But the men were not so superstitious, and heavy though they were, soon had most of them carried out to the light, and, under Curtis’s direction, they were arranged to form complete skeletons.
Even this young scientist himself was a little puzzled until he had examined the strata of the cave, for what had been bones originally were now petrified, or turned into stone by the drip of water containing silicates, etc., from above.
The monsters had belonged to ages long past, when the now snow-capped Antarctic continent was a world of life and wild beauty. The biggest skeleton was sixty-four feet long, and with terrible jaws and teeth. They were evidently saurians of a prehistoric period, with the bodies of gigantic snakes, and the flippers of seals to enable them to seek their prey in the water as well as on the dry land.
A mystery of the past! They were carefully restored, but some day will doubtless be seen in one of the great museums of Paris or London.
But autumn was now far advanced, and it was not without some degree of uncertainty that Curtis himself looked forward to the long dark night of winter.
CHAPTER X
A CHAPTER OF JOY AND SADNESS
It would not be far wrong to say that for the next month or six weeks, ere the sun went finally down, Hope sustained the hearts of our heroes almost as much as did the food they ate.
That there was a bad time before them they seemed to feel. Coming events cast their shadows before. But they wanted to have the shadow over and done with, and come to the dark stern reality itself.
They meant to make a bold stand for life anyhow.
Moreover, the behaviour of the Yak-Yaks themselves gave them additional courage. They pooh-poohed the winter darkness. Sheelah and Taffy were quite gay now, and made every one who heard them talk, more happy. Their own tongue is singularly sweet and labial, but even their broken English sounded musical.