 1 It must have been a little after three o'clock in the afternoon that it happened, the afternoon of June 3, 1916. It seems incredible that all that I have passed through, all those weird and terrifying experiences, should have been encompassed within so short a span as three brief months. Rather might I have experienced a cosmic cycle with all its changes and evolutions for that which I have seen with my own eyes in this brief interval of time, things that no other mortal eye had seen before, glimpses of a world past, a world dead, a world so long dead that even in the lowest cambrium stratum no trace of it remains. Fused with the melting intercrust it has passed forever beyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket of the earth where their fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed. I am here and here must remain. After reading this far my interest which already had been stimulated by the finding of the manuscript was approaching the boiling point. I had come to Greenland for the summer on the advice of my physician and was slowly being bored to extinction, as I had thoughtlessly neglected to bring sufficient reading matter. Being an indifferent fisherman, my enthusiasm for this form of sport soon waned. Yet in the absence of other forms of recreation I was now risking my life in an entirely inadequate boat off Cape Farewell at the southernmost extremity of Greenland. Greenland, as a descriptive appellation it is a sorry joke, but my story has nothing to do with Greenland, nothing to do with me, so I shall get through with the one and the other as rapidly as possible. The inadequate boat finally arrived at a precarious landing, the natives waist deep in the surf assisting. I was carried ashore and while the evening meal was being prepared I wandered to and fro along the rocky shattered shore. Bits of surf harried beach, clove, the worn granite, or whatever the rocks of Cape Farewell may be composed of, and as I followed the ebbing tide down one of these soft stretches I saw the thing, where one to bump into a Bengal tiger in the ravine behind the Bimini baths, one could be no more surprised than was I to see a perfectly good quart thermos bottle turning and twisting in the surf of Cape Farewell at the southern extremity of Greenland. I rescued it, but I was soaked above the knees doing it, and then I sat down in the sand and opened it, and in the long twilight read the manuscript, neatly written and tightly folded which was its contents. You have read the opening paragraph, and if you are an imaginative idiot like myself you will want to read the rest of it, so I shall give it to you here, omitting quotation marks which are difficult of remembrance. In two minutes you will forget me. My home is in Santa Monica. I am, or was, junior member of my father's firm. We are shipbuilders. Of recent years we have specialized on submarines which we have built for Germany, England, France, and the United States. I know a sub as a mother knows her baby's face, and have commanded a score of them on their trial runs, yet my inclinations were all toward aviation. I graduated under Curtis, and after a long siege with my father obtained his permission to try for the Lafayette Escrudille. As a stepping-stone I obtained an appointment in the American Ambulance Service, and was on my way to France when three shrill whistles altered in as many seconds my entire scheme of life. I was sitting on deck with some of the fellows who were going into the American Ambulance Service with me. My air-dale, Crown Prince Nobler, asleep at my feet when the first blast of the whistle shattered the peace and security of the ship. Ever since entering the U-boat zone we had been on the lookout for periscopes, and children that we were bemoaning the unkind fate that was to see us safely into France on the moral without a glimpse of the dread marauders. We were young, we craved thrills, and God knows we got them that day, yet by comparison with that through which I have since passed they were as tame as a Punching Judy show. I shall never forget the ashy faces of the passengers as they stampeded for their life belts, though there was no panic. Nobs rose with a low growl. I rose also, and over the ship's side I saw not two hundred yards distant the periscope of a submarine. While racing toward the liner the wake of a torpedo was distinctly visible. We were aboard an American ship, which of course was not armed. We were entirely defenseless, yet without warning we were being torpedoed. I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo. It struck us on the starboard's side almost amid ships. The vessel rocked as though the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano. We were thrown to the decks, bruised and stunned, and then above the ship carrying with it fragments of steel and wood, and dismembered human bodies rose a column of water hundreds of feet into the air. The silence which followed the detonation of the exploding torpedo was almost equally horrifying. It lasted for perhaps two seconds to be followed by the screams and moans of the wounded, the cursing of the men and the horse commands of the ship's officers. They were splendid, they and their crew. Never before had I been so proud of my nationality as I was that moment. In all the chaos which followed the torpedo-wing of the liner no officer or member of the crew lost his head or showed in the slightest any degree of panic or fear. While we were attempting to lure boats the submarine emerged and trained guns on us the officer in command ordered us to lure our flag, but this the captain of the liner refused to do. The ship was listing frightfully to starboard, rendering the port boats useless, while half the starboard boats had been demolished by the explosion. Even while the passengers were crowding the starboard rail and scrambling into the few boats left to us the submarine commenced shelling the ship. I saw one shell burst in a group of women and children, and then I turned my head and covered my eyes. When I looked again, to horror was added chagrin, for with the emerging of the U-boat I had recognized her as a product of our own shipyard. I knew her to a rivet. I had superintended her construction. I had sat in that very conning tower and directed the efforts of the sweating crew below when first her prowl clove the sunny summer waters of the Pacific. And now this creature of my brain and hand had turned Frankenstein, bent upon pursuing me to my death. A second shell exploded upon the deck, one of the life boats frightfully overcrowded swung at a dangerous angle from its davits. A fragment of the shell shattered the bow tackle, and I saw the women and children and the men vomited into the sea beneath, while the boat dangled stern up for a moment from its single davit, and at last with increasing momentum dived into the midst of the struggling victims screaming upon the face of the waters. Now I saw men spring to the rail and leap into the ocean. The deck was tilting to an impossible angle. Nobs braced himself with all four feet to keep from slipping into the scuppers and looked up into my face with a questioning whine. I stooped and stroked his head. Come on, boy, I cried, and running to the side of the ship dived head foremost over the rail. When I came up the first thing I saw was nobs swimming about in a bewildered sort of way a few yards from me. At sight of me his ears went flat and his lips parted in a characteristic grin. The submarine was withdrawing toward the north, but all the time it was shelling the open boats, three of them loaded to the gunwales with survivors. Fortunately the small boats presented a rather poor target which, combined with the bad markmanship of the Germans, preserved their occupants from harm, and after a few minutes a blotch of smoke appeared upon the eastern horizon and the U-boats submerged and disappeared. All the time the lifeboats had been pulling away from the danger of the sinking liner and now, though I yelled at the top of my lungs, they either did not hear my appeals for help or else did not dare return to succor me. Nobs and I had gained some little distance from the ship when it rolled completely over and sank. We were caught in the suction only enough to be drawn backward a few yards, neither of us being carried beneath the surface. I glanced hurriedly about for something to which to cling. My eyes were directed toward the point at which the liner had disappeared when there came from the depths of the ocean the muffled reverberation of an explosion and almost simultaneously a geyser of water in which were shattered lifeboats, human bodies, steam, coal, oil, and the flotsam of a liner's deck leaped high above the surface of the sea, a watery column momentarily marking the grave of another ship in this greatest cemetery of the seas. When the turbulent waters had somewhat subsided and the sea had ceased to spew up wreckage, I ventured to swim back in search of something substantial enough to support my weight and that of nobs as well. I had gotten well over the area of the wreck when not a half dozen yards ahead of me a lifeboat shot bow foremost out of the ocean almost its entire length to flop down upon its keel with a mighty splash. It must have been carried far below, held to its mothership by a single rope which finally parted to the enormous strain put upon it. In no other way can I account for its having leaped so far out of the water, a beneficent circumstance to which I doubtless owe my life and that of another far dearer to me than my own. I say beneficent circumstance even in the face of the fact that a fate far more hideous confronts us than that which we escaped that day. For because of that circumstance I have met her whom otherwise I never should have known. I have met and loved her. At least I have had that great happiness in life, nor can Caspec, with all her horrors, expunge that which has been. So for the thousandth time I thanked the strange fate which sent that lifeboat hurtling upward from the green pit of destruction to which it had been dragged, set it far up above the surface, emptying its water as it rose above the waves, and dropping it upon the surface of the sea, buoyant and safe. It did not take me long to clamor over its side and drag knobs in to comparative safety, and then I glanced around upon the scene of death and desolation which surrounded us. The sea was littered with wreckage among which floated the pitiful forms of women and children buoyed up by their useless life belts. Some were torn and mangled, others lay rolling quietly to the motion of the sea, their countenances composed and peaceful. Others were sat in hideous lines of agony or horror. Close to the boat's side floated the figure of a girl. Her face was turned upward, held above the surface by her life belt, and was framed in a floating mass of dark and waving hair. She was very beautiful. I had never looked upon such perfect features, such a divine molding which was at the same time human, intensely human. It was a face filled with character and strength and femininity, the face of one who was created to love and to be loved. The cheeks were flushed to the hue of life and health and vitality, and yet she lay there upon the bosom of the sea dead. I felt something rise in my throat as I looked down upon that radiant vision, and I swore that I should live to avenge her murder. And then I let my eyes drop once more to the face upon the water, and what I saw nearly tumbled me backward into the sea, for the eyes in the dead face had opened. The lips had parted, and one hand was raised toward me in a mute appeal for succor. She lived. She was not dead. I leaned over the boat side and drew her quickly into the comparative safety which God had given me. I removed her life belt and my soggy coat, and made a pillow for her head. I chafed her hands and arms and feet. I worked over her for an hour, and at last I was rewarded by a deep sigh, and again those great eyes opened and looked into mine. At that I was all embarrassment. I have never been a ladies' man. At Lilland-Stanford I was the butt of the class, because of my hopeless imbecility in the presence of a pretty girl. But the men liked me, nevertheless. I was rubbing one of her hands when she opened her eyes, and I dropped it as though it were a red-hot rivet. Those eyes took me in slowly from head to foot. Then they wandered slowly around the horizon, marked by the rising and falling gun whales of the lifeboat. They looked at knobs and softened, and then came back to me, filled with questioning. I stammered, moving away and stumbling over the next thwart. The vision smiled wanly. I eyes, sir, she replied faintly, and again her lips drooped, and her long lashes swept the firm, fair texture of her skin. I hope that you are feeling