 CHAPTER 1 I AM FORCED TO ADMIT THAT EVEN THOUGH I HAD TRAVELED A long distance to place Bowen Tyler's manuscript in the hands of his father, I was still a trifle skeptical as to its sincerity, since I could not but recall that it had not been many years since Bowen had been one of the most notorious practical jokers of his alma mater. The truth was that as I sat in the Tyler library at Santa Monica, I commenced to feel a trifle foolish and a wish that I had merely forwarded the manuscript by express instead of bearing it personally, for I confess that I do not enjoy being laughed at. I have a well-developed sense of humor, when the joke is not on me. Mr. Tyler's senior was expected almost hourly. The last steamer in from Honolulu had brought information of the date of the expected sailing of his yacht, Torridor, which was now twenty-four hours overdue. Mr. Tyler's assistant secretary, who had been left at home, assured me that there was no doubt but that the Torridor had sailed as promised, since he knew his employer well enough to be positive that nothing short of an act of God would prevent his doing what he had planned to do. I was also aware of the fact that the sending apparatus of the Torridor's wireless equipment was sealed and that it would only be used in event of dire necessity. There was, therefore, nothing to do but wait, and we waited. We discussed the manuscript and hazarded guesses concerning it and the strange events it narrated. The torpedoing of the liner upon which Boen J. Tyler, Jr. had taken passage for France to join the American ambulance was a well-known fact, and I had further substantiated by wire to the New York Office of the Owners that Amis Le Roux had been booked for passage. Further, neither she nor Boen had been mentioned among the list of survivors, nor had the body of either of them been recovered. Their rescue by the English tug was entirely probable. The capture of the enemy U-33 by the tug's crew was not beyond the range of possibility, and their adventures during the perilous cruise which the treachery and deceit of Benson extended until they found themselves in the waters of the far South Pacific with depleted stores and poisoned water casks, while bordering upon the fantastic, appeared logical enough as narrated, event by event, in the manuscript. Caprona has always been considered a more or less mythical land, though it is vouched for by an eminent navigator of the 18th century. But Boen's narrative made it seem very real. However, many miles have tracked this ocean lay between us and it. Yes, the narrative had its guessing. We were agreed that it was most improbable, but neither of us could say that anything which it contained was beyond the range of possibility. The weird flora and fauna of Caspac were as possible under the thick warm atmospheric conditions of the superheated crater as they were in the Mesozoic era under almost exactly similar conditions which were then probably worldwide. The Assistant Secretary had heard of Caprona and his discoveries, but admitted that he never had taken much stock in the one nor the other. We were agreed that the one statement most difficult of explanation was that which reported the entire absence of human young among the various tribes which Tyler had had intercourse. This was the one irreconcilable statement of the manuscript. A world of adults it was impossible. We speculated upon the probable fate of Bradley and his party of English sailors. Tyler had found the graves of two of them, how many more might have perished. And Miss LaRue could a young girl long have survived the horrors of Caspac after having been separated from all of her own kind. The Assistant Secretary wondered if Nob still was with her, and then we both smiled at this tacit acceptance of the truth of the whole uncanny tale. I suppose I'm a fool, remarked the Assistant Secretary, but by George I can't help believing it, and I can see that girl now with the big air dale at her side protecting her from the terrors of a million years ago. I can visualize the entire scene, the ape-like Grimaldi men huddled in their filthy caves, the huge pterodactyls soaring through the heavy air upon their bat-like wings, the mighty dinosaurs moving their clumsy hulks beneath the dark shadows of preglacial forests, the dragons which we considered myths until science taught us that they were the true recollections of the first man handed down through countless ages by word of mouth from father to son out of the unrecorded dawn of humanity. It is stupendous, if true, I replied, and to think that possibly they are still there, Tyler and Miss LaRue, surrounded by hideous dangers, and that possibly Bradley still lives, and some of his party. I can't help hoping all the time that Bowen and the girl have found the others. The last Bowen knew of them there were six left, all told, the mate Bradley, the engineer Olson and Wilson, Whitely, Brady and Sinclair. There might be some hope for them if they could join forces. But separated I'm afraid they couldn't last long. If only they hadn't let the German prisoners capture the U-33, Bowen should have had better judgment than who had trusted them at all. The chances are Bon Chouinvort succeeded in getting safely back to Kiel, and is strutting around with an iron cross this very minute. With a large supply of oil from the wells they discovered in Kaspak, with plenty of water and ample provisions, there is no reason why they couldn't have negotiated the submerged tunnel beneath the barrier cliffs and make good their escape. I don't like them, said the Assistant Secretary, but sometimes you got to hand it to them. Yes, I growled, and there's nothing I'd enjoy more than handing it to them. And then the telephone rang. The Assistant Secretary answered, and as I watched him I saw his jaw drop and his face go white. No, no, he exclaimed as he hung up the receiver as one in a trance. It can't be. What I asked. Mr. Tyler is dead, he answered in a dull voice. He died at sea, suddenly, yesterday. The next ten days were occupied in burying Mr. Bowen J. Tyler Sr., and arranging plans for the sucker of his son. Mr. Tom Billings, the late Mr. Tyler's Secretary, did it all. He has force, energy, initiative, and good judgment combined and personified. I never have beheld a more dynamic young man. He handled lawyers, courts, and executors as a sculptor handles his modeling clay. He formed, fashioned, and forced them to his will. He had been a classmate of Bowen Tyler at college and a fraternity brother, and before that he had been an impoverished and improvident cow-puncher on one of the great Tyler ranches. Tyler Sr. had picked him out of thousands of employees and made him, or rather Tyler had given him the opportunity, and then Billings had made himself. Tyler, Jr., as good a judge of men as his father, had taken him into his friendship, and between the two of them they had turned out a man who would have died for Tyler as quickly as he would have for his flag. Yet there was none of the sycophant or fauna in Billings. Ordinarily I do not wax enthusiastic about men, but this man Billings comes as close to my conception of what a regular man should be, as any I have ever met. I venture to say that before Bowen J. Tyler sent him to college he had never heard the word ethics, and yet I am equally sure that in all his life he never has transgressed a single tenet of the code of ethics of an American gentleman. Ten days after they brought Mr. Tyler's body off the toreador, we steamed out into the Pacific in search of Caprona. There were forty in the party, including the master and crew of the toreador, and Billings the indomitable was in command. We had a long and uninteresting search for Caprona, for the old map upon which the assistant secretary had finally located it was most inaccurate. When its grim walls finally rose out of the ocean's mess before us, we were so far south that it was a question as to whether we were in the South Pacific or the Antarctic. Birds were numerous, and it was very cold. All during the trip Billings had steadfastly evaded questions as to how we were to enter Caspac after we had found Caprona. Bowen Tyler's manuscript had made it perfectly evident to all that the subterranean outlet of the Caspacian River was the only means of ingress or egress to the crater world beyond the impregnable cliffs. Tyler's party had been able to navigate this channel because their craft had been a submarine, but the toreador could as easily have flown over the cliffs as sailed under them. Jimmy Hollis and Colin Short whiled away many an hour inventing schemes for surmounting the obstacle presented by the barrier cliffs and making ridiculous wagers as to which one Tom Billings had in mind. But immediately we were all assured that we had raised Caprona. Billings called us together. There was no use in talking about these things, he said, until we found the island. At best it can be but conjecture on our part until we have been able to scrutinize the coast closely. Each of us has formed a mental picture of the Capronian sea coast from Bowen's manuscript, and it is not likely that any two of these pictures resemble each other, or that any of them resemble the coast as we shall presently find it. I have in view three plans for scaling the cliffs, and the means for carrying out each is in the hold. There is an electric drill with plenty of waterproof cable to reach from the ship's dynamos to the cliff top when the toreador is anchored at a safe distance from shore, and there is sufficient half-inch iron rod to build a ladder from the base to the top of the cliff. It would be a long, arduous, and dangerous work to bore the holes and insert the rungs of the ladder from the bottom upward, yet it can be done. I also have a life-saving mortar with which we might be able to throw a line over the summit of the cliffs, but this plan would necessitate one of us climbing to the top with the chances, more than even, that the line would cut at the summit, or the hooks at the upper end would slip. My third plan seems to me the most feasible. You all saw a number of large heavy boxes lured into the hold before we sailed. I know you did because you asked me what they contained and commented upon the large letter H, which was painted upon each box. These boxes contain the various parts of a hydro aeroplane. I propose assembling this upon the strip of beach described in Bowen's manuscript, the beach where he found the dead body of the ape-like man, provided there is sufficient space above high water. Otherwise we shall have to assemble it on deck and lure it over the side. After it is assembled I shall carry tackle and ropes to the cliff top, and then it will be comparatively simple to hoist the search-party and its supplies in safety. Or I can make a sufficient number of trips to land the entire party in the valley beyond the barrier. All will depend, of course, upon what my first reconnaissance reveals. That afternoon we steam slowly along the face of Caprona's towering barrier. You see now, remark-buildings, as we craned our necks to scan the summit thousands of feet above us, how futile it would have been to waste our time in working out details of a plan to surmount those, and he jerked his thumb toward the cliffs. It would take weeks, possibly months, to construct a ladder to the top. I had no conception of their formidable height. Our mortar would not carry a line halfway to the crest of the lowest point. There is no use discussing any plan other than the hydro aeroplane. We'll find the beach and get busy. Late the following morning the