The Lost World
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.