better, I finally managed to say. Do you know, she said after a moment of silence, I have been awake for a long time, but I did not dare to open my eyes. I thought I must be dead, and I was afraid to look, for fear that I should see nothing but blackness about me. I am afraid to die. Tell me what happened after the ship went down. I remember all that happened before. Oh, but I wish that I might forget it. A sob broke her voice. The beast, she went on after a moment, and to think that I was to have married one of them, a lieutenant in the German Navy. Presently, she resumed as though she had not seen speaking. I went down and down and down. I thought I should never cease to sink. I felt no particular distress, until I suddenly started upward at ever-increasing velocity. Then my lungs seemed about to burst, and I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing more, until I opened my eyes after listening to a torrent of invective against Germany and Germans. Tell me, please, all that happened after the ship sank. I told her then, as well as I could, all that I had seen, the submarine shelling the open boats, and all the rest of it. She thought it marvelous that we should have been spared in so providential a manner, and I had a pretty speech upon my tongue's end, but lacked the nerve to deliver it. Nobs had come over and nosed his muzzle into her lap, and she stroked his ugly face, and at last she leaned over and put her cheek against his forehead. I have always admired Nobs, but this was the first time that it had ever occurred to me that I might wish to be Nobs. I wondered how he would take it, for he is as unused a woman as I, but he took to it as a duck takes to water. What I lack of being a lady's man Nobs certainly makes up for as a lady's dog. The old scallywag just closed his eyes and put on one of the softest sugar-wooden melt in my mouth expressions you ever saw, and stood there taking it and asking for more. It made me jealous. You seem fond of dogs, I said. I am fond of this dog, she replied. Whether she meant anything personal in that reply I did not know, but I took it as personal, and it made me feel mighty good. As we drifted about upon that vast expanse of loneliness, it is not strange that we should quickly become well acquainted. Constantly we scanned the horizon for signs of smoke, venturing guesses as to our chances of rescue. But darkness settled, and the black night enveloped us without ever the sight of respect upon the waters. We were thirsty, hungry, uncomfortable, and cold. Our wet garments had dried but little, and I knew that the girl must be in grave danger from the exposure to a night of cold and wet upon the water in an open boat, without sufficient clothing and no food. I had managed to bail all the water out of the boat with cupped hands, ending by mopping the balance up with my handkerchief, a slow and back-breaking procedure. Thus I had made a comparatively dry place for the girl to lie down low in the bottom of the boat, where the sides would protect her from the night wind, and when at last she did so, almost overcome as she was by weakness and fatigue, I threw my wet coat over her further to thwart the chill. But it was of no avail. As I sat watching her, the moonlight marking out the graceful curves of her slender young body, I saw her shiver. Isn't there something I can do? I asked. You can't lie there chilled through all night. Can't you suggest something? She shook her head. We must grin and bear it, she replied after a moment. Nobler came and lay down on the thwart beside me, his back against my leg, and I sat staring in dumb misery at the girl, knowing in my heart of hearts that she might die before morning came. For what with the shock and exposure she had already gone through enough to kill almost any woman. And as I gazed down at her, so small and delicate and helpless, there was born slowly within my breast a new emotion. It had never been there before. Now it will never cease to be there. It made me almost frantic in my desire to find some way to keep warm and cooling lifeblood in her veins. I was cold myself, though I had almost forgotten it until Nobler moved, and I felt a new sensation of cold along my leg against which he had lain, and suddenly realized that in that one spot I had been warm. Like a great light came the understanding of a means to warm the girl. Immediately I knelt beside her to put my scheme into practice when suddenly I was overwhelmed with embarrassment. Would she permit it even if I could muster the courage to suggest it? Then I saw her frame convulse, shudderingly, her muscles reacting to her rapidly lowering temperature, and casting prudery to the winds I threw myself down beside her and took her in my arms, pressing her body close to mine. She drew away suddenly, voicing a little cry of fright and tried to push me from her. Forgive me, I managed to stem her. It is the only way. You will die of exposure if you are not warmed, and Nobs and I are the only means we can command for furnishing warmth. And I held her tightly while I called Nobs and made him lie down at her back. The girl didn't struggle any more when she learned my purpose, but she gave two or three little gasps, and then began to cry softly, bearing her face on my arm, and thus she fell asleep. End of chapter one. Chapter two of The Land That Time Forgot. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Ralph Snelson. The Land That Time Forgot, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter two. Toward morning I must have dozed, though it seemed to me at the time that I had lain away for days instead of hours. When I finally opened my eyes it was daylight, and the girl's hair was in my face, and she was breathing normally. I thanked God for that. She had turned her head during the night, so that as I opened my eyes I saw her face not an inch from mine, my lips almost touching hers. It was Nobs who finally awoke her. He got up, stretched, turned round a few times, and lay down again, and the girl opened her eyes and looked into mine. Hers went very wide at first, and then slowly comprehension came to her, and she smiled. You have been very good to me, she said, as I helped her to rise, though if the truth were known I was more in need of assistance than she. The circulation all along my left side seemed to be paralyzed entirely. You have been very good to me, and that was the only mention she ever made of it, yet I know that she was thankful, and that only reserve prevented her from referring to what, to say the least, was an embarrassing situation, however unavoidable. Shortly after daylight we saw smoke apparently coming straight toward us, and after a time we made out the squat lines of a tug, one of those fearless exponents of England's supremacy of the sea that towed sailing ships into French and English ports. I stood up on a thwart and waved my soggy coat above my head. Knob stood upon another and barked. The girl sat at my feet, straining her eyes toward the deck of the oncoming boat. They see us, she said at last. There is a man answering your signal. She was right. A lump came into my throat, for her sake rather than for mine. She was saved, and none too soon. She could not have lived through another night upon the channel. She might not have lived through the coming day. The tug came close beside us, and a man on deck threw us a rope. Willing hands dragged us to the deck, knobs scrambling nimbly aboard without assistance. The rough men were gentle as mothers with the girl. Applying us both with questions they hustled her to the captain's cabin and me to the boiler room. They told the girl to take off her wet clothes and throw them outside the door, that they might be dried, and then to slip into the captain's bunk and get warm. They didn't have to tell me to strip after I once got into the warmth of the boiler room. In a jiffy my clothes hung about where they might dry most quickly, and I myself was absorbing through every pore the welcome heat of the stifling compartment. They brought us hot soup and coffee, and then those who were not on duty sat around and helped me down the kaiser and his brood. As soon as our clothes were dry, they bade us dawn as the chances were always more than fair in those waters that we should run into trouble with the enemy, as I was only too well aware. What with the warmth and the feeling of safety for the girl and the knowledge that a little rest and food would quickly overcome the effects of her experiences of the past dismal hours, I was feeling more content than I had experienced since those three whistleblasts had shattered the peace of my world the previous afternoon. But peace upon the channel has been but a transitory thing since August 1914. It proved itself such that morning, for I had scarce gotten into my dry clothes and taken the girl's apparel to the captain's cabin, when an order was shouted down into the engine room for full speed ahead, and an instant later I heard the dull boom of a gun. In a moment I was up on deck to see an enemy submarine about two hundred yards off our port bow. She had signaled us to stop, and our skipper had ignored the order. But now she had her gun trained on us, and the second shot grazed the cabin, warning the belligerent tug captain that it was time to obey. Once again an order went down to the engine room and the tug reduced speed. The U-boat ceased firing and ordered the tug to come about and approach. Our momentum had carried us a little beyond the enemy craft, but we were turning now on the ark with circle that would bring us alongside her. As I stood watching the maneuver and wondering what was to become of us, I felt something touch my elbow, and turned to see the girl standing at my side. She looked up into my face with a rueful expression. They seemed bent on our destruction, she said, and it looks like the same boat that sunk us yesterday. It is, I replied. I know her well. I helped design her and took her out on her first run. The girl drew back from me with a little exclamation of surprise and disappointment. I thought you were an American, she said. I had no idea you were a— nor am I, I replied. Americans have been building submarines for all nations for many years. I wish, though, that we had gone bankrupt, my father and I, before ever we turned out that Frankenstein of a thing. We were approaching the U-boat at half speed now, and I could almost distinguish the features of the man upon her deck. A sailor stepped to my side and slipped something hard and cold into my hand. I did not have to look at it to know that it was a heavy pistol. "'Tiker and user,' was all he said. Our bow was pointed straight toward the U-boat now as I heard word pass to the engine for full speed ahead. I instantly grasped the brazenly frontery of the plucky English skipper. He was going to ram five hundred tons of U-boat in the face of her trained gun. I could scarce repress a cheer. At first the Boschers didn't seem to grasp his intention. Evidently they thought they were witnessing an exhibition of poor seamanship, and they yelled their warnings to the tug to reduce speed and throw the helm hard to port. We were within fifty feet of them when they awakened to the intentional menace of our maneuver. Their gun crew was off its guard, but they sprang to their peace now and sent a futile shell above our heads. Knobbs leaped about and barked furiously. "'Let them have it,' commanded the tug captain, and instantly revolvers and rifles poured bullets upon the deck of the submersible. Two of the gun crew went down. The other trained their peace at the waterline of the oncoming tug. The balance of those on deck replied to our small arms fire, directing their efforts toward the man at our wheel. I hastily pushed the girl down the companion way, leading to the engine room, and then I raised my pistol and fired my first shot at a Bosch. What happened in the next few seconds happened so quickly that details are rather blurred in my memory. I saw the helmsman lunge forward upon the wheel, pulling the helm around so that the tug sheared off quickly from her course, and I recall realising that all our efforts were to be in vain, because of all the men aboard, fate had decreed that this one should fall first to an enemy bullet. I saw the depleted gun crew on the submarine fire their peace, and I felt the shock of impact and heard the loud explosion as the shell struck and exploded in our bow. I saw and realised these things even as I was leaping into the pilot house and grasping the wheel, standing astride the dead body of the helmsman. With all my strength I threw the helm to starboard, but it was too late to effect the purpose of our skipper. The best I did was to scrape alongside the sub. I heard someone shriek an order into the engine room. The boat shuddered and trembled