to be doing to-day, to-morrow, and all the time," +said he, "is finding some way out of the trap into which we +have fallen. You are all turning your brains towards getting into +this country. I say that we should be scheming how to get out of it." + +"I am surprised, sir," boomed Challenger, stroking his majestic +beard, "that any man of science should commit himself to so +ignoble a sentiment. You are in a land which offers such an +inducement to the ambitious naturalist as none ever has since the +world began, and you suggest leaving it before we have acquired +more than the most superficial knowledge of it or of its contents. +I expected better things of you, Professor Summerlee." + +"You must remember," said Summerlee, sourly, "that I have a large +class in London who are at present at the mercy of an extremely +inefficient locum tenens. This makes my situation different from +yours, Professor Challenger, since, so far as I know, you have +never been entrusted with any responsible educational work." + +"Quite so," said Challenger. "I have felt it to be a sacrilege +to divert a brain which is capable of the highest original +research to any lesser object. That is why I have sternly set +my face against any proffered scholastic appointment." + +"For example?" asked Summerlee, with a sneer; but Lord John +hastened to change the conversation. + +"I must say," said he, "that I think it would be a mighty poor +thing to go back to London before I know a great deal more of +this place than I do at present." + +"I could never dare to walk into the back office of my paper and +face old McArdle," said I. (You will excuse the frankness of this +report, will you not, sir?) "He'd never forgive me for leaving +such unexhausted copy behind me. Besides, so far as I can see it +is not worth discussing, since we can't get down, even if we wanted." + +"Our young friend makes up for many obvious mental lacunae by +some measure of primitive common sense," remarked Challenger. +"The interests of his deplorable profession are immaterial to us; +but, as he observes, we cannot get down in any case, so it is a +waste of energy to discuss it." + +"It is a waste of energy to do anything else," growled Summerlee +from behind his pipe. "Let me remind you that we came here upon +a perfectly definite mission, entrusted to us at the meeting of +the Zoological Institute in London. That mission was to test the +truth of Professor Challenger's statements. Those statements, +as I am bound to admit, we are now in a position to endorse. +Our ostensible work is therefore done. As to the detail which +remains to be worked out upon this plateau, it is so enormous +that only a large expedition, with a very special equipment, +could hope to cope with it. Should we attempt to do so ourselves, +the only possible result must be that we shall never return with +the important contribution to science which we have already gained. +Professor Challenger has devised means for getting us on to this +plateau when it appeared to be inaccessible; I think that we should +now call upon him to use the same ingenuity in getting us back to +the world from which we came." + +I confess that as Summerlee stated his view it struck me as +altogether reasonable. Even Challenger was affected by the +consideration that his enemies would never stand confuted if the +confirmation of his statements should never reach those who had +doubted them. + +"The problem of the descent is at first sight a formidable one," +said he, "and yet I cannot doubt that the intellect can solve it. +I am prepared to agree with our colleague that a protracted stay +in Maple White Land is at present inadvisable, and that the +question of our return will soon have to be faced. I absolutely +refuse to leave, however, until we have made at least a +superficial examination of this country, and are able to take +back with us something in the nature of a chart." + +Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience. + +"We have spent two long days in exploration," said he, "and we +are no wiser as to the actual geography of the place than when +we started. It is clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it +would take months to penetrate it and to learn the relations of +one part to another. If there were some central peak it would +be different, but it all slopes downwards, so far as we can see. +The farther we go the less likely it is that we will get any +general view." + +It was at that moment that I had my inspiration. My eyes chanced +to light upon the enormous gnarled trunk of the gingko tree which +cast its huge branches over us. Surely, if its bole exceeded +that of all others, its height must do the same. If the rim of +the plateau was indeed the highest point, then why should this +mighty tree not prove to be a watchtower which commanded the +whole country? Now, ever since I ran wild as a lad in Ireland I +have been a bold and skilled tree-climber. My comrades might be +my masters on the rocks, but I knew that I would be supreme among +those branches. Could I only get my legs on to the lowest of the +giant off-shoots, then it would be strange indeed if I could not +make my way to the top. My comrades were delighted at my idea. + +"Our young friend," said Challenger, bunching up the red apples +of his cheeks, "is capable of acrobatic exertions which would be +impossible to a man of a more solid, though possibly of a more +commanding, appearance. I applaud his resolution." + +"By George, young fellah, you've put your hand on it!" said Lord +John, clapping me on the back. "How we never came to think of it +before I can't imagine! There's not more than an hour of daylight +left, but if you take your notebook you may be able to get some +rough sketch of the place. If we put these three ammunition +cases under the branch, I will soon hoist you on to it." + +He stood on the boxes while I faced the trunk, and was gently +raising me when Challenger sprang forward and gave me such a +thrust with his huge hand that he fairly shot me into the tree. +With both arms clasping the branch, I scrambled hard with my +feet until I had worked, first my body, and then my knees, onto it. +There were three excellent off-shoots, like huge rungs of a +ladder, above my head, and a tangle of convenient branches +beyond, so that I clambered onwards with such speed that I soon +lost sight of the ground and had nothing but foliage beneath me. +Now and then I encountered a check, and once I had to shin up a +creeper for eight or ten feet, but I made excellent progress, and +the booming of Challenger's voice seemed to be a great distance +beneath me. The tree was, however, enormous, and, looking +upwards, I could see no thinning of the leaves above my head. +There was some thick, bush-like clump which seemed to be a +parasite upon a branch up which I was swarming. I leaned my head +round it in order to see what was beyond, and I nearly fell out +of the tree in my surprise and horror at what I saw. + +A face was gazing into mine--at the distance of only a foot or two. +The creature that owned it had been crouching behind the parasite, +and had looked round it at the same instant that I did. It was +a human face--or at least it was far more human than any monkey's +that I have ever seen. It was long, whitish, and blotched with +pimples, the nose flattened, and the lower jaw projecting, with +a bristle of coarse whiskers round the chin. The eyes, which +were under thick and heavy brows, were bestial and ferocious, +and as it opened its mouth to snarl what sounded like a curse at +me I observed that it had curved, sharp canine teeth. For an +instant I read hatred and menace in the evil eyes. Then, as quick +as a flash, came an expression of overpowering fear. There was +a crash of broken boughs as it dived wildly down into the tangle +of green. I caught a glimpse of a hairy body like that of a +reddish pig, and then it was gone amid a swirl of leaves and branches. + +"What's the matter?" shouted Roxton from below. "Anything wrong +with you?" + +"Did you see it?" I cried, with my arms round the branch and all +my nerves tingling. + +"We heard a row, as if your foot had slipped. What was it?" + +I was so shocked at the sudden and strange appearance of this +ape-man that I hesitated whether I should not climb down again +and tell my experience to my companions. But I was already so +far up the great tree that it seemed a humiliation to return +without having carried out my mission. + +After a long pause, therefore, to recover my breath and my +courage, I continued my ascent. Once I put my weight upon a +rotten branch and swung for a few seconds by my hands, but in the +main it was all easy climbing. Gradually the leaves thinned +around me, and I was aware, from the wind upon my face, that I +had topped all the trees of the forest. I was determined, +however, not to look about me before I had reached the very +highest point, so I scrambled on until I had got so far that the +topmost branch was bending beneath my weight. There I settled +into a convenient fork, and, balancing myself securely, I found +myself looking down at a most wonderful panorama of this strange +country in which we found ourselves. + +The sun was just above the western sky-line, and the evening was +a particularly bright and clear one, so that the whole extent of +the plateau was visible beneath me. It was, as seen from this +height, of an oval contour, with a breadth of about thirty miles +and a width of twenty. Its general shape was that of a shallow +funnel, all the sides sloping down to a considerable lake in +the center. This lake may have been ten miles in circumference, +and lay very green and beautiful in the evening light, with a +thick fringe of reeds at its edges, and with its surface broken +by several yellow sandbanks, which gleamed golden in the +mellow sunshine. A number of long dark objects, which were too +large for alligators and too long for canoes, lay upon the edges +of these patches of sand. With my glass I could clearly see that +they were alive, but what their nature might be I could not imagine. + +From the side of the plateau on which we were, slopes of +woodland, with occasional glades, stretched down for five or six +miles to the central lake. I could see at my very feet the glade +of the iguanodons, and farther off was a round opening in the +trees which marked the swamp of the pterodactyls. On the side +facing me, however, the plateau presented a very different aspect. +There the basalt cliffs of the outside were reproduced upon the +inside, forming an escarpment about two hundred feet high, with +a woody slope beneath it. Along the base of these red cliffs, +some distance above the ground, I could see a number of dark +holes through the glass, which I conjectured to be the mouths +of caves. At the opening of one of these something white was +shimmering, but I was unable to make out what it was. I sat +charting the country until the sun had set and it was so dark +that I could no longer distinguish details. Then I climbed down +to my companions waiting for me so eagerly at the bottom of the +great tree. For once I was the hero of the expedition. Alone I +had thought of it, and alone I had done it; and here was the +chart which would save us a month's blind groping among +unknown dangers. Each of them shook me solemnly by the hand. + +But before they discussed the details of my map I had to tell +them of my encounter with the ape-man among the branches. + +"He has been there all the time," said I. + +"How do you know that?" asked Lord John. + +"Because I have never been without that feeling that something +malevolent was watching us. I mentioned it to you, Professor Challenger." + +"Our young friend certainly said something of the kind. He is +also the one among us who is endowed with that Celtic temperament +which would make him sensitive to such impressions." + +"The whole theory of telepathy----" began Summerlee, filling his pipe. + +"Is too vast to be now discussed," said Challenger, with decision. +"Tell me, now," he added, with the air of a bishop addressing a +Sunday-school, "did you happen to observe whether the creature +could cross its thumb over its palm?" + +"No, indeed." + +"Had it a tail?" + +"No." + +"Was the foot prehensile?" + +"I do not think it could have made off so fast among the branches +if it could not get a grip with its feet." + +"In South America there are, if my memory serves me--you will +check the observation, Professor Summerlee--some thirty-six +species of monkeys, but the anthropoid ape is unknown. It is +clear, however, that he exists in this country, and that he is +not the hairy, gorilla-like variety, which is never seen out of +Africa or the East." (I was inclined to interpolate, as I looked +at him, that I had seen his first cousin in Kensington.) "This is +a whiskered and colorless type, the latter characteristic pointing +to the fact that he spends his days in arboreal seclusion. +The question which we have to face is whether he approaches more +closely to the ape or the man. In the latter case, he may well +approximate to what the vulgar have called the `missing link.' +The solution of this problem is our immediate duty." + +"It is nothing of the sort," said Summerlee, abruptly. "Now that, +through the intelligence and activity of Mr. Malone" (I cannot help +quoting the words), "we have got our chart, our one and only +immediate duty is to get ourselves safe and sound out of this +awful place." + +"The flesh-pots of civilization," groaned Challenger. + +"The ink-pots of civilization, sir. It is our task to put on +record what we have seen, and to leave the further exploration +to others. You all agreed as much before Mr. Malone got us the chart." + +"Well," said Challenger, "I admit that my mind will be more at +ease when I am assured that the result of our expedition has been +conveyed to our friends. How we are to get down from this place +I have not as yet an idea. I have never yet encountered any +problem, however, which my inventive brain was unable to solve, +and I promise you that to-morrow I will turn my attention to the +question of our descent." And so the matter was allowed to rest. + +But that evening, by the light of the fire and of a single candle, +the first map of the lost world was elaborated. Every detail +which I had roughly noted from my watch-tower was drawn out in +its relative place. Challenger's pencil hovered over the great +blank which marked the lake. + +"What shall we call it?" he asked. + +"Why should you not take the chance of perpetuating your own +name?" said Summerlee, with his usual touch of acidity. + +"I trust, sir, that my name will have other and more personal +claims upon posterity," said Challenger, severely. "Any ignoramus +can hand down his worthless memory by imposing it upon a mountain +or a river. I need no such monument." + +Summerlee, with a twisted smile, was about to make some fresh +assault when Lord John hastened to intervene. + +"It's up to you, young fellah, to name the lake," said he. +"You saw it first, and, by George, if you choose to put `Lake +Malone' on it, no one has a better right." + +"By all means. Let our young friend give it a name," said Challenger. + +"Then," said I, blushing, I dare say, as I said it, "let it be +named Lake Gladys." + +"Don't you think the Central Lake would be more descriptive?" +remarked Summerlee. + +"I should prefer Lake Gladys." + +Challenger looked at me sympathetically, and shook his great head +in mock disapproval. "Boys will be boys," said he. "Lake Gladys +let it be." + + + CHAPTER XII + + "It was Dreadful in the Forest" + +I have said--or perhaps I have not said, for my memory plays me +sad tricks these days--that I glowed with pride when three such +men as my comrades thanked me for having saved, or at least +greatly helped, the situation. As the youngster of the party, +not merely in years, but in experience, character, knowledge, and +all that goes to make a man, I had been overshadowed from the first. +And now I was coming into my own. I warmed at the thought. +Alas! for the pride which goes before a fall! That little glow +of self-satisfaction, that added measure of self-confidence, were +to lead me on that very night to the most dreadful experience +of my life, ending with a shock which turns my heart sick when I +think of it. + +It came about in this way. I had been unduly excited by the +adventure of the tree, and sleep seemed to be impossible. +Summerlee was on guard, sitting hunched over our small fire, +a quaint, angular figure, his rifle across his knees and his +pointed, goat-like beard wagging with each weary nod of his head. +Lord John lay silent, wrapped in the South American poncho which +he wore, while Challenger snored with a roll and rattle which +reverberated through the woods. The full moon was shining +brightly, and the air was crisply cold. What a night for a walk! +And then suddenly came the thought, "Why not?" Suppose I stole +softly away, suppose I made my way down to the central lake, +suppose I was back at breakfast with some record of the place-- +would I not in that case be thought an even more worthy associate? +Then, if Summerlee carried the day and some means of escape were +found, we should return to London with first-hand knowledge of + the central mystery of the plateau, to which I alone, of all +men, would have penetrated. I thought of Gladys, with her "There +are heroisms all round us." I seemed to hear her voice as she +said it. I thought also of McArdle. What a three column article +for the paper! What a foundation for a career! A correspondentship +in the next great war might be within my reach. I clutched at a +gun--my pockets were full of cartridges--and, parting the thorn +bushes at the gate of our zareba, quickly slipped out. My last +glance showed me the unconscious Summerlee, most futile of +sentinels, still nodding away like a queer mechanical toy in front +of the smouldering fire. + +I had not gone a hundred yards before I deeply repented my rashness. +I may have said somewhere in this chronicle that I am too +imaginative to be a really courageous man, but that I have an +overpowering fear of seeming afraid. This was the power which +now carried me onwards. I simply could not slink back with +nothing done. Even if my comrades should not have missed me, and +should never know of my weakness, there would still remain some +intolerable self-shame in my own soul. And yet I shuddered at +the position in which I found myself, and would have given all I +possessed at that moment to have been honorably free of the +whole business. + +It was dreadful in the forest. The trees grew so thickly and +their foliage spread so widely that I could see nothing of the +moon-light save that here and there the high branches made a +tangled filigree against the starry sky. As the eyes became more +used to the obscurity one learned that there were different +degrees of darkness among the trees--that some were dimly +visible, while between and among them there were coal-black +shadowed patches, like the mouths of caves, from which I shrank +in horror as I passed. I thought of the despairing yell of the +tortured iguanodon--that dreadful cry which had echoed through +the woods. I thought, too, of the glimpse I had in the light of +Lord John's torch of that bloated, warty, blood-slavering muzzle. +Even now I was on its hunting-ground. At any instant it might +spring upon me from the shadows--this nameless and horrible monster. +I stopped, and, picking a cartridge from my pocket, I opened the +breech of my gun. As I touched the lever my heart leaped within me. +It was the shot-gun, not the rifle, which I had taken! + +Again the impulse to return swept over me. Here, surely, was a +most excellent reason for my failure--one for which no one would +think the less of me. But again the foolish pride fought against +that very word. I could not--must not--fail. After all, my +rifle would probably have been as useless as a shot-gun against +such dangers as I might meet. If I were to go back to camp to +change my weapon I could hardly expect to enter and to leave +again without being seen. In that case there would be +explanations, and my attempt would no longer be all my own. +After a little hesitation, then, I screwed up my courage and +continued upon my way, my useless gun under my arm. + +The darkness of the forest had been alarming, but even worse +was the white, still flood of moonlight in the open glade of +the iguanodons. Hid among the bushes, I looked out at it. None of +the great brutes were in sight. Perhaps the tragedy which had +befallen one of them had driven them from their feeding-ground. +In the misty, silvery night I could see no sign of any living thing. +Taking courage, therefore, I slipped rapidly across it, and among +the jungle on the farther side I picked up once again the brook +which was my guide. It was a cheery companion, gurgling and +chuckling as it ran, like the dear old trout-stream in the West +Country where I have fished at night in my boyhood. So long as +I followed it down I must come to the lake, and so long as I +followed it back I must come to the camp. Often I had to lose +sight of it on account of the tangled brush-wood, but I was always +within earshot of its tinkle and splash. + +As one descended the slope the woods became thinner, and bushes, +with occasional high trees, took the place of the forest. +I could make good progress, therefore, and I could see without +being seen. I passed close to the pterodactyl swamp, and as I +did so, with a dry, crisp, leathery rattle of wings, one of +these great creatures--it was twenty feet at least from tip to +tip--rose up from somewhere near me and soared into the air. +As it passed across the face of the moon the light shone clearly +through the membranous wings, and it looked like a flying +skeleton against the white, tropical radiance. I crouched low +among the bushes, for I knew from past experience that with a +single cry the creature