Sam had gone out to examine the dead monster more fully. In half an hour he came back in the cabin, carrying a queer writhing green thing in his hand. He held it up silently for me to see. With a sickening sensation, I perceived that it was a miniature replica of the great flying monster!
It was no bigger than a dove! The madly fluttering wings were a bright rich green, very delicate and soft. The thin, slender tentacles that clutched Sam's hand, or scratched harmlessly at it with undeveloped claws, were a pale rose color. The thin, fish-like body was almost white, and the little bloom at the end of it was now an intense violet in color, while the little black sense organs were thrust stiffly out of it.
"Quite a find!" Sam said. "We ought to learn no end of things from studying it, if we can keep it alive."
"Quiet!" I whispered. "Don't wake her! But where did you get it?"
"Tore it out of a curious pouch on the back of the old one. A cunning little creature, isn't it?"
"Not to my way of looking at it!"
"I wonder what it eats? Most likely it's carnivorous. The claws would suggest as much. And that assumption would demand that there must be large game of some kind to support the winged plants."
Sam carried the little monster on into the galley. In half an hour, since he had not come out, I left the sleeping girl and went in to see him, fearing that he had been bitten or stung by the thing. I found him with the grotesque little creature perched contentedly on his finger, sucking with the thin pink tentacles at a wisp of cotton he had soaked in condensed milk. An odd thing I noticed about it. The little bloom on the end of the body, which had been purple a short time before, was now white, flushed only with a pale pink glow.
"It's as friendly as a kitten," Sam said. "I'm going to name it Alexander. No reason why it should not develop into a young conqueror."
"Keep it, and give me a pet rattlesnake!"