lookout announced that he could discern surf about a mile ahead, and as we approached we all saw the line of breakers broken by a long sweep of rolling surf upon a narrow beach. The launch was lured, and five of us made a landing, getting a good ducking in the ice-cold waters in the doing of it. But we were rewarded by the finding of the clean-picked bones of what might have been the skeleton of a high order of ape, or a very low order of man, lying close to the base of the cliff. Billings was satisfied, as were the rest of us, that this was the beach mentioned by Bohm, and we further found that there was ample room to assemble the seaplane. Billings, having arrived at a decision, lost no time in acting, with the result that before mid-afternoon we had landed all the large boxes marked H upon the beach, and were busily engaged in opening them. Two days later the plane was assembled and tuned. We loaded tackles and ropes, water, food, and ammunition in it, and then we each implored Billings to let us be the one to accompany him. But he would take no one. That was Billings. If there was any especially difficult or dangerous work to be done that one man could do, Billings always did it himself. If he needed assistance he never called for volunteers, just selected the man or man he considered best qualified for the duty. He said that he considered the principles underlying all volunteer service fundamentally wrong, and that it seemed to him that calling for volunteers reflected upon the courage and loyalty of the entire command. We rolled the plane down to the water's edge, and Billings mounted the pilot's seat. There was a moment's delay as he assured himself that he had everything necessary. Jimmy Hollis went over his armament and ammunition to see that nothing had been omitted. Besides pistol and rifle there was the machine gun mounted in front of him on the plane and ammunition for all three. Bohm's account of the terrors of Kasbach had impressed us all with the necessity for proper means of defense. At last all was ready. The motor was started and we pushed the plane out into the surf. A moment later and she was skimming seaward. Gently she rose from the surface of the water, executed a wide spiral as she mounted rapidly, circled once far above us, and then disappeared over the crest of the cliffs. We all stood silent and expectant. Our eyes glued upon the towering summit above us. Hollis, who was now in command, consulted his wristwatch at frequent intervals. Dad explained short. We ought to be hearing from him pretty soon. Hollis laughed nervously. He's been gone only ten minutes, he announced. Seemed like an hour, snapped short. What's that? Did you hear that? He's firing. It's the machine gun. Oh, Lord, and here we are, as helpless as a lot of old ladies ten thousand miles away. We can't do a thing. We don't know what's happening. Why didn't he let one of us go with him? Yes, it was the machine gun. We could hear it distinctly for at least a minute. Then came silence. That was two weeks ago. We have had no sign nor signal from Tom Billings' sense. End of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 of the People 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 People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Chapter 2. I'll never forget my first impressions of Caspac as I circled in, high over the surrounding cliffs. From the plane I looked down through a mist upon the blurred landscape beneath me. The hot, humid atmosphere of Caspac condenses as it is fanned by the cold, Antarctic air currents which sweep across the crater's top, sending a tenuous ribbon of vapor far out across the Pacific. Through this, the picture gave one the suggestion of a colossal impressionistic canvas in greens and browns and scarlets and yellows surrounding the deep blue of the inland sea, just blobs of color taking form through the tumbling mist. I dived close to the cliffs and skirted them for several miles without finding the least indication of a suitable landing place, and then I swung back at a lower level, looking for a clearing close to the bottom of the mighty escarpment, but I could find none of sufficient area to ensure safety. I was flying pretty low by this time, not only looking for landing places, but watching the myriad life beneath me. I was down pretty well toward the south end of the island, where an arm of the lake reaches far inland, and I could see the surface of the water literally black with creatures of some sort. I was too far up to recognize these individuals, but the general impression was of a vast army of amphibious monsters. The land was almost equally alive, with crawling, leaping, running, flying things. It was one of the latter which nearly did for me while my attention was fixed upon the weird scene below. The first intimation I had of it was the sudden blotting out of the sunlight from above, and as I glanced quickly up I saw a most horrific creature swooping down upon me. It must have been fully eighty feet long from the end of its long hideous beak to the tip of its thick short tail, with an equal spread of wings. It was coming straight for me and hissing frightfully. I could hear above the whir of the propeller. It was coming straight down toward the muzzle of the machine gun, and I let it have it right in the breast, but still it came for me, so that I had to dive and turn, though I was dangerously close to earth. The thing didn't miss me by a dozen feet, and when I rose it wheeled and followed me, but only to the cooler air close to the level of the cliff-tops. There it turned again and dropped. Something, man's natural love of battle and the chase, I presume, impelled me to pursue it, and so I too circled and dived. The moment I came down into the warm atmosphere of Caspac, the creature came for me again, rising above me so that it might swoop down upon me. Nothing could better have suited my armament, since my machine gun was pointed upward at an angle of about twenty degrees and could not be either depressed or elevated by the pilot. If I had brought someone along with me, we could have raped the great reptile from almost any position, but as the creature's motive attack was always from above, he always found me ready with a hail of bullets. The battle must have lasted a minute or more before the thing suddenly turned completely over in the air and fell to the ground. Boen and I roomed together at college, and I learned a lot from him outside my regular course. He was a pretty good scholar despite his love of fun, and his particular hobby was paleontology. He used to tell me about the various forms of animal and vegetable life which had covered the globe during former eras, and so I was pretty well acquainted with the fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals of Paleolithic times. I knew that the thing that had attacked me was some sort of pterodactyl which should have been extinct millions of years ago. It was all that I needed to realize that Boen had exaggerated nothing in his manuscript. Having disposed of my first fall, I set myself once more to search for a landing place near to the base of the cliffs beyond which my party awaited me. I knew how anxious they would be for word from me, and I was equally anxious to relieve their minds and also to get them in our supplies well within Caspac, so that we might sit off about our business of finding and rescuing Boen Tyler. But the pterodactyl's carcass had scarcely fallen before I was surrounded by at least a dozen of the hideous things, some mards, some small, but all bent upon my destruction. I could not cope with them all, and so I rose rapidly from among them to the cooler strata wherein they dared not follow. And then I recalled that Boen's narrative distinctly indicated that the farther north one traveled in Caspac the fewer were the terrible reptiles which rendered human life impossible at the southern end of the island. There seemed nothing now but to search out a more northerly landing place, and then return to the toreador and transport my companions two by two over the cliffs and deposit them at the rendezvous. As I flew north, the temptation to explore overcame me. I knew that I could easily cover Caspac and return to the beach with less petrol than I had in my tanks, and there was the hope too that I might find Boen or some of his party. The broad expanse of the inland sea lured me out over its waters, and as I crossed I saw at either extremity of the great body of water and island, one to the south and one to the north, but I did not alter my course to examine either closely, leaving that to a later time. The further shore of the sea revealed a much narrower strip of land between the cliffs and the water than upon the western side, but it was hillier and more open country. There were splendid landing places, and in the distance toward the north I thought I described a village, but of that I was not positive. However, as I approached the land I saw a number of human figures, apparently pursuing one who fled across a broad expanse of metal. As I dropped lower to have a better look at these people, they caught the whirring of my propellers and looked aloft. They paused an instant, pursuers and pursued, and then they broke and raced for the shelter of the nearest wood. Almost instantaneously a huge bulk swooped down upon me, and as I looked up I realized that there were flying reptiles even in this part of gas pack. The creature died for my right wing so quickly that nothing but a sheer drop could have saved me. I was already close to the ground so that my maneuver was extremely dangerous, but I was in a fair way of making it successfully when I saw that I was too closely approaching a large tree. My effort to dodge the tree and the pterodactyl at the same time resulted disastrously. One wing touched an upper branch, the plane tipped and swung around, and then out of control dashed into the branches of the tree, where it came to rest battered and torn, forty feet above the ground. Hissing loudly the huge reptile swept close above the tree in which my plane had lodged, circled twice over me and then flapped away toward the south. As I guessed then, and was to learn later, forests are the surest sanctuary from these hideous creatures, which with their enormous spread of wing and their great weight are as much out of place among trees as is a sea plane. For a minute or so I clung there to my battered flyer, now useless beyond redemption, my brain numbed by the frightful catastrophe that had befallen me, all my plans for the sucker of Bowen and Miss LaRue had depended upon this craft, and in a few minutes my own selfish love of adventure had wrecked their hopes and mine. And what effect it might have upon the future of the balance of the rescuing expedition I could not even guess. Their lives too might be sacrificed to my suicidal foolishness. But I was doomed, seemed inevitable, but I can honestly say that the fate of my friends concerned me more greatly than did my own. Beyond the barrier cliffs my party was even now nervously awaiting my return. Presently apprehension and fear would claim them, and they would never know. They would attempt to scale the cliffs, of that I was sure. But I was not so positive that they would succeed, and after a while they would turn back, what there were left of them, and go sadly and mournfully upon their return journey to home. Home! I set my jaws and tried to forget the word, for I knew that I should never again see home. And what of Bowen and his girl? I had doomed them too. They would never even know that an attempt had