| 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 |
| 1 | 20 | 41 | 61 | 81 |
|
www.freeclassicebooks.com
Chapter 5
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
4
4
Page
Quick Jump
|