The Land That Time Forgot

Published：2026-07-29 23:26:33 Source: adventure playsets for 6 year olds under 30 dollars Author: Karaoke Toys

The gift wooden puzzles for 10 year oldsLand that Time Forgot

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

It must have been a little after three o’clock in the afternoon that ithappened—the afternoon of June 3rd, 1916. It seems incredible that all that Ihave passed through—all those weird and terrifying experiences—should have beenencompassed within so short a span as three brief months. Rather might I haveexperienced a cosmic cycle, with all its changes and evolutions for that whichI have seen with my own eyes in this brief interval of time—things that noother mortal eye had seen before, glimpses of a world past, a world dead, aworld so long dead that even in the lowest Cambrian stratum no trace of itremains. Fused with the melting inner crust, it has passed forever beyond theken of man other than in that lost pocket of the earth whither fate has borneme and where my doom is sealed. I am here and here must remain.

After reading this far, my interest, which already had been stimulated by thefinding of the manuscript, was approaching the boiling-point. I had come toGreenland for the summer, on the advice of my physician, and was slowly beingbored to extinction, as I had thoughtlessly neglected to bring sufficientreading-matter. Being an indifferent fisherman, my enthusiasm for this form ofsport soon waned; yet in the absence of other forms of recreation I was nowrisking my life in an entirely inadequate boat off Cape Farewell at thesouthernmost extremity of Greenland.

Greenland! As a descriptive appellation, it is a sorry joke—but my story hasnothing to do with Greenland, nothing to do with me; so I shall get throughwith the one and the other as rapidly as possible.

The inadequate boat finally arrived at a precarious landing, the natives,waist-deep in the surf, assisting. I was carried ashore, and while the eveningmeal was being prepared, I wandered to and fro along the rocky, shatteredshore. Bits of surf-harried beach clove the worn granite, or whatever the rocksof Cape Farewell may be composed of, and as I followed the ebbing tide down oneof these soft stretches, I saw the thing. Were one to bump into a Bengal tigerin the ravine behind the Bimini Baths, one could be no more surprised than wasI to see a perfectly good quart thermos bottle turning and twisting in the surfof Cape Farewell at the southern extremity of Greenland. I rescued it, but Iwas soaked above the knees doing it; and then I sat down in the sand and openedit, and in the long twilight read the manuscript, neatly written and tightlyfolded, which was its contents.

You have read the opening paragraph, and if you are an imaginative idiot likemyself, you will want to read the rest of it; so I shall give it to you here,omitting quotation marks—which are difficult of remembrance. In two minutes youwill forget me.

My home is in Santa Monica. I am, or was, junior member of my father’s firm. Weare ship-builders. Of recent years we have specialized on submarines, which wehave built for Germany, England, France and the United States. I know a sub asa mother knows her baby’s face, and have commanded a score of them on theirtrial runs. Yet my inclinations were all toward aviation. I graduated underCurtiss, and after a long siege with my father obtained his permission to tryfor the Lafayette Escadrille. As a stepping-stone I obtained an appointment inthe American ambulance service and was on my way to France when three shrillwhistles altered, in as many seconds, my entire scheme of life.

I was sitting on deck with some of the fellows who were going into the Americanambulance service with me, my Airedale, Crown Prince Nobbler, asleep at myfeet, when the first blast of the whistle shattered the peace and security ofthe ship. Ever since entering the U-boat zone we had been on the lookout forperiscopes, and children that we were, bemoaning the unkind fate that was tosee us safely into France on the morrow without a glimpse of the dreadmarauders. We were young; we craved thrills, and God knows we got them thatday; yet by comparison with that through which I have since passed they were astame as a Punch-and-Judy show.

I shall never forget the ashy faces of the passengers as they stampeded fortheir life-belts, though there was no panic. Nobs rose with a low growl. Irose, also, and over the ship’s side, I saw not two hundred yards distant theperiscope of a submarine, while racing toward the liner the wake of a torpedowas distinctly visible. We were aboard an American ship—which, of course, wasnot armed. We were entirely defenseless; yet without warning, we were beingtorpedoed.

I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo. It struck uson the starboard side almost amidships. The vessel rocked as though the seabeneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano. We were thrown to the decks,bruised and stunned, and then above the ship, carrying with it fragments ofsteel and wood and dismembered human bodies, rose a column of water hundreds offeet into the air.

The silence which followed the detonation of the exploding torpedo was almostequally horrifying. It lasted for perhaps two seconds, to be followed by thescreams and moans of the wounded, the cursing of the men and the hoarsecommands of the ship’s officers. They were splendid—they and their crew. Neverbefore had I been so proud of my nationality as I was that moment. In all thechaos which followed the torpedoing of the liner no officer or member of thecrew lost his head or showed in the slightest any degree of panic or fear.

While we were attempting to lower boats, the submarine emerged and trained gunson us. The officer in command ordered us to lower our flag, but this thecaptain of the liner refused to do. The ship was listing frightfully tostarboard, rendering the port boats useless, while half the starboard boats hadbeen demolished by the explosion. Even while the passengers were crowding thestarboard rail and scrambling into the few boats left to us, the submarinecommenced shelling the ship. I saw one shell burst in a group of women andchildren, and then I turned my head and covered my eyes.

When I looked again to horror was added chagrin, for with the emerging of theU-boat I had recognized her as a product of our own shipyard. I knew her to arivet. I had superintended her construction. I had sat in that veryconning-tower and directed the efforts of the sweating crew below when firsther prow clove the sunny summer waters of the Pacific; and now this creature ofmy brain and hand had turned Frankenstein, bent upon pursuing me to mydeath.

A second shell exploded upon the deck. One of the lifeboats, frightfullyovercrowded, swung at a dangerous angle from its davits. A fragment of theshell shattered the bow tackle, and I saw the women and children and the menvomited into the sea beneath, while the boat dangled stern up for a moment fromits single davit, and at last with increasing momentum dived into the midst ofthe struggling victims screaming upon the face of the waters.

Now I saw men spring to the rail and leap into the ocean. The deck was tiltingto an impossible angle. Nobs braced himself with all four feet to keep fromslipping into the scuppers and looked up into my face with a questioning whine.I stooped and stroked his head.

“Come on, boy!” I cried, and running to the side of the ship, divedheadforemost over the rail. When I came up, the first thing I saw was Nobsswimming about in a bewildered sort of way a few yards from me. At sight of mehis ears went flat, and his lips parted in a characteristic grin.

The submarine was withdrawing toward the north, but all the time it wasshelling the open boats, three of them, loaded to the gunwales with survivors.Fortunately the small boats presented a rather poor target, which, combinedwith the bad marksmanship of the Germans preserved their occupants from harm;and after a few minutes a blotch of smoke appeared upon the eastern horizon andthe U-boat submerged and disappeared.

All the time the lifeboats had been pulling away from the danger of the sinkingliner, and now, though I yelled at the top of my lungs, they either did nothear my appeals for help or else did not dare return to succor me. Nobs and Ihad gained some little distance from the ship when it rolled completely overand sank. We were caught in the suction only enough to be drawn backward a fewyards, neither of us being carried beneath the surface. I glanced hurriedlyabout for something to which to cling. My eyes were directed toward the pointat which the liner had disappeared when there came from the depths of the oceanthe muffled reverberation of an explosion, and almost simultaneously a geyserof water in which were shattered lifeboats, human bodies, steam, coal, oil, andthe flotsam of a liner’s deck leaped high above the surface of the sea—a waterycolumn momentarily marking the grave of another ship in this greatest cemeteryof the seas.

When the turbulent waters had somewhat subsided and the sea had ceased to spewup wreckage, I ventured to swim back in search of something substantial enoughto support my weight and that of Nobs as well. I had gotten well over the areaof the wreck when not a half-dozen yards ahead of me a lifeboat shot bowforemost out of the ocean almost its entire length to flop down upon its keelwith a mighty splash. It must have been carried far below, held to its mothership by a single rope which finally parted to the enormous strain put upon it.In no other way can I account for its having leaped so far out of the water—abeneficent circumstance to which I doubtless owe my life, and that of anotherfar dearer to me than my own. I say beneficent circumstance even in the face ofthe fact that a fate far more hideous confronts us than that which we escapedthat day; for because of that circumstance I have met her whom otherwise Inever should have known; I have met and loved her. At least I have had thatgreat happiness in life; nor can Caspak, with all her horrors, expunge thatwhich has been.

So for the thousandth time I thank the strange fate which sent that lifeboathurtling upward from the green pit of destruction to which it had beendragged—sent it far up above the surface, emptying its water as it rose abovethe waves, and dropping it upon the surface of the sea, buoyant and safe.

It did not take me long to clamber over its side and drag Nobs in tocomparative safety, and then I glanced around upon the scene of death anddesolation which surrounded us. The sea was littered with wreckage among whichfloated the pitiful forms of women and children, buoyed up by their uselesslifebelts. Some were torn and mangled; others lay rolling quietly to the motionof the sea, their countenances composed and peaceful; others were set inhideous lines of agony or horror. Close to the boat’s side floated the figureof a girl. Her face was turned upward, held above the surface by her life-belt,and was framed in a floating mass of dark and waving hair. She was verybeautiful. I had never looked upon such perfect features, such a divine moldingwhich was at the same time human—intensely human. It was a face filled withcharacter and strength and femininity—the face of one who was created to loveand to be loved. The cheeks were flushed to the hue of life and health andvitality, and yet she lay there upon the bosom of the sea, dead. I feltsomething rise in my throat as I looked down upon that radiant vision, and Iswore that I should live to avenge her murder.

And then I let my eyes drop once more to the face upon the water, and what Isaw nearly tumbled me backward into the sea, for the eyes in the dead face hadopened; the lips had parted; and one hand was raised toward me in a mute appealfor succor. She lived! She was not dead! I leaned over the boat’s side and drewher quickly in to the comparative safety which God had given me. I removed herlife-belt and my soggy coat and made a pillow for her head. I chafed her handsand arms and feet. I worked over her for an hour, and at last I was rewarded bya deep sigh, and again those great eyes opened and looked into mine.

At that I was all embarrassment. I have never been a ladies’ man; atLeland-Stanford I was the butt of the class because of my hopeless imbecilityin the presence of a pretty girl; but the men liked me, nevertheless. I wasrubbing one of her hands when she opened her eyes, and I dropped it as thoughit were a red-hot rivet. Those eyes took me in slowly from head to foot; thenthey wandered slowly around the horizon marked by the rising and fallinggunwales of the lifeboat. They looked at Nobs and softened, and then came backto me filled with questioning.

“I—I—” I stammered, moving away and stumbling over the next thwart. The visionsmiled wanly.

“Aye-aye, sir!” she replied faintly, and again her lips drooped, and her longlashes swept the firm, fair texture of her skin.

“I hope that you are feeling better,” I finally managed to say.

“Do you know,” she said after a moment of silence, “I have been awake for along time! But I did not dare open my eyes. I thought I must be dead, and I wasafraid to look, for fear that I should see nothing but blackness about me. I amafraid to die! Tell me what happened after the ship went down. I remember allthat happened before—oh, but I wish that I might forget it!” A sob broke hervoice. “The beasts!” she went on after a moment. “And to think that I was tohave married one of them—a lieutenant in the German navy.”

Presently she resumed as though she had not ceased speaking. “I went down anddown and down. I thought I should never cease to sink. I felt no particulardistress until I suddenly started upward at ever-increasing velocity; then mylungs seemed about to burst, and I must have lost consciousness, for I remembernothing more until I opened my eyes after listening to a torrent of invectiveagainst Germany and Germans. Tell me, please, all that happened after the shipsank.”

I told her, then, as well as I could, all that I had seen—the submarineshelling the open boats and all the rest of it. She thought it marvelous thatwe should have been spared in so providential a manner, and I had a prettyspeech upon my tongue’s end, but lacked the nerve to deliver it. Nobs had comeover and nosed his muzzle into her lap, and she stroked his ugly face, and atlast she leaned over and put her cheek against his forehead. I have alwaysadmired Nobs; but this was the first time that it had ever occurred to me thatI might wish to be Nobs. I wondered how he would take it, for he is as unusedto women as I. But he took to it as a duck takes to water. What I lack of beinga ladies’ man, Nobs certainly makes up for as a ladies’ dog. The old scalawagjust closed his eyes and put on one of the softest“sugar-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth” expressions you ever saw and stood theretaking it and asking for more. It made me jealous.

“You seem fond of dogs,” I said.

“I am fond of this dog,” she replied.

Whether she meant anything personal in that reply I did not know; but I took itas personal and it made me feel mighty good.

As we drifted about upon that vast expanse of loneliness it is not strange thatwe should quickly become well acquainted. Constantly we scanned the horizon forsigns of smoke, venturing guesses as to our chances of rescue; but darknesssettled, and the black night enveloped us without ever the sight of a speckupon the waters.

We were thirsty, hungry, uncomfortable, and cold. Our wet garments had driedbut little and I knew that the girl must be in grave danger from the exposureto a night of cold and wet upon the water in an open boat, without sufficientclothing and no food. I had managed to bail all the water out of the boat withcupped hands, ending by mopping the balance up with my handkerchief—a slow andback-breaking procedure; thus I had made a comparatively dry place for the girlto lie down low in the bottom of the boat, where the sides would protect herfrom the night wind, and when at last she did so, almost overcome as she was byweakness and fatigue, I threw my wet coat over her further to thwart the chill.But it was of no avail; as I sat watching her, the moonlight marking out thegraceful curves of her slender young body, I saw her shiver.

“Isn’t there something I can do?” I asked. “You can’t lie there chilled throughall night. Can’t you suggest something?”

She shook her head. “We must grin and bear it,” she replied after a moment.

Nobbler came and lay down on the thwart beside me, his back against my leg, andI sat staring in dumb misery at the girl, knowing in my heart of hearts thatshe might die before morning came, for what with the shock and exposure, shehad already gone through enough to kill almost any woman. And as I gazed downat her, so small and delicate and helpless, there was born slowly within mybreast a new emotion. It had never been there before; now it will never ceaseto be there. It made me almost frantic in my desire to find some way to keepwarm the cooling lifeblood in her veins. I was cold myself, though I had almostforgotten it until Nobbler moved and I felt a new sensation of cold along myleg against which he had lain, and suddenly realized that in that one spot Ihad been warm. Like a great light came the understanding of a means to warm thegirl. Immediately I knelt beside her to put my scheme into practice whensuddenly I was overwhelmed with embarrassment. Would she permit it, even if Icould muster the courage to suggest it? Then I saw her frame convulse,shudderingly, her muscles reacting to her rapidly lowering temperature, andcasting prudery to the winds, I threw myself down beside her and took her in myarms, pressing her body close to mine.

She drew away suddenly, voicing a little cry of fright, and tried to push mefrom her.

“Forgive me,” I managed to stammer. “It is the only way. You will die ofexposure if you are not warmed, and Nobs and I are the only means we cancommand for furnishing warmth.” And I held her tightly while I called Nobs andbade him lie down at her back. The girl didn’t struggle any more when shelearned my purpose; but she gave two or three little gasps, and then began tocry softly, burying her face on my arm, and thus she fell asleep.

Chapter 2

Toward morning, I must have dozed, though it seemed to me at the time that Ihad lain awake for days, instead of hours. When I finally opened my eyes, itwas daylight, and the girl’s hair was in my face, and she was breathingnormally. I thanked God for that. She had turned her head during the night sothat as I opened my eyes I saw her face not an inch from mine, my lips almosttouching hers.

It was Nobs who finally awoke her. He got up, stretched, turned around a fewtimes and lay down again, and the girl opened her eyes and looked into mine.Hers went very wide at first, and then slowly comprehension came to her, andshe smiled.

“You have been very good to me,” she said, as I helped her to rise, though ifthe truth were known I was more in need of assistance than she; the circulationall along my left side seeming to be paralyzed entirely. “You have been verygood to me.” And that was the only mention she ever made of it; yet I know thatshe was thankful and that only reserve prevented her from referring to what, tosay the least, was an embarrassing situation, however unavoidable.

Shortly after daylight we saw smoke apparently coming straight toward us, andafter a time we made out the squat lines of a tug—one of those fearlessexponents of England’s supremacy of the sea that tows sailing ships into Frenchand English ports. I stood up on a thwart and waved my soggy coat above myhead. Nobs stood upon another and barked. The girl sat at my feet straining hereyes toward the deck of the oncoming boat. “They see us,” she said at last.“There is a man answering your signal.” She was right. A lump came into mythroat—for her sake rather than for mine. She was saved, and none too soon. Shecould not have lived through another night upon the Channel; she might not havelived through the coming day.

The tug came close beside us, and a man on deck threw us a rope. Willing handsdragged us to the deck, Nobs scrambling nimbly aboard without assistance. Therough men were gentle as mothers with the girl. Plying us both with questionsthey hustled her to the captain’s cabin and me to the boiler-room. They toldthe girl to take off her wet clothes and throw them outside the door that theymight be dried, and then to slip into the captain’s bunk and get warm. Theydidn’t have to tell me to strip after I once got into the warmth of theboiler-room. In a jiffy, my clothes hung about where they might dry mostquickly, and I myself was absorbing, through every pore, the welcome heat ofthe stifling compartment. They brought us hot soup and coffee, and then thosewho were not on duty sat around and helped me damn the Kaiser and his brood.

As soon as our clothes were dry, they bade us don them, as the chances werealways more than fair in those waters that we should run into trouble with theenemy, as I was only too well aware. What with the warmth and the feeling ofsafety for the girl, and the knowledge that a little rest and food wouldquickly overcome the effects of her experiences of the past dismal hours, I wasfeeling more content than I had experienced since those three whistle-blastshad shattered the peace of my world the previous afternoon.

But peace upon the Channel has been but a transitory thing since August, 1914.It proved itself such that morning, for I had scarce gotten into my dry clothesand taken the girl’s apparel to the captain’s cabin when an order was shouteddown into the engine-room for full speed ahead, and an instant later I heardthe dull boom of a gun. In a moment I was up on deck to see an enemy submarineabout two hundred yards off our port bow. She had signaled us to stop, and ourskipper had ignored the order; but now she had her gun trained on us, and thesecond shot grazed the cabin, warning the belligerent tug-captain that it wastime to obey. Once again an order went down to the engine-room, and the tugreduced speed. The U-boat ceased firing and ordered the tug to come about andapproach. Our momentum had carried us a little beyond the enemy craft, but wewere turning now on the arc of a circle that would bring us alongside her. As Istood watching the maneuver and wondering what was to become of us, I feltsomething touch my elbow and turned to see the girl standing at my side. Shelooked up into my face with a rueful expression. “They seem bent on ourdestruction,” she said, “and it looks like the same boat that sunk usyesterday.”

“It is,” I replied. “I know her well. I helped design her and took her out onher first run.”

The girl drew back from me with a little exclamation of surprise anddisappointment. “I thought you were an American,” she said. “I had no idea youwere a—a—”

“Nor am I,” I replied. “Americans have been building submarines for all nationsfor many years. I wish, though, that we had gone bankrupt, my father and I,before ever we turned out that Frankensteinof a thing.”

We were approaching the U-boat at half speed now, and I could almostdistinguish the features of the men upon her deck. A sailor stepped to my sideand slipped something hard and cold into my hand. I did not have to look at itto know that it was a heavy pistol. “Tyke ’er an’ use ’er,” was all he said.

Our bow was pointed straight toward the U-boat now as I heard word passed tothe engine for full speed ahead. I instantly grasped the brazen effrontery ofthe plucky English skipper—he was going to ram five hundreds tons of U-boat inthe face of her trained gun. I could scarce repress a cheer. At first theboches didn’t seem to grasp his intention. Evidently they thought they werewitnessing an exhibition of poor seamanship, and they yelled their warnings tothe tug to reduce speed and throw the helm hard to port.

We were within fifty feet of them when they awakened to the intentional menaceof our maneuver. Their gun crew was off its guard; but they sprang to theirpiece now and sent a futile shell above our heads. Nobs leaped about and barkedfuriously. “Let ’em have it!” commanded the tug-captain, and instantlyrevolvers and rifles poured bullets upon the deck of the submersible. Two ofthe gun-crew went down; the other trained their piece at the water-line of theoncoming tug. The balance of those on deck replied to our small-arms fire,directing their efforts toward the man at our wheel.

