ike creatures
rise slowly from below, to begin feeding on the fish--one of those great
scientific wonders that you and your father are trying to discover and
capture; for that's it, I suppose, though you do keep so squat about
it."

"Ah-h-h!" said Morny, with a sigh; and he glanced sidewise at his young
English companion.

"It is quite a joke, that it is," continued Rodd. "It's just as if you
were jealous and afraid that uncle and I would get beforehand with you,
and win the credit of the discovery for old England, instead of you
carrying it off for your _la belle France_."

"Ah!" sighed Morny again, with a sad smile upon his lips.

"You French chaps are so sentimental. _La belle France_ indeed! Just
as if old England or the British Isles weren't quite as beautiful! Only
we don't go shouting about it everywhere. I say, Morny, you don't half
believe in me."

"It is false!" cried the young Frenchman angrily. "Why, I believe in
you more than in any one living--except my father."

"Oh, indeed!" cried Rodd banteringly. "And here since I have known you
I have told you everything till I haven't a secret that I have kept from
you."

"Why, you have had no secrets," said Morny.

"Well--no; I suppose you couldn't call them secrets. But you've got
one, and you have never let it out to me."

"No," said Morny gravely, "because it was not mine to tell. You don't
want me to be dishonourable, Rodd?"

"Why, of course I don't, old chap. I don't want you to tell me till you
like, only it is rather a joke sometimes that you make such a mystery of
what uncle and I know as well as can be."

"You know!" cried Morny sharply.

"Why, of course I do. It's what I say. You want--I mean, your father
does--to carry off the honour of having solved the mystery of the great
fish or reptile that has been talked about for the last hundred years.
I say, though, there's that other great old-world thing that they find
in the rocks. What's his name?"

Morny shook his head.

"Here, I've got it--the sea-sawyer! That isn't quite right, but it
sounds something like it. Why, he must have been just like a great
crocodile."

"Ugh! Don't talk about them," said Morny, with a shudder.

"Eh, why not? There are none of them here. I wish we could have caught
one to dry or stuff, or keep in spirits. I mean quite a little one, you
know. Ah, those were rather horrid times, though, and I shan't want a
specimen reptile to make me rememb