The Lost World

Ned is pleased with his contribution to the expedition. That night, against his better judgment, he goes for a walk. He reaches the iguanodon glade and then passes the pterodactyl swamp. A murmur arises, growing as he walks. It is a bubbling pit of what might be tar. He reaches the lake and drinks, before climbing a block of lava and surveying the land.

He sees what he believes are fires in the mouths of caves set into the distant cliff. Two creatures like armadillos and a huge deer visit the lake. A stegosaurus comes and drinks.

Something follows him as he returns to camp. He sees the frog-like beast following his scent. He runs and falls into a pit filled with rotting flesh. He has fallen into a trap that men created to protect themselves from the beasts. Eventually he climbs out and heads toward camp. He hears a rifle shot in the distance. He follows the noise, only to find that their camp has been destroyed and there is a large pool of blood on the ground.

He looks over the edge of the plateau and sees Zambo with an Indigenous man. Zambo asks him to send the Indigenous man for ropes to help him cross back over the gulf. Ned spends the day writing a letter for the Indigenous man to take to the world.

Ned sleeps in the destroyed camp that night. He wakes to a bloody and scratched Roxton. Ned grabs his rifle and they hide in a clump of bushes. Roxton says the humanoids are chasing them. That morning, they attacked the men’s camp and tied them down for a while, before dragging them to their town which had at least one thousand huts.

The humanoids have an ongoing war with the Cucama tribe. Roxton tells Ned that that morning, he watched as the humanoids force the human prisoners to jump into the pit Ned fell into while fleeing the frog-like creature. Roxton escaped that morning to check the camp for Ned.

Now they have to go back for their men and guns. A line of the humanoids passes their hiding place. After they pass, Ned and Roxton follow them for two hours until they come to a clearing. Summerlee is there, and Challenger is with the king of the humanoids. Ned finds the resemblance between Challenger and the king striking; they are both large and confident, with booming voices.

The humanoids begin throwing the Cucama tribesmen off the cliff. Roxton shoots the king before they throw Summerlee off the edge. Ned and Roxton shoot into the crowd and then flee back to their camp. Four of the Cucama follow them and plead for help. Ned says he knows where the caves of the Cucama are and they return to their hiding place in the brushwood.

The men plan to visit the tribesmen’s caves and find a way to go home from there. Challenger makes a speech about evolution and man’s place in the order of creation. Most of the remaining chapter describes the battle between the victorious Cucama tribe and the vanquished humanoids.

After the battle, the Cucama enslave the humanoids. The expedition ventures to the caves of the Cucama. While they approach, two of the massive frog-like creatures attack them. They manage to kill them with their guns and poisoned arrows of the tribe. That night, the Cucama cut the creatures up and remove their hearts, which then beat for three more days.

Even though the explorers helped the tribe win their fight, the Cucama, while not hostile, are not interested in helping them leave. However, the explorers are still able to communicate with Zambo by shouting across the gulf. Zambo says he has been in communication with other tribesmen, who will return with ropes within a week.

As they wait, Roxton builds a wooden cage that he drapes over himself and goes to the swamp with the baby pterodactyls. In the meantime, Challenger makes a hot air balloon that he fills with hydrogen from a geyser. It should help them get across the gulf if they are unable to do so with ropes.

A young tribal chief gives Ned a scroll. It is a chart of the caves, marking one that goes all the way through to the other side of the mountain. They investigate the caves, searching for a way out. As they hunt, the rescue party arrives with ropes.

The final chapter largely comprises a newspaper transcript of a meeting at Queen’s Hall, where Professor Summerlee recounts their adventures and endorses Challenger as a truthful man. However, few of the academics in attendance believe them. A man named Dr. Illingworth says that the word of four men who claim to have experienced something fantastical is not proof any more than the word of one man.

In response, Challenger produces a pterodactyl that Roxton caught while protected by his wooden cage. The creature escapes the auditorium and flies away during the ensuing pandemonium. The crowd, convinced at last, lifts the men onto its shoulders and carries them into the street, chanting and cheering. Ned writes that there is no record of the pterodactyl after that, although various people throughout the city claim to have seen a demon resembling the creature.

Ned learns that Gladys married someone else. The man is an unremarkable clerk with a reserved personality. Gladys tells Ned that their love had never been that important if he was able to leave her to go to the other side of the world.

Roxton comforts Ned by telling him and the others about the blue clay. He has only seen it at De Beers Diamond Mine, which gave him a clue that there would be diamonds near the site on the plateau where he saw the blue clay. He produces a great amount of diamonds that he has appraised and will now share with them. They split the fortune and discuss what they will do with the money. Challenger will start a private museum. Summerlee will retire to his classification of chalk fossils, unencumbered by other professional duties. Roxton will return to the plateau for another adventure, and Ned asks to join him.