I hastily pushed the girl down the companionway leading to the engine-room, andthen I raised my pistol and fired my first shot at a boche. What happened inthe next few seconds happened so quickly that details are rather blurred in mymemory. I saw the helmsman lunge forward upon the wheel, pulling the helmaround so that the tug sheered off quickly from her course, and I recallrealizing that all our efforts were to be in vain, because of all the menaboard, Fate had decreed that this one should fall first to an enemy bullet. Isaw the depleted gun-crew on the submarine fire their piece and I felt theshock of impact and heard the loud explosion as the shell struck and explodedin our bows.

I saw and realized these things even as I was leaping into the pilot-house andgrasping the wheel, standing astride the dead body of the helmsman. With all mystrength I threw the helm to starboard; but it was too late to effect thepurpose of our skipper. The best I did was to scrape alongside the sub. I heardsomeone shriek an order into the engine-room; the boat shuddered and trembledto the sudden reversing of the engines, and our speed quickly lessened. Then Isaw what that madman of a skipper planned since his first scheme had gonewrong.

With a loud-yelled command, he leaped to the slippery deck of the submersible,and at his heels came his hardy crew. I sprang from the pilot-house andfollowed, not to be left out in the cold when it came to strafing the boches.From the engine room companionway came the engineer and stockers, and togetherwe leaped after the balance of the crew and into the hand-to-hand fight thatwas covering the wet deck with red blood. Beside me came Nobs, silent now, andgrim. Germans were emerging from the open hatch to take part in the battle ondeck. At first the pistols cracked amidst the cursing of the men and the loudcommands of the commander and his junior; but presently we were tooindiscriminately mixed to make it safe to use our firearms, and the battleresolved itself into a hand-to-hand struggle for possession of the deck.

The sole aim of each of us was to hurl one of the opposing force into the sea.I shall never forget the hideous expression upon the face of the great Prussianwith whom chance confronted me. He lowered his head and rushed at me, bellowinglike a bull. With a quick side-step and ducking low beneath his outstretchedarms, I eluded him; and as he turned to come back at me, I landed a blow uponhis chin which sent him spinning toward the edge of the deck. I saw his wildendeavors to regain his equilibrium; I saw him reel drunkenly for an instantupon the brink of eternity and then, with a loud scream, slip into the sea. Atthe same instant a pair of giant arms encircled me from behind and lifted meentirely off my feet. Kick and squirm as I would, I could neither turn towardmy antagonist nor free myself from his maniacal grasp. Relentlessly he wasrushing me toward the side of the vessel and death. There was none to stay him,for each of my companions was more than occupied by from one to three of theenemy. For an instant I was fearful for myself, and then I saw that whichfilled me with a far greater terror for another.

My boche was bearing me toward the side of the submarine against which the tugwas still pounding. That I should be ground to death between the two was lostupon me as I saw the girl standing alone upon the tug’s deck, as I saw thestern high in air and the bow rapidly settling for the final dive, as I sawdeath from which I could not save her clutching at the skirts of the woman Inow knew all too well that I loved.

I had perhaps the fraction of a second longer to live when I heard an angrygrowl behind us mingle with a cry of pain and rage from the giant who carriedme. Instantly he went backward to the deck, and as he did so he threw his armsoutwards to save himself, freeing me. I fell heavily upon him, but was upon myfeet in the instant. As I arose, I cast a single glance at my opponent. Neveragain would he menace me or another, for Nob’s great jaws had closed upon histhroat. Then I sprang toward the edge of the deck closest to the girl upon thesinking tug.

“Jump!” I cried. “Jump!” And I held out my arms to her. Instantly as thoughwith implicit confidence in my ability to save her, she leaped over the side ofthe tug onto the sloping, slippery side of the U-boat. I reached far over toseize her hand. At the same instant the tug pointed its stern straight towardthe sky and plunged out of sight. My hand missed the girl’s by a fraction of aninch, and I saw her slip into the sea; but scarce had she touched the waterwhen I was in after her.

The sinking tug drew us far below the surface; but I had seized her the momentI struck the water, and so we went down together, and together we came up—a fewyards from the U-boat. The first thing I heard was Nobs barking furiously;evidently he had missed me and was searching. A single glance at the vessel’sdeck assured me that the battle was over and that we had been victorious, for Isaw our survivors holding a handful of the enemy at pistol points while one byone the rest of the crew was coming out of the craft’s interior and lining upon deck with the other prisoners.

As I swam toward the submarine with the girl, Nobs’ persistent barkingattracted the attention of some of the tug’s crew, so that as soon as wereached the side there were hands to help us aboard. I asked the girl if shewas hurt, but she assured me that she was none the worse for this secondwetting; nor did she seem to suffer any from shock. I was to learn for myselfthat this slender and seemingly delicate creature possessed the heart andcourage of a warrior.

As we joined our own party, I found the tug’s mate checking up our survivors.There were ten of us left, not including the girl. Our brave skipper wasmissing, as were eight others. There had been nineteen of us in the attackingparty and we had accounted in one way and another during the battle for sixteenGermans and had taken nine prisoners, including the commander. His lieutenanthad been killed.

“Not a bad day’s work,” said Bradley, the mate, when he had completed his roll.“Only losing the skipper,” he added, “was the worst. He was a fine man, a fineman.”

Olson—who in spite of his name was Irish, and in spite of his not being Scotchhad been the tug’s engineer—was standing with Bradley and me. “Yis,” he agreed,“it’s a day’s wor-rk we’re after doin’, but what are we goin’ to be doin’ widit now we got it?”

“We’ll run her into the nearest English port,” said Bradley, “and then we’llall go ashore and get our V. C.’s,” he concluded, laughing.

“How you goin’ to run her?” queried Olson. “You can’t trust these Dutchmen.”

Bradley scratched his head. “I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “And I don’tknow the first thing about a sub.”

“I do,” I assured him. “I know more about this particular sub than the officerwho commanded her.”

Both men looked at me in astonishment, and then I had to explain all over againas I had explained to the girl. Bradley and Olson were delighted. Immediately Iwas put in command, and the first thing I did was to go below with Olson andinspect the craft thoroughly for hidden boches and damaged machinery. Therewere no Germans below, and everything was intact and in ship-shape workingorder. I then ordered all hands below except one man who was to act as lookout.Questioning the Germans, I found that all except the commander were willing toresume their posts and aid in bringing the vessel into an English port. Ibelieve that they were relieved at the prospect of being detained at acomfortable English prison-camp for the duration of the war after the perilsand privations through which they had passed. The officer, however, assured methat he would never be a party to the capture of his vessel.

There was, therefore, nothing to do but put the man in irons. As we werepreparing to put this decision into force, the girl descended from the deck. Itwas the first time that she or the German officer had seen each other’s facessince we had boarded the U-boat. I was assisting the girl down the ladder andstill retained a hold upon her arm—possibly after such support was no longernecessary—when she turned and looked squarely into the face of the German. Eachvoiced a sudden exclamation of surprise and dismay.

“Lys!” he cried, and took a step toward her.

The girl’s eyes went wide, and slowly filled with a great horror, as she shrankback. Then her slender figure stiffened to the erectness of a soldier, and withchin in air and without a word she turned her back upon the officer.

“Take him away,” I directed the two men who guarded him, “and put him inirons.”

When he had gone, the girl raised her eyes to mine. “He is the German of whom Ispoke,” she said. “He is Baron von Schoenvorts.”

I merely inclined my head. She had loved him! I wondered if in her heart ofhearts she did not love him yet. Immediately I became insanely jealous. I hatedBaron Friedrich von Schoenvorts with such utter intensity that the emotionthrilled me with a species of exaltation.

But I didn’t have much chance to enjoy my hatred then, for almost immediatelythe lookout poked his face over the hatchway and bawled down that there wassmoke on the horizon, dead ahead. Immediately I went on deck to investigate,and Bradley came with me.

“If she’s friendly,” he said, “we’ll speak her. If she’s not, we’ll sinkher—eh, captain?”

“Yes, lieutenant,” I replied, and it was his turn to smile.

We hoisted the Union Jack and remained on deck, asking Bradley to go below andassign to each member of the crew his duty, placing one Englishman with apistol beside each German.

“Half speed ahead,” I commanded.

More rapidly now we closed the distance between ourselves and the stranger,until I could plainly see the red ensign of the British merchant marine. Myheart swelled with pride at the thought that presently admiring British tarswould be congratulating us upon our notable capture; and just about then themerchant steamer must have sighted us, for she veered suddenly toward thenorth, and a moment later dense volumes of smoke issued from her funnels. Then,steering a zigzag course, she fled from us as though we had been the bubonicplague. I altered the course of the submarine and set off in chase; but thesteamer was faster than we, and soon left us hopelessly astern.

With a rueful smile, I directed that our original course be resumed, and onceagain we set off toward merry England. That was three months ago, and wehaven’t arrived yet; nor is there any likelihood that we ever shall.

The steamer we had just sighted must have wirelessed a warning, for it wasn’thalf an hour before we saw more smoke on the horizon, and this time the vesselflew the white ensign of the Royal Navy and carried guns. She didn’t veer tothe north or anywhere else, but bore down on us rapidly. I was just preparingto signal her, when a flame flashed from her bows, and an instant later thewater in front of us was thrown high by the explosion of a shell.

Bradley had come on deck and was standing beside me. “About one more of those,and she’ll have our range,” he said. “She doesn’t seem to take much stock inour Union Jack.”

A second shell passed over us, and then I gave the command to change ourdirection, at the same time directing Bradley to go below and give the order tosubmerge. I passed Nobs down to him, and following, saw to the closing andfastening of the hatch.

It seemed to me that the diving-tanks never had filled so slowly. We heard aloud explosion apparently directly above us; the craft trembled to the shockwhich threw us all to the deck. I expected momentarily to feel the deluge ofinrushing water, but none came. Instead we continued to submerge until themanometer registered forty feet and then I knew that we were safe. Safe! Ialmost smiled. I had relieved Olson, who had remained in the tower at mydirection, having been a member of one of the early British submarine crews,and therefore having some knowledge of the business. Bradley was at my side. Helooked at me quizzically.

“What the devil are we to do?” he asked. “The merchantman will flee us; thewar-vessel will destroy us; neither will believe our colors or give us a chanceto explain. We will meet even a worse reception if we go nosing around aBritish port—mines, nets and all of it. We can’t do it.”

“Let’s try it again when this fellow has lost the scent,” I urged. “There mustcome a ship that will believe us.”

And try it again we did, only to be almost rammed by a huge freighter. Later wewere fired upon by a destroyer, and two merchantmen turned and fled at ourapproach. For two days we cruised up and down the Channel trying to tell someone, who would listen, that we were friends; but no one would listen. After ourencounter with the first warship I had given instructions that a wirelessmessage be sent out explaining our predicament; but to my chagrin I discoveredthat both sending and receiving instruments had disappeared.

“There is only one place you can go,” von Schoenvorts sent word to me, “andthat is Kiel. You can’t land anywhere else in these waters. If you wish, I willtake you there, and I can promise that you will be treated well.”

“There is another place we can go,” I sent back my reply, “and we will beforewe’ll go to Germany. That place is hell.”

Chapter 3

Those were anxious days, during which I had but little opportunity to associatewith Lys. I had given her the commander’s room, Bradley and I taking that ofthe deck-officer, while Olson and two of our best men occupied the roomordinarily allotted to petty officers. I made Nobs’ bed down in Lys’ room, forI knew she would feel less alone.

Nothing of much moment occurred for a while after we left British waters behindus. We ran steadily along upon the surface, making good time. The first twoboats we sighted made off as fast as they could go; and the third, a hugefreighter, fired on us, forcing us to submerge. It was after this that ourtroubles commenced. One of the Diesel engines broke down in the morning, andwhile we were working on it, the forward port diving-tank commenced to fill. Iwas on deck at the time and noted the gradual list. Guessing at once what washappening, I leaped for the hatch and slamming it closed above my head, droppedto the centrale. By this time the craft was going down by the head with a mostunpleasant list to port, and I didn’t wait to transmit orders to some one elsebut ran as fast as I could for the valve that let the sea into the forward portdiving-tank. It was wide open. To close it and to have the pump started thatwould empty it were the work of but a minute; but we had had a close call.

I knew that the valve had never opened itself. Some one had opened it—some onewho was willing to die himself if he might at the same time encompass the deathof all of us.

After that I kept a guard pacing the length of the narrow craft. We worked uponthe engine all that day and night and half the following day. Most of the timewe drifted idly upon the surface, but toward noon we sighted smoke due west,and having found that only enemies inhabited the world for us, I ordered thatthe other engine be started so that we could move out of the path of theoncoming steamer. The moment the engine started to turn, however, there was agrinding sound of tortured steel, and when it had been stopped, we found thatsome one had placed a cold-chisel in one of the gears.

It was another two days before we were ready to limp along, half repaired. Thenight before the repairs were completed, the sentry came to my room and awokeme. He was rather an intelligent fellow of the English middle class, in whom Ihad much confidence.

“Well, Wilson,” I asked. “What’s the matter now?”

He raised his finger to his lips and came closer to me. “I think I’ve found outwho’s doin’ the mischief,” he whispered, and nodded his head toward the girl’sroom. “I seen her sneakin’ from the crew’s room just now,” he went on. “She’dbeen in gassin’ wit’ the boche commander. Benson seen her in there las’ night,too, but he never said nothin’ till I goes on watch tonight. Benson’s sorterslow in the head, an’ he never puts two an’ two together till some one else hasmade four out of it.”

If the man had come in and struck me suddenly in the face, I could have been nomore surprised.

“Say nothing of this to anyone,” I ordered. “Keep your eyes and ears open andreport every suspicious thing you see or hear.”

The man saluted and left me; but for an hour or more I tossed, restless, uponmy hard bunk in an agony of jealousy and fear. Finally I fell into a troubledsleep. It was daylight when I awoke. We were steaming along slowly upon thesurface, my orders having been to proceed at half speed until we could take anobservation and determine our position. The sky had been overcast all theprevious day and all night; but as I stepped into the centrale that morning Iwas delighted to see that the sun was again shining. The spirits of the menseemed improved; everything seemed propitious. I forgot at once the cruelmisgivings of the past night as I set to work to take my observations.

What a blow awaited me! The sextant and chronometer had both been broken beyondrepair, and they had been broken just this very night. They had been brokenupon the night that Lys had been seen talking with von Schoenvorts. I thinkthat it was this last thought which hurt me the worst. I could look the otherdisaster in the face with equanimity; but the bald fact that Lys might be atraitor appalled me.

I called Bradley and Olson on deck and told them what had happened, but for thelife of me I couldn’t bring myself to repeat what Wilson had reported to me theprevious night. In fact, as I had given the matter thought, it seemedincredible that the girl could have passed through my room, in which Bradleyand I slept, and then carried on a conversation in the crew’s room, in whichVon Schoenvorts was kept, without having been seen by more than a single man.

Bradley shook his head. “I can’t make it out,” he said. “One of those bochesmust be pretty clever to come it over us all like this; but they haven’t harmedus as much as they think; there are still the extra instruments.”

It was my turn now to shake a doleful head. “There are no extra instruments,” Itold them. “They too have disappeared as did the wireless apparatus.”

Both men looked at me in amazement. “We still have the compass and the sun,”said Olson. “They may be after getting the compass some night; but they’s toomany of us around in the daytime fer ’em to get the sun.”

It was then that one of the men stuck his head up through the hatchway andseeing me, asked permission to come on deck and get a breath of fresh air. Irecognized him as Benson, the man who, Wilson had said, reported having seenLys with von Schoenvorts two nights before. I motioned him on deck and thencalled him to one side, asking if he had seen anything out of the way orunusual during his trick on watch the night before. The fellow scratched hishead a moment and said, “No,” and then as though it was an afterthought, hetold me that he had seen the girl in the crew’s room about midnight talkingwith the German commander, but as there hadn’t seemed to him to be any harm inthat, he hadn’t said anything about it. Telling him never to fail to report tome anything in the slightest out of the ordinary routine of the ship, Idismissed him.

Several of the other men now asked permission to come on deck, and soon all butthose actually engaged in some necessary duty were standing around smoking andtalking, all in the best of spirits. I took advantage of the absence of the menupon the deck to go below for my breakfast, which the cook was alreadypreparing upon the electric stove. Lys, followed by Nobs, appeared as I enteredthe centrale. She met me with a pleasant “Good morning!” which I am afraid Ireplied to in a tone that was rather constrained and surly.

“Will you breakfast with me?” I suddenly asked the girl, determined to commencea probe of my own along the lines which duty demanded.

She nodded a sweet acceptance of my invitation, and together we sat down at thelittle table of the officers’ mess.

“You slept well last night?” I asked.

“All night,” she replied. “I am a splendid sleeper.”

Her manner was so straightforward and honest that I could not bring myself tobelieve in her duplicity; yet—Thinking to surprise her into a betrayal of herguilt, I blurted out: “The chronometer and sextant were both destroyed lastnight; there is a traitor among us.” But she never turned a hair by way ofevidencing guilty knowledge of the catastrophe.

“Who could it have been?” she cried. “The Germans would be crazy to do it, fortheir lives are as much at stake as ours.”

“Men are often glad to die for an ideal—an ideal of patriotism, perhaps,” Ireplied; “and a willingness to martyr themselves includes a willingness tosacrifice others, even those who love them. Women are much the same, exceptthat they will go even further than most men—they will sacrifice everything,even honor, for love.”

I watched her face carefully as I spoke, and I thought that I detected a veryfaint flush mounting her cheek. Seeing an opening and an advantage, I sought tofollow it up.

“Take von Schoenvorts, for instance,” I continued: “he would doubtless be gladto die and take us all with him, could he prevent in no other way the fallingof his vessel into enemy hands. He would sacrifice anyone, even you; and if youstill love him, you might be his ready tool. Do you understand me?”

She looked at me in wide-eyed consternation for a moment, and then she wentvery white and rose from her seat. “I do,” she replied, and turning her backupon me, she walked quickly toward her room. I started to follow, for evenbelieving what I did, I was sorry that I had hurt her. I reached the door tothe crew’s room just behind her and in time to see von Schoenvorts lean forwardand whisper something to her as she passed; but she must have guessed that shemight be watched, for she passed on.

That afternoon it clouded over; the wind mounted to a gale, and the sea roseuntil the craft was wallowing and rolling frightfully. Nearly everyone aboardwas sick; the air became foul and oppressive. For twenty-four hours I did notleave my post in the conning tower, as both Olson and Bradley were sick.Finally I found that I must get a little rest, and so I looked about for someone to relieve me. Benson volunteered. He had not been sick, and assured methat he was a former R.N. man and had been detailed for submarine duty for overtwo years. I was glad that it was he, for I had considerable confidence in hisloyalty, and so it was with a feeling of security that I went below and laydown.

I slept twelve hours straight, and when I awoke and discovered what I had done,I lost no time in getting to the conning tower. There sat Benson as wide awakeas could be, and the compass showed that we were heading straight into thewest. The storm was still raging; nor did it abate its fury until the fourthday. We were all pretty well done up and looked forward to the time when wecould go on deck and fill our lungs with fresh air. During the whole four daysI had not seen the girl, as she evidently kept closely to her room; and duringthis time no untoward incident had occurred aboard the boat—a fact which seemedto strengthen the web of circumstantial evidence about her.

For six more days after the storm lessened we still had fairly rough weather;nor did the sun once show himself during all that time. For the season—it wasnow the middle of June—the storm was unusual; but being from southernCalifornia, I was accustomed to unusual weather. In fact, I have discoveredthat the world over, unusual weather prevails at all times of the year.

We kept steadily to our westward course, and as the U-33 was one of thefastest submersibles we had ever turned out, I knew that we must be prettyclose to the North American coast. What puzzled me most was the fact that forsix days we had not sighted a single ship. It seemed remarkable that we couldcross the Atlantic almost to the coast of the American continent withoutglimpsing smoke or sail, and at last I came to the conclusion that we were wayoff our course, but whether to the north or to the south of it I could notdetermine.

On the seventh day the sea lay comparatively calm at early dawn. There was aslight haze upon the ocean which had cut off our view of the stars; butconditions all pointed toward a clear morrow, and I was on deck anxiouslyawaiting the rising of the sun. My eyes were glued upon the impenetrable mistastern, for there in the east I should see the first glow of the rising sunthat would assure me we were still upon the right course. Gradually the heavenslightened; but astern I could see no intenser glow that would indicate therising sun behind the mist. Bradley was standing at my side. Presently hetouched my arm.

