THE ARCHDEACON AND THE DEINOSAURS
THE Archdeacon brought a neat roll of sermon paper from his pocket.
“I have here a trifle from the Mesozoic Period,” he said, and I interrupted—
“My dear Archdeacon, that was thousands of years before man appeared in the world.”
“Many millions,” replied the Archdeacon cheerfully. “My manuscript deals with a period when Mother Nature herself was an infant in arms. As you know, my hobby is palæontology. My paper, examined scientifically, represents some knowledge of this subject taken in connection with that dangerous thing: a late supper. You see I hide nothing; and I have written the matter out here on sermon paper in order that I might do it the greater justice.”
He smoothed his roll of manuscript, adjusted his glasses, and showed an inclination to begin.So I settled down and listened to his singular story:—
“Of course, in a dream, as at a modern comic play, one must not stop to weigh probabilities and be logical, else the structure in either case tumbles about one’s ears and the pleasure of the concern is spoiled. Thus, when I found myself on a fine morning starting for a day’s sport and science in the Mesozoic Period, the circumstance caused me little surprise. My black gaiters, I may tell you, were changed into brown ones, on my shoulder rested a Remington rifle, and by my side walked my wife’s black tom-cat, Peter. Of course my knowledge of the period led me to note the extremely Mesozoic nature of my surroundings, and I was gratified beyond measure to find myself alive and hearty so far back in the history of this planet. I did not stop to remember that Peter, my Remington rifle, and I myself were all alike unevolved; that even palæolithic man could not appear for unnumbered centuries; that his very flint stones were still sponges at the bottom of mighty oceans. Nor did it strike me at first that I was lonely, thus separated from my kind by gulfs of time so awful. On the contrary, I revelled in my environment; I proved that itwas distinctly Jurassic, and I laughed with satisfaction to reflect that I was ahead, by about twelve million years, of every sportsman who had shot big game with a rifle. I was generous, too. It struck me how Cuvier, or Huxley, or Owen, or Tyndall, or Darwin, or Geikie, or Marsh, or Zittel, or Hutchinson, or a thousand other eminent naturalists and palæontologists, would have enjoyed a morning amid the wonders of that period; and I wished they were all there under the protection of me and my Remington, and Peter.
“I stood upon the borders of a lake in a marshy district. The scenery was chiefly composed of volcanoes, for I could note a dozen of them upon the horizon, casting columns of smoke upwards into a cloudy sky. It was a close, thundery day, and occasionally heavy drops of rain fell, though the weather kept fine between the showers. Gigantic tree-ferns grew around me, and in the expanse of bogland along the fringe of the water rose jungles of huge club mosses and clumsy lycopodiaceæ and some coniferæ.
“About the borders of this inland sea insect life swarmed freely. Myriads of gnats, of enormous size and quite seven inches acrossthe wings, danced with giant dragon-flies over the water. Occasionally a ganoid fish rose like a trout and consumed one; which may have been a curious thing for a ganoid fish to do, but I was not critical. These ganoids, by the way, had but a paltry time of it. Fish-lizards, or Ichthyosaurs, chased them hither and thither, devouring thousands on the surface; Plesiosaurs, with necks like swans and lizard heads, grabbed the ganoids too, and Heaven only knows what monsters lay in wait for them in the deep waters when they dived.
“Then a strange thing happened. Suddenly, without any warning, a monstrous boy’s kite, with a long tail and wings twenty feet across, came flapping over the palm-tops. It was followed by another, and it struck me, on second thoughts, that they were umbrellas. A discovery of such a nature, even in a dream, caused me some astonishment. I could not instantly understand how such concerns should thus promiscuously whirl about in Mesozoic air, and I wondered who had lost them; but an instant later the truth came to me. These flutterers were no umbrellas at all, merely a brace of particularly fine Pterodactyls. Taking my chance, I raised my trusty Remington andfired. Seeing that I have never been known to handle firearms in my life, you will judge of my satisfaction when I tell you that I managed to wing the largest. It fell headlong, and Peter, with considerable lack of judgment, went to retrieve it. The faithful little beast nearly perished in the attempt. Your winged Pterodactyl, with twenty feet of flapping pinion, hundreds of sharp teeth, and a love for life quite prehistoric in its intensity, is a difficult matter to retrieve. I say unhesitatingly that fossil remains give no idea whatever of the ferocity of these flying dragons. Mortally wounded though he was, the animal showed a strong inclination to kill both me and Peter. I loaded again, therefore, and shot that Pterodactyl in the eye. Whereupon he gathered his vast wings trembling about him, and buried his head in them and so died. I marked the spot that I might pick him up on the way home. What my idea of ‘home’ may have been I cannot, of course, explain. Perhaps I thought I was putting up at a hydropathic Mesozoic hotel somewhere at hand, ‘in a fine volcanic neighbourhood, with splendid sea-bathing, Pterodactyl shooting and lawn-tennis. Terms moderate.’
