The magnitude of the weird circumstance suddenly dawned upon me in full. Immediately, one of Holmes’ favorite axioms sprang to mind:
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains — however improbable — must be the truth.
We were not the only human hunters upon the Plateau.
The cave man spied on the predators from the high jungle branches, watching them with a cold fascination. Caught too far away from his cave while in pursuit of food, he resigned himself to spending the terrible black night in the comparative security of the trees. He’d been munching on tree lizards when he first heard the uproar of the ape-men, rival hunter-scavengers, always dangerous in numbers. The cave man furtively moved to investigate from the gloom of the branches with the practiced ease of a gibbon.
He’d arrived in time to witness their unearthly deaths, almost the entire clan, slaughtered as if by a phantom killer. The ape-men had simply dropped dead. Most of them didn’t even have time to scream. Their intended prey, a burly old man and a tall, radiant-haired young woman, seemed as perplexed as the cave man himself. Then, from among the shielding high branches, he caught sight of the executioners as they skulked away into the shadows among the giant ferns.
Interestingly, the killers were only men.
Something more than instinct assured the cave man that these three new invaders would murder him, too, if given the chance. There was a feral, cruel press to their features. Even in the darkness their evil nature was obvious. He didn’t take more than an instant to decide to alter the odds of survival to his favor.
The cave man’s spear and stone-headed club expertly found their targets, and two of the villains fell dead almost without a sound. Their older leader, more experienced and mercurial, escaped wraithlike into the jungle.
A rare glint of humor brightened his deep-set hostile eyes and the cave man allowed himself a rare chuckle of amusement.
He was looking forward to tomorrow.
The hot, humid dawn couldn’t come soon enough. Hardly surprising that none of us slept.
Lord Roxton held his rifle ready in a steely vigil, while Jessica and Holmes performed a grotesque firelight autopsy on one of the dead subhumans. As for myself, I stood guard against whatever other horrors lurked in the maze of the jungle, puzzling fruitlessly over the inexplicable events of the night, and taking some small comfort in the weight of the high-powered rifle in my arms.
The first morning light had barely touched the damp mossy earth of the Plateau when I discovered Sherlock Holmes upon his hands and knees in the slime, intensely studying a boulder-heaped area about sixty yards from the massacre of the ape-men. He was there such a significant length of time, searching and researching, that Jessica and Lord Roxton anxiously sought us out.
“There were three of them, Watson,” he refrained from glancing up, still scrutinizing the ground with his lens. “All Londoners, I’ll wager, from the make of these square-toed boots. Two of them are young and very athletic, skilled mountaineers, no doubt. The other is quite a bit older and, although quite dependent on them, appears to be the leader. We really must remain at our most vigilant now.”
Lord Roxton bent to one knee, nodding appreciatively.
“I’ll be damned,” he smiled, suddenly more himself again.
Jessica also inspected the tracks. She admirably hid her aching heart.
“I’d hoped for a moment … but, no. None of these footprints are nearly large enough to belong to my father. Even so, this is an extraordinary circumstance, Mr. Holmes!”
Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet. The keen fire of the chase burned again in his eyes, much like in the old days. I could tell he was well satisfied with himself. For me, the mystery had merely grown murkier.
“Holmes,” I was struggling to make sense of it, “do these mysterious saviours of ours have anything to do with your comment that we’d been followed since leaving London?”
We accompanied Holmes as he dashed back over the spongy terrain, to the ape-men killing ground. He minutely examined several of the great tree trunks surrounding us, selecting one; he then took his pocket-knife and dug meticulously into the scaly bark.
“I’d have thought that would be obvious, old fellow,” he stated frankly. “And I’d hardly describe them as saviours. We’re being kept alive for a practical purpose.”
“You sound as if you already know these men,” Lord Roxton couldn’t quite hide the hint of skepticism in his voice.
Holmes withdrew the blade with a snap, letting a shapeless dull grey lump, about the size of a grape, drop into his hand.
“I suspect Watson does, too,” he offered me the artifact.
I scraped its surface with my thumbnail, leaving a mark. It was made of lead.
