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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 *** 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 *** 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, *** 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 *** 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 *** 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.