“The aspect of my first victim set me thinking. It struck me, if creatures of such size flew in the air, that the solid earth might be supporting things a good deal larger. I was, of course, aware that Deinosaurs must be about. I knew that the fine specimens sometimes stood nearly twenty feet high, that many of them walked on their hind legs, and that, though certain varieties confined themselves to vegetable diet, others were carnivorous, and would as soon lunch off an Archdeacon as anything. I trembled, too, for my Peter. I feared at every step he would do something rash and lose his life. For my own part I determined to allow no Quixotic notions of what was and what was not sportsmanlike to interfere with my safety. To show what I mean, I may say that my next bag was a Teleosaurus; and I shot him sleeping by the river. His back was turned, his eyes were shut, so that I was enabled to destroy him without the smallest difficulty. He proved to be a crocodilian trifle about twenty feet long; and he died, as it were, smiling. It struck me that this monster might work up into neat cigar-cases for friends.
“And now I knew, as I proceeded onwards, that big game was at hand. Small Deinosaurs,no larger than kangaroos, hopped freely round me, but I reserved my fire, suspecting that I might need it at any moment. My companion had long since completely lost his nerve. Of him it might be said that he was out of harmony with his environment. He figured there merely as a fragment of nourishment for something bigger than himself, and realising this he presently jumped to my shoulder, evidently determined that, if worse came to worst, we would die together.
“Every moment increased the size of the fauna. Presently an armoured Deinosaur—Scelidosaurus by name—put his head out of a ten-foot patch of rushes. He had plates and spines on his monstrous back and a hungry look in his saucer-like eye. The beast, fortunately, did not see us, and feeling now that it would not be well to shoot save in the event of necessity, I stopped quietly where I was till the creature went crashing into the water. Then I visited its lair and was able to solve a problem no palæontologist has ever yet decided. I found a Deinosaur’s nest with four eggs in it and thereby set a great question at rest for ever. Deinosaurs certainly laid eggs. These in question were froglike in texture, butseparate each from the other and somewhat larger than big pumpkins. Having noted so much, I heard the mother Deinosaur returning, and hurriedly withdrew, not caring to risk any difference with a creature twelve feet high, covered with armour-plating and full of maternal instinct.
“Hereabout I may note in passing that my black tom at last found something smaller than himself—a hopping Deinosaur not much bigger than a rat. This he destroyed in triumph and partially ate—feeling the better and braver for doing so.
“Of course, I proposed to shoot one of these ‘dragons of the prime’ presently. Only I wanted a big specimen, if possible. I was too late for Anchisaurus—a giant whose footprints and tail-marks have been observed in the New Red Sandstone strata—and too early for Claosaurus, whose simple custom it was to eat off the tops of palms and tree-ferns in Cretaceous times; but I knew that those flesh-eating colossi, the Ceratosaurs, might lurk round any corner; I knew they had horns on their foreheads and took twenty feet of ground at a stride; that their footmark habitually covered a square yard of earth. These reflectionsmade me cautious, and even nervous. Then again I remembered your fearsome Stegosaur, who also shone in Jurassic days. He was wont to take the air upon all fours; Nature had provided him with plates and spikes, a massive frame about thirty feet long, and two sets of brains; one in his head, the other in the region of his tail.