“Look, captain,” he said, and pointed south.

I looked and gasped, for there directly to port I saw outlined through the hazethe red top of the rising sun. Hurrying to the tower, I looked at the compass.It showed that we were holding steadily upon our westward course. Either thesun was rising in the south, or the compass had been tampered with. Theconclusion was obvious.

I went back to Bradley and told him what I had discovered. “And,” I concluded,“we can’t make another five hundred knots without oil; our provisions arerunning low and so is our water. God only knows how far south we have run.”

“There is nothing to do,” he replied, “other than to alter our course once moretoward the west; we must raise land soon or we shall all be lost.”

I told him to do so; and then I set to work improvising a crude sextant withwhich we finally took our bearings in a rough and most unsatisfactory manner;for when the work was done, we did not know how far from the truth the resultmight be. It showed us to be about 20° north and 30° west—nearlytwenty-five hundred miles off our course. In short, if our reading was anywherenear correct, we must have been traveling due south for six days. Bradley nowrelieved Benson, for we had arranged our shifts so that the latter and Olsonnow divided the nights, while Bradley and I alternated with one another duringthe days.

I questioned both Olson and Benson closely in the matter of the compass; buteach stoutly maintained that no one had tampered with it during his tour ofduty. Benson gave me a knowing smile, as much as to say: “Well, you and I knowwho did this.” Yet I could not believe that it was the girl.

We kept to our westerly course for several hours when the lookout’s cryannounced a sail. I ordered the U-33’s course altered, and we bore downupon the stranger, for I had come to a decision which was the result ofnecessity. We could not lie there in the middle of the Atlantic and starve todeath if there was any way out of it. The sailing ship saw us while we werestill a long way off, as was evidenced by her efforts to escape. There wasscarcely any wind, however, and her case was hopeless; so when we drew near andsignaled her to stop, she came into the wind and lay there with her sailsflapping idly. We moved in quite close to her. She was the BalmenofHalmstad, Sweden, with a general cargo from Brazil for Spain.

I explained our circumstances to her skipper and asked for food, water and oil;but when he found that we were not German, he became very angry and abusive andstarted to draw away from us; but I was in no mood for any such business.Turning toward Bradley, who was in the conning-tower, I snapped out:“Gun-service on deck! To the diving stations!” We had no opportunity for drill;but every man had been posted as to his duties, and the German members of thecrew understood that it was obedience or death for them, as each wasaccompanied by a man with a pistol. Most of them, though, were only too glad toobey me.

Bradley passed the order down into the ship and a moment later the gun-crewclambered up the narrow ladder and at my direction trained their piece upon theslow-moving Swede. “Fire a shot across her bow,” I instructed the gun-captain.

Accept it from me, it didn’t take that Swede long to see the error of his wayand get the red and white pennant signifying “I understand” to the masthead.Once again the sails flapped idly, and then I ordered him to lower a boat andcome after me. With Olson and a couple of the Englishmen I boarded the ship,and from her cargo selected what we needed—oil, provisions and water. I gavethe master of the Balmena receipt for what we took, together with anaffidavit signed by Bradley, Olson, and myself, stating briefly how we had comeinto possession of the U-33 and the urgency of our need for what wetook. We addressed both to any British agent with the request that the ownersof the Balmenbe reimbursed; but whether or not they were, I do notknow.[1]

[1] Late in July, 1916, an item in the shipping news mentioned a Swedishsailing vessel, Balmen, Rio de Janeiro to Barcelona, sunk by a Germanraider sometime in June. A single survivor in an open boat was picked up offthe Cape Verde Islands, in a dying condition. He expired without giving anydetails.

With water, food, and oil aboard, we felt that we had obtained a new lease oflife. Now, too, we knew definitely where we were, and I determined to make forGeorgetown, British Guiana—but I was destined to again suffer bitterdisappointment.

Six of us of the loyal crew had come on deck either to serve the gun or boardthe Swede during our set-to with her; and now, one by one, we descended theladder into the centrale. I was the last to come, and when I reached thebottom, I found myself looking into the muzzle of a pistol in the hands ofBaron Friedrich von Schoenvorts—I saw all my men lined up at one side with theremaining eight Germans standing guard over them.

I couldn’t imagine how it had happened; but it had. Later I learned that theyhad first overpowered Benson, who was asleep in his bunk, and taken his pistolfrom him, and then had found it an easy matter to disarm the cook and theremaining two Englishmen below. After that it had been comparatively simple tostand at the foot of the ladder and arrest each individual as he descended.

The first thing von Schoenvorts did was to send for me and announce that as apirate I was to be shot early the next morning. Then he explained that theU-33 would cruise in these waters for a time, sinking neutral and enemyshipping indiscriminately, and looking for one of the German raiders that wassupposed to be in these parts.

He didn’t shoot me the next morning as he had promised, and it has never beenclear to me why he postponed the execution of my sentence. Instead he kept meironed just as he had been; then he kicked Bradley out of my room and took itall to himself.

We cruised for a long time, sinking many vessels, all but one by gunfire, butwe did not come across a German raider. I was surprised to note that vonSchoenvorts often permitted Benson to take command; but I reconciled this bythe fact that Benson appeared to know more of the duties of a submarinecommander than did any of the stupid Germans.

Once or twice Lys passed me; but for the most part she kept to her room. Thefirst time she hesitated as though she wished to speak to me; but I did notraise my head, and finally she passed on. Then one day came the word that wewere about to round the Horn and that von Schoenvorts had taken it into hisfool head to cruise up along the Pacific coast of North America and prey uponall sorts and conditions of merchantmen.

“I’ll put the fear of God and the Kaiser into them,” he said.

The very first day we entered the South Pacific we had an adventure. It turnedout to be quite the most exciting adventure I had ever encountered. It fellabout this way. About eight bells of the forenoon watch I heard a hail from thedeck, and presently the footsteps of the entire ship’s company, from the amountof noise I heard at the ladder. Some one yelled back to those who had not yetreached the level of the deck: “It’s the raider, the German raiderGeier!”

I saw that we had reached the end of our rope. Below all was quiet—not a manremained. A door opened at the end of the narrow hull, and presently Nobs cametrotting up to me. He licked my face and rolled over on his back, reaching forme with his big, awkward paws. Then other footsteps sounded, approaching me. Iknew whose they were, and I looked straight down at the flooring. The girl wascoming almost at a run—she was at my side immediately. “Here!” she cried.“Quick!” And she slipped something into my hand. It was a key—the key to myirons. At my side she also laid a pistol, and then she went on into thecentrale. As she passed me, I saw that she carried another pistol for herself.It did not take me long to liberate myself, and then I was at her side. “Howcan I thank you?” I started; but she shut me up with a word.

“Do not thank me,” she said coldly. “I do not care to hear your thanks or anyother expression from you. Do not stand there looking at me. I have given you achance to do something—now do it!” The last was a peremptory command that mademe jump.

Glancing up, I saw that the tower was empty, and I lost no time in clamberingup, looking about me. About a hundred yards off lay a small, swiftcruiser-raider, and above her floated the German man-of-war’s flag. A boat hadjust been lowered, and I could see it moving toward us filled with officers andmen. The cruiser lay dead ahead. “My,” I thought, “what a wonderful targ—” Istopped even thinking, so surprised and shocked was I by the boldness of myimagery. The girl was just below me. I looked down on her wistfully. Could Itrust her? Why had she released me at this moment? I must! I must! There was noother way. I dropped back below. “Ask Olson to step down here, please,” Irequested; “and don’t let anyone see you ask him.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face for the barest fractionof a second, and then she turned and went up the ladder. A moment later Olsonreturned, and the girl followed him. “Quick!” I whispered to the big Irishman,and made for the bow compartment where the torpedo-tubes are built into theboat; here, too, were the torpedoes. The girl accompanied us, and when she sawthe thing I had in mind, she stepped forward and lent a hand to the swinging ofthe great cylinder of death and destruction into the mouth of its tube. Withoil and main strength we shoved the torpedo home and shut the tube; then I ranback to the conning-tower, praying in my heart of hearts that the U-33had not swung her bow away from the prey. No, thank God!

Never could aim have been truer. I signaled back to Olson: “Let ’er go!” TheU-33 trembled from stem to stern as the torpedo shot from its tube. Isaw the white wake leap from her bow straight toward the enemy cruiser. Achorus of hoarse yells arose from the deck of our own craft: I saw the officersstand suddenly erect in the boat that was approaching us, and I heard loudcries and curses from the raider. Then I turned my attention to my ownbusiness. Most of the men on the submarine’s deck were standing in paralyzedfascination, staring at the torpedo. Bradley happened to be looking toward theconning-tower and saw me. I sprang on deck and ran toward him. “Quick!” Iwhispered. “While they are stunned, we must overcome them.”

A German was standing near Bradley—just in front of him. The Englishman struckthe fellow a frantic blow upon the neck and at the same time snatched hispistol from its holster. Von Schoenvorts had recovered from his first surprisequickly and had turned toward the main hatch to investigate. I covered him withmy revolver, and at the same instant the torpedo struck the raider, theterrific explosion drowning the German’s command to his men.

Bradley was now running from one to another of our men, and though some of theGermans saw and heard him, they seemed too stunned for action.

Olson was below, so that there were only nine of us against eight Germans, forthe man Bradley had struck still lay upon the deck. Only two of us were armed;but the heart seemed to have gone out of the boches, and they put up buthalf-hearted resistance. Von Schoenvorts was the worst—he was fairly frenziedwith rage and chagrin, and he came charging for me like a mad bull, and as hecame he discharged his pistol. If he’d stopped long enough to take aim, hemight have gotten me; but his pace made him wild, so that not a shot touchedme, and then we clinched and went to the deck. This left two pistols, which twoof my own men were quick to appropriate. The Baron was no match for me in ahand-to-hand encounter, and I soon had him pinned to the deck and the lifealmost choked out of him.

A half-hour later things had quieted down, and all was much the same as beforethe prisoners had revolted—only we kept a much closer watch on von Schoenvorts.The Geierhad sunk while we were still battling upon our deck, andafterward we had drawn away toward the north, leaving the survivors to theattention of the single boat which had been making its way toward us when Olsonlaunched the torpedo. I suppose the poor devils never reached land, and if theydid, they most probably perished on that cold and unhospitable shore; but Icouldn’t permit them aboard the U-33. We had all the Germans we couldtake care of.

That evening the girl asked permission to go on deck. She said that she feltthe effects of long confinement below, and I readily granted her request. Icould not understand her, and I craved an opportunity to talk with her again inan effort to fathom her and her intentions, and so I made it a point to followher up the ladder. It was a clear, cold, beautiful night. The sea was calmexcept for the white water at our bows and the two long radiating swellsrunning far off into the distance upon either hand astern, forming a great Vwhich our propellers filled with choppy waves. Benson was in the tower, we werebound for San Diego and all looked well.

Lys stood with a heavy blanket wrapped around her slender figure, and as Iapproached her, she half turned toward me to see who it was. When sherecognized me, she immediately turned away.

“I want to thank you,” I said, “for your bravery and loyalty—you weremagnificent. I am sorry that you had reason before to think that I doubtedyou.”

“You did doubt me,” she replied in a level voice. “You practically accused meof aiding Baron von Schoenvorts. I can never forgive you.”

There was a great deal of finality in both her words and tone.

“I could not believe it,” I said; “and yet two of my men reported having seenyou in conversation with von Schoenvorts late at night upon two separateoccasions—after each of which some great damage was found done us in themorning. I didn’t want to doubt you; but I carried all the responsibility ofthe lives of these men, of the safety of the ship, of your life and mine. I hadto watch you, and I had to put you on your guard against a repetition of yourmadness.”

She was looking at me now with those great eyes of hers, very wide and round.

“Who told you that I spoke with Baron von Schoenvorts at night, or any othertime?” she asked.

“I cannot tell you, Lys,” I replied, “but it came to me from two differentsources.”

“Then two men have lied,” she asserted without heat. “I have not spoken toBaron von Schoenvorts other than in your presence when first we came aboard theU-33. And please, when you address me, remember that to others than myintimates I am Miss La Rue.”

Did you ever get slapped in the face when you least expected it? No? Well, thenyou do not know how I felt at that moment. I could feel the hot, red flushsurging up my neck, across my cheeks, over my ears, clear to my scalp. And itmade me love her all the more; it made me swear inwardly a thousand solemnoaths that I would win her.

Chapter 4

For several days things went along in about the same course. I took ourposition every morning with my crude sextant; but the results were always mostunsatisfactory. They always showed a considerable westing when I knew that wehad been sailing due north. I blamed my crude instrument, and kept on. Then oneafternoon the girl came to me.

“Pardon me,” she said, “but were I you, I should watch this manBenson—especially when he is in charge.” I asked her what she meant, thinking Icould see the influence of von Schoenvorts raising a suspicion against one ofmy most trusted men.

“If you will note the boat’s course a half-hour after Benson goes on duty,” shesaid, “you will know what I mean, and you will understand why he prefers anight watch. Possibly, too, you will understand some other things that havetaken place aboard.”

Then she went back to her room, thus ending the conversation. I waited untilhalf an hour after Benson had gone on duty, and then I went on deck, passingthrough the conning-tower where Benson sat, and looking at the compass. Itshowed that our course was north by west—that is, one point west of north,which was, for our assumed position, about right. I was greatly relieved tofind that nothing was wrong, for the girl’s words had caused me considerableapprehension. I was about to return to my room when a thought occurred to methat again caused me to change my mind—and, incidentally, came near proving mydeath-warrant.

When I had left the conning-tower little more than a half-hour since, the seahad been breaking over the port bow, and it seemed to me quite improbable thatin so short a time an equally heavy sea could be deluging us from the oppositeside of the ship—winds may change quickly, but not a long, heavy sea. There wasonly one other solution—since I left the tower, our course had been alteredsome eight points. Turning quickly, I climbed out upon the conning-tower. Asingle glance at the heavens confirmed my suspicions; the constellations whichshould have been dead ahead were directly starboard. We were sailing due west.

Just for an instant longer I stood there to check up my calculations—I wantedto be quite sure before I accused Benson of perfidy, and about the only thing Icame near making quite sure of was death. I cannot see even now how I escapedit. I was standing on the edge of the conning-tower, when a heavy palm suddenlystruck me between the shoulders and hurled me forward into space. The drop tothe triangular deck forward of the conning-tower might easily have broken a legfor me, or I might have slipped off onto the deck and rolled overboard; butfate was upon my side, as I was only slightly bruised. As I came to my feet, Iheard the conning-tower cover slam. There is a ladder which leads from the deckto the top of the tower. Up this I scrambled, as fast as I could go; but Bensonhad the cover tight before I reached it.

I stood there a moment in dumb consternation. What did the fellow intend? Whatwas going on below? If Benson was a traitor, how could I know that there werenot other traitors among us? I cursed myself for my folly in going out upon thedeck, and then this thought suggested another—a hideous one: who was it thathad really been responsible for my being here?

Thinking to attract attention from inside the craft, I again ran down theladder and onto the small deck only to find that the steel covers of theconning-tower windows were shut, and then I leaned with my back against thetower and cursed myself for a gullible idiot.

I glanced at the bow. The sea seemed to be getting heavier, for every wave nowwashed completely over the lower deck. I watched them for a moment, and then asudden chill pervaded my entire being. It was not the chill of wet clothing, orthe dashing spray which drenched my face; no, it was the chill of the hand ofdeath upon my heart. In an instant I had turned the last corner of life’shighway and was looking God Almighty in the face—the U-33 was beingslowly submerged!

It would be difficult, even impossible, to set down in writing my sensations atthat moment. All I can particularly recall is that I laughed, though neitherfrom a spirit of bravado nor from hysteria. And I wanted to smoke. Lord! how Idid want to smoke; but that was out of the question.

I watched the water rise until the little deck I stood on was awash, and then Iclambered once more to the top of the conning-tower. From the very slowsubmergence of the boat I knew that Benson was doing the entire trickalone—that he was merely permitting the diving-tanks to fill and that thediving-rudders were not in use. The throbbing of the engines ceased, and in itsstead came the steady vibration of the electric motors. The water was halfwayup the conning-tower! I had perhaps five minutes longer on the deck. I tried todecide what I should do after I was washed away. Should I swim until exhaustionclaimed me, or should I give up and end the agony at the first plunge?

From below came two muffled reports. They sounded not unlike shots. Was Bensonmeeting with resistance? Personally it could mean little to me, for even thoughmy men might overcome the enemy, none would know of my predicament until longafter it was too late to succor me. The top of the conning-tower was now awash.I clung to the wireless mast, while the great waves surged sometimes completelyover me.

I knew the end was near and, almost involuntarily, I did that which I had notdone since childhood—I prayed. After that I felt better.

I clung and waited, but the water rose no higher.

Instead it receded. Now the top of the conning-tower received only the crestsof the higher waves; now the little triangular deck below became visible! Whathad occurred within? Did Benson believe me already gone, and was he emergingbecause of that belief, or had he and his forces been vanquished? The suspensewas more wearing than that which I had endured while waiting for dissolution.Presently the main deck came into view, and then the conning-tower openedbehind me, and I turned to look into the anxious face of Bradley. An expressionof relief overspread his features.

“Thank God, man!” was all he said as he reached forth and dragged me into thetower. I was cold and numb and rather all in. Another few minutes would havedone for me, I am sure, but the warmth of the interior helped to revive me,aided and abetted by some brandy which Bradley poured down my throat, fromwhich it nearly removed the membrane. That brandy would have revived a corpse.

When I got down into the centrale, I saw the Germans lined up on one side witha couple of my men with pistols standing over them. Von Schoenvorts was amongthem. On the floor lay Benson, moaning, and beyond him stood the girl, arevolver in one hand. I looked about, bewildered.

“What has happened down here?” I asked. “Tell me!”

Bradley replied. “You see the result, sir,” he said. “It might have been a verydifferent result but for Miss La Rue. We were all asleep. Benson had relievedthe guard early in the evening; there was no one to watch him—no one but MissLa Rue. She felt the submergence of the boat and came out of her room toinvestigate. She was just in time to see Benson at the diving rudders. When hesaw her, he raised his pistol and fired point-blank at her, but he missed andshe fired—and didn’t miss. The two shots awakened everyone, and as our men werearmed, the result was inevitable as you see it; but it would have been verydifferent had it not been for Miss La Rue. It was she who closed thediving-tank sea-cocks and roused Olson and me, and had the pumps started toempty them.”

And there I had been thinking that through her machinations I had been lured tothe deck and to my death! I could have gone on my knees to her and begged herforgiveness—or at least I could have, had I not been Anglo-Saxon. As it was, Icould only remove my soggy cap and bow and mumble my appreciation. She made noreply—only turned and walked very rapidly toward her room. Could I have heardaright? Was it really a sob that came floating back to me through the narrowaisle of the U-33?

Benson died that night. He remained defiant almost to the last; but just beforehe went out, he motioned to me, and I leaned over to catch the faintlywhispered words.

“I did it alone,” he said. “I did it because I hate you—I hate all your kind. Iwas kicked out of your shipyard at Santa Monica. I was locked out ofCalifornia. I am an I. W. W. I became a German agent—not because I love them,for I hate them too—but because I wanted to injure Americans, whom I hatedmore. I threw the wireless apparatus overboard. I destroyed the chronometer andthe sextant. I devised a scheme for varying the compass to suit my wishes. Itold Wilson that I had seen the girl talking with von Schoenvorts, and I madethe poor egg think he had seen her doing the same thing. I am sorry—sorry thatmy plans failed. I hate you.”

He didn’t die for a half-hour after that; nor did he speak again—aloud; butjust a few seconds before he went to meet his Maker, his lips moved in a faintwhisper; and as I leaned closer to catch his words, what do you suppose Iheard? “Now—I—lay me—down—to—sleep” That was all; Benson was dead. We threw hisbody overboard.

