People Out Of Time
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Chapter I

I am forced to admit that even though I had traveled a long
distance to place Bowen Tyler's manuscript in the hands of his
father, I was still a trifle skeptical as to its sincerity,
since I could not but recall that it had not been many years
since Bowen had been one of the most notorious practical jokers
of his alma mater. The truth was that as I sat in the Tyler
library at Santa Monica I commenced to feel a trifle foolish
and to wish that I had merely forwarded the manuscript by
express instead of bearing it personally, for I confess that I
do not enjoy being laughed at. I have a well-developed sense
of humor--when the joke is not on me.

Mr. Tyler, Sr., was expected almost hourly. The last steamer
in from Honolulu had brought information of the date of the
expected sailing of his yacht Toreador, which was now
twenty-four hours overdue. Mr. Tyler's assistant secretary,
who had been left at home, assured me that there was no doubt
but that the Toreador had sailed as promised, since he knew
his employer well enough to be positive that nothing short of
an act of God would prevent his doing what he had planned to do.
I was also aware of the fact that the sending apparatus of
the Toreador's wireless equipment was sealed, and that it
would only be used in event of dire necessity. There was,
therefore, nothing to do but wait, and we waited.

We discussed the manuscript and hazarded guesses concerning it
and the strange events it narrated. The torpedoing of the
liner upon which Bowen J. Tyler, Jr., had taken passage for
France to join the American Ambulance was a well-known fact,
and I had further substantiated by wire to the New York office
of the owners, that a Miss La Rue had been booked for passage.
Further, neither she nor Bowen had been mentioned among the list
of survivors; nor had the body of either of them been recovered.

Their rescue by the English tug was entirely probable; the
capture of the enemy U-33 by the tug's crew was not beyond
the range of possibility; and their adventures during the
perilous cruise which the treachery and deceit of Benson
extended until they found themselves in the waters of the far
South Pacific with depleted stores and poisoned water-casks,
while bordering upon the fantastic, appeared logical enough as
narrated, event by event, in the manuscript.

Caprona has always been considered a more or less mythical
land, though it is vouched for by an eminent navigator of the
eighteenth century; but Bowen's narrative made it seem very real,
however many miles of trackless ocean lay between us and it.
Yes, the narrative had us guessing. We were agreed that it was
most improbable; but neither of us could say that anything which
it contained was beyond the range of possibility. The weird
flora and fauna of Caspak were as possible under the thick,
warm atmospheric conditions of the super-heated crater as
they were in the Mesozoic era under almost exactly similar
conditions, which were then probably world-wide. The assistant
secretary had heard of Caproni and his discoveries, but admitted
that he never had taken much stock in the one nor the other.
We were agreed that the one statement most difficult of
explanation was that which reported the entire absence of human
young among the various tribes which Tyler had had intercourse.
This was the one irreconcilable statement of the manuscript.
A world of adults! It was impossible.

We speculated upon the probable fate of Bradley and his party
of English sailors. Tyler had found the graves of two of them;
how many more might have perished! And Miss La Rue--could a
young girl long have survived the horrors of Caspak after
having been separated from all of her own kind? The assistant
secretary wondered if Nobs still was with her, and then we both
smiled at this tacit acceptance of the truth of the whole
uncanny tale:

"I suppose I'm a fool," remarked the assistant secretary; "but
by George, I can't help believing it, and I can see that girl
now, with the big Airedale at her side protecting her from the
terrors of a million years ago. I can visualize the entire
scene--the apelike Grimaldi men huddled in their filthy caves;
the huge pterodactyls soaring through the heavy air upon their
bat-like wings; the mighty dinosaurs moving their clumsy hulks
beneath the dark shadows of preglacial forests--the dragons
which we considered myths until science taught us that they
were the true recollections of the first man, handed down
through countless ages by word of mouth from father to son out
of the unrecorded dawn of humanity."

"It is stupendous--if true," I replied. "And to think that
possibly they are still there--Tyler and Miss La
Rue--surrounded by hideous dangers, and that possibly Bradley
still lives, and some of his party! I can't help hoping all
the time that Bowen and the girl have found the others; the
last Bowen knew of them, there were six left, all told--the
mate Bradley, the engineer Olson, and Wilson, Whitely, Brady
and Sinclair. There might be some hope for them if they could
join forces; but separated, I'm afraid they couldn't last long."

"If only they hadn't let the German prisoners capture the U-33!
Bowen should have had better judgment than to have trusted them
at all. The chances are von Schoenvorts succeeded in getting
safely back to Kiel and is strutting around with an Iron Cross
this very minute. With a large supply of oil from the wells
they discovered in Caspak, with plenty of water and ample
provisions, there is no reason why they couldn't have
negotiated the submerged tunnel beneath the barrier cliffs
and made good their escape."

"I don't like 'em," said the assistant secretary; "but
sometimes you got to hand it to 'em."

"Yes," I growled, "and there's nothing I'd enjoy more than
handing it to them!" And then the telephone-bell rang.

The assistant secretary answered, and as I watched him, I saw
his jaw drop and his face go white. "My God!" he exclaimed as
he hung up the receiver as one in a trance. "It can't be!"

"What?" I asked.

"Mr. Tyler is dead," he answered in a dull voice. "He died at
sea, suddenly, yesterday."

The next ten days were occupied in burying Mr. Bowen J. Tyler, Sr.,
and arranging plans for the succor of his son. Mr. Tom Billings,
the late Mr. Tyler's secretary, did it all. He is force, energy,
initiative and good judgment combined and personified. I never
have beheld a more dynamic young man. He handled lawyers, courts
and executors as a sculptor handles his modeling clay. He formed,
fashioned and forced them to his will. He had been a classmate
of Bowen Tyler at college, and a fraternity brother, and before,
that he had been an impoverished and improvident cow-puncher
on one of the great Tyler ranches. Tyler, Sr., had picked him
out of thousands of employees and made him; or rather Tyler had
given him the opportunity, and then Billings had made himself.
Tyler, Jr., as good a judge of men as his father, had taken him
into his friendship, and between the two of them they had turned
out a man who would have died for a Tyler as quickly as he would
have for his flag. Yet there was none of the sycophant or fawner
in Billings; ordinarily I do not wax enthusiastic about men, but
this man Billings comes as close to my conception of what a
regular man should be as any I have ever met. I venture to say
that before Bowen J. Tyler sent him to college he had never
heard the word ethics, and yet I am equally sure that in
all his life he never has transgressed a single tenet of the
code of ethics of an American gentleman.

Ten days after they brought Mr. Tyler's body off the Toreador,
we steamed out into the Pacific in search of Caprona. There were
forty in the party, including the master and crew of the
Toreador; and Billings the indomitable was in command. We had
a long and uninteresting search for Caprona, for the old map
upon which the assistant secretary had finally located it was
most inaccurate. When its grim walls finally rose out of the
ocean's mists before us, we were so far south that it was a
question as to whether we were in the South Pacific or
the Antarctic. Bergs were numerous, and it was very cold.

All during the trip Billings had steadfastly evaded questions
as to how we were to enter Caspak after we had found Caprona.
Bowen Tyler's manuscript had made it perfectly evident to all
that the subterranean outlet of the Caspakian River was the
only means of ingress or egress to the crater world beyond the
impregnable cliffs. Tyler's party had been able to navigate
this channel because their craft had been a submarine; but the
Toreador could as easily have flown over the cliffs as
sailed under them. Jimmy Hollis and Colin Short whiled away
many an hour inventing schemes for surmounting the obstacle
presented by the barrier cliffs, and making ridiculous wagers
as to which one Tom Billings had in mind; but immediately we
were all assured that we had raised Caprona, Billings called
us together.

"There was no use in talking about these things," he said,
"until we found the island. At best it can be but conjecture on
our part until we have been able to scrutinize the coast closely.
Each of us has formed a mental picture of the Capronian seacoast
from Bowen's manuscript, and it is not likely that any two of
these pictures resemble each other, or that any of them resemble
the coast as we shall presently find it. I have in view three
plans for scaling the cliffs, and the means for carrying out
each is in the hold. There is an electric drill with plenty
of waterproof cable to reach from the ship's dynamos to the
cliff-top when the Toreador is anchored at a safe distance
from shore, and there is sufficient half-inch iron rod to build
a ladder from the base to the top of the cliff. It would be a
long, arduous and dangerous work to bore the holes and insert
the rungs of the ladder from the bottom upward; yet it can be done.

"I also have a life-saving mortar with which we might be able
to throw a line over the summit of the cliffs; but this plan
would necessitate one of us climbing to the top with the
chances more than even that the line would cut at the summit,
or the hooks at the upper end would slip.

"My third plan seems to me the most feasible. You all saw a
number of large, heavy boxes lowered into the hold before
we sailed. I know you did, because you asked me what they
contained and commented upon the large letter 'H' which was
painted upon each box. These boxes contain the various parts
of a hydro-aeroplane. I purpose assembling this upon the strip
of beach described in Bowen's manuscript--the beach where he
found the dead body of the apelike man--provided there is
sufficient space above high water; otherwise we shall have to
assemble it on deck and lower it over the side. After it is
assembled, I shall carry tackle and ropes to the cliff-top, and
then it will be comparatively simple to hoist the search-party
and its supplies in safety. Or I can make a sufficient number
of trips to land the entire party in the valley beyond the
barrier; all will depend, of course, upon what my first
reconnaissance reveals."

That afternoon we steamed slowly along the face of Caprona's
towering barrier.

