Peter B. Kyne

“ Suffice it, therefore, that on the eighteenth day from Surabaya, Captain Munson commenced to observe the infallible portents of an approaching typhoon. For three days the barometer had been abnormally high, the sky clear and serene, with bright, dazzling, lurid sunsets. On the third night the moon wore a greasy halo, while a long, low swell from the eastward was quite noticeable. At midnight the barometer suddenly commenced falling, the wind freshened, and gradually hauled to southeast, with occasional puffs from east, indicating that the storm would come from that quarter. ”

“ It is a pterodactyl or a pteranodon of huge size, probably the last of its species on earth, and Franz von Weigand and Joshua Kent are confronted with a dual duty. Our duty to mankind demands that we shall not leave Kerguelen until we have hunted down and destroyed this monster; our duty to science demands that we photograph it, both alive and dead and if possible on the wing, and that we carefully preserve the horrid carcass and transport it to New York, where Von Weigand will mount it and whence it will be shipped to the University of Leipzig, the doctor's Alma Mater. ”

“ To-day in Australia we find the spoonbill, a creature with the body of an otter and a duck's beak. It is, with the exception of this beak, a mammal, and a mammal bears its young alive and suckles them; yet the spoonbill, like a fowl, is reproduced from an egg. Then there are more than a score of species of marsupials found nowhere on earth, not to mention that wingless bird, the emu."
It would appear possible that the creature which carried away Wiggins came from Australia—possible, but hardly probable," Von Weigand replied. ”

“ WHILE engaged in our melancholy task Dr. von Weigand took his shotgun and walked up the beach. I paid no attention to him, thinking he intended to shoot a few specimens of sea birds, but proceeded with the burial. About the time we had finished the doctor returned and drew me aside. "Order your men to go into that cave in the cliff yonder," he said, "and to take the two light rifles with them. Tell them not to leave the shelter of the cave under any circumstances until you return: that their lives are in danger. Then take my heavy game rifle and accompany me. ”

“ He will make his headquarters in the cave, getting his water at night and trusting to the buckshot in that ten-gauge, close-bore shotgun of his to protect him. At best the monster can be no more deadly than a charging tiger—and Von Weigand says the first shot always halts the charge; then, before the tiger can gather its wits and renew the attack, a second shot does the trick. If Von Weigand can break a wing and bring it to earth, he has no fear of the outcome. ”

“ So it would sorter look as if young Cobb was as dead as the skipper before the crew deserted the Geneva, the second mate, not havin' a sextant o' his own, helpin' himself to the mate's. An' when we recall the fact that there was only seven sea bags in the fo'castle—an' a sailor bein' forced to take to the small boat is never allowed to clutter her up with his belongin's—well, it's goin' to take a smarter man than me to figure it out. If seven men left with the cook an' the second mate an' the passenger, they left seven bags behind. ”

“ However, Kerguelen is fifty miles wide at its greatest width and about a hundred miles long, so it is not a matter of surprise that this monster has not been met with heretofore."
The doctor declared that when I went to sea a scientist went to the devil. In common with many landsmen, he does not know that sailors are often greater students than landsmen. And in my school days I studied natural history and physical geography, and no man with a mentality on a par with the forecastle ever became a master in Baldwin & Cobb's employ. ”

“ How shall I ever account to Ambrose Cobb, 3d, for the loss of his boy, Ambrose Cobb, 4th? He will always feel that I was lax in my vigilance; he placed the boy in my care, and I fear that he will never understand that no human agency could have prevented his son's death.
12 P.M.—Still abreast Kerguelen. Weather raw as usual in these latitudes, sea smooth, wind coming in weak puffs and all points of the compass. Mr. Kent is now first mate, and all of our efforts are devoted to keeping the vessel offshore. Have advanced Daniel Kennedy, formerly the boatswain, to second mate. ”

“ August 5, 1901—I, Franz Carl Wilhelm von Weigand, late of the field naturalist staff of the University of Leipzig, Germany, being about to die, declare on my honor as a gentleman and scientist that the following is a true record of the events that have taken place since Joshua Kent placed me ashore here, at my own request, and in accordance with an agreement existing between us. ”