The wind of that night brought on some pretty rough weather with a lot of blackclouds which persisted for several days. We didn’t know what course we had beenholding, and there was no way of finding out, as we could no longer trust thecompass, not knowing what Benson had done to it. The long and the short of itwas that we cruised about aimlessly until the sun came out again. I’ll neverforget that day or its surprises. We reckoned, or rather guessed, that we weresomewhere off the coast of Peru. The wind, which had been blowing fitfully fromthe east, suddenly veered around into the south, and presently we felt a suddenchill.

“Peru!” snorted Olson. “When were yez after smellin’ iceber-rgs off Peru?”

Icebergs! “Icebergs, nothin’!” exclaimed one of the Englishmen. “Why, man, theydon’t come north of fourteen here in these waters.”

“Then,” replied Olson, “ye’re sout’ of fourteen, me b’y.”

We thought he was crazy; but he wasn’t, for that afternoon we sighted a greatberg south of us, and we’d been running north, we thought, for days. I can tellyou we were a discouraged lot; but we got a faint thrill of hope early the nextmorning when the lookout bawled down the open hatch: “Land! Land northwest bywest!”

I think we were all sick for the sight of land. I know that I was; but myinterest was quickly dissipated by the sudden illness of three of the Germans.Almost simultaneously they commenced vomiting. They couldn’t suggest anyexplanation for it. I asked them what they had eaten, and found they had eatennothing other than the food cooked for all of us. “Have you drunk anything?” Iasked, for I knew that there was liquor aboard, and medicines in the samelocker.

“Only water,” moaned one of them. “We all drank water together this morning. Weopened a new tank. Maybe it was the water.”

I started an investigation which revealed a terrifying condition—some one,probably Benson, had poisoned all the running water on the ship. It would havebeen worse, though, had land not been in sight. The sight of land filled uswith renewed hope.

Our course had been altered, and we were rapidly approaching what appeared tobe a precipitous headland. Cliffs, seemingly rising perpendicularly out of thesea, faded away into the mist upon either hand as we approached. The landbefore us might have been a continent, so mighty appeared the shoreline; yet weknew that we must be thousands of miles from the nearest western land-mass—NewZealand or Australia.

We took our bearings with our crude and inaccurate instruments; we searched thechart; we cudgeled our brains; and at last it was Bradley who suggested asolution. He was in the tower and watching the compass, to which he called myattention. The needle was pointing straight toward the land. Bradley swung thehelm hard to starboard. I could feel the U-33 respond, and yet the arrowstill clung straight and sure toward the distant cliffs.

“What do you make of it?” I asked him.

“Did you ever hear of Caproni?” he asked.

“An early Italian navigator?” I returned.

“Yes; he followed Cook about 1721. He is scarcely mentioned even bycontemporaneous historians—probably because he got into political difficultieson his return to Italy. It was the fashion to scoff at his claims, but I recallreading one of his works—his only one, I believe—in which he described a newcontinent in the south seas, a continent made up of ‘some strange metal’ whichattracted the compass; a rockbound, inhospitable coast, without beach orharbor, which extended for hundreds of miles. He could make no landing; nor inthe several days he cruised about it did he see sign of life. He called itCaprona and sailed away. I believe, sir, that we are looking upon the coast ofCaprona, uncharted and forgotten for two hundred years.”

“If you are right, it might account for much of the deviation of the compassduring the past two days,” I suggested. “Caprona has been luring us upon herdeadly rocks. Well, we’ll accept her challenge. We’ll land upon Caprona. Alongthat long front there must be a vulnerable spot. We will find it, Bradley, forwe must find it. We must find water on Caprona, or we must die.”

And so we approached the coast upon which no living eyes had ever rested.Straight from the ocean’s depths rose towering cliffs, shot with brown andblues and greens—withered moss and lichen and the verdigris of copper, andeverywhere the rusty ocher of iron pyrites. The cliff-tops, though ragged, wereof such uniform height as to suggest the boundaries of a great plateau, and nowand again we caught glimpses of verdure topping the rocky escarpment, as thoughbush or jungle-land had pushed outward from a lush vegetation farther inland tosignal to an unseeing world that Caprona lived and joyed in life beyond heraustere and repellent coast.

But metaphor, however poetic, never slaked a dry throat. To enjoy Caprona’sromantic suggestions we must have water, and so we came in close, alwayssounding, and skirted the shore. As close in as we dared cruise, we foundfathomless depths, and always the same undented coastline of bald cliffs. Asdarkness threatened, we drew away and lay well off the coast all night. We hadnot as yet really commenced to suffer for lack of water; but I knew that itwould not be long before we did, and so at the first streak of dawn I moved inagain and once more took up the hopeless survey of the forbidding coast.

Toward noon we discovered a beach, the first we had seen. It was a narrow stripof sand at the base of a part of the cliff that seemed lower than any we hadbefore scanned. At its foot, half buried in the sand, lay great boulders, muteevidence that in a bygone age some mighty natural force had crumpled Caprona’sbarrier at this point. It was Bradley who first called our attention to astrange object lying among the boulders above the surf.

“Looks like a man,” he said, and passed his glasses to me.

I looked long and carefully and could have sworn that the thing I saw was thesprawled figure of a human being. Miss La Rue was on deck with us. I turned andasked her to go below. Without a word she did as I bade. Then I stripped, andas I did so, Nobs looked questioningly at me. He had been wont at home to enterthe surf with me, and evidently he had not forgotten it.

“What are you going to do, sir?” asked Olson.

“I’m going to see what that thing is on shore,” I replied. “If it’s a man, itmay mean that Caprona is inhabited, or it may merely mean that some poor devilswere shipwrecked here. I ought to be able to tell from the clothing which ismore near the truth.

“How about sharks?” queried Olson. “Sure, you ought to carry a knoife.”

“Here you are, sir,” cried one of the men.

It was a long slim blade he offered—one that I could carry between my teeth—andso I accepted it gladly.

“Keep close in,” I directed Bradley, and then I dived over the side and struckout for the narrow beach. There was another splash directly behind me, andturning my head, I saw faithful old Nobs swimming valiantly in my wake.

The surf was not heavy, and there was no undertow, so we made shore easily,effecting an equally easy landing. The beach was composed largely of smallstones worn smooth by the action of water. There was little sand, though fromthe deck of the U-33 the beach had appeared to be all sand, and I saw noevidences of mollusca or crustacea such as are common to all beaches I havepreviously seen. I attribute this to the fact of the smallness of the beach,the enormous depth of surrounding water and the great distance at which Capronalies from her nearest neighbor.

As Nobs and I approached the recumbent figure farther up the beach, I wasappraised by my nose that whether man or not, the thing had once been organicand alive, but that for some time it had been dead. Nobs halted, sniffed andgrowled. A little later he sat down upon his haunches, raised his muzzle to theheavens and bayed forth a most dismal howl. I shied a small stone at him andbade him shut up—his uncanny noise made me nervous. When I had come quite closeto the thing, I still could not say whether it had been man or beast. Thecarcass was badly swollen and partly decomposed. There was no sign of clothingupon or about it. A fine, brownish hair covered the chest and abdomen, and theface, the palms of the hands, the feet, the shoulders and back were practicallyhairless. The creature must have been about the height of a fair sized man; itsfeatures were similar to those of a man; yet had it been a man?

I could not say, for it resembled an ape no more than it did a man. Its largetoes protruded laterally as do those of the semiarboreal peoples of Borneo, thePhilippines and other remote regions where low types still persist. Thecountenance might have been that of a cross between Pithecanthropus, theJava ape-man, and a daughter of the Piltdown race of prehistoric Sussex. Awooden cudgel lay beside the corpse.

Now this fact set me thinking. There was no wood of any description in sight.There was nothing about the beach to suggest a wrecked mariner. There wasabsolutely nothing about the body to suggest that it might possibly in lifehave known a maritime experience. It was the body of a low type of man or ahigh type of beast. In neither instance would it have been of a seafaring race.Therefore I deduced that it was native to Caprona—that it lived inland, andthat it had fallen or been hurled from the cliffs above. Such being the case,Caprona was inhabitable, if not inhabited, by man; but how to reach theinhabitable interior! That was the question. A closer view of the cliffs thanhad been afforded me from the deck of the U-33 only confirmed myconviction that no mortal man could scale those perpendicular heights; therewas not a finger-hold, not a toe-hold, upon them. I turned away baffled.

Nobs and I met with no sharks upon our return journey to the submarine. Myreport filled everyone with theories and speculations, and with renewed hopeand determination. They all reasoned along the same lines that I hadreasoned—the conclusions were obvious, but not the water. We were now thirstierthan ever.

The balance of that day we spent in continuing a minute and fruitlessexploration of the monotonous coast. There was not another break in thefrowning cliffs—not even another minute patch of pebbly beach. As the sun fell,so did our spirits. I had tried to make advances to the girl again; but shewould have none of me, and so I was not only thirsty but otherwise sad anddownhearted. I was glad when the new day broke the hideous spell of a sleeplessnight.

The morning’s search brought us no shred of hope. Caprona was impregnable—thatwas the decision of all; yet we kept on. It must have been about two bells ofthe afternoon watch that Bradley called my attention to the branch of a tree,with leaves upon it, floating on the sea. “It may have been carried down to theocean by a river,” he suggested.

“Yes,” I replied, “it may have; it may have tumbled or been thrown off the topof one of these cliffs.”

Bradley’s face fell. “I thought of that, too,” he replied, “but I wanted tobelieve the other.”

“Right you are!” I cried. “We must believe the other until we prove it false.We can’t afford to give up heart now, when we need heart most. The branch wascarried down by a river, and we are going to find that river.” I smote my openpalm with a clenched fist, to emphasize a determination unsupported by hope.“There!” I cried suddenly. “See that, Bradley?” And I pointed at a spot closerto shore. “See that, man!” Some flowers and grasses and another leafy branchfloated toward us. We both scanned the water and the coastline. Bradleyevidently discovered something, or at least thought that he had. He called downfor a bucket and a rope, and when they were passed up to him, he lowered theformer into the sea and drew it in filled with water. Of this he took a taste,and straightening up, looked into my eyes with an expression of elation—as muchas to say “I told you so!”

“This water is warm,” he announced, “and fresh!”

I grabbed the bucket and tasted its contents. The water was very warm, and itwas fresh, but there was a most unpleasant taste to it.

“Did you ever taste water from a stagnant pool full of tadpoles?” Bradleyasked.

“That’s it,” I exclaimed, “—that’s just the taste exactly, though I haven’texperienced it since boyhood; but how can water from a flowing stream, tastethus, and what the dickens makes it so warm? It must be at least 70 or 80Fahrenheit, possibly higher.”

“Yes,” agreed Bradley, “I should say higher; but where does it come from?”

“That is easily discovered now that we have found it,” I answered. “It can’tcome from the ocean; so it must come from the land. All that we have to do isfollow it, and sooner or later we shall come upon its source.”

We were already rather close in; but I ordered the U-33’s prow turnedinshore and we crept slowly along, constantly dipping up the water and tastingit to assure ourselves that we didn’t get outside the fresh-water current.There was a very light off-shore wind and scarcely any breakers, so that theapproach to the shore was continued without finding bottom; yet though we werealready quite close, we saw no indication of any indention in the coast fromwhich even a tiny brooklet might issue, and certainly no mouth of a large riversuch as this must necessarily be to freshen the ocean even two hundred yardsfrom shore. The tide was running out, and this, together with the strong flowof the freshwater current, would have prevented our going against the cliffseven had we not been under power; as it was we had to buck the combined forcesin order to hold our position at all. We came up to within twenty-five feet ofthe sheer wall, which loomed high above us. There was no break in itsforbidding face. As we watched the face of the waters and searched the cliff’shigh face, Olson suggested that the fresh water might come from a submarinegeyser. This, he said, would account for its heat; but even as he spoke a bush,covered thickly with leaves and flowers, bubbled to the surface and floated offastern.

“Flowering shrubs don’t thrive in the subterranean caverns from which geysersspring,” suggested Bradley.

Olson shook his head. “It beats me,” he said.

“I’ve got it!” I exclaimed suddenly. “Look there!” And I pointed at the base ofthe cliff ahead of us, which the receding tide was gradually exposing to ourview. They all looked, and all saw what I had seen—the top of a dark opening inthe rock, through which water was pouring out into the sea. “It’s thesubterranean channel of an inland river,” I cried. “It flows through a landcovered with vegetation—and therefore a land upon which the sun shines. Nosubterranean caverns produce any order of plant life even remotely resemblingwhat we have seen disgorged by this river. Beyond those cliffs lie fertilelands and fresh water—perhaps, game!”

“Yis, sir,” said Olson, “behoind the cliffs! Ye spoke a true word,sir—behoind!”

Bradley laughed—a rather sorry laugh, though. “You might as well call ourattention to the fact, sir,” he said, “that science has indicated that there isfresh water and vegetation on Mars.”

“Not at all,” I rejoined. “A U-boat isn’t constructed to navigate space, but itis designed to travel below the surface of the water.”

“You’d be after sailin’ into that blank pocket?” asked Olson.

“I would, Olson,” I replied. “We haven’t one chance for life in a hundredthousand if we don’t find food and water upon Caprona. This water coming out ofthe cliff is not salt; but neither is it fit to drink, though each of us hasdrunk. It is fair to assume that inland the river is fed by pure streams, thatthere are fruits and herbs and game. Shall we lie out here and die of thirstand starvation with a land of plenty possibly only a few hundred yards away? Wehave the means for navigating a subterranean river. Are we too cowardly toutilize this means?”

“Be afther goin’ to it,” said Olson.

“I’m willing to see it through,” agreed Bradley.

“Then under the bottom, wi’ the best o’ luck an’ give ’em hell!” cried a youngfellow who had been in the trenches.

“To the diving-stations!” I commanded, and in less than a minute the deck wasdeserted, the conning-tower covers had slammed to and the U-33 wassubmerging—possibly for the last time. I know that I had this feeling, and Ithink that most of the others did.

As we went down, I sat in the tower with the searchlight projecting itsseemingly feeble rays ahead. We submerged very slowly and without headway morethan sufficient to keep her nose in the right direction, and as we went down, Isaw outlined ahead of us the black opening in the great cliff. It was anopening that would have admitted a half-dozen U-boats at one and the same time,roughly cylindrical in contour—and dark as the pit of perdition.

As I gave the command which sent the U-33 slowly ahead, I could not butfeel a certain uncanny presentiment of evil. Where were we going? What lay atthe end of this great sewer? Had we bidden farewell forever to the sunlight andlife, or were there before us dangers even greater than those which we nowfaced? I tried to keep my mind from vain imagining by calling everything whichI observed to the eager ears below. I was the eyes of the whole company, and Idid my best not to fail them. We had advanced a hundred yards, perhaps, whenour first danger confronted us. Just ahead was a sharp right-angle turn in thetunnel. I could see the river’s flotsam hurtling against the rocky wall uponthe left as it was driven on by the mighty current, and I feared for the safetyof the U-33 in making so sharp a turn under such adverse conditions; butthere was nothing for it but to try. I didn’t warn my fellows of the danger—itcould have but caused them useless apprehension, for if we were to be smashedagainst the rocky wall, no power on earth could avert the quick end that wouldcome to us. I gave the command full speed ahead and went charging toward themenace. I was forced to approach the dangerous left-hand wall in order to makethe turn, and I depended upon the power of the motors to carry us through thesurging waters in safety. Well, we made it; but it was a narrow squeak. As weswung around, the full force of the current caught us and drove the sternagainst the rocks; there was a thud which sent a tremor through the wholecraft, and then a moment of nasty grinding as the steel hull scraped the rockwall. I expected momentarily the inrush of waters that would seal our doom; butpresently from below came the welcome word that all was well.

In another fifty yards there was a second turn, this time toward the left! butit was more of a gentle curve, and we took it without trouble. After that itwas plain sailing, though as far as I could know, there might be most anythingahead of us, and my nerves strained to the snapping-point every instant. Afterthe second turn the channel ran comparatively straight for between one hundredand fifty and two hundred yards. The waters grew suddenly lighter, and myspirits rose accordingly. I shouted down to those below that I saw daylightahead, and a great shout of thanksgiving reverberated through the ship. Amoment later we emerged into sunlit water, and immediately I raised theperiscope and looked about me upon the strangest landscape I had ever seen.

We were in the middle of a broad and now sluggish river the banks of which werelined by giant, arboraceous ferns, raising their mighty fronds fifty, onehundred, two hundred feet into the quiet air. Close by us something rose to thesurface of the river and dashed at the periscope. I had a vision of wide,distended jaws, and then all was blotted out. A shiver ran down into the toweras the thing closed upon the periscope. A moment later it was gone, and I couldsee again. Above the trees there soared into my vision a huge thing on batlikewings—a creature large as a large whale, but fashioned more after the order ofa lizard. Then again something charged the periscope and blotted out themirror. I will confess that I was almost gasping for breath as I gave thecommands to emerge. Into what sort of strange land had fate guided us?

The instant the deck was awash, I opened the conning-tower hatch and steppedout. In another minute the deck-hatch lifted, and those who were not on dutybelow streamed up the ladder, Olson bringing Nobs under one arm. For severalminutes no one spoke; I think they must each have been as overcome by awe aswas I. All about us was a flora and fauna as strange and wonderful to us asmight have been those upon a distant planet had we suddenly been miraculouslytransported through ether to an unknown world. Even the grass upon the nearerbank was unearthly—lush and high it grew, and each blade bore upon its tip abrilliant flower—violet or yellow or carmine or blue—making as gorgeous a swardas human imagination might conceive. But the life! It teemed. The tall,fernlike trees were alive with monkeys, snakes, and lizards. Huge insectshummed and buzzed hither and thither. Mighty forms could be seen moving uponthe ground in the thick forest, while the bosom of the river wriggled withliving things, and above flapped the wings of gigantic creatures such as we aretaught have been extinct throughout countless ages.

“Look!” cried Olson. “Would you look at the giraffe comin’ up out o’ the bottomof the say?” We looked in the direction he pointed and saw a long, glossy necksurmounted by a small head rising above the surface of the river. Presently theback of the creature was exposed, brown and glossy as the water dripped fromit. It turned its eyes upon us, opened its lizard-like mouth, emitted a shrillhiss and came for us. The thing must have been sixteen or eighteen feet inlength and closely resembled pictures I had seen of restored plesiosaurs of thelower Jurassic. It charged us as savagely as a mad bull, and one would havethought it intended to destroy and devour the mighty U-boat, as I verilybelieve it did intend.

We were moving slowly up the river as the creature bore down upon us withdistended jaws. The long neck was far outstretched, and the four flippers withwhich it swam were working with powerful strokes, carrying it forward at arapid pace. When it reached the craft’s side, the jaws closed upon one of thestanchions of the deck rail and tore it from its socket as though it had been atoothpick stuck in putty. At this exhibition of titanic strength I think we allsimultaneously stepped backward, and Bradley drew his revolver and fired. Thebullet struck the thing in the neck, just above its body; but instead ofdisabling it, merely increased its rage. Its hissing rose to a shrill scream asit raised half its body out of water onto the sloping sides of the hull of theU-33 and endeavored to scramble upon the deck to devour us. A dozenshots rang out as we who were armed drew our pistols and fired at the thing;but though struck several times, it showed no signs of succumbing and onlyfloundered farther aboard the submarine.

I had noticed that the girl had come on deck and was standing not far behindme, and when I saw the danger to which we were all exposed, I turned and forcedher toward the hatch. We had not spoken for some days, and we did not speaknow; but she gave me a disdainful look, which was quite as eloquent as words,and broke loose from my grasp. I saw I could do nothing with her unless Iexerted force, and so I turned with my back toward her that I might be in aposition to shield her from the strange reptile should it really succeed inreaching the deck; and as I did so I saw the thing raise one flipper over therail, dart its head forward and with the quickness of lightning seize upon oneof the boches. I ran forward, discharging my pistol into the creature’s body inan effort to force it to relinquish its prey; but I might as profitably haveshot at the sun.

Shrieking and screaming, the German was dragged from the deck, and the momentthe reptile was clear of the boat, it dived beneath the surface of the waterwith its terrified prey. I think we were all more or less shaken by thefrightfulness of the tragedy—until Olson remarked that the balance of power nowrested where it belonged. Following the death of Benson we had been nine andnine—nine Germans and nine “Allies,” as we called ourselves, now there were buteight Germans. We never counted the girl on either side, I suppose because shewas a girl, though we knew well enough now that she was ours.

