iceless acquisition by the
curator of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington; so he at once
resolved to take the necessary steps for its preservation. He gave
orders for the line to which the hook was bent to be led aft, for
convenience of towage, and then commanded his crew to set the cutter's
sails, his purpose being to tow the carcass to a lonely part of the
shore, and there have the body hauled up out of water, the flesh
carefully removed from the bones, and the skeleton as carefully
disarticulated, prior to packing it for dispatch to England.

But the cutter was scarcely under way, and heading for the spot that had
been selected as suitable for the above operations, when a disturbance
of the water near at hand indicated the presence of some bulky moving
body, most probably the companion of the dead creature, which had been
terrified into temporary flight by the report of Harry's rifle. The
animal, however, or whatever it might be, remained invisible, the little
swirling eddies and ripples on the surface of the water alone betraying
its whereabouts. But while Harry and his friends were discussing this
appearance, and wondering what it might portend, one of them happened to
glance around him in another direction, and his startled exclamation
caused the rest of the party to look in the direction toward which he
pointed. And there, somewhat to their consternation, the party saw, not
half a dozen yards away, on the cutter's weather beam, the indications
that two more of the monsters were present, keeping way with the cutter,
and, as was presently pretty evident, edging in toward her; indeed, so
close were they to her that an occasional momentary flicker of the black
back of the nearer of the two could already be caught through the
gleaming water. Two or three of the nobles who had by this time
succeeded in pulling themselves together and getting a grip upon their
courage, proposed an instant attack upon the monsters; but Escombe felt
that, for the moment, he had as much upon his hands as he could manage.
For with that huge dead bulk in tow the cutter was scarcely under
command, and he had no desire to scare the creatures away by commencing
an attack upon them which he could not follow up.

The choice, however, was not left to him for long; for within five
minutes of the discovery of the last arrivals all three of the
plesiosauri, as with one consent and at a signal, closed in upon the
carcass of their comr