to the sudden reversing of the engines, and our speed quickly lessened. Then I saw what that madman of a skipper planned since his first scheme had gone wrong. With a loud yelled command he leaped to the slippery deck of the submersible, and at his heels came his hardy crew. I sprang from the pilot house and followed, not to be left out in the cold when it came to strafing the bosses. From the engine room companion way came the engineer and stalkers, and together we leaped after the balance of the crew and into the hand-to-hand fight that was covering the wet deck with red blood. Beside me came knobs, silent now, and grim. Germans were emerging from the open hatch to take part in the battle on deck. At first the pistols cracked amidst the cursing of the men and the loud commands of the commander and his junior. But presently we were too indiscriminately mixed to make it safe to use our firearms, and the battle resolved itself into a hand-to-hand struggle for possession of the deck. The sole aim of each of us was to hurl one of the opposing force into the sea. I shall never forget the hideous expression upon the face of the great Prussian with whom Chance confronted me. He lured his head and rushed at me bellowing like a bull, with a quick sidestep and ducking low beneath his outstretched arms I eluded him, and as he turned to come back at me I landed a blow upon his chin, which sent him spinning toward the edge of the deck. I saw his wild endeavors to regain his equilibrium. I saw him reel drunkenly for an instant upon the brink of eternity, and then with a loud scream slip into the sea. At the same instant a pair of giant arms encircled me from behind and lifted me entirely off my feet. Kick and squirm as I would I could neither turn toward my antagonist nor free myself from his maniacal grasp. Relentlessly he was rushing me toward the side of the vessel and death. There was none to stay him, for each of my companions was more than occupied by from one to three of the enemy. For an instant I was fearful for myself, and then I saw that which filled me with a far greater terror for another. My boss was burying me toward the side of the submarine against which the tug was still pounding. But I should be ground to death between the two was lost upon me as I saw the girl standing alone upon the tug's deck, as I saw the stern high in air and the bow rapidly settling for the final dive, as I saw death from which I could not save her clutching at the skirts of the woman I now knew all too well that I loved. I had perhaps the fraction of a second longer to live when I heard an angry growl behind us mingle with a cry of pain and rage from the giant who carried me. Instantly he went backward to the deck, and as he did so he threw his arms outwards to save himself, freeing me. I fell heavily upon him but was upon my feet in the instant. As I arose I cast a single glance at my opponent, never again would he menace me or another, for Knob's great jaws had closed upon his throat. Then I sprang toward the edge of the deck closest to the girl upon the sinking tug. Jump, I cried, jump, and I held out my arms to her. Instantly, as though with implicit confidence in my ability to save her, she leaped over the side of the tug onto the sloping slippery side of the U-boat. I reached far over the seas her hand. At the same instant the tug pointed its stern straight toward the sky and plunged out of sight. My hand missed the girls by a fraction of an inch and I saw her slip into the sea. But scarce had she touched the water when I was in after her. The sinking tug drew us far below the surface, but I had seized her the moment I struck the water, and so we went down together. And together we came up, a few yards from the U-boat. The first thing I heard was Knob's barking furiously. Evidently he had missed me and was searching. A single glance at the vessel's deck assured me that the battle was over, and that we had been victorious, for I saw our survivors holding a handful of the enemy at pistol points, while one by one the rest of the crew was coming out of the craft's interior and lining up on deck with the other prisoners. As I swam toward the submarine with the girl, Knob's persistent barking attracted the attention of some of the tug's crew, so that as soon as we reached the side there were hands to help us aboard. I asked the girl if she was hurt, but she assured me that she was none the worst for this second wetting, nor did she seem to suffer any from shock. I was to learn for myself that this slender and seemingly delicate creature possessed the heart and courage of a warrior. As we joined our own party I found the tug's mate, checking up our survivors. There were ten of us left, not including the girl. Our brave skipper was missing, as were eight others. There had been nineteen of us in the attacking party, and we had accounted in one way and another during the battle for sixteen Germans and had taken nine prisoners, including the commander. His lieutenant had been killed. Not a bad day's work, said Bradley, the mate, when he had completed his role. Only losing the skipper, he added, was the worst. He was a fine man, a fine man. Olson, who in spite of his name was Irish, and in spite of his not being scotch, had been the tug's engineer, was standing with Bradley and me. Yes, he agreed. It's a day's work, we are after doing, but what are we going to be doing with it? Now we got it. We'll run her into the nearest English port, said Bradley, and then we'll all go ashore and get our VCs, he concluded, laughing. Oh, are you going to run her, queried Olson? You can't trust these Dutchmen! Bradley scratched his head. I guess you're right, he admitted, and I don't know the first thing about his sub. I do, I assured him. I know more about this particular sub than the officer who commanded her. Both men looked at me in astonishment, and then I had to explain all over again, as I had explained to the girl. Bradley and Olson were delighted. Immediately I was put in command, and the first thing I did was to go below with Olson and inspect the craft thoroughly for hidden bosses and damaged machinery. There were no Germans below, and everything was intact, and in ship-shape working order. I then ordered all hands below, except one man who was to act as lookout. Questioning the Germans I found that all except the commander were willing to resume their posts and aid in bringing the vessel into an English port. I believed that they were relieved at the prospect of being detained at a comfortable English prison camp for the duration of the war, after the perils and privations through which they had passed. The officer, however, assured me that he would never be a party to the capture of his vessel. There was, therefore, nothing to do but put the man in irons. As we were preparing to put this decision into force, the girl descended from the deck. It was the first time that she or the German officer had seen each other's faces since we had boarded the U-bolt. I was assisting the girl down the ladder and still retained a hold upon her arm, possibly after such support was no longer necessary, when she turned and looked squarely into the face of the German, each voiced a sudden exclamation of surprise and dismay. This he cried and took a stepped order. The girl's eyes went wide and slowly filled with a great horror as she shrank back. Then her slender figure stiffened to the erectness of a soldier and with chin and air and without a word she turned her back upon the officer. Take him away, I directed the two men who guarded him and put him in irons. When he had gone the girl raised her eyes to mine. He is the German of whom I spoke, she said. He is Baron von Schoenvards. I merely inclined my head. She had loved him. I wondered if, in her heart of heart, she did not love him yet. Immediately I became insanely jealous. I hated Baron Friedrich von Schoenvards with such uttered intensity that the emotion thrilled me with a species of exaltation. But I didn't have much chance to enjoy my hatred then. For almost immediately the lookout poked his face over the hatchway and balled down that there was smoke on the horizon, dead ahead. Immediately I went on deck to investigate and Bradley came with me. If she's friendly, he said, we'll speak her. If she's not, we'll sink her, air captain. Yes, Lieutenant, I replied, and it was his turn to smile. We hoisted the Union Jack and remained on deck, asking Bradley to go below and assigned which member of the crew his duty, placing one Englishman with a pistol beside each German. Half-speed ahead, I commanded. More rapidly now we closed the distance between ourselves and the stranger, until I could plainly see the red end sign of the British merchant arena. My heart swelled with pride at the thought that presently admiring British Tars would be congratulating us upon our notable capture. And just about then the merchant steamer must have sided us, for she beared suddenly toward the north, and a moment later dense volumes of smoke issued from her funnels. Then, staring at zig-zag course, she fled from us as though we had been the bubonic plague. I altered the course of the submarine and set off in chase, but the steamer was faster than we, and soon left us hopelessly astern. With a rueful smile I directed that our original course be resumed, and once again we set off toward Merry England. That was three months ago, and we haven't arrived yet, nor is there any likelihood that we ever shall. The steamer we had just cited must have wirelessed a warning, for it wasn't half an hour before we saw more smoke on the horizon, and this time the vessel flew the white end sign of the Royal Navy and carried guns. She didn't veer to the north or anywhere else, but bore down on us rapidly. I was just preparing to signal her when a flame flashed from her bow, and an instant later the water in front of us was thrown high by the explosion of a shell. Bradley had come on deck and was standing beside me. About one more of those and she'll have our range, he said. She doesn't seem to take much stock in our Union jock. A second shell passed over us, and then I gave the command to change our direction, at the same time directing Bradley to go below and give the order to submerge. I passed knobs down to him, and following saw to the closing and fastening of the hatch. It seemed to me that the diving tanks never had filled so slowly. We heard a loud explosion apparently directly above us. The craft trembled to the shock which threw us all to the deck. I expected momentarily to feel the deluge of in rushing water, but none came. Instead we continued to submerge until the manometer registered forty feet, and then I knew that we were safe. Safe, I almost smiled. I had relieved Oltson, who had remained in the tower at my direction, having been a member of one of the early British submarine crews, and therefore having some knowledge of the business. Bradley was at my side. He looked at me quizzically. What the devil are we to do? He asked. The merchant man will flee us. The war vessel will destroy us. Neither will believe our colors or give us a chance to explain. We will meet even a worse reception, if we go nosing around a British port, mines, nets, and all of it. We can't do it. Let's try it again when this fellow has lost the scent, I urge. There must come a ship that will believe us, and try it again when we did, only to be almost rammed by a huge freighter. Later we were fired upon by a destroyer, and two merchant men turned and fled at our approach. For two days we cruised up and down the channel, trying to tell someone who would listen that we were friends, but no one would listen. After our encounter with the first warship I had given instructions that a wireless message be sent out explaining our predicament, but to my chagrin I discovered that both sending and receiving instruments had disappeared. There is only one place you can go, Von Schruenberg sent word to me, and that is Kierl. You can't land anywhere else in these waters. If you wish, I will take you there, and I can promise that you will be treated well. There is another place we can go. I sent back my reply, and we will before we'll go to Germany. That place is hell. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Land That Time Forgot This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ralph Snelson. The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 3 Those were anxious days, during which I had but little opportunity to associate with this. I had given her the commander's room, Bradley and I taking that of the deck officer, while Olson and two of our best men occupied the room ordinarily allotted to petty officers. I made knobs bed down in Liz's room, for I knew she would feel less alone. Nothing of much moment occurred for a while after we left British waters behind us. We ran steadily along upon the surface, making good time. The first two boats we sighted made off as fast as they could go, and the third a huge freighter fired on us, forcing us to submerge. It was after this that our troubles commenced. One of the diesel engines broke down in the morning, and while we were working on it the forward port diving tank commenced to fill. I was on deck at the time and noted the gradual list, guessing at once what was happening I leaped for the hatch and slamming it closed above my head, dropped to the centrail. By this time the craft was going down by the head with a most unpleasant list to port, and I didn't wait to transmit orders to someone else, but ran as fast as I could for the valve that let the sea into the forward port diving tank. It was wide open to close it, and to have the pump started that would empty it were the work of but a minute, but we had had a close call. I knew that the valve had never opened itself, someone had opened it, someone who was willing to die himself if he might at the same time encompassed the death of all of us. After that I kept a guard pacing the length of the narrow craft. We worked upon the engine all that day and night and half the following day. Most of the time we drifted idly upon the surface, but toward noon we sighted smoke due west, and having found that only enemies inhabited the world for us, I ordered that the other engine be started so that we could move out of the path of the oncoming steamer. The moment the engine started to turn however there was a grinding sound of tortured steel, and when it had been stopped we found that someone had placed a cold chisel in one of the gears. It was another two days before we were ready to limp along half repaired. The night before the repairs were completed the sentry came to my room and awoke me. He was rather an intelligent fellow of the English middle class in whom I had much confidence. Well, Wilson, I asked, what's the matter now? He raised his finger to his lips and came closer to me. I think I found out who's doing the mischief. He whispered and nodded his head toward the girl's room. I seen her sneaking from the crew's room just now. He went on. She'd been in gassing with the bush, Commander. Benson seen her in there last night too, but he never said nothing till I goes on once tonight. Benson sort of slow in the head, and he never puts two and two together till someone else has made four of it. If the man had come in and struck me suddenly in the faith I could have been no more surprised. Say nothing of this to anyone, I ordered. Keep your eyes and ears open and report every suspicious thing you see or hear. The man saluted and let me, but for an hour or more I tossed restless upon my hard bunk in an agony of jealousy and fear. Finally I fell into a troubled sleep. It was daylight when I awoke. We were steaming along slowly upon the surface, my orders having been to proceed at half speed until we could take an observation and determine our position. The sky had been overcast all the previous day and all night, but as I stepped into the centrail that morning I was delighted to see that the sun was again shining. The spirits of the men seemed improved. Everything seemed propitious. I forgot at once the cruel misgivings of the past night as I set to work to take my observations. What a blow awaited me. The sextant and chronometer had both been broken beyond repair, and they had been broken just this very night. They had been broken upon the night that Liss had been seen talking with von Schuwenbords. I think that it was this last thought which hurt me the worst. I could look the other disaster in the face with equanimity, but the bald fact that Liss might be a traitor appalled me. I called Bradley and Olson on deck and told them what had happened, but for the life of me I couldn't bring myself to repeat what Wilson had reported to me the previous night. In fact, as I had given the matter thought, it seemed incredible that the girl could have passed through my room in which Bradley and I slept and then carried on a conversation in the crew's room in which von Schuwenbords was kept without having been seen by more than a single man. Bradley shook his head. I can't make it out, he said. One of those bushes must be pretty clever to come at over us all like this. What they haven't harmed us as much as they think. There are still the extra instruments. It was my turn now to shake a doleful head. There are no extra instruments, I told them. They too have disappeared as did the wireless apparatus. Both men looked at me in amazement. We still have the compass and the sound, said Olson. They may be after getting the compass some night, but there's too many of us around in the daytime for them to get the sound. It was then that one of the men stuck his head up through the hatchway and, seeing me, asked permission to come on deck and get a breath of fresh air. I recognized him as Benson, the man who Wilson had said, reported having seen Liss with von Schuwenbords two nights before. I motioned him on deck and then called him to one side, asking if he had seen anything out of the way or unusual during his trick on watch the night before. The fellow scratched his head a moment and said, No. And then, as though it was an afterthought, he told me that he had seen the girl in the crew's room about midnight, talking with the German commander. But as there hadn't seemed to him to be any harm in that, he hadn't said anything about it. Telling him never to fail to report to me anything in the slightest out of the ordinary routine of the ship, I dismissed him. Several of the other men now asked permission to come on deck, and soon all but those actually engaged in some necessary duty were standing around smoking and talking, all in the best of spirits. I took advantage of the absence of the man upon the deck to go below for my breakfast, which the cook was already preparing upon the electric stove. This, followed by knobs, appeared as I entered the sentrail. She met me with a pleasant, good morning, which I am afraid I replied to in a tone that was rather constrained and certain. Would you breakfast with me? I suddenly asked the girl, determined to commence a probe of my own along the lines which duty demanded. She nodded a sweet acceptance of my invitation, and together we sat down at the little table of the officer's mess. You slept well last night? I asked. All night, she replied, I am a splendid sleeper. Her manner was so straightforward and honest that I could not bring myself to believe in her duplicity. Yet, thinking to surprise her into a betrayal of her guilt, I blurted out the chronometer and sextant were both destroyed last night. There is a traitor among us. But she never turned a hair by way of evidencing guilty knowledge of the catastrophe. Who could it have been? She cried. The Germans would be crazy to do it, for their lives are as much at stake as ours. Man are often glad to die for an ideal, an ideal of patriotism, perhaps, I replied, and a willingness to martyr themselves includes a willingness to sacrifice others, even those who love them. Women are much the same, except that they will go even further than most men. They will sacrifice everything, even honour, for love. I watched her face carefully as I spoke, and I thought that I detected a very faint flush mounting her cheek. Seeing an opening and an advantage, I sought to follow it up. Take von Schruenberg's, for instance, I continued. He would doubtless be glad to die and take us all with him. Could he prevent, in no other way, the falling of his vessel into enemy hands? He would sacrifice anyone, even you, and if you still love him, you might be his ready tool. Do you understand me? She looked at me and wide-eyed consternation for a moment, and then she went very wide, and rose from her seat. I do, she replied, and turning her back upon me she walked quickly toward her room. I started to follow, for even believing what I did, I was sorry that I had hurt her. I reached the door to the cruise-room, just behind her, and in time to see von Schruenberg's lean forward and whisper something to her as she passed. But she must have guessed that she might be watched, for she passed on. That afternoon it clouded over. The wind mounted to a gale, and the sea rose until the craft was wallowing and rolling frightfully. Nearly every one aboard was sick. The air became foul and oppressive. For twenty-four hours I did not leave my post in the conning-tower, as both Olson and Bradley were sick. Finally I found that I must get a little rest, and so I looked about for someone to relieve me. Benson volunteered. He had not been sick, and assured me that he was a former RN man, and had been detailed for submarine duty for over two years. I was glad that it was he, for I had considerable confidence in his loyalty, and so it was with a feeling of security that I went below and lay down. I slept twelve hours straight, and when I awoke and discovered what I had done I lost no time in getting to the conning-tower. There sat Benson as wide awake as could be, and the compass showed that we were heading straight into the west. The storm was still raging, nor did it abate its fury until the fourth day. We were all pretty well done up, and looked forward to the time when we could go on deck and fill our lungs with fresh air. During the whole four days I had not seen the girl, as she evidently kept closely to her room, and during this time no untoward incident had occurred aboard the boat, a fact which seemed to strengthen the web of circumstantial evidence about her. For six more days after the storm lessened we still had fairly rough weather, nor did the sun once show himself during all that time. For the season it was now the middle of June the storm was unusual, but being from Southern California I was accustomed to unusual weather. In fact I have discovered that the world over unusual weather prevails at all times of the year. We kept steadily to our westward course, and as the U-33 was one of the fastest submersibles we had ever turned out, I knew that we must be pretty close to the North American coast. What puzzled me most was the fact that for six days we had not sighted a single ship. It seemed remarkable that we could cross the Atlantic almost to the coast of the American continent without glimpsing smoke or sail, and at last I came to the conclusion that we were way off our course, but whether to the North or to the south of it I could not determine. On the seventh day the sea lay comparatively calm at early dawn. There was a slight haze upon the ocean which had cut off our view of the stars, but conditions all pointed toward a clear moral, and I was on deck anxiously awaiting the rising of the sun. My eyes were glued upon the impenetrable mist of stern, for there in the east I should see the first glow of the rising sun that would assure me we were still upon the right course. Gradually the heavens lightened, but a stern I could see no intense or glow that would indicate the rising sun behind the mist. Bradley was standing at my side. Presently he touched my arm. Look, Captain! he said, and pointed south. I looked and gasped, for there directly to port I saw outlined through the haze the red top of the rising sun. Hurrying to the tower I looked at the compass it showed that we were holding steadily upon our westward course. Either the sun was rising in the south or the compass had been tampered with. The conclusion was obvious. I went back to Bradley and told him what I had discovered. And, I concluded, we can't make another five hundred knots without oil. Our provisions are running low and so is our water. God only knows how far south we have run. There is nothing to do, he replied, other than to alter our course once more toward the west. We must raise land soon, or we shall all be lost. I told him to do so, and then I set to work improvising a crude sextant with which we finally took our bearings in a rough and most unsatisfactory manner, for when the work was done we did not know how far from the truth the result might be. It showed us to be about twenty minutes north and thirty minutes west, nearly twenty-five hundred miles off our course. In short, if our reading was anywhere near correct, we must have been travelling due south for six days. Bradley now relieved Benson, for we had arranged our shifts so that the latter and Oltson now divided the knights, while Bradley and I alternated with one another during the days. I questioned both Oltson and Benson closely in the matter of the compass, but each stoutly maintained that no one had tampered with it during his tour of duty. Benson gave me a knowing smile as much as to say, well, you and I know who did this, yet I could not believe