"You see now," remarked Billings as we craned our necks to scan
the summit thousands of feet above us, "how futile it would
have been to waste our time in working out details of a plan to
surmount those."  And he jerked his thumb toward the cliffs.
"It would take weeks, possibly months, to construct a ladder
to the top. I had no conception of their formidable height.
Our mortar would not carry a line halfway to the crest of the
lowest point. There is no use discussing any plan other than
the hydro-aeroplane. We'll find the beach and get busy."

Late the following morning the lookout announced that he could
discern surf about a mile ahead; and as we approached, we all
saw the line of breakers broken by a long sweep of rolling surf
upon a narrow beach. The launch was lowered, and five of us
made a landing, getting a good ducking in the ice-cold waters
in the doing of it; but we were rewarded by the finding of the
clean-picked bones of what might have been the skeleton of a
high order of ape or a very low order of man, lying close to
the base of the cliff. Billings was satisfied, as were the
rest of us, that this was the beach mentioned by Bowen, and we
further found that there was ample room to assemble the
sea-plane.

Billings, having arrived at a decision, lost no time in acting,
with the result that before mid-afternoon we had landed all the
large boxes marked "H" upon the beach, and were busily
engaged in opening them. Two days later the plane was
assembled and tuned. We loaded tackles and ropes, water, food
and ammunition in it, and then we each implored Billings to let
us be the one to accompany him. But he would take no one.
That was Billings; if there was any especially difficult or
dangerous work to be done, that one man could do, Billings
always did it himself. If he needed assistance,  he  never
called  for  volunteers--just selected the man or men he
considered best qualified for the duty. He said that he
considered the principles underlying all volunteer service
fundamentally wrong, and that it seemed to him that calling
for volunteers reflected upon the courage and loyalty of the
entire command.

We rolled the plane down to the water's edge, and Billings
mounted the pilot's seat. There was a moment's delay as he
assured himself that he had everything necessary. Jimmy Hollis
went over his armament and ammunition to see that nothing had
been omitted. Besides pistol and rifle, there was the
machine-gun mounted in front of him on the plane, and
ammunition for all three. Bowen's account of the terrors of
Caspak had impressed us all with the necessity for proper means
of defense.

At last all was ready. The motor was started, and we pushed
the plane out into the surf. A moment later, and she was
skimming seaward. Gently she rose from the surface of the
water, executed a wide spiral as she mounted rapidly,
circled once far above us and then disappeared over the crest
of the cliffs. We all stood silent and expectant, our eyes
glued upon the towering summit above us. Hollis, who was now
in command, consulted his wrist-watch at frequent intervals.

"Gad," exclaimed Short, "we ought to be hearing from him pretty soon!"

Hollis laughed nervously. "He's been gone only ten minutes,"
he announced.

"Seems like an hour," snapped Short. "What's that? Did you
hear that? He's firing! It's the machine-gun! Oh, Lord; and
here we are as helpless as a lot of old ladies ten thousand
miles away! We can't do a thing. We don't know what's happening.
Why didn't he let one of us go with him?"

Yes, it was the machine-gun. We would hear it distinctly for
at least a minute. Then came silence. That was two weeks ago.
We have had no sign nor signal from Tom Billings since.

Chapter 2

I'll never forget my first impressions of Caspak as I circled
in, high over the surrounding cliffs. From the plane I looked
down through a mist upon the blurred landscape beneath me.
The hot, humid atmosphere of Caspak condenses as it is fanned
by the cold Antarctic air-currents which sweep across the
crater's top, sending a tenuous ribbon of vapor far out across
the Pacific. Through this the picture gave one the suggestion
of a colossal impressionistic canvas in greens and browns and
scarlets and yellows surrounding the deep blue of the inland
sea--just blobs of color taking form through the tumbling mist.

I dived close to the cliffs and skirted them for several miles
without finding the least indication of a suitable landing-place;
and then I swung back at a lower level, looking for a clearing
close to the bottom of the mighty escarpment; but I could find
none of sufficient area to insure safety. I was flying pretty
low by this time, not only looking for landing places but watching
the myriad life beneath me. I was down pretty well toward the
south end of the island, where an arm of the lake reaches far
inland, and I could see the surface of the water literally
black with creatures of some sort. I was too far up to recognize
individuals, but the general impression was of a vast army of
amphibious monsters. The land was almost equally alive with
crawling, leaping, running, flying things. It was one of the
latter which nearly did for me while my attention was fixed
upon the weird scene below.

The first intimation I had of it was the sudden blotting out of
the sunlight from above, and as I glanced quickly up, I saw a
most terrific creature swooping down upon me. It must have
been fully eighty feet long from the end of its long, hideous
beak to the tip of its thick, short tail, with an equal spread
of wings. It was coming straight for me and hissing frightfully--
I could hear it above the whir of the propeller. It was coming
straight down toward the muzzle of the machine-gun and I let it
have it right in the breast; but still it came for me, so that
I had to dive and turn, though I was dangerously close to earth.

The thing didn't miss me by a dozen feet, and when I rose, it
wheeled and followed me, but only to the cooler air close to
the level of the cliff-tops; there it turned again and dropped.
Something--man's natural love of battle and the chase, I presume--
impelled me to pursue it, and so I too circled and dived.
The moment I came down into the warm atmosphere of Caspak, the
creature came for me again, rising above me so that it might
swoop down upon me. Nothing could better have suited my armament,
since my machine-gun was pointed upward at an angle of about degrees
and could not be either depressed or elevated by the pilot.
If I had brought someone along with me, we could have raked the
great reptile from almost any position, but as the creature's
mode of attack was always from above, he always found me ready
with a hail of bullets. The battle must have lasted a minute
or more before the thing suddenly turned completely over in the
air and fell to the ground.

Bowen and I roomed together at college, and I learned a lot
from him outside my regular course. He was a pretty good
scholar despite his love of fun, and his particular hobby
was paleontology. He used to tell me about the various forms
of animal and vegetable life which had covered the globe during
former eras, and so I was pretty well acquainted with the
fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals of paleolithic times.
I knew that the thing that had attacked me was some sort of
pterodactyl which should have been extinct millions of years ago.
It was all that I needed to realize that Bowen had exaggerated
nothing in his manuscript.

Having disposed of my first foe, I set myself once more to
search for a landing-place near to the base of the cliffs
beyond which my party awaited me. I knew how anxious they
would be for word from me, and I was equally anxious to relieve
their minds and also to get them and our supplies well within
Caspak, so that we might set off about our business of finding
and rescuing Bowen Tyler; but the pterodactyl's carcass had
scarcely fallen before I was surrounded by at least a dozen of
the hideous things, some large, some small, but all bent upon
my destruction. I could not cope with them all, and so I rose
rapidly from among them to the cooler strata wherein they dared
not follow; and then I recalled that Bowen's narrative
distinctly indicated that the farther north one traveled in
Caspak, the fewer were the terrible reptiles which rendered
human life impossible at the southern end of the island.

There seemed nothing now but to search out a more northerly
landing-place and then return to the Toreador and transport
my companions, two by two, over the cliffs and deposit them at
the rendezvous. As I flew north, the temptation to explore
overcame me. I knew that I could easily cover Caspak and
return to the beach with less petrol than I had in my tanks;
and there was the hope, too, that I might find Bowen or some of
his party. The broad expanse of the inland sea lured me out
over its waters, and as I crossed, I saw at either extremity of
the great body of water an island--one to the south and one to
the north; but I did not alter my course to examine either
closely, leaving that to a later time.

The further shore of the sea revealed a much narrower strip of
land between the cliffs and the water than upon the western
side; but it was a hillier and more open country. There were
splendid landing-places, and in the distance, toward the north,
I thought I descried a village; but of that I was not positive.
However, as I approached the land, I saw a number of human figures
apparently pursuing one who fled across a broad expanse of meadow.
As I dropped lower to have a better look at these people, they
caught the whirring of my propellers and looked aloft. They paused
an instant--pursuers and pursued; and then they broke and raced
for the shelter of the nearest wood. Almost instantaneously a
huge bulk swooped down upon me, and as I looked up, I realized
that there were flying reptiles even in this part of Caspak.
The creature dived for my right wing so quickly that nothing but
a sheer drop could have saved me. I was already close to the
ground, so that my maneuver was extremely dangerous; but I was
in a fair way of making it successfully when I saw that I was
too closely approaching a large tree. My effort to dodge the
tree and the pterodactyl at the same time resulted disastrously.
One wing touched an upper branch; the plane tipped and swung
around, and then, out of control, dashed into the branches of
the tree, where it came to rest, battered and torn, forty feet
above the ground.

Hissing loudly, the huge reptile swept close above the tree in
which my plane had lodged, circled twice over me and then
flapped away toward the south. As I guessed then and was to
learn later, forests are the surest sanctuary from these
hideous creatures, which, with their enormous spread of wing
and their great weight, are as much out of place among trees
as is a seaplane.

For a minute or so I clung there to my battered flyer, now
useless beyond redemption, my brain numbed by the frightful
catastrophe that had befallen me. All my plans for the succor
of Bowen and Miss La Rue had depended upon this craft, and in a
few brief minutes my own selfish love of adventure had wrecked
their hopes and mine. And what effect it might have upon the
future of the balance of the rescuing expedition I could not
even guess. Their lives, too, might be sacrificed to my
suicidal foolishness. That I was doomed seemed inevitable; but
I can honestly say that the fate of my friends concerned me
more greatly than did my own.

Beyond the barrier cliffs my party was even now nervously
awaiting my return. Presently apprehension and fear would
claim them--and they would never know! They would attempt to
scale the cliffs--of that I was sure; but I was not so positive
that they would succeed; and after a while they would turn
back, what there were left of them, and go sadly and mournfully
upon their return journey to home. Home! I set my jaws and
tried to forget the word, for I knew that I should never again
see home.