“I had a presentiment that Stegosaur must surely be at hand, and presently, coming round a corner, I found my faithful companion, with his back up, almost in the jaws of such a monster. The Stegosaur was apparently using neither his front brains nor those he kept in the rear. He simply blinked at Peter, but did not move or offer to molest him, being a vegetarian. I hesitated about slaying this great beast, and it was well that I reserved my fire, for, not five minutes after he had gone upon his way, I came face to face with another of Nature’s primeval experiments, quite one of the most terrific, fantastic and short-tempered Deinosaurs she has ever turned out of her workshop. This was Triceratops—a monster with a head six feet long and no brains at all worth mentioning, but a temper like ten demons. It could not control itself, even inthe presence of an Archdeacon. Indeed, it lowered its vast horns and charged me passionately; while I stood my ground and kept wonderfully cool and collected—two things I certainly should not have done outside a vision. I gave Triceratops both barrels. I hit him chiefly because I could not miss him. He filled the entire foreground of that thrilling Mesozoic scene. He dropped five yards from me, uttered ferocious expressions, and passed away without a struggle. It was a great moment, and my success inspired both of us (Peter and me) with renewed confidence. We lunched beside that fallen Triceratops, and I found that the bag slung upon my shoulder contained a flask of very passable Irish whisky, a packet of sandwiches, and some cigars. I remember wondering where those sandwiches came from and who had cut them for me, and what they had been cut off. Maybe they were Deinosaur sandwiches, or Ichthyosaur. I had a tidy pie in my wallet too. It tasted like pigeon, but must have been Pterodactyl. Peter liked this better than the sandwiches.
VERY PASSABLE IRISH WHISKEY“VERY PASSABLE IRISH WHISKEY”
“VERY PASSABLE IRISH WHISKEY”
“VERY PASSABLE IRISH WHISKEY”
“Then followed perhaps my most remarkable experience. I was resting awhile after lunch,finishing the whisky and smoking a cigar, while the black cat coursed about of his free will, when suddenly the weirdest sound that ever fell on mortal ear saluted mine. I never heard anything distantly approaching it before; I know not how to describe it. The sound was something between the hiss of a serpent and the coo of a dove. The primeval beast responsible for it evidently combined the vocal qualities of bird and reptile. Naturally I marvelled, for birds were still strangers to the world. And yet an element of music in the sound led me to suspect that a creature at least of semi-ornithological nature was making it.
“‘Peter,’ I said, for he was very excited at the noise, ‘we must be in the presence of an Archæopteryx! No other Jurassic concern could make that unutterable burlesque of melody.’ And I was right. A moment later I came across an Archæopteryx sitting on a fallen tree stump and singing, or, at least, under the impression that he was doing so. I stood and listened to the first dawnings of bird music; I, who knew what the lark, and the thrush, and the nightingale could produce at their best, gave ear to that cock Archæopteryx warbling according to his limited lights. It was pathetic to see how he enjoyed it himself,and how his hen enjoyed it. He was the very first thing of his kind that Nature had managed; naturally he could conceive of nothing finer than his primitive self and preposterous voice. He gurgled and hissed, and squeaked, and even tried to trill. Then Peter, who recognised in him a true bird, despite the fact that he had claws on his wings and teeth in his mouth, captured that unfortunate Archæopteryx after a tough struggle, and dragged him to me in some joy.
“Anon we walked the sea-shore, threading in and out amidst prodigious tortoises and sleeping saurians, some of the latter nearly thirty feet in length. And then a misfortune befell me, and I lost my faithful Peter. The silly beast became too venturesome. Familiarity with Jurassic marvels bred contempt in his feline mind, and he went too near the water. Whereupon a hungry Plesiosaurus popped ten feet of neck out of the waves, and Peter’s interest in Mesozoic matters ended. I was extremely sorry. Peter had been, as it were, a link connecting me with the future. He had belonged to my wife, and I could picture her bitter regret at this uncouth termination to his picturesque existence. And then I remembered that I was concerned with a period millions ofyears before Adam and Eve. This reflection sobered me and made me feel for the first time something lonely and separated from my fellow-men. I knew that I had entered my sixtieth year only a week before, and I felt that it was, humanly speaking, doubtful in the last degree whether I could exist until the dawn of the Christian era. It irritated me also to reflect that I should die twelve millions of years before my wife was born; and what was the good of being an Archdeacon of the Church of England ages and ages prior to the time when ‘Britain first, at Heaven’s command,’ had risen from out the azure main? Two things were transparently clear: there would be no professional work for me, and no salary either, for a considerable number of æons. I distinctly remember worrying about the salary, and also about the unquestionable certainty that I should never see the cathedral again. Why, at the most generous computation, our world had only reached the twentieth verse of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis! Candidly I was discouraged; and, at this moment of depression, I met Brontosaurus Excelsus—almost the largest of the Deinosaurs. He walked on all fours, measured sixty feet, and probably weighed twenty tons. Not that Icared. He passed me by with silent contempt, and I have a recollection of sneering at him, too, as he strode to the water. I said:
“‘You are not as big as Atlantosaurus for all your unwieldy bulk. He stands up on his hind legs, too, and walks about like I do, who am the King of Animals, and an Archdeacon!’