“ Good grub an' decent treatment was never yet wasted on a good sailor, for all the mates an' skippers that'll tell you otherwise, an' if ever there was a ship that a mutiny couldn't have happened on—if ever there was a ship better able to cope with wind an' wave than most, that ship was the Geneva. ”

“ In order to provide for emergencies, however, he had given the cockney, Dobson, the course to Fremantle, together with certain instructions in the event of his (Kent's) death.
At daylight one of the Finns relieved Kent, who breakfasted and turned in for a few hours' sleep. He set the alarm clock to awaken him, and when he came on deck he discovered that his terror-stricken and superstitious crew had provisioned one of the lifeboats and fled. That's what he got for giving them the course to Fremantle. ”

“ I'm hopin' he'll show up some time to claim the estate; then, if he ain't crazy altogether, maybe the world will find out what become o' the crew o' the Geneva, for it's fifteen years agone since the Comanche's prize crew sailed her into Fremantle an' cabled her owners to send a skipper to take charge o' her, an' the world ain't any the wiser to what become o' them than it was then. ”

“ This much also is certain and adds to the mystery. He was not attacked by any man on the ship, for the location of every man, including our passenger, at the precise instant of Davenport's outcry, has been accounted for. Moreover, he alluded to his assailant as "it"; hence we must assume that he did not know what was attacking him, but that he did know it was not human. There were not the slightest signs of a struggle on the poop.
The occurrence is most uncanny and sheds a new light upon the disappearance of the unfortunate man Wiggins. ”

“ He left directions for forwardin' all the specimens—birds, snakes, an' beasts of all sort—that was stored in the ship's hold, to the University of Leipzig an' willed his entire estate to Joshua Kent, second mate o' the American bark Geneva. He referred to Kent as a sailor with the soul of true scientist, a true gentleman, an' a true friend,
Three-Fingered Jack filled the glasses of the company; then he leaned his elbows on the bar and scrutinized each man carefully. ”

“ Australia, as every schoolboy knows, is much older, geologically, than the rest of the earth's surface, if we are to judge by her fauna, many common specimens of which appear to be holdovers from an age when queer animals were the rule and not the exception. ”

“ It is probable, however, that a pair of these Things, ancestors of this monster now resident on Kerguelen, while ranging off the Australian coast, were swept to sea by a terrific typhoon. Creatures as powerful as they, flying before a typhoon, would easily average a speed of a hundred miles an hour on a sustained flight of fifteen hours, until Kerguelen hove in sight and they alighted. ”

“ If you're satisfied after reading that you've found out what became of the crew of the Geneva and why the men left he ship, then leave the other fifteen dollars with Three-Fingered Jack for me. On the other hand, if you think you've been swindled, you can sell my sextant for ten dollars and get your money back. It's worth fifteen easily. The truth of the matter is, sir, it used to belong to Ambrose Cobb, first mate of the bark Geneva. It's inscribed: 'To Ambrose Cobb, 4th, upon the occasion of the granting of his license as second mate, Boston, Mass., July 21, 1899. ”

“ Scientists have estimated the age of certain individuals among the large turtles to be found on the Galapagos Islands at more than two thousand years, and when captured there was nothing about these turtles to indicate that they might not continue to live indefinitely. ”

“ She carried a crew o' twelve foremast hands, which with the cook, the skipper, the two mates, an' the German passenger totaled seventeen men—an' since they had taken the lifeboat an' the dinghy, it stands to reason that the seventeen was alive when they left the ship, otherwise they could all have fitted in one lifeboat! ”

“ So he decided to abandon the vessel (she and her cargo being fully insured) and return to Kerguelen in one of the ship's boats. He was unequal to the task of launching the lifeboat from the top of the house, but fortunately the dinghy, formerly carried in the davits over the stern, had been replaced on the previous voyage with a fine dory such as the fishermen on the Grand Banks use. These are splendid sea boats, so Kent stepped a mast, bent a sail, and loaded the little craft heavily with provisions, clothing, oil, etc. He took also the barometer, the chronometer, Mr. ”

“ There was a spatter o' blood up near the break o' the fo'castle, but there was also a couple o' live chickens in a coop, an' the head of a chicken lyin' in the port scupper close by, an' the carpenter's broadax, with some blood an' feathers on it, was lyin' on top o' the scuttle butt. ”