And what of Bowen and his girl? I had doomed them too. They would
never even know that an attempt had been made to rescue them.
If they still lived, they might some day come upon the ruined
remnants of this great plane hanging in its lofty sepulcher and
hazard vain guesses and be filled with wonder; but they would
never know; and I could not but be glad that they would not
know that Tom Billings had sealed their death-warrants by his
criminal selfishness.

All these useless regrets were getting me in a bad way; but at
last I shook myself and tried to put such things out of my mind
and take hold of conditions as they existed and do my level
best to wrest victory from defeat. I was badly shaken up and
bruised, but considered myself mighty lucky to escape with my life.
The plane hung at a precarious angle, so that it was with
difficulty and considerable danger that I climbed from it into
the tree and then to the ground.

My predicament was grave. Between me and my friends lay an
inland sea fully sixty miles wide at this point and an
estimated land-distance of some three hundred miles around the
northern end of the sea, through such hideous dangers as I am
perfectly free to admit had me pretty well buffaloed. I had
seen quite enough of Caspak this day to assure me that Bowen
had in no way exaggerated its perils. As a matter of fact, I
am inclined to believe that he had become so accustomed to them
before he started upon his manuscript that he rather slighted them.
As I stood there beneath that tree--a tree which should have been
part of a coal-bed countless ages since--and looked out across
a sea teeming with frightful life--life which should have been
fossil before God conceived of Adam--I would not have given a
minim of stale beer for my chances of ever seeing my friends or
the outside world again; yet then and there I swore to fight my
way as far through this hideous land as circumstances would permit.
I had plenty of ammunition, an automatic pistol and a heavy rifle--
the latter one of twenty added to our equipment on the strength of
Bowen's description of the huge beasts of prey which ravaged Caspak.
My greatest danger lay in the hideous reptilia whose low nervous
organizations permitted their carnivorous instincts to function
for several minutes after they had ceased to live.

But to these things I gave less thought than to the sudden
frustration of all our plans. With the bitterest of thoughts I
condemned myself for the foolish weakness that had permitted me
to be drawn from the main object of my flight into premature
and useless exploration. It seemed to me then that I must be
totally eliminated from further search for Bowen, since, as I
estimated it, the three hundred miles of Caspakian territory I
must traverse to reach the base of the cliffs beyond which my
party awaited me were practically impassable for a single
individual unaccustomed to Caspakian life and ignorant of all
that lay before him. Yet I could not give up hope entirely.
My duty lay clear before me; I must follow it while life
remained to me, and so I set forth toward the north.

The country through which I took my way was as lovely as it was
unusual--I had almost said unearthly, for the plants, the
trees, the blooms were not of the earth that I knew. They were
larger, the colors more brilliant and the shapes startling,
some almost to grotesqueness, though even such added to the
charm and romance of the landscape as the giant cacti render
weirdly beautiful the waste spots of the sad Mohave. And over
all the sun shone huge and round and red, a monster sun above a
monstrous world, its light dispersed by the humid air of
Caspak--the warm, moist air which lies sluggish upon the breast
of this great mother of life, Nature's mightiest incubator.

All about me, in every direction, was life. It moved through
the tree-tops and among the boles; it displayed itself in
widening and intermingling circles upon the bosom of the sea;
it leaped from the depths; I could hear it in a dense wood at
my right, the murmur of it rising and falling in ceaseless
volumes of sound, riven at intervals by a horrid scream or a
thunderous roar which shook the earth; and always I was haunted
by that inexplicable sensation that unseen eyes were watching
me, that soundless feet dogged my trail. I am neither nervous
nor highstrung; but the burden of responsibility upon me
weighed heavily, so that I was more cautious than is my wont.
I turned often to right and left and rear lest I be surprised,
and I carried my rifle at the ready in my hand. Once I could
have sworn that among the many creatures dimly perceived amidst
the shadows of the wood I saw a human figure dart from one
cover to another, but I could not be sure.

For the most part I skirted the wood, making occasional detours
rather than enter those forbidding depths of gloom, though many
times I was forced to pass through arms of the forest which
extended to the very shore of the inland sea. There was so
sinister a suggestion in the uncouth sounds and the vague
glimpses of moving things within the forest, of the menace of
strange beasts and possibly still stranger men, that I always
breathed more freely when I had passed once more into open country.

I had traveled northward for perhaps an hour, still haunted by
the conviction that I was being stalked by some creature which
kept always hidden among the trees and shrubbery to my right
and a little to my rear, when for the hundredth time I was
attracted by a sound from that direction, and turning, saw some
animal running rapidly through the forest toward me. There was
no longer any effort on its part at concealment; it came on
through the underbrush swiftly, and I was confident that
whatever it was, it had finally gathered the courage to charge
me boldly. Before it finally broke into plain view, I became
aware that it was not alone, for a few yards in its rear a
second thing thrashed through the leafy jungle. Evidently I
was to be attacked in force by a pair of hunting beasts or men.

And then through the last clump of waving ferns broke the
figure of the foremost creature, which came leaping toward me
on light feet as I stood with my rifle to my shoulder covering
the point at which I had expected it would emerge. I must have
looked foolish indeed if my surprise and consternation were in
any way reflected upon my countenance as I lowered my rifle and
gazed incredulous at the lithe figure of the girl speeding
swiftly in my direction. But I did not have long to stand thus
with lowered weapon, for as she came, I saw her cast an
affrighted glance over her shoulder, and at the same moment
there broke from the jungle at the same spot at which I had
seen her, the hugest cat I had ever looked upon.

At first I took the beast for a saber-tooth tiger, as it was
quite the most fearsome-appearing beast one could imagine; but
it was not that dread monster of the past, though quite
formidable enough to satisfy the most fastidious thrill-hunter.
On it came, grim and terrible, its baleful eyes glaring above
its distended jaws, its lips curled in a frightful snarl which
exposed a whole mouthful of formidable teeth. At sight of me
it had abandoned its impetuous rush and was now sneaking slowly
toward us; while the girl, a long knife in her hand, took her
stand bravely at my left and a little to my rear. She had
called something to me in a strange tongue as she raced toward
me, and now she spoke again; but what she said I could not
then, of course, know--only that her tones were sweet, well
modulated and free from any suggestion of panic.

Facing the huge cat, which I now saw was an enormous panther, I
waited until I could place a shot where I felt it would do the
most good, for at best a frontal shot at any of the large
carnivora is a ticklish matter. I had some advantage in that
the beast was not charging; its head was held low and its back
exposed; and so at forty yards I took careful aim at its spine
at the junction of neck and shoulders. But at the same
instant, as though sensing my intention, the great creature
lifted its head and leaped forward in full charge. To fire at
that sloping forehead I knew would be worse than useless, and
so I quickly shifted my aim and pulled the trigger, hoping
against hope that the soft-nosed bullet and the heavy charge of
powder would have sufficient stopping effect to give me time to
place a second shot.

In answer to the report of the rifle I had the satisfaction of
seeing the brute spring into the air, turning a complete
somersault; but it was up again almost instantly, though in the
brief second that it took it to scramble to its feet and get
its bearings, it exposed its left side fully toward me, and a
second bullet went crashing through its heart. Down it went
for the second time--and then up and at me. The vitality of
these creatures of Caspak is one of the marvelous features of
this strange world and bespeaks the low nervous organization of
the old paleolithic life which has been so long extinct in
other portions of the world.

I put a third bullet into the beast at three paces, and then I
thought that I was done for; but it rolled over and stopped at
my feet, stone dead. I found that my second bullet had torn
its heart almost completely away, and yet it had lived to
charge ferociously upon me, and but for my third shot would
doubtless have slain me before it finally expired--or as Bowen
Tyler so quaintly puts it, before it knew that it was dead.

With the panther quite evidently conscious of the fact that
dissolution had overtaken it, I turned toward the girl, who was
regarding me with evident admiration and not a little awe,
though I must admit that my rifle claimed quite as much of her
attention as did I. She was quite the most wonderful animal
that I have ever looked upon, and what few of her charms her
apparel hid, it quite effectively succeeded in accentuating.
A bit of soft, undressed leather was caught over her left
shoulder and beneath her right breast, falling upon her left
side to her hip and upon the right to a metal band which
encircled her leg above the knee and to which the lowest point
of the hide was attached. About her waist was a loose leather
belt, to the center of which was attached the scabbard
belonging to her knife. There was a single armlet between her
right shoulder and elbow, and a series of them covered her left
forearm from elbow to wrist. These, I learned later, answered
the purpose of a shield against knife attack when the left arm
is raised in guard across the breast or face.

Her masses of heavy hair were held in place by a broad metal
band which bore a large triangular ornament directly in the
center of her forehead. This ornament appeared to be a huge
turquoise, while the metal of all her ornaments was beaten,
virgin gold, inlaid in intricate design with bits of
mother-of-pearl and tiny pieces of stone of various colors.
From the left shoulder depended a leopard's tail, while her
feet were shod with sturdy little sandals. The knife was her
only weapon. Its blade was of iron, the grip was wound with
hide and protected by a guard of three out-bowing strips of
flat iron, and upon the top of the hilt was a knob of gold.

I took in much of this in the few seconds during which we stood
facing each other, and I also observed another salient feature
of her appearance: she was frightfully dirty! Her face and
limbs and garment were streaked with mud and perspiration, and
yet even so, I felt that I had never looked upon so perfect and
beautiful a creature as she. Her figure beggars description,
and equally so, her face. Were I one of these writer-fellows,
I should probably say that her features were Grecian, but being
neither a writer nor a poet I can do her greater justice by
saying that she combined all of the finest lines that one sees
in the typical American girl's face rather than the pronounced
sheeplike physiognomy of the Greek goddess. No, even the dirt
couldn't hide that fact; she was beautiful beyond compare.

