"This is an excellent monograph by my gifted friend, Ray Lankester!"said he. "There is an illustration here which would interest you. Ah,yes, here it is! The inscription beneath it runs: 'Probableappearance in life of the Jurassic Dinosaur Stegosaurus. The hind legalone is twice as tall as a full-grown man.' Well, what do you make ofthat?"
He handed me the open book. I started as I looked at the picture. Inthis reconstructed animal of a dead world there was certainly a verygreat resemblance to the sketch of the unknown artist.
"That is certainly remarkable
," said I.
"But you won't admit that it is final?"
"Surely it might be a coincidence, or this American may have seen apicture of the kind and carried it in his memory. It would be likelyto recur to a man in a delirium."
"Very good," said the Professor, indulgently; "we leave it at that. Iwill now ask you to look at this bone." He handed over the one which hehad already described as part of the dead man's possessions. It wasabout six inches long, and thicker than my thumb, with some indicationsof dried cartilage at one end of it.
"To what known creature does that bone belong?" asked the Professor.
I examined it with care and tried to recall some half-forgottenknowledge.
"It might be a very thick human collar-bone," I said.
My companion waved his hand in contemptuous deprecation.
"The human collar-bone is curved. This is straight. There is a grooveupon its surface showing that a great tendon played across it, whichcould not be the case with a clavicle."
"Then I must confess that I don't know what it is."
"You need not be ashamed to expose your ignorance, for I don't supposethe whole South Kensington staff could give a name to it." He took alittle bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box. "So far as I am ajudge this human bone is the analogue of the one which you hold in yourhand. That will give you some idea of the size of the creature. Youwill observe from the cartilage that this is no fossil specimen, butrecent. What do you say to that?"
"Surely in an elephant----"
He winced as if in pain.
"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these daysof Board schools----"
"Well," I interrupted, "any large South American animal--a tapir, forexample."
"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of mybusiness. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of anyother creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very large, a verystrong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animal which exists upon theface of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science.You are still unconvinced?"
"I am at least deeply interested."
"Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason lurkingin you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. We will nowleave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imaginethat I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeperinto the matter. There were indications as to the direction from whichthe dead traveler had come. Indian legends would alone have been myguide, for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among allthe riverine tribes. You have heard, no doubt, of Curupuri?"
"Never."
"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods, something terrible, somethingmalevolent, something to be avoided. None can describe its shape ornature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. Now all tribesagree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives. It was the samedirection from which the American had come. Something terrible laythat way. It was my business to find out what it was."
"What did you do?" My flippancy was all gone. This massive mancompelled one's attention and respect.
"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives--a reluctance whichextends even to talk upon the subject--and by judicious persuasion andgifts, aided, I will admit, by some threats of coercion, I got two ofthem to act as guides. After many adventures which I need notdescribe, and after traveling a distance which I will not mention, in adirection which I withhold, we came at last to a tract of country whichhas never been described, nor, indeed, visited save by my unfortunatepredecessor. Would you kindly look at this?"
He handed me a photograph--half-plate size.
"The unsatisfactory appearance of it is due to the fact," said he,"that on descending the river the boat was upset and the case whichcontained the undeveloped films was broken, with disastrous results.Nearly all of them were totally ruined--an irreparable loss. This isone of the few which partially escaped. This explanation ofdeficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept. There was talkof faking. I am not in a mood to argue such a point."
The photograph was certainly very off-colored. An unkind critic mighteasily have misinterpreted that dim surface. It was a dull graylandscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realizedthat it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactlylike an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping,tree-clad plain in the foreground.
"I believe it is the same place as the painted picture," said I.
"It is the same place," the Professor answered. "I found traces of thefellow's camp. Now look at this."