And so Olson’s remark helped to clear the atmosphere for the Allies at least,and then our attention was once more directed toward the river, for around usthere had sprung up a perfect bedlam of screams and hisses and a seethingcaldron of hideous reptiles, devoid of fear and filled only with hunger andwith rage. They clambered, squirmed and wriggled to the deck, forcing ussteadily backward, though we emptied our pistols into them. There were allsorts and conditions of horrible things—huge, hideous, grotesque, monstrous—averitable Mesozoic nightmare. I saw that the girl was gotten below as quicklyas possible, and she took Nobs with her—poor Nobs had nearly barked his headoff; and I think, too, that for the first time since his littlest puppyhood hehad known fear; nor can I blame him. After the girl I sent Bradley and most ofthe Allies and then the Germans who were on deck—von Schoenvorts being still inirons below.

The creatures were approaching perilously close before I dropped through thehatchway and slammed down the cover. Then I went into the tower and orderedfull speed ahead, hoping to distance the fearsome things; but it was useless.Not only could any of them easily outdistance the U-33, but the furtherupstream we progressed the greater the number of our besiegers, until fearfulof navigating a strange river at high speed, I gave orders to reduce and movedslowly and majestically through the plunging, hissing mass. I was mighty gladthat our entrance into the interior of Caprona had been inside a submarinerather than in any other form of vessel. I could readily understand how itmight have been that Caprona had been invaded in the past by venturesomenavigators without word of it ever reaching the outside world, for I can assureyou that only by submarine could man pass up that great sluggish river, alive.

We proceeded up the river for some forty miles before darkness overtook us. Iwas afraid to submerge and lie on the bottom overnight for fear that the mudmight be deep enough to hold us, and as we could not hold with the anchor, Iran in close to shore, and in a brief interim of attack from the reptiles wemade fast to a large tree. We also dipped up some of the river water and foundit, though quite warm, a little sweeter than before. We had food enough, andwith the water we were all quite refreshed; but we missed fresh meat. It hadbeen weeks, now, since we had tasted it, and the sight of the reptiles gave mean idea—that a steak or two from one of them might not be bad eating. So I wenton deck with a rifle, twenty of which were aboard the U-33. At sight ofme a huge thing charged and climbed to the deck. I retreated to the top of theconning-tower, and when it had raised its mighty bulk to the level of thelittle deck on which I stood, I let it have a bullet right between the eyes.

The thing stopped then and looked at me a moment as much as to say: “Why thisthing has a stinger! I must be careful.” And then it reached out its long neckand opened its mighty jaws and grabbed for me; but I wasn’t there. I hadtumbled backward into the tower, and I mighty near killed myself doing it. WhenI glanced up, that little head on the end of its long neck was coming straightdown on top of me, and once more I tumbled into greater safety, sprawling uponthe floor of the centrale.

Olson was looking up, and seeing what was poking about in the tower, ran for anax; nor did he hesitate a moment when he returned with one, but sprang up theladder and commenced chopping away at that hideous face. The thing didn’t havesufficient brainpan to entertain more than a single idea at once. Thoughchopped and hacked, and with a bullethole between its eyes, it still persistedmadly in its attempt to get inside the tower and devour Olson, though its bodywas many times the diameter of the hatch; nor did it cease its efforts untilafter Olson had succeeded in decapitating it. Then the two men went on deckthrough the main hatch, and while one kept watch, the other cut a hind quarteroff Plesiosaurus Olsoni, as Bradley dubbed the thing. Meantime Olson cutoff the long neck, saying that it would make fine soup. By the time we hadcleared away the blood and refuse in the tower, the cook had juicy steaks and asteaming broth upon the electric stove, and the aroma arising from P. Olsonifilled us all with a hitherto unfelt admiration for him and all his kind.

Chapter 5

The steaks we had that night, and they were fine; and the following morning wetasted the broth. It seemed odd to be eating a creature that should, by all thelaws of paleontology, have been extinct for several million years. It gave onea feeling of newness that was almost embarrassing, although it didn’t seem toembarrass our appetites. Olson ate until I thought he would burst.

The girl ate with us that night at the little officers’ mess just back of thetorpedo compartment. The narrow table was unfolded; the four stools were setout; and for the first time in days we sat down to eat, and for the first timein weeks we had something to eat other than the monotony of the short rationsof an impoverished U-boat. Nobs sat between the girl and me and was fed withmorsels of the Plesiosaurus steak, at the risk of forever contaminating hismanners. He looked at me sheepishly all the time, for he knew that no well-breddog should eat at table; but the poor fellow was so wasted from improper foodthat I couldn’t enjoy my own meal had he been denied an immediate share in it;and anyway Lys wanted to feed him. So there you are.

Lys was coldly polite to me and sweetly gracious to Bradley and Olson. Shewasn’t of the gushing type, I knew; so I didn’t expect much from her and wasduly grateful for the few morsels of attention she threw upon the floor to me.We had a pleasant meal, with only one unfortunate occurrence—when Olsonsuggested that possibly the creature we were eating was the same one that atethe German. It was some time before we could persuade the girl to continue hermeal, but at last Bradley prevailed upon her, pointing out that we had comeupstream nearly forty miles since the boche had been seized, and that duringthat time we had seen literally thousands of these denizens of the river,indicating that the chances were very remote that this was the same Plesiosaur.“And anyway,” he concluded, “it was only a scheme of Mr. Olson’s to get all thesteaks for himself.”

We discussed the future and ventured opinions as to what lay before us; but wecould only theorize at best, for none of us knew. If the whole land wasinfested by these and similar horrid monsters, life would be impossible uponit, and we decided that we would only search long enough to find and takeaboard fresh water and such meat and fruits as might be safely procurable andthen retrace our way beneath the cliffs to the open sea.

And so at last we turned into our narrow bunks, hopeful, happy and at peacewith ourselves, our lives and our God, to awaken the following morningrefreshed and still optimistic. We had an easy time getting away—as we learnedlater, because the saurians do not commence to feed until late in the morning.From noon to midnight their curve of activity is at its height, while from dawnto about nine o’clock it is lowest. As a matter of fact, we didn’t see one ofthem all the time we were getting under way, though I had the cannon raised tothe deck and manned against an assault. I hoped, but I was none too sure, thatshells might discourage them. The trees were full of monkeys of all sizes andshades, and once we thought we saw a manlike creature watching us from thedepth of the forest.

Shortly after we resumed our course upstream, we saw the mouth of another andsmaller river emptying into the main channel from the south—that is, upon ourright; and almost immediately after we came upon a large island five or sixmiles in length; and at fifty miles there was a still larger river than thelast coming in from the northwest, the course of the main stream having nowchanged to northeast by southwest. The water was quite free from reptiles, andthe vegetation upon the banks of the river had altered to more open andparklike forest, with eucalyptus and acacia mingled with a scattering of treeferns, as though two distinct periods of geologic time had overlapped andmerged. The grass, too, was less flowering, though there were still gorgeouspatches mottling the greensward; and lastly, the fauna was less multitudinous.

Six or seven miles farther, and the river widened considerably; before usopened an expanse of water to the farther horizon, and then we sailed out uponan inland sea so large that only a shore-line upon our side was visible to us.The waters all about us were alive with life. There were still a few reptiles;but there were fish by the thousands, by the millions.

The water of the inland sea was very warm, almost hot, and the atmosphere washot and heavy above it. It seemed strange that beyond the buttressed walls ofCaprona icebergs floated and the south wind was biting, for only a gentlebreeze moved across the face of these living waters, and that was damp andwarm. Gradually, we commenced to divest ourselves of our clothing, retainingonly sufficient for modesty; but the sun was not hot. It was more the heat of asteam-room than of an oven.

We coasted up the shore of the lake in a north-westerly direction, sounding allthe time. We found the lake deep and the bottom rocky and steeply shelvingtoward the center, and once when I moved straight out from shore to take othersoundings we could find no bottom whatsoever. In open spaces along the shore wecaught occasional glimpses of the distant cliffs, and here they appeared only atrifle less precipitous than those which bound Caprona on the seaward side. Mytheory is that in a far distant era Caprona was a mighty mountain—perhaps theworld’s mightiest mountain—and that in some titanic eruption volcanic actionblew off the entire crest, blew thousands of feet of the mountain upward andoutward and onto the surrounding continent, leaving a great crater; and then,possibly, the continent sank as ancient continents have been known to do,leaving only the summit of Caprona above the sea. The encircling walls, thecentral lake, the hot springs which feed the lake, all point to such aconclusion, and the fauna and the flora bear indisputable evidence that Capronawas once part of some great land-mass.

As we cruised up along the coast, the landscape continued a more or less openforest, with here and there a small plain where we saw animals grazing. With myglass I could make out a species of large red deer, some antelope and whatappeared to be a species of horse; and once I saw the shaggy form of what mighthave been a monstrous bison. Here was game a plenty! There seemed little dangerof starving upon Caprona. The game, however, seemed wary; for the instant theanimals discovered us, they threw up their heads and tails and went cavortingoff, those farther inland following the example of the others until all werelost in the mazes of the distant forest. Only the great, shaggy ox stood hisground. With lowered head he watched us until we had passed, and then continuedfeeding.

About twenty miles up the coast from the mouth of the river we encountered lowcliffs of sandstone, broken and tortured evidence of the great upheaval whichhad torn Caprona asunder in the past, intermingling upon a common level therock formations of widely separated eras, fusing some and leaving othersuntouched.

We ran along beside them for a matter of ten miles, arriving off a broad cleftwhich led into what appeared to be another lake. As we were in search of purewater, we did not wish to overlook any portion of the coast, and so aftersounding and finding that we had ample depth, I ran the U-33 betweenhead-lands into as pretty a landlocked harbor as sailormen could care to see,with good water right up to within a few yards of the shore. As we cruisedslowly along, two of the boches again saw what they believed to be a man, ormanlike creature, watching us from a fringe of trees a hundred yards inland,and shortly after we discovered the mouth of a small stream emptying into thebay. It was the first stream we had found since leaving the river, and I atonce made preparations to test its water. To land, it would be necessary to runthe U-33 close in to the shore, at least as close as we could, for eventhese waters were infested, though, not so thickly, by savage reptiles. Iordered sufficient water let into the diving-tanks to lower us about a foot,and then I ran the bow slowly toward the shore, confident that should we runaground, we still had sufficient lifting force to free us when the water shouldbe pumped out of the tanks; but the bow nosed its way gently into the reeds andtouched the shore with the keel still clear.

My men were all armed now with both rifles and pistols, each having plenty ofammunition. I ordered one of the Germans ashore with a line, and sent two of myown men to guard him, for from what little we had seen of Caprona, or Caspak aswe learned later to call the interior, we realized that any instant some newand terrible danger might confront us. The line was made fast to a small tree,and at the same time I had the stern anchor dropped.

As soon as the boche and his guard were aboard again, I called all hands ondeck, including von Schoenvorts, and there I explained to them that the timehad come for us to enter into some sort of an agreement among ourselves thatwould relieve us of the annoyance and embarrassment of being divided into twoantagonistic parts—prisoners and captors. I told them that it was obvious ourvery existence depended upon our unity of action, that we were to all intentand purpose entering a new world as far from the seat and causes of our ownworld-war as if millions of miles of space and eons of time separated us fromour past lives and habitations.

“There is no reason why we should carry our racial and political hatreds intoCaprona,” I insisted. “The Germans among us might kill all the English, or theEnglish might kill the last German, without affecting in the slightest degreeeither the outcome of even the smallest skirmish upon the western front or theopinion of a single individual in any belligerent or neutral country. Itherefore put the issue squarely to you all; shall we bury our animosities andwork together with and for one another while we remain upon Caprona, or must wecontinue thus divided and but half armed, possibly until death has claimed thelast of us? And let me tell you, if you have not already realized it, thechances are a thousand to one that not one of us ever will see the outsideworld again. We are safe now in the matter of food and water; we couldprovision the U-33 for a long cruise; but we are practically out offuel, and without fuel we cannot hope to reach the ocean, as only a submarinecan pass through the barrier cliffs. What is your answer?” I turned toward vonSchoenvorts.

He eyed me in that disagreeable way of his and demanded to know, in case theyaccepted my suggestion, what their status would be in event of our finding away to escape with the U-33. I replied that I felt that if we had allworked loyally together we should leave Caprona upon a common footing, and tothat end I suggested that should the remote possibility of our escape in thesubmarine develop into reality, we should then immediately make for the nearestneutral port and give ourselves into the hands of the authorities, when weshould all probably be interned for the duration of the war. To my surprise heagreed that this was fair and told me that they would accept my conditions andthat I could depend upon their loyalty to the common cause.

I thanked him and then addressed each one of his men individually, and eachgave me his word that he would abide by all that I had outlined. It was furtherunderstood that we were to act as a military organization under military rulesand discipline—I as commander, with Bradley as my first lieutenant and Olson asmy second, in command of the Englishmen; while von Schoenvorts was to act as anadditional second lieutenant and have charge of his own men. The four of uswere to constitute a military court under which men might be tried andsentenced to punishment for infraction of military rules and discipline, evento the passing of the death-sentence.

I then had arms and ammunition issued to the Germans, and leaving Bradley andfive men to guard the U-33, the balance of us went ashore. The firstthing we did was to taste the water of the little stream—which, to our delight,we found sweet, pure and cold. This stream was entirely free from dangerousreptiles, because, as I later discovered, they became immediately dormant whensubjected to a much lower temperature than 70 degrees Fahrenheit. They dislikecold water and keep as far away from it as possible. There were countlessbrook-trout here, and deep holes that invited us to bathe, and along the bankof the stream were trees bearing a close resemblance to ash and beech and oak,their characteristics evidently induced by the lower temperature of the airabove the cold water and by the fact that their roots were watered by the waterfrom the stream rather than from the warm springs which we afterward found insuch abundance elsewhere.

Our first concern was to fill the water tanks of the U-33 with freshwater, and that having been accomplished, we set out to hunt for game andexplore inland for a short distance. Olson, von Schoenvorts, two Englishmen andtwo Germans accompanied me, leaving ten to guard the ship and the girl. I hadintended leaving Nobs behind, but he got away and joined me and was so happyover it that I hadn’t the heart to send him back. We followed the stream upwardthrough a beautiful country for about five miles, and then came upon its sourcein a little boulder-strewn clearing. From among the rocks bubbled fully twentyice-cold springs. North of the clearing rose sandstone cliffs to a height ofsome fifty to seventy-five feet, with tall trees growing at their base andalmost concealing them from our view. To the west the country was flat andsparsely wooded, and here it was that we saw our first game—a large red deer.It was grazing away from us and had not seen us when one of my men called myattention to it. Motioning for silence and having the rest of the party liedown, I crept toward the quarry, accompanied only by Whitely. We got within ahundred yards of the deer when he suddenly raised his antlered head and prickedup his great ears. We both fired at once and had the satisfaction of seeing thebuck drop; then we ran forward to finish him with our knives. The deer lay in asmall open space close to a clump of acacias, and we had advanced to withinseveral yards of our kill when we both halted suddenly and simultaneously.Whitely looked at me, and I looked at Whitely, and then we both looked back inthe direction of the deer.

“Blime!” he said. “Wot is hit, sir?”

“It looks to me, Whitely, like an error,” I said; “some assistant god who hadbeen creating elephants must have been temporarily transferred to thelizard-department.”

“Hi wouldn’t s’y that, sir,” said Whitely; “it sounds blasphemous.”

“It is no more blasphemous than that thing which is swiping our meat,” Ireplied, for whatever the thing was, it had leaped upon our deer and wasdevouring it in great mouthfuls which it swallowed without mastication. Thecreature appeared to be a great lizard at least ten feet high, with a huge,powerful tail as long as its torso, mighty hind legs and short forelegs. Whenit had advanced from the wood, it hopped much after the fashion of a kangaroo,using its hind feet and tail to propel it, and when it stood erect, it sat uponits tail. Its head was long and thick, with a blunt muzzle, and the opening ofthe jaws ran back to a point behind the eyes, and the jaws were armed with longsharp teeth. The scaly body was covered with black and yellow spots about afoot in diameter and irregular in contour. These spots were outlined in redwith edgings about an inch wide. The underside of the chest, body and tail werea greenish white.

“Wot s’y we pot the bloomin’ bird, sir?” suggested Whitely.

I told him to wait until I gave the word; then we would fire simultaneously, heat the heart and I at the spine.

“Hat the ’eart, sir—yes, sir,” he replied, and raised his piece to hisshoulder.

Our shots rang out together. The thing raised its head and looked about untilits eyes rested upon us; then it gave vent to a most appalling hiss that roseto the crescendo of a terrific shriek and came for us.

“Beat it, Whitely!” I cried as I turned to run.

We were about a quarter of a mile from the rest of our party, and in full sightof them as they lay in the tall grass watching us. That they saw all that hadhappened was evidenced by the fact that they now rose and ran toward us, and attheir head leaped Nobs. The creature in our rear was gaining on us rapidly whenNobs flew past me like a meteor and rushed straight for the frightful reptile.I tried to recall him, but he would pay no attention to me, and as I couldn’tsee him sacrificed, I, too, stopped and faced the monster. The creatureappeared to be more impressed with Nobs than by us and our firearms, for itstopped as the Airedale dashed at it growling, and struck at him viciously withits powerful jaws.

Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking beast anddodged his opponent’s thrust with ease. Then he raced to the rear of thetremendous thing and seized it by the tail. There Nobs made the error of hislife. Within that mottled organ were the muscles of a Titan, the force of adozen mighty catapults, and the owner of the tail was fully aware of thepossibilities which it contained. With a single flip of the tip it sent poorNobs sailing through the air a hundred feet above the ground, straight backinto the clump of acacias from which the beast had leaped upon our kill—andthen the grotesque thing sank lifeless to the ground.

Olson and von Schoenvorts came up a minute later with their men; then we allcautiously approached the still form upon the ground. The creature was quitedead, and an examination resulted in disclosing the fact that Whitely’s bullethad pierced its heart, and mine had severed the spinal cord.

“But why didn’t it die instantly?” I exclaimed.

“Because,” said von Schoenvorts in his disagreeable way, “the beast is solarge, and its nervous organization of so low a caliber, that it took all thistime for the intelligence of death to reach and be impressed upon the minutebrain. The thing was dead when your bullets struck it; but it did not know itfor several seconds—possibly a minute. If I am not mistaken, it is anAllosaurus of the Upper Jurassic, remains of which have been found in CentralWyoming, in the suburbs of New York.”

An Irishman by the name of Brady grinned. I afterward learned that he hadserved three years on the traffic-squad of the Chicago police force.

I had been calling Nobs in the meantime and was about to set out in search ofhim, fearing, to tell the truth, to do so lest I find him mangled and deadamong the trees of the acacia grove, when he suddenly emerged from among theboles, his ears flattened, his tail between his legs and his body screwed intoa suppliant S. He was unharmed except for minor bruises; but he was the mostchastened dog I have ever seen.

We gathered up what was left of the red deer after skinning and cleaning it,and set out upon our return journey toward the U-boat. On the way Olson, vonSchoenvorts and I discussed the needs of our immediate future, and we wereunanimous in placing foremost the necessity of a permanent camp on shore. Theinterior of a U-boat is about as impossible and uncomfortable an abiding-placeas one can well imagine, and in this warm climate, and in warm water, it wasalmost unendurable. So we decided to construct a palisaded camp.

Chapter 6

As we strolled slowly back toward the boat, planning and discussing this, wewere suddenly startled by a loud and unmistakable detonation.

“A shell from the U-33!” exclaimed von Schoenvorts.

“What can be after signifyin’?” queried Olson.

“They are in trouble,” I answered for all, “and it’s up to us to get back tothem. Drop that carcass,” I directed the men carrying the meat, “and followme!” I set off at a rapid run in the direction of the harbor.

We ran for the better part of a mile without hearing anything more from thedirection of the harbor, and then I reduced the speed to a walk, for theexercise was telling on us who had been cooped up for so long in the confinedinterior of the U-33. Puffing and panting, we plodded on until withinabout a mile of the harbor we came upon a sight that brought us all upstanding. We had been passing through a little heavier timber than was usual tothis part of the country, when we suddenly emerged into an open space in thecenter of which was such a band as might have caused the most courageous topause. It consisted of upward of five hundred individuals representing severalspecies closely allied to man. There were anthropoid apes and gorillas—these Ihad no difficulty in recognizing; but there were other forms which I had neverbefore seen, and I was hard put to it to say whether they were ape or man. Someof them resembled the corpse we had found upon the narrow beach againstCaprona’s sea-wall, while others were of a still lower type, more nearlyresembling the apes, and yet others were uncannily manlike, standing thereerect, being less hairy and possessing better shaped heads.