“A soft-nosed rifle bullet,” I mused aloud, when an incredible idea struck me. “My God — Holmes! But it can’t be. He’s dead.”
“Are you so sure? I highly doubt it. This entire mystery is falling into place.”
Without another word Holmes returned to the footprints, with the rest of us, again, breathlessly on his heels. He was utterly inexhaustible, racing and weaving through the thick undergrowth, on the scent of the almost invisible trail of our trio of stalkers. Less than five minutes later, we were investigating two more murders.
Holmes examined the corpses hastily, and with difficulty, as they were being devoured before our eyes by a fearlessly scampering flock of crow-sized winged reptiles.
“It’s the young pair … dead about four hours,” Holmes specifically pointed out their square-toed boots, which were barely intact. “However, they weren’t killed by these little fiends. It appears that a stone-tipped spear and a heavy club were used against them, quite efficiently, too.”
Lord Roxton eyed the upper tree boughs.
“Looks like we’d best find the other one quickly.”
Sherlock Holmes indicted the single pair of continuing tracks, leading deeper into the swamp.
“Unless I am entirely mistaken,” he motioned for us to follow. “I highly suspect that it is he who will find us.”
The swamp was crawling with an unimaginable multitude of vermin and parasites. Anemic-hued needle-toothed lampreys plagued us, biting through our clothing. Dragonflies as huge as hawks swooped over our heads, the droning of their wings almost deafening. Extremely bizarre coin-sized arthropods — Jessica identified them as trilobites — attached themselves to us like armored leeches, oozing even into our boots.
The sticky mist surrounded us, swirling in dense steaming ribbons. Every step we took was a calculated risk. None of us, not even Sherlock Holmes, could see more than twenty feet away in any direction. Abruptly, and with no small alarm, we discovered our path blocked by two huge saurians, each easily heavy as elephants, and at least thirty feet long. Their ponderous faces, vaguely horse-like despite the thick scaly hide, seemed unimpressed by our diminutive stature.
“It’s only a couple Iguanodons,” Jessica’s educated tone was in contrast to her expression of wonder. “They’re harmlessly herbivorous, unless we get stepped on.”
Almost as if on cue, the hulking dinosaurs became visibly agitated and galloped away, narrowly missing us. A series of tremors, each growing stronger, vibrated through the soles of our boots. A tremendous splashing followed, as if a barrage of boulders were being plummeted deep into the swamp. The creature that began to emerge from the mist was so immense, so utterly colossal, that it seemed to eclipse the sun.
The long serpentine neck arched slightly downward, its lizard-like head bowing toward us suspiciously. Even standing there in its regal presence, it was difficult to comprehend how something so enormous could actually be alive.
“A Diplodocus!” Jessica breathed. “I saw some egg casings along the edge of the swamp. She thinks we’re invading her nesting ground. We’ve got to get away from here quickly — without panicking her.”
Without warning, the hundred foot long behemoth began a rhinoceros-like charge at us, a living ava
lanche of muscle, scale, and bone. There was nowhere for us to run.
Then, quite rapidly, before our astonished eyes, the monster began to explode into pieces. Yet, perhaps, that is the wrong word, for we heard no sounds of explosion at all — though the effect was as if the beast was caught in a bombardment of canon-fire. The ground rumbled as the ravaged remains of the mangled giant crashed wetly to the earth.
We gazed at each other, silent in the moment of our reprieve. Each of us, so I believe, knew the real storm was about to strike.
“Drop all your weapons to the ground,” an English voice growled from behind us. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I could barely see his outline, simply a tall stoop-shouldered figure standing in the curtain of mist. An extraordinary-looking firearm was pointed in our direction. We complied, relinquishing our rifles.
Even unarmed, Sherlock Holmes moved assertively toward the intruder.
“On the contrary, Colonel Moran,” Holmes said coldly, “it would appear that it is you who aren’t going anywhere. Not without us, that is. And you damn well know it.”
Colonel Sebastian Moran glared at Holmes with pure hot murder in his eyes.