that it was the girl. We kept to our westerly course for several hours, when the lookouts cry and outs to sail. I ordered the U-33's course altered, and we bore down upon the stranger, for I had come to a decision which was the result of necessity. We could not lie there in the middle of the Atlantic and starve to death if there was any way out of it. The sailing ship saw us while we were still, along we off, as was evidenced by her efforts to escape. There was scarcely any wind, however, and her case was hopeless, so when we drew near and signalled her to stop, she came into the wind and lay there with her sails flapping idly. We moved in quite close to her. She was the ballman of Homestad, Sweden, with a general cargo from Brazil for Spain. I explained our circumstances to her skipper and asked for food, water, and oil, but when he found that we were not German, he became very angry and abusive, and started to draw away from us, but I was in no mood for any such business. Turning toward Bradley, who was in the conning tower, I snapped out, gun service on deck to the diving stations. We had no opportunity for drill, but every man had been posted as to his duties, and the German members of the crew understood that it was obedience or death for them, as each was accompanied by a man with a pistol. Most of them, though, were only too glad to obey me. Bradley passed the order down into the ship, and a moment later the gun crew clamored up the narrow ladder, and at my direction trained their peace upon the slow-moving swede. Fire a shot across her bow, I instructed the gun captain. Accept it from me, it didn't take that swede long to see the error of his way, and get the red and white penance signifying I understand to the masthead. Once again the sails flapped idly, and then I ordered him to lure a boat and come after me. With Olson and a couple of Englishmen I boarded the ship, and from her cargo selected what we needed. Oil, provisions, and water. I gave the master of the ballman a receipt for what we took, together with an affidavit signed by Bradley Olson and myself, stating briefly how we had come into possession of the U-33 and the urgency of our need for what we took. We addressed both to any British agent with the request that the owners of the ballman be reimbursed. But whether or not they were, I do not know. Note, late in July 1916 an item in the shipping news mentioned a Swedish saiding vessel ballman raided Genera to Barcelona, sunk by a German raider some time in June. A single survivor in an open boat was picked up off the Cape Verde Islands in a dying condition. He expired without giving any details. With water, food, and oil aboard, we felt that we had obtained a new lease of life. Now too we knew definitely where we were, and I determined to make for Georgetown British Guiana, but I was destined to again suffer bitter disappointment. Six of us of the loyal crew had come on deck either to serve the gun, or board the Swede during our set to with her, and now one by one we descended the ladder into the Cintrail. I was the last to come, and when I reached the bottom I found myself looking into the muzzle of a pistol in the hands of Baron Friedrich von Schoenbords. I saw all my men lined up at one side with the remaining eight Germans standing guard over them. I couldn't imagine how it had happened, but it had. Later I learned that they had first overpowered Benson, who was asleep in his bunk, and taken his pistol from him, and then had founded an easy matter to disarm the cook and the remaining two Englishmen below. After that it had been comparatively simple to stand at the foot of the ladder and arrest each individual as he descended. The first thing von Schoenbords did was descend for me and announced that as a pirate I was to be shot early the next morning. Then he explained that the U-33 would cruise in these waters for a time, sinking neutral and enemy shipping indiscriminately, and looking for one of the German raiders that was supposed to be in these parts. He didn't shoot me the next morning as he had promised, and it has never been clear to me why he postponed the execution of my sentence. Instead he kept me ironed just as he had been. Then he kicked Bradley out of my room and took it all to himself. We cruised for a long time, sinking many vessels, all but one by gunfire, but we did not come across a German raider. I was surprised to note that von Schoenbords often permitted Benson to take command, but I reconciled this by the fact that Benson appeared to know more of the duties of a submarine commander than did any of the stupid Germans. Once or twice Lis passed me, but for the most part she kept to her room. The first time she hesitated as though she wished to speak to me, but I did not raise my head, and finally she passed on. Then one day came the word that we were about to round the horn and that von Schoenbords had taken it into his fool head to cruise up along the Pacific coast of North America and prey upon all sorts and conditions of merchant man. I had put the fear of God into Kaiser into them, he said. The very first day we entered the South Pacific we had an adventure. It turned out to be quite the most exciting adventure I had ever encountered. It fell about this way. About eight bells of the forenoon watch I heard a hail from the deck and presently the footsteps of the entire ship's company from the amount of noise I heard at the ladder. Someone yelled back to those who had not yet reached the level of the deck. It's the raider, the German raider geyer. I saw that we had reached the end of our rope. Below all was quiet, not a man remained. A door opened at the end of the narrow hull and presently knobs came trotting up to me. He licked my face and rolled over on his back, reaching for me with his big awkward pause. Then other footsteps sounded, approaching me. I knew whose they were and I looked straight down at the flooring. The girl was coming almost at a run. She was at my side immediately. Here she cried, quick! And she slipped something into my hand. It was a key, the key to my irons. At my side she also laid a pistol, and then she went on into the sin trail. As she passed me I saw that she carried another pistol for herself. It did not take me long to liberate myself, and then I was at her side. How can I thank you, I started, but she shut me up with a word. Do not thank me, she said coldly. I do not care to hear your thanks or any other expression from you. Do not stand there looking at me. I have given you a chance to do something. Now do it. The last was a preemptory command that made me jump. Glancing up I saw that the tower was empty, and I lost no time in clamoring up, looking about me. About a hundred yards off lay a small, swift cruiser raider, and above her floated the German man of war's flag. A boat had just been lured, and I could see it moving toward us filled with officers and men. The cruiser lay dead ahead. My, I thought, what a wonderful tart! I stopped even thinking, so surprised and shocked was I by the boldness of my imagery. The girl was just below me. I looked down on her wistfully. Could I trust her? Why had she released me at this moment? I must, I must. There was no other way. I dropped back below. Ask Olson to step down here, please, I requested, and don't let anyone see you ask him. She looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face for the barest fraction of a second, and then she turned and went up the ladder. A moment later Olson returned, and the girl followed him. Quick, I whispered to the big Irishman, and made for the bow compartment where the torpedo tubes are built into the boat. Here, too, were the torpedoes. The girl accompanied us, and when she saw the thing I had in mind, she stepped forward and lent a hand to the swinging of the great cylinder of death and destruction into the mouth of its tube. With oil and main strength, we shoved the torpedo home and shoved the tube. Then I ran back to the conning tower, praying in my heart of hearts that the U-33 had not swung her bow away from the prey. No, thank God. Never could Aime have been truer. I signaled back to Olson. Let her go! The U-33 trembled from stem to stern as the torpedo shot from its tube. I saw the white wake leap from her bow straight toward the enemy cruiser. A chorus of hoarse yells arose from the deck of our own craft. I saw the officer stand suddenly erect in the boat that was approaching us, and I heard loud cries and curses from the raider. Then I turned my attention to my own business. Most of the men on the submarine's deck were standing in paralyzed fascination, staring at the torpedo. Bradley happened to be looking toward the conning tower and saw me. I sprang on deck and ran toward him. Quick! I whispered, while they are stunned, we must overcome them. A German was standing near Bradley, just in front of him. The Englishman struck the fellow, a frantic blow up on the neck, and at the same time snatched his pistol from its holster. Bonshu and Vorts had recovered from his first surprise quickly, and had turned toward the main hatch to investigate. I covered him with my revolver, and at the same instant the torpedo struck the raider, the terrific explosion drowning the German's command to his man. Bradley was now running from one to another of our man, and though some of the Germans saw and heard him, they seemed too stunned for action. Olsen was below, so that there were only nine of us against eight Germans, for the man Bradley had struck still lay upon the deck. Only two of us were armed, but the heart seemed to have gone out of the bosses, and they put up but half-hearted resistance. Bonshu and Vorts was the worst. He was fairly frenzied with rage and chagrin, and he came charging for me like a mad bull, and as he came he discharged his pistol. If he'd stopped long enough to take aim, he might have gotten me, but his pace made him wild, so that not a shot touched me, and then we clinched and went to the deck. This left two pistols, which two of my men were quick to appropriate. The Baron was no match for me in a hand-to-hand encounter, and I soon had him pinned to the deck, and the life almost choked out of him. A half-hour later things had quieted down, and all was much the same as before the prisoners had revolted, only we kept a much closer watch on Bonshu and Vorts. The guire had sunk while we were still battling upon our deck, and afterward we had drawn away toward the north, leaving the survivors to the attention of the single boat which had been making its way toward us when Olson launched the torpedo. I suppose the poor devils never reached land, and if they did, they most probably perished on that cold and unhospitable shore, but I couldn't permit them aboard the U-33. We had all the Germans we could take care of. That evening the guire asked permission to go on deck. She said that she felt the effects of long confinement below, and I readily granted her request. I could not understand her, and I craved an opportunity to talk with her again in an effort to fathom her and her intentions, and so I made an appointment to follow her up the ladder. It was a clear, cold, beautiful night. The sea was calm except for the white water at our bow, and the two long radiating swells running far off into the distance upon either hand a stern, forming a great vee which our propellers filled with choppy waves. Benson was in the tower. We were bound for San Diego, and all looked well. Liz stood with a heavy blanket wrapped around her slender figure, and as I approached her, she half turned toward me to see who it was. When she recognized me, she immediately turned away. I want to thank you, I said, for your bravery and loyalty. You were magnificent. I am sorry that you had reason before to think that I doubted you. You did doubt me, she replied, in a level voice. You practically accused me of aiding bare and bun shoe and vorts. I can never forgive you. There was a great deal of finality in both her words and tone. I could not believe it, I said, and yet two of my men reported having seen you in conversation with bun shoe and vorts late at night upon two separate occasions, after each of which some great damage was found done us in the morning. I didn't want to doubt you, but I carried all the responsibility of the lies of these men, of the safety of the ship, of your life and mine. I had to watch you, and I had to put you on your guard against a repetition of your madness. She was looking at me now with those great eyes of hers very wide and round. Who told you that I spoke with bare and bun shoe and vorts at night, or any other time, she asked? I cannot tell you this, I replied, but it came to me from two different sources. Then two men have lied, she asserted without heat. I have not spoken to bare and bun shoe and vorts