could bring a hundred of its loathsome +mates about my ears. It was not until it had settled again that +I dared to steal onwards upon my journey. + +The night had been exceedingly still, but as I advanced I became +conscious of a low, rumbling sound, a continuous murmur, +somewhere in front of me. This grew louder as I proceeded, until +at last it was clearly quite close to me. When I stood still +the sound was constant, so that it seemed to come from some +stationary cause. It was like a boiling kettle or the bubbling +of some great pot. Soon I came upon the source of it, for in the +center of a small clearing I found a lake--or a pool, rather, +for it was not larger than the basin of the Trafalgar Square +fountain--of some black, pitch-like stuff, the surface of which +rose and fell in great blisters of bursting gas. The air above +it was shimmering with heat, and the ground round was so hot that +I could hardly bear to lay my hand on it. It was clear that the +great volcanic outburst which had raised this strange plateau so +many years ago had not yet entirely spent its forces. Blackened rocks +and mounds of lava I had already seen everywhere peeping out from +amid the luxuriant vegetation which draped them, but this asphalt +pool in the jungle was the first sign that we had of actual +existing activity on the slopes of the ancient crater. I had no +time to examine it further for I had need to hurry if I were to be +back in camp in the morning. + +It was a fearsome walk, and one which will be with me so long as +memory holds. In the great moonlight clearings I slunk along +among the shadows on the margin. In the jungle I crept forward, +stopping with a beating heart whenever I heard, as I often did, +the crash of breaking branches as some wild beast went past. +Now and then great shadows loomed up for an instant and were +gone--great, silent shadows which seemed to prowl upon padded feet. +How often I stopped with the intention of returning, and yet every +time my pride conquered my fear, and sent me on again until my +object should be attained. + +At last (my watch showed that it was one in the morning) I saw +the gleam of water amid the openings of the jungle, and ten +minutes later I was among the reeds upon the borders of the +central lake. I was exceedingly dry, so I lay down and took a +long draught of its waters, which were fresh and cold. There was +a broad pathway with many tracks upon it at the spot which I had +found, so that it was clearly one of the drinking-places of +the animals. Close to the water's edge there was a huge isolated +block of lava. Up this I climbed, and, lying on the top, I had +an excellent view in every direction. + +The first thing which I saw filled me with amazement. When I +described the view from the summit of the great tree, I said that +on the farther cliff I could see a number of dark spots, which +appeared to be the mouths of caves. Now, as I looked up at the +same cliffs, I saw discs of light in every direction, ruddy, +clearly-defined patches, like the port-holes of a liner in +the darkness. For a moment I thought it was the lava-glow from +some volcanic action; but this could not be so. Any volcanic action +would surely be down in the hollow and not high among the rocks. +What, then, was the alternative? It was wonderful, and yet it +must surely be. These ruddy spots must be the reflection of +fires within the caves--fires which could only be lit by the +hand of man. There were human beings, then, upon the plateau. +How gloriously my expedition was justified! Here was news indeed +for us to bear back with us to London! + +For a long time I lay and watched these red, quivering blotches +of light. I suppose they were ten miles off from me, yet even +at that distance one could observe how, from time to time, they +twinkled or were obscured as someone passed before them. What would +I not have given to be able to crawl up to them, to peep in, and +to take back some word to my comrades as to the appearance and +character of the race who lived in so strange a place! It was +out of the question for the moment, and yet surely we could not +leave the plateau until we had some definite knowledge upon the point. + +Lake Gladys--my own lake--lay like a sheet of quicksilver before +me, with a reflected moon shining brightly in the center of it. +It was shallow, for in many places I saw low sandbanks protruding +above the water. Everywhere upon the still surface I could see +signs of life, sometimes mere rings and ripples in the water, +sometimes the gleam of a great silver-sided fish in the air, +sometimes the arched, slate-colored back of some passing monster. +Once upon a yellow sandbank I saw a creature like a huge swan, +with a clumsy body and a high, flexible neck, shuffling about +upon the margin. Presently it plunged in, and for some time I +could see the arched neck and darting head undulating over the water. +Then it dived, and I saw it no more. + +My attention was soon drawn away from these distant sights and +brought back to what was going on at my very feet. Two creatures +like large armadillos had come down to the drinking-place, and +were squatting at the edge of the water, their long, flexible +tongues like red ribbons shooting in and out as they lapped. +A huge deer, with branching horns, a magnificent creature which +carried itself like a king, came down with its doe and two fawns +and drank beside the armadillos. No such deer exist anywhere +else upon earth, for the moose or elks which I have seen would +hardly have reached its shoulders. Presently it gave a warning +snort, and was off with its family among the reeds, while the +armadillos also scuttled for shelter. A new-comer, a most +monstrous animal, was coming down the path. + +For a moment I wondered where I could have seen that ungainly +shape, that arched back with triangular fringes along it, that +strange bird-like head held close to the ground. Then it came +back, to me. It was the stegosaurus--the very creature which +Maple White had preserved in his sketch-book, and which had been +the first object which arrested the attention of Challenger! +There he was--perhaps the very specimen which the American artist +had encountered. The ground shook beneath his tremendous weight, +and his gulpings of water resounded through the still night. +For five minutes he was so close to my rock that by stretching out +my hand I could have touched the hideous waving hackles upon his back. +Then he lumbered away and was lost among the boulders. + +Looking at my watch, I saw that it was half-past two o'clock, and +high time, therefore, that I started upon my homeward journey. +There was no difficulty about the direction in which I should +return for all along I had kept the little brook upon my left, +and it opened into the central lake within a stone's-throw of the +boulder upon which I had been lying. I set off, therefore, in +high spirits, for I felt that I had done good work and was +bringing back a fine budget of news for my companions. Foremost of +all, of course, were the sight of the fiery caves and the certainty +that some troglodytic race inhabited them. But besides that I +could speak from experience of the central lake. I could testify +that it was full of strange creatures, and I had seen several +land forms of primeval life which we had not before encountered. +I reflected as I walked that few men in the world could have spent +a stranger night or added more to human knowledge in the course of it. + +I was plodding up the slope, turning these thoughts over in my +mind, and had reached a point which may have been half-way to +home, when my mind was brought back to my own position by a +strange noise behind me. It was something between a snore and +a growl, low, deep, and exceedingly menacing. Some strange +creature was evidently near me, but nothing could be seen, so I +hastened more rapidly upon my way. I had traversed half a mile +or so when suddenly the sound was repeated, still behind me, but +louder and more menacing than before. My heart stood still +within me as it flashed across me that the beast, whatever it +was, must surely be after ME. My skin grew cold and my hair +rose at the thought. That these monsters should tear each other +to pieces was a part of the strange struggle for existence, +but that they should turn upon modern man, that they should +deliberately track and hunt down the predominant human, was a +staggering and fearsome thought. I remembered again the +blood-beslobbered face which we had seen in the glare of Lord +John's torch, like some horrible vision from the deepest circle +of Dante's hell. With my knees shaking beneath me, I stood and +glared with starting eyes down the moonlit path which lay behind me. +All was quiet as in a dream landscape. Silver clearings and the +black patches of the bushes--nothing else could I see. Then from +out of the silence, imminent and threatening, there came once more +that low, throaty croaking, far louder and closer than before. +There could no longer be a doubt. Something was on my trail, and +was closing in upon me every minute. + +I stood like a man paralyzed, still staring at the ground which I +had traversed. Then suddenly I saw it. There was movement among +the bushes at the far end of the clearing which I had just traversed. +A great dark shadow disengaged itself and hopped out into the clear +moonlight. I say "hopped" advisedly, for the beast moved like a +kangaroo, springing along in an erect position upon its powerful +hind legs, while its front ones were held bent in front of it. +It was of enormous size and power, like an erect elephant, but its +movements, in spite of its bulk, were exceedingly alert. For a +moment, as I saw its shape, I hoped that it was an iguanodon, +which I knew to be harmless, but, ignorant as I was, I soon saw +that this was a very different creature. Instead of the gentle, +deer-shaped head of the great three-toed leaf-eater, this beast +had a broad, squat, toad-like face like that which had alarmed us +in our camp. His ferocious cry and the horrible energy of his +pursuit both assured me that this was surely one of the great +flesh-eating dinosaurs, the most terrible beasts which have ever +walked this earth. As the huge brute loped along it dropped forward +upon its fore-paws and brought its nose to the ground every twenty +yards or so. It was smelling out my trail. Sometimes, for an +instant, it was at fault. Then it would catch it up again and +come bounding swiftly along the path I had taken. + +Even now when I think of that nightmare the sweat breaks out upon +my brow. What could I do? My useless fowling-piece was in my hand. +What help could I get from that? I looked desperately round for +some rock or tree, but I was in a bushy jungle with nothing higher +than a sapling within sight, while I knew that the creature behind +me could tear down an ordinary tree as though it were a reed. +My only possible chance lay in flight. I could not move swiftly +over the rough, broken ground, but as I looked round me in despair +I saw a well-marked, hard-beaten path which ran across in front +of me. We had seen several of the sort, the runs of various wild +beasts, during our expeditions. Along this I could perhaps hold +my own, for I was a fast runner, and in excellent condition. +Flinging away my useless gun, I set myself to do such a half-mile +as I have never done before or since. My limbs ached, my chest +heaved, I felt that my throat would burst for want of air, and yet +with that horror behind me I ran and I ran and ran. At last I +paused, hardly able to move. For a moment I thought that I had +thrown him off. The path lay still behind me. And then suddenly, +with a crashing and a rending, a thudding of giant feet and a +panting of monster lungs the beast was upon me once more. He was +at my very heels. I was lost. + +Madman that I was to linger so long before I fled! Up to then he +had hunted by scent, and his movement was slow. But he had +actually seen me as I started to run. From then onwards he had +hunted by sight, for the path showed him where I had gone. Now, as +he came round the curve, he was springing in great bounds. +The moonlight shone upon his huge projecting eyes, the row of +enormous teeth in his open mouth, and the gleaming fringe of +claws upon his short, powerful forearms. With a scream of terror +I turned and rushed wildly down the path. Behind me the thick, +gasping breathing of the creature sounded louder and louder. +His heavy footfall was beside me. Every instant I expected to feel +his grip upon my back. And then suddenly there came a crash--I was +falling through space, and everything beyond was darkness and rest. + +As I emerged from my unconsciousness--which could not, I think, +have lasted more than a few minutes--I was aware of a most +dreadful and penetrating smell. Putting out my hand in the +darkness I came upon something which felt like a huge lump of +meat, while my other hand closed upon a large bone. Up above me +there was a circle of starlit sky, which showed me that I was +lying at the bottom of a deep pit. Slowly I staggered to my feet +and felt myself all over. I was stiff and sore from head to +foot, but there was no limb which would not move, no joint which +would not bend. As the circumstances of my fall came back into +my confused brain, I looked up in terror, expecting to see that +dreadful head silhouetted against the paling sky. There was no +sign of the monster, however, nor could I hear any sound from above. +I began to walk slowly round, therefore, feeling in every direction +to find out what this strange place could be into which I had been +so opportunely precipitated. + +It was, as I have said, a pit, with sharply-sloping walls and a +level bottom about twenty feet across. This bottom was littered +with great gobbets of flesh, most of which was in the last state +of putridity. The atmosphere was poisonous and horrible. +After tripping and stumbling over these lumps of decay, I came +suddenly against something hard, and I found that an upright post +was firmly fixed in the center of the hollow. It was so high that +I could not reach the top of it with my hand, and it appeared to be +covered with grease. + +Suddenly I remembered that I had a tin box of wax-vestas in +my pocket. Striking one of them, I was able at last to form some +opinion of this place into which I had fallen. There could be no +question as to its nature. It was a trap--made by the hand of man. +The post in the center, some nine feet long, was sharpened +at the upper end, and was black with the stale blood of the +creatures who had been impaled upon it. The remains scattered +about were fragments of the victims, which had been cut away in +order to clear the stake for the next who might blunder in. +I remembered that Challenger had declared that man could not exist +upon the plateau, since with his feeble weapons he could not hold +his own against the monsters who roamed over it. But now it was +clear enough how it could be done. In their narrow-mouthed caves +the natives, whoever they might be, had refuges into which the +huge saurians could not penetrate, while with their developed +brains they were capable of setting such traps, covered with +branches, across the paths which marked the run of the animals as +would destroy them in spite of all their strength and activity. +Man was always the master. + +The sloping wall of the pit was not difficult for an active man +to climb, but I hesitated long before I trusted myself within +reach of the dreadful creature which had so nearly destroyed me. +How did I know that he was not lurking in the nearest clump of +bushes, waiting for my reappearance? I took heart, however, as I +recalled a conversation between Challenger and Summerlee upon the +habits of the great saurians. Both were agreed that the monsters +were practically brainless, that there was no room for reason in +their tiny cranial cavities, and that if they have disappeared +from the rest of the world it was assuredly on account of their +own stupidity, which made it impossible for them to adapt +themselves to changing conditions. + +To lie in wait for me now would mean that the creature had +appreciated what had happened to me, and this in turn would argue +some power connecting cause and effect. Surely it was more +likely that a brainless creature, acting solely by vague +predatory instinct, would give up the chase when I disappeared, +and, after a pause of astonishment, would wander away in search +of some other prey? I clambered to the edge of the pit and +looked over. The stars were fading, the sky was whitening, and +the cold wind of morning blew pleasantly upon my face. I could +see or hear nothing of my enemy. Slowly I climbed out and sat for +a while upon the ground, ready to spring back into my refuge if any +danger should appear. Then, reassured by the absolute stillness +and by the growing light, I took my courage in both hands and +stole back along the path which I had come. Some distance down +it I picked up my gun, and shortly afterwards struck the brook +which was my guide. So, with many a frightened backward glance, +I made for home. + +And suddenly there came something to remind me of my absent companions. +In the clear, still morning air there sounded far away the sharp, +hard note of a single rifle-shot. I paused and listened, but +there was nothing more. For a moment I was shocked at the thought +that some sudden danger might have befallen them. But then a +simpler and more natural explanation came to my mind. It was now +broad daylight. No doubt my absence had been noticed. They had +imagined, that I was lost in the woods, and had fired this shot +to guide me home. It is true that we had made a strict resolution +against firing, but if it seemed to them that I might be in danger +they would not hesitate. It was for me now to hurry on as fast as +possible, and so to reassure them. + +I was weary and spent, so my progress was not so fast as I +wished; but at last I came into regions which I knew. There was +the swamp of the pterodactyls upon my left; there in front of me +was the glade of the iguanodons. Now I was in the last belt of +trees which separated me from Fort Challenger. I raised my voice +in a cheery shout to allay their fears. No answering greeting +came back to me. My heart sank at that ominous stillness. +I quickened my pace into a run. The zareba rose before me, even +as I had left it, but the gate was open. I rushed in. In the cold, +morning light it was a fearful sight which met my eyes. Our effects +were scattered in wild confusion over the ground; my comrades had +disappeared, and close to the smouldering ashes of our fire the +grass was stained crimson with a hideous pool of blood. + +I was so stunned by this sudden shock that for a time I must +have nearly lost my reason. I have a vague recollection, as +one remembers a bad dream, of rushing about through the woods +all round the empty camp, calling wildly for my companions. +No answer came back from the silent shadows. The horrible +thought that I might never see them again, that I might find +myself abandoned all alone in that dreadful place, with no +possible way of descending into the world below, that I might +live and die in that nightmare country, drove me to desperation. +I could have torn my hair and beaten my head in my despair. +Only now did I realize how I had learned to lean upon my +companions, upon the serene self-confidence of Challenger, +and upon the masterful, humorous coolness of Lord John Roxton. +Without them I was like a child in the dark, helpless and powerless. +I did not know which way to turn or what I should do first. + +After a period, during which I sat in bewilderment, I set myself +to try and discover what sudden misfortune could have befallen +my companions. The whole disordered appearance of the camp +showed that there had been some sort of attack, and the rifle- +shot no doubt marked the time when it had occurred. That there +should have been only one shot showed that it had been all over +in an instant. The rifles still lay upon the ground, and one +of them--Lord John's--had the empty cartridge in the breech. +The blankets of Challenger and of Summerlee beside the fire +suggested that they had been asleep at the time. The cases of +ammunition and of food were scattered about in a wild litter, +together with our unfortunate cameras and plate-carriers, but +none of them were missing. On the other hand, all the exposed +provisions--and I remembered that there were a considerable +quantity of them--were gone. They were animals, then, and not +natives, who had made the inroad, for surely the latter would +have left nothing behind. + +But if animals, or some single terrible animal, then what had +become of my comrades? A ferocious beast would surely have +destroyed them and left their remains. It is true that there was +that one hideous pool of blood, which told of violence. Such a +monster as had pursued me during the night could have carried +away a victim as easily as a cat would a mouse. In that case the +others would have followed in pursuit. But then they would +assuredly have taken their rifles with them. The more I tried to +think it out with my confused and weary brain the less could I +find any plausible explanation. I searched round in the forest, +but could see no tracks which could help me to a conclusion. +Once I lost myself, and it was only by good luck, and after an +hour of wandering, that I found the camp once more. + +Suddenly a thought came to me and brought some little comfort to +my heart. I was not absolutely alone in the world. Down at the +bottom of the cliff, and within call of me, was waiting the +faithful Zambo. I went to the edge of the plateau and looked over. +Sure enough, he was squatting among his blankets beside his fire +in his little camp. But, to my amazement, a second man was seated +in front of him. For an instant my heart leaped for joy, as I +thought that one of my