“Aware of the fate of my companions, are you, Holmes?” he snarled beneath a heavy iron-grey mustache.
“I know much more than that,” Holmes stepped closer to the barrel of Moran’s amazing weapon. “How tragic for your scheme, that Challenger’s secret formula has died with him. No doubt, had you tortured the data from him, you would have possessed a King’s ransom. More than enough to rebuild the late and unlamented Professor Moriarty’s decayed criminal empire.”
Colonel Moran grimaced, showing his stained tusk-like teeth.
“That’s quite close enough, Holmes,” he raised the remarkable rifle against his ursine shoulder. “You’re correct, of course. The existence of such a formula made this damnable gamble a risk well worth taking. Not that there haven’t been other rewards for a man such as myself. Never in all the world, since the beginning of time, has there been such a hunt for big game — the biggest game — as I have relished in this Primordial Hell. I’ve proven myself as the chief predator, almost a god. Ironic, isn’t it, Holmes, that I was protecting all of you from harm, just so the World’s Greatest Detective could guide me to Challenger and all his secrets!”
The grizzled old murderer was nearly raving. There was a mad yellowish cast to his eyes that bespoke, perhaps, of malaria, syphilis, or both. Moran was no longer the roguishly distinguished tiger-hunter Holmes and I once battled, but he was every bit as dangerous as he was more than twenty years before.
“Your cleverness has faded, Moran,” Holmes smiled thinly. “You need us to help you escape from this Plateau. You cannot possibly leave the way you came, aided by your mountaineering henchmen. Even as demented as you are, it should come as no great surprise that we utterly refuse to grant you passage.”
Moran pressed a lever with his thumb and the fantastic rifle softly hummed like an electrical dynamo.
“You’re wrong, Holmes,” Moran sneered as he pointed the weapon directly at me. “Quite an improvement upon my old silent air-gun model, eh? You observed what it did to that forty-ton monstrosity. There won’t be enough left of Dr. Watson to fill a jelly jar — unless you do as I demand.”
Both Lord Roxton and Jessica made angry motions toward Moran.
“Pull that trigger and this Plateau will be your damned grave,” Lord Roxton swore to the madman.
Jessica gazed at me with tear-rimmed eyes. The pain apparent on her bruised, scratched face intensified her beauty.
“I’d say this is as good a time as any, if you please,” Holmes said, with a studied ease, directing his voice toward the branches above us.
No sooner had the first furrows of confusion appeared on Moran’s murderous face than he was pinned to the earth, impaled with a Stone Age spear.
We stood aghast as the troglodyte dropped down into our midst from the trees. He was covered with filth, crusted blood, and animal skins only slightly shaggier than his own brutish nearly naked hide, and a rich blue-black beard flowed nearly to his waist. Although his height was scarcely a few inches over five feet, the bull-like shoulders and broad apish chest gave the impression of a powerful hammered-down Hercules. In nearly every respect, except one, he was the very image of a Neanderthal Man museum exhibit brought to life. The only major disparity was the unusually high-domed intelligent forehead.
The cave man paid us no heed, leaping toward Moran and snatched up the weird rifle.
“Under normal circumstances, I’d sooner deface the Mona Lisa than destroy such an ingenious instrument,” he, astonishingly, said to Holmes and then smashed the weapon against a boulder.
Moran uttered a wet rattling groan, coughing up blood. I immediately went to his side, but there was nothing I could do. The spear had pierced his left lung, narrowly missing the heart by less than an inch. He would be dead in a matter of minutes.
Holmes and our shaggy champion studied each other for a moment in silence. Jessica was pale as a ghost, and even Lord Roxton’s bronze complexion had become ashen. Then, the savage’s piercing blue-grey eyes fell briefly upon each of us.
“Sherlock Holmes … but why…?” he mused aloud to himself, then slapped an enormous hand against his naked thigh. “Of course! This is about my steel, isn’t it? I doubt they sent you here out of concern for my health. The war-mongering bastards.”
He nodded at Lord Roxton.
“Obviously you still know your way around, Roxton. Full marks, you damned old campaigner. Delighted to see you.”