As we stood looking at each other, a slow smile came to her
face, parting her symmetrical lips and disclosing a row of
strong white teeth.

"Galu?" she asked with rising inflection.

And remembering that I read in Bowen's manuscript that Galu
seemed to indicate a higher type of man, I answered by pointing
to myself and repeating the word. Then she started off on a
regular catechism, if I could judge by her inflection, for I
certainly understood no word of what she said. All the time
the girl kept glancing toward the forest, and at last she
touched my arm and pointed in that direction.

Turning, I saw a hairy figure of a manlike thing standing
watching us, and presently another and another emerged from the
jungle and joined the leader until there must have been at
least twenty of them. They were entirely naked. Their bodies
were covered with hair, and though they stood upon their feet
without touching their hands to the ground, they had a very
ape-like appearance, since they stooped forward and had very
long arms and quite apish features. They were not pretty to
look upon with their close-set eyes, flat noses, long upper
lips and protruding yellow fangs.

"Alus!" said the girl.

I had reread Bowen's adventures so often that I knew them
almost by heart, and so now I knew that I was looking upon the
last remnant of that ancient man-race--the Alus of a forgotten
period--the speechless man of antiquity.

"Kazor!" cried the girl, and at the same moment the Alus
came jabbering toward us. They made strange growling, barking
noises, as with much baring of fangs they advanced upon us.
They were armed only with nature's weapons--powerful muscles
and giant fangs; yet I knew that these were quite sufficient to
overcome us had we nothing better to offer in defense, and so I
drew my pistol and fired at the leader. He dropped like a
stone, and the others turned and fled. Once again the girl
smiled her slow smile and stepping closer, caressed the barrel
of my automatic. As she did so, her fingers came in contact
with mine, and a sudden thrill ran through me, which I
attributed to the fact that it had been so long since I had
seen a woman of any sort or kind.

She said something to me in her low, liquid tones; but I could
not understand her, and then she pointed toward the north and
started away. I followed her, for my way was north too; but
had it been south I still should have followed, so hungry was I
for human companionship in this world of beasts and reptiles
and half-men.

We walked along, the girl talking a great deal and seeming
mystified that I could not understand her. Her silvery laugh
rang merrily when I in turn essayed to speak to her, as though
my language was the quaintest thing she ever had heard.
Often after fruitless attempts to make me understand she would
hold her palm toward me, saying, "Galu!" and then touch my
breast or arm and cry, "Alu, alu!" I knew what she meant,
for I had learned from Bowen's narrative the negative gesture
and the two words which she repeated. She meant that I was no
Galu, as I claimed, but an Alu, or speechless one. Yet every
time she said this she laughed again, and so infectious were
her tones that I could only join her. It was only natural,
too, that she should be mystified by my inability to comprehend
her or to make her comprehend me, for from the club-men, the
lowest human type in Caspak to have speech, to the golden race
of Galus, the tongues of the various tribes are identical--except
for amplifications in the rising scale of evolution. She, who
is a Galu, can understand one of the Bo-lu and make herself
understood to him, or to a hatchet-man, a spear-man or an archer.
The Ho-lus, or apes, the Alus and myself were the only creatures
of human semblance with which she could hold no converse; yet it
was evident that her intelligence told her that I was neither
Ho-lu nor Alu, neither anthropoid ape nor speechless man.

Yet she did not despair, but set out to teach me her language;
and had it not been that I worried so greatly over the fate of
Bowen and my companions of the Toreador, I could have wished
the period of instruction prolonged.

I never have been what one might call a ladies' man, though I
like their company immensely, and during my college days and
since have made various friends among the sex. I think that I
rather appeal to a certain type of girl for the reason that I
never make love to them; I leave that to the numerous others
who do it infinitely better than I could hope to, and take my
pleasure out of girls' society in what seem to be more rational
ways--dancing, golfing, boating, riding, tennis, and the like.
Yet in the company of this half-naked little savage I found a
new pleasure that was entirely distinct from any that I ever
had experienced. When she touched me, I thrilled as I had
never before thrilled in contact with another woman. I could
not quite understand it, for I am sufficiently sophisticated
to know that this is a symptom of love and I certainly did not
love this filthy little barbarian with her broken, unkempt
nails and her skin so besmeared with mud and the green of
crushed foliage that it was difficult to say what color it
originally had been. But if she was outwardly uncouth, her
clear eyes and strong white, even teeth, her silvery laugh and
her queenly carriage, bespoke an innate fineness which dirt
could not quite successfully conceal.

The sun was low in the heavens when we came upon a little river
which emptied into a large bay at the foot of low cliffs.
Our journey so far had been beset with constant danger, as is
every journey in this frightful land. I have not bored you with
a recital of the wearying successions of attacks by the multitude
of creatures which were constantly crossing our path or
deliberately stalking us. We were always upon the alert; for
here, to paraphrase, eternal vigilance is indeed the price of life.

I had managed to progress a little in the acquisition of a
knowledge of her tongue, so that I knew many of the animals and
reptiles by their Caspakian names, and trees and ferns and grasses.
I knew the words for sea and river and cliff, for sky
and sun and cloud.  Yes, I was getting along finely, and then
it occurred to me that I didn't know my companion's name; so I
pointed to myself and said, "Tom," and to her and raised my
eyebrows in interrogation. The girl ran her fingers into that mass
of hair and looked puzzled. I repeated the action a dozen times.

"Tom," she said finally in that clear, sweet, liquid voice. "Tom!"

I had never thought much of my name before; but when she spoke
it, it sounded to me for the first time in my life like a
mighty nice name, and then she brightened suddenly and tapped
her own breast and said: "Ajor!"

"Ajor!" I repeated, and she laughed and struck her palms together.

Well, we knew each other's names now, and that was some satisfaction.
I rather liked hers--Ajor! And she seemed to like mine, for she
repeated it.

We came to the cliffs beside the little river where it empties
into the bay with the great inland sea beyond. The cliffs were
weather-worn and rotted, and in one place a deep hollow ran
back beneath the overhanging stone for several feet, suggesting
shelter for the night. There were loose rocks strewn all about
with which I might build a barricade across the entrance to the
cave, and so I halted there and pointed out the place to Ajor,
trying to make her understand that we would spend the night there.

As soon as she grasped my meaning, she assented with the
Caspakian equivalent of an affirmative nod, and then touching
my rifle, motioned me to follow her to the river. At the bank
she paused, removed her belt and dagger, dropping them to the
ground at her side; then unfastening the lower edge of her
garment from the metal leg-band to which it was attached,
slipped it off her left shoulder and let it drop to the ground
around her feet. It was done so naturally, so simply and so
quickly that it left me gasping like a fish out of water.
Turning, she flashed a smile at me and then dived into the
river, and there she bathed while I stood guard over her.
For five or ten minutes she splashed about, and when she
emerged her glistening skin was smooth and white and beautiful.
Without means of drying herself, she simply ignored what to me
would have seemed a necessity, and in a moment was arrayed in
her simple though effective costume.

It was now within an hour of darkness, and as I was nearly
famished, I led the way back about a quarter of a mile to a
low meadow where we had seen antelope and small horses a short
time before. Here I brought down a young buck, the report of my
rifle sending the balance of the herd scampering for the woods,
where they were met by a chorus of hideous roars as the
carnivora took advantage of their panic and leaped among them.

With my hunting-knife I removed a hind-quarter, and then we
returned to camp. Here I gathered a great quantity of wood
from fallen trees, Ajor helping me; but before I built a fire,
I also gathered sufficient loose rock to build my barricade
against the frightful terrors of the night to come.

I shall never forget the expression upon Ajor's face as she saw
me strike a match and light the kindling beneath our camp-fire.
It was such an expression as might transform a mortal face with
awe as its owner beheld the mysterious workings of divinity.
It was evident that Ajor was quite unfamiliar with modern
methods of fire-making. She had thought my rifle and pistol
wonderful; but these tiny slivers of wood which from a magic
rub brought flame to the camp hearth were indeed miracles to her.

As the meat roasted above the fire, Ajor and I tried once again
to talk; but though copiously filled with incentive, gestures
and sounds, the conversation did not flourish notably. And then
Ajor took up in earnest the task of teaching me her language.
She commenced, as I later learned, with the simplest form of
speech known to Caspak or for that matter to the world--that
employed by the Bo-lu. I found it far from difficult, and even
though it was a great handicap upon my instructor that she could
not speak my language, she did remarkably well and demonstrated
that she possessed ingenuity and intelligence of a high order.

After we had eaten, I added to the pile of firewood so that I
could replenish the fire before the entrance to our barricade,
believing this as good a protection against the carnivora as we
could have; and then Ajor and I sat down before it, and the
lesson proceeded, while from all about us came the weird and
awesome noises of the Caspakian night--the moaning and the
coughing and roaring of the tigers, the panthers and the lions,
the barking and the dismal howling of a wolf, jackal and
hyaenadon, the shrill shrieks of stricken prey and the hissing
of the great reptiles; the voice of man alone was silent.