comrades had made his way safely down. +But a second glance dispelled the hope. The rising sun shone +red upon the man's skin. He was an Indian. I shouted loudly +and waved my handkerchief. Presently Zambo looked up, waved his +hand, and turned to ascend the pinnacle. In a short time he was +standing close to me and listening with deep distress to the story +which I told him. + +"Devil got them for sure, Massa Malone," said he. "You got +into the devil's country, sah, and he take you all to himself. +You take advice, Massa Malone, and come down quick, else he get +you as well." + +"How can I come down, Zambo?" + +"You get creepers from trees, Massa Malone. Throw them over here. +I make fast to this stump, and so you have bridge." + +"We have thought of that. There are no creepers here which could +bear us." + +"Send for ropes, Massa Malone." + +"Who can I send, and where?" + +"Send to Indian villages, sah. Plenty hide rope in Indian village. +Indian down below; send him." + +"Who is he? + +"One of our Indians. Other ones beat him and take away his pay. +He come back to us. Ready now to take letter, bring rope,--anything." + +To take a letter! Why not? Perhaps he might bring help; but +in any case he would ensure that our lives were not spent for +nothing, and that news of all that we had won for Science +should reach our friends at home. I had two completed letters +already waiting. I would spend the day in writing a third, which +would bring my experiences absolutely up to date. The Indian could +bear this back to the world. I ordered Zambo, therefore, to come +again in the evening, and I spent my miserable and lonely day in +recording my own adventures of the night before. I also drew up +a note, to be given to any white merchant or captain of a +steam-boat whom the Indian could find, imploring them to see that +ropes were sent to us, since our lives must depend upon it. +These documents I threw to Zambo in the evening, and also my +purse, which contained three English sovereigns. These were to +be given to the Indian, and he was promised twice as much if he +returned with the ropes. + +So now you will understand, my dear Mr. McArdle, how this +communication reaches you, and you will also know the truth, in +case you never hear again from your unfortunate correspondent. +To-night I am too weary and too depressed to make my plans. +To-morrow I must think out some way by which I shall keep in +touch with this camp, and yet search round for any traces of my +unhappy friends. + + + CHAPTER XIII + + "A Sight which I shall Never Forget" + +Just as the sun was setting upon that melancholy night I saw the +lonely figure of the Indian upon the vast plain beneath me, and I +watched him, our one faint hope of salvation, until he disappeared +in the rising mists of evening which lay, rose-tinted from the +setting sun, between the far-off river and me. + +It was quite dark when I at last turned back to our stricken +camp, and my last vision as I went was the red gleam of Zambo's +fire, the one point of light in the wide world below, as was +his faithful presence in my own shadowed soul. And yet I felt +happier than I had done since this crushing blow had fallen upon +me, for it was good to think that the world should know what we +had done, so that at the worst our names should not perish with +our bodies, but should go down to posterity associated with the +result of our labors. + +It was an awesome thing to sleep in that ill-fated camp; and yet +it was even more unnerving to do so in the jungle. One or the +other it must be. Prudence, on the one hand, warned me that I +should remain on guard, but exhausted Nature, on the other, +declared that I should do nothing of the kind. I climbed up on +to a limb of the great gingko tree, but there was no secure perch +on its rounded surface, and I should certainly have fallen off +and broken my neck the moment I began to doze. I got down, +therefore, and pondered over what I should do. Finally, I closed +the door of the zareba, lit three separate fires in a triangle, +and having eaten a hearty supper dropped off into a profound sleep, +from which I had a strange and most welcome awakening. In the +early morning, just as day was breaking, a hand was laid upon +my arm, and starting up, with all my nerves in a tingle and my +hand feeling for a rifle, I gave a cry of joy as in the cold gray +light I saw Lord John Roxton kneeling beside me. + +It was he--and yet it was not he. I had left him calm in his +bearing, correct in his person, prim in his dress. Now he was +pale and wild-eyed, gasping as he breathed like one who has run +far and fast. His gaunt face was scratched and bloody, his +clothes were hanging in rags, and his hat was gone. I stared in +amazement, but he gave me no chance for questions. He was +grabbing at our stores all the time he spoke. + +"Quick, young fellah! Quick!" he cried. "Every moment counts. +Get the rifles, both of them. I have the other two. Now, all the +cartridges you can gather. Fill up your pockets. Now, some food. +Half a dozen tins will do. That's all right! Don't wait to talk +or think. Get a move on, or we are done!" + +Still half-awake, and unable to imagine what it all might mean, I +found myself hurrying madly after him through the wood, a rifle +under each arm and a pile of various stores in my hands. He dodged +in and out through the thickest of the scrub until he came to a +dense clump of brush-wood. Into this he rushed, regardless of +thorns, and threw himself into the heart of it, pulling me down +by his side. + +"There!" he panted. "I think we are safe here. They'll make for +the camp as sure as fate. It will be their first idea. But this +should puzzle 'em." + +"What is it all?" I asked, when I had got my breath. "Where are +the professors? And who is it that is after us?" + +"The ape-men," he cried. "My God, what brutes! Don't raise your +voice, for they have long ears--sharp eyes, too, but no power of +scent, so far as I could judge, so I don't think they can sniff +us out. Where have you been, young fellah? You were well out of it." + +In a few sentences I whispered what I had done. + +"Pretty bad," said he, when he had heard of the dinosaur and the pit. +"It isn't quite the place for a rest cure. What? But I had no idea +what its possibilities were until those devils got hold of us. +The man-eatin' Papuans had me once, but they are Chesterfields +compared to this crowd." + +"How did it happen?" I asked. + +"It was in the early mornin'. Our learned friends were just stirrin'. +Hadn't even begun to argue yet. Suddenly it rained apes. They came +down as thick as apples out of a tree. They had been assemblin' +in the dark, I suppose, until that great tree over our heads was +heavy with them. I shot one of them through the belly, but before +we knew where we were they had us spread-eagled on our backs. I call +them apes, but they carried sticks and stones in their hands and +jabbered talk to each other, and ended up by tyin' our hands with +creepers, so they are ahead of any beast that I have seen in +my wanderin's. Ape-men--that's what they are--Missin' Links, and +I wish they had stayed missin'. They carried off their wounded +comrade--he was bleedin' like a pig--and then they sat around us, +and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in their faces. They were +big fellows, as big as a man and a deal stronger. Curious glassy +gray eyes they have, under red tufts, and they just sat and gloated +and gloated. Challenger is no chicken, but even he was cowed. +He managed to struggle to his feet, and yelled out at them to have +done with it and get it over. I think he had gone a bit off his +head at the suddenness of it, for he raged and cursed at them +like a lunatic. If they had been a row of his favorite Pressmen +he could not have slanged them worse." + +"Well, what did they do?" I was enthralled by the strange story +which my companion was whispering into my ear, while all the time +his keen eyes were shooting in every direction and his hand +grasping his cocked rifle. + +"I thought it was the end of us, but instead of that it started +them on a new line. They all jabbered and chattered together. +Then one of them stood out beside Challenger. You'll smile, +young fellah, but 'pon my word they might have been kinsmen. +I couldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. +This old ape-man--he was their chief--was a sort of red Challenger, +with every one of our friend's beauty points, only just a trifle +more so. He had the short body, the big shoulders, the round chest, +no neck, a great ruddy frill of a beard, the tufted eyebrows, +the `What do you want, damn you!' look about the eyes, and the +whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood by Challenger and put his +paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete. Summerlee was a bit +hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. The ape-men laughed too-- +or at least they put up the devil of a cacklin'--and they set to +work to drag us off through the forest. They wouldn't touch the +guns and things--thought them dangerous, I expect--but they carried +away all our loose food. Summerlee and I got some rough handlin' +on the way--there's my skin and my clothes to prove it--for they +took us a bee-line through the brambles, and their own hides are +like leather. But Challenger was all right. Four of them carried +him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor. What's that?" + +It was a strange clicking noise in the distance not unlike castanets. + +"There they go!" said my companion, slipping cartridges into the +second double barrelled "Express." "Load them all up, young +fellah my lad, for we're not going to be taken alive, and don't +you think it! That's the row they make when they are excited. +By George! they'll have something to excite them if they put us up. +The `Last Stand of the Grays' won't be in it. `With their +rifles grasped in their stiffened hands, mid a ring of the dead +and dyin',' as some fathead sings. Can you hear them now?" + +"Very far away." + +"That little lot will do no good, but I expect their search +parties are all over the wood. Well, I was telling you my tale +of woe. They got us soon to this town of theirs--about a +thousand huts of branches and leaves in a great grove of trees +near the edge of the cliff. It's three or four miles from here. +The filthy beasts fingered me all over, and I feel as if I should +never be clean again. They tied us up--the fellow who handled me +could tie like a bosun--and there we lay with our toes up, +beneath a tree, while a great brute stood guard over us with a +club in his hand. When I say `we' I mean Summerlee and myself. +Old Challenger was up a tree, eatin' pines and havin' the time of +his life. I'm bound to say that he managed to get some fruit to +us, and with his own hands he loosened our bonds. If you'd seen +him sitting up in that tree hob-nobbin' with his twin +brother--and singin' in that rollin' bass of his, `Ring out, wild +bells,' cause music of any kind seemed to put 'em in a good +humor, you'd have smiled; but we weren't in much mood for +laughin', as you can guess. They were inclined, within limits, +to let him do what he liked, but they drew the line pretty +sharply at us. It was a mighty consolation to us all to know +that you were runnin' loose and had the archives in your keepin'. + +"Well, now, young fellah, I'll tell you what will surprise you. +You say you saw signs of men, and fires, traps, and the like. +Well, we have seen the natives themselves. Poor devils they +were, down-faced little chaps, and had enough to make them so. +It seems that the humans hold one side of this plateau--over +yonder, where you saw the caves--and the ape-men hold this side, +and there is bloody war between them all the time. That's the +situation, so far as I could follow it. Well, yesterday the +ape-men got hold of a dozen of the humans and brought them in +as prisoners. You never heard such a jabberin' and shriekin' in +your life. The men were little red fellows, and had been bitten +and clawed so that they could hardly walk. The ape-men put two +of them to death there and then--fairly pulled the arm off one of +them--it was perfectly beastly. Plucky little chaps they are, +and hardly gave a squeak. But it turned us absolutely sick. +Summerlee fainted, and even Challenger had as much as he could stand. +I think they have cleared, don't you?" + +We listened intently, but nothing save the calling of the birds broke +the deep peace of the forest. Lord Roxton went on with his story. + +"I think you have had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad. +It was catchin' those Indians that put you clean out of their heads, +else they would have been back to the camp for you as sure as fate +and gathered you in. Of course, as you said, they have been watchin' +us from the beginnin' out of that tree, and they knew perfectly well +that we were one short. However, they could think only of this new +haul; so it was I, and not a bunch of apes, that dropped in on you +in the morning. Well, we had a horrid business afterwards. My God! +what a nightmare the whole thing is! You remember the great bristle +of sharp canes down below where we found the skeleton of the American? +Well, that is just under ape-town, and that's the jumpin'-off place +of their prisoners. I expect there's heaps of skeletons there, if +we looked for 'em. They have a sort of clear parade-ground on +the top, and they make a proper ceremony about it. One by one the +poor devils have to jump, and the game is to see whether they are +merely dashed to pieces or whether they get skewered on the canes. +They took us out to see it, and the whole tribe lined up on the edge. +Four of the Indians jumped, and the canes went through 'em like +knittin' needles through a pat of butter. No wonder we found that +poor Yankee's skeleton with the canes growin' between his ribs. +It was horrible--but it was doocedly interestin' too. We were all +fascinated to see them take the dive, even when we thought it would +be our turn next on the spring-board. + +"Well, it wasn't. They kept six of the Indians up for to-day-- +that's how I understood it--but I fancy we were to be the +star performers in the show. Challenger might get off, but +Summerlee and I were in the bill. Their language is more than +half signs, and it was not hard to follow them. So I thought it +was time we made a break for it. I had been plottin' it out a +bit, and had one or two things clear in my mind. It was all on +me, for Summerlee was useless and Challenger not much better. +The only time they got together they got slangin' because they +couldn't agree upon the scientific classification of these +red-headed devils that had got hold of us. One said it was the +dryopithecus of Java, the other said it was pithecanthropus. +Madness, I call it--Loonies, both. But, as I say, I had thought +out one or two points that were helpful. One was that these +brutes could not run as fast as a man in the open. They have +short, bandy legs, you see, and heavy bodies. Even Challenger +could give a few yards in a hundred to the best of them, and you +or I would be a perfect Shrubb. Another point was that they knew +nothin' about guns. I don't believe they ever understood how the +fellow I shot came by his hurt. If we could get at our guns +there was no sayin' what we could do. + +"So I broke away early this mornin', gave my guard a kick in the +tummy that laid him out, and sprinted for the camp. There I got +you and the guns, and here we are." + +"But the professors!" I cried, in consternation. + +"Well, we must just go back and fetch 'em. I couldn't bring 'em +with me. Challenger was up the tree, and Summerlee was not fit +for the effort. The only chance was to get the guns and try +a rescue. Of course they may scupper them at once in revenge. +I don't think they would touch Challenger, but I wouldn't answer +for Summerlee. But they would have had him in any case. Of that +I am certain. So I haven't made matters any worse by boltin'. +But we are honor bound to go back and have them out or see it +through with them. So you can make up your soul, young fellah my +lad, for it will be one way or the other before evenin'." + +I have tried to imitate here Lord Roxton's jerky talk, his short, +strong sentences, the half-humorous, half-reckless tone that ran +through it all. But he was a born leader. As danger thickened +his jaunty manner would increase, his speech become more racy, +his cold eyes glitter into ardent life, and his Don Quixote +moustache bristle with joyous excitement. His love of danger, +his intense appreciation of the drama of an adventure--all the +more intense for being held tightly in--his consistent view that +every peril in life is a form of sport, a fierce game betwixt you +and Fate, with Death as a forfeit, made him a wonderful companion +at such hours. If it were not for our fears as to the fate of +our companions, it would have been a positive joy to throw myself +with such a man into such an affair. We were rising from our +brushwood hiding-place when suddenly I felt his grip upon my arm. + +"By George!" he whispered, "here they come!" + +From where we lay we could look down a brown aisle, arched with +green, formed by the trunks and branches. Along this a party of +the ape-men were passing. They went in single file, with bent legs +and rounded backs, their hands occasionally touching the ground, +their heads turning to left and right as they trotted along. +Their crouching gait took away from their height, but I should +put them at five feet or so, with long arms and enormous chests. +Many of them carried sticks, and at the distance they looked like +a line of very hairy and deformed human beings. For a moment I +caught this clear glimpse of them. Then they were lost among +the bushes. + +"Not this time," said Lord John, who had caught up his rifle. +"Our best chance is to lie quiet until they have given up the search. +Then we shall see whether we can't get back to their town and hit +'em where it hurts most. Give 'em an hour and we'll march." + +We filled in the time by opening one of our food tins and making +sure of our breakfast. Lord Roxton had had nothing but some +fruit since the morning before and ate like a starving man. +Then, at last, our pockets bulging with cartridges and a rifle in +each hand, we started off upon our mission of rescue. Before leaving +it we carefully marked our little hiding-place among the brush-wood +and its bearing to Fort Challenger, that we might find it again if +we needed it. We slunk through the bushes in silence until we came +to the very edge of the cliff, close to the old camp. There we +halted, and Lord John gave me some idea of his plans. + +"So long as we are among the thick trees these swine are our +masters," said he. "They can see us and we cannot see them. But +in the open it is different. There we can move faster than they. +So we must stick to the open all we can. The edge of the plateau +has fewer large trees than further inland. So that's our line +of advance. Go slowly, keep your eyes open and your rifle ready. +Above all, never let them get you prisoner while there is a +cartridge left--that's my last word to you, young fellah." + +When we reached the edge of the cliff I looked over and saw our +good old black Zambo sitting smoking on a rock below us. I would +have given a great deal to have hailed him and told him how we +were placed, but it was too dangerous, lest we should be heard. +The woods seemed to be full of the ape-men; again and again we +heard their curious clicking chatter. At such times we plunged +into the nearest clump of bushes and lay still until the sound +had passed away. Our advance, therefore, was very slow, and two +hours at least must have passed before I saw by Lord John's +cautious movements that we must be close to our destination. +He motioned to me to lie still, and he crawled forward himself. +In a minute he was back again, his face quivering with eagerness. + +"Come!" said he. "Come quick! I hope to the Lord we are not too +late already!" + +I found myself shaking with nervous excitement as I scrambled +forward and lay down beside him, looking out through the bushes +at a clearing which stretched before us. + +It was a sight which I shall never forget until my dying day--so +weird, so impossible, that I do not know how I am to make you +realize it, or how in a few years I shall bring myself to believe +in it if I live to sit once more on a lounge in the Savage Club +and look out on the drab solidity of the Embankment. I know that +it will seem then to be some wild nightmare, some delirium of fever. +Yet I will set it down now, while it is still fresh in my memory, +and one at least, the man who lay in the damp grasses by my side, +will know if I have lied. + +A wide, open space lay before us--some hundreds of yards +across--all green turf and low bracken growing to the very edge +of the cliff. Round this clearing there was a semi-circle of +trees with curious huts built of foliage piled one above the +other among the branches. A rookery, with every nest a little +house, would best convey the idea. The openings of these huts +and the branches of the trees were thronged with a dense mob of +ape-people, whom from their size I took to be the females and +infants of the tribe. They formed the background of the picture, +and were all looking out with eager interest at the same scene +which fascinated and bewildered us. + +In the open, and near the edge of the cliff, there had assembled +a crowd of some hundred of these shaggy, red-haired creatures, +many of them of immense size, and all of them horrible to look upon. +There was a certain discipline among them, for none of them +attempted to break the line which had been formed. In front +there stood a small group of Indians--little, clean-limbed, red +fellows, whose skins glowed like polished bronze in the strong sunlight. +A tall, thin white man was