 6 I was the flail of the Lord. Before John Rockston 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 men of taste and the careless untightiness of the bachelor. Rich furs and strange iridescent mats from some oriental bazaar were scattered upon the floor. Pictures and prints, which even my unpracticed eyes could recognize as being of great price and rarity, hung thick upon the walls. Sketches of boxers, of ballet girls, and of race-horses alternated with a sensuous Fragonard, a Marshal 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 Rockston 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 mantelpiece, 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 Kahn's 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 armchair 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 mustaches, 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 fellow my lad. This curious phrase he pronounces if it were all one word, young fellow my lad. Yes, we've taken a jump, you and me, and I suppose now, that 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 terrine. Why, I have only been back three weeks from Uganda and taken a place in Scotland and signed the lease and all. Pretty goings on, what? How does it hit you? Well, it is all on 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 taking a risk, do you? What is the risk? Well, it's Ballinger. He's the risk. You've heard of him? No. Why, young fellow, 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 training he drinks hard. Striking an average, he calls it. He got delirium on Tuesday and has been raging like a devil ever since. His room is above this. The doctors say that it's all up with the old deer, unless some food has 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, had a dead shot, too, but you can't leave a grand national winter to die like that. What do you mean to do, then? I asked. Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be dozen, 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 deer 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 in fear rather than courage, which would be my inspiration. Therefore, although every nerve in my body shrank from the whiskey-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 morning. 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 fella, I hope you don't mind. What?' "'You see, between you and 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 summerly man will want dry-nursing 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 swerve and 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 salons 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, won't we? 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 fellows think of learning. You have all been bees without stings so far as looking after the hive goes. You look silly some of these days when someone comes along and 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 five-seven-seven-axide express, said he. I got that big fellow with it. He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. Ten more yards, and he would have added me to his collection. On that conical bullet his one chance hangs till 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. Four-seven-zero. 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 fella, when every one of us must take a stand for human right and justice, or you'll 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 nixes for a slave-murderer. A good row of them, what? That big one is Per Pedro López, the king of them all, that I killed in the backwater of the Putamaio 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 have been up and 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 something behind them, no doubt. The more you knew of that country, young fella, the more you would understand that anything was possible. Anything. There are just some narrow water lanes along which folk travel, and outside that it is all darkness. Now, down here in the Mato Grande, he swept his cigar over a part of the map. Or up in this corner where three countries meet, nothing would surprise me. As that chap said to-night, there were fifty thousand miles of waterway running 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 something 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 sport and 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 sport and risk, young fella, that's the salt of existence. Then it's worth living again. We're all getting a deal too soft and dull and comfy. Give me the great wastelands and the wide spaces with a gun in my fist and something to look for that's worth finding. I've tried war and steeple-chasing 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 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 to 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, Francesca, 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 Macintosh figures are walking down the key, making for the gangplank 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 guncases. Professor Somerle, a long melancholy figure, walks with dragging steps and drooping head as one who is already profoundly sorry for himself. Lord John Rockston 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 leaf-taking behind me, and I have no doubt that I show it in my bearing. Suddenly, just as we reached 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 Maneus, 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 fax 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. Goodbye, sir. You have done something to mitigate my feelings for the loathsome profession to which you unhappily belong. Goodbye, 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 Somerly. 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 the channel now. There's the last bell for letters, and it's good-bye to the pilot. We'll be down hulled down on the old trail from now on. God bless all we leave behind us, and send us safely back. CHAPTER 7 TOMORROW 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 de 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, play-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 Obitos and reached the town of Maneus. 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, Fizenda, 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 reached 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 discretion, Mr. McArdle, since it is through your hands that this report must pass before it reaches the world. The scientific attainments of Professor Summerly 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 66th 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 skeptical. 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 Moneus. 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 shotgun 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 has 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 Somerly, and others in which they are the very antithesis to each other. He is twenty years younger, but has something of the same spare, scraggie 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-brow 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 wholehearted belief in the possibilities of our journey which is not to be dashed by the sneers of Professor Somerly. 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 Colombia. 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 equal 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 Lingua Jiral, 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 Americaniac. 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, that peculiar mixture of accurate knowledge and of racy imagination which gave them their fascination, until even the professor's cynical and skeptical 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 any one 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 Summerly'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 Zombo, 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 skillful 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 Maneus, before starting upon its singular quest. At last, after a weary week, the day had come and the hour. I asked you to picture the shaded sitting-room on de Faizenda St. Ignatio, two miles inland from the town of Maneus. 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 hummingbirds fluttered and darted in crescents of sparkling light. Then 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 Maneus upon July 15th at twelve o'clock precisely. Lord John had placed his watch upon the table beside him. We have seven more minutes, said he. The old deer is very precise. Professor Summerly gave an acid smile as he picked up the envelope in his god 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 according 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 downriver 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 Rockston, 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 pen-knife. 