article upon extinct animals,
and one of the pictures portrayed these identical monsters, labelling
them "Plesiosaurus"! Yes, the more Harry thought about it the less room
did he find for doubt that these so-called monsters haunting the lake in
the Valley of the Sun were actually survivors--most probably the only
ones--of the antediluvian plesiosaurus. How they got there was a most
interesting problem, yet it seemed by no means a difficult one to solve.
The conclusion at which Escombe speedily arrived--rightly or wrongly--
was that upon the subsidence of the waters of the Deluge a pair of
plesiosauri had found themselves imprisoned in the great basin of the
valley, where, the conditions presumably being exceptionally favourable,
they had not only survived but had actually contrived to perpetuate
their species to a very limited extent. And the reason why the lake was
not swarming with them, instead of containing probably only three or
four specimens at the utmost, was doubtless that the waters were too
circumscribed in extent, and too unproductive in the matter of fish, to
support more than that number.

The problem of how they came to be where they were was, however, not one
of very great importance; the thing that really mattered was, in
Escombe's opinion, that their presence in the lake constituted a
horrible danger to those who were obliged to traffic upon its waters,
and they must be destroyed. They must not be permitted to exist another
day longer than was absolutely necessary. Why, when one came to think
of it, how many hundreds of lives might not already have fallen victims
to the savage voracity of those creatures? What hope for his life would
a man have if he chanced to fall off his balsa at a moment when one of
those monsters happened to be close at hand? Positively none. Escombe
shuddered as he reflected that, ignorant as he had hitherto been of the
presence of the plesiosauri in the lake, it had only been by a series of
fortuitous circumstances--or was it the intervention of a merciful
Providence?--that he had been from time to time prevented from bathing
in the lake, ay, and actually swimming out to the distant rock, as he
had several times been strongly tempted to do.

Yes, those implacably ferocious monsters must be destroyed forthwith;
and the only point remaining to be settled was, how was the work of
destruction to be accomplished?

The plan which first suggested itself to the young Inca was