standing beside them, his head bowed, +his arms folded, his whole attitude expressive of his horror +and dejection. There was no mistaking the angular form of +Professor Summerlee. + +In front of and around this dejected group of prisoners were several +ape-men, who watched them closely and made all escape impossible. +Then, right out from all the others and close to the edge of the +cliff, were two figures, so strange, and under other circumstances +so ludicrous, that they absorbed my attention. The one was our +comrade, Professor Challenger. The remains of his coat still hung +in strips from his shoulders, but his shirt had been all torn out, +and his great beard merged itself in the black tangle which +covered his mighty chest. He had lost his hat, and his hair, +which had grown long in our wanderings, was flying in wild disorder. +A single day seemed to have changed him from the highest product +of modern civilization to the most desperate savage in South America. +Beside him stood his master, the king of the ape-men. In all things +he was, as Lord John had said, the very image of our Professor, +save that his coloring was red instead of black. The same short, +broad figure, the same heavy shoulders, the same forward hang of +the arms, the same bristling beard merging itself in the hairy chest. +Only above the eyebrows, where the sloping forehead and low, curved +skull of the ape-man were in sharp contrast to the broad brow and +magnificent cranium of the European, could one see any marked difference. +At every other point the king was an absurd parody of the Professor. + +All this, which takes me so long to describe, impressed itself +upon me in a few seconds. Then we had very different things to +think of, for an active drama was in progress. Two of the +ape-men had seized one of the Indians out of the group and +dragged him forward to the edge of the cliff. The king raised +his hand as a signal. They caught the man by his leg and arm, and +swung him three times backwards and forwards with tremendous violence. +Then, with a frightful heave they shot the poor wretch over +the precipice. With such force did they throw him that he curved +high in the air before beginning to drop. As he vanished from sight, +the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to the edge +of the precipice, and there was a long pause of absolute silence, +broken by a mad yell of delight. They sprang about, tossing their +long, hairy arms in the air and howling with exultation. Then they +fell back from the edge, formed themselves again into line, and +waited for the next victim. + +This time it was Summerlee. Two of his guards caught him by the +wrists and pulled him brutally to the front. His thin figure and +long limbs struggled and fluttered like a chicken being dragged +from a coop. Challenger had turned to the king and waved his +hands frantically before him. He was begging, pleading, +imploring for his comrade's life. The ape-man pushed him roughly +aside and shook his head. It was the last conscious movement he +was to make upon earth. Lord John's rifle cracked, and the king +sank down, a tangled red sprawling thing, upon the ground. + +"Shoot into the thick of them! Shoot! sonny, shoot!" cried +my companion. + +There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man. +I am tenderhearted by nature, and have found my eyes moist many a +time over the scream of a wounded hare. Yet the blood lust was on +me now. I found myself on my feet emptying one magazine, then the +other, clicking open the breech to re-load, snapping it to again, +while cheering and yelling with pure ferocity and joy of slaughter +as I did so. With our four guns the two of us made a horrible havoc. +Both the guards who held Summerlee were down, and he was staggering +about like a drunken man in his amazement, unable to realize that +he was a free man. The dense mob of ape-men ran about in +bewilderment, marveling whence this storm of death was coming or +what it might mean. They waved, gesticulated, screamed, and tripped +up over those who had fallen. Then, with a sudden impulse, they all +rushed in a howling crowd to the trees for shelter, leaving the +ground behind them spotted with their stricken comrades. The prisoners +were left for the moment standing alone in the middle of the clearing. + +Challenger's quick brain had grasped the situation. He seized +the bewildered Summerlee by the arm, and they both ran towards us. +Two of their guards bounded after them and fell to two bullets +from Lord John. We ran forward into the open to meet our friends, +and pressed a loaded rifle into the hands of each. But Summerlee +was at the end of his strength. He could hardly totter. +Already the ape-men were recovering from their panic. They were +coming through the brushwood and threatening to cut us off. +Challenger and I ran Summerlee along, one at each of his +elbows, while Lord John covered our retreat, firing again and +again as savage heads snarled at us out of the bushes. For a +mile or more the chattering brutes were at our very heels. +Then the pursuit slackened, for they learned our power and would +no longer face that unerring rifle. When we had at last reached +the camp, we looked back and found ourselves alone. + +So it seemed to us; and yet we were mistaken. We had hardly +closed the thornbush door of our zareba, clasped each other's +hands, and thrown ourselves panting upon the ground beside our +spring, when we heard a patter of feet and then a gentle, +plaintive crying from outside our entrance. Lord Roxton rushed +forward, rifle in hand, and threw it open. There, prostrate upon +their faces, lay the little red figures of the four surviving +Indians, trembling with fear of us and yet imploring our protection. +With an expressive sweep of his hands one of them pointed to the +woods around them, and indicated that they were full of danger. +Then, darting forward, he threw his arms round Lord John's legs, +and rested his face upon them. + +"By George!" cried our peer, pulling at his moustache in great +perplexity, "I say--what the deuce are we to do with these people? +Get up, little chappie, and take your face off my boots." + +Summerlee was sitting up and stuffing some tobacco into his old briar. + +"We've got to see them safe," said he. "You've pulled us all out +of the jaws of death. My word! it was a good bit of work!" + +"Admirable!" cried Challenger. "Admirable! Not only we as +individuals, but European science collectively, owe you a deep +debt of gratitude for what you have done. I do not hesitate to +say that the disappearance of Professor Summerlee and myself +would have left an appreciable gap in modern zoological history. +Our young friend here and you have done most excellently well." + +He beamed at us with the old paternal smile, but European science +would have been somewhat amazed could they have seen their chosen +child, the hope of the future, with his tangled, unkempt head, +his bare chest, and his tattered clothes. He had one of the +meat-tins between his knees, and sat with a large piece of cold +Australian mutton between his fingers. The Indian looked up at +him, and then, with a little yelp, cringed to the ground and +clung to Lord John's leg. + +"Don't you be scared, my bonnie boy," said Lord John, patting the +matted head in front of him. "He can't stick your appearance, +Challenger; and, by George! I don't wonder. All right, little +chap, he's only a human, just the same as the rest of us." + +"Really, sir!" cried the Professor. + +"Well, it's lucky for you, Challenger, that you ARE a little out +of the ordinary. If you hadn't been so like the king----" + +"Upon my word, Lord John, you allow yourself great latitude." + +"Well, it's a fact." + +"I beg, sir, that you will change the subject. Your remarks are +irrelevant and unintelligible. The question before us is what are +we to do with these Indians? The obvious thing is to escort them +home, if we knew where their home was." + +"There is no difficulty about that," said I. "They live in +the caves on the other side of the central lake." + +"Our young friend here knows where they live. I gather that it +is some distance." + +"A good twenty miles," said I. + +Summerlee gave a groan. + +"I, for one, could never get there. Surely I hear those brutes +still howling upon our track." + +As he spoke, from the dark recesses of the woods we heard far +away the jabbering cry of the ape-men. The Indians once more set +up a feeble wail of fear. + +"We must move, and move quick!" said Lord John. "You help +Summerlee, young fellah. These Indians will carry stores. +Now, then, come along before they can see us." + +In less than half-an-hour we had reached our brushwood retreat +and concealed ourselves. All day we heard the excited calling of +the ape-men in the direction of our old camp, but none of them +came our way, and the tired fugitives, red and white, had a long, +deep sleep. I was dozing myself in the evening when someone +plucked my sleeve, and I found Challenger kneeling beside me. + +"You keep a diary of these events, and you expect eventually to +publish it, Mr. Malone," said he, with solemnity. + +"I am only here as a Press reporter," I answered. + +"Exactly. You may have heard some rather fatuous remarks of +Lord John Roxton's which seemed to imply that there was some-- +some resemblance----" + +"Yes, I heard them." + +"I need not say that any publicity given to such an idea--any +levity in your narrative of what occurred--would be exceedingly +offensive to me." + +"I will keep well within the truth." + +"Lord John's observations are frequently exceedingly fanciful, +and he is capable of attributing the most absurd reasons to the +respect which is always shown by the most undeveloped races to +dignity and character. You follow my meaning?" + +"Entirely." + +"I leave the matter to your discretion." Then, after a long +pause, he added: "The king of the ape-men was really a +creature of great distinction--a most remarkably handsome and +intelligent personality. Did it not strike you?" + +"A most remarkable creature," said I. + +And the Professor, much eased in his mind, settled down to his +slumber once more. + + + CHAPTER XIV + + "Those Were the Real Conquests" + +We had imagined that our pursuers, the ape-men, knew nothing of our +brush-wood hiding-place, but we were soon to find out our mistake. +There was no sound in the woods--not a leaf moved upon the trees, +and all was peace around us--but we should have been warned by our +first experience how cunningly and how patiently these creatures +can watch and wait until their chance comes. Whatever fate may be +mine through life, I am very sure that I shall never be nearer death +than I was that morning. But I will tell you the thing in its due order. + +We all awoke exhausted after the terrific emotions and scanty +food of yesterday. Summerlee was still so weak that it was an +effort for him to stand; but the old man was full of a sort of +surly courage which would never admit defeat. A council was +held, and it was agreed that we should wait quietly for an hour +or two where we were, have our much-needed breakfast, and then +make our way across the plateau and round the central lake to the +caves where my observations had shown that the Indians lived. +We relied upon the fact that we could count upon the good word +of those whom we had rescued to ensure a warm welcome from +their fellows. Then, with our mission accomplished and possessing +a fuller knowledge of the secrets of Maple White Land, we should +turn our whole thoughts to the vital problem of our escape and return. +Even Challenger was ready to admit that we should then have done +all for which we had come, and that our first duty from that time +onwards was to carry back to civilization the amazing discoveries +we had made. + +We were able now to take a more leisurely view of the Indians +whom we had rescued. They were small men, wiry, active, and +well-built, with lank black hair tied up in a bunch behind their +heads with a leathern thong, and leathern also were their +loin-clothes. Their faces were hairless, well formed, and +good-humored. The lobes of their ears, hanging ragged and +bloody, showed that they had been pierced for some ornaments +which their captors had torn out. Their speech, though +unintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as they +pointed to each other and uttered the word "Accala" many times +over, we gathered that this was the name of the nation. +Occasionally, with faces which were convulsed with fear and +hatred, they shook their clenched hands at the woods round and +cried: "Doda! Doda!" which was surely their term for their enemies. + +"What do you make of them, Challenger?" asked Lord John. "One thing +is very clear to me, and that is that the little chap with the front +of his head shaved is a chief among them." + +It was indeed evident that this man stood apart from the others, +and that they never ventured to address him without every sign of +deep respect. He seemed to be the youngest of them all, and yet, +so proud and high was his spirit that, upon Challenger laying his +great hand upon his head, he started like a spurred horse and, +with a quick flash of his dark eyes, moved further away from +the Professor. Then, placing his hand upon his breast and +holding himself with great dignity, he uttered the word "Maretas" +several times. The Professor, unabashed, seized the nearest Indian +by the shoulder and proceeded to lecture upon him as if he were a +potted specimen in a class-room. + +"The type of these people," said he in his sonorous fashion, +"whether judged by cranial capacity, facial angle, or any other +test, cannot be regarded as a low one; on the contrary, we must +place it as considerably higher in the scale than many South +American tribes which I can mention. On no possible supposition +can we explain the evolution of such a race in this place. +For that matter, so great a gap separates these ape-men from the +primitive animals which have survived upon this plateau, that it +is inadmissible to think that they could have developed where we +find them." + +"Then where the dooce did they drop from?" asked Lord John. + +"A question which will, no doubt, be eagerly discussed in every +scientific society in Europe and America," the Professor answered. +"My own reading of the situation for what it is worth--" he inflated +his chest enormously and looked insolently around him at the words-- +"is that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions of +this country up to the vertebrate stage, the old types surviving +and living on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find such +modern creatures as the tapir--an animal with quite a respectable +length of pedigree--the great deer, and the ant-eater in the +companionship of reptilian forms of jurassic type. So much is clear. +And now come the ape-men and the Indian. What is the scientific +mind to think of their presence? I can only account for it by an +invasion from outside. It is probable that there existed an +anthropoid ape in South America, who in past ages found his way +to this place, and that he developed into the creatures we have +seen, some of which"--here he looked hard at me--"were of an +appearance and shape which, if it had been accompanied by +corresponding intelligence, would, I do not hesitate to say, +have reflected credit upon any living race. As to the Indians +I cannot doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. +Under the stress of famine or of conquest they have made their +way up here. Faced by ferocious creatures which they had never +before seen, they took refuge in the caves which our young friend +has described, but they have no doubt had a bitter fight to hold +their own against wild beasts, and especially against the ape-men +who would regard them as intruders, and wage a merciless war upon +them with a cunning which the larger beasts would lack. Hence the +fact that their numbers appear to be limited. Well, gentlemen, +have I read you the riddle aright, or is there any point which +you would query?" + +Professor Summerlee for once was too depressed to argue, though +he shook his head violently as a token of general disagreement. +Lord John merely scratched his scanty locks with the remark that +he couldn't put up a fight as he wasn't in the same weight or class. +For my own part I performed my usual role of bringing things down +to a strictly prosaic and practical level by the remark that one +of the Indians was missing. + +"He has gone to fetch some water," said Lord Roxton. "We fitted +him up with an empty beef tin and he is off." + +"To the old camp?" I asked. + +"No, to the brook. It's among the trees there. It can't be more +than a couple of hundred yards. But the beggar is certainly +taking his time." + +"I'll go and look after him," said I. I picked up my rifle and +strolled in the direction of the brook, leaving my friends to lay +out the scanty breakfast. It may seem to you rash that even for +so short a distance I should quit the shelter of our friendly +thicket, but you will remember that we were many miles from +Ape-town, that so far as we knew the creatures had not discovered +our retreat, and that in any case with a rifle in my hands I had +no fear of them. I had not yet learned their cunning or their strength. + +I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, but +there was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it. +I was making my way through this at a point which was just out of +sight of my companions, when, under one of the trees, I noticed +something red huddled among the bushes. As I approached it, I +was shocked to see that it was the dead body of the missing Indian. +He lay upon his side, his limbs drawn up, and his head screwed +round at a most unnatural angle, so that he seemed to be looking +straight over his own shoulder. I gave a cry to warn my friends +that something was amiss, and running forwards I stooped over +the body. Surely my guardian angel was very near me then, for +some instinct of fear, or it may have been some faint rustle +of leaves, made me glance upwards. Out of the thick green +foliage which hung low over my head, two long muscular arms +covered with reddish hair were slowly descending. Another instant +and the great stealthy hands would have been round my throat. +I sprang backwards, but quick as I was, those hands were +quicker still. Through my sudden spring they missed a fatal +grip, but one of them caught the back of my neck and the other +one my face. I threw my hands up to protect my throat, and the +next moment the huge paw had slid down my face and closed over them. +I was lifted lightly from the ground, and I felt an intolerable +pressure forcing my head back and back until the strain upon the +cervical spine was more than I could bear. My senses swam, but +I still tore at the hand and forced it out from my chin. +Looking up I saw a frightful face with cold inexorable +light blue eyes looking down into mine. There was something +hypnotic in those terrible eyes. I could struggle no longer. +As the creature felt me grow limp in his grasp, two white canines +gleamed for a moment at each side of the vile mouth, and the grip +tightened still more upon my chin, forcing it always upwards and back. +A thin, oval-tinted mist formed before my eyes and little silvery +bells tinkled in my ears. Dully and far off I heard the crack of +a rifle and was feebly aware of the shock as I was dropped to the +earth, where I lay without sense or motion. + +I awoke to find myself on my back upon the grass in our lair +within the thicket. Someone had brought the water from the +brook, and Lord John was sprinkling my head with it, while +Challenger and Summerlee were propping me up, with concern in +their faces. For a moment I had a glimpse of the human spirits +behind their scientific masks. It was really shock, rather than +any injury, which had prostrated me, and in half-an-hour, in +spite of aching head and stiff neck, I was sitting up and ready +for anything. + +"But you've had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad," +said Lord Roxton. "When I heard your cry and ran forward, and +saw your head twisted half-off and your stohwassers kickin' in +the air, I thought we were one short. I missed the beast in my +flurry, but he dropped you all right and was off like a streak. +By George! I wish I had fifty men with rifles. I'd clear out the +whole infernal gang of them and leave this country a bit cleaner +than we found it." + +It was clear now that the ape-men had in some way marked us down, +and that we were watched on every side. We had not so much to +fear from them during the day, but they would be very likely to +rush us by night; so the sooner we got away from their +neighborhood the better. On three sides of us was absolute +forest, and there we might find ourselves in an ambush. But on +the fourth side--that which sloped down in the direction of the +lake--there was only low scrub, with scattered trees and +occasional open glades. It was, in fact, the route which I had +myself taken in my solitary journey, and it led us straight for +the Indian caves. This then must for every reason be our road. + +One great regret we had, and that was to leave our old camp +behind us, not only for the sake of the stores which remained +there, but even more because we were losing touch with Zambo, our +link with the outside world. However, we had a fair supply of +cartridges and all our guns, so, for a time at least, we could +look after ourselves, and we hoped soon to have a chance of +returning and restoring our communications with our negro. +He had faithfully promised to stay where he was, and we had not a +doubt that he would be as good as his word. + +It was in the early afternoon that we started upon our journey. +The young chief walked at our head as our guide, but refused +indignantly to carry any burden. Behind him came the two +surviving Indians with our scanty