But though the voice of this choir-terrible rose and fell from
far and near in all directions, reaching at time such a
tremendous volume of sound that the earth shook to it, yet so
engrossed was I in my lesson and in my teacher that often I was
deaf to what at another time would have filled me with awe.
The face and voice of the beautiful girl who leaned so eagerly
toward me as she tried to explain the meaning of some word or
correct my pronunciation of another quite entirely occupied my
every faculty of perception. The firelight shone upon her
animated features and sparkling eyes; it accentuated the
graceful motions of her gesturing arms and hands; it sparkled
from her white teeth and from her golden ornaments, and
glistened on the smooth firmness of her perfect skin. I am
afraid that often I was more occupied with admiration of this
beautiful animal than with a desire for knowledge; but be that
as it may, I nevertheless learned much that evening, though
part of what I learned had naught to do with any new language.

Ajor seemed determined that I should speak Caspakian as quickly
as possible, and I thought I saw in her desire a little of that
all-feminine trait which has come down through all the ages
from the first lady of the world--curiosity. Ajor desired that
I should speak her tongue in order that she might satisfy a
curiosity concerning me that was filling her to a point where
she was in danger of bursting; of that I was positive. She was
a regular little animated question-mark. She bubbled over
with interrogations which were never to be satisfied unless
I learned to speak her tongue. Her eyes sparkled with
excitement; her hand flew in expressive gestures; her little
tongue raced with time; yet all to no avail. I could say man
and tree and cliff and lion and a number of
other words in perfect Caspakian; but such a vocabulary was
only tantalizing; it did not lend itself well to a very general
conversation, and the result was that Ajor would wax so wroth
that she would clench her little fists and beat me on the
breast as hard as ever she could, and then she would sink back
laughing as the humor of the situation captured her.

She was trying to teach me some verbs by going through the
actions herself as she repeated the proper word. We were very
much engrossed--so much so that we were giving no heed to what
went on beyond our cave--when Ajor stopped very suddenly,
crying: "Kazor!"  Now she had been trying to teach me that
ju meant stop; so when she cried kazor and at the same
time stopped, I thought for a moment that this was part of my
lesson--for the moment I forgot that kazor means beware.
I therefore repeated the word after her; but when I saw the
expression in her eyes as they were directed past me and saw
her point toward the entrance to the cave, I turned quickly--
to see a hideous face at the small aperture leading out into
the night. It was the fierce and snarling countenance of a
gigantic bear. I have hunted silvertips in the White
Mountains of Arizona and thought them quite the largest and
most formidable of big game; but from the appearance of the
head of this awful creature I judged that the largest grizzly I
had ever seen would shrink by comparison to the dimensions of a
Newfoundland dog.

Our fire was just within the cave, the smoke rising through the
apertures between the rocks that I had piled in such a way that
they arched inward toward the cliff at the top. The opening by
means of which we were to reach the outside was barricaded with
a few large fragments which did not by any means close it
entirely; but through the apertures thus left no large animal
could gain ingress. I had depended most, however, upon our
fire, feeling that none of the dangerous nocturnal beasts of
prey would venture close to the flames. In this, however, I
was quite evidently in error, for the great bear stood with his
nose not a foot from the blaze, which was now low, owing to the
fact that I had been so occupied with my lesson and my teacher
that I had neglected to replenish it.

Ajor whipped out her futile little knife and pointed to my rifle.
At the same time she spoke in a quite level voice entirely devoid
of nervousness or any evidence of fear or panic. I knew she was
exhorting me to fire upon the beast; but this I did not wish to
do other than as a last resort, for I was quite sure that even
my heavy bullets would not more than further enrage him--in which
case he might easily force an entrance to our cave.

Instead of firing, I piled some more wood upon the fire, and as
the smoke and blaze arose in the beast's face, it backed away,
growling most frightfully; but I still could see two ugly
points of light blazing in the outer darkness and hear its
growls rumbling terrifically without. For some time the
creature stood there watching the entrance to our frail
sanctuary while I racked my brains in futile endeavor to plan
some method of defense or escape. I knew full well that should
the bear make a determined effort to get at us, the rocks I had
piled as a barrier would come tumbling down about his giant
shoulders like a house of cards, and that he would walk
directly in upon us.

Ajor, having less knowledge of the effectiveness of firearms
than I, and therefore greater confidence in them, entreated me
to shoot the beast; but I knew that the chance that I could
stop it with a single shot was most remote, while that I should
but infuriate it was real and present; and so I waited for what
seemed an eternity, watching those devilish points of fire
glaring balefully at us, and listening to the ever-increasing
volume of those seismic growls which seemed to rumble upward
from the bowels of the earth, shaking the very cliffs beneath
which we cowered, until at last I saw that the brute was again
approaching the aperture. It availed me nothing that I piled
the blaze high with firewood, until Ajor and I were near to
roasting; on came that mighty engine of destruction until once
again the hideous face yawned its fanged yawn directly within
the barrier's opening. It stood thus a moment, and then the
head was withdrawn. I breathed a sigh of relief, the thing had
altered its intention and was going on in search of other and
more easily procurable prey; the fire had been too much for it.

But my joy was short-lived, and my heart sank once again as a
moment later I saw a mighty paw insinuated into the opening--a
paw as large around as a large dishpan. Very gently the paw
toyed with the great rock that partly closed the entrance,
pushed and pulled upon it and then very deliberately drew it
outward and to one side. Again came the head, and this time
much farther into the cavern; but still the great shoulders
would not pass through the opening. Ajor moved closer to me
until her shoulder touched my side, and I thought I felt a
slight tremor run through her body, but otherwise she gave no
indication of fear. Involuntarily I threw my left arm about
her and drew her to me for an instant. It was an act of
reassurance rather than a caress, though I must admit that
again and even in the face of death I thrilled at the contact
with her; and then I released her and threw my rifle to my
shoulder, for at last I had reached the conclusion that nothing
more could be gained by waiting. My only hope was to get as
many shots into the creature as I could before it was upon me.
Already it had torn away a second rock and was in the very act
of forcing its huge bulk through the opening it had now made.

So now I took careful aim between its eyes; my right fingers
closed firmly and evenly upon the small of the stock, drawing
back my trigger-finger by the muscular action of the hand.
The bullet could not fail to hit its mark! I held my breath lest
I swerve the muzzle a hair by my breathing. I was as steady and
cool as I ever had been upon a target-range, and I had the full
consciousness of a perfect hit in anticipation; I knew that I
could not miss. And then, as the bear surged forward toward
me, the hammer fell--futilely, upon an imperfect cartridge.

Almost simultaneously I heard from without a perfectly hellish
roar; the bear gave voice to a series of growls far
transcending in volume and ferocity anything that he had yet
essayed and at the same time backed quickly from the cave.
For an instant I couldn't understand what had happened to
cause this sudden retreat when his prey was practically within
his clutches. The idea that the harmless clicking of the
hammer had frightened him was too ridiculous to entertain.
However, we had not long to wait before we could at least guess
at the cause of the diversion, for from without came mingled
growls and roars and the sound of great bodies thrashing about
until the earth shook. The bear had been attacked in the rear
by some other mighty beast, and the two were now locked in a
titanic struggle for supremacy. With brief respites, during
which we could hear the labored breathing of the contestants,
the battle continued for the better part of an hour until the
sounds of combat grew gradually less and finally ceased entirely.

At Ajor's suggestion, made by signs and a few of the words we
knew in common, I moved the fire directly to the entrance to
the cave so that a beast would have to pass directly through
the flames to reach us, and then we sat and waited for the
victor of the battle to come and claim his reward; but though
we sat for a long time with our eyes glued to the opening, we
saw no sign of any beast.

At last I signed to Ajor to lie down, for I knew that she must
have sleep, and I sat on guard until nearly morning, when the
girl awoke and insisted that I take some rest; nor would she be
denied, but dragged me down as she laughingly menaced me with
her knife.

Chapter 3

When I awoke, it was daylight, and I found Ajor squatting
before a fine bed of coals roasting a large piece of
antelope-meat. Believe me, the sight of the new day and the
delicious odor of the cooking meat filled me with renewed
happiness and hope that had been all but expunged by the
experience of the previous night; and perhaps the slender
figure of the bright-faced girl proved also a potent restorative.
She looked up and smiled at me, showing those perfect teeth,
and dimpling with evident happiness--the most adorable picture
that I had ever seen. I recall that it was then I first
regretted that she was only a little untutored savage and
so far beneath me in the scale of evolution.

Her first act was to beckon me to follow her outside, and there
she pointed to the explanation of our rescue from the bear--a
huge saber-tooth tiger, its fine coat and its flesh torn to
ribbons, lying dead a few paces from our cave, and beside it,
equally mangled, and disemboweled, was the carcass of a huge
cave-bear. To have had one's life saved by a saber-tooth
tiger, and in the twentieth century into the bargain, was an
experience that was to say the least unique; but it had
happened--I had the proof of it before my eyes.

So enormous are the great carnivora of Caspak that they must
feed perpetually to support their giant thews, and the result
is that they will eat the meat of any other creature and will
attack anything that comes within their ken, no matter how
formidable the quarry. From later observation--I mention this
as worthy the attention of paleontologists and naturalists--I
came to the conclusion that such creatures as the cave-bear,
the cave-lion and the saber-tooth tiger, as well as the larger
carnivorous reptiles make, ordinarily, two kills a day--one in
the morning and one after night. They immediately devour the
entire carcass, after which they lie up and sleep for a few hours.
Fortunately their numbers are comparatively few; otherwise there
would be no other life within Caspak. It is their very voracity
that keeps their numbers down to a point which permits other
forms of life to persist, for even in the season of love the
great males often turn upon their own mates and devour them,
while both males and females occasionally devour their young.
How the human and semihuman races have managed to survive
during all the countless ages that these conditions must have
existed here is quite beyond me.