other than in your presence, when first we came aboard the U-33. And please, when you address me, remember that to others than my intimates, I am Miss Le Roux. Did you ever get slapped in the face when you least expected it? No? Well then you do not know how I felt at that moment. I could feel the hot red flush surging up my neck, across my cheeks, over my ears, clear to my scalp. And it made me love her all the more. It made me swear inwardly a thousand solemn oaths that I would win her. Chapter 4 For several days things went along in about the same course. I took our position every morning with my crude sextant, but the results were always most unsatisfactory. They always showed a considerable westing when I knew that we had been sailing due north. I blamed my crude instrument and kept on. Then one afternoon the girl came to me. Pardon me, she said, but were I you I should watch this man Benson, especially when he is in charge. I asked her what she meant, thinking I could see the influence of von Schoenvort's raising a suspicion against one of my most trusted men. If you will note the boat's course a half hour after Benson goes on duty, she said, you will know what I mean, and you will understand why he prefers a night watch. Possibly, too, you will understand some other things that have taken place aboard. Then she went back to her room, thus ending the conversation. I waited until half an hour after Benson had gone on duty, passing through the conning tower where Benson sat and looking at the compass. It showed that our course was north by west, that is, one point west of north, which was, for our assumed position, about right. I was greatly relieved to find that nothing was wrong, for the girl's words had caused me considerable apprehension. I was about to return to my room when a thought occurred to me that again caused me to change my mind, and incidentally came near proving my death warrant. When I had left the conning tower, little more than a half hour since, the sea had been breaking over the port bow, and it seemed to me quite improbable that in so short a time an equally heavy sea could be deluginous from the opposite side of the ship. Winds may change quickly, but not a long, heavy sea. There was only one other solution. Since I left the tower, our course had been altered some eight points. Turning quickly, I climbed out upon the conning tower, a single glance at the heavens confirmed my suspicions, the constellations which should have been dead ahead were directly starboard. We were sailing due west. Just for an instant longer, I stood there to check up my calculations. I wanted to be quite sure before I accused Benson of perfidy, and about the only thing I came near making quite sure of was my death. I cannot see even now how I escaped it. I was standing on the edge of the conning tower when a heavy palm suddenly struck me between the shoulders and hurled me into space. The drop to the triangular deck forward of the conning tower might easily have broken the leg for me, or I might have slipped off onto the deck and rolled overboard. But fate was upon my side, as I was only slightly bruised. As I came to my feet I heard the conning tower cover slam. There is a ladder which leads from the deck to the top of the tower. Up this I scrambled as fast as I could go, but Benson had the cover tight before I reached it. I stood there a moment in dumb consternation. What did the fellow intend? What was going on below? If Benson was a traitor, how could I know that there were not other traitors among us? I cursed myself for my folly and going out upon the deck, and then this thought suggested another, a hideous one. Who was it that had really been responsible for my being here? Thinking to attract attention from inside the craft, I again ran down the ladder and onto the small deck, only to find that the steel covers of the conning tower windows were shut, and then I leaned with my back against the tower and cursed myself for a gullible idiot. I glanced at the bow. The sea seemed to be getting heavier, for every wave now washed completely over the lower deck. I watched them for a moment, and then a sudden chill pervaded my entire being. It was not the chill of wet clothing or the dashing spray which drenched my face. No, it was the chill of the hand of death upon my heart. In an instant I had turned the last corner of life's highway, and was looking God Almighty in the face. The U-33 was being slowly submerged. It would be difficult, even impossible, to set down in writing my sensations at that moment. All I can particularly recall is that I laughed, though neither from a spirit of bravado nor from hysteria. And I wanted to smoke, Lord, how I did want to smoke. But that was out of the question. I watched the water rise until the little deck I stood on was a wash, and then I clambered once more to the top of the conning tower. From the very slow submergence of the boat I knew that Benson was doing the entire trick alone, that he was merely permitting the diving tanks to fill, and that the diving rudders were not in use. The throbbing of the engine ceased, and in stead came the steady vibration of the electric motors. The water was halfway up the conning tower. I had perhaps five minutes longer on the deck. I tried to decide what I should do after I was washed away. Should I swim until exhaustion claimed me? Or should I give up and end the agony at the first plunge? From below came two muffled reports. They sounded not unlike shots. Was Benson meeting with resistance? Personally it could mean little to me, for even though my men might overcome the enemy, none would know of my predicament until long after it was too late to succour me. The top of the conning tower was now a wash. I clung to the wireless mast, while the great wave surged sometimes completely over me. I knew the end was near, and almost involuntarily I did that which I had not done since childhood. I prayed. After that I felt better. I clung and waited, but the water rose no higher. Instead it receded. Now the top of the conning tower received only the crests of the higher waves. Now the little triangular deck below became visible. What had occurred within? Did Benson believe me already gone, and was he emerging because of that belief? Or had he and his forces been vanquished? The suspense was more wearing than that which I had endured while waiting for dissolution. Presently the main deck came into view, and then the conning tower opened behind me, and I turned to look into the anxious face of Bradley, an expression of relief overspread his features. Funt God, man, was all he said as he reached forth and dragged me into the tower. I was cold and numb and rather all in. Another few minutes would have done for me, I am sure, but the warmth of the interior helped to revive me, aided and abetted by some brandy which Bradley poured down my throat, from which it nearly removed the membrane. That brandy would have revived a corpse. When I got down into the centrail I saw the Germans lined up on one side with a couple of my men with pistols standing over them. Von Schoengorch was among them. On the floor lay Benson, moaning, and beyond him stood the girl, a revolver in one hand. I looked about bewildered. What has happened down here, I asked. Tell me! Bradley replied. You see the result, sir, he said. It might have been a very different result, but for Miss LaRue we were all asleep. Benson had relieved the guard early in the evening. There was no one to watch him, no one but Miss LaRue. She felt the submergence of the boat and came out of her room to investigate. She was just in time to see Benson at the diving rudders. When he saw her, he raised his pistol and fired, point blank at her. But he missed, and she fired, and didn't miss. The two shots awakened everyone, and as our men were armed the result was inevitable as you see it. But it would have been very different had not it been for Miss LaRue. It was she who closed the diving tank. She caught, sent, roused Olson under me, and had the pumps started to empty them. And there I had been thinking that through her machinations I had been lured to the deck and to my death. I could have gone on my knees to her and begged her forgiveness, or at least I could have had I not been Anglo-Saxon. As it was I could only remove my soggy cap and bow and mumble my appreciation. She made no reply, only turned and walked very rapidly toward her room. Could I have heard her right? Was it really a sob that came floating back to me through the narrow aisle of the U-33? Benson died that night. He remained defiant almost to the last. But just before he went out he motioned to me and I leaned over to catch the faintly whispered words. I did it alone, he said. I did it because I hate you. I hate all your kind. I was kicked out of your shipyard at Santa Monica. I was locked out of California. I am an IWW. I became a German agent, not because I love them, for I hate them too, but because I wanted to injure Americans, whom I hated more. I threw the wireless apparatus overboard. I destroyed the chronometer and the sectionant. I devised a scheme for varying the compass to suit my wishes. I told Wilson that I had seen the girl talking with Bonchulon Gertz, and I made the poor egg think he had seen her doing the same thing. I am sorry, sorry that my plans failed. I hate you. He didn't die for a half hour after that. Or did he speak again, aloud? But just a few seconds before he went to meet his maker, his lips moved in a faint whisper. And as I leaned closer to catch his words, what do you suppose I heard? Now I lay me down to sleep. That was all. Benson was dead. We threw his body overboard. The wind of that night brought on some pretty rough weather with a lot of black clouds which persisted for several days. We didn't know what course we had been holding, and there was no way of finding out, as we could no longer trust the compass, not knowing what Benson had done to it. The long and the short of it was that we cruised about aimlessly until the sun came out again. I'll never forget that day or its surprises. We reckoned, or rather guessed, that we were somewhere off the coast of Peru. The wind which had been blowing fitfully from the east suddenly veered around into the south, and presently we felt a sudden chill. Peru! snorted Olson. When were yous after smelling ice-bellards of Peru? Ice-bergs, ice-bergs, nothing, exclaimed one of the Englishmen, why, man, they don't come north of fourteen here in these waters. Then, replied Olson, you're south of fourteen, my boy. We thought he was crazy, but he wasn't. For that afternoon we sighted a great bird south of us, and we'd been running north, we thought, per days. I can tell you, we were a discouraged lot. But we got a faint thrill of hope early the next morning, when the lookout balled down the open hatch. Land! Land north-west by west! I think we were all sick for the sight of land. I know that I was. But my interest was quickly dissipated by the sudden illness of three of the Germans. Almost simultaneously they commenced vomiting. They couldn't suggest any explanation for it. I asked them what they had eaten, and found they had eaten nothing other than the food cooked for all of us. Have you drunk anything? I asked, for I knew that there was liquor aboard, and medicines in the same locker. Only water, among one of them. We all drank water together this morning. We opened a new tank. Maybe it was the water. I started an investigation which revealed a terrifying condition. Someone, probably Benson, had poisoned all the running water on the ship. It could have been worse, though, had land not been inside. The sight of land filled us with renewed hope. Our course had been altered, and we were rapidly approaching what appeared to be a precipitous headland. Cliff, seemingly rising perpendicularly out of the sea, faded away into the mist upon either hand as we approached. The land before us might have been a continent, so mighty appeared the shoreline. Yet we knew that we must be thousands of miles from the nearest western land mass, New Zealand or Australia. We took our bearings with our crude and inaccurate instruments. We searched the chart, we cuddled our brains, and at last it was Bradley who suggested his solution. He was in the tower and watching the compass, to which he called my attention. The needle was pointing straight toward the land. Bradley swung the helm hard to starboard. I could feel the U-33 respond, and yet the arrow still clung straight and shore toward the distant cliffs. What do you make of it, I asked him. Did you have a hearer of Caproni, he asked? An early Italian navigator, I returned. Yes, he followed Cook about 1721. He is scarcely mentioned even by contemporaneous historians, probably because he got into political difficulties on his