possessions upon their backs. +We four white men walked in the rear with rifles loaded and ready. +As we started there broke from the thick silent woods behind us +a sudden great ululation of the ape-men, which may have been a +cheer of triumph at our departure or a jeer of contempt at +our flight. Looking back we saw only the dense screen of trees, +but that long-drawn yell told us how many of our enemies lurked +among them. We saw no sign of pursuit, however, and soon we had +got into more open country and beyond their power. + +As I tramped along, the rearmost of the four, I could not help +smiling at the appearance of my three companions in front. Was this +the luxurious Lord John Roxton who had sat that evening in the +Albany amidst his Persian rugs and his pictures in the pink +radiance of the tinted lights? And was this the imposing +Professor who had swelled behind the great desk in his massive +study at Enmore Park? And, finally, could this be the austere and +prim figure which had risen before the meeting at the Zoological +Institute? No three tramps that one could have met in a Surrey +lane could have looked more hopeless and bedraggled. We had, it +is true, been only a week or so upon the top of the plateau, but +all our spare clothing was in our camp below, and the one week +had been a severe one upon us all, though least to me who had not +to endure the handling of the ape-men. My three friends had all +lost their hats, and had now bound handkerchiefs round their heads, +their clothes hung in ribbons about them, and their unshaven grimy +faces were hardly to be recognized. Both Summerlee and Challenger +were limping heavily, while I still dragged my feet from weakness +after the shock of the morning, and my neck was as stiff as a board +from the murderous grip that held it. We were indeed a sorry crew, +and I did not wonder to see our Indian companions glance back at us +occasionally with horror and amazement on their faces. + +In the late afternoon we reached the margin of the lake, and as +we emerged from the bush and saw the sheet of water stretching +before us our native friends set up a shrill cry of joy and +pointed eagerly in front of them. It was indeed a wonderful +sight which lay before us. Sweeping over the glassy surface was +a great flotilla of canoes coming straight for the shore upon +which we stood. They were some miles out when we first saw them, +but they shot forward with great swiftness, and were soon so near +that the rowers could distinguish our persons. Instantly a +thunderous shout of delight burst from them, and we saw them rise +from their seats, waving their paddles and spears madly in the air. +Then bending to their work once more, they flew across the +intervening water, beached their boats upon the sloping sand, +and rushed up to us, prostrating themselves with loud cries of +greeting before the young chief. Finally one of them, an elderly +man, with a necklace and bracelet of great lustrous glass beads +and the skin of some beautiful mottled amber-colored animal slung +over his shoulders, ran forward and embraced most tenderly the +youth whom we had saved. He then looked at us and asked some +questions, after which he stepped up with much dignity and +embraced us also each in turn. Then, at his order, the whole +tribe lay down upon the ground before us in homage. Personally I +felt shy and uncomfortable at this obsequious adoration, and I +read the same feeling in the faces of Roxton and Summerlee, but +Challenger expanded like a flower in the sun. + +"They may be undeveloped types," said he, stroking his beard +and looking round at them, "but their deportment in the +presence of their superiors might be a lesson to some of our +more advanced Europeans. Strange how correct are the instincts +of the natural man!" + +It was clear that the natives had come out upon the war-path, for +every man carried his spear--a long bamboo tipped with bone--his +bow and arrows, and some sort of club or stone battle-axe slung +at his side. Their dark, angry glances at the woods from which +we had come, and the frequent repetition of the word "Doda," made +it clear enough that this was a rescue party who had set forth to +save or revenge the old chief's son, for such we gathered that +the youth must be. A council was now held by the whole tribe +squatting in a circle, whilst we sat near on a slab of basalt and +watched their proceedings. Two or three warriors spoke, and +finally our young friend made a spirited harangue with such +eloquent features and gestures that we could understand it all as +clearly as if we had known his language. + +"What is the use of returning?" he said. "Sooner or later the +thing must be done. Your comrades have been murdered. What if +I have returned safe? These others have been done to death. +There is no safety for any of us. We are assembled now and ready." +Then he pointed to us. "These strange men are our friends. +They are great fighters, and they hate the ape-men even as we do. +They command," here he pointed up to heaven, "the thunder and +the lightning. When shall we have such a chance again? Let us go +forward, and either die now or live for the future in safety. +How else shall we go back unashamed to our women?" + +The little red warriors hung upon the words of the speaker, and +when he had finished they burst into a roar of applause, waving +their rude weapons in the air. The old chief stepped forward to +us, and asked us some questions, pointing at the same time to +the woods. Lord John made a sign to him that he should wait for +an answer and then he turned to us. + +"Well, it's up to you to say what you will do," said he; "for my +part I have a score to settle with these monkey-folk, and if it +ends by wiping them off the face of the earth I don't see that +the earth need fret about it. I'm goin' with our little red pals +and I mean to see them through the scrap. What do you say, +young fellah?" + +"Of course I will come." + +"And you, Challenger?" + +"I will assuredly co-operate." + +"And you, Summerlee?" + +"We seem to be drifting very far from the object of this +expedition, Lord John. I assure you that I little thought when I +left my professional chair in London that it was for the purpose +of heading a raid of savages upon a colony of anthropoid apes." + +"To such base uses do we come," said Lord John, smiling. "But we +are up against it, so what's the decision?" + +"It seems a most questionable step," said Summerlee, +argumentative to the last, "but if you are all going, I hardly +see how I can remain behind." + +"Then it is settled," said Lord John, and turning to the chief he +nodded and slapped his rifle. + +The old fellow clasped our hands, each in turn, while his men +cheered louder than ever. It was too late to advance that night, +so the Indians settled down into a rude bivouac. On all sides +their fires began to glimmer and smoke. Some of them who had +disappeared into the jungle came back presently driving a young +iguanodon before them. Like the others, it had a daub of asphalt +upon its shoulder, and it was only when we saw one of the natives +step forward with the air of an owner and give his consent to the +beast's slaughter that we understood at last that these great +creatures were as much private property as a herd of cattle, and +that these symbols which had so perplexed us were nothing more +than the marks of the owner. Helpless, torpid, and vegetarian, +with great limbs but a minute brain, they could be rounded up and +driven by a child. In a few minutes the huge beast had been cut +up and slabs of him were hanging over a dozen camp fires, +together with great scaly ganoid fish which had been speared in +the lake. + +Summerlee had lain down and slept upon the sand, but we others +roamed round the edge of the water, seeking to learn something +more of this strange country. Twice we found pits of blue clay, +such as we had already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls. +These were old volcanic vents, and for some reason excited the +greatest interest in Lord John. What attracted Challenger, on +the other hand, was a bubbling, gurgling mud geyser, where some +strange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon the surface. +He thrust a hollow reed into it and cried out with delight like a +schoolboy then he was able, on touching it with a lighted match, +to cause a sharp explosion and a blue flame at the far end of +the tube. Still more pleased was he when, inverting a leathern +pouch over the end of the reed, and so filling it with the gas, +he was able to send it soaring up into the air. + +"An inflammable gas, and one markedly lighter than the atmosphere. +I should say beyond doubt that it contained a considerable +proportion of free hydrogen. The resources of G. E. C. are not +yet exhausted, my young friend. I may yet show you how a great +mind molds all Nature to its use." He swelled with some secret +purpose, but would say no more. + +There was nothing which we could see upon the shore which seemed to +me so wonderful as the great sheet of water before us. Our numbers +and our noise had frightened all living creatures away, and save for +a few pterodactyls, which soared round high above our heads while +they waited for the carrion, all was still around the camp. But it +was different out upon the rose-tinted waters of the central lake. +It boiled and heaved with strange life. Great slate-colored backs +and high serrated dorsal fins shot up with a fringe of silver, and +then rolled down into the depths again. The sand-banks far out +were spotted with uncouth crawling forms, huge turtles, strange +saurians, and one great flat creature like a writhing, palpitating +mat of black greasy leather, which flopped its way slowly to the lake. +Here and there high serpent heads projected out of the water, cutting +swiftly through it with a little collar of foam in front, and a +long swirling wake behind, rising and falling in graceful, +swan-like undulations as they went. It was not until one of +these creatures wriggled on to a sand-bank within a few hundred +yards of us, and exposed a barrel-shaped body and huge flippers +behind the long serpent neck, that Challenger, and Summerlee, who +had joined us, broke out into their duet of wonder and admiration. + +"Plesiosaurus! A fresh-water plesiosaurus!" cried Summerlee. +"That I should have lived to see such a sight! We are blessed, +my dear Challenger, above all zoologists since the world began!" + +It was not until the night had fallen, and the fires of our +savage allies glowed red in the shadows, that our two men of +science could be dragged away from the fascinations of that +primeval lake. Even in the darkness as we lay upon the strand, +we heard from time to time the snort and plunge of the huge +creatures who lived therein. + +At earliest dawn our camp was astir and an hour later we had +started upon our memorable expedition. Often in my dreams have I +thought that I might live to be a war correspondent. In what +wildest one could I have conceived the nature of the campaign +which it should be my lot to report! Here then is my first +despatch from a field of battle: + +Our numbers had been reinforced during the night by a fresh batch +of natives from the caves, and we may have been four or five +hundred strong when we made our advance. A fringe of scouts was +thrown out in front, and behind them the whole force in a solid +column made their way up the long slope of the bush country until +we were near the edge of the forest. Here they spread out into +a long straggling line of spearmen and bowmen. Roxton and +Summerlee took their position upon the right flank, while +Challenger and I were on the left. It was a host of the stone +age that we were accompanying to battle--we with the last word of +the gunsmith's art from St. James' Street and the Strand. + +We had not long to wait for our enemy. A wild shrill clamor +rose from the edge of the wood and suddenly a body of ape-men +rushed out with clubs and stones, and made for the center of the +Indian line. It was a valiant move but a foolish one, for the +great bandy-legged creatures were slow of foot, while their +opponents were as active as cats. It was horrible to see the +fierce brutes with foaming mouths and glaring eyes, rushing and +grasping, but forever missing their elusive enemies, while arrow +after arrow buried itself in their hides. One great fellow ran +past me roaring with pain, with a dozen darts sticking from his +chest and ribs. In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, and +he fell sprawling among the aloes. But this was the only shot +fired, for the attack had been on the center of the line, and the +Indians there had needed no help of ours in repulsing it. Of all +the ape-men who had rushed out into the open, I do not think that +one got back to cover. + +But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. For an +hour or more after we entered the wood, there was a desperate +struggle in which for a time we hardly held our own. Springing out +from among the scrub the ape-men with huge clubs broke in upon the +Indians and often felled three or four of them before they could +be speared. Their frightful blows shattered everything upon which +they fell. One of them knocked Summerlee's rifle to matchwood +and the next would have crushed his skull had an Indian not +stabbed the beast to the heart. Other ape-men in the trees above +us hurled down stones and logs of wood, occasionally dropping +bodily on to our ranks and fighting furiously until they were felled. +Once our allies broke under the pressure, and had it not been for +the execution done by our rifles they would certainly have taken +to their heels. But they were gallantly rallied by their old +chief and came on with such a rush that the ape-men began in turn +to give way. Summerlee was weaponless, but I was emptying my +magazine as quick as I could fire, and on the further flank we +heard the continuous cracking of our companion's rifles. + +Then in a moment came the panic and the collapse. Screaming and +howling, the great creatures rushed away in all directions +through the brushwood, while our allies yelled in their savage +delight, following swiftly after their flying enemies. All the +feuds of countless generations, all the hatreds and cruelties of +their narrow history, all the memories of ill-usage and +persecution were to be purged that day. At last man was to be +supreme and the man-beast to find forever his allotted place. +Fly as they would the fugitives were too slow to escape from the +active savages, and from every side in the tangled woods we heard +the exultant yells, the twanging of bows, and the crash and thud +as ape-men were brought down from their hiding-places in the trees. + +I was following the others, when I found that Lord John and +Challenger had come across to join us. + +"It's over," said Lord John. "I think we can leave the tidying up +to them. Perhaps the less we see of it the better we shall sleep." + +Challenger's eyes were shining with the lust of slaughter. + +"We have been privileged," he cried, strutting about like a +gamecock, "to be present at one of the typical decisive battles +of history--the battles which have determined the fate of +the world. What, my friends, is the conquest of one nation +by another? It is meaningless. Each produces the same result. +But those fierce fights, when in the dawn of the ages the +cave-dwellers held their own against the tiger folk, or the +elephants first found that they had a master, those were the real +conquests--the victories that count. By this strange turn of +fate we have seen and helped to decide even such a contest. +Now upon this plateau the future must ever be for man." + +It needed a robust faith in the end to justify such tragic means. +As we advanced together through the woods we found the ape-men +lying thick, transfixed with spears or arrows. Here and there a +little group of shattered Indians marked where one of the +anthropoids had turned to bay, and sold his life dearly. Always in +front of us we heard the yelling and roaring which showed the +direction of the pursuit. The ape-men had been driven back to +their city, they had made a last stand there, once again they had +been broken, and now we were in time to see the final fearful +scene of all. Some eighty or a hundred males, the last +survivors, had been driven across that same little clearing which +led to the edge of the cliff, the scene of our own exploit two +days before. As we arrived the Indians, a semicircle of +spearmen, had closed in on them, and in a minute it was over, +Thirty or forty died where they stood. The others, screaming and +clawing, were thrust over the precipice, and went hurtling down, +as their prisoners had of old, on to the sharp bamboos six +hundred feet below. It was as Challenger had said, and the reign +of man was assured forever in Maple White Land. The males were +exterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and young were +driven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of untold +centuries had reached its bloody end. + +For us the victory brought much advantage. Once again we were +able to visit our camp and get at our stores. Once more also we +were able to communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified by +the spectacle from afar of an avalanche of apes falling from the +edge of the cliff. + +"Come away, Massas, come away!" he cried, his eyes starting from +his head. "The debbil get you sure if you stay up there." + +"It is the voice of sanity!" said Summerlee with conviction. +"We have had adventures enough and they are neither suitable to +our character or our position. I hold you to your word, Challenger. +From now onwards you devote your energies to getting us out of +this horrible country and back once more to civilization." + + + CHAPTER XV + + "Our Eyes have seen Great Wonders" + +I write this from day to day, but I trust that before I come to +the end of it, I may be able to say that the light shines, at +last, through our clouds. We are held here with no clear means +of making our escape, and bitterly we chafe against it. Yet, I +can well imagine that the day may come when we may be glad that +we were kept, against our will, to see something more of the +wonders of this singular place, and of the creatures who inhabit it. + +The victory of the Indians and the annihilation of the ape-men, +marked the turning point of our fortunes. From then onwards, we +were in truth masters of the plateau, for the natives looked upon us +with a mixture of fear and gratitude, since by our strange powers +we had aided them to destroy their hereditary foe. For their own +sakes they would, perhaps, be glad to see the departure of such +formidable and incalculable people, but they have not themselves +suggested any way by which we may reach the plains below. +There had been, so far as we could follow their signs, a +tunnel by which the place could be approached, the lower exit of +which we had seen from below. By this, no doubt, both ape-men +and Indians had at different epochs reached the top, and Maple +White with his companion had taken the same way. Only the year +before, however, there had been a terrific earthquake, and the +upper end of the tunnel had fallen in and completely disappeared. +The Indians now could only shake their heads and shrug their +shoulders when we expressed by signs our desire to descend. +It may be that they cannot, but it may also be that they will +not, help us to get away. + +At the end of the victorious campaign the surviving ape-folk were +driven across the plateau (their wailings were horrible) and +established in the neighborhood of the Indian caves, where they +would, from now onwards, be a servile race under the eyes of +their masters. It was a rude, raw, primeval version of the Jews +in Babylon or the Israelites in Egypt. At night we could hear +from amid the trees the long-drawn cry, as some primitive Ezekiel +mourned for fallen greatness and recalled the departed glories of +Ape Town. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, such were they +from now onwards. + +We had returned across the plateau with our allies two days after +the battle, and made our camp at the foot of their cliffs. They would +have had us share their caves with them, but Lord John would by +no means consent to it considering that to do so would put us in +their power if they were treacherously disposed. We kept our +independence, therefore, and had our weapons ready for any +emergency, while preserving the most friendly relations. We also +continually visited their caves, which were most remarkable +places, though whether made by man or by Nature we have never +been able to determine. They were all on the one stratum, +hollowed out of some soft rock which lay between the volcanic +basalt forming the ruddy cliffs above them, and the hard granite +which formed their base. + +The openings were about eighty feet above the ground, and were +led up to by long stone stairs, so narrow and steep that no large +animal could mount them. Inside they were warm and dry, running +in straight passages of varying length into the side of the hill, +with smooth gray walls decorated with many excellent pictures +done with charred sticks and representing the various animals of +the plateau. If every living thing were swept from the country +the future explorer would find upon the walls of these caves +ample evidence of the strange fauna--the dinosaurs, iguanodons, +and fish lizards--which had lived so recently upon earth. + +Since we had learned that the huge iguanodons were kept as tame +herds by their owners, and were simply walking meat-stores, we had +conceived that man, even with his primitive weapons, had established +his ascendancy upon the plateau. We were soon to discover that it +was not so, and that he was still there upon tolerance. + +It was on the third day after our forming our camp near the +Indian caves that the tragedy occurred. Challenger and Summerlee +had gone off together that day to the lake where some of the +natives, under their direction, were engaged in harpooning +specimens of the great lizards. Lord John and I had remained in +our camp, while a number of the Indians were scattered about upon +the grassy slope in front of the caves engaged in different ways. +Suddenly there was a shrill cry of alarm, with the word "Stoa" +resounding from a hundred tongues. From every side men, women, +and children were rushing wildly for shelter, swarming up the +staircases and into the caves in a mad stampede. + +Looking up, we could see them waving their arms from the rocks +above and beckoning to us to join them in their refuge. We had +both seized our magazine rifles and ran out to see what the +danger could be. Suddenly from the near belt of trees there +broke forth a group of twelve or fifteen Indians, running for +their lives, and at their very heels two of those frightful +monsters which had disturbed our camp and pursued me upon my +solitary journey. In shape they were like horrible toads, and +moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of an +incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant. We had never +before seen them save at night, and indeed they are nocturnal +animals save when disturbed in their lairs, as these had been. +We now stood amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty +skins were of a curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight +struck them with an ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved. + +We had little time to watch them, however, for in an instant they +had overtaken the fugitives and were making a dire slaughter +among them. Their method was to fall forward with their full +weight upon each in turn, leaving him crushed and mangled, to +bound on after the others. The wretched Indians screamed with +terror, but were helpless, run as they would, before the +relentless purpose and horrible activity of these monstrous creatures. +One after another they went down, and there were not half-a-dozen +surviving by the time my companion and I could come to their help. +But our aid was of little avail and only involved us in the same peril. +At the range of a couple of hundred yards we emptied our magazines, +firing bullet after bullet into the beasts, but with no more effect +than if we were pelting them with pellets of paper. Their slow +reptilian natures cared nothing for wounds, and the springs of +their lives, with no special brain center but scattered throughout +their spinal cords, could not be tapped by any modern weapons. +The most that we could do was to check their progress by +distracting their attention with the flash and roar of our guns, +and so to give both the natives and ourselves time to reach the +steps which led to safety. But where the conical explosive +bullets of the twentieth century were of no avail, the poisoned +arrows of the natives, dipped in the juice of strophanthus and +steeped afterwards in decayed carrion, could succeed. Such arrows +were of little avail to the hunter who attacked the beast, because +their action in that torpid circulation was slow, and before its +powers failed it could certainly overtake and slay its assailant. +But now, as the two monsters hounded us to the very foot of the +stairs, a drift of darts came whistling from every chink in the +cliff above them. In a minute they were feathered with them, +and yet with no sign of pain they clawed and slobbered with +impotent rage at the steps which would lead them to their victims, +mounting clumsily up for a few yards and then sliding down again +to the ground. But at last the poison worked. One of them gave +a deep rumbling groan and dropped his huge squat head on to the earth. +The other bounded round in an eccentric circle with shrill, wailing +cries, and then lying down writhed in agony for some minutes before +it also stiffened and lay still. With yells of triumph the Indians +came flocking down from their caves and danced a frenzied dance +of victory round the dead bodies, in mad joy that two more of the +most dangerous of all their enemies had been slain. That night +they cut up and removed the bodies, not to eat--for the poison +was still active--but lest they should breed a pestilence. +The great reptilian hearts, however, each as large as a cushion, +still lay there, beating slowly and steadily, with a gentle rise +and fall, in horrible independent life. It was only upon the third +day that the ganglia ran down and the dreadful things were still. + +Some day, when I have a better desk than a meat-tin and more +helpful tools than a worn stub of pencil and a last, tattered +note-book, I will write some fuller account of the Accala +Indians--of our life amongst them, and of the glimpses which we +had of the strange conditions of wondrous Maple White Land. +Memory, at least, will never fail me, for so long as the breath +of life is in me, every hour and every action of that period will +stand out as hard and clear as do the first strange happenings of +our childhood. No new impressions could efface those which are +so deeply cut. When the time comes I will describe that wondrous +moonlit night upon the great lake when a young ichthyosaurus--a +strange creature, half seal, half fish, to look at, with +bone-covered eyes on each side of his snout, and a third eye +fixed upon the top of his head--was entangled in an Indian net, +and nearly upset our canoe before we towed it ashore; the same +night that a green water-snake shot out from the rushes and +carried off in its coils the steersman of Challenger's canoe. +I will tell, too, of the great nocturnal white thing--to this day +we do not know whether it was beast or reptile--which lived in a +vile swamp to the east of the lake, and flitted about with a +faint phosphorescent glimmer in the darkness. The Indians were +so terrified at it that they would not go near the place, and, +though we twice made expeditions and saw it each time, we could +not make our way through the deep marsh in which it lived. I can +only say that it seemed to be larger than a cow and had the +strangest musky odor. I will tell also of the huge bird which +chased Challenger to the shelter of the rocks one day--a great +running bird, far taller than an ostrich, with a vulture-like +neck and cruel head which made it a walking death. As Challenger +climbed to safety one dart of that savage curving beak shore off the +heel of his boot as if it had been cut with a chisel. This time +at least modern weapons prevailed and the great creature, twelve +feet from head to foot--phororachus its name, according to our +panting but exultant Professor--went down before Lord Roxton's +rifle in a flurry of waving feathers and kicking limbs, with two +remorseless yellow eyes glaring up from the midst of it. May I +live to see that flattened vicious skull in its own niche amid +the trophies of the Albany. Finally, I will assuredly give some +account of the toxodon, the giant ten-foot guinea pig, with +projecting chisel teeth, which we killed as it drank in the gray +of the morning by the side of the lake. + +All this I shall some day write at fuller length, and amidst +these more stirring days I would tenderly sketch in these lovely +summer evenings, when with the deep blue sky above us we lay in +good comradeship among the long grasses by the wood and marveled +at the strange fowl that swept over us and the quaint new +creatures which crept from their burrows to watch us, while above +us the boughs of the bushes were heavy with luscious fruit, and +below us strange and lovely flowers peeped at us from among the +herbage; or those long moonlit nights when we lay out upon the +shimmering surface of the great lake and watched with wonder and +awe the huge circles rippling out from the sudden splash of some +fantastic monster; or the greenish gleam, far down in the deep +water, of some strange creature upon the confines of darkness. +These are the scenes which my mind and my pen will dwell upon in +every detail at some future day. + +But, you will ask, why these experiences and why this delay, when +you and your comrades should have been occupied day and night in the +devising of some means by which you could return to the outer world? +My answer is, that there was not one of us who was not working for +this end, but that our work had been in vain. One fact we had +very speedily discovered: The Indians would do nothing to help us. +In every other way they were our friends--one might almost say our +devoted slaves--but when it was suggested that they should help us +to make and carry a plank which would bridge the chasm, or when we +wished to get from them thongs of leather or liana to weave ropes +which might help us, we were met by a good-humored, but an +invincible, refusal. They would smile, twinkle their eyes, shake +their heads, and there was the end of it. Even the old chief met +us with the same obstinate denial, and it was only Maretas, the +youngster whom we had saved, who looked wistfully at us and told +us by his gestures that he was grieved for our thwarted wishes. +Ever since their crowning triumph with the ape-men they looked +upon us as supermen, who bore victory in the tubes of strange +weapons, and they believed that so long as we remained with them +good fortune would be theirs. A little red-skinned wife and a +cave of our own were freely offered to each of us if we would but +forget our own people and dwell forever upon the plateau. So far +all had been kindly, however far apart our desires might be; but +we felt well assured that our actual plans of a descent must be +kept secret, for we had reason to fear that at the last they might +try to hold us by force. + +In spite of the danger from dinosaurs (which is not great save at +night, for, as I may have said before, they are mostly nocturnal +in their habits) I have twice in the last three weeks been over +to our old camp in order to see our negro who still kept watch +and ward below the cliff. My eyes strained eagerly across the +great plain in the hope of seeing afar off the help for which we +had prayed. But the long cactus-strewn levels still stretched +away, empty and bare, to the distant line of the cane-brake. + +"They will soon come now, Massa Malone. Before another week pass +Indian come back and bring rope and fetch you down." Such was the +cheery cry of our excellent Zambo. + +I had one strange experience as I came from this second visit +which had involved my being away for a night from my companions. +I was returning along the well-remembered route, and had reached +a spot within a mile or so of the marsh of the pterodactyls, when +I saw an extraordinary object approaching me. It was a man who +walked inside a framework made of bent canes so that he was +enclosed on all sides in a bell-shaped cage. As I drew nearer I +was more amazed still to see that it was Lord John Roxton. When he +saw me he slipped from under his curious protection and came towards +me laughing, and yet, as I thought, with some confusion in his manner. + +"Well, young fellah," said he, "who would have thought of meetin' +you up here?" + +"What in the world are you doing?" I asked. + +"Visitin' my friends, the pterodactyls," said he. + +"But why?" + +"Interestin' beasts, don't you think? But unsociable! +Nasty rude ways with strangers, as you may remember. So I +rigged this framework which keeps them from bein' too pressin' +in their attentions." + +"But what do you want in the swamp?" + +He looked at me with a very questioning eye, and I read +hesitation in his face. + +"Don't you think other people besides Professors can want to +know things?" he said at last. "I'm studyin' the pretty dears. +That's enough for you." + +"No offense," said I. + +His good-humor returned and he laughed. + +"No offense, young fellah. I'm goin' to get a young devil +chick for Challenger. That's one of my jobs. No, I don't want +your company. I'm safe in this cage, and you are not. So long, +and I'll be back in camp by night-fall." + +He turned away and I left him wandering on through the wood with +his extraordinary cage around him. + +If Lord John's behavior at this time was strange, that of +Challenger was more so. I may say that he seemed to possess an +extraordinary fascination for the Indian women, and that he +always carried a large spreading palm branch with which he beat +them off as if they were flies, when their attentions became +too pressing. To see him walking like a comic opera Sultan, with +this badge of authority in his hand, his black beard bristling +in front of him, his toes pointing at each step, and a train of +wide-eyed Indian girls behind him, clad in their slender drapery +of bark cloth, is one of the most grotesque of all the pictures +which I will carry back with me. As to Summerlee, he was +absorbed in the insect and bird life of the plateau, and spent +his whole time (save that considerable portion which was devoted +to abusing Challenger for not getting us out of our difficulties) +in cleaning and mounting his specimens. + +Challenger had been in the habit of walking off by himself every +morning and returning from time to time with looks of portentous +solemnity, as one who bears the full weight of a great enterprise +upon his shoulders. One day, palm branch in hand, and his crowd +of adoring devotees behind him, he led us down to his hidden +work-shop and took us into the secret of his plans. + +The place was a small clearing in the center of a palm grove. +In this was one of those boiling mud geysers which I have +already described. Around its edge were scattered a number of +leathern thongs cut from iguanodon hide, and a large collapsed +membrane which proved to be the dried and scraped stomach of one +of the great fish lizards from the lake. This huge sack had been +sewn up at one end and only a small orifice left at the other. +Into this opening several bamboo canes had been inserted and the +other ends of these canes were in contact with conical clay +funnels which collected the gas bubbling up through the mud of +the geyser. Soon the flaccid organ began to slowly expand and +show such a tendency to upward movements that Challenger fastened +the cords which held it to the trunks of the surrounding trees. +In half an hour a good-sized gas-bag had been formed, and the +jerking and straining upon the thongs showed that it was capable +of considerable lift. Challenger, like a glad father in the +presence of his first-born, stood smiling and stroking his beard, +in silent, self-satisfied content as he gazed at the creation of +his brain. It was Summerlee who first broke the silence. + +"You don't mean us to go up in that thing, Challenger?" said he, +in an acid voice. + +"I mean, my dear Summerlee, to give you such a demonstration of +its powers that after seeing it you will, I am sure, have no +hesitation in trusting yourself to it." + +"You can put it right out of your head now, at once," said +Summerlee with decision, "nothing on earth would induce me to +commit such a folly. Lord John, I trust that you will not +countenance such madness?" + +"Dooced ingenious, I call it," said our peer. "I'd like to see +how it works." + +"So you shall," said Challenger. "For some days I have exerted +my whole brain force upon the problem of how we shall descend +from these cliffs. We have satisfied ourselves that we cannot +climb down and that there is no tunnel. We are also unable to +construct any kind of bridge which may take us back to the +pinnacle from which we came. How then shall I find a means to +convey us? Some little time ago I had remarked to our young +friend here that free hydrogen was evolved from the geyser. +The idea of a balloon naturally followed. I was, I will admit, +somewhat baffled by the difficulty of discovering an envelope to +contain the gas, but the contemplation of the immense entrails of +these reptiles supplied me with a solution to the problem. +Behold the result!" + +He put one hand in the front of his ragged jacket and pointed +proudly with the other. + +By this time the gas-bag had swollen to a goodly rotundity and +was jerking strongly upon its lashings. + +"Midsummer madness!" snorted Summerlee. + +Lord John was delighted with the whole idea. "Clever old dear, +ain't he?" he whispered to me, and then louder to Challenger. +"What about a car?" + +"The car will be my next care. I have already planned how it is +to be made and attached. Meanwhile I will simply show you how +capable my apparatus is of supporting the weight of each of us." + +"All of us, surely?" + +"No, it is part of my plan that each in turn shall descend as in +a parachute, and the balloon be drawn back by means which I shall +have no difficulty in perfecting. If it will support the weight +of one and let him gently down, it will have done all that is +required of it. I will now show you its capacity in that direction." + +He brought out a lump of basalt of a considerable size, +constructed in the middle so that a cord could be easily attached +to it. This cord was the one which we had brought with us on to +the plateau after we had used it for climbing the pinnacle. +It was over a hundred feet long, and though it was thin it was +very strong. He had prepared a sort of collar of leather with many +straps depending from it. This collar was placed over the dome +of the balloon, and the hanging thongs were gathered together +below, so that the pressure of any weight would be diffused over +a considerable surface. Then the lump of basalt was fastened to +the thongs, and the rope was allowed to hang from the end of it, +being passed three times round the Professor's arm. + +"I will now," said Challenger, with a smile of pleased +anticipation, "demonstrate the carrying power of my balloon." As +he said so he cut with a knife the various lashings that held it. + +Never was our expedition in more imminent danger of complete +annihilation. The inflated membrane shot up with frightful +velocity into the air. In an instant Challenger was pulled off +his feet and dragged after it. I had just time to throw my arms +round his ascending waist when I was myself whipped up into the air. +Lord John had me with a rat-trap grip round the legs, but I felt +that he also was coming off the ground. For a moment I had a +vision of four adventurers floating like a string of sausages +over the land that they had explored. But, happily, there were +limits to the strain which the rope would stand, though none +apparently to the lifting powers of this infernal machine. There was +a sharp crack, and we were in a heap upon the ground with coils of +rope all over us. When we were able to stagger to our feet we saw +far off in the deep blue sky one dark spot where the lump of +basalt was speeding upon its way. + +"Splendid!" cried the undaunted Challenger, rubbing his injured arm. +"A most thorough and satisfactory demonstration! I could not have +anticipated such a success. Within a week, gentlemen, I promise +that a second balloon will be prepared, and that you can count upon +taking in safety and comfort the first stage of our homeward journey." +So far I have written each of the foregoing events as it occurred. +Now I am rounding off my narrative from the old camp, where Zambo +has waited so long, with all our difficulties and dangers left like +a dream behind us upon the summit of those vast ruddy crags which +tower above our heads. We have descended in safety, though in a +most unexpected fashion, and all is well with us. In six weeks +or two months we shall be in London, and it is possible that this +letter may not reach you much earlier than we do ourselves. +Already our hearts yearn and our spirits fly towards the great +mother city which holds so much that is dear to us. + +It was on the very evening of our perilous adventure with +Challenger's home-made balloon that the change came in our fortunes. +I have said that the one person from whom we had had some sign of +sympathy in our attempts to get away was the young chief whom we +had rescued. He alone had no desire to hold us against our will +in a strange land. He had told us as much by his expressive +language of signs. That evening, after dusk, he came down to our +little camp, handed me (for some reason he had always shown his +attentions to me, perhaps because I was the one who was nearest +his age) a small roll of the bark of a tree, and then pointing +solemnly up at the row of caves above him, he had put his finger +to his lips as a sign of secrecy and had stolen back again to +his people. + +I took the slip of bark to the firelight and we examined it together. +It was about a foot square, and on the inner side there was a +singular arrangement of lines, which I here reproduce: + + +They were neatly done in charcoal upon the white surface, and +looked to me at first sight like some sort of rough musical score. + +"Whatever it is, I can swear that it is of importance to us," +said I. "I could read that on his face as he gave it." + +"Unless we have come upon a primitive practical joker," Summerlee +suggested, "which I should think would be one of the most +elementary developments of man." + +"It is clearly some sort of script," said Challenger. + +"Looks like a guinea puzzle competition," remarked Lord John, +craning his neck to have a look at it. Then suddenly he +stretched out his hand and seized the puzzle. + +"By George!" he cried, "I believe I've got it. The boy guessed +right the very first time. See here! How many marks are on that +paper? Eighteen. Well, if you come to think of it there are +eighteen cave openings on the hill-side above us." + +"He pointed up to the caves when he gave it to me," said I. + +"Well, that settles it. This is a chart of the caves. What! +Eighteen of them all in a row, some short, some deep, some +branching, same as we saw them. It's a map, and here's a cross +on it. What's the cross for? It is placed to mark one that is +much deeper than the others." + +"One that goes