After breakfast Ajor and I set out once more upon our
northward journey. We had gone but a little distance when we
were attacked by a number of apelike creatures armed with clubs.
They seemed a little higher in the scale than the Alus. Ajor told
me they were Bo-lu, or clubmen. A revolver-shot killed one and
scattered the others; but several times later during the day we
were menaced by them, until we had left their country and
entered that of the Sto-lu, or hatchet-men. These people were
less hairy and more man-like; nor did they appear so anxious to
destroy us. Rather they were curious, and followed us for some
distance examining us most closely. They called out to us,
and Ajor answered them; but her replies did not seem to
satisfy them, for they gradually became threatening, and I
think they were preparing to attack us when a small deer that
had been hiding in some low brush suddenly broke cover and
dashed across our front. We needed meat, for it was near
one o'clock and I was getting hungry; so I drew my pistol
and with a single shot dropped the creature in its tracks.
The effect upon the Bo-lu was electrical. Immediately they
abandoned all thoughts of war, and turning, scampered for the
forest which fringed our path.

That night we spent beside a little stream in the Sto-lu country.
We found a tiny cave in the rock bank, so hidden away that
only chance could direct a beast of prey to it, and after
we had eaten of the deer-meat and some fruit which Ajor
gathered, we crawled into the little hole, and with sticks and
stones which I had gathered for the purpose I erected a strong
barricade inside the entrance. Nothing could reach us without
swimming and wading through the stream, and I felt quite secure
from attack. Our quarters were rather cramped. The ceiling
was so low that we could not stand up, and the floor so narrow
that it was with difficulty that we both wedged into it
together; but we were very tired, and so we made the most of
it; and so great was the feeling of security that I am sure I
fell asleep as soon as I had stretched myself beside Ajor.

During the three days which followed, our progress was
exasperatingly slow. I doubt if we made ten miles in the
entire three days. The country was hideously savage, so that
we were forced to spend hours at a time in hiding from one or
another of the great beasts which menaced us continually.
There were fewer reptiles; but the quantity of carnivora seemed
to have increased, and the reptiles that we did see were
perfectly gigantic. I shall never forget one enormous specimen
which we came upon browsing upon water-reeds at the edge of the
great sea. It stood well over twelve feet high at the rump,
its highest point, and with its enormously long tail and neck it
was somewhere between seventy-five and a hundred feet in length.
Its head was ridiculously small; its body was unarmored, but its
great bulk gave it a most formidable appearance. My experience
of Caspakian life led me to believe that the gigantic creature
would but have to see us to attack us, and so I raised my rifle
and at the same time drew away toward some brush which offered
concealment; but Ajor only laughed, and picking up a stick, ran
toward the great thing, shouting. The little head was raised
high upon the long neck as the animal stupidly looked here and
there in search of the author of the disturbance. At last its
eyes discovered tiny little Ajor, and then she hurled the stick
at the diminutive head. With a cry that sounded not unlike the
bleat of a sheep, the colossal creature shuffled into the water
and was soon submerged.

As I slowly recalled my collegiate studies and paleontological
readings in Bowen's textbooks, I realized that I had looked
upon nothing less than a diplodocus of the Upper Jurassic; but
how infinitely different was the true, live thing from the
crude restorations of Hatcher and Holland! I had had the idea
that the diplodocus was a land-animal, but evidently it is
partially amphibious. I have seen several since my first
encounter, and in each case the creature took to the sea for
concealment as soon as it was disturbed. With the exception of
its gigantic tail, it has no weapon of defense; but with this
appendage it can lash so terrific a blow as to lay low even a
giant cave-bear, stunned and broken. It is a stupid, simple,
gentle beast--one of the few within Caspak which such a
description might even remotely fit.

For three nights we slept in trees, finding no caves or other
places of concealment. Here we were free from the attacks of
the large land carnivora; but the smaller flying reptiles, the
snakes, leopards, and panthers were a constant menace, though
by no means as much to be feared as the huge beasts that roamed
the surface of the earth.

At the close of the third day Ajor and I were able to converse
with considerable fluency, and it was a great relief to both of
us, especially to Ajor. She now did nothing but ask questions
whenever I would let her, which could not be all the time, as
our preservation depended largely upon the rapidity with which
I could gain knowledge of the geography and customs of Caspak,
and accordingly I had to ask numerous questions myself.

I enjoyed immensely hearing and answering her, so naive were
many of her queries and so filled with wonder was she at the
things I told her of the world beyond the lofty barriers of
Caspak; not once did she seem to doubt me, however marvelous my
statements must have seemed; and doubtless they were the cause
of marvel to Ajor, who before had never dreamed that any life
existed beyond Caspak and the life she knew.

Artless though many of her questions were, they evidenced a
keen intellect and a shrewdness which seemed far beyond her
years of her experience. Altogether I was finding my little
savage a mighty interesting and companionable person, and I
often thanked the kind fate that directed the crossing of
our paths. From her I learned much of Caspak, but there still
remained the mystery that had proved so baffling to Bowen
Tyler--the total absence of young among the ape, the semihuman
and the human races with which both he and I had come in
contact upon opposite shores of the inland sea. Ajor tried to
explain the matter to me, though it was apparent that she could
not conceive how so natural a condition should demand explanation.
She told me that among the Galus there were a few babies, that
she had once been a baby but that most of her people "came up,"
as he put it, "cor sva jo," or literally, "from the beginning";
and as they all did when they used that phrase, she would wave
a broad gesture toward the south.

"For long," she explained, leaning very close to me and
whispering the words into my ear while she cast apprehensive
glances about and mostly skyward, "for long my mother kept me
hidden lest the Wieroo, passing through the air by night,
should come and take me away to Oo-oh."  And the child shuddered
as she voiced the word. I tried to get her to tell me more;
but her terror was so real when she spoke of the Wieroo and the
land of Oo-oh where they dwell that I at last desisted, though
I did learn that the Wieroo carried off only female babes and
occasionally women of the Galus who had "come up from the
beginning."  It was all very mysterious and unfathomable, but I
got the idea that the Wieroo were creatures of imagination--the
demons or gods of her race, omniscient and omnipresent. This led
me to assume that the Galus had a religious sense, and further
questioning brought out the fact that such was the case.
Ajor spoke in tones of reverence of Luata, the god of heat
and life. The word is derived from two others: Lua,
meaning sun, and ata, meaning variously eggs, life,
young, and reproduction. She told me that they
worshiped Luata in several forms, as fire, the sun, eggs and
other material objects which suggested heat and reproduction.

I had noticed that whenever I built a fire, Ajor outlined in
the air before her with a forefinger an isosceles triangle,
and that she did the same in the morning when she first viewed
the sun. At first I had not connected her act with anything in
particular, but after we learned to converse and she had
explained a little of her religious superstitions, I realized
that she was making the sign of the triangle as a Roman Catholic
makes the sign of the cross. Always the short side of the triangle
was uppermost. As she explained all this to me, she pointed to
the decorations on her golden armlets, upon the knob of her
dagger-hilt and upon the band which encircled her right leg
above the knee--always was the design partly made up of isosceles
triangles, and when she explained the significance of this
particular geometric figure, I at once grasped its appropriateness.

We were now in the country of the Band-lu, the spearmen of Caspak.
Bowen had remarked in his narrative that these people were
analogous to the so-called Cro-Magnon race of the Upper
Paleolithic, and I was therefore very anxious to see them.
Nor was I to be disappointed; I saw them, all right! We had left
the Sto-lu country and literally fought our way through cordons
of wild beasts for two days when we decided to make camp a
little earlier than usual, owing to the fact that we had
reached a line of cliffs running east and west in which were
numerous likely cave-lodgings. We were both very tired, and
the sight of these caverns, several of which could be easily
barricaded, decided us to halt until the following morning.
It took but a few minutes' exploration to discover one particular
cavern high up the face of the cliff which seemed ideal for
our purpose. It opened upon a narrow ledge where we could build
our cook-fire; the opening was so small that we had to lie flat
and wriggle through it to gain ingress, while the interior was
high-ceiled and spacious. I lighted a faggot and looked about;
but as far as I could see, the chamber ran back into the cliff.

Laying aside my rifle, pistol and heavy ammunition-belt, I
left Ajor in the cave while I went down to gather firewood.
We already had meat and fruits which we had gathered just
before reaching the cliffs, and my canteen was filled with
fresh water. Therefore, all we required was fuel, and as I always
saved Ajor's strength when I could, I would not permit her to
accompany me. The poor girl was very tired; but she would have
gone with me until she dropped, I know, so loyal was she. She was
the best comrade in the world, and sometimes I regretted and
sometimes I was glad that she was not of my own caste, for had
she been, I should unquestionably have fallen in love with her.
As it was, we traveled together like two boys, with huge respect
for each other but no softer sentiment.

There was little timber close to the base of the cliffs, and so
I was forced to enter the wood some two hundred yards distant.
I realize now how foolhardy was my act in such a land as
Caspak, teeming with danger and with death; but there is a
certain amount of fool in every man; and whatever proportion of
it I own must have been in the ascendant that day, for the
truth of the matter is that I went down into those woods
absolutely defenseless; and I paid the price, as people usually
do for their indiscretions. As I searched around in the brush
for likely pieces of firewood, my head bowed and my eyes upon
the ground, I suddenly felt a great weight hurl itself upon me.
I struggled to my knees and seized my assailant, a huge, naked
man--naked except for a breechcloth of snakeskin, the head
hanging down to the knees. The fellow was armed with a
stone-shod spear, a stone knife and a hatchet. In his black
hair were several gay-colored feathers. As we struggled to and
fro, I was slowly gaining advantage of him, when a score of his
fellows came running up and overpowered me.

