The interior was lighted by the numberless little portholes, and I could see everything plainly. I acknowledge I was nonplussed by what I did see.
In the centre of the shed, which must have been at least a hundred feet long, stood what I thought at first was the skeleton of an enormous whale. After a moment's silent contemplation of the thing I saw that it could not be a whale, for the frames of two gigantic bat-like wings rose from each shoulder. Also I noticed that the animal possessed legs—four of them—with most unpleasant-looking webbed claws fully eight feet long. The bony framework of the head, too, resembled something between a crocodile and a monstrous snapping turtle. The walls of the shanty were hung with drawings and blue prints. A man dressed in white linen was tinkering with the vertebræ of the lizardlike tail.
"Where on earth did such a reptile come from?" I asked at length.
"Oh, it's not real!" said Daisy scornfully; "it's papier-maché."
"I see," said I—"a stage prop."
"A what?" asked Daisy, in hurt astonishment.
"Why, a—a sort of Siegfried dragon—a what's-his-name—er, Pfafner, or Peffer, or——"
"If my father heard you say such things he would dislike you," said Daisy. She looked grieved, and moved toward the door. I apologized—for what, I knew not—and we became reconciled. She ran into her father's room and brought me the rifle, a very good Winchester. She also gave me a cartridge belt, full.
"Now," she smiled, "I shall take you to your observatory, and when we arrive you are to begin your duty at once."
"And that duty?" I ventured, shouldering the rifle.