The sea monsters
On Tuesday all is well until night time. Harry is awakened from heavy sleep by an awful shock. The raft is lifted up out of the sea and started off some twenty fathoms distant. He looks around. What has happened? Are they shipwrecked?
Hans raises his hand and points two hundred yards off, where a huge black mass is moving just under the water. It has the snout of a porpoise, the head of a lizard, the teeth of a crocodile and the fins of a whale. It is a massive Ichthyosaurus, or Great Fish Lizard, and it is coming straight for them!
Hans grabs the rudder which had slipped from his grasp and turns the raft about. But coming the other way is a forty foot long serpent with a hideous head and a huge turtle shell upon its back! It is a Plesiosaurus, or Sea Crocodile, and it is rushing towards them at tremenous speed!
Luckily the ravenous monsters are blind to the raft in their vicious rage. They rush past the raft and attack each other with inconceivable fury. Hideous hisses shake the gloomy granite roof of the mighty cavern and mountains of water turn to spray across the raft as it is tossed to and fro by the waves from the battle.
One hour, two hours, three hours pass away without decisive result until suddenly the creatures disappear beneath the waves, leaving a maelstrom in the midst of the sea. Several minutes elapse before the Plesiosaurus surfaces, twisting and writhing, wounded unto death. The Ichthyosaurus remains out of sight. Where has it gone? Are they out of danger? Perhaps they will never know.