There was one among the lot, evidently the leader of them, who bore a closeresemblance to the so-called Neanderthal man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Therewas the same short, stocky trunk upon which rested an enormous head habituallybent forward into the same curvature as the back, the arms shorter than thelegs, and the lower leg considerably shorter than that of modern man, the kneesbent forward and never straightened. This creature and one or two others whoappeared to be of a lower order than he, yet higher than that of the apes,carried heavy clubs; the others were armed only with giant muscles and fightingfangs—nature’s weapons. All were males, and all were entirely naked; nor wasthere upon even the highest among them a sign of ornamentation.

At sight of us they turned with bared fangs and low growls to confront us. Idid not wish to fire among them unless it became absolutely necessary, and so Istarted to lead my party around them; but the instant that the Neanderthal manguessed my intention, he evidently attributed it to cowardice upon our part,and with a wild cry he leaped toward us, waving his cudgel above his head. Theothers followed him, and in a minute we should have been overwhelmed. I gavethe order to fire, and at the first volley six of them went down, including theNeanderthal man. The others hesitated a moment and then broke for the trees,some running nimbly among the branches, while others lost themselves to usbetween the boles. Both von Schoenvorts and I noticed that at least two of thehigher, manlike types took to the trees quite as nimbly as the apes, whileothers that more nearly approached man in carriage and appearance sought safetyupon the ground with the gorillas.

An examination disclosed that five of our erstwhile opponents were dead and thesixth, the Neanderthal man, was but slightly wounded, a bullet having glancedfrom his thick skull, stunning him. We decided to take him with us to camp, andby means of belts we managed to secure his hands behind his back and place aleash around his neck before he regained consciousness. We then retraced oursteps for our meat being convinced by our own experience that those aboard theU-33 had been able to frighten off this party with a single shell—butwhen we came to where we had left the deer it had disappeared.

On the return journey Whitely and I preceded the rest of the party by about ahundred yards in the hope of getting another shot at something edible, for wewere all greatly disgusted and disappointed by the loss of our venison. Whitelyand I advanced very cautiously, and not having the whole party with us, wefared better than on the journey out, bagging two large antelope not ahalf-mile from the harbor; so with our game and our prisoner we made a cheerfulreturn to the boat, where we found that all were safe. On the shore a littlenorth of where we lay there were the corpses of twenty of the wild creatureswho had attacked Bradley and his party in our absence, and the rest of whom wehad met and scattered a few minutes later.

We felt that we had taught these wild ape-men a lesson and that because of itwe would be safer in the future—at least safer from them; but we decided not toabate our carefulness one whit, feeling that this new world was filled withterrors still unknown to us; nor were we wrong.

The following morning we commenced work upon our camp, Bradley, Olson, vonSchoenvorts, Miss La Rue, and I having sat up half the night discussing thematter and drawing plans. We set the men at work felling trees, selecting forthe purpose jarrah, a hard, weather-resisting timber which grew in profusionnear by. Half the men labored while the other half stood guard, alternatingeach hour with an hour off at noon. Olson directed this work. Bradley, vonSchoenvorts and I, with Miss La Rue’s help, staked out the various buildingsand the outer wall. When the day was done, we had quite an array of logs nicelynotched and ready for our building operations on the morrow, and we were alltired, for after the buildings had been staked out we all fell in and helpedwith the logging—all but von Schoenvorts. He, being a Prussian and a gentleman,couldn’t stoop to such menial labor in the presence of his men, and I didn’tsee fit to ask it of him, as the work was purely voluntary upon our part. Hespent the afternoon shaping a swagger-stick from the branch of jarrah andtalking with Miss La Rue, who had sufficiently unbent toward him to notice hisexistence.

We saw nothing of the wild men of the previous day, and only once were wemenaced by any of the strange denizens of Caprona, when some frightfulnightmare of the sky swooped down upon us, only to be driven off by a fusilladeof bullets. The thing appeared to be some variety of pterodactyl, and what withits enormous size and ferocious aspect was most awe-inspiring. There wasanother incident, too, which to me at least was far more unpleasant than thesudden onslaught of the prehistoric reptile. Two of the men, both Germans, werestripping a felled tree of its branches. Von Schoenvorts had completed hisswagger-stick, and he and I were passing close to where the two worked.

One of them threw to his rear a small branch that he had just chopped off, andas misfortune would have it, it struck von Schoenvorts across the face. Itcouldn’t have hurt him, for it didn’t leave a mark; but he flew into a terrificrage, shouting: “Attention!” in a loud voice. The sailor immediatelystraightened up, faced his officer, clicked his heels together and saluted.“Pig!” roared the Baron, and struck the fellow across the face, breaking hisnose. I grabbed von Schoenvorts’ arm and jerked him away before he could strikeagain, if such had been his intention, and then he raised his little stick tostrike me; but before it descended the muzzle of my pistol was against hisbelly and he must have seen in my eyes that nothing would suit me better thanan excuse to pull the trigger. Like all his kind and all other bullies, vonSchoenvorts was a coward at heart, and so he dropped his hand to his side andstarted to turn away; but I pulled him back, and there before his men I toldhim that such a thing must never again occur—that no man was to be struck orotherwise punished other than in due process of the laws that we had made andthe court that we had established. All the time the sailor stood rigidly atattention, nor could I tell from his expression whether he most resented theblow his officer had struck him or my interference in the gospel of theKaiser-breed. Nor did he move until I said to him: “Plesser, you may return toyour quarters and dress your wound.” Then he saluted and marched stiffly offtoward the U-33.

Just before dusk we moved out into the bay a hundred yards from shore anddropped anchor, for I felt that we should be safer there than elsewhere. I alsodetailed men to stand watch during the night and appointed Olson officer of thewatch for the entire night, telling him to bring his blankets on deck and getwhat rest he could. At dinner we tasted our first roast Caprona antelope, andwe had a mess of greens that the cook had found growing along the stream. Allduring the meal von Schoenvorts was silent and surly.

After dinner we all went on deck and watched the unfamiliar scenes of aCapronian night—that is, all but von Schoenvorts. There was less to see than tohear. From the great inland lake behind us came the hissing and the screamingof countless saurians. Above us we heard the flap of giant wings, while fromthe shore rose the multitudinous voices of a tropical jungle—of a warm, dampatmosphere such as must have enveloped the entire earth during the Palezeoicand Mesozoic eras. But here were intermingled the voices of later eras—thescream of the panther, the roar of the lion, the baying of wolves and athunderous growling which we could attribute to nothing earthly but which oneday we were to connect with the most fearsome of ancient creatures.

One by one the others went to their rooms, until the girl and I were left alonetogether, for I had permitted the watch to go below for a few minutes, knowingthat I would be on deck. Miss La Rue was very quiet, though she repliedgraciously enough to whatever I had to say that required reply. I asked her ifshe did not feel well.

“Yes,” she said, “but I am depressed by the awfulness of it all. I feel of solittle consequence—so small and helpless in the face of all these myriadmanifestations of life stripped to the bone of its savagery and brutality. Irealize as never before how cheap and valueless a thing is life. Life seems ajoke, a cruel, grim joke. You are a laughable incident or a terrifying one asyou happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some other form of lifewhich crosses your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever toanything but yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradleto the grave. Yes, that is our trouble—we take ourselves too seriously; butCaprona should be a sure cure for that.” She paused and laughed.

“You have evolved a beautiful philosophy,” I said. “It fills such a longing inthe human breast. It is full, it is satisfying, it is ennobling. What wondrousstrides toward perfection the human race might have made if the first man hadevolved it and it had persisted until now as the creed of humanity.”

“I don’t like irony,” she said; “it indicates a small soul.”

“What other sort of soul, then, would you expect from ‘a comic little figurehopping from the cradle to the grave’?” I inquired. “And what difference doesit make, anyway, what you like and what you don’t like? You are here for but aninstant, and you mustn’t take yourself too seriously.”

She looked up at me with a smile. “I imagine that I am frightened and blue,”she said, “and I know that I am very, very homesick and lonely.” There wasalmost a sob in her voice as she concluded. It was the first time that she hadspoken thus to me. Involuntarily, I laid my hand upon hers where it rested onthe rail.

“I know how difficult your position is,” I said; “but don’t feel that you arealone. There is—is one here who—who would do anything in the world for you,” Iended lamely. She did not withdraw her hand, and she looked up into my facewith tears on her cheeks and I read in her eyes the thanks her lips could notvoice. Then she looked away across the weird moonlit landscape and sighed.Evidently her new-found philosophy had tumbled about her ears, for she wasseemingly taking herself seriously. I wanted to take her in my arms and tellher how I loved her, and had taken her hand from the rail and started to drawher toward me when Olson came blundering up on deck with his bedding.

The following morning we started building operations in earnest, and thingsprogressed finely. The Neanderthal man was something of a care, for we had tokeep him in irons all the time, and he was mighty savage when approached; butafter a time he became more docile, and then we tried to discover if he had alanguage. Lys spent a great deal of time talking to him and trying to draw himout; but for a long while she was unsuccessful. It took us three weeks to buildall the houses, which we constructed close by a cold spring some two miles fromthe harbor.

We changed our plans a trifle when it came to building the palisade, for wefound a rotted cliff near by where we could get all the flat building-stone weneeded, and so we constructed a stone wall entirely around the buildings. Itwas in the form of a square, with bastions and towers at each corner whichwould permit an enfilading fire along any side of the fort, and was about onehundred and thirty-five feet square on the outside, with walls three feet thickat the bottom and about a foot and a half wide at the top, and fifteen feethigh. It took a long time to build that wall, and we all turned in and helpedexcept von Schoenvorts, who, by the way, had not spoken to me except in theline of official business since our encounter—a condition of armed neutralitywhich suited me to a T. We have just finished it, the last touches being put ontoday. I quit about a week ago and commenced working on this chronicle for ourstrange adventures, which will account for any minor errors in chronology whichmay have crept in; there was so much material that I may have made somemistakes, but I think they are but minor and few.

I see in reading over the last few pages that I neglected to state that Lysfinally discovered that the Neanderthal man possessed a language. She haslearned to speak it, and so have I, to some extent. It was he—his name he saysis Am, or Ahm—who told us that this country is called Caspak. When we asked himhow far it extended, he waved both arms about his head in an all-includinggesture which took in, apparently, the entire universe. He is more tractablenow, and we are going to release him, for he has assured us that he will notpermit his fellows to harm us. He calls us Galus and says that in a short timehe will be a Galu. It is not quite clear to us what he means. He says thatthere are many Galus north of us, and that as soon as he becomes one he will goand live with them.

Ahm went out to hunt with us yesterday and was much impressed by the ease withwhich our rifles brought down antelopes and deer. We have been living upon thefat of the land, Ahm having shown us the edible fruits, tubers and herbs, andtwice a week we go out after fresh meat. A certain proportion of this we dryand store away, for we do not know what may come. Our drying process is reallysmoking. We have also dried a large quantity of two varieties of cereal whichgrow wild a few miles south of us. One of these is a giant Indian maize—a loftyperennial often fifty and sixty feet in height, with ears the size of a man’sbody and kernels as large as your fist. We have had to construct a second storehouse for the great quantity of this that we have gathered.

September3, 1916: Three months ago today the torpedo from theU-33 started me from the peaceful deck of the American liner upon thestrange voyage which has ended here in Caspak. We have settled down to anacceptance of our fate, for all are convinced that none of us will ever see theouter world again. Ahm’s repeated assertions that there are human beings likeourselves in Caspak have roused the men to a keen desire for exploration. Isent out one party last week under Bradley. Ahm, who is now free to go and comeas he wishes, accompanied them. They marched about twenty-five miles due west,encountering many terrible beasts and reptiles and not a few manlike creatureswhom Ahm sent away. Here is Bradley’s report of the expedition:

Marched fifteen miles the first day, camping on the bank of a large streamwhich runs southward. Game was plentiful and we saw several varieties which wehad not before encountered in Caspak. Just before making camp we were chargedby an enormous woolly rhinoceros, which Plesser dropped with a perfect shot. Wehad rhinoceros-steaks for supper. Ahm called the thing “Atis.” It was almost acontinuous battle from the time we left the fort until we arrived at camp. Themind of man can scarce conceive the plethora of carnivorous life in this lostworld; and their prey, of course, is even more abundant.

The second day we marched about ten miles to the foot of the cliffs. Passedthrough dense forests close to the base of the cliffs. Saw manlike creaturesand a low order of ape in one band, and some of the men swore that there was awhite man among them. They were inclined to attack us at first; but a volleyfrom our rifles caused them to change their minds. We scaled the cliffs as faras we could; but near the top they are absolutely perpendicular without anysufficient cleft or protuberance to give hand or foot-hold. All weredisappointed, for we hungered for a view of the ocean and the outside world. Weeven had a hope that we might see and attract the attention of a passing ship.Our exploration has determined one thing which will probably be of little valueto us and never heard of beyond Caprona’s walls—this crater was once entirelyfilled with water. Indisputable evidence of this is on the face of the cliffs.

Our return journey occupied two days and was as filled with adventure as usual.We are all becoming accustomed to adventure. It is beginning to pall on us. Wesuffered no casualties and there was no illness.

I had to smile as I read Bradley’s report. In those four days he had doubtlesspassed through more adventures than an African big-game hunter experiences in alifetime, and yet he covered it all in a few lines. Yes, we are becomingaccustomed to adventure. Not a day passes that one or more of us does not facedeath at least once. Ahm taught us a few things that have proved profitable andsaved us much ammunition, which it is useless to expend except for food or inthe last recourse of self-preservation. Now when we are attacked by largeflying reptiles we run beneath spreading trees; when land carnivora threatenus, we climb into trees, and we have learned not to fire at any of thedinosaurs unless we can keep out of their reach for at least two minutes afterhitting them in the brain or spine, or five minutes after puncturing theirhearts—it takes them so long to die. To hit them elsewhere is worse thanuseless, for they do not seem to notice it, and we had discovered that suchshots do not kill or even disable them.

September7, 1916: Much has happened since I last wrote. Bradley is awayagain on another exploration expedition to the cliffs. He expects to be goneseveral weeks and to follow along their base in search of a point where theymay be scaled. He took Sinclair, Brady, James, and Tippet with him. Ahm hasdisappeared. He has been gone about three days; but the most startling thing Ihave on record is that von Schoenvorts and Olson while out hunting the otherday discovered oil about fifteen miles north of us beyond the sandstone cliffs.Olson says there is a geyser of oil there, and von Schoenvorts is makingpreparations to refine it. If he succeeds, we shall have the means for leavingCaspak and returning to our own world. I can scarce believe the truth of it. Weare all elated to the seventh heaven of bliss. Pray God we shall not bedisappointed.

I have tried on several occasions to broach the subject of my love to Lys; butshe will not listen.

Chapter 7

October 8, 1916: This is the last entry I shall make upon my manuscript. Whenthis is done, I shall be through. Though I may pray that it reaches the hauntsof civilized man, my better judgment tells me that it will never be perused byother eyes than mine, and that even though it should, it would be too late toavail me. I am alone upon the summit of the great cliff overlooking the broadPacific. A chill south wind bites at my marrow, while far below me I can seethe tropic foliage of Caspak on the one hand and huge icebergs from the nearAntarctic upon the other. Presently I shall stuff my folded manuscript into thethermos bottle I have carried with me for the purpose since I left thefort—Fort Dinosaur we named it—and hurl it far outward over the cliff-top intothe Pacific. What current washes the shore of Caprona I know not; whither mybottle will be borne I cannot even guess; but I have done all that mortal manmay do to notify the world of my whereabouts and the dangers that threatenthose of us who remain alive in Caspak—if there be any other than myself.

About the 8th of September I accompanied Olson and von Schoenvorts to theoil-geyser. Lys came with us, and we took a number of things which vonSchoenvorts wanted for the purpose of erecting a crude refinery. We went up thecoast some ten or twelve miles in the U-33, tying up to shore near themouth of a small stream which emptied great volumes of crude oil into the sea—Ifind it difficult to call this great lake by any other name. Then wedisembarked and went inland about five miles, where we came upon a small lakeentirely filled with oil, from the center of which a geyser of oil spouted.

On the edge of the lake we helped von Schoenvorts build his primitive refinery.We worked with him for two days until he got things fairly well started, andthen we returned to Fort Dinosaur, as I feared that Bradley might return and beworried by our absence. The U-33 merely landed those of us that were toreturn to the fort and then retraced its course toward the oil-well. Olson,Whitely, Wilson, Miss La Rue, and myself disembarked, while von Schoenvorts andhis German crew returned to refine the oil. The next day Plesser and two otherGermans came down overland for ammunition. Plesser said they had been attackedby wild men and had exhausted a great deal of ammunition. He also askedpermission to get some dried meat and maize, saying that they were so busy withthe work of refining that they had no time to hunt. I let him have everythinghe asked for, and never once did a suspicion of their intentions enter my mind.They returned to the oil-well the same day, while we continued with themultitudinous duties of camp life.

For three days nothing of moment occurred. Bradley did not return; nor did wehave any word from von Schoenvorts. In the evening Lys and I went up into oneof the bastion towers and listened to the grim and terrible nightlife of thefrightful ages of the past. Once a saber-tooth screamed almost beneath us, andthe girl shrank close against me. As I felt her body against mine, all the pentlove of these three long months shattered the bonds of timidity and conviction,and I swept her up into my arms and covered her face and lips with kisses. Shedid not struggle to free herself; but instead her dear arms crept up about myneck and drew my own face even closer to hers.

“You love me, Lys?” I cried.

I felt her head nod an affirmative against my breast. “Tell me, Lys,” I begged,“tell me in words how much you love me.”

Low and sweet and tender came the answer: “I love you beyond all conception.”

My heart filled with rapture then, and it fills now as it has each of thecountless times I have recalled those dear words, as it shall fill always untildeath has claimed me. I may never see her again; she may not know how I loveher—she may question, she may doubt; but always true and steady, and warm withthe fires of love my heart beats for the girl who said that night: “I love youbeyond all conception.”

For a long time we sat there upon the little bench constructed for the sentrythat we had not as yet thought it necessary to post in more than one of thefour towers. We learned to know one another better in those two brief hoursthan we had in all the months that had intervened since we had been throwntogether. She told me that she had loved me from the first, and that she neverhad loved von Schoenvorts, their engagement having been arranged by her auntfor social reasons.

That was the happiest evening of my life; nor ever do I expect to experienceits like; but at last, as is the way of happiness, it terminated. We descendedto the compound, and I walked with Lys to the door of her quarters. There againshe kissed me and bade me good night, and then she went in and closed the door.

I went to my own room, and there I sat by the light of one of the crude candleswe had made from the tallow of the beasts we had killed, and lived over theevents of the evening. At last I turned in and fell asleep, dreaming happydreams and planning for the future, for even in savage Caspak I was bound tomake my girl safe and happy. It was daylight when I awoke. Wilson, who wasacting as cook, was up and astir at his duties in the cook-house. The othersslept; but I arose and followed by Nobs went down to the stream for a plunge.As was our custom, I went armed with both rifle and revolver; but I strippedand had my swim without further disturbance than the approach of a large hyena,a number of which occupied caves in the sand-stone cliffs north of the camp.These brutes are enormous and exceedingly ferocious. I imagine they correspondwith the cave-hyena of prehistoric times. This fellow charged Nobs, whoseCapronian experiences had taught him that discretion is the better part ofvalor—with the result that he dived head foremost into the stream beside meafter giving vent to a series of ferocious growls which had no more effect uponHyaena spelaeusthan might a sweet smile upon an enraged tusker.Afterward I shot the beast, and Nobs had a feast while I dressed, for he hadbecome quite a raw-meat eater during our numerous hunting expeditions, uponwhich we always gave him a portion of the kill.