They bound my hands behind me with long rawhide thongs and then
surveyed me critically. I found them fine-looking specimens of
manhood, for the most part. There were some among them who bore
a resemblance to the Sto-lu and were hairy; but the majority had
massive heads and not unlovely features. There was little about
them to suggest the ape, as in the Sto-lu, Bo-lu and Alus.
I expected them to kill me at once, but they did not. Instead they
questioned me; but it was evident that they did not believe my
story, for they scoffed and laughed.

"The Galus have turned you out," they cried. "If you go back
to them, you will die. If you remain here, you will die.
We shall kill you; but first we shall have a dance and you
shall dance with us--the dance of death."

It sounded quite reassuring! But I knew that I was not to be
killed immediately, and so I took heart. They led me toward
the cliffs, and as we approached them, I glanced up and was
sure that I saw Ajor's bright eyes peering down upon us from
our lofty cave; but she gave no sign if she saw me; and we
passed on, rounded the end of the cliffs and proceeded along
the opposite face of them until we came to a section literally
honeycombed with caves. All about, upon the ground and
swarming the ledges before the entrances, were hundreds of
members of the tribe. There were many women but no babes or
children, though I noticed that the females had better
developed breasts than any that I had seen among the
hatchet-men, the club-men, the Alus or the apes. In fact,
among the lower orders of Caspakian man the female breast is
but a rudimentary organ, barely suggested in the apes and Alus,
and only a little more defined in the Bo-lu and Sto-lu, though
always increasingly so until it is found about half developed
in the females of the spear-men; yet never was there an
indication that the females had suckled young; nor were there any
young among them. Some of the Band-lu women were quite comely.
The figures of all, both men and women, were symmetrical though
heavy, and though there were some who verged strongly upon the
Sto-lu type, there were others who were positively handsome and
whose bodies were quite hairless. The Alus are all bearded,
but among the Bo-lu the beard disappears in the women. The Sto-lu
men show a sparse beard, the Band-lu none; and there is little
hair upon the bodies of their women.

The members of the tribe showed great interest in me,
especially in my clothing, the like of which, of course, they
never had seen. They pulled and hauled upon me, and some of
them struck me; but for the most part they were not inclined
to brutality. It was only the hairier ones, who most closely
resembled the Sto-lu, who maltreated me. At last my captors led
me into a great cave in the mouth of which a fire was burning.
The floor was littered with filth, including the bones of many
animals, and the atmosphere reeked with the stench of human
bodies and putrefying flesh. Here they fed me, releasing my
arms, and I ate of half-cooked aurochs steak and a stew which
may have been made of snakes, for many of the long, round
pieces of meat suggested them most nauseatingly.

The meal completed, they led me well within the cavern, which
they lighted with torches stuck in various crevices in the
light of which I saw, to my astonishment, that the walls were
covered with paintings and etchings. There were aurochs, red
deer, saber-tooth tiger, cave-bear, hyaenadon and many other
examples of the fauna of Caspak done in colors, usually of four
shades of brown, or scratched upon the surface of the rock.
Often they were super-imposed upon each other until it required
careful examination to trace out the various outlines. But they
all showed a rather remarkable aptitude for delineation which
further fortified Bowen's comparisons between these people and
the extinct Cro-Magnons whose ancient art is still preserved
in the caverns of Niaux and Le Portel. The Band-lu, however,
did not have the bow and arrow, and in this respect they differ
from their extinct progenitors, or descendants, of Western Europe.

Should any of my friends chance to read the story of my
adventures upon Caprona, I hope they will not be bored by these
diversions, and if they are, I can only say that I am writing
my memoirs for my own edification and therefore setting down
those things which interested me particularly at the time.
I have no desire that the general public should ever have access
to these pages; but it is possible that my friends may, and
also certain savants who are interested; and to them, while I
do not apologize for my philosophizing, I humbly explain that
they are witnessing the groupings of a finite mind after the
infinite, the search for explanations of the inexplicable.

In a far recess of the cavern my captors bade me halt. Again my
hands were secured, and this time my feet as well. During the
operation they questioned me, and I was mighty glad that the
marked similarity between the various tribal tongues of Caspak
enabled us to understand each other perfectly, even though they
were unable to believe or even to comprehend the truth of my
origin and the circumstances of my advent in Caspak; and finally
they left me saying that they would come for me before the dance
of death upon the morrow. Before they departed with their
torches, I saw that I had not been conducted to the farthest
extremity of the cavern, for a dark and gloomy corridor led
beyond my prison room into the heart of the cliff.

I could not but marvel at the immensity of this great
underground grotto. Already I had traversed several hundred
yards of it, from many points of which other corridors diverged.
The whole cliff must be honeycombed with apartments and passages
of which this community occupied but a comparatively small part,
so that the possibility of the more remote passages being the
lair of savage beasts that have other means of ingress and egress
than that used by the Band-lu filled me with dire forebodings.

I believe that I am not ordinarily hysterically apprehensive;
yet I must confess that under the conditions with which I was
confronted, I felt my nerves to be somewhat shaken. On the
morrow I was to die some sort of nameless death for the
diversion of a savage horde, but the morrow held fewer terrors
for me than the present, and I submit to any fair-minded man if
it is not a terrifying thing to lie bound hand and foot in the
Stygian blackness of an immense cave peopled by unknown dangers
in a land overrun by hideous beasts and reptiles of the
greatest ferocity. At any moment, perhaps at this very moment,
some silent-footed beast of prey might catch my scent where it
laired in some contiguous passage, and might creep stealthily
upon me. I craned my neck about, and stared through the inky
darkness for the twin spots of blazing hate which I knew would
herald the coming of my executioner. So real were the
imaginings of my overwrought brain that I broke into a cold
sweat in absolute conviction that some beast was close before
me; yet the hours dragged, and no sound broke the grave-like
stillness of the cavern.

During that period of eternity many events of my life passed
before my mental vision, a vast parade of friends and
occurrences which would be blotted out forever on the morrow.
I cursed myself for the foolish act which had taken me from the
search-party that so depended upon me, and I wondered what
progress, if any, they had made. Were they still beyond the
barrier cliffs, awaiting my return? Or had they found a way
into Caspak? I felt that the latter would be the truth, for
the party was not made up of men easily turned from a purpose.
Quite probable it was that they were already searching for me;
but that they would ever find a trace of me I doubted. Long since,
had I come to the conclusion that it was beyond human prowess
to circle the shores of the inland sea of Caspak in the face
of the myriad menaces which lurked in every shadow by day and
by night. Long since, had I given up any hope of reaching
the point where I had made my entry into the country, and so I
was now equally convinced that our entire expedition had been
worse than futile before ever it was conceived, since Bowen J.
Tyler and his wife could not by any possibility have survived
during all these long months; no more could Bradley and his
party of seamen be yet in existence. If the superior force and
equipment of my party enabled them to circle the north end of
the sea, they might some day come upon the broken wreck of my
plane hanging in the great tree to the south; but long before
that, my bones would be added to the litter upon the floor of
this mighty cavern.

And through all my thoughts, real and fanciful, moved the image
of a perfect girl, clear-eyed and strong and straight and
beautiful, with the carriage of a queen and the supple,
undulating grace of a leopard. Though I loved my friends,
their fate seemed of less importance to me than the fate of
this little barbarian stranger for whom, I had convinced
myself many a time, I felt no greater sentiment than passing
friendship for a fellow-wayfarer in this land of horrors. Yet I
so worried and fretted about her and her future that at last
I quite forgot my own predicament, though I still struggled
intermittently with bonds in vain endeavor to free myself; as
much, however, that I might hasten to her protection as that I
might escape the fate which had been planned for me. And while
I was thus engaged and had for the moment forgotten my
apprehensions concerning prowling beasts, I was startled into
tense silence by a distinct and unmistakable sound coming from
the dark corridor farther toward the heart of the cliff--the
sound of padded feet moving stealthily in my direction.

I believe that never before in all my life, even amidst the
terrors of childhood nights, have I suffered such a sensation
of extreme horror as I did that moment in which I realized that
I must lie bound and helpless while some horrid beast of prey
crept upon me to devour me in that utter darkness of the Bandlu
pits of Caspak. I reeked with cold sweat, and my flesh
crawled--I could feel it crawl. If ever I came nearer to
abject cowardice, I do not recall the instance; and yet it was
not that I was afraid to die, for I had long since given myself
up as lost--a few days of Caspak must impress anyone with the
utter nothingness of life. The waters, the land, the air
teem with it, and always it is being devoured by some other
form of life. Life is the cheapest thing in Caspak, as it
is the cheapest thing on earth and, doubtless, the cheapest
cosmic production. No, I was not afraid to die; in fact, I
prayed for death, that I might be relieved of the frightfulness
of the interval of life which remained to me--the waiting, the
awful waiting, for that fearsome beast to reach me and to strike.

Presently it was so close that I could hear its breathing, and
then it touched me and leaped quickly back as though it had
come upon me unexpectedly. For long moments no sound broke the
sepulchral silence of the cave. Then I heard a movement on the
part of the creature near me, and again it touched me, and I
felt something like a hairless hand pass over my face and down
until it touched the collar of my flannel shirt. And then,
subdued, but filled with pent emotion, a voice cried: "Tom!"

I think I nearly fainted, so great was the reaction. "Ajor!"
I managed to say. "Ajor, my girl, can it be you?"

"Oh, Tom!" she cried again in a trembly little voice and flung
herself upon me, sobbing softly. I had not known that Ajor
could cry.

