That morning we mapped out a small portion of the plateau, avoiding theswamp of the pterodactyls, and keeping to the east of our brook insteadof to the west. In that direction the country was still thicklywooded, with so much undergrowth that our progress was very slow.
I have dwelt up to now upon the terrors of Maple White Land; but therewas another side to the subject, for all that morning we wandered amonglovely flowers--mostly, as I observed, white or yellow in color, thesebeing, as our professors explained, the primitive flower-shades. Inmany places the ground was absolutely covered with them, and as wewalked ankle-deep on that wonderful yielding carpet, the scent wasalmost intoxicating in its sweetness and intensity. The homely Englishbee buzzed everywhere around us. Many of the trees under which wepassed had their branches bowed down with fruit, some of which were offamiliar sorts, while other varieties were new. By observing which ofthem were pecked by the birds we avoided all danger of poison and addeda delicious variety to our food reserve. In the jungle which wetraversed were numerous hard-trodden paths made by the wild beasts, andin the more marshy places we saw a profusion of strange footmarks,including many of the iguanodon. Once in a grove we observed severalof these great creatures grazing, and Lord John, with his glass, wasable to report that they also were spotted with asphalt, though in adifferent place to the one which we had examined in the morning. Whatthis phenomenon meant we could not imagine.
We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, and awild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks. Once, through abreak in the trees, we saw a clear shoulder of green hill some distanceaway, and across this a large dun-colored animal was traveling at aconsiderable pace. It passed so swiftly that we were unable to saywhat it was; but if it were a deer, as was claimed by Lord John, itmust have been as large as those monstrous Irish elk which are stilldug up from time to time in the bogs of my native land.
Ever since the mysterious visit which had been paid to our camp wealways returned to it with some misgivings. However, on this occasionwe found everything in order.
That evening we had a grand discussion upon our present situation andfuture plans, which I must describe at some length, as it led to a newdeparture by which we were enabled to gain a more complete knowledge ofMaple White Land than might have come in many weeks of exploring. Itwas Summerlee who opened the debate. All day he had been querulous inmanner, and now some remark of Lord John's as to what we should do onthe morrow brought all his bitterness to a head.
"What we ought to be doing to-day, to-morrow, and all the time," saidhe, "is finding some way out of the trap into which we have fallen.You are all turning your brains towards getting into this country. Isay 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 asentiment. You are in a land which offers such an inducement to theambitious naturalist as none ever has since the world began, and yousuggest leaving it before we have acquired more than the mostsuperficial knowledge of it or of its contents. I expected betterthings of you, Professor Summerlee."
"You must remember," said Summerlee, sourly, "that I have a large classin London who are at present at the mercy of an extremely inefficientlocum tenens. This makes my situation different from yours, ProfessorChallenger, since, so far as I know, you have never been entrusted withany responsible educational work."
"Quite so," said Challenger. "I have felt it to be a sacrilege todivert a brain which is capable of the highest original research to anylesser object. That is why I have sternly set my face against anyproffered scholastic appointment."
"For example?" asked Summerlee, with a sneer; but Lord John hastened tochange the conversation.
"I must say," said he, "that I think it would be a mighty poor thing togo back to London before I know a great deal more of this place than Ido at pres
ent."
"I could never dare to walk into the back office of my paper and faceold McArdle," said I. (You will excuse the frankness of this report,will you not, sir?) "He'd never forgive me for leaving suchunexhausted copy behind me. Besides, so far as I can see it is notworth discussing, since we can't get down, even if we wanted."
"Our young friend makes up for many obvious mental lacunae by somemeasure of primitive common sense," remarked Challenger. "Theinterests of his deplorable profession are immaterial to us; but, as heobserves, we cannot get down in any case, so it is a waste of energy todiscuss it."
"It is a waste of energy to do anything else," growled Summerlee frombehind his pipe. "Let me remind you that we came here upon a perfectlydefinite mission, entrusted to us at the meeting of the ZoologicalInstitute in London. That mission was to test the truth of ProfessorChallenger's statements. Those statements, as I am bound to admit, weare now in a position to endorse. Our ostensible work is thereforedone. As to the detail which remains to be worked out upon thisplateau, it is so enormous that only a large expedition, with a veryspecial equipment, could hope to cope with it. Should we attempt to doso ourselves, the only possible result must be that we shall neverreturn with the important contribution to science which we have alreadygained. Professor Challenger has devised means for getting us on tothis plateau when it appeared to be inaccessible; I think that weshould now call upon him to use the same ingenuity in getting us backto the world from which we came."
I confess that as Summerlee stated his view it struck me as altogetherreasonable. Even Challenger was affected by the consideration that hisenemies would never stand confuted if the confirmation of hisstatements should never reach those who had doubted them.
