Captain's Log- The Caverns

The younger Miss Norton was not up to making the trip down into the caverns, and stayed on board, she and the ship under the care of our capable automatic navigatrix.

The Sphinx and I descended the fairly gentle slope, lanterns ablaze. The floor of the cavern formed a fairly easy to walk natural pathway, though there were some places we could not readily access. Sphinx had her sketchbook and pencils, and made some drawings, while I took a few small samples of crystal and rock (and, I think, bat leavings).

When I make my return to the Royal Scientific Society, I'm sure I can find a geologist who will greatly want the samples... Mr. Hope will not, as he is interested solely in local soil samples. His study of dirt, he claims, is richly rewarding.

Mr. Hope, I may as well mention here, is an elderly and white-haired gentleman who has several scientific interests, but in the field of geology, he cares nothing for foreign samples, nor for crystals. He is a dirt man, through and through. Mr. Hope is Sphinx's friend who started us writing each other. She tells me he 'rumbled [her] at once!' when they met, though I have now seen her in full drag as a man and found her most convincing. She makes the most curious expression when he is brought up, a smile which is fond and somewhat knowing. Sly, but then, I've come to realize she frequently looks sly and not always with any cause. Her regard for him seems to be almost granddaughterly, however, and she expressed some sadness that with her sister's illness, she was no longer free to travel the long distance required to make a visit. With both ladies on the Brass Unicorn, however, it will be a definite possibility. I assume Mr. Hope is still in the city.

In addition to the interesting rock formations and crystals that one does not see above-ground, there was a small pool (from which I took a water sample), in it a number of ghostly, eyeless fish which took no note of the light from Sphinx' lantern as she made her sketches, but fled in all directions when I dipped the phial into the waters.

The fish are not the only creatures in the cave (to at least mock-disappointment from the literature-loving Sphinx, there were no dinosaurs!). I believe I mentioned the bat leavings (I did not take a sample). We saw the bats themselves a ways in. An infant had fallen from the sleeping flock, landing upon the well-protected decolletage of the Sphinx. I lent her a thick leather glove to remove the thing from her jacket-front, and she worried that, like a baby bird, it could not be returned to its kin.

She looked pre-emptive daggers in my direction lest I suggest that I was running a scientific exploration and not a menagerie, and Sphinx, Marvin (!), and I returned to the Unicorn.

She feeds him once a day now, milk from a small dropper, and has enlisted Lovelace's help in constructing a little cage for him to keep him safe from her cats (I pointed out that her cats were not great hunters, but safe indoors, Conan might have given chase to the little fellow after all, so the cage is most likely best).

We might make a stop in a city with a lively zoological society that is in want of a bat. Until then, Sphinx will draw Marvin from all angles and make notes on his behaviour. If we don't come across any zoologists, we might make a gift of him to Davies, if he can promise not to preserve the bat as a specimen until it has finished its natural life... Davies is drawn to creatures that most people find abhorrent (he has begged us to keep our eyes open for something he calls a 'Sky Kracken', the existence of which is in serious doubt)

Tomorrow, one more trip into the caverns, with a bit of climbing equipment! I want to take a crack at one of the difficult-to-reach spots before we leave the area.

Captain Burton Wilder
The Brass Unicorn