Whitely and Olson were up and dressed when we returned, and we all sat down toa good breakfast. I could not but wonder at Lys’ absence from the table, forshe had always been one of the earliest risers in camp; so about nine o’clock,becoming apprehensive lest she might be indisposed, I went to the door of herroom and knocked. I received no response, though I finally pounded with all mystrength; then I turned the knob and entered, only to find that she was notthere. Her bed had been occupied, and her clothing lay where she had placed itthe previous night upon retiring; but Lys was gone. To say that I wasdistracted with terror would be to put it mildly. Though I knew she could notbe in camp, I searched every square inch of the compound and all the buildings,yet without avail.

It was Whitely who discovered the first clue—a huge human-like footprint in thesoft earth beside the spring, and indications of a struggle in the mud.

Then I found a tiny handkerchief close to the outer wall. Lys had been stolen!It was all too plain. Some hideous member of the ape-man tribe had entered thefort and carried her off. While I stood stunned and horrified at the frightfulevidence before me, there came from the direction of the great lake anincreasing sound that rose to the volume of a shriek. We all looked up as thenoise approached apparently just above us, and a moment later there followed aterrific explosion which hurled us to the ground. When we clambered to ourfeet, we saw a large section of the west wall torn and shattered. It was Olsonwho first recovered from his daze sufficiently to guess the explanation of thephenomenon.

“A shell!” he cried. “And there ain’t no shells in Caspak besides what’s on theU-33. The dirty boches are shellin’ the fort. Come on!” And he graspedhis rifle and started on a run toward the lake. It was over two miles, but wedid not pause until the harbor was in view, and still we could not see the lakebecause of the sandstone cliffs which intervened. We ran as fast as we couldaround the lower end of the harbor, scrambled up the cliffs and at last stoodupon their summit in full view of the lake. Far away down the coast, toward theriver through which we had come to reach the lake, we saw upon the surface theoutline of the U-33, black smoke vomiting from her funnel.

Von Schoenvorts had succeeded in refining the oil! The cur had broken his everypledge and was leaving us there to our fates. He had even shelled the fort as aparting compliment; nor could anything have been more truly Prussian than thisleave-taking of the Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts.

Olson, Whitely, Wilson, and I stood for a moment looking at one another. Itseemed incredible that man could be so perfidious—that we had really seen withour own eyes the thing that we had seen; but when we returned to the fort, theshattered wall gave us ample evidence that there was no mistake.

Then we began to speculate as to whether it had been an ape-man or a Prussianthat had abducted Lys. From what we knew of von Schoenvorts, we would not havebeen surprised at anything from him; but the footprints by the spring seemedindisputable evidence that one of Caprona’s undeveloped men had borne off thegirl I loved.

As soon as I had assured myself that such was the case, I made my preparationsto follow and rescue her. Olson, Whitely, and Wilson each wished to accompanyme; but I told them that they were needed here, since with Bradley’s partystill absent and the Germans gone it was necessary that we conserve our forceas far as might be possible.

Chapter 8

It was a sad leave-taking as in silence I shook hands with each of the threeremaining men. Even poor Nobs appeared dejected as we quit the compound and setout upon the well-marked spoor of the abductor. Not once did I turn my eyesbackward toward Fort Dinosaur. I have not looked upon it since—nor in alllikelihood shall I ever look upon it again. The trail led northwest until itreached the western end of the sandstone cliffs to the north of the fort; thereit ran into a well-defined path which wound northward into a country we had notas yet explored. It was a beautiful, gently rolling country, broken byoccasional outcroppings of sandstone and by patches of dense forest relieved byopen, park-like stretches and broad meadows whereon grazed countlessherbivorous animals—red deer, aurochs, and infinite variety of antelope and atleast three distinct species of horse, the latter ranging in size from acreature about as large as Nobs to a magnificent animal fourteen to sixteenhands high. These creatures fed together in perfect amity; nor did they showany great indications of terror when Nobs and I approached. They moved out ofour way and kept their eyes upon us until we had passed; then they resumedtheir feeding.

The path led straight across the clearing into another forest, lying upon theverge of which I saw a bit of white. It appeared to stand out in markedcontrast and incongruity to all its surroundings, and when I stopped to examineit, I found that it was a small strip of muslin—part of the hem of a garment.At once I was all excitement, for I knew that it was a sign left by Lys thatshe had been carried this way; it was a tiny bit torn from the hem of theundergarment that she wore in lieu of the night-robes she had lost with thesinking of the liner. Crushing the bit of fabric to my lips, I pressed on evenmore rapidly than before, because I now knew that I was upon the right trailand that up to this point at least, Lys still had lived.

I made over twenty miles that day, for I was now hardened to fatigue andaccustomed to long hikes, having spent considerable time hunting and exploringin the immediate vicinity of camp. A dozen times that day was my lifethreatened by fearsome creatures of the earth or sky, though I could not butnote that the farther north I traveled, the fewer were the great dinosaurs,though they still persisted in lesser numbers. On the other hand the quantityof ruminants and the variety and frequency of carnivorous animals increased.Each square mile of Caspak harbored its terrors.

At intervals along the way I found bits of muslin, and often they reassured mewhen otherwise I should have been doubtful of the trail to take where twocrossed or where there were forks, as occurred at several points. And so, asnight was drawing on, I came to the southern end of a line of cliffs loftierthan any I had seen before, and as I approached them, there was wafted to mynostrils the pungent aroma of woodsmoke. What could it mean? There could, to mymind, be but a single solution: man abided close by, a higher order of man thanwe had as yet seen, other than Ahm, the Neanderthal man. I wondered again as Ihad so many times that day if it had not been Ahm who stole Lys.

Cautiously I approached the flank of the cliffs, where they terminated in anabrupt escarpment as though some all powerful hand had broken off a greatsection of rock and set it upon the surface of the earth. It was now quitedark, and as I crept around the edge of the cliff, I saw at a little distance agreat fire around which were many figures—apparently human figures. CautioningNobs to silence, and he had learned many lessons in the value of obediencesince we had entered Caspak, I slunk forward, taking advantage of whatevercover I could find, until from behind a bush I could distinctly see thecreatures assembled by the fire. They were human and yet not human. I shouldsay that they were a little higher in the scale of evolution than Ahm, possiblyoccupying a place of evolution between that of the Neanderthal man and what isknown as the Grimaldi race. Their features were distinctly negroid, thoughtheir skins were white. A considerable portion of both torso and limbs werecovered with short hair, and their physical proportions were in many aspectsapelike, though not so much so as were Ahm’s. They carried themselves in a moreerect position, although their arms were considerably longer than those of theNeanderthal man. As I watched them, I saw that they possessed a language, thatthey had knowledge of fire and that they carried besides the wooden club ofAhm, a thing which resembled a crude stone hatchet. Evidently they were verylow in the scale of humanity, but they were a step upward from those I hadpreviously seen in Caspak.

But what interested me most was the slender figure of a dainty girl, clad onlyin a thin bit of muslin which scarce covered her knees—a bit of muslin torn andragged about the lower hem. It was Lys, and she was alive and so far as I couldsee, unharmed. A huge brute with thick lips and prognathous jaw stood at hershoulder. He was talking loudly and gesticulating wildly. I was close enough tohear his words, which were similar to the language of Ahm, though much fuller,for there were many words I could not understand. However I caught the gist ofwhat he was saying—which in effect was that he had found and captured thisGalu, that she was his and that he defied anyone to question his right ofpossession. It appeared to me, as I afterward learned was the fact, that I waswitnessing the most primitive of marriage ceremonies. The assembled members ofthe tribe looked on and listened in a sort of dull and perfunctory apathy, forthe speaker was by far the mightiest of the clan.

There seemed no one to dispute his claims when he said, or rather shouted, instentorian tones: “I am Tsa. This is my she. Who wishes her more than Tsa?”

“I do,” I said in the language of Ahm, and I stepped out into the firelightbefore them. Lys gave a little cry of joy and started toward me, but Tsagrasped her arm and dragged her back.

“Who are you?” shrieked Tsa. “I kill! I kill! I kill!”

“The she is mine,” I replied, “and I have come to claim her. I kill if you donot let her come to me.” And I raised my pistol to a level with his heart. Ofcourse the creature had no conception of the purpose of the strange littleimplement which I was poking toward him. With a sound that was half human andhalf the growl of a wild beast, he sprang toward me. I aimed at his heart andfired, and as he sprawled headlong to the ground, the others of his tribe,overcome by fright at the report of the pistol, scattered toward thecliffs—while Lys, with outstretched arms, ran toward me.

As I crushed her to me, there rose from the black night behind us and then toour right and to our left a series of frightful screams and shrieks,bellowings, roars and growls. It was the night-life of this jungle world cominginto its own—the huge, carnivorous nocturnal beasts which make the nights ofCaspak hideous. A shuddering sob ran through Lys’ figure. “O God,” she cried,“give me the strength to endure, for his sake!” I saw that she was upon theverge of a breakdown, after all that she must have passed through of fear andhorror that day, and I tried to quiet and reassure her as best I might; buteven to me the future looked most unpromising, for what chance of life had weagainst the frightful hunters of the night who even now were prowling closer tous?

Now I turned to see what had become of the tribe, and in the fitful glare ofthe fire I perceived that the face of the cliff was pitted with large holesinto which the man-things were clambering. “Come,” I said to Lys, “we mustfollow them. We cannot last a half-hour out here. We must find a cave.” Alreadywe could see the blazing green eyes of the hungry carnivora. I seized a brandfrom the fire and hurled it out into the night, and there came back ananswering chorus of savage and rageful protest; but the eyes vanished for ashort time. Selecting a burning branch for each of us, we advanced toward thecliffs, where we were met by angry threats.

“They will kill us,” said Lys. “We may as well keep on in search of anotherrefuge.”

“They will not kill us so surely as will those others out there,” I replied. “Iam going to seek shelter in one of these caves; nor will the man-thingsprevent.” And I kept on in the direction of the cliff’s base. A huge creaturestood upon a ledge and brandished his stone hatchet. “Come and I will kill youand take the she,” he boasted.

“You saw how Tsa fared when he would have kept my she,” I replied in his owntongue. “Thus will you fare and all your fellows if you do not permit us tocome in peace among you out of the dangers of the night.”

“Go north,” he screamed. “Go north among the Galus, and we will not harm you.Some day will we be Galus; but now we are not. You do not belong among us. Goaway or we will kill you. The she may remain if she is afraid, and we will keepher; but the he must depart.”

“The he won’t depart,” I replied, and approached still nearer. Rough and narrowledges formed by nature gave access to the upper caves. A man might scale themif unhampered and unhindered, but to clamber upward in the face of abelligerent tribe of half-men and with a girl to assist was beyond mycapability.

“I do not fear you,” screamed the creature. “You were close to Tsa; but I amfar above you. You cannot harm me as you harmed Tsa. Go away!”

I placed a foot upon the lowest ledge and clambered upward, reaching down andpulling Lys to my side. Already I felt safer. Soon we would be out of danger ofthe beasts again closing in upon us. The man above us raised his stone hatchetabove his head and leaped lightly down to meet us. His position above me gavehim a great advantage, or at least so he probably thought, for he came withevery show of confidence. I hated to do it, but there seemed no other way, andso I shot him down as I had shot down Tsa.

“You see,” I cried to his fellows, “that I can kill you wherever you may be. Along way off I can kill you as well as I can kill you near by. Let us comeamong you in peace. I will not harm you if you do not harm us. We will take acave high up. Speak!”

“Come, then,” said one. “If you will not harm us, you may come. Take Tsa’shole, which lies above you.”

The creature showed us the mouth of a black cave, but he kept at a distancewhile he did it, and Lys followed me as I crawled in to explore. I had matcheswith me, and in the light of one I found a small cavern with a flat roof andfloor which followed the cleavage of the strata. Pieces of the roof had fallenat some long-distant date, as was evidenced by the depth of the filth andrubble in which they were embedded. Even a superficial examination revealed thefact that nothing had ever been attempted that might have improved thelivability of the cavern; nor, should I judge, had it ever been cleaned out.With considerable difficulty I loosened some of the larger pieces of brokenrock which littered the floor and placed them as a barrier before the doorway.It was too dark to do more than this. I then gave Lys a piece of dried meat,and sitting inside the entrance, we dined as must have some of our ancientforbears at the dawning of the age of man, while far below the open diapason ofthe savage night rose weird and horrifying to our ears. In the light of thegreat fire still burning we could see huge, skulking forms, and in the blackerbackground countless flaming eyes.

Lys shuddered, and I put my arm around her and drew her to me; and thus we satthroughout the hot night. She told me of her abduction and of the fright shehad undergone, and together we thanked God that she had come through unharmed,because the great brute had dared not pause along the danger-infested way. Shesaid that they had but just reached the cliffs when I arrived, for on severaloccasions her captor had been forced to take to the trees with her to escapethe clutches of some hungry cave-lion or saber-toothed tiger, and that twicethey had been obliged to remain for considerable periods before the beasts hadretired.

Nobs, by dint of much scrambling and one or two narrow escapes from death, hadmanaged to follow us up the cliff and was now curled between me and thedoorway, having devoured a piece of the dried meat, which he seemed to relishimmensely. He was the first to fall asleep; but I imagine we must have followedsuit soon, for we were both tired. I had laid aside my ammunition-belt andrifle, though both were close beside me; but my pistol I kept in my lap beneathmy hand. However, we were not disturbed during the night, and when I awoke, thesun was shining on the tree-tops in the distance. Lys’ head had drooped to mybreast, and my arm was still about her.

Shortly afterward Lys awoke, and for a moment she could not seem to comprehendher situation. She looked at me and then turned and glanced at my arm abouther, and then she seemed quite suddenly to realize the scantiness of herapparel and drew away, covering her face with her palms and blushing furiously.I drew her back toward me and kissed her, and then she threw her arms about myneck and wept softly in mute surrender to the inevitable.

It was an hour later before the tribe began to stir about. We watched them fromour “apartment,” as Lys called it. Neither men nor women wore any sort ofclothing or ornaments, and they all seemed to be about of an age; nor werethere any babies or children among them. This was, to us, the strangest andmost inexplicable of facts, but it recalled to us that though we had seen manyof the lesser developed wild people of Caspak, we had never yet seen a child oran old man or woman.

After a while they became less suspicious of us and then quite friendly intheir brutish way. They picked at the fabric of our clothing, which seemed tointerest them, and examined my rifle and pistol and the ammunition in the beltaround my waist. I showed them the thermos-bottle, and when I poured a littlewater from it, they were delighted, thinking that it was a spring which Icarried about with me—a never-failing source of water supply.

One thing we both noticed among their other characteristics: they never laughednor smiled; and then we remembered that Ahm had never done so, either. I askedthem if they knew Ahm; but they said they did not.

One of them said: “Back there we may have known him.” And he jerked his head tothe south.

“You came from back there?” I asked. He looked at me in surprise.

“We all come from there,” he said. “After a while we go there.” And this timehe jerked his head toward the north. “Be Galus,” he concluded.

Many times now had we heard this reference to becoming Galus. Ahm had spoken ofit many times. Lys and I decided that it was a sort of original religiousconviction, as much a part of them as their instinct for self-preservation—aprimal acceptance of a hereafter and a holier state. It was a brilliant theory,but it was all wrong. I know it now, and how far we were from guessing thewonderful, the miraculous, the gigantic truth which even yet I may only guessat—the thing that sets Caspak apart from all the rest of the world far moredefinitely than her isolated geographical position or her impregnable barrierof giant cliffs. If I could live to return to civilization, I should have meatfor the clergy and the layman to chew upon for years—and for the evolutionists,too.

After breakfast the men set out to hunt, while the women went to a large poolof warm water covered with a green scum and filled with billions of tadpoles.They waded in to where the water was about a foot deep and lay down in the mud.They remained there from one to two hours and then returned to the cliff. Whilewe were with them, we saw this same thing repeated every morning; but though weasked them why they did it we could get no reply which was intelligible to us.All they vouchsafed in way of explanation was the single word Ata. They triedto get Lys to go in with them and could not understand why she refused. Afterthe first day I went hunting with the men, leaving my pistol and Nobs with Lys,but she never had to use them, for no reptile or beast ever approached the poolwhile the women were there—nor, so far as we know, at other times. There was nospoor of wild beast in the soft mud along the banks, and the water certainlydidn’t look fit to drink.

This tribe lived largely upon the smaller animals which they bowled over withtheir stone hatchets after making a wide circle about their quarry and drivingit so that it had to pass close to one of their number. The little horses andthe smaller antelope they secured in sufficient numbers to support life, andthey also ate numerous varieties of fruits and vegetables. They never broughtin more than sufficient food for their immediate needs; but why bother? Thefood problem of Caspak is not one to cause worry to her inhabitants.

The fourth day Lys told me that she thought she felt equal to attempting thereturn journey on the morrow, and so I set out for the hunt in high spirits,for I was anxious to return to the fort and learn if Bradley and his party hadreturned and what had been the result of his expedition. I also wanted torelieve their minds as to Lys and myself, as I knew that they must have alreadygiven us up for dead. It was a cloudy day, though warm, as it always is inCaspak. It seemed odd to realize that just a few miles away winter lay upon thestorm-tossed ocean, and that snow might be falling all about Caprona; but nosnow could ever penetrate the damp, hot atmosphere of the great crater.

We had to go quite a bit farther than usual before we could surround a littlebunch of antelope, and as I was helping drive them, I saw a fine red deer acouple of hundred yards behind me. He must have been asleep in the long grass,for I saw him rise and look about him in a bewildered way, and then I raised mygun and let him have it. He dropped, and I ran forward to finish him with thelong thin knife, which one of the men had given me; but just as I reached him,he staggered to his feet and ran on for another two hundred yards—when Idropped him again. Once more was this repeated before I was able to reach himand cut his throat; then I looked around for my companions, as I wanted them tocome and carry the meat home; but I could see nothing of them. I called a fewtimes and waited, but there was no response and no one came. At last I becamedisgusted, and cutting off all the meat that I could conveniently carry, I setoff in the direction of the cliffs. I must have gone about a mile before thetruth dawned upon me—I was lost, hopelessly lost.

The entire sky was still completely blotted out by dense clouds; nor was thereany landmark visible by which I might have taken my bearings. I went on in thedirection I thought was south but which I now imagine must have been about duenorth, without detecting a single familiar object. In a dense wood I suddenlystumbled upon a thing which at first filled me with hope and later with themost utter despair and dejection. It was a little mound of new-turned earthsprinkled with flowers long since withered, and at one end was a flat slab ofsandstone stuck in the ground. It was a grave, and it meant for me that I hadat last stumbled into a country inhabited by human beings. I would find them;they would direct me to the cliffs; perhaps they would accompany me and take usback with them to their abodes—to the abodes of men and women like ourselves.My hopes and my imagination ran riot in the few yards I had to cover to reachthat lonely grave and stoop that I might read the rude characters scratchedupon the simple headstone. This is what I read:

HERE LIES JOHN TIPPET
ENGLISHMAN
KILLED BY TYRANNOSAURUS
10 SEPT., A.D. 1916
R. I. P.

Tippet! It seemed incredible. Tippet lying here in this gloomy wood! Tippetdead! He had been a good man, but the personal loss was not what affected me.It was the fact that this silent grave gave evidence that Bradley had come thisfar upon his expedition and that he too probably was lost, for it was not ourintention that he should be long gone. If I had stumbled upon the grave of oneof the party, was it not within reason to believe that the bones of the otherslay scattered somewhere near?

Chapter 9

As I stood looking down upon that sad and lonely mound, wrapped in the mostdismal of reflections and premonitions, I was suddenly seized from behind andthrown to earth. As I fell, a warm body fell on top of me, and hands grasped myarms and legs. When I could look up, I saw a number of giant figures pinioningme down, while others stood about surveying me. Here again was a new type ofman—a higher type than the primitive tribe I had just quitted. They were ataller people, too, with better-shaped skulls and more intelligent faces. Therewere less of the ape characteristics about their features, and less of thenegroid, too. They carried weapons, stone-shod spears, stone knives, andhatchets—and they wore ornaments and breech-cloths—the former of feathers wornin their hair and the latter made of a single snake-skin cured with the headon, the head depending to their knees.