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 Somerly. 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 Rockston, holding the paper to the light. No young fellow, 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 breath of shoulder, we sprang to our feet with a gasp of astonishment as Challenger in a round boyish straw hat with a coloured 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 bid my fixed intention to be with you before the hour. The unfortunate delay can be a portion between a blundering pilot and an intrusive sand bank. I fear that it is given my colleague, Professor Somerly, occasioned 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 our premature end. Even now I can't for the life of me understand why you should have worked it in so extraordinary a manner. Out of answering, Professor Challenger entered, shook hands with myself and Lord John, bowed with ponderous insolence to Professor Somerly, 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 inesimable 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 roosts 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 Somerly 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 it, 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 had charted 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 in 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 southeast, 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 Moneos we turned into a tributary which at its mouth was little smaller than the mainstream. 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 Moneos. 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, Ataka and Ipatu 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 Klansman has little choice in the matter. So tomorrow 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 skepticism of Professor Sumnerly, 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 OUTLINE 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 Sumnerly 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 was 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. It 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 a vice of curiosity, which is common enough among such men. On the last evening he seems to have hit 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 the challenger is provocative in the last degree, but summerly 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. Summerly rejoined, however, with a sour smile, by saying that he understood that Milbank 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 contankerous, 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 and the interest of peace of putting one professor into each canoe. Personally I was with Challenger, who was in a batific 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 thunderstorm 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 affluence 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 clay-y 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 bowls 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 Vidur, 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 perfusion 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 swarly tree trunks, and where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden alamanda, the scarlet star clusters of the taxonia, or the rich deep blue of Ipomea, 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 rise 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 jacetera 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 faulted 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 and the obscure depths immeasurably below them. At dawn and at sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parakeets 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 anteater 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 18. At least six or seven drums were throbbing from various points. Sometimes they beat quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes an 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 hearty, swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however, that day, once for all, that both summerly and challenger possessed that highest type of bravery, the bravery of the scientific mind. There was the spirit which upheld Darwin among the gauchos of the Argentine, or Wallace among the headhunters 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 summerly came quick upon the deep growl of challenger, but with no more sense of danger and no reference to drum-beating Indians than if they were seated together in the smoking-room of the Royal Society's club in St. James' Street. Once only did they condescend to disgust them. Marenha, or Amjuaca cannibals, said challenger, jerking his thumb towards the reverberating wood. No doubt, sir, summerly answered, like all such tribes I shall expect to find them of polysynthetic 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 summerly 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 one another 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 precaution 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 ascii palm,� said Summerly. �Exactly. It was an ascii 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 pulled 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 luxurious 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 and a golden twilight flowed the green, palusid river, beautiful in itself, but marvelous from the strange tents 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 paddle 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 and occasional caiman 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 cleared hatred at us over its tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds, stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue and 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 piece of this strange waterway was unbroken by any signs of man. No Indian here, too much afraid. Kura Puri, Sagomas. Kura Puri is the spirit of the woods, Lord John explained. It's a name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars believe 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 struck 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, and 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 Summerly. Now upon his assigning some duty to his fellow Professor, it was only the carrying of an anoroi barometer, the matter suddenly came to a head. May I ask, sir, said Summerly, with vicious calm, in what capacity you take it upon yourself to issue these orders? Challenger glared and bristled. I do it, Professor Summerly, 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 it 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 Summerly, 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. Thanks for 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 pestulent 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 professors in Dignite 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 perfusion of wonderful orchids, among which I learned to recognize the rare Natonia vexilaria, and the glorious pink and scarlet blossoms of Catalea, and Odontaglossum. 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 reckoned, about 120 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 bill-hooks of the Indians. It took us a long day, travelling 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 it once formed our camp, exhausted by the interminable day. Early next morning we were again a foot, 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 skyline. 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 skimmed smoothly off, flying very low and straight, until it was lost among the tree ferns. "'Did you see it?' cried Challenger, in exultation. "'Summerly, 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.' Summerly burst into derisive laughter. "'A tear-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 want. He had his ice-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 through 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 break, 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. My readers strutts about like a prize peacock, and summerly is silent, but still skeptical. Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. Meanwhile, as Jose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, insist 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.