"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 inthe world could have hoped--hoped--to have seen a sight like that?"
His words died away into a whisper, and we all stood in motionlessamazement. Following the tracks, we had left the morass and passedthrough a screen of brushwood and trees. Beyond was an open glade, andin this were five of the most extraordinary creatures that I have everseen. Crouching down among the bushes, we observed them at our leisure.
There were, as I say, five of them, two being adults and three youngones. In size they were enormous. Even the babies were as big aselephants, while the two large ones were far beyond all creatures Ihave ever seen. They had slate-colored skin, which was scaled like alizard's and shimmered where the sun shone upon it. All five weresitting up, balancing themselves upon their broad, powerful tails andtheir huge three-toed hind-feet, while with their small five-fingeredfront-feet they pulled down the branches upon which they browsed. I donot know that I can bring their appearance home to you better than bysaying that they looked like monstrous kangaroos, twenty feet inlength, and with skins like black crocodiles.
I do not know how long we stayed motionless gazing at this marvelousspectacle. A strong wind blew towards us and we were well concealed,so there was no chance of discovery. From time to time the little onesplayed round their parents in unwieldy gambols, the great beastsbounding into the air and falling with dull thuds upon the earth. Thestrength of the parents seemed to be limitless, for one of them, havingsome difficulty in reaching a bunch of foliage which grew upon aconsiderable-sized tree, put his fore-legs round the trunk and tore itdown as if it had been a sapling. The action seemed, as I thought, toshow not only the great development of its muscles, but also the smallone of its brain, for the whole weight came crashing down upon the topof it, and it uttered a series of shrill yelps to show that, big as itwas, there was a limit to what it could endure. The incident made itthink, apparently, that the neighborhood was dangerous, for it slowlylurched off through the wood, followed by its mate and its threeenormous infants. We saw the shimmering slaty gleam of their skinsbetween the tree-trunks, and their heads undulating high above thebrush-wood. Then they vanished from our sight.
I looked at my comrades. Lord John was standing at gaze with hisfinger on the trigger of his elephant-gun, his eager hunter's soulshining from his fierce eyes. What would he not give for one such headto place between the two crossed oars above the mantelpiece in hissnuggery at the Albany! And yet his reason held him in, for all ourexploration of the wonders of this unknown land depended upon ourpresence being concealed from its inhabitants. The two professors werein silent ecstasy. In their excitement they had unconsciously seizedeach other by the hand, and stood like two little children in thepresence of a marvel, Challenger's cheeks bunched up into a seraphicsmile, and Summerlee's sardonic face softening for the moment intowonder and reverence.
"Nunc dimittis!" he cried at last. "What will they say in England ofthis?"
"My dear Summerlee, I will tell you with great confidence exactly whatthey will say in England," said Challenger. "They will say that youare an infernal liar and a scientific charlatan, exactly as you andothers 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 crewmay be all yelping our praises yet. August the twenty-eighth--the daywe saw five live iguanodons in a glade of Maple White Land. Put itdown 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," saidLord John. "Things look a bit different from the latitude of London,young fellah my lad. There's many a man who never tells hisadventures, 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 overthe Hastings sands, in Kent, and in Sussex. The South of England wasalive with them when there was plenty of good lush green-stuff to keepthem going. Conditions have changed, and the beasts died. Here itseems 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," saidLord John. "Lord, how some of that Somaliland-Uganda crowd would turna beautiful pea-green if they saw it! I don't know what you chapsthink, 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 gloomof the trees there seemed a constant menace and as we looked up intotheir shadowy foliage vague terrors crept into one's heart. It is truethat these monstrous creatures which we had seen were lumbering,inoffensive brutes which were unlikely to hurt anyone, but in thisworld of wonders what other survivals might there not be--what fierce,active horrors ready to pounce upon us from their lair among the rocksor brushwood? I knew little of prehistoric life, but I had a clearremembrance of one book which I had read in which it spoke of creatureswho 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 newcountry--we were to find out what strange hazards lay around us. Itwas a loathsome adventure, and one of which I hate to think. If, asLord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will remain with us as adream, then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will forever be ournightmare. Let me set down exactly what occurred.