been made to rescue them. If they still lived they might some day come upon the ruined remnants of this great plain, hanging in its lofty sepulcher, and hazard vain guesses and be filled with wonder. But they would never know. And I could not but be glad that they would not know that Tom Billings had sealed their death warrants by his criminal selfishness. All these useless regrets were getting me in a bad way. But at last I shook myself and tried to put such things out of my mind, and take hold of conditions as they existed, and do my level best to rest victory from defeat. I was badly shaken up and bruised, but considered myself mighty lucky to escape with my life. The plain hung at a precarious angle, so that it was with difficulty and considerable danger that I climbed from it into the tree and then to the ground. My predicament was grave. Between me and my friends lay an inland sea fully sixty miles wide at this point, and an estimated land distance of some three hundred miles around the northern end of the sea, through such hideous dangers as I am perfectly free to admit, had me pretty well buffaloed. I had seen quite enough of Caspac this day to assure me that Bohen had in no way exaggerated its perils. As a matter of fact, I am inclined to believe that he had become so accustomed to them before he started upon his manuscript that he rather slighted them. As I stood there beneath that tree, a tree which should have been part of a coal bed countless ages since, and looked out across a sea teeming with frightful life, life which should have been fossil before God conceived of Adam, I would not have given a minimum of stale beer for my chances of ever seeing my friends or the outside world again. Yet then and there I swore to fight my way as far through this hideous land as circumstances would permit. I had plenty of ammunition, an automatic pistol, and a heavy rifle, the latter one of twenty added to our equipment on the strength of Bohen's description of the huge beasts of prey which ravaged Caspac. My greatest danger lay in the hideous reptilia whose low nervous organizations permitted their carnivorous instincts to function for several minutes after they had ceased to live. But to these things I gave less thought than to the sudden frustration of all our plans. With the bitterest of thoughts I condemned myself for the foolish weakness that had permitted me to be drawn from the main object of my flight into premature and useless exploration. It seemed to me then that I must be totally eliminated from further search for Bohen since, as I estimated it, the three hundred miles of Caspacian territory I must traverse to reach the base of the cliffs beyond which my party awaited me were practically impassable for a single individual and accustomed to Caspacian life and ignorant of all that lay before him. Yet I could not give up hope entirely. My duty lay clear before me. I must follow it while life remain to me, and so I set forth toward the north. The country through which I took my way was as lovely as it was unusual. I had almost said unearthly, for the plants, the trees, the blooms were not of the earth that I knew. They were larger, the colors more brilliant, and the shapes startling. Some almost to grotesqueness, though even such added to the charm and romance of the landscape as the giant cacti render weirdly beautiful the wayspots of the sad Mojave. And overall the sun shone huge and round and red, a monster sun above a monstrous world, its light dispersed by the humid air of Caspac, the warm moist air which lies sluggish upon the breast of this great mother of life, nature's mightiest incubator. All about me in every direction was life. It moved through the treetops and among the bowls. It displayed itself in widening and intermingling circles upon the bosom of this sea. It leaked from the depths. I could hear it in a dense wood at my right, the murmur of it rising and falling in ceaseless volumes of sound, ribbon at intervals by a horrid scream or a thunderous roar which shook the earth. And always I was haunted by that inexplicable sensation that unseen eyes were watching me, that soundless feet dogged my trail. I am neither nervous nor high strong, but the burden of responsibility upon me weighed heavily so that I was more cautious than is my won't. I turned often to right and left and rear lest I be surprised, and I carried my rifle at the ready in my hand. Once I could have sworn that among the many creatures dimly perceived amidst the shadows of the wood I saw human figure dart from one cover to another, but I could not be sure. For the most part I skirted the wood, making occasional detours rather than enter those forbidding depths of gloom, though many times I was forced to pass through arms of the forest which extended to the very shore of the inland sea. There was so sinister a suggestion in the uncouth sounds and the vague glimpses of moving things within the forest of the menace of strange beasts and possibly still stranger men that I always breed more freely when I had passed once more into open country. I had traveled northward for perhaps an hour, still haunted by the conviction that I was being stalked by some creature which kept always hidden among the trees and shrubbery to my right and a little to my rear, when for the hundredth time I was attracted by a sound from that direction and turning saw some animal running rapidly through the forest toward me. There was no longer any effort on its part at concealment. It came on through the underbrush swiftly, and I was confident that whatever it was it had finally gathered the courage to charge me boldly. Before it finally broke into plain view I became aware that it was not alone. For a few yards in its rear a second thing thrashed through the leafy jungle. Evidently I was to be attacked in force by a pair of hunting beasts or men, and then through the last clump of waving ferns broke the figure of the foremost creature which came leaping toward me on light feet as I stood with my rifle to my shoulder covering the point at which I had expected it would emerge. I must have looked foolish indeed if my surprise and consternation were in any way reflected upon my countenance as I lured my rifle and gazed incredulous at the life figure of the girl speeding swiftly in my direction. But I did not have long to stand thus with Lord Weapon, for as she came I saw her cast in a frighted glance over her shoulder and at the same moment there broke from the jungle at the same spot at which I had seen her the hugest cat I had ever looked upon. At first I took the beast for a saber-toothed tiger. It was quite the most fearsome appearing beast one could imagine, but it was not that dread monster of the past, though quite formidable enough to satisfy the most fastidious thrill-hunter. On it tamed grim and terrible, its baleful eyes glaring above its distended jaws, its lips curled in a frightful snarl which exposed a whole mouthful of formidable teeth. At sight of me it had abandoned its impetuous rush and was now sneaking slowly toward us, while the girl, a long knife in her hand, took her stand bravely at my left and a little to my rear. She had called something to me in a strange tongue as she raced toward me, and now she spoke again. But what she said I could not then, of course, know, only that her tones were sweet, well modulated, and free from any suggestion of panic. Facing the huge cat which I now saw was an enormous panther, I waited until I could place a shot where I felt it would do the most good, for at best a frontal shot at any of the large carnivora is a ticklish matter. I had some advantage in that the beast was not charging, its head was held low and its back exposed, and so at forty yards I took careful aim at its spine, at the junction of neck and shoulders. But at the same instant as though sensing my intention the great creature lifted its head and leaped forward in full charge. To fire at that sloping forehead I knew would be worse than useless, and so I quickly shifted my aim and pulled the trigger, hoping against hope that the soft-nosed bullet and the heavy charge of powder would have sufficient stopping effect to give me time to place a second shot. In answer to the report of the rifle I had the satisfaction of seeing the brute spring into the air, turning a complete somersault, but it was up again almost instantly, though in the brief second that it took it to scramble to its feet and get its bearings it exposed its left side fully toward me, and the second bullet went crashing through its heart. Down it went for the second time, and then up, and at me. The vitality of these creatures of castback is one of the marvelous features of this strange world, and bespeaks the low nervous organization of the old paleolithic life which has been so long extinct in other portions of the world. I put a third bullet into the beast at three paces, and then I thought that I was done for, but it rolled over and stopped at my feet, stone dead. I found that my second bullet had torn its heart almost completely away, and yet it had lived to charge ferociously upon me, and but for my third shot would doubtless have slain me before it finally expired, or as bow and tighter so quaintly put it before it knew that it was dead. With the panther quite evidently conscious of the fact that dissolution had overtaken it, I turned toward the girl who was regarding me with evident admiration and not a little awe, though I must admit that my rifle claimed quite as much of her attention as did I. She was quite the most wonderful animal that I have ever looked upon, and what few of her charms her apparel hid it quite effectively succeeded in accentuating. A bit of soft undressed leather was caught over her left shoulder and beneath her right breast, falling upon her left side to her hip and upon the right to a metal band which encircled her leg above the knee and to which the lost point of the hide was attached. About her waist was a loose leather belt, to the center of which was attached the scabbard belonging to her knife. There was a single armlet between her right shoulder and elbow, and a series of them covered her left arm from elbow to wrist. These I learned later answered the purpose of a shield against knife attack, when the left arm is raised in guard against the breast or face. Her masses of heavy hair were held in place by a broad metal band which bore a large triangular ornament directly in the center of her forehead. This ornament appeared to be a huge turquoise, while the metal of all her ornaments was beaten virgin gold inlaid in intricate design with bits of mother of pearl and tiny pieces of stone of various colors. From the left shoulder depended a leopard's tail, while her feet were shot with sturdy little sandals. The knife was her only weapon, its blade was of iron, the grip was wound with hide, and protected by a guard of three outbowing strips of flat iron, and upon the top of the hill was a knob of gold. I took in much of this in the few seconds during which we stood facing each other, and I also observed another salient feature of her appearance. She was frightfully dirty. Her face and limbs and garment were streaked with mud and perspiration, and yet even so I felt that I had never looked upon so perfect and beautiful a creature as she. Her figure beggars description, and equally so her face. Were I one of those writer fellows, I should probably say that her features were egregious, but being neither a writer nor a poet, I can do her greater justice by saying that she combined all of the finest lines that