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 it was 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 across the
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 and fired. 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, but separate 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 reflections
made 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 in the 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.
[Illustration: “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 of years
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 I cared. 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 hind legs, 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 measurements were 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 yellow eyes
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 and padded 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.”