"More than satisfied," said Temple, "I am charmed and delighted, and now share your conviction that a higher type of animal still remains to be discovered. You know to what I refer--creatures of intellect, formed in the image of God, like ourselves."
"We had best now return, my friends. By the time we reach the _Sirius_ the sun will be near setting, and it is not wise to pass through the swamp at dusk, after what we have already seen of its inhabitants," said the Doctor.
Laden with a great variety of specimens, we made our way to the boat, and were soon rowing across the lake again towards the swamp. The breeze had died away, so that our sail was useless, and we had to pull the entire distance. The sun was sinking behind the range of mountains we had just left, as we stopped and began to pack up our boat; and by the time we had got everything inside the _Sirius_, night had fallen.
Tired and hungry, we were glad to reach our "home" again, and as soon as we had eaten we all of us retired to rest, and passed a peaceful, uneventful night. If the monsters of the swamp were noisy, we did not hear them; not one of us woke until the sun had long risen.
After breakfast, we commenced our task of digging out the _Sirius_ from the mud. The Doctor was busy preserving specimens, dissecting others, and writing his scientific journals. Six hours' hard work sufficed to get the _Sirius_ clear enough to start. We also took the precaution of putting a considerable amount of ballast into our air-ship, to replace the stores which had been consumed, so that we should not again experience any difficulty in descending. By the time all this was done the afternoon was well advanced, yet so weary of the swamp were we, that we decided to leave it at once.
"We cannot do better than make for the beach where we landed this morning, on the other side of the lake, ascending about ten thousand feet as we cross. That will enable us to survey a good many miles of country," said the Doctor to Graham.
Slowly we soared away from the marsh forest, high over the reeds, up into the pure, fresh air of heaven, where from the balcony we could view the land and water below us. The swamp was enormous, many, many square miles in extent, and beyond it appeared a dense forest of quite a different kind of vegetation. The country, as far as we could see, from the base of the mountains to the shores of the lake and beyond it, was much the same throughout its area as that which we had already explored the previous day. Certainly none of it bore the appearance of civilisation--all seemed virgin wilderness, and our hearts sank within us. Beyond the belt of dark forest on the other side of the swamp, we could see the ocean; looking landwards, the highest of the mountains concealed the view.