return to Italy. It was the fashion to scoff at his claims, but I recall reading one of his works, his only one, I believe, in which he described a new continent in the South Seas, a continent made up of some strange meadow, which attracted the compass, a rock bound in hospitable coast, without beach or harbour, which extended for hundreds of miles. He could make no landing, nor in the several days he cruised about it, did he see signs of life. He called it Caprona, and sailed away. I believe, sir, that we are looking upon the coast of Caprona, uncharted and forgotten for two hundred years. If you're right, it might account for much of the deviation of the compass during the past two days, I suggested. Caprona has been luring us upon her deadly rocks. Well, we'll accept her challenge. We'll land upon Caprona. Along that long front there must be a vulnerable spot. We will find it, Bradley, for we must find it. We must find water on Caprona, for we must die. And so we approached the coast upon which no living eyes had ever rested, straight from the ocean's depths rose-towering cliffs, shot with brown and blues and greens, withered moss and lichen, and the vertigris of copper and everywhere the rusty ochre of iron pyrites. The cliff-tops, though ragged, were of such uniform height as to suggest the boundaries of a great plateau. And now and again we caught glimpses of verger topping the rocky escarpment, as though bush or jungle-land had pushed outward from a lush vegetation farther inland to signal to an unseen world that Caprona lived and enjoyed in life beyond her austere and repellent coast. But metaphor, however poetic, never slaked a dry throat. To enjoy Caprona's romantic suggestions we must have water, and so we came in close, all we sounding and skirted the shore. As close in as we dared cruise we found fathomless depths and always the same undented coastline of bald cliffs. As darkness threatened we drew away and lay well off the coast all night. We had not as yet really commenced to suffer for lack of water, but I knew that it would not be long before we did, and so at the first streak of dawn I moved in again and once more took up the hopeless survey of the forbidding coast. Toward noon we discovered a beach, the first we had seen. It was a narrow strip of sand at the base of a part of the cliff that seemed lower than any we had before scanned. At its foot half buried in the sand lay great boulders, mute evidence that in a bygone age some mighty natural force had crumpled Caprona's barrier at this point. It was Bradley who first called our attention to a strange object lying among the boulders above the surf. "'Looks like a man,' he said, and passed his glasses to me. I looked long and carefully and could have sworn that the thing I saw was the sprawled figure of a human being. Miss LaRue was on deck with us. I turned and asked her to go below. Without a word she did as I bade. Then I stripped, and as I did so knobs looked questioningly at me. He had been wanted home to enter the surf with me, and evidently he had not forgotten it. "'What are you going to do, sir?' asked Olson. "'I'm going to see what that thing is on shore,' I replied. "'If it's a man it may mean that Caprona is inhabited, or it may merely mean that some poor devils were shipped right here. I ought to be able to tell from the clothing, which is more near the truth.' "'How about Sharks?' asked Olson. "'Shark, you ought to carry a knife.' "'Here you are, sir,' cried one of the men. "'It was a long, slim blade,' he offered, one that I could carry between my teeth, and so I accepted it gladly. "'Keep close in,' I directed Bradley, and then I dived over the side and struck out by the narrow beach. There was another splash directly behind me, and turning my head I saw faithful old knobs swimming vagantly in my wake. The surf was not heavy, and there was no undertow, so we made shore easily, effecting unequally easy landing. The beach was composed largely of small stones, worn smooth by the action of water. There was little sand, though from the deck of the U-33, the beach had appeared to be all sand, and I saw no evidences of mollusca or crustacea, such as are common to all beaches I have previously seen. I attribute this to the fact of the smallness of the beach, the enormous depth of surrounding water, and the great distance at which Caprona lies from her nearest neighbor. As knobs and I approached the recumbent figure farther up the beach, I was appraised by my nose that whether or not the thing had once been organic and alive, but that for some time it had been dead. Nobs halted, sniffed, and growled. A little later he sat down upon his haunches, raised his muzzle to the heavens, and bade forth a most dismal howl. I shied a small stone at him, and bade him shut up. His uncanny noise made me nervous. When I had come quite close to the thing, I still could not say whether it had been man or beast. The carcass was badly swollen, and partly decomposed. There was no sign of clothing upon or about it. A fine brownish hair covered the chest and abdomen, and the face, the palms of the hands, the feet, the shoulders, and back were practically hairless. The creature must have been about the height of a fair-sized man. Its features were similar to those of a man, yet had it been a man, I could not say, for it resembled an ape no more than it did a man. Its large toes protruded laterally as do those of the semi-arborial peoples of Borneo, the Philippines, and other remote regions where low types still persist. The countenance might have been that of a cross between Pythicanthropus, the Java ape man, and a daughter of the pilt downrace of prehistoric Sussex. A wooden cudgel lay beside the cords. Now this fact set me thinking. There was no wood of any description in sight. There was nothing about the beast to suggest a wrecked mariner. There was absolutely nothing about the body to suggest that it might possibly in life have known a maritime experience. It was the body of a low type of man or a high type of beast. In neither instance would it have been of a seafaring race. Therefore I deduced that it was native to Caprona, that it lived inland and that it had fallen or been hurled from the cliffs above. Such being the case, Caprona was inhabitable, if not inhabited, by man. But how to reach the inhabitable interior? That was the question. A closer view of the cliffs than had been afforded me from the deck of the U-33 only confirmed my conviction that no mortal man could scale those perpendicular heights. There was not a finger-hold, not a toe-hold upon them. I turned away, baffled. Nobs and I met with no sharks upon our return journey to the submarine. My report filled everyone with theories and speculations, and with renewed hope and determination. They all reasoned along the same lines that I had reasoned. The conclusions were obvious, but not the water. We were now thirstier than ever. The balance of that day we spent in continuing a minute and fruitless exploration of the monotonous coast. There was not another break in the frowning cliffs, not even another minute patch of pebbly beach. As the sun fell, so did our spirits. I had tried to make advances to the girl again, but she would have none of me, and so I was not only thirsty but otherwise sad and downhearted. I was glad when the new day broke the hideous spell of a sleepless night. The morning search brought us no shred of hope. Caprona was impregnable. That was the decision of all. Yet we kept on. It must have been about two bells of the afternoon watch that Bradley called my attention to the branch of a tree with leaves upon it floating on the sea. It may have been carried down to the ocean by a river, he suggested. Yes, I replied, it may have. It may have tumbled or been thrown off the top of one of those cliffs. Bradley's face fell. I thought of that too, he replied, but I wanted to believe the other. Right you are, I cried. We must believe the other until we prove it false. We can't afford to give up heart now. When we need heart most, the branch was carried down by a river, and we are going to find that river. I smote my open palm with a clenched fist to emphasize a determination unsupported by hope. There, I cried suddenly, see that, Bradley, and I pointed at a spot closer to shore. See that man? Some flowers and grasses and another leafy branch floated toward us. We both scanned the water and the coastline. Bradley evidently discovered something, or at least thought that he had. He called down for a bucket and a rope, and when they were passed up to him he lured the former into the sea and drew it in filled with water. Of this he took a taste, and straightening up, looked into my eyes with an expression of elation, as much as to say, I told you so. This water is warm, he announced, and fresh. I grabbed the bucket and tasted its contents. The water was very warm, and it was fresh, but there was a most unpleasant taste to it. Did you ever taste water from a stagnant pool full of Todd-Poles? Bradley asked. That's it, I exclaimed. That's just the taste, exactly, though I haven't experienced it since boyhood. But how can water from a flowing stream taste us, and what the Dickens makes it so warm? It must be at least seventy or eighty Fahrenheit, possibly higher. Yes, agreed Bradley. I should say higher, but where does it come from? That is easily discovered, now that we have found it, I answered. It can't come from the ocean, so it must come from the land. All that we have to do is follow it, and sooner or later we shall come upon its source. We were already rather close in, but I ordered the U-33's prowl turned inshore, and we crept slowly along, constantly dipping up the water and tasting it to inshore ourselves that we didn't get outside the freshwater current. There was a very light offshore wind, and scarcely any breakers, so that the approach to the shore was continued without finding bottom. Yet though we were already quite close, we saw no indication of any indentation in the coast, from which even a tiny brooklet might issue, and certainly no mouth of a large river, such as this must necessarily be, to freshen the ocean even two hundred yards from shore. The tide was running out, and this, together with the strong flow of the freshwater current, would have prevented our going against the cliffs, even had we not been under power. As it was, we had to buck the combined forces in order to hold our position at all. We came up to within twenty-five feet of the sheer wall, which loomed high above us. There was no break in its forbidding face. As we watched the face of the waters and searched the cliff's high face, Olson suggested that the freshwater might come from a submarine geyser. This, he said, would account for its heat, but even as he spoke, a bush covered thickly with leaves and flowers, bubbled to the surface and floated off a stern. Flowering shrubs don't thrive in the subterranean caverns from which geysers spring, suggested Bradley. Olson shook his head. It beats me, he said. I've got it, I exclaimed suddenly. Look there! And I pointed at the base of the cliff ahead of us, which the receding tide was gradually exposing to our view. They all looked and all saw what I had seen, the top of a dark opening in the rock through which water was pouring out into the sea. It's the subterranean channel of an inland river, I cried. It flows through a land covered with vegetation, and therefore a land upon which the sun shines. No subterranean caverns produce any order of plant life, even remotely resembling what we have seen, disgorged by this river, beyond those cliffs like fertile lands and fresh water, perhaps game. Yes, saddle, said Olson, behind the cliffs. He spoke a true word, sir, behind. Bradley laughed, a rather sorry laugh, though. You might as well call our attention to the fact, sir, he said, that science has indicated that there is fresh water and vegetation on Mars. Not at all, I rejoin. A U-boat isn't constructed to navigate space, but it is designed to travel below the surface of the water. You'd be at the sailing into that blank pocket, asked Olson. I would, Olson, I replied. We haven't one chance for life in a hundred thousand if we don't find food and water upon Caprona. This water coming out of the cliff is not salt, but neither is it fit to drink, though each of us has drunk. It is fair to assume that inland the water is fed by pure streams, that there are fruits and herbs in game. Shall we lie out here and die of thirst and starvation, with a land of plenty, possibly only a few hundred yards away? We have the means for navigating a subterranean river. Are we too cowardly to utilize this means? Be off to go unto it, said Olson. I'm willing to see it through, agreed Bradley. Then under the bottom we'd the best of luck and get them hell, cried