We passed very slowly through the woods, partly because Lord Roxtonacted as scout before he would let us advance, and partly because atevery second step one or other of our professors would fall, with a cryof wonder, before some flower or insect which presented him with a newtype. We may have traveled two or three miles in all, keeping to theright of the line of the stream, when we came upon a considerableopening in th
e trees. A belt of brushwood led up to a tangle ofrocks--the whole plateau was strewn with boulders. We were walkingslowly 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 fromsome spot immediately before us. Lord John held up his hand as asignal for us to stop, and he made his way swiftly, stooping andrunning, to the line of rocks. We saw him peep over them and give agesture of amazement. Then he stood staring as if forgetting us, soutterly entranced was he by what he saw. Finally he waved us to comeon, holding up his hand as a signal for caution. His whole bearingmade me feel that something wonderful but dangerous lay before us.
Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into whichwe gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been one of thesmaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped and atthe bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools ofgreen-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes. It was a weirdplace in itself, but its occupants made it seem like a scene from theSeven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of pterodactyls.There were hundreds of them congregated within view. All the bottomarea round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and withhideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. Fromthis crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shockingclamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odorwhich turned us sick. But above, perched each upon its own stone,tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens thanactual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionlesssave for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of theirrat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge, membranouswings were closed by folding their fore-arms, so that they sat likegigantic old women, wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and withtheir ferocious heads protruding above them. Large and small, not lessthan a thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us.
Our professors would gladly have stayed there all day, so entrancedwere they by this opportunity of studying the life of a prehistoricage. They pointed out the fish and dead birds lying about among therocks as proving the nature of the food of these creatures, and I heardthem congratulating each other on having cleared up the point why thebones of this flying dragon are found in such great numbers in certainwell-defined areas, as in the Cambridge Green-sand, since it was nowseen that, like penguins, they lived in gregarious fashion.
Finally, however, Challenger, bent upon proving some point whichSummerlee had contested, thrust his head over the rock and nearlybrought destruction upon us all. In an instant the nearest male gave ashrill, whistling cry, and flapped its twenty-foot span of leatherywings as it soared up into the air. The females and young ones huddledtogether beside the water, while the whole circle of sentinels rose oneafter the other and sailed off into the sky. It was a wonderful sightto see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideousappearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokesabove us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we couldafford 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 whizzinground and round us, the dry, rustling flap of their huge slate-coloredwings filling the air with a volume of sound that made me think ofHendon aerodrome upon a race day.
"Make for the wood and keep together," cried Lord John, clubbing hisrifle. "The brutes mean mischief."
The moment we attempted to retreat the circle closed in upon us, untilthe 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 nothingsolid or vulnerable to strike. Then suddenly out of the whizzing,slate-colored circle a long neck shot out, and a fierce beak made athrust at us. Another and another followed. Summerlee gave a cry andput his hand to his face, from which the blood was streaming. I felt aprod 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 struckfrom behind and dropped on the top of him. At the same instant I heardthe crash of Lord John's elephant-gun, and, looking up, saw one of thecreatures with a broken wing struggling upon the ground, spitting andgurgling at us with a wide-opened beak and blood-shot, goggled eyes,like some devil in a medieval picture. Its comrades had flown higherat 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 treesthe harpies were on us again. Summerlee was knocked down, but we torehim up and rushed among the trunks. Once there we were safe, for thosehuge wings had no space for their sweep beneath the branches. As welimped homewards, sadly mauled and discomfited, we saw them for a longtime flying at a great height against the deep blue sky above ourheads, soaring round and round, no bigger than wood-pigeons, with theireyes no doubt still following our progress. At last, however, as wereached the thicker woods they gave up the chase, and we saw them nomore.
"A most interesting and convincing experience," said Challenger, as wehalted beside the brook and he bathed a swollen knee. "We areexceptionally well informed, Summerlee, as to the habits of the enragedpterodactyl."
Summerlee was wiping the blood from a cut in his forehead, while I wastying up a nasty stab in the muscle of the neck. Lord John had theshoulder of his coat torn away, but the creature's teeth had onlygrazed the flesh.
"It is worth noting," Challenger continued, "that our young friend hasreceived an undoubted stab, while Lord John's coat could only have beentorn by a bite. In my own case, I was beaten about the head by theirwings, so we have had a remarkable exhibition of their various methodsof offence."
"It has been touch and go for our lives," said Lord John, gravely, "andI could not think of a more rotten sort of death than to be outed bysuch filthy vermin. I was sorry to fire my rifle, but, by Jove! therewas no great choice."
"We should not be here if you hadn't," said I, with conviction.