Who knows what venom these beasts may
have in their hideous jaws?"

But surely no men ever had just such a day since the world began. Some
fresh surprise was ever in store for us. When, following the course of
our brook, we at last reached our glade and saw the thorny barricade of
our camp, we thought that our adventures were at an end. But we had
something more to think of before we could rest. The gate of Fort
Challenger had been untouched, the walls were unbroken, and yet it had
been visited by some strange and powerful creature in our absence. No
foot-mark showed a trace of its nature, and only the overhanging branch
of the enormous ginko tree suggested how it might have come and gone;
but of its malevolent strength there was ample evidence in the
condition of our stores. They were strewn at random all over the
ground, and one tin of meat had been crushed into pieces so as to
extract the contents. A case of cartridges had been shattered into
matchwood, and one of the brass shells lay shredded into pieces beside
it. Again the feeling of vague horror came upon our souls, and we
gazed round with frightened eyes at the dark shadows which lay around
us, in all of which some fearsome shape might be lurking. How good it
was when we were hailed by the voice of Zambo, and, going to the edge
of the plateau, saw him sitting grinning at us upon the top of the
opposite pinnacle.

"All well, Massa Challenger, all well!" he cried. "Me stay here. No
fear. You always find me when you want."

His honest black face, and the immense view before us, which carried us
half-way back to the affluent of the Amazon, helped us to remember that
we really were upon this earth in the twentieth century, and had not by
some magic been conveyed to some raw planet in its earliest and wildest
state. How difficult it was to realize that the violet line upon the
far horizon was well advanced to that great river upon which huge
steamers ran, and folk talked of the small affairs of life, while we,
marooned among the creatures of a bygone age, could but gaze towards it
and yearn for all that it meant!

One other memory remains with me of this wonderful day, and with it I
will close this letter. The two professors, their tempers aggravated
no doubt by their injuries, had fallen out as to whether our assailants
were of the genus pterodactylus or dimorphodon, and high words had
ensued. To avoid their wrangling I moved some little way apart