“But he paid no attention. I doubt if he even heard me. These vegetable-eaters were all sleepy, lazy, unambitious brutes. ‘What,’ I said to myself bitterly in my dream, ‘is the good of being sixty feet long if you have no brains and no conversation? I would sooner be a tree or a rock than one of these addle-pated monsters. But Nature is still a baby girl, and these are her clumsy playthings and stupid dolls.’
“And then I came upon the spoor of something which took my breath away. I fancied it must be Ceratosaurus, and I knew that he relied upon animal food and feared nothing. His huge footprints left a deep impression in the damp soil, and between them extended a heavy furrow, as though some great plough had passed that way. This seemed to indicate the impression of a vast tail. The creature was doubtless striding about upon its hindlegs, according to custom; and from the mangled remains of various lesser monsters which strewed its path, I doubted not that it was lunching as it roamed on its way.
“The clouds gathered more thickly, rain fell in heavy, solitary drops; there was a volcanic smell in the air, and I heard the giant Deinosaur cracking bones round the next corner. My pulse quickened, I looked to my Remington, and then hastened forward with what courage I could command.
“Round that clump of coniferæ was Ceratosaurus. He had just finished a small crocodile, and was looking round for another when he saw me. Never did I behold such a mighty, towering mass of life. His jaws were open, his head was vast, his teeth truly terrific. His yellow goggle eyes were as large as the wheels of a railway-train, his neck was a tower, his body greater than many elephants. Inexperienced as I was, I felt that a meat-eating Deinosaur, of even larger dimensions than any whose fossil bones have up to the present time been discovered, stood before me. As a matter of fact it did not stand for an instant. It approached with gigantic strides and shot its head forward like a snake. It looked about fifty feet high, but scientific and exact measurementswere out of the question. Such indeed was the ungovernable haste of the brute that time did not allow of so much as a shorthand note on my cuff. I had just wondered two things; whether he would show any respect for my cloth, and whether, if he did not, my Remington would stop him, when he was upon me. He swayed his head sideways and came on upon his hind legs. His lips he licked with a black tongue—doubtless in anticipation. I fired my rifle at the right moment, but it made no impression, and in a second he was above me as I turned to fly. My cloth certainly had no respect from him, but he put it to a severe test, for, bending over from his massive haunches, he gripped me like a baby between his front talons, and bore me aloft fully twenty-five feet into the air. How my coat-tails and nether garb stood it I shall never know. Even at that supreme moment I marvelled why no stitch had given. The Deinosaur made a loud, guttural hissing, hugged me to his chest, bent his neck down, rolled his prodigious eyes, and drew back the lips from off his teeth. But I could make no movement, for my senses and muscles seemed alike paralysed. His head played over me, his fetid breath was on my cheek, his yelloweyes glared into my face, his hard nose pressed and poked my ribs. And then the power of action returned in some measure. I fought and kicked and shrieked, while as I struggled, the beast’s awful hug against my chest relaxed a little and his outline grew dim. But the yellow eye glared on brighter every moment. Then by slow stages I awoke, and the outlines of modern things appeared, and I became conscious of a general disorder, and the ceiling of my bedroom, and other familiar sights. But the yellow eye still glared on. I gasped and panted out of that nightmare grip at last, wet with perspiration, shaking with the terror of the Deinosaur’s presence. And dawn was about me and a tumble of bed-clothes, and a conviction that I was nearly standing upon my head, where my feet usually reposed in times of peaceful slumber. But the yellow eye glared on still, and not until I realised that the blazing thing was a big brass knob at my bed-foot did I grasp the facts and find myself back at the beginning of the twentieth century.
“At breakfast on that day Peter begged and implored for a sardine just as usual. But when I said, ‘What about that Pterodactyl, old chap?’ and ‘What was it like inside the Plesiosaurus, old fellow?’ he only blinked his eyes andpadded with his front paws and purred as usual. Peter is a big tom-cat really, but what struck me about him that morning, after my jaunt amid Mesozoic fauna, was his ridiculously small size.”