"The problem of the descent is at first sight a formidable one," saidhe, "and yet I cannot doubt that the intellect can solve it. I amprepared to agree with our colleague that a protracted stay in MapleWhite Land is at present inadvisable, and that the question of ourreturn will soon have to be faced. I absolutely refuse to leave,however, until we have made at least a superficial examination of thiscountry, and are able to take back with us something in the nature of achart."
Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience.
"We have spent two long days in exploration," said he, "and we are nowiser as to the actual geography of the place than when we started. Itis clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it would take months topenetrate it and to learn the relations of one part to another. Ifthere were some central peak it would be different, but it all slopesdownwards, so far as we can see. The farther we go the less likely itis that we will get any general view."
It was at that moment that I had my inspiration. My eyes chanced tolight upon the enormous gnarled trunk of the gingko tree which cast itshuge branches over us. Surely, if its bole exceeded that of allothers, its height must do the same. If the rim of the plateau wasindeed the highest point, then why should this mighty tree not prove tobe a watchtower which commanded the whole country? Now, ever since Iran wild as a lad in Ireland I have been a bold and skilledtree-climber. My comrades might be my masters on the rocks, but I knewthat I would be supreme among those branches. Could I only get my legson to the lowest of the giant off-shoots, then it would be strangeindeed if I could not make my way to the top. My comrades weredelighted at my idea.
"Our young friend," said Challenger, bunching up the red apples of hischeeks, "is capable of acrobatic exertions which would be impossible toa 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 Ican't imagine! There's not more than an hour of daylight left, but ifyou take your notebook you may be able to get some rough sketch of theplace. If we put these three ammunition cases under the branch, I willsoon hoist you on to it."
He stood on the boxes while I faced the trunk, and was gently raisingme when Challenger sprang forward and gave me such a thrust with hishuge hand that he fairly shot me into the tree. With both armsclasping the branch, I scrambled hard with my feet until I had worked,first my body, and then my knees, onto it. There were three excellentoff-shoots, like huge rungs of a ladder, above my head, and a tangle ofconvenient branches beyond, so that I clambered onwards with such speedthat I soon lost sight of the ground and had nothing but foliagebeneath me. Now and then I encountered a check, and once I had to shinup a creeper for eight or ten feet, but I made excellent progress, andthe booming of Challenger's voice seemed to be a great distance beneathme. The tree was, however, enormous, and, looking upwards, I could seeno 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 Iwas swarming. I leaned my head round it in order to see what wasbeyond, and I nearly fell out of the tree in my surprise and horror atwhat 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, andhad looked round it at the same instant that I did. It was a humanface--or at least it was far more human than any monkey's that I haveever seen. It was long, whitish, and blotched with pimples, the noseflattened, and the lower jaw projecting, with a bristle of coarsewhiskers round the chin. The eyes, which were under thick and heavybrows, were bestial and ferocious, and as it opened its mouth to snarlwhat sounded like a curse at me I observed that it had curved, sharpcanine teeth. For an instant I read hatred and menace in the evileyes. Then, as quick as a flash, came an expression of overpoweringfear. There was a crash of broken boughs as it dived wildly down intothe tangle of green. I caught a glimpse of a hairy body like that of areddish pig, and then it was gone amid a swirl of leaves and branches.
"What's the matter?" shouted Roxton from below. "Anything wrong withyou?"
"Did you see it?" I cried, with my arms round the branch and all mynerves 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-manthat I hesitated whether I should not climb down again and tell myexperience to my companions. But I was already so far up the greattree that it seemed a humiliation to return without having carried outmy mission.
After a long pause, therefore, to recover my breath and my courage, Icontinued my ascent. Once I put my weight upon a rotten branch andswung for a few seconds by my hands, but in the main it was all easyclimbing. Gradually the leaves thinned around me, and I was aware,from the wind upon my face, that I had topped all the trees of theforest. I was determined, however, not to look about me before I hadreached the very highest point, so I scrambled on until I had got sofar that the topmost branch was bending beneath my weight. There Isettled into a convenient fork, and, balancing myself securely, I foundmyself looking down at a most wonderful panorama of this strangecountry in which we found ourselves.
The sun was just above the western sky-line, and the evening was aparticularly bright and clear one, so that the whole extent of theplateau was visible beneath me. It was, as seen from this height, ofan oval contour, with a breadth of about thirty miles and a width oftwenty. Its general shape was that of a shallow funnel, all the sidessloping down to a considerable lake in the center. This lake may havebeen ten miles in circumference, and lay very green and beautiful inthe evening light, with a thick fringe of reeds at its edges, and withits surface broken by several yellow sandbanks, which gleamed golden inthe mellow sunshine. A number of long dark objects, which were toolarge for alligators and too long for canoes, lay upon the edges ofthese patches of sand. With my glass I could clearly see that theywere alive, but what their nature might be I could not imagine.