CHAPTER XIII
The Flying Flowers
It was several miles back of the shore to where the green grassland rose from the jungle to slope up to the cliffs of gleaming blue. I had ceaselessly searched the plains and the jungles for a sign of life or intelligence; but, so far, I had seen nothing save the weird flying monster of which I had caught a glimpse.
But suddenly a huge winged thing arose from the jungle strip! In a moment two more had joined it from the shore! In a few minutes a score of vast weird monsters were circling over the beach ahead! They were strange things, incredible, almost. I might have doubted my eyes but for Sam's warning of the strange things we might encounter. Their colors were bright. The wings were plainly green and of a spread of many yards! They flew with slow and regular wing-beats.
It was some time before I got one focused clearly in the glasses and then I gasped in astonishment and terror at the weird creature that seemed to spring at me from the lenses. It was neither bird nor winged reptile! It was not an animal at all!
It was a winged plant!
The great flapping wings were broad and green, braced with white veins like the leaf of a plant. The long body was plated with coarse brown scales, and tapered to a green-fringed tail. Eight long blood-red tentacles dangled in pairs below the body. They were thick, and the coils of each must have measured many yards in length. Each bore at the end a single terrible claw. And instead of a head, the thing carried on the forward end—a flower! It was huge, of many petals, brightly colored! Out of the calyx were thrust three dead-black, knobbed appendages that must have been organs of sense!
It was a vast thing—unbelievable! It was as large as an airplane! It was terrible—a nightmare monster! I could scarcely believe my sight, though, after what Sam had said, I might have expected such a thing.
I do not remember calling Sam. I was too much amazed. But suddenly he climbed up beside me, and took the binoculars from my unconscious hand. With a fearful gaze, I watched him raise and focus the instrument, trying to read in his lean, tanned face the meaning of the astounding things.