one sees in the typical American girl's face rather than the pronounced sheep-like physiognomy of the Greek goddess. No, even the dirt couldn't hide that fact. She was beautiful beyond compare. As we stood looking at each other, a slow smile came to her face, parting her symmetrical lips and disclosing a row of strong white teeth. Galu, she asked with rising inflection, and remembering that I read in Bowen's manuscript that Galu seemed to indicate a higher type of man, I answered by pointing to myself and repeating the word. Then she started off on a regular catechism, if I could judge by her inflection, for I certainly understood no word of what she said. All the time the girl kept glancing toward the forest, and at last she touched my arm and pointed in that direction. Turning I saw a hairy figure of a man-like thing standing watching us, and presently another, and another emerged from the jungle and joined the leader, until there must have been at least twenty of them. They were entirely naked, their bodies were covered with hair, and though they stood upon their feet without touching their hands to the ground they had a very ape-like appearance, since they stooped forward and had very long arms and quite apish features. They were not pretty to look upon with the close-set eyes, flat noses, long upper lips, and protruding yellow fangs. Alice said the girl. I had reread Bowen's adventures so often that I knew them almost by heart, and so now I knew that I was looking upon the last remnant of that ancient man-race, the Alice of a forgotten period, the speechless man of antiquity. Kaser cried the girl, and at the same moment the Alice came jabbering toward us. They made strange growling, barking noises as with much bearing of fangs they advanced upon us. They were armed only with nature's weapons, powerful muscles and giant fangs. Yet I knew that these were quite sufficient to overcome us had we nothing better to offer in defense, and so I drew my pistol and fired at the leader. He dropped like a stone, and the others turned and fled. Once again the girl smiled her slow smile and stepping closer caressed the barrel of my automatic. As she did so her fingers came in contact with mine, and a sudden thrill ran through me, which I attributed to the fact that it had been so long since I had seen a woman of any sort or kind. She said something to me in her low liquid tones, but I could not understand her, and then she pointed toward the north and started away. I followed her for my way was north too, but had it been south I still should have followed, so hungry was I for human companionship in this world of beasts and reptiles and half-men. We walked along, the girl talking a great deal, and seeming mystified that I could not understand her. Her silvery laugh rang merrily when I in turn assayed to speak to her, as though my language was the quaintest thing she ever had heard. Often, after fruitless attempts to make me understand, she would hold her palm toward me, saying, Galoo! and then touched my breast or arm and cry, Aloo! Aloo! I knew what she meant, for I had learned from Bowen's narrative the negative gesture and the two words which she repeated. She meant that I was no Galoo as I claimed, but an Aloo or speechless one. Yet every time she said this she laughed again, and so infectious were her tones that I could only join her. It was only natural too that she should be mystified by my inability to comprehend her or to make her comprehend me, for from the club men, the lowest human type in cast-fact to have speech, to the golden race of Galoo's, the tongues of the various tribes are identical, except for amplifications in the rising scale of evolution. She, who is a Galoo, can understand one of the Bolu and make herself understood to him, or to a hatchet man, a spear man, or an archer. The Holoo's, or apes, the Aloo's, and myself were the only creatures of human semblance with which she could hold no converse. Yet it was evident that her intelligence told her that I was neither Holoo nor Aloo, neither anthropoid, ape, nor speechless man. Yet she did not despair, but set out to teach me her language, and had it not been that I worried so greatly over the fate of Bowen and my companions of the Torridor, I could have wished the period of instruction prolonged. I never have been what one might call a ladies man, though I like their company immensely, and during my college days and since have made various friends among the sacks. I think that I rather appeal to a certain type of girl for the reason that I never make love to them. I leave that to the numerous others who do it infinitely better than I could hope to, and take my pleasure out of girl's society in what seemed to be more rational ways, dancing, golfing, boating, riding, tennis, and the like. Yet in the company of this half-naked little savage I found a new pleasure that was entirely distinct from any that I ever had experienced. When she touched me I thrilled, as I had never before thrilled in contact with another woman. I could not quite understand it, for I am sufficiently sophisticated to know that this is a symptom of love, and I certainly did not love this filthy little barbarian with her broken unkempt nails and her skin so besmeared with mud and the green of crushed foliage that it was difficult to say what color it originally had been. But if she was outwardly uncouth, her clear eyes and strong white, even teeth, her silvery laugh and her queenly carriage bespoken innate fineness which dirt could not quite successfully conceal. The sun was low in the heavens when we came upon a little river which emptied into a large bay at the foot of low cliffs. Our journey so far had been beset with constant danger, as is every journey in this frightful land. I have not bored you with the recital of the wearings, successions of attacks by the multitude of creatures which were constantly crossing our path, or deliberately stalking us. We were always upon the alert, for here to paraphrase, eternal vigilance is indeed the price of life. I had managed to progress a little in the acquisition of a knowledge of her tongue, so that I knew many of the animals and reptiles by their Caspachian names, and trees and ferns and grasses. I knew the words for sea and river and cliff, for sky and sun and cloud. Yes, I was getting along finally, and then it occurred to me that I didn't know my companion's name, so I pointed to myself and said, Tom, and to her and raised my eyebrows in interrogation. The girl ran her fingers into that massive hair and looked puzzled. I repeated the action a dozen times. Tom, she said finally in that clear, sweet, liquid voice. Tom. I had never thought much of my name before, but when she spoke it, it sounded to me for the first time in my life like a mighty nice name. And then she brightened suddenly and tapped her own breast and said, A. Jor, A. Jor, I repeated, and she laughed and struck her palms together. Well, we knew each other's names now, and that was some satisfaction. I rather liked hers, A. Jor, and she seemed to like mine, for she repeated it. We came to the cliffs beside the little river where it empties into the bay with the great inland sea beyond. The cliffs were weather-worn and rotted, and in one place a deep hollow ran back beneath the overhanging stone for several feet, suggesting shelter for the night. There were loose rocks strewn all about, with which I might build a barricade across the entrance to the cave, and so I halted there and pointed out the place to A. Jor, trying to make her understand that we would spend the night there. As soon as she grasped my meaning she assented with the Caspacian equivalent of an affirmative nod, and then touching my rifle motioned me to follow her to the river. At the bank she paused, removed her belt and dagger, dropping them to the ground at her side, then unfastening the lower edge of her garment from the metal leg band to which it was attached, slipped it off her left shoulder and let it drop to the ground around her feet. It was done so naturally, so simply and so quickly, that it left me gasping like a fish out of water. Turning she flashed a smile at me and then dived into the river, and there she bathed while I stood guard over her. For five or ten minutes she splashed about, and when she emerged her glistening skin was smooth and white and beautiful. Without means of drying herself she simply ignored what to me would have seemed a necessity, and in a moment was arrayed in her simple though effective costume. It was now within an hour of darkness, and as I was nearly famished I led the way back about a quarter of a mile to a low meadow where we had seen antelope and small horses a short time before. Here I brought down a young buck, the report of my rifle sending the balance of the herd scampering for the woods where they were met by a chorus of hideous roars as the carnivora took advantage of their panic and leaped among them. With my hunting-knife I removed a hind quarter, and then we returned to camp. Here I gathered a great quantity of wood from fallen trees, a drawer helping me, but before I built a fire I also gathered sufficient loose rock to build my barricade against the frightful terrors of the night to come. I shall never forget the expression upon Ajor's face as she saw me strike a match and light the kindling beneath our campfire. It was such an expression as might transform a mortal face with awe as its owner beheld the mysterious workings of divinity. It was evident that Ajor was quite unfamiliar with modern methods of fire-making. She had thought my rifle and pistol wonderful, but these tiny slivers of wood, which from a magic rub brought a flame to the camp hearth, were indeed miracles to her. As the meat roasted above the fire, Ajor and I tried once again to talk, but though copiously filled with incentive, gestures, and sounds, the conversation did not flourish notably. And then Ajor took up in earnest the task of teaching me her language. She commenced as I later learned with the simplest form of speech known to cast back, or for that matter to the world, that employed by the Bolu. I found it far from difficult, and even though it was a great handicap upon my instructor that she could not speak my language, she did remarkably well and demonstrated that she possessed ingenuity and intelligence of a high order. After we had eaten, I added to the pile of firewood so that I could replenish the fire before the entrance to our barricade, believing this as good a protection against the carnivora as we could have. And then Ajor and I sat down before it, and the lesson proceeded, while from all about us came the weird and awesome noises of the Caspacian night, the moaning and the coughing and roaring of the tigers, the panthers and the lions, the barking and the dismal howling of a wolf, jackal and hyenodon, the shrill shrieks of stricken prey, and the hissing of the great reptiles. The voice of man alone was silent. But though the voice of this choir terrible rose and fell from far and near in all directions, reaching at times such a tremendous volume of sound that the earth shook to it, yet so engrossed was I in my lesson and in my teacher that often I was deaf to what at another time would have filled me with awe. The face and voice of the beautiful girl who leaned so eagerly toward me as she tried to explain the meaning of some word or correct my pronunciation of another quite entirely occupied my every faculty of perception. The firelight shone upon her animated features and sparkling eyes. It accentuated the graceful motions of her gesturing arms and hands. It sparkled from her white teeth and from her golden ornaments and glistened on the smooth firmness of her perfect skin. I am afraid that often I was more occupied with admiration of this beautiful animal than with a desire for knowledge. But be that as it may, I nevertheless learned much that evening, though part of what I learned had not to do with any new language. Ajor seemed determined that I should speak Caspacian as quickly as possible, and I thought I saw in her desire a little of that all feminine trait which has come down through all the ages from the first lady of the world, curiosity. Ajor desired that I should speak her tongue in order that she might satisfy a curiosity concerning me that was filling her to a point where she was in danger of bursting. Of that I was positive. She was a regular little animated question mark. She bubbled over with interrogations which were never to be satisfied unless I learned to speak her tongue. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. Her hand flew in expressive gestures. Her little tongue raced with time, yet all to no avail. I could say man and tree and cliff and lion and a number of other words in perfect Caspacian. But such a vocabulary was only tantalizing. It did not lend itself well to a very general conversation, and the result was that Ajor would whack so wroth that she would clench her little fists and beat me on the breast as hard as ever she could, and then she would sink back laughing as the humor of the situation captured her. She was trying to teach me some verbs by going through the actions herself as she repeated the proper word. We were very much engrossed, so much so that we were giving no heed to what went on beyond our cave. When Ajor stopped very suddenly, crying, Cazor! Now she had been trying to teach me that you meant stop, so when she cried Cazor and at the same time stopped, I thought for a moment that this was part of my lesson. For the moment I forgot that Cazor means beware. I therefore repeated the word after her. But when I saw the expression in her eyes as they were directed past me and saw her point toward the entrance to the cave, I turned quickly to see a hideous face at the small aperture leading out into the night. It was the fierce and snarling countenance of a gigantic bear. I have hunted silvertips in the white mountains of Arizona and thought them quite the largest and most formidable of big game. But from the appearance of the head of this awful creature I judged that the largest grizzly I had ever seen would shrink by comparison to the dimensions of a newfoundland dog. Our fire was just within the cave, the smoke rising through the apertures between the rocks that I had piled in such a way that they arched inward toward the cliff at the top. The opening by means of which we were to reach the outside was barricaded with a few large fragments which did not by any means close it entirely. But through the apertures thus left no large animal could gain ingress. I had depended most, however, upon our fire, feeling that none of the dangerous nocturnal beasts of prey would venture close to the flames. In this, however, I was quite evidently in error, for the great bear stood with his nose not a foot from the blaze, which was now low owing to the fact that I had been so occupied with my lesson and my teacher that I had neglected to replenish it. Ajor whipped out her futile little knife and pointed to my rifle. At the same time she spoke in a quite level voice entirely devoid of nervousness or any evidence of fear or panic. I knew she was exhorting me to fire upon the beast, but this I did not wish to do other than as a last resort, for I was quite sure that even my heavy bullets would not more than further enrage him, in which case he might easily force an entrance to our cave. Instead of firing I piled some more wood upon the fire, and as the smoke and blaze arose in the beast's face it backed away, growling most frightfully. But I still could see two ugly points of light blazing in the outer darkness and hear its growls rumbling terrifically without. For some time the creature stood there watching the entrance to our frail sanctuary, while I racked my brains in futile endeavor to plan some method of defense or escape. I knew full well that should the bear make a determined effort to get at us the rocks I had piled as a barrier would come tumbling down about his giant shoulders like a house of cards and that he would walk directly in upon us. Ajor having less knowledge of the effectiveness of firearms than I, and therefore greater confidence in them, entreated me to shoot the beast, but I knew that the chance that I could stop it with a single shot was most remote, while that I should but infuriate it was real and present. And so I waited for what seemed an eternity, watching those devilish points of fire glaring balefully at us, and listening to the ever-increasing volume of those seismic growls which seemed to rumble upward from the bowels of the earth, shaking the very cliffs beneath which we cowered. Until at last I saw that the brute was again approaching the aperture. It availed me nothing that I piled the blaze high with firewood, until Ajor and I were near to roasting. On came that mighty engine of destruction, until once again the hideous face yawned its fanged yawn directly within the barrier's opening. It stood thus a moment, and then the head was withdrawn. I breathed the sigh of relief. The thing had altered its intention, and was going on in search of other and more easily procurable prey. The fire had been too much for it. But my joy was short-lived, and my heart sank once again. As a moment later I saw a mighty paw insinuated into the opening. A paw as large a round as a large dishpan. Very gently the paw toyed with the great rock that partly closed the entrance, pushed and pulled upon it, and then very deliberately drew it outward and to one side. Again came the head, and this time much farther into the cavern. But still the great shoulders would not pass through the opening. Ajor moved closer to me, until her shoulder touched my side, and I thought I felt a slight tremor run through her body. But otherwise she gave no indication of fear. Involuntarily I threw my left arm about her, and drew her to me for an instant. It was an act of reassurance rather than a caress, though I must admit that again, and even in the face of death I thrilled at the contact with her. And then I released her, and threw my rifle to my shoulder, for at last I had reached the conclusion that nothing more could be gained by waiting. My only hope was to get as many shots into the creature as I could before it was upon me. Already it had torn away a second rock, and was in the very act of forcing its huge bulk through the opening it had now made. So now I took careful aim between its eyes. My right fingers closed firmly and evenly upon the small of the stock, drawing back my trigger finger by the muscular action of the hand. The bullet could not fail to hit its mark. I held my breath lest I swerve the muzzle of hair by my breathing. I was as steady and cool as I ever had been upon a target range, and I had the full consciousness of a perfect hit in anticipation. I knew that I could not miss. And then as the bear surged forward toward me, the hammer fell futilely upon an imperfect cartridge. Almost simultaneously I heard from without a perfectly hellish roar the bear gave voice to a series of growls far transcending in volume and ferocity, anything that he had yet assayed, and at the same time back quickly from the cave. For an instant I couldn t understand what had happened to cause this sudden retreat when his prey was practically within his clutches. The idea that the harmless clicking of the hammer had frightened him was too ridiculous to entertain. However, we had not long to wait before we could at least guess at the cause of the diversion. For from without came mingled growls and roars and the sound of great bodies thrashing about until the earth shook. The bear had been attacked in the rear by some other mighty beast, and the two were now locked in a titanic struggle for supremacy. With brief respite, during which we could hear the labored breathing of the contestants, the battle continued for the better part of an hour until the sounds of combat grew gradually less and finally ceased entirely. At Ajor's suggestion, made by signs and a few of the words we knew in common, I moved the fire directly to the entrance to the cave so that a beast would have to pass directly through the flames to reach us, and then we sat and waited for the victor of the battle to come and claim his reward. But though we sat for a long time with our eyes glued to the opening, we saw no sign of any beast. At last I signed to Ajor to lie down, for I knew that she must have sleep, and I sat on guard until nearly morning, when the girl awoke and insisted that I take some rest. Nor would she be denied, but dragged me down as she laughingly menaced me with her knife. End of chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The People 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 People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs Chapter 3 When I awoke it was daylight, and I found Ajor squatting before a fine bed of coals, roasting a large piece of antelope meat. Believe me, the sight of the new day and the delicious odor of the cooking meat filled me with renewed happiness and hope that had been all but expunged by the experience of the previous night, and perhaps the slender figure of the bright-faced girl proved also a potent restorative. She looked up and smiled at me, showing those perfect teeth, and dimpling with evident happiness the most adorable picture that I had ever seen. I recall that it was then I first regretted that she was only a little untutored savage and so far beneath me in the scale of evolution. Her first act was to beckon me to follow her outside, and there she pointed to the explanation of our rescue from the bear, a huge saber-tooth tiger. Its fine coat and its flesh torn to ribbons, lying dead a few paces from our cave, and beside it equally mangled and disemboweled was the carcass of a huge cave bear. To have had one's life saved by a saber-tooth tiger, and in the twentieth century and to the bargain, was an experience that was to say the least unique, but it had happened. I had the proof of it before my eyes. So enormous are the great carnivora of Caspac that they must feed perpetually to support their giant thews, and the result is that they will eat the meat of any other creature, and will attack anything that comes within their ken, no matter how formidable the query. From later observation, I mention this as worthy the attention of paleontologists and naturalists, I came to the conclusion that such creatures as the cave bear, the cave lion, and the saber-tooth tiger, as well as the larger carnivorous reptiles, make ordinarily two kills a day, one in the morning and one after night. They immediately devour the entire carcass after which they lie up and sleep for a few hours. Fortunately their numbers are comparatively few, otherwise there would be no other life within Caspac. It is their very veracity that keeps their numbers down to a point which permits other forms of life to persist, for even in the season of love the great males often turn upon their own mates and devour them, while both males and females occasionally devour their young. How the human and semi-human races have managed to survive during all the countless ages that these