The steaks we had that night, and they were fine; and the following morning we tasted
the broth. It seemed odd to be eating a creature that should, by all the laws of
paleontology, have been extinct for several million years. It gave one a feeling of
newness that was almost embarrassing, although it didn't seem to embarrass our
appetites. Olson ate until I thought he would burst.
The girl ate with us that night at the little officers' mess just back of the torpedo
compartment. The narrow table was unfolded; the four stools were set out; and for the
first time in days we sat down to eat, and for the first time in weeks we had something to
eat other than the monotony of the short rations of an impoverished U-boat. Nobs sat
between the girl and me and was fed with morsels of the Plesiosaurus steak, at the risk of
forever contaminating his manners. He looked at me sheepishly all the time, for he knew
that no well-bred dog should eat at table; but the poor fellow was so wasted from
improper food that I couldn't enjoy my own meal had he been denied an immediate share
in it; and anyway Lys wanted to feed him. So there you are.
Lys was coldly polite to me and sweetly gracious to Bradley and Olson. She wasn't of the
gushing type, I knew; so I didn't expect much from her and was duly grateful for the few
morsels of attention she threw upon the floor to me. We had a pleasant meal, with only
one unfortunate occurrence--when Olson suggested that possibly the creature we were
eating was the same one that ate the German. It was some time before we could persuade
the girl to continue her meal, but at last Bradley prevailed upon her, pointing out that we
had come upstream nearly forty miles since the boche had been seized, and that during
that time we had seen literally thousands of these denizens of the river, indicating that the
chances were very remote that this was the same Plesiosaur. "And anyway," he
concluded, "it was only a scheme of Mr. Olson's to get all the steaks for himself."
We discussed the future and ventured opinions as to what lay before us; but we could
only theorize at best, for none of us knew. If the whole land was infested by these and
similar horrid monsters, life would be impossible upon it, and we decided that we would
only search long enough to find and take aboard fresh water and such meat and fruits as
might be safely procurable and then retrace our way beneath the cliffs to the open sea.
And so at last we turned into our narrow bunks, hopeful, happy and at peace with
ourselves, our lives and our God, to awaken the following morning refreshed and still
optimistic. We had an easy time getting away--as we learned later, because the saurians
do not commence to feed until late in the morning. From noon to midnight their curve of
activity is at its height, while from dawn to about nine o'clock it is lowest. As a matter of
fact, we didn't see one of them all the time we were getting under way, though I had the
cannon raised to the deck and manned against an assault. I hoped, but I was none too
sure, that shells might discourage them. The trees were full of monkeys of all sizes and
shades, and once we thought we saw a manlike creature watching us from the depth of
the forest.
