"But what is it? A reptile!" Harry exclaimed. "The thing is as big as a house!"
"Well, and why not? I should guess that it is about thirty feet in height and forty or fifty in length. There have been species, now extinct, several times as large."
"Then you think it is just—just an animal?" put in Desiree.
"What did you think it was?" I nearly smiled. "An infernal machine?"
"I don't know. Only I have never before known what it was to fear."
A discussion which led us nowhere, but at least gave us the sound of one another's voices.
We passed many hours in that manner. Utterly blank and wearisome, and all but hopeless. I have often wondered at the strange tenacity with which we clung to life in conditions that made of it a burden almost insupportable; and with what chance of relief?
The instinct of self-preservation, it is called by the learned, but it needs a stronger name. It is more than an instinct. It is the very essence of life itself.
But soon we were impelled to action by something besides the desire to escape from the cavern: the pangs of hunger. It had been many hours since we had eaten; I think we had fasted not less than three or four days.
Desiree began to complain of a dizziness in her temples, and to weaken with every hour that passed. My own strength did not increase, and I saw that it would not unless I could obtain nourishment. Harry did not complain, but only because he would not.