conditions must have existed here is quite beyond me. After breakfast, Ajor and I set out once more upon our northward journey. We had gone but a little distance when we were attacked by a number of ape-like creatures armed with clubs. They seemed a little higher in the scale than the Alus. Ajor told me they were Bolu or Clubmen. A revolver shot killed one and scattered the others, but several times later during the day we were menaced by them, until we had left their country and entered that of the Stolu or Hatchetmen. These people were less hairy and more manlike, nor did they appear so anxious to destroy us. Rather they were curious and followed us for some distance, examining us most closely. They called out to us, and Ajor answered them, but her replies did not seem to satisfy them, for they gradually became threatening, and I think they were preparing to attack us when a small deer that had been hiding in some low brush suddenly broke cover and dashed across our front. We needed meat, for it was near one o'clock and I was getting hungry, so I drew my pistol and with a single shot dropped the creature in its tracks. The effect upon the Bolu was electrical. Immediately they abandoned all thoughts of war, and turning scampered for the forest which fringed our path. That night we spent beside a little stream in the Stolu country. We found a tiny cave in the rock bank, so hidden away that only chance could direct a beast of prey to it, and after we had eaten of the deer meat and some fruit which Ajor gathered, we crawled into the little hole and with stakes and stones which I had gathered for the purpose I erected a strong barricade inside the entrance. Nothing could reach us without swimming and wading through the stream, and I felt quite secure from attack. Our quarters were rather cramped. The ceiling was so low that we could not stand up and the floor so narrow that it was with difficulty that we both wedged into it together, but we were very tired and so we made the most of it, and so great was the feeling of security that I am sure I fell asleep as soon as I had stretched myself beside Ajor. During the three days which followed our progress was exasperatingly slow. I doubt if we made ten miles in the entire three days. The country was hideously savage, so that we were forced to spend hours at a time in hiding from one or another of the great beasts which menaced us continually. There were fewer reptiles, but the quantity of carnivora seemed to have increased, and the reptiles that we did see were perfectly gigantic. I shall never forget one enormous specimen which we came upon browsing upon water reeds at the edge of the great sea. It stood well over 12 feet high at the rump, its highest point, and with its enormously long tail and neck it was somewhere between 75 and 100 feet in length. Its head was ridiculously small, its body was unarmored, but its great bulk gave it a most formidable appearance. My experience of Caspacian life led me to believe that the gigantic creature would but have to see us to attack us, and so I raised my rifle, and at the same time drew away toward some brush which offered concealment. But Ajor only laughed, and picking up a stick ran toward the great thing shouting. The little head was raised high upon the long neck as that animal stupidly looked here and there in search of the author of the disturbance. At last its eyes discovered tiny little Ajor, and then she hurled the stick at the diminutive head, with a cry that sounded not unlike the bleat of a sheep the colossal creature shuffled into the water and was soon submerged. As I slowly recalled my collegiate studies and paleontological readings in Bowen's textbooks I realized that I had looked upon nothing less than a diplodocus of the upper Jurassic, but how infinitely different was the true living thing from the crude restorations of Hatcher and Holland. I had had the idea that the diplodocus was a land animal, but evidently it is partially amphibious. I have seen several since my first encounter, and in each case the creature took to the sea for concealment as soon as it was disturbed. With the exception of its gigantic tail it has no weapon of defiance, but with this appendage it can last so terrific a blow as to lay low even a giant cave bear stunned and broken. It is a stupid simple gentle beast, one of the few within Castback which such a description might even remotely fit. For three nights we slept in trees, finding no caves or other places of concealment. Here we were free from the attacks of the large land carnivora, but the smaller flying reptiles, the snakes, leopards, and panthers were a constant menace, though by no means as much to be feared as the huge beast that roamed the surface of the earth. At the close of the third day, Ajor and I were able to converse with considerable fluency, and it was a great relief to both of us, especially to Ajor. She now did nothing but ask questions whenever I would let her, which could not be all the time as our preservation depended largely upon the rapidity with which I could gain knowledge of the geography and customs of Castback, and accordingly I had to ask numerous questions myself. I enjoyed immensely hearing and answering her, so naive were many of her queries and so filled with wonder was she at the things I told her of the world beyond the lofty barriers of Castback, not once did she seem to doubt me, however marvellous my statements must have seemed, and doubtless they were the cause of marvel to Ajor, who before had never dreamed that any life existed beyond Castback and the life she knew. Artless, though many of her questions were, they evidenced a keen intellect and a shrewdness which seemed far beyond her years of her experience. Altogether I was finding my little savage, a mighty interesting and companionable person, and I often thanked the kind fate that directed the crossing of our paths. From her I learned much of Castback, but there still remained the mystery that had proved so baffling to Boh and Tyler, the total absence of young among the ape, the semi-human, and the human races with which both he and I had come in contact upon opposite shores of the inland sea. Ajor tried to explain the matter to me, though it was apparent that she could not conceive how so natural a condition should demand explanation. She told me that among the galloos there were a few babies, that she had once been a baby, but that most of her people came up, as she put it, course vasio, or literally from the beginning. And as they all did, when they used that phrase, she would wave a broad gesture toward the south. For long, she explained, leaning very close to me and whispering the words into my ear while she cast apprehensive glances about and mostly skyward. For long my mother kept me hidden lest the wiru, passing through the air by night, should come and take me away to U'oh, and the child shuddered as she voiced the word. I tried to get her to tell me more, but her terror was so real when she spoke of the wiru and the land of U'oh, where they dwell, that I at last desisted, though I did learn that the wiru carried off only female babes, and occasionally women of the gallows, who had come up from the beginning. It was all very mysterious and unfathomable, but I got the idea that the wiru were creatures of imagination, the demons or gods of her race, omniscient and omnipresent. This led me to assume that the gallows had a religious sense, and further questioning brought out the fact that such was the case. Ageore spoke in tones of reverence of Luatta, the god of heat and life. The word is derived from two others, Luah, meaning sun, and Atta, meaning variously eggs, life, young, and reproduction. She told me that they worshipped Luatta in several forms, as fire, the sun, eggs, and other material objects which suggested heat and reproduction. I had noticed that whenever I built a fire, Ageore outlined in the air before her with a forefinger, and I sussled his triangle, and that she did the same in the morning when she first viewed the sun. At first I had not connected her act with anything in particular, but after we learned to converse, and she had explained a little of her religious superstitions, I realized that she was making the sign of the triangle as a Roman Catholic makes the sign of the cross. Always the short side of the triangle was uppermost. As she explained all this to me, she pointed to the decorations on her golden armlets, upon the knob of her dagger-hilt, and upon the band which encircled her right leg above the knee. Always was the design partly made up of isosceles triangles, and when she explained the significance of this particular geometric figure, I at once grasped its appropriateness. We were now in the country of the band blue, the spearmen of Caspac. Bohan had remarked in his narrative that these people were analogous to the so-called Chromagnon race of the upper Paleolithic, and I was therefore very anxious to see them, nor was I to be disappointed. I saw them all right. We had left the Stolu country and literally fought our way through cordons of wild beasts for two days when we decided to make camp a little earlier than usual, owing to the fact that we had reached a line of cliffs running east and west in which were numerous lightly cave lodgings. We were both very tired, and the sight of these caverns, several of which could be easily barricaded, decided us to halt until the following morning. It took about a few minutes' exploration to discover one particular cavern high up the face of the cliff which seemed ideal for our purpose. It opened upon a narrow ledge where we could build our cook-fire. The opening was so small that we had to lie flat and wriggle through it to gain ingress, while the interior was high-sealed and spacious. I lighted a faggot and looked about, but as far as I could see the chamber ran back into the cliff. Laying aside my rifle, pistol, and the heavy ammunition belt, I left a jar in the cave while I went down to gather firewood. We already had meat and fruits which we had gathered just before reaching the cliffs, and my canteen was filled with fresh water. Therefore all we required was fuel, and as I always saved a joyous strength when I could, I would not permit her to accompany me. The poor girl was very tired, but she would have gone with me until she dropped. I know, so loyal was she. She was the best comrade in the world, and sometimes I regretted and sometimes I was glad that she was not of my own caste, for had she been I should unquestionably have fallen in love with her. As it was, we traveled together like two boys, with huge respect for each other, but no softer sentiment. There was little timber close to the base of the cliffs, and so I was forced to enter the woods some two hundred yards distant. I realize now how foolhardy was my act in such a land as cast back, teeming with danger and with death, but there is a certain amount of fool in every man, and whatever proportion of it I own must have been in the ascendant that day, for the truth of the matter is that I went down into those woods absolutely defenseless, and I paid the price, as people usually do for their indiscretions. As I searched around in the brush for likely pieces of firewood, my head bowed and my eyes upon the ground, I suddenly felt a great weight hurl itself upon me. I struggled to my knees and seized my assailant, a huge naked man, naked except for a breech cloth of snakeskin, the head hanging down to the knees. The fellow was armed with a stone-shod spear, a stone knife and a hatchet. In his black hair were