Next, his eyes narrowed at Jessica, who’d started to tremble slightly.
“No keeping you away, was there?” he said almost reproachfully, then smiled. “You get it naturally, I suppose. Remind me to describe the peculiar sub-species of living pseudosuchian that I discovered, as yet unknown even in the fossil record. I think you’ll be very interested.”
Finally, he bowed to me, formally as any English gentleman might.
“Ah, yes,” his smile brightened. “Dr. Watson, I presume?”
Only Holmes was left unfazed and still capable of speech.
“Forgive me, dear fellow, I’d forgotten that the two of you never met,” he said as if in the normalcy of a London street. “Allow me to present Professor George Edward Challenger.”
He stood before my eyes, yet I could hardly believe it. Challenger, the man we’d come to find had not only survived — but had even thrived in this terrible place.
Challenger’s surprisingly amiable smile abruptly vanished. I was startled and disturbed to see him literally sniff the humid breeze.
“Starved as I am for human conversation,” he spoke with some haste, “I’m not the only hungry biological entity upon this Plateau. The blood-scent of the slain sauropod, and this wicked son of a bitch, is luring—”
Before he could say another word, a horrendous creature, more terrible than the most nightmarish dragon of myth, leapt suddenly from the green-black jungle, pouncing upon the saurian carcass with a meteoric impact. I would dream, in a cold sweat, of this forty-foot long scaly demon in the years that have followed this adventure. It was an Allosaurus, the Challengers later explained, although both scientists conceded the animal was considerably larger than its fossilized kin. Perhaps best described as a composite of bipedal crocodile and a wingless bird of prey, the fiend’s grinding, snapping jaws towered twenty feet, or more, above the ground. In hideous rips and gulps it swallowed whole masses of meat and bone half as large as a London cab.
As can well be appreciated and understood, all of us ran for our lives — not daring even the quickest backwards glance. We couldn’t help but hear Moran, still barely alive, wailing one last shrill and piteous scream of terror.
A hellish death, even for such an evil man.
As for we who survived, our only thoughts were of our balloon and the safety of the skies above. I’m certain that even Holmes relished the notion of
leaving this wretched place.
Two months later, the secret formula for Professor George Edward Challenger’s super-steel had reached the battlefields and the tide of the Great War turned to Britain’s advantage. It was amusing to Challenger and to Sherlock Holmes that they both had the distinction of refusing knighthoods as a result.
Holmes and I had received a special invitation to Challenger’s long-planned, and highly anticipated, lecture at the prestigious Zoological Institute — the very place that a few years before had decreed his experiences within the Lost World a fraud. Unfortunately, the weight limitations of the balloon, and our frenzied speed of departure from the Plateau did not allow for the collection of specimens to submit as evidence. However, Challenger and his daughter had written prodigiously since their return to civilization and were prepared to publish their proclamations following the lecture.
Both seemed unaffected by the probability that, once again, the scientific community would ridicule their discoveries.
We found them waiting for us just outside the Hall. Challenger struck quite a different figure in his immaculate white tie and tails, with his great black beard re-sculpted to spade-shaped perfection. Jessica Cuvier Challenger was radiant, reveling in the company of her father, and bravely ready to face the stormy trial of mockery that, doubtlessly, awaited them.
“Listen,” Challenger scoffed, beard bristling. “You can already hear the bloody vultures deviously calculating how best to pick us apart. No matter to them that all of my courageous exploration team — and their own hand-picked associates — perished by beast and disease in the very place whose existence they all continue to deny.”
His daughter affectionately touched his muscle-thick shoulder.
“No matter, sir,” she laughed. “Last time even a live pterodactyl didn’t convince them. After it escaped though the window, flying out to sea, all were convinced they’d witnessed nothing more than an elaborate conjurer’s trick. We know what we saw, and studied. No one can ever take that away. And, believe us or burn us, they will damn well hear us out.”
Challenger laughed uproariously, embracing Jessica and lifting her high above his head, as if she was still a toddler.
Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes Page 16