through," I cried. + +"I believe our young friend has read the riddle," said Challenger. +"If the cave does not go through I do not understand why this +person, who has every reason to mean us well, should have drawn +our attention to it. But if it does go through and comes out at +the corresponding point on the other side, we should not have more +than a hundred feet to descend." + +"A hundred feet!" grumbled Summerlee. + +"Well, our rope is still more than a hundred feet long," I cried. +"Surely we could get down." + +"How about the Indians in the cave?" Summerlee objected. + +"There are no Indians in any of the caves above our heads," said I. +"They are all used as barns and store-houses. Why should we not +go up now at once and spy out the land?" + +There is a dry bituminous wood upon the plateau--a species of +araucaria, according to our botanist--which is always used by the +Indians for torches. Each of us picked up a faggot of this, and +we made our way up weed-covered steps to the particular cave +which was marked in the drawing. It was, as I had said, empty, +save for a great number of enormous bats, which flapped round our +heads as we advanced into it. As we had no desire to draw the +attention of the Indians to our proceedings, we stumbled along in +the dark until we had gone round several curves and penetrated a +considerable distance into the cavern. Then, at last, we lit +our torches. It was a beautiful dry tunnel with smooth gray walls +covered with native symbols, a curved roof which arched over our +heads, and white glistening sand beneath our feet. We hurried +eagerly along it until, with a deep groan of bitter +disappointment, we were brought to a halt. A sheer wall of rock +had appeared before us, with no chink through which a mouse could +have slipped. There was no escape for us there. + +We stood with bitter hearts staring at this unexpected obstacle. +It was not the result of any convulsion, as in the case of the +ascending tunnel. The end wall was exactly like the side ones. +It was, and had always been, a cul-de-sac. + +"Never mind, my friends," said the indomitable Challenger. +"You have still my firm promise of a balloon." + +Summerlee groaned. + +"Can we be in the wrong cave?" I suggested. + +"No use, young fellah," said Lord John, with his finger on the chart. +"Seventeen from the right and second from the left. This is the +cave sure enough." + +I looked at the mark to which his finger pointed, and I gave a +sudden cry of joy. + +"I believe I have it! Follow me! Follow me!" + +I hurried back along the way we had come, my torch in my hand. +"Here," said I, pointing to some matches upon the ground, "is +where we lit up." + +"Exactly." + +"Well, it is marked as a forked cave, and in the darkness we +passed the fork before the torches were lit. On the right side +as we go out we should find the longer arm." + +It was as I had said. We had not gone thirty yards before a +great black opening loomed in the wall. We turned into it to +find that we were in a much larger passage than before. Along it +we hurried in breathless impatience for many hundreds of yards. +Then, suddenly, in the black darkness of the arch in front of us +we saw a gleam of dark red light. We stared in amazement. +A sheet of steady flame seemed to cross the passage and to bar +our way. We hastened towards it. No sound, no heat, no movement +came from it, but still the great luminous curtain glowed before us, +silvering all the cave and turning the sand to powdered jewels, +until as we drew closer it discovered a circular edge. + +"The moon, by George!" cried Lord John. "We are through, boys! +We are through!" + +It was indeed the full moon which shone straight down the +aperture which opened upon the cliffs. It was a small rift, not +larger than a window, but it was enough for all our purposes. +As we craned our necks through it we could see that the descent was +not a very difficult one, and that the level ground was no very +great way below us. It was no wonder that from below we had not +observed the place, as the cliffs curved overhead and an ascent +at the spot would have seemed so impossible as to discourage +close inspection. We satisfied ourselves that with the help of +our rope we could find our way down, and then returned, rejoicing, +to our camp to make our preparations for the next evening. + +What we did we had to do quickly and secretly, since even at this +last hour the Indians might hold us back. Our stores we would +leave behind us, save only our guns and cartridges. But Challenger +had some unwieldy stuff which he ardently desired to take with him, +and one particular package, of which I may not speak, which gave +us more labor than any. Slowly the day passed, but when the +darkness fell we were ready for our departure. With much labor +we got our things up the steps, and then, looking back, took one +last long survey of that strange land, soon I fear to be vulgarized, +the prey of hunter and prospector, but to each of us a dreamland +of glamour and romance, a land where we had dared much, suffered +much, and learned much--OUR land, as we shall ever fondly call it. +Along upon our left the neighboring caves each threw out its ruddy +cheery firelight into the gloom. From the slope below us rose the +voices of the Indians as they laughed and sang. Beyond was the +long sweep of the woods, and in the center, shimmering vaguely +through the gloom, was the great lake, the mother of strange monsters. +Even as we looked a high whickering cry, the call of some weird +animal, rang clear out of the darkness. It was the very voice of +Maple White Land bidding us good-bye. We turned and plunged into +the cave which led to home. + +Two hours later, we, our packages, and all we owned, were at the +foot of the cliff. Save for Challenger's luggage we had never +a difficulty. Leaving it all where we descended, we started at +once for Zambo's camp. In the early morning we approached it, +but only to find, to our amazement, not one fire but a dozen upon +the plain. The rescue party had arrived. There were twenty +Indians from the river, with stakes, ropes, and all that could be +useful for bridging the chasm. At least we shall have no +difficulty now in carrying our packages, when to-morrow we begin +to make our way back to the Amazon. + +And so, in humble and thankful mood, I close this account. +Our eyes have seen great wonders and our souls are chastened +by what we have endured. Each is in his own way a better and +deeper man. It may be that when we reach Para we shall stop +to refit. If we do, this letter will be a mail ahead. If not, +it will reach London on the very day that I do. In either case, +my dear Mr. McArdle, I hope very soon to shake you by the hand. + + + CHAPTER XVI + + "A Procession! A Procession!" + +I should wish to place upon record here our gratitude to all our +friends upon the Amazon for the very great kindness and +hospitality which was shown to us upon our return journey. +Very particularly would I thank Senhor Penalosa and other officials +of the Brazilian Government for the special arrangements by which +we were helped upon our way, and Senhor Pereira of Para, to whose +forethought we owe the complete outfit for a decent appearance in +the civilized world which we found ready for us at that town. +It seemed a poor return for all the courtesy which we encountered +that we should deceive our hosts and benefactors, but under the +circumstances we had really no alternative, and I hereby tell +them that they will only waste their time and their money if they +attempt to follow upon our traces. Even the names have been +altered in our accounts, and I am very sure that no one, from the +most careful study of them, could come within a thousand miles of +our unknown land. + +The excitement which had been caused through those parts of South +America which we had to traverse was imagined by us to be purely +local, and I can assure our friends in England that we had no +notion of the uproar which the mere rumor of our experiences had +caused through Europe. It was not until the Ivernia was within +five hundred miles of Southampton that the wireless messages from +paper after paper and agency after agency, offering huge prices +for a short return message as to our actual results, showed us +how strained was the attention not only of the scientific world +but of the general public. It was agreed among us, however, that +no definite statement should be given to the Press until we had +met the members of the Zoological Institute, since as delegates it +was our clear duty to give our first report to the body from which +we had received our commission of investigation. Thus, although +we found Southampton full of Pressmen, we absolutely refused to +give any information, which had the natural effect of focussing +public attention upon the meeting which was advertised for the +evening of November 7th. For this gathering, the Zoological Hall +which had been the scene of the inception of our task was found +to be far too small, and it was only in the Queen's Hall in Regent +Street that accommodation could be found. It is now common +knowledge the promoters might have ventured upon the Albert Hall +and still found their space too scanty. + +It was for the second evening after our arrival that the great +meeting had been fixed. For the first, we had each, no doubt, +our own pressing personal affairs to absorb us. Of mine I cannot +yet speak. It may be that as it stands further from me I may +think of it, and even speak of it, with less emotion. I have +shown the reader in the beginning of this narrative where lay the +springs of my action. It is but right, perhaps, that I should +carry on the tale and show also the results. And yet the day may +come when I would not have it otherwise. At least I have been +driven forth to take part in a wondrous adventure, and I cannot +but be thankful to the force that drove me. + +And now I turn to the last supreme eventful moment of our adventure. +As I was racking my brain as to how I should best describe it, my +eyes fell upon the issue of my own Journal for the morning of the +8th of November with the full and excellent account of my friend +and fellow-reporter Macdona. What can I do better than transcribe +his narrative--head-lines and all? I admit that the paper was +exuberant in the matter, out of compliment to its own enterprise +in sending a correspondent, but the other great dailies were hardly +less full in their account. Thus, then, friend Mac in his report: + + + THE NEW WORLD + GREAT MEETING AT THE QUEEN'S HALL + SCENES OF UPROAR + EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT + WHAT WAS IT? + NOCTURNAL RIOT IN REGENT STREET + (Special) + + +"The much-discussed meeting of the Zoological Institute, convened +to hear the report of the Committee of Investigation sent out +last year to South America to test the assertions made by +Professor Challenger as to the continued existence of prehistoric +life upon that Continent, was held last night in the greater +Queen's Hall, and it is safe to say that it is likely to be a red +letter date in the history of Science, for the proceedings were +of so remarkable and sensational a character that no one present +is ever likely to forget them." (Oh, brother scribe Macdona, what +a monstrous opening sentence!) "The tickets were theoretically +confined to members and their friends, but the latter is an +elastic term, and long before eight o'clock, the hour fixed for +the commencement of the proceedings, all parts of the Great Hall +were tightly packed. The general public, however, which most +unreasonably entertained a grievance at having been excluded, +stormed the doors at a quarter to eight, after a prolonged melee +in which several people were injured, including Inspector Scoble +of H. Division, whose leg was unfortunately broken. After this +unwarrantable invasion, which not only filled every passage, but +even intruded upon the space set apart for the Press, it is +estimated that nearly five thousand people awaited the arrival of +the travelers. When they eventually appeared, they took their +places in the front of a platform which already contained all the +leading scientific men, not only of this country, but of France +and of Germany. Sweden was also represented, in the person of +Professor Sergius, the famous Zoologist of the University of Upsala. +The entrance of the four heroes of the occasion was the signal +for a remarkable demonstration of welcome, the whole audience +rising and cheering for some minutes. An acute observer might, +however, have detected some signs of dissent amid the applause, +and gathered that the proceedings were likely to become more +lively than harmonious. It may safely be prophesied, however, +that no one could have foreseen the extraordinary turn which they +were actually to take. + +"Of the appearance of the four wanderers little need be said, +since their photographs have for some time been appearing in all +the papers. They bear few traces of the hardships which they are +said to have undergone. Professor Challenger's beard may be more +shaggy, Professor Summerlee's features more ascetic, Lord John +Roxton's figure more gaunt, and all three may be burned to a +darker tint than when they left our shores, but each appeared to +be in most excellent health. As to our own representative, the +well-known athlete and international Rugby football player, E. D. +Malone, he looks trained to a hair, and as he surveyed the crowd +a smile of good-humored contentment pervaded his honest but +homely face." (All right, Mac, wait till I get you alone!) + +"When quiet had been restored and the audience resumed their +seats after the ovation which they had given to the travelers, +the chairman, the Duke of Durham, addressed the meeting. `He +would not,' he said, `stand for more than a moment between that +vast assembly and the treat which lay before them. It was not +for him to anticipate what Professor Summerlee, who was the +spokesman of the committee, had to say to them, but it was common +rumor that their expedition had been crowned by extraordinary +success.' (Applause.) `Apparently the age of romance was not +dead, and there was common ground upon which the wildest +imaginings of the novelist could meet the actual scientific +investigations of the searcher for truth. He would only add, +before he sat down, that he rejoiced--and all of them would +rejoice--that these gentlemen had returned safe and sound from +their difficult and dangerous task, for it cannot be denied that +any disaster to such an expedition would have inflicted a +well-nigh irreparable loss to the cause of Zoological science.' +(Great applause, in which Professor Challenger was observed to join.) + +"Professor Summerlee's rising was the signal for another +extraordinary outbreak of enthusiasm, which broke out again at +intervals throughout his address. That address will not be given +in extenso in these columns, for the reason that a full account +of the whole adventures of the expedition is being published as +a supplement from the pen of our own special correspondent. +Some general indications will therefore suffice. Having described +the genesis of their journey, and paid a handsome tribute to his +friend Professor Challenger, coupled with an apology for the +incredulity with which his assertions, now fully vindicated, had +been received, he gave the actual course of their journey, +carefully withholding such information as would aid the public in +any attempt to locate this remarkable plateau. Having described, +in general terms, their course from the main river up to the time +that they actually reached the base of the cliffs, he enthralled +his hearers by his account of the difficulties encountered by the +expedition in their repeated attempts to mount them, and finally +described how they succeeded in their desperate endeavors, +which cost the lives of their two devoted half-breed servants." +(This amazing reading of the affair was the result of Summerlee's +endeavors to avoid raising any questionable matter at the meeting.) + +"Having conducted his audience in fancy to the summit, and +marooned them there by reason of the fall of their bridge, the +Professor proceeded to describe both the horrors and the +attractions of that remarkable land. Of personal adventures he +said little, but laid stress upon the rich harvest reaped by +Science in the observations of the wonderful beast, bird, insect, +and plant life of the plateau. Peculiarly rich in the coleoptera +and in the lepidoptera, forty-six new species of the one and +ninety-four of the other had been secured in the course of a +few weeks. It was, however, in the larger animals, and especially +in the larger animals supposed to have been long extinct, that the +interest of the public was naturally centered. Of these he was +able to give a goodly list, but had little doubt that it would be +largely extended when the place had been more thoroughly investigated. +He and his companions had seen at least a dozen creatures, most of +them at a distance, which corresponded with nothing at present +known to Science. These would in time be duly classified +and examined. He instanced a snake, the cast skin of which, +deep purple in color, was fifty-one feet in length, and +mentioned a white creature, supposed to be mammalian, which gave +forth well-marked phosphorescence in the darkness; also a large +black moth, the bite of which was supposed by the Indians to be +highly poisonous. Setting aside these entirely new forms of +life, the plateau was very rich in known prehistoric forms, +dating back in some cases to early Jurassic times. Among these +he mentioned the gigantic and grotesque stegosaurus, seen once by +Mr. Malone at a drinking-place by the lake, and drawn in the +sketch-book of that adventurous American who had first penetrated +this unknown world. He described also the iguanodon and the +pterodactyl--two of the first of the wonders which they +had encountered. He then thrilled the assembly by some account +of the terrible carnivorous dinosaurs, which had on more than one +occasion pursued members of the party, and which were the most +formidable of all the creatures which they had encountered. +Thence he passed to the huge and ferocious bird, the phororachus, +and to the great elk which still roams upon this upland. It was +not, however, until he sketched the mysteries of the central lake +that the full interest and enthusiasm of the audience were aroused. +One had to pinch oneself to be sure that one was awake as one +heard this sane and practical Professor in cold measured +tones describing the monstrous three-eyed fish-lizards and the +huge water-snakes which inhabit this enchanted sheet of water. +Next he touched upon the Indians, and upon the extraordinary +colony of anthropoid apes, which might be looked upon as an +advance upon the pithecanthropus of Java, and as coming therefore +nearer than any known form to that hypothetical creation, the +missing link. Finally he described, amongst some merriment, the +ingenious but highly dangerous aeronautic invention of Professor +Challenger, and wound up a most memorable address by an account +of the methods by which the committee did at last find their way +back to civilization. + +"It had been hoped that the proceedings would end there, and that +a vote of thanks and congratulation, moved by Professor Sergius, +of Upsala University, would be duly seconded and carried; but it +was soon evident that the course of events was not destined to +flow so smoothly. Symptoms of opposition had been evident from +time to time during the evening, and now Dr. James Illingworth, of +Edinburgh, rose in the center of the hall. Dr. Illingworth asked +whether an amendment should not be taken before a resolution. + +"THE CHAIRMAN: `Yes, sir, if there must be an amendment.' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: `Your Grace, there must be an amendment.' + +"THE CHAIRMAN: `Then let us take it at once.' + +"PROFESSOR SUMMERLEE (springing to his feet): `Might I explain, +your Grace, that this man is my personal enemy ever since our +controversy in the Quarterly Journal of Science as to the true +nature of Bathybius?' + +"THE CHAIRMAN: `I fear I cannot go into personal matters. Proceed.' + +"Dr. Illingworth was imperfectly heard in part of his remarks on +account of the strenuous opposition of the friends of the explorers. +Some attempts were also made to pull him down. Being a man of +enormous physique, however, and possessed of a very powerful +voice, he dominated the tumult and succeeded in finishing +his speech. It was clear, from the moment of his rising, that +he had a number of friends and sympathizers in the hall, though +they formed a minority in the audience. The attitude of the +greater part of the public might be described as one of +attentive neutrality. + +"Dr. Illingworth began his remarks by expressing his high +appreciation of the scientific work both of Professor Challenger +and of Professor Summerlee. He much regretted that any personal +bias should have been read into his remarks, which were entirely +dictated by his desire for scientific truth. His position, in +fact, was substantially the same as that taken up by Professor +Summerlee at the last meeting. At that last meeting Professor +Challenger had made certain assertions which had been queried by +his colleague. Now this colleague came forward himself with the +same assertions and expected them to remain unquestioned. Was this +reasonable? (`Yes,' `No,' and prolonged interruption, during +which Professor Challenger was heard from the Press box to ask +leave from the chairman to put Dr. Illingworth into the street.) +A year ago one man said certain things. Now four men said other +and more startling ones. Was this to constitute a final proof +where the matters in question were of the most revolutionary and +incredible character? There had been recent examples of travelers +arriving from the unknown with certain tales which had been too +readily accepted. Was the London Zoological Institute to place +itself in this position? He admitted that the members of the +committee were men of character. But human nature was very complex. +Even Professors might be misled by the desire for notoriety. +Like moths, we all love best to flutter in the light. +Heavy-game shots liked to be in a position to cap the tales of +their rivals, and journalists were not averse from sensational +coups, even when imagination had to aid fact in the process. +Each member of the committee had his own motive for making the +most of his results. (`Shame! shame!') He had no desire to be +offensive. (`You are!' and interruption.) The corroboration of +these wondrous tales was really of the most slender description. +What did it amount to? Some photographs. {Was it possible that in +this age of ingenious manipulation photographs could be accepted +as evidence?