several gay-colored feathers. As we struggled to and fro, I was slowly gaining advantage of him when a score of his fellows came running up and overpowered me. They bound my hands behind me with long, rawhide thongs, and then surveyed me critically. I found them fine-looking specimens of manhood, for the most part. There were some among them who bore a resemblance to the Stolu, and were hairy, but the majority had massive heads and not unlovely features. There was little about them to suggest the ape, as in the Stolu, Bolu, and Alus. I expected them to kill me at once, but they did not. Instead they questioned me, but it was evident that they did not believe my story, for they scoffed and laughed. The gallows have turned you out, they cried. If you go back to them, you will die. If you remain here, you will die. We shall kill you, but first we shall have a dance, and you shall dance with us, the dance of death. It sounded quite reassuring, but I knew that I was not to be killed immediately, and so I took heart. They led me toward the cliffs, and as we approached them I glanced up, and was sure that I saw Ajor's bright eyes spearing down upon us from our lofty cave. But she gave no sign if she saw me, and we passed on, rounded the end of the cliffs, and proceeded along the opposite face of them until we came to a section, literally honeycombed with caves. All about, upon the ground and swarming the ledges before the entrances, were hundreds of members of the tribe. There were many women, but no babes or children, though I noticed that the females had better develop breasts than any that I had seen among the hatchet men, the club men, the aloes, or the apes. In fact, among the lower orders of Caspacian man, the female breast is but a rudimentary organ, barely suggested in the apes and aloes, and only a little more defined in the bolu and stolu, though always increasingly so, until it is found about half developed in the females of the spearman. Yet never was there an indication that the females had suckled young, nor were there any young among them. Some of the bandlue women were quite comely. The figures of all, both men and women, were symmetrical, though heavy, and though there were some who verged strongly upon the stolu type, there were others who were positively handsome and whose bodies were quite hairless. The aloes are all bearded, but among the bolu the beard disappears in the women. The stolu men show a sparse beard, the bandlue none, and there is little hair upon the bodies of their women. The members of the tribe showed great interest in me, especially in my clothing, the like of which, of course, they never had seen. They polled and hauled upon me, and some of them struck me, but for the most part they were not inclined to brutality. It was only the hairier ones who most closely resembled the stolu who maltreated me. At last my captors led me into a great cave in the mouth of which a fire was burning. The floor was lettered with filth, including the bones of many animals, and the atmosphere reeked with the stench of human bodies and putrefying flesh. Here they fed me, releasing my arms, and I ate of half-cooked aurex steak and a stew which may have been made of snakes, for many of the long round pieces of meat suggested them most nauseatingly. The meal completed they led me well within the cavern, which they lighted with torches stuck in various crevices in the light of which I saw, to my astonishment, that the walls were covered with paintings and etchings. There were aurex, red deer, saber-toothed tiger, cave bear, hyenodon, and many other examples of the fauna of castback done in colors, usually of four shades of brown, or scratched upon the surface of the rock. Often they were superimposed upon each other until it required careful examination to trace out the various outlines. But they all showed a rather remarkable aptitude for delineation, which further fortified Bowen's comparisons between these people and the extinct Chromagnons, whose ancient art is still preserved in the caverns of Nile and Les Portaux. The band blue, however, did not have the bow and arrow, and in this respect they differ from their extinct progenitors or descendants of western Europe. Should any of my friends chance to read the story of my adventures upon Caprona, I hope they will not be bored by these diversions, and if they are I can only say that I am writing my memoirs for my own edification, and therefore setting down those things which interested me particularly at the time. I have no desire that the general public should ever have access to these pages, but it is possible that my friends may and also certain savants who are interested, and to them, while I do not apologize for my philosophizing, I humbly explain that they are witnessing the groupings of a finite mind after the infinite, the search for explanations of the inexplicable. In a far recess of the cavern my captors bade me halt. Again my hands were secured, and this time my feet as well. During the operation they questioned me, and I was mighty glad that the marked similarity between the various tribal tongues of Caspac enabled us to understand each other perfectly, even though they were unable to believe or even to comprehend the truth of my origin and the circumstances of my advent in Caspac, and finally they left me saying that they would come for me before the dance of death upon the moral. Before they departed with their torches I saw that I had not been conducted to the farthest extremity of the cavern, for a dark and gloomy corridor led beyond my prison room into the heart of the cliff. I could not but marvel at the immensity of this great underground grotto. Already I had traversed several hundred yards of it, from many points of which other corridors diverged. The whole cliff must be honeycombed with apartments and passages of which this community occupied, but at comparatively small part, so that the possibility of the more remote passages being the lair of savage beasts that have other means of ingress and egress than that used by the bandlew filled me with dire for boardings. I believe that I am not ordinarily hysterically apprehensive, yet I must confess that under the conditions with which I was confronted I felt my nerves to be somewhat shaken. On the moral I was to die some sort of nameless death for the diversion of a savage horde, but the moral held fewer terrors for me than the present, and I submit to any fair-minded man, if it is not a terrifying thing, to like bound hand and foot in the stygian blackness of an immense cave peopled by unknown dangers in a land overrun by hideous beasts and reptiles of the greatest ferocity. At any moment, perhaps, at this very moment some silent-footed beast of prey might catch my scent where it layered in some contiguous passage and might creep stealthily upon me. I crane my neck about and stared through the inky darkness for the twin spots of blazing hate which I knew would herald the coming of my executioner. So real were the imaginings of my overwrought brain that I broke into a cold sweat in absolute conviction that some beast was close before me, yet the hours dragged and no sound broke the grave-like stillness of the cavern. During that period of eternity many events of my life passed before my mental vision, a vast parade of friends and occurrences which would be blotted out forever on the moral. I cursed myself for the foolish act which had taken me from the search-party that so depended upon me and I wondered what progress, if any, they had made. Were they still beyond the barrier-cliffs awaiting my return, or had they found away in the cast-back? I felt that the latter would be the truth, for the party was not made up of men easily turned from a purpose. Quite probable it was that they were already searching for me, but that they would ever find a trace of me, I doubted. Long since I had come to the conclusion that it was beyond human prowess to circle the shores of the inland sea of cast-back in the face of the myriad menaces which lurked in every shadow by day and by night. Long since had I given up any hope of reaching the point where I had made my entry into the country, and so I was now equally convinced that our entire expedition had been worse than futile before ever it was conceived. Since Boan J. Tyler and his wife could not by any possibility have survived during all these long months, no more could Bradley and his party of seamen be yet in existence. If the superior force and equipment of my party enabled them to circle the north end of the sea, they might some day come upon the broken wreck of my plane hanging in the great tree to the south. But long before that my bones would be added to the litter upon the floor of this mighty cavern. And through all my thoughts real and fanciful moved the image of a perfect girl, clear-eyed and strong and straight and beautiful with the carriage of a queen and the supple undulating grace of a leopard. Though I loved my friends, their fate seemed of less importance to me than the fate of this little barbarian stranger for whom I had convinced myself many a time I felt no greater sentiment than passing friendship for a fellow wayfarer in this land of horrors. Yet I so worried and fretted about her and her future that at last I quite forgot my own predicament, though I still struggled intermittently with bonds in vain endeavor to free myself, as much, however, that I might hasten to her protection as that I might escape the fate which had been planned for me. And while I was thus engaged and had for the moment forgotten my apprehensions concerning prowling beasts, I was startled into tense silence by a distinct and unmistakable sound coming from the dark corridor farther toward the heart of the cliff, the sound of padded feet moving stealthily in my direction. I believe that never before in all my life, even amidst the terrors of childhood nights, have I suffered such a sensation of extreme horror as I did that moment in which I realized that I must lie bound and helpless while some horrid beast of prey crept upon me to devour me in that utter darkness of the band-loop pits of Caspac. I reeked with cold sweat and my flesh crawled. I could feel it crawl. If ever I came nearer to abject cowardice, I do not recall the instance. And yet it was not that I was afraid to die, for I had long since given myself up as lost. A few days of Caspac must impress anyone with the utter nothingness of life, the waters, the land, the air, team with it, and always it is being devoured by some other form of life. Life is the cheapest thing in Caspac, as it is the cheapest thing on earth, and doubtless the cheapest cosmic production. No, I was not afraid to die. In fact, I prayed for death, that I might be relieved of the frightfulness of the interval of life which remained to me, the waiting, the awful waiting for that fearsome beast to reach me and to strike. Presently it was so close that I could hear its breathing, and then it touched me and leaped quickly back as though it had come upon me unexpectedly. For long moments no sound broke the sepulcher silence of the cave. Then I heard a movement on the part of the creature near me, and again it touched me, and I felt something like a hairless hand pass over my face and down until it touched the collar of my flannel shirt. And then subdued, but filled with pent-emotion, a boy's cried, Tom, I think I nearly fainted, so great was the reaction. Ajor, I managed to say, Ajor, my girl, can it be you? O Tom, she cried again in a trembling little voice, and flung herself upon me, sobbing