a young fellow who had been in the trenches. To the diving stations, I commanded, and in less than a minute the deck was deserted, the conning tower covers had slammed two, and the U-33 was submerging, possibly for the last time. I know that I had this feeling, and I think that most of the others did. As we went down I sat in the tower with the searchlight projecting its seemingly feeble rays ahead. We submerged very slowly and without headway more than sufficient to keep our nose in the right direction, and as we went down I saw outlined ahead of us the black opening in the great cliff. Yet was an opening that would have admitted a half dozen U-boats at one in the same time, roughly cylindrical in contour, and dark as the pith of perdition. As I gave the command which sent the U-33 slowly ahead, I could not but feel a certain uncanny presentiment of evil. Where were we going? What lay at the end of this great sewer? Had we bidden farewell forever to the sunlight and life, or were there before us dangers even greater than those which we now faced? I tried to keep my mind from vain imagining by calling everything which I observed to the eager ears below. I was the eyes of the whole company, and I did my best not to fail them. We had advanced a hundred yards, perhaps, when our first danger confronted us. Just ahead was a sharp right-angled turn in the tunnel. I could see the river's flotsam hurtling against the rocky wall upon the left as it was driven on by the mighty current, and I feared for the safety of the U-33 and making so sharp a turn under such adverse conditions. But there was nothing for it but to try. I didn't warn my fellows of the danger. It could have but caused them useless apprehension. For if we were to be smashed against the rocky wall, no power on earth could avert the quick end that would come to us. I gave the command full speed ahead and went charging toward the menace. I was forced to approach the dangerous left-hand wall in order to make the turn, and I depended upon the power of the motors to carry us through the surging waters in safety. Well, we made it, but it was a narrow squeak. As we swung around, the full force of the current caught us and drove the stern against the rocks. There was a thud which sent a tremor through the whole craft, and then a moment of nasty grinding as the steel hull scraped the rock wall. I expected momentarily the inrush of waters that would seal our doom, but presently from below came the welcome word that all was well. In another fifty yards there was a second turn, this time toward the left, but it was more of a gentle curve, and we took it without trouble. After that it was plain sailing, though as far as I could know there might be most anything ahead of us, and my nerves strained to the snapping point every instant. After the second turn the channel ran comparatively straight for between one hundred and fifty and two hundred yards. The waters grew suddenly lighter, and my spirit rose accordingly. I shouted down to those below that I saw daylight ahead, and a great shout of thanksgiving reverberated through the ship. A moment later we emerged into sun-lit water, and immediately I raised the periscope and looked about me upon the strangest landscape I had ever seen. We were in the middle of a broad and now sluggish river, the banks of which were lined by giant arboraceous ferns, raising their mighty fronds fifty, one hundred, two hundred feet into the quiet air. Close by something rose to the surface of the river, and dashed at the periscope. I had a vision of wide, distended jaws, and then all was blotted out. A shiver ran down into the tower as the thing closed upon the periscope. A moment later it was gone, and I could see again. Above the trees there soared into my vision a huge thing on bat-like wings, a creature large as a large whale, but fashioned more after the order of a lizard. Then again something charged the periscope and blotted out the mirror. I will confess that I was almost gasping for breath as I gave the commands to emerge. Into what sort of strange land had fate guided us? The instant the deck was awash I opened the conning tower hatch and stepped out. In another minute the deck hatch lifted, and those who were not on duty below streamed up the ladder, oatsen bringing knobs under one arm. For several minutes no one spoke. I think they must each have been as overcome by awe as was I. All about us was a flora and fauna as strange and wonderful to us as might have been those upon a distant planet had we suddenly been miraculously transported through ether to an unknown world. Even the grass upon the near bank was unearthly, lush and high it grew, and each blade bore upon its tip a brilliant flower, violet or yellow or carbon or blue, making as gorgeous a sward as human imagination might conceive. But the life it teemed, the tall fern-like trees were alive with monkeys, snakes and lizards. Huge insects hummed and buzzed hither and thither. Mighty forms could be seen moving upon the ground in the thick forest, while the bosom of the river wriggled with living things, and above flapped the wings of gigantic creatures, such as we are taught have been extinct throughout countless ages. Look, cried Olson, would you look at that geograph coming up out of the bottom of the sea? We looked in the direction he pointed and saw a long glossy neck surmounted by a small head rising above the surface of the river. Presently the back of the creature was exposed, brown and glossy as the water dripped from it. It turned its eyes upon us, opened its lizard-like mouth, emitted a shrill hiss and came for us. The thing must have been sixteen or eighteen feet in length, and closely resembled pictures I had seen of restored police COSRs of the Lord Jurassic. It charged us as savagely as a mad bull, and one would have thought it intended to destroy and devour the mighty U-bolt, as I verily believe it did intend. We were moving slowly up the river as the creature bore down upon us with distended jaws. The long neck was far outstretched, and the four flippers with which it swam were working with powerful strokes, carrying it forward at a rapid pace. When it reached the craft's side, the jaws closed upon one of the staunchens of the deck rail, and tore it from its socket as though it had been a toothpick stuck in putty. At this exhibition of Titanic's strength I think we all simultaneously stepped backward, and bradly drew his revolver and fired. The bullet struck the thing in the neck just above its body, but instead of disabling it, it merely increased its rage. Its hissing rose to a shrill screen as it raised half its body out of water onto the sloping sides of the hull of the U-33, and endeavored to scramble upon the deck to devour us. A dozen shots rang out as we who were armed drew our pistols and fired at the thing, but those struck several times it showed no signs of succumbing, and only floundered farther aboard the submarine. I had noticed that the girl had come on deck and was standing not far behind me, and when I saw the danger to which we were all exposed, I turned and forced her toward the hatch. We had not spoken for some days, and we did not speak now, but she gave me a disdainful look, which was quite as eloquent as words, and broke loose from my grasp. I saw I could do nothing with her unless I exerted force, and so I turned with my back toward her that I might be in a position to shield her from the strange reptile, should it really succeed in reaching the deck. And as I did so I saw the thing raise one flipper over the rail, dart its head forward, and with the quickness of lightning seize upon one of the bosses. I ran forward, discharging my pistol into the creature's body in an effort to force it to relinquish its prey, but I might as profitably have shot at the sun. Shrieking and screaming the German was dragged from the deck, and the moment the reptile was clear of the boat it died beneath the surface of the water with its terrified prey. I think we were all more or less shaken by the frightfulness of the tragedy, until Olson remarked that the balance of power now rested where it belonged. Following the death of Benson we had been nine and nine, nine Germans and nine allies, as we called ourselves. Now there were but eight Germans. We never counted the girl on either side, I suppose because she was a girl, though we knew well enough now that she was ours. And so Olson's remark helped to clear the atmosphere, for the allies at least, and then our attention was once more directed toward the river. For around us there had sprung up a perfect bedlam of screams and hisses and a seething cauldron of hideous reptiles devoid of fear and filled only with hunger and with rage. They clamored squirmed and wriggled to the deck, forcing us steadily backward, though we emptied our pistols into them. There were all sorts and conditions of horrible things—huge, hideous, grotesque, monstrous, a veritable Mesozoic nightmare. I saw that the girl was gotten below as quickly as possible, and she took knobs with her. Poor knobs had nearly barked his head off, and I think too that for the first time since his littlest puppyhood he had known fear, nor can I blame him. After the girl I sent Bradley and most of the allies, and then the Germans who were on deck, von Schruenwurtz being still in irons below. The creatures were approaching perilously close before I dropped through the hatchway and slammed down the cover. Then I went into the tower and ordered full speed ahead, hoping to distance the fearsome things. But it was useless. Not only could any of them easily out-distance the U-33, but the further upstream we progressed the greater the number of our besiegers. Until fearful of navigating a strange river at high speed, I gave orders to reduce and move slowly and majestically through the plunging hissing mass. I was mighty glad that our entrance into the interior of Caprona had been inside a submarine, rather than in any other form of vessel. I could readily understand how it might have been that Caprona had been invaded in the past by venturesome navigators without word of it ever reaching the outside world. For I can assure you that only by submarine could man pass up that great sluggish river alive. We proceeded up the river for some forty miles before darkness overtook us. I was afraid to submerge and lie on the bottom overnight for fear that the mud might be deep enough to hold us, and as we could not hold with the anchor, I ran in close to shore, and in a brief interim of attack from the reptiles we made fast to a large tree. We also dipped up some of the river water and found it, though quite warm, a little sweeter than before. We had food enough, and with the water we were all quite refreshed. But we missed fresh meat. It had been weeks now since we had tasted it, and the sight of the reptiles gave me an idea that a steak or two from one of them might not be bad eating. So I went on deck with a rifle, twenty of which were aboard the U-33. At sight of me a huge thing charged and climbed to the deck. I retreated to the top of the conning tower, and when it had raised its mighty bulk to the level of the little deck on which I stood, I let it have a bullet right between the eyes. The things stopped then and looked at me a moment, as much as to say, why this thing has a stinger, I must be careful. And then it reached out its long neck and opened its mighty jaws and grabbed for me. But I wasn't there. I had tumbled backward into the tower, and I mighty near killed myself doing it. When I glanced up, that little head on the end of its long neck was coming straight down on top of me, and once more I tumbled into greater safety, sprawling upon the floor of the sin trail. Oldson was looking up, and seeing what was poking about in the tower ran for an axe, nor did he hesitate a moment when he returned with one, but sprang up the ladder and commenced chopping away at that hideous phase. The thing didn't have sufficient brain-pan to entertain more than a single idea once. Though chopped and hacked and with a bullet hole between its eyes, it still persisted madly in its attempt to get inside the tower and devour Oldson, though its body was many times the diameter of the hatch, nor did it cease its efforts until after Oldson had succeeded in decapitating it. Then he and Bradley went on deck through the main hatch, and while one kept watch, the other cut a hind quarter off Plesiosaurus Olsoni, as Bradley dubbed the thing. Meantime Oldson cut off the long neck, saying that it would make fine soup. By the time we had cleared away the blood and refuse in the tower, the cook had juicy steaks and a steaming broth upon the electric stole, and the aroma arising from P. Olsoni filled us with an hitherto unfilled admiration for him and all his kind.