Of course I did not take in all these details upon the instant of my capture,for I was busy with other matters. Three of the warriors were sitting upon me,trying to hold me down by main strength and awkwardness, and they were havingtheir hands full in the doing, I can tell you. I don’t like to appearconceited, but I may as well admit that I am proud of my strength and thescience that I have acquired and developed in the directing of it—that and myhorsemanship I always have been proud of. And now, that day, all the long hoursthat I had put into careful study, practice and training brought me in two orthree minutes a full return upon my investment. Californians, as a rule, arefamiliar with ju-jutsu, and I especially had made a study of it for severalyears, both at school and in the gym of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, whilerecently I had had, in my employ, a Jap who was a wonder at the art.

It took me just about thirty seconds to break the elbow of one of myassailants, trip another and send him stumbling backward among his fellows, andthrow the third completely over my head in such a way that when he fell hisneck was broken. In the instant that the others of the party stood in mute andinactive surprise, I unslung my rifle—which, carelessly, I had been carryingacross my back; and when they charged, as I felt they would, I put a bullet inthe forehead of one of them. This stopped them all temporarily—not the death oftheir fellow, but the report of the rifle, the first they had ever heard.Before they were ready to attack me again, one of them spoke in a commandingtone to his fellows, and in a language similar but still more comprehensivethan that of the tribe to the south, as theirs was more complete than Ahm’s. Hecommanded them to stand back and then he advanced and addressed me.

He asked me who I was, from whence I came and what my intentions were. Ireplied that I was a stranger in Caspak, that I was lost and that my onlydesire was to find my way back to my companions. He asked where they were and Itold him toward the south somewhere, using the Caspakian phrase which,literally translated, means “toward the beginning.” His surprise showed uponhis face before he voiced it in words. “There are no Galus there,” he said.

“I tell you,” I said angrily, “that I am from another country, far from Caspak,far beyond the high cliffs. I do not know who the Galus may be; I have neverseen them. This is the farthest north I have been. Look at me—look at myclothing and my weapons. Have you ever seen a Galu or any other creature inCaspak who possessed such things?”

He had to admit that he had not, and also that he was much interested in me, myrifle and the way I had handled his three warriors. Finally he became halfconvinced that I was telling him the truth and offered to aid me if I wouldshow him how I had thrown the man over my head and also make him a present ofthe “bang-spear,” as he called it. I refused to give him my rifle, but promisedto show him the trick he wished to learn if he would guide me in the rightdirection. He told me that he would do so tomorrow, that it was too late todayand that I might come to their village and spend the night with them. I wasloath to lose so much time; but the fellow was obdurate, and so I accompaniedthem. The two dead men they left where they had fallen, nor gave them a secondglance—thus cheap is life upon Caspak.

These people also were cave-dwellers, but their caves showed the result of ahigher intelligence that brought them a step nearer to civilized man than thetribe next “toward the beginning.” The interiors of their caverns were clearedof rubbish, though still far from clean, and they had pallets of dried grassescovered with the skins of leopard, lynx, and bear, while before the entranceswere barriers of stone and small, rudely circular stone ovens. The walls of thecavern to which I was conducted were covered with drawings scratched upon thesandstone. There were the outlines of the giant red-deer, of mammoths, oftigers and other beasts. Here, as in the last tribe, there were no children orany old people. The men of this tribe had two names, or rather names of twosyllables, and their language contained words of two syllables; whereas in thetribe of Tsa the words were all of a single syllable, with the exception of avery few like Atis and Galus. The chief’s name was To-jo, and his householdconsisted of seven females and himself. These women were much more comely, orrather less hideous than those of Tsa’s people; one of them, even, was almostpretty, being less hairy and having a rather nice skin, with high coloring.

They were all much interested in me and examined my clothing and equipmentcarefully, handling and feeling and smelling of each article. I learned fromthem that their people were known as Band-lu, or spear-men; Tsa’s race wascalled Sto-lu—hatchet-men. Below these in the scale of evolution came theBo-lu, or club-men, and then the Alus, who had no weapons and no language. Inthat word I recognized what to me seemed the most remarkable discovery I hadmade upon Caprona, for unless it were mere coincidence, I had come upon a wordthat had been handed down from the beginning of spoken language upon earth,been handed down for millions of years, perhaps, with little change. It was thesole remaining thread of the ancient woof of a dawning culture which had beenwoven when Caprona was a fiery mount upon a great land-mass teeming with life.It linked the unfathomable then to the eternal now. And yet it may have beenpure coincidence; my better judgment tells me that it is coincidence that inCaspak the term for speechless man is Alus, and in the outer world of our ownday it is Alalus.

The comely woman of whom I spoke was called So-ta, and she took such a livelyinterest in me that To-jo finally objected to her attentions, emphasizing hisdispleasure by knocking her down and kicking her into a corner of the cavern. Ileaped between them while he was still kicking her, and obtaining a quick holdupon him, dragged him screaming with pain from the cave. Then I made himpromise not to hurt the she again, upon pain of worse punishment. So-ta gave mea grateful look; but To-jo and the balance of his women were sullen andominous.

Later in the evening So-ta confided to me that she was soon to leave the tribe.

“So-ta soon to be Kro-lu,” she confided in a low whisper. I asked her what aKro-lu might be, and she tried to explain, but I do not yet know if Iunderstood her. From her gestures I deduced that the Kro-lus were a people whowere armed with bows and arrows, had vessels in which to cook their food andhuts of some sort in which they lived, and were accompanied by animals. It wasall very fragmentary and vague, but the idea seemed to be that the Kro-lus werea more advanced people than the Band-lus. I pondered a long time upon all thatI had heard, before sleep came to me. I tried to find some connection betweenthese various races that would explain the universal hope which each of themharbored that some day they would become Galus. So-ta had given me asuggestion; but the resulting idea was so weird that I could scarce evenentertain it; yet it coincided with Ahm’s expressed hope, with the varioussteps in evolution I had noted in the several tribes I had encountered and withthe range of type represented in each tribe. For example, among the Band-luwere such types as So-ta, who seemed to me to be the highest in the scale ofevolution, and To-jo, who was just a shade nearer the ape, while there wereothers who had flatter noses, more prognathous faces and hairier bodies. Thequestion puzzled me. Possibly in the outer world the answer to it is locked inthe bosom of the Sphinx. Who knows? I do not.

Thinking the thoughts of a lunatic or a dope-fiend, I fell asleep; and when Iawoke, my hands and feet were securely tied and my weapons had been taken fromme. How they did it without awakening me I cannot tell you. It was humiliating,but it was true. To-jo stood above me. The early light of morning was dimlyfiltering into the cave.

“Tell me,” he demanded, “how to throw a man over my head and break his neck,for I am going to kill you, and I wish to know this thing before you die.”

Of all the ingenuous declarations I have ever heard, this one copped theproverbial bun. It struck me as so funny that, even in the face of death, Ilaughed. Death, I may remark here, had, however, lost much of his terror forme. I had become a disciple of Lys’ fleeting philosophy of the valuelessness ofhuman life. I realized that she was quite right—that we were but comic figureshopping from the cradle to the grave, of interest to practically no othercreated thing than ourselves and our few intimates.

Behind To-jo stood So-ta. She raised one hand with the palm toward me—theCaspakian equivalent of a negative shake of the head.

“Let me think about it,” I parried, and To-jo said that he would wait untilnight. He would give me a day to think it over; then he left, and the womenleft—the men for the hunt, and the women, as I later learned from So-ta, forthe warm pool where they immersed their bodies as did the shes of the Sto-lu.“Ata,” explained So-ta, when I questioned her as to the purpose of thismatutinal rite; but that was later.

I must have lain there bound and uncomfortable for two or three hours when atlast So-ta entered the cave. She carried a sharp knife—mine, in fact, and withit she cut my bonds.

“Come!” she said. “So-ta will go with you back to the Galus. It is time thatSo-ta left the Band-lu. Together we will go to the Kro-lu, and after that theGalus. To-jo will kill you tonight. He will kill So-ta if he knows that So-taaided you. We will go together.”

“I will go with you to the Kro-lu,” I replied, “but then I must return to myown people ‘toward the beginning.’”

“You cannot go back,” she said. “It is forbidden. They would kill you. Thus farhave you come—there is no returning.”

“But I must return,” I insisted. “My people are there. I must return and leadthem in this direction.”

She insisted, and I insisted; but at last we compromised. I was to escort heras far as the country of the Kro-lu and then I was to go back after my ownpeople and lead them north into a land where the dangers were fewer and thepeople less murderous. She brought me all my belongings that had been filchedfrom me—rifle, ammunition, knife, and thermos bottle, and then hand in hand wedescended the cliff and set off toward the north.

For three days we continued upon our way, until we arrived outside a village ofthatched huts just at dusk. So-ta said that she would enter alone; I must notbe seen if I did not intend to remain, as it was forbidden that one shouldreturn and live after having advanced this far. So she left me. She was a deargirl and a stanch and true comrade—more like a man than a woman. In her simplebarbaric way she was both refined and chaste. She had been the wife of To-jo.Among the Kro-lu she would find another mate after the manner of the strangeCaspakian world; but she told me very frankly that whenever I returned, shewould leave her mate and come to me, as she preferred me above all others. Iwas becoming a ladies’ man after a lifetime of bashfulness!

At the outskirts of the village I left her without even seeing the sort ofpeople who inhabited it, and set off through the growing darkness toward thesouth. On the third day I made a detour westward to avoid the country of theBand-lu, as I did not care to be detained by a meeting with To-jo. On the sixthday I came to the cliffs of the Sto-lu, and my heart beat fast as I approachedthem, for here was Lys. Soon I would hold her tight in my arms again; soon herwarm lips would merge with mine. I felt sure that she was still safe among thehatchet people, and I was already picturing the joy and the love-light in hereyes when she should see me once more as I emerged from the last clump of treesand almost ran toward the cliffs.

It was late in the morning. The women must have returned from the pool; yet asI drew near, I saw no sign of life whatever. “They have remained longer,” Ithought; but when I was quite close to the base of the cliffs, I saw that whichdashed my hopes and my happiness to earth. Strewn along the ground were a scoreof mute and horrible suggestions of what had taken place during myabsence—bones picked clean of flesh, the bones of manlike creatures, the bonesof many of the tribe of Sto-lu; nor in any cave was there sign of life.

Closely I examined the ghastly remains fearful each instant that I should findthe dainty skull that would shatter my happiness for life; but though Isearched diligently, picking up every one of the twenty-odd skulls, I foundnone that was the skull of a creature but slightly removed from the ape. Hope,then, still lived. For another three days I searched north and south, east andwest for the hatchetmen of Caspak; but never a trace of them did I find. It wasraining most of the time now, and the weather was as near cold as it ever seemsto get on Caprona.

At last I gave up the search and set off toward Fort Dinosaur. For a week—aweek filled with the terrors and dangers of a primeval world—I pushed on in thedirection I thought was south. The sun never shone; the rain scarcely everceased falling. The beasts I met with were fewer in number but infinitely moreterrible in temper; yet I lived on until there came to me the realization thatI was hopelessly lost, that a year of sunshine would not again give me mybearings; and while I was cast down by this terrifying knowledge, the knowledgethat I never again could find Lys, I stumbled upon another grave—the grave ofWilliam James, with its little crude headstone and its scrawled charactersrecording that he had died upon the 13th of September—killed by a saber-toothtiger.

I think that I almost gave up then. Never in my life have I felt more hopelessor helpless or alone. I was lost. I could not find my friends. I did not evenknow that they still lived; in fact, I could not bring myself to believe thatthey did. I was sure that Lys was dead. I wanted myself to die, and yet I clungto life—useless and hopeless and harrowing a thing as it had become. I clung tolife because some ancient, reptilian forbear had clung to life and transmittedto me through the ages the most powerful motive that guided his minutebrain—the motive of self-preservation.

At last I came to the great barrier-cliffs; and after three days of madeffort—of maniacal effort—I scaled them. I built crude ladders; I wedged sticksin narrow fissures; I chopped toe-holds and finger-holds with my long knife;but at last I scaled them. Near the summit I came upon a huge cavern. It is theabode of some mighty winged creature of the Triassic—or rather it was. Now itis mine. I slew the thing and took its abode. I reached the summit and lookedout upon the broad gray terrible Pacific of the far-southern winter. It wascold up there. It is cold here today; yet here I sit watching, watching,watching for the thing I know will never come—for a sail.

Chapter 10

Once a day I descend to the base of the cliff and hunt, and fill my stomachwith water from a clear cold spring. I have three gourds which I fill withwater and take back to my cave against the long nights. I have fashioned aspear and a bow and arrow, that I may conserve my ammunition, which is runninglow. My clothes are worn to shreds. Tomorrow I shall discard them forleopard-skins which I have tanned and sewn into a garment strong and warm. Itis cold up here. I have a fire burning and I sit bent over it while I write;but I am safe here. No other living creature ventures to the chill summit ofthe barrier cliffs. I am safe, and I am alone with my sorrows and my rememberedjoys—but without hope. It is said that hope springs eternal in the humanbreast; but there is none in mine.

I am about done. Presently I shall fold these pages and push them into mythermos bottle. I shall cork it and screw the cap tight, and then I shall hurlit as far out into the sea as my strength will permit. The wind is off-shore;the tide is running out; perhaps it will be carried into one of those numerousocean-currents which sweep perpetually from pole to pole and from continent tocontinent, to be deposited at last upon some inhabited shore. If fate is kindand this does happen, then, for God’s sake, come and get me!

It was a week ago that I wrote the preceding paragraph, which I thought wouldend the written record of my life upon Caprona. I had paused to put a new pointon my quill and stir the crude ink (which I made by crushing a black variety ofberry and mixing it with water) before attaching my signature, when faintlyfrom the valley far below came an unmistakable sound which brought me to myfeet, trembling with excitement, to peer eagerly downward from my dizzy ledge.How full of meaning that sound was to me you may guess when I tell you that itwas the report of a firearm! For a moment my gaze traversed the landscapebeneath until it was caught and held by four figures near the base of thecliff—a human figure held at bay by three hyaenodons, those ferocious andblood-thirsty wild dogs of the Eocene. A fourth beast lay dead or dying nearby.

I couldn’t be sure, looking down from above as I was; but yet I trembled like aleaf in the intuitive belief that it was Lys, and my judgment served to confirmmy wild desire, for whoever it was carried only a pistol, and thus had Lys beenarmed. The first wave of sudden joy which surged through me was short-lived inthe face of the swift-following conviction that the one who fought below wasalready doomed. Luck and only luck it must have been which had permitted thatfirst shot to lay low one of the savage creatures, for even such a heavy weaponas my pistol is entirely inadequate against even the lesser carnivora ofCaspak. In a moment the three would charge! A futile shot would but tend moregreatly to enrage the one it chanced to hit; and then the three would drag downthe little human figure and tear it to pieces.

And maybe it was Lys! My heart stood still at the thought, but mind and muscleresponded to the quick decision I was forced to make. There was but a singlehope—a single chance—and I took it. I raised my rifle to my shoulder and tookcareful aim. It was a long shot, a dangerous shot, for unless one is accustomedto it, shooting from a considerable altitude is most deceptive work. There is,though, something about marksmanship which is quite beyond all scientific laws.

Upon no other theory can I explain my marksmanship of that moment. Three timesmy rifle spoke—three quick, short syllables of death. I did not take consciousaim; and yet at each report a beast crumpled in its tracks!

From my ledge to the base of the cliff is a matter of several thousand feet ofdangerous climbing; yet I venture to say that the first ape from whose loins myline has descended never could have equaled the speed with which I literallydropped down the face of that rugged escarpment. The last two hundred feet isover a steep incline of loose rubble to the valley bottom, and I had justreached the top of this when there arose to my ears an agonized cry—“Bowen!Bowen! Quick, my love, quick!”

I had been too much occupied with the dangers of the descent to glance downtoward the valley; but that cry which told me that it was indeed Lys, and thatshe was again in danger, brought my eyes quickly upon her in time to see ahairy, burly brute seize her and start off at a run toward the near-by wood.From rock to rock, chamoislike, I leaped downward toward the valley, in pursuitof Lys and her hideous abductor.

He was heavier than I by many pounds, and so weighted by the burden he carriedthat I easily overtook him; and at last he turned, snarling, to face me. It wasKho of the tribe of Tsa, the hatchet-men. He recognized me, and with a lowgrowl he threw Lys aside and came for me. “The she is mine,” he cried. “I kill!I kill!”

I had had to discard my rifle before I commenced the rapid descent of thecliff, so that now I was armed only with a hunting knife, and this I whippedfrom its scabbard as Kho leaped toward me. He was a mighty beast, mightilymuscled, and the urge that has made males fight since the dawn of life on earthfilled him with the blood-lust and the thirst to slay; but not one whit lessdid it fill me with the same primal passions. Two abysmal beasts sprang at eachother’s throats that day beneath the shadow of earth’s oldest cliffs—the man ofnow and the man-thing of the earliest, forgotten then, imbued by the samedeathless passion that has come down unchanged through all the epochs, periodsand eras of time from the beginning, and which shall continue to theincalculable end—woman, the imperishable Alpha and Omega of life.

Kho closed and sought my jugular with his teeth. He seemed to forget thehatchet dangling by its aurochs-hide thong at his hip, as I forgot, for themoment, the dagger in my hand. And I doubt not but that Kho would easily havebested me in an encounter of that sort had not Lys’ voice awakened within mymomentarily reverted brain the skill and cunning of reasoning man.

“Bowen!” she cried. “Your knife! Your knife!”

It was enough. It recalled me from the forgotten eon to which my brain hadflown and left me once again a modern man battling with a clumsy, unskilledbrute. No longer did my jaws snap at the hairy throat before me; but instead myknife sought and found a space between two ribs over the savage heart. Khovoiced a single horrid scream, stiffened spasmodically and sank to the earth.And Lys threw herself into my arms. All the fears and sorrows of the past werewiped away, and once again I was the happiest of men.

With some misgivings I shortly afterward cast my eyes upward toward theprecarious ledge which ran before my cave, for it seemed to me quite beyond allreason to expect a dainty modern belle to essay the perils of that frightfulclimb. I asked her if she thought she could brave the ascent, and she laughedgayly in my face.

“Watch!” she cried, and ran eagerly toward the base of the cliff. Like asquirrel she clambered swiftly aloft, so that I was forced to exert myself tokeep pace with her. At first she frightened me; but presently I was aware thatshe was quite as safe here as was I. When we finally came to my ledge and Iagain held her in my arms, she recalled to my mind that for several weeks shehad been living the life of a cave-girl with the tribe of hatchet-men. They hadbeen driven from their former caves by another tribe which had slain many andcarried off quite half the females, and the new cliffs to which they had flownhad proven far higher and more precipitous, so that she had become, throughnecessity, a most practiced climber.

She told me of Kho’s desire for her, since all his females had been stolen andof how her life had been a constant nightmare of terror as she sought by nightand by day to elude the great brute. For a time Nobs had been all theprotection she required; but one day he disappeared—nor has she seen him since.She believes that he was deliberately made away with; and so do I, for we bothare sure that he never would have deserted her. With her means of protectiongone, Lys was now at the mercy of the hatchet-man; nor was it many hours beforehe had caught her at the base of the cliff and seized her; but as he bore hertriumphantly aloft toward his cave, she had managed to break loose and escapehim.

“For three days he has pursued me,” she said, “through this horrible world. HowI have passed through in safety I cannot guess, nor how I have always managedto outdistance him; yet I have done it, until just as you discovered me. Fatewas kind to us, Bowen.”

I nodded my head in assent and crushed her to me. And then we talked andplanned as I cooked antelope-steaks over my fire, and we came to the conclusionthat there was no hope of rescue, that she and I were doomed to live and dieupon Caprona. Well, it might be worse! I would rather live here always with Lysthan to live elsewhere without her; and she, dear girl, says the same of me;but I am afraid of this life for her. It is a hard, fierce, dangerous life, andI shall pray always that we shall be rescued from it—for her sake.

That night the clouds broke, and the moon shone down upon our little ledge; andthere, hand in hand, we turned our faces toward heaven and plighted our trothbeneath the eyes of God. No human agency could have married us more sacredlythan we are wed. We are man and wife, and we are content. If God wills it, weshall live out our lives here. If He wills otherwise, then this manuscriptwhich I shall now consign to the inscrutable forces of the sea shall fall intofriendly hands. However, we are each without hope. And so we say good-bye inthis, our last message to the world beyond the barrier cliffs.

(Signed) BOWENJ. TYLER, JR.
LYSLAR. TYLER.

Related articles