softly. I had not known that Ajor could cry. As she cut away my bonds, she told me that from the entrance to our cave she had seen the bandeloo coming out of the forest with me, and she had followed until they took me into the cave, which she had seen was upon the opposite side of the cliff in which ours was located. And then, knowing that she could do nothing for me until after the bandeloo slept, she had hastened to return to our cave. With difficulty she had reached it after having been stalked by a cave lion and almost seized. I trembled at the risk she had run. It had been her intention to wait until after midnight, when most of the carnivora would have made their kills, and then attempt to reach the cave in which I was imprisoned and rescue me. She explained that with my rifle and pistol, both of which she assured me she could use, having watched me so many times, she planned upon frightening the bandeloo and forcing them to give me up. Brave little girl, she would have risked her life willingly to save me. But some time after she reached our cave she heard voices from the far recesses within, and immediately concluded that we had but found another entrance to the caves which the bandeloo occupied upon the other face of the cliff. Then she had set out through those winding passages, and in total darkness had groped her way, guided solely by a marvelous sense of direction to where I lay. She had had to proceed with utmost caution lest she fall into some abyss in the darkness, and in truth she had thrice come upon sheer drops, and had been forced to take the most frightful risk to pass them. I shudder even now as I contemplate what this girl passed through for my sake, and how she enhanced her peril in loading herself down with the weight of my arms and ammunition and the awkwardness of the long rifle which she was unaccustomed to bearing. I could have knelt and kissed her hand in reverence and gratitude, nor am I ashamed to say that this is precisely what I did after I had been freed from my bonds and heard the story of her trials. Brave little ageor, wonder girl out of the dim unthinkable past. Never before had she been kissed, but she seemed to sense something of the meaning of the new caress, for she leaned forward in the dark and pressed her own lips to my forehead. A sudden urge surged through me to seize her and strain her to my bosom, and cover her hot young lips with the kisses of a real love. But I did not do so, for I knew that I did not love her, and to have kissed her thus with passion would have been to inflict a great wrong upon her who had offered her life for mine. No ageor should be as safe with me as with her own mother, if she had one, which I was inclined to doubt even though she told me that she had once been a babe and hidden by her mother. I had come to doubt if there was such a thing as a mother in Caspac, a mother such as we know. From the bolu to the krolu there is no word which corresponds with our word mother. They speak of ata, or korsva-jo, meaning reproduction, and from the beginning, and point toward the south, but no one has a mother. After considerable difficulty we gained what we thought was our cave, only to find that it was not, and then we realized that we were lost in the labyrinthine mazes of the great cavern. We retraced our steps and sought the point from which we had started, but only succeeded in losing ourselves the more. Ageor was aghast, not so much from fear of our predicament, but that she should have failed in the functioning of that wonderful sense she possessed in common with most other creatures Caspacian, which makes it possible for them to move unerringly from place to place without compass or guide. Hand in hand we crept along, searching for an opening into the outer world, yet realizing that at each step we might be burrowing more deeply into the heart of the great cliff, or circling futilely in the vague wandering that could end only in death, and the darkness it was almost palpable and utterly depressing. I had matches, and in some of the more difficult places I struck one, but we couldn't afford to waste them, and so we groped our way slowly along, doing the best we could to keep to one general direction in the hope that it would eventually lead us to an opening into the outer world. When I struck matches I noticed that the walls bore no paintings, nor was there other sign that man had penetrated this far within the cliff, nor any spore of animals of other kinds. It would be difficult to guess at the time we spent wandering through those black corridors, climbing steeper scents, feeling our way along the edges of bottomless pits, never knowing at what moment we might be plunged into some abyss, and always haunted by the ever-present terror of death by starvation and thirst. As difficult as it was I still realized that it might have been infinitely worse had I had another companion than Ajor, courageous, uncomplaining, loyal little Ajor. She was tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and she must have been discouraged, but she never faltered in her cheerfulness. I asked her if she was afraid, and she replied that here the Wiru could not get her, and that if she died of hunger she would at least die with me, and she was quite content that such should be her end. At the time I attributed her attitude to something akin to a dog-like devotion to a new master who had been kind to her. I can take oath to the fact that I did not think it was anything more. Whether we had been imprisoned in the cliff for a day or a week I could not say, nor even now do I know. We became very tired and hungry. The hours dragged. We slept at least twice, and then we rose and stumbled on, always weaker and weaker. There were ages during which the trend of the corridor was always upward. It was heartbreaking work for people in the state of exhaustion in which we then were, but we clung tenaciously to it. We stumbled and fell. We sank through pure physical inability to retain our feet, but always we managed to rise at last and go on. At first, wherever it had been possible, we had walked hand in hand lest we become separated, and later when I saw that Ajor was weakening rapidly, we went side by side, I supporting her with an arm about her waist. I still retained the heavy burden of my armament, but with the rifles slung to my back, my hands were free. When I too showed indisputable evidences of exhaustion, Ajor suggested that I lay aside my arms in ammunition, but I told her that as it would mean certain death for me to traverse task-back without them I might as well take the chance of dying here in the cave with them, for there was the other chance that we might find our way to liberty. There came a time when Ajor could no longer walk, and then it was that I picked her up in my arms and carried her. She begged me to leave her, saying that after I found an exit I could come back and get her, but she knew, and she knew that I knew that if I ever did leave her I could never find her again. Yet she insisted. Barely had I sufficient strength to take a score of steps at a time, then I would have to sink down and rest for five to ten minutes. I don't know what force urged me on and kept me going in the face of an absolute conviction that my efforts were utterly futile. I counted us already as good as dead, but still I dragged myself along until the time came that I could no longer rise, but could only crawl along a few inches at a time, dragging Ajor beside me. Her sweet voice, now almost inaudible from weakness, implored me to abandon her and save myself. She seemed to think only of me. Of course I couldn't have left her there alone, no matter how much I might have desired to do so, but the fact of the matter was that I didn't desire to leave her. What I said to her then came very simply and naturally to my depths. It couldn't very well have been otherwise, I imagine, for with death so close I doubt if people are much inclined to heroics. I would rather not get out at all, Ajor, I said to her, than to get out without you. We were resting against a rocky wall, and Ajor was leaning against me, her head on my breast. I could feel her press closer to me, and one hand stroked my arm in a weak caress, but she didn't say anything, nor were words necessary. After a few minutes more rest we started on again upon our utterly hopeless way, but I soon realized that I was weakening rapidly, and presently I was forced to admit that I was through. It's no use, Ajor, I said. I've come as far as I can. It may be that if I sleep I can go on again after. But I knew that that was not true, and that the end was near. Yes, sleep, said Ajor, we will sleep together forever. She crept close to me as I lay on the hard floor, and pillowed her head upon my arm. With the little strength which remained to me, I drew her up until our lips touched, and then I whispered, Goodbye. I must have lost consciousness almost immediately, for I recall nothing more until I suddenly awoke out of a troubled sleep, during which I dreamed that I was drowning, to find the cave lighted by what appeared to be diffused daylight, and a tiny trickle of water running down the corridor, and forming a puddle in the little depression in which a chance that Ajor and I lay. I turned my eyes quickly upon Ajor, fearful for what the light might disclose, but she still breathed, though very faintly. Then I searched about for an explanation of the light, and soon discovered that it came from about a bend in the corridor just ahead of us, and at the top of a steep incline. And instantly I realized that Ajor and I had stumbled by night almost to the portal of salvation. Had chance taken us a few yards further up either of the corridors which diverged from ours just ahead of us, we might have been irrevocably lost. We might still be lost, but at least we could die in the light of day, out of the horrid blackness of this terrible cave. I tried to rise and found that sleep had given me back a portion of my strength, and then I tasted the water and was further refreshed. I shook Ajor gently by the shoulder, but she did not open her eyes, and then I gathered a few drops of water in my cupped palm and let them trickle between her lips. This revived her so that she raised her lids, and when she saw me she smiled. What happened, she asked, where are we? We are at the end of the corridor, I replied, and daylight is coming in from the outside world just ahead. We are saved, Ajor. She sat up then and looked about, and then quite womanlike she burst into tears. It was the reaction, of course, and then too she was very weak. I took her in my arms and quieted her as best I could, and finally with my help she got to her feet, for she, as well as I, had found some slight recuperation in sleep. Together we staggered upward toward the light, and at the first turn we saw an opening a few yards ahead of us and a leaden sky beyond, a leaden sky from which was falling a drizzling rain, the author of our little trickling stream which had given us drink when we were most in need of it. The cave had been damp and cold, but as we crawled through the aperture the muggy warmth of the Kaspakian air caressed and confronted us. Even the rain was warmer than the atmosphere of those dark corridors. We had water now, and warmth, and I was sure that Kaspak would soon offer us meat or fruit, but as we came to where we could look about we saw that we were upon the summit of the cliffs where there seemed little reason to expect gain. However, there were trees, and among them we soon described edible fruits with which we broke our long fast.