As she cut away my bonds, she told me that from the entrance to
our cave she had seen the Band-lu coming out of the forest with
me, and she had followed until they took me into the cave,
which she had seen was upon the opposite side of the cliff in
which ours was located; and then, knowing that she could do
nothing for me until after the Band-lu slept, she had hastened
to return to our cave. With difficulty she had reached it,
after having been stalked by a cave-lion and almost seized.
I trembled at the risk she had run.

It had been her intention to wait until after midnight, when
most of the carnivora would have made their kills, and then
attempt to reach the cave in which I was imprisoned and rescue me.
She explained that with my rifle and pistol--both of which
she assured me she could use, having watched me so many
times--she planned upon frightening the Band-lu and forcing
them to give me up. Brave little girl! She would have risked
her life willingly to save me. But some time after she reached
our cave she heard voices from the far recesses within, and
immediately concluded that we had but found another entrance
to the caves which the Band-lu occupied upon the other face of
the cliff. Then she had set out through those winding passages
and in total darkness had groped her way, guided solely by a
marvelous sense of direction, to where I lay. She had had to
proceed with utmost caution lest she fall into some abyss in
the darkness and in truth she had thrice come upon sheer drops
and had been forced to take the most frightful risks to pass them.
I shudder even now as I contemplate what this girl passed through
for my sake and how she enhanced her peril in loading herself
down with the weight of my arms and ammunition and the
awkwardness of the long rifle which she was unaccustomed to bearing.

I could have knelt and kissed her hand in reverence and
gratitude; nor am I ashamed to say that that is precisely what
I did after I had been freed from my bonds and heard the story
of her trials. Brave little Ajor! Wonder-girl out of the dim,
unthinkable past! Never before had she been kissed; but she
seemed to sense something of the meaning of the new caress,
for she leaned forward in the dark and pressed her own lips
to my forehead. A sudden urge surged through me to seize her
and strain her to my bosom and cover her hot young lips with
the kisses of a real love, but I did not do so, for I knew that
I did not love her; and to have kissed her thus, with passion,
would have been to inflict a great wrong upon her who had
offered her life for mine.

No, Ajor should be as safe with me as with her own mother, if
she had one, which I was inclined to doubt, even though she
told me that she had once been a babe and hidden by her mother.
I had come to doubt if there was such a thing as a mother in
Caspak, a mother such as we know. From the Bo-lu to the Kro-lu
there is no word which corresponds with our word mother.
They speak of ata and cor sva jo, meaning reproduction
and from the beginning, and point toward the south; but no
one has a mother.

After considerable difficulty we gained what we thought was our
cave, only to find that it was not, and then we realized that
we were lost in the labyrinthine mazes of the great cavern.
We retraced our steps and sought the point from which we had
started, but only succeeded in losing ourselves the more.
Ajor was aghast--not so much from fear of our predicament; but
that she should have failed in the functioning of that wonderful
sense she possessed in common with most other creatures
Caspakian, which makes it possible for them to move unerringly
from place to place without compass or guide.

Hand in hand we crept along, searching for an opening into
the outer world, yet realizing that at each step we might be
burrowing more deeply into the heart of the great cliff, or
circling futilely in the vague wandering that could end only
in death. And the darkness! It was almost palpable, and
utterly depressing. I had matches, and in some of the more
difficult places I struck one; but we couldn't afford to waste
them, and so we groped our way slowly along, doing the best we
could to keep to one general direction in the hope that it would
eventually lead us to an opening into the outer world. When I
struck matches, I noticed that the walls bore no paintings; nor
was there other sign that man had penetrated this far within
the cliff, nor any spoor of animals of other kinds.

It would be difficult to guess at the time we spent wandering
through those black corridors, climbing steep ascents, feeling
our way along the edges of bottomless pits, never knowing at what
moment we might be plunged into some abyss and always haunted
by the ever-present terror of death by starvation and thirst.
As difficult as it was, I still realized that it might have
been infinitely worse had I had another companion than
Ajor--courageous, uncomplaining, loyal little Ajor! She was
tired and hungry and thirsty, and she must have been
discouraged; but she never faltered in her cheerfulness.
I asked her if she was afraid, and she replied that here the
Wieroo could not get her, and that if she died of hunger, she
would at least die with me and she was quite content that such
should be her end. At the time I attributed her attitude to
something akin to a doglike devotion to a new master who had
been kind to her. I can take oath to the fact that I did not
think it was anything more.

Whether we had been imprisoned in the cliff for a day or a week
I could not say; nor even now do I know. We became very tired
and hungry; the hours dragged; we slept at least twice, and then
we rose and stumbled on, always weaker and weaker. There were
ages during which the trend of the corridors was always upward.
It was heartbreaking work for people in the state of exhaustion
in which we then were, but we clung tenaciously to it. We stumbled
and fell; we sank through pure physical inability to retain our
feet; but always we managed to rise at last and go on. At first,
wherever it had been possible, we had walked hand in hand lest
we become separated, and later, when I saw that Ajor was
weakening rapidly, we went side by side, I supporting her with
an arm about her waist. I still retained the heavy burden of
my armament; but with the rifle slung to my back, my hands
were free. When I too showed indisputable evidences of
exhaustion, Ajor suggested that I lay aside my arms and
ammunition; but I told her that as it would mean certain death
for me to traverse Caspak without them, I might as well take
the chance of dying here in the cave with them, for there was
the other chance that we might find our wayto liberty.

There came a time when Ajor could no longer walk, and then
it was that I picked her up in my arms and carried her.
She begged me to leave her, saying that after I found an exit,
I could come back and get her; but she knew, and she knew that I
knew, that if ever I did leave her, I could never find her again.
Yet she insisted. Barely had I sufficient strength to take a
score of steps at a time; then I would have to sink down and
rest for five to ten minutes. I don't know what force
urged me on and kept me going in the face of an absolute
conviction that my efforts were utterly futile. I counted us
already as good as dead; but still I dragged myself along until
the time came that I could no longer rise, but could only crawl
along a few inches at a time, dragging Ajor beside me. Her sweet
voice, now almost inaudible from weakness, implored me to
abandon her and save myself--she seemed to think only of me.
Of course I couldn't have left her there alone, no matter how
much I might have desired to do so; but the fact of the matter
was that I didn't desire to leave her. What I said to her then
came very simply and naturally to my lips. It couldn't very
well have been otherwise, I imagine, for with death so close, I
doubt if people are much inclined to heroics. "I would rather
not get out at all, Ajor," I said to her, "than to get out
without you."  We were resting against a rocky wall, and Ajor
was leaning against me, her head on my breast. I could feel
her press closer to me, and one hand stroked my arm in a weak
caress; but she didn't say anything, nor were words necessary.

After a few minutes' more rest, we started on again upon our
utterly hopeless way; but I soon realized that I was weakening
rapidly, and presently I was forced to admit that I was through.
"It's no use, Ajor," I said, "I've come as far as I can. It may
be that if I sleep, I can go on again after," but I knew that
that was not true, and that the end was near. "Yes, sleep,"
said Ajor. "We will sleep together--forever."

She crept close to me as I lay on the hard floor and pillowed
her head upon my arm. With the little strength which remained
to me, I drew her up until our lips touched, and, then I
whispered: "Good-bye!"  I must have lost consciousness almost
immediately, for I recall nothing more until I suddenly awoke
out of a troubled sleep, during which I dreamed that I was
drowning, to find the cave lighted by what appeared to be
diffused daylight, and a tiny trickle of water running down the
corridor and forming a puddle in the little depression in which
it chanced that Ajor and I lay. I turned my eyes quickly upon
Ajor, fearful for what the light might disclose; but she still
breathed, though very faintly. Then I searched about for an
explanation of the light, and soon discovered that it came from
about a bend in the corridor just ahead of us and at the top of
a steep incline; and instantly I realized that Ajor and I had
stumbled by night almost to the portal of salvation. Had chance
taken us a few yards further, up either of the corridors which
diverged from ours just ahead of us, we might have been
irrevocably lost; we might still be lost; but at least we could
die in the light of day, out of the horrid blackness of this
terrible cave.

I tried to rise, and found that sleep had given me back a
portion of my strength; and then I tasted the water and was
further refreshed. I shook Ajor gently by the shoulder; but
she did not open her eyes, and then I gathered a few drops of
water in my cupped palm and let them trickle between her lips.
This revived her so that she raised her lids, and when she saw
me, she smiled.

"What happened?" she asked. "Where are we?"

"We are at the end of the corridor," I replied, and daylight is
coming in from the outside world just ahead. We are saved, Ajor!"

She sat up then and looked about, and then, quite womanlike,
she burst into tears. It was the reaction, of course; and then
too, she was very weak. I took her in my arms and quieted her
as best I could, and finally, with my help, she got to her
feet; for she, as well as I, had found some slight recuperation
in sleep. Together we staggered upward toward the light, and
at the first turn we saw an opening a few yards ahead of us and
a leaden sky beyond--a leaden sky from which was falling a
drizzling rain, the author of our little, trickling stream
which had given us drink when we were most in need of it.

The cave had been damp and cold; but as we crawled through the
aperture, the muggy warmth of the Caspakian air caressed and
confronted us; even the rain was warmer than the atmosphere of
those dark corridors. We had water now, and warmth, and I was
sure that Caspak would soon offer us meat or fruit; but as we
came to where we could look about, we saw that we were upon the
summit of the cliffs, where there seemed little reason to
expect game. However, there were trees, and among them we soon
descried edible fruits with which we broke our long fast.

Chapter 4

We spent two days upon the cliff-top, resting and recuperating.
There was some small game which gave us meat, and the little
pools of rainwater were sufficient to quench our thirst.
The sun came out a few hours after we emerged from the cave,
and in its warmth we soon cast off the gloom which our recent