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Just before dusk we moved out into the bay a hundred yards from shore and
dropped anchor, for I felt that we should be safer there than elsewhere. I also
detailed men to stand watch during the night and appointed Olson officer of the
watch for the entire night, telling him to bring his blankets on deck and get what
rest he could. At dinner we tasted our first roast Caprona antelope, and we had a
mess of greens that the cook had found growing along the stream. All during the
meal von Schoenvorts was silent and surly.
After dinner we all went on deck and watched the unfamiliar scenes of a
Capronian night--that is, all but von Schoenvorts. There was less to see than to
hear. From the great inland lake behind us came the hissing and the screaming
of countless saurians. Above us we heard the flap of giant wings, while from the
shore rose the multitudinous voices of a tropical jungle--of a warm, damp
atmosphere such as must have enveloped the entire earth during the Paleozoic
and Mesozoic eras. But here were intermingled the voices of later eras--the
scream of the panther, the roar of the lion, the baying of wolves and a thunderous
growling which we could attribute to nothing earthly but which one day we were
to connect with the most fearsome of ancient creatures.
One by one the others went to their rooms, until the girl and I were left alone
together, for I had permitted the watch to go below for a few minutes, knowing
that I would be on deck. Miss La Rue was very quiet, though she replied
graciously enough to whatever I had to say that required reply. I asked her if she
did not feel well.
"Yes," she said, "but I am depressed by the awfulness of it all. I feel of so little
consequence--so small and helpless in the face of all these myriad manifestations
of life stripped to the bone of its savagery and brutality. I realize as never before
how cheap and valueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. You
are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or
more powerful than some other form of life which crosses your path; but as a rule
you are of no moment whatsoever to anything but yourself. You are a comic little
figure, hopping from the cradle to the grave. Yes, that is our trouble--we take
ourselves too seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that." She paused
and laughed.
"
You have evolved a beautiful philosophy," I said. "It fills such a longing in the
human breast. It is full, it is satisfying, it is ennobling. What wondrous strides
toward perfection the human race might have made if the first man had evolved it
and it had persisted until now as the creed of humanity."
"I don't like irony," she said; "it indicates a small soul."
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