} What more? We have a story of a flight and a descent +by ropes which precluded the production of larger specimens. It was +ingenious, but not convincing. It was understood that Lord John +Roxton claimed to have the skull of a phororachus. He could +only say that he would like to see that skull. + +"LORD JOHN ROXTON: `Is this fellow calling me a liar?' (Uproar.) + +"THE CHAIRMAN: `Order! order! Dr. Illingworth, I must direct you +to bring your remarks to a conclusion and to move your amendment.' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: `Your Grace, I have more to say, but I bow to +your ruling. I move, then, that, while Professor Summerlee be +thanked for his interesting address, the whole matter shall be +regarded as `non-proven,' and shall be referred back to a larger, +and possibly more reliable Committee of Investigation.' + +"It is difficult to describe the confusion caused by this amendment. +A large section of the audience expressed their indignation at such +a slur upon the travelers by noisy shouts of dissent and cries of, +`Don't put it!' `Withdraw!' `Turn him out!' On the other hand, +the malcontents--and it cannot be denied that they were fairly +numerous--cheered for the amendment, with cries of `Order!' +`Chair!' and `Fair play!' A scuffle broke out in the back benches, +and blows were freely exchanged among the medical students who +crowded that part of the hall. It was only the moderating +influence of the presence of large numbers of ladies which +prevented an absolute riot. Suddenly, however, there was a +pause, a hush, and then complete silence. Professor Challenger +was on his feet. His appearance and manner are peculiarly +arresting, and as he raised his hand for order the whole +audience settled down expectantly to give him a hearing. + +"`It will be within the recollection of many present,' said +Professor Challenger, `that similar foolish and unmannerly scenes +marked the last meeting at which I have been able to address them. +On that occasion Professor Summerlee was the chief offender, and +though he is now chastened and contrite, the matter could not be +entirely forgotten. I have heard to-night similar, but even more +offensive, sentiments from the person who has just sat down, and +though it is a conscious effort of self-effacement to come down +to that person's mental level, I will endeavor to do so, in order +to allay any reasonable doubt which could possibly exist in the +minds of anyone.' (Laughter and interruption.) `I need not remind +this audience that, though Professor Summerlee, as the head of the +Committee of Investigation, has been put up to speak to-night, +still it is I who am the real prime mover in this business, and +that it is mainly to me that any successful result must be ascribed. +I have safely conducted these three gentlemen to the spot mentioned, +and I have, as you have heard, convinced them of the accuracy of +my previous account. We had hoped that we should find upon our +return that no one was so dense as to dispute our joint conclusions. +Warned, however, by my previous experience, I have not come without +such proofs as may convince a reasonable man. As explained by +Professor Summerlee, our cameras have been tampered with by the ape- +men when they ransacked our camp, and most of our negatives ruined.' +(Jeers, laughter, and `Tell us another!' from the back.) `I have +mentioned the ape-men, and I cannot forbear from saying that some +of the sounds which now meet my ears bring back most vividly to +my recollection my experiences with those interesting creatures.' +(Laughter.) `In spite of the destruction of so many invaluable +negatives, there still remains in our collection a certain number +of corroborative photographs showing the conditions of life upon +the plateau. Did they accuse them of having forged these photographs?' +(A voice, `Yes,' and considerable interruption which ended in +several men being put out of the hall.) `The negatives were open +to the inspection of experts. But what other evidence had they? +Under the conditions of their escape it was naturally impossible +to bring a large amount of baggage, but they had rescued Professor +Summerlee's collections of butterflies and beetles, containing +many new species. Was this not evidence?' (Several voices, `No.') +`Who said no?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (rising): `Our point is that such a collection +might have been made in other places than a prehistoric plateau.' +(Applause.) + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: `No doubt, sir, we have to bow to your +scientific authority, although I must admit that the name +is unfamiliar. Passing, then, both the photographs and the +entomological collection, I come to the varied and accurate +information which we bring with us upon points which have never +before been elucidated. For example, upon the domestic habits of +the pterodactyl--`(A voice: `Bosh,' and uproar)--`I say, that +upon the domestic habits of the pterodactyl we can throw a flood +of light. I can exhibit to you from my portfolio a picture of +that creature taken from life which would convince you----' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: `No picture could convince us of anything.' + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: `You would require to see the thing itself?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH: `Undoubtedly.' + +"PROFESSOR CHALLENGER: `And you would accept that?' + +"DR. ILLINGWORTH (laughing): `Beyond a doubt.' + +"It was at this point that the sensation of the evening arose--a +sensation so dramatic that it can never have been paralleled in +the history of scientific gatherings. Professor Challenger +raised his hand in the air as a signal, and at once our +colleague, Mr. E. D. Malone, was observed to rise and to make his +way to the back of the platform. An instant later he re-appeared +in company of a gigantic negro, the two of them bearing between +them a large square packing-case. It was evidently of great +weight, and was slowly carried forward and placed in front of +the Professor's chair. All sound had hushed in the audience +and everyone was absorbed in the spectacle before them. +Professor Challenger drew off the top of the case, which formed +a sliding lid. Peering down into the box he snapped his fingers +several times and was heard from the Press seat to say, `Come, +then, pretty, pretty!' in a coaxing voice. An instant later, +with a scratching, rattling sound, a most horrible and loathsome +creature appeared from below and perched itself upon the side of +the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke of Durham into +the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not distract +the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the +creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a +mad medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, +horrible, with two small red eyes as bright as points of +burning coal. Its long, savage mouth, which was held half-open, +was full of a double row of shark-like teeth. Its shoulders were +humped, and round them were draped what appeared to be a faded +gray shawl. It was the devil of our childhood in person. There was +a turmoil in the audience--someone screamed, two ladies in the +front row fell senseless from their chairs, and there was a +general movement upon the platform to follow their chairman into +the orchestra. For a moment there was danger of a general panic. +Professor Challenger threw up his hands to still the commotion, +but the movement alarmed the creature beside him. Its strange +shawl suddenly unfurled, spread, and fluttered as a pair of +leathery wings. Its owner grabbed at its legs, but too late to +hold it. It had sprung from the perch and was circling slowly +round the Queen's Hall with a dry, leathery flapping of its +ten-foot wings, while a putrid and insidious odor pervaded +the room. The cries of the people in the galleries, who were +alarmed at the near approach of those glowing eyes and that +murderous beak, excited the creature to a frenzy. Faster and +faster it flew, beating against walls and chandeliers in a blind +frenzy of alarm. `The window! For heaven's sake shut that window!' +roared the Professor from the platform, dancing and wringing his +hands in an agony of apprehension. Alas, his warning was too late! +In a moment the creature, beating and bumping along the wall like a +huge moth within a gas-shade, came upon the opening, squeezed its +hideous bulk through it, and was gone. Professor Challenger fell +back into his chair with his face buried in his hands, while the +audience gave one long, deep sigh of relief as they realized that +the incident was over. + +"Then--oh! how shall one describe what took place then--when the +full exuberance of the majority and the full reaction of the +minority united to make one great wave of enthusiasm, which +rolled from the back of the hall, gathering volume as it came, +swept over the orchestra, submerged the platform, and carried the +four heroes away upon its crest?" (Good for you, Mac!) "If the +audience had done less than justice, surely it made ample amends. +Every one was on his feet. Every one was moving, shouting, +gesticulating. A dense crowd of cheering men were round the four +travelers. `Up with them! up with them!' cried a hundred voices. +In a moment four figures shot up above the crowd. In vain they +strove to break loose. They were held in their lofty places +of honor. It would have been hard to let them down if it had +been wished, so dense was the crowd around them. `Regent Street! +Regent Street!' sounded the voices. There was a swirl in the +packed multitude, and a slow current, bearing the four upon their +shoulders, made for the door. Out in the street the scene was +extraordinary. An assemblage of not less than a hundred thousand +people was waiting. The close-packed throng extended from the +other side of the Langham Hotel to Oxford Circus. A roar of +acclamation greeted the four adventurers as they appeared, high +above the heads of the people, under the vivid electric lamps +outside the hall. `A procession! A procession!' was the cry. +In a dense phalanx, blocking the streets from side to side, the +crowd set forth, taking the route of Regent Street, Pall Mall, +St. James's Street, and Piccadilly. The whole central traffic +of London was held up, and many collisions were reported between +the demonstrators upon the one side and the police and taxi-cabmen +upon the other. Finally, it was not until after midnight that +the four travelers were released at the entrance to Lord John +Roxton's chambers in the Albany, and that the exuberant crowd, +having sung `They are Jolly Good Fellows' in chorus, concluded +their program with `God Save the King.' So ended one of the most +remarkable evenings that London has seen for a considerable time." + +So far my friend Macdona; and it may be taken as a fairly +accurate, if florid, account of the proceedings. As to the main +incident, it was a bewildering surprise to the audience, but not, +I need hardly say, to us. The reader will remember how I met +Lord John Roxton upon the very occasion when, in his protective +crinoline, he had gone to bring the "Devil's chick" as he called +it, for Professor Challenger. I have hinted also at the trouble +which the Professor's baggage gave us when we left the plateau, +and had I described our voyage I might have said a good deal of +the worry we had to coax with putrid fish the appetite of our +filthy companion. If I have not said much about it before, it +was, of course, that the Professor's earnest desire was that no +possible rumor of the unanswerable argument which we carried +should be allowed to leak out until the moment came when his +enemies were to be confuted. + +One word as to the fate of the London pterodactyl. Nothing can +be said to be certain upon this point. There is the evidence of +two frightened women that it perched upon the roof of the Queen's +Hall and remained there like a diabolical statue for some hours. +The next day it came out in the evening papers that Private +Miles, of the Coldstream Guards, on duty outside Marlborough +House, had deserted his post without leave, and was therefore +courtmartialed. Private Miles' account, that he dropped his +rifle and took to his heels down the Mall because on looking up +he had suddenly seen the devil between him and the moon, was not +accepted by the Court, and yet it may have a direct bearing upon +the point at issue. The only other evidence which I can adduce +is from the log of the SS. Friesland, a Dutch-American liner, +which asserts that at nine next morning, Start Point being at the +time ten miles upon their starboard quarter, they were passed by +something between a flying goat and a monstrous bat, which was +heading at a prodigious pace south and west. If its homing +instinct led it upon the right line, there can be no doubt that +somewhere out in the wastes of the Atlantic the last European +pterodactyl found its end. + +And Gladys--oh, my Gladys!--Gladys of the mystic lake, now to be +re-named the Central, for never shall she have immortality +through me. Did I not always see some hard fiber in her nature? +Did I not, even at the time when I was proud to obey her behest, +feel that it was surely a poor love which could drive a lover to +his death or the danger of it? Did I not, in my truest thoughts, +always recurring and always dismissed, see past the beauty of the +face, and, peering into the soul, discern the twin shadows of +selfishness and of fickleness glooming at the back of it? Did she +love the heroic and the spectacular for its own noble sake, or +was it for the glory which might, without effort or sacrifice, be +reflected upon herself? Or are these thoughts the vain wisdom +which comes after the event? It was the shock of my life. For a +moment it had turned me to a cynic. But already, as I write, a +week has passed, and we have had our momentous interview with +Lord John Roxton and--well, perhaps things might be worse. + +Let me tell it in a few words. No letter or telegram had come to +me at Southampton, and I reached the little villa at Streatham +about ten o'clock that night in a fever of alarm. Was she dead +or alive? Where were all my nightly dreams of the open arms, the +smiling face, the words of praise for her man who had risked his +life to humor her whim? Already I was down from the high peaks +and standing flat-footed upon earth. Yet some good reasons given +might still lift me to the clouds once more. I rushed down the +garden path, hammered at the door, heard the voice of Gladys +within, pushed past the staring maid, and strode into the +sitting-room. She was seated in a low settee under the shaded +standard lamp by the piano. In three steps I was across the room +and had both her hands in mine. + +"Gladys!" I cried, "Gladys!" + +She looked up with amazement in her face. She was altered in some +subtle way. The expression of her eyes, the hard upward stare, +the set of the lips, was new to me. She drew back her hands. + +"What do you mean?" she said. + +"Gladys!" I cried. "What is the matter? You are my Gladys, are +you not--little Gladys Hungerton?" + +"No," said she, "I am Gladys Potts. Let me introduce you to +my husband." + +How absurd life is! I found myself mechanically bowing and +shaking hands with a little ginger-haired man who was coiled up +in the deep arm-chair which had once been sacred to my own use. +We bobbed and grinned in front of each other. + +"Father lets us stay here. We are getting our house ready," +said Gladys. + +"Oh, yes," said I. + +"You didn't get my letter at Para, then?" + +"No, I got no letter." + +"Oh, what a pity! It would have made all clear." + +"It is quite clear," said I. + +"I've told William all about you," said she. "We have no secrets. +I am so sorry about it. But it couldn't have been so very deep, +could it, if you could go off to the other end of the world and +leave me here alone. You're not crabby, are you?" + +"No, no, not at all. I think I'll go." + +"Have some refreshment," said the little man, and he added, in a +confidential way, "It's always like this, ain't it? And must be +unless you had polygamy, only the other way round; you understand." +He laughed like an idiot, while I made for the door. + +I was through it, when a sudden fantastic impulse came upon me, +and I went back to my successful rival, who looked nervously at +the electric push. + +"Will you answer a question?" I asked. + +"Well, within reason," said he. + +"How did you do it? Have you searched for hidden treasure, or +discovered a pole, or done time on a pirate, or flown the +Channel, or what? Where is the glamour of romance? How did you +get it?" + +He stared at me with a hopeless expression upon his vacuous, +good-natured, scrubby little face. + +"Don't you think all this is a little too personal?" he said. + +"Well, just one question," I cried. "What are you? What is +your profession?" + +"I am a solicitor's clerk," said he. "Second man at Johnson and +Merivale's, 41 Chancery Lane." + +"Good-night!" said I, and vanished, like all disconsolate and +broken-hearted heroes, into the darkness, with grief and rage +and laughter all simmering within me like a boiling pot. + +One more little scene, and I have done. Last night we all supped +at Lord John Roxton's rooms, and sitting together afterwards we +smoked in good comradeship and talked our adventures over. It was +strange under these altered surroundings to see the old, well-known +faces and figures. There was Challenger, with his smile of +condescension, his drooping eyelids, his intolerant eyes, his +aggressive beard, his huge chest, swelling and puffing as he laid +down the law to Summerlee. And Summerlee, too, there he was with +his short briar between his thin moustache and his gray goat's- +beard, his worn face protruded in eager debate as he queried all +Challenger's propositions. Finally, there was our host, with his +rugged, eagle face, and his cold, blue, glacier eyes with always +a shimmer of devilment and of humor down in the depths of them. +Such is the last picture of them that I have carried away. + +It was after supper, in his own sanctum--the room of the pink +radiance and the innumerable trophies--that Lord John Roxton had +something to say to us. From a cupboard he had brought an old +cigar-box, and this he laid before him on the table. + +"There's one thing," said he, "that maybe I should have spoken +about before this, but I wanted to know a little more clearly +where I was. No use to raise hopes and let them down again. +But it's facts, not hopes, with us now. You may remember that day +we found the pterodactyl rookery in the swamp--what? Well, somethin' +in the lie of the land took my notice. Perhaps it has escaped you, +so I will tell you. It was a volcanic vent full of blue clay." +The Professors nodded. + +"Well, now, in the whole world I've only had to do with one place +that was a volcanic vent of blue clay. That was the great De +Beers Diamond Mine of Kimberley--what? So you see I got diamonds +into my head. I rigged up a contraption to hold off those +stinking beasts, and I spent a happy day there with a spud. +This is what I got." + +He opened his cigar-box, and tilting it over he poured about +twenty or thirty rough stones, varying from the size of beans to +that of chestnuts, on the table. + +"Perhaps you think I should have told you then. Well, so I +should, only I know there are a lot of traps for the unwary, and +that stones may be of any size and yet of little value where +color and consistency are clean off. Therefore, I brought them +back, and on the first day at home I took one round to Spink's, +and asked him to have it roughly cut and valued." + +He took a pill-box from his pocket, and spilled out of it a +beautiful glittering diamond, one of the finest stones that I +have ever seen. + +"There's the result," said he. "He prices the lot at a minimum +of two hundred thousand pounds. Of course it is fair shares +between us. I won't hear of anythin' else. Well, Challenger, +what will you do with your fifty thousand?" + +"If you really persist in your generous view," said the +Professor, "I should found a private museum, which has long been +one of my dreams." + +"And you, Summerlee?" + +"I would retire from teaching, and so find time for my final +classification of the chalk fossils." + +"I'll use my own," said Lord John Roxton, "in fitting a +well-formed expedition and having another look at the dear +old plateau. As to you, young fellah, you, of course, will +spend yours in gettin' married." + +"Not just yet," said I, with a rueful smile. "I think, if you +will have me, that I would rather go with you." + +Lord Roxton said nothing, but a brown hand was stretched out to +me across the table. + + +The End of Project Gutenberg etext of "The Lost World" + + diff --git a/old/old/lostw10.zip b/old/old/lostw10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8cfd803 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/lostw10.zip |