for the first time in days we sat down to eat,
and for the first time in weeks we had something to eat other than the
monotony of the short rations of an impoverished U-boat. Nobs sat
between the girl and me and was fed with morsels of the Plesiosaurus
steak, at the risk of forever contaminating his manners. He looked at
me sheepishly all the time, for he knew that no well-bred dog should
eat at table; but the poor fellow was so wasted from improper food that
I couldn't enjoy my own meal had he been denied an immediate share in
it; and anyway Lys wanted to feed him. So there you are.

Lys was coldly polite to me and sweetly gracious to Bradley and Olson.
She wasn't of the gushing type, I knew; so I didn't expect much from
her and was duly grateful for the few morsels of attention she threw
upon the floor to me. We had a pleasant meal, with only one
unfortunate occurrence--when Olson suggested that possibly the creature
we were eating was the same one that ate the German. It was some time
before we could persuade the girl to continue her meal, but at last
Bradley prevailed upon her, pointing out that we had come upstream
nearly forty miles since the boche had been seized, and that during
that time we had seen literally thousands of these denizens of the
river, indicating that the chances were very remote that this was the
same Plesiosaur. "And anyway," he concluded, "it was only a scheme of
Mr. Olson's to get all the steaks for himself."

We discussed the future and ventured opinions as to what lay before us;
but we could only theorize at best, for none of us knew. If the whole
land was infested by these and similar horrid monsters, life would be
impossible upon it, and we decided that we would only search long
enough to find and take aboard fresh water and such meat and fruits as
might be safely procurable and then retrace our way beneath the cliffs
to the open sea.

And so at last we turned into our narrow bunks, hopeful, happy and at
peace with ourselves, our lives and our God, to awaken the following
morning refreshed and still optimistic. We had an easy time getting
away--as we learned later, because the saurians do not commence to feed
until late in the morning. From noon to midnight their curve of
activity is at its height, while from dawn to about nine o'clock it is
lowest. As a matter of fact, we didn't see one of them all the time we
were getting under way, though I had the cannon raised to the dec