Out of Time's Abyss

By

Edgar Rice Burroughs

JTABLE 5 5 1

Chapter I

This is the tale of Bradley after he left Fort Dinosaur upon the westcoast of the great lake that is in the center of the island. 

Upon the fourth day of September, 1916, he set out with fourcompanions, Sinclair, Brady, James, and Tippet, to search along thebase of the barrier cliffs for a point at which they might be scaled. 

Through the heavy Caspakian air, beneath the swollen sun, the five menmarched northwest from Fort Dinosaur, now waist-deep in lush, junglegrasses starred with myriad gorgeous blooms, now across openmeadow-land and parklike expanses and again plunging into dense forestsof eucalyptus and acacia and giant arboreous ferns with featheredfronds waving gently a hundred feet above their heads. 

About them upon the ground, among the trees and in the air over themmoved and swung and soared the countless forms of Caspak's teeminglife. Always were they menaced by some frightful thing and seldom weretheir rifles cool, yet even in the brief time they had dwelt uponCaprona they had become callous to danger, so that they swung alonglaughing and chatting like soldiers on a summer hike. 

"This reminds me of South Clark Street, " remarked Brady, who had onceserved on the traffic squad in Chicago; and as no one asked him why, hevolunteered that it was "because it's no place for an Irishman. "

"South Clark Street and heaven have something in common, then, "suggested Sinclair. James and Tippet laughed, and then a hideous growlbroke from a dense thicket ahead and diverted their attention to othermatters. 

"One of them behemoths of 'Oly Writ, " muttered Tippet as they came to ahalt and with guns ready awaited the almost inevitable charge. 

"Hungry lot o' beggars, these, " said Bradley; "always trying to eateverything they see. "

For a moment no further sound came from the thicket. "He may befeeding now, " suggested Bradley. "We'll try to go around him. Can'twaste ammunition. Won't last forever. Follow me. " And he set off atright angles to their former course, hoping to avert a charge. Theyhad taken a dozen steps, perhaps, when the thicket moved to the advanceof the thing within it, the leafy branches parted, and the hideous headof a gigantic bear emerged. 

"Pick your trees, " whispered Bradley. "Can't waste ammunition. "

The men looked about them. The bear took a couple of steps forward, still growling menacingly. He was exposed to the shoulders now. Tippet took one look at the monster and bolted for the nearest tree;and then the bear charged. He charged straight for Tippet. The othermen scattered for the various trees they had selected--all exceptBradley. He stood watching Tippet and the bear. The man had a goodstart and the tree was not far away; but the speed of the enormouscreature behind him was something to marvel at, yet Tippet was in afair way to make his sanctuary when his foot caught in a tangle ofroots and down he went, his rifle flying from his hand and fallingseveral yards away. Instantly Bradley's piece was at his shoulder, there was a sharp report answered by a roar of mingled rage and painfrom the carnivore. Tippet attempted to scramble to his feet. 

"Lie still!" shouted Bradley. "Can't waste ammunition. "

The bear halted in its tracks, wheeled toward Bradley and then backagain toward Tippet. Again the former's rifle spit angrily, and thebear turned again in his direction. Bradley shouted loudly. "Come on, you behemoth of Holy Writ!" he cried. "Come on, you duffer! Can'twaste ammunition. " And as he saw the bear apparently upon the verge ofdeciding to charge him, he encouraged the idea by backing rapidly away, knowing that an angry beast will more often charge one who moves thanone who lies still. 

And the bear did charge. Like a bolt of lightning he flashed down uponthe Englishman. "Now run!" Bradley called to Tippet and himselfturned in flight toward a nearby tree. The other men, now safelyensconced upon various branches, watched the race with breathlessinterest. Would Bradley make it? It seemed scarce possible. And ifhe didn't! James gasped at the thought. Six feet at the shoulderstood the frightful mountain of blood-mad flesh and bone and sinew thatwas bearing down with the speed of an express train upon the seeminglyslow-moving man. 

It all happened in a few seconds; but they were seconds that seemedlike hours to the men who watched. They saw Tippet leap to his feet atBradley's shouted warning. They saw him run, stooping to recover hisrifle as he passed the spot where it had fallen. They saw him glanceback toward Bradley, and then they saw him stop short of the tree thatmight have given him safety and turn back in the direction of the bear. Firing as he ran, Tippet raced after the great cave bear--the monstrousthing that should have been extinct ages before--ran for it and firedeven as the beast was almost upon Bradley. The men in the treesscarcely breathed. It seemed to them such a futile thing for Tippet todo, and Tippet of all men! They had never looked upon Tippet as acoward--there seemed to be no cowards among that strangely assortedcompany that Fate had gathered together from the four corners of theearth--but Tippet was considered a cautious man. Overcautious, somethought him. How futile he and his little pop-gun appeared as hedashed after that living engine of destruction! But, oh, how glorious!It was some such thought as this that ran through Brady's mind, thougharticulated it might have been expressed otherwise, albeit moreforcefully. 

Just then it occurred to Brady to fire and he, too, opened upon thebear, but at the same instant the animal stumbled and fell forward, though still growling most fearsomely. Tippet never stopped running orfiring until he stood within a foot of the brute, which lay almosttouching Bradley and was already struggling to regain its feet. Placing the muzzle of his gun against the bear's ear, Tippet pulled thetrigger. The creature sank limply to the ground and Bradley scrambledto his feet. 

"Good work, Tippet, " he said. "Mightily obliged to you--awful waste ofammunition, really. "

And then they resumed the march and in fifteen minutes the encounterhad ceased even to be a topic of conversation. 

For two days they continued upon their perilous way. Already thecliffs loomed high and forbidding close ahead without sign of break toencourage hope that somewhere they might be scaled. Late in theafternoon the party crossed a small stream of warm water upon thesluggishly moving surface of which floated countless millions of tinygreen eggs surrounded by a light scum of the same color, though of adarker shade. Their past experience of Caspak had taught them thatthey might expect to come upon a stagnant pool of warm water if theyfollowed the stream to its source; but there they were almost certainto find some of Caspak's grotesque, manlike creatures. Already sincethey had disembarked from the U-33 after its perilous trip through thesubterranean channel beneath the barrier cliffs had brought them intothe inland sea of Caspak, had they encountered what had appeared to bethree distinct types of these creatures. There had been the pureapes--huge, gorillalike beasts--and those who walked, a trifle moreerect and had features with just a shade more of the human cast aboutthem. Then there were men like Ahm, whom they had captured andconfined at the fort--Ahm, the club-man. "Well-known club-man, " Tylerhad called him. Ahm and his people had knowledge of a speech. Theyhad a language, in which they were unlike the race just inferior tothem, and they walked much more erect and were less hairy: but it wasprincipally the fact that they possessed a spoken language and carrieda weapon that differentiated them from the others. 

All of these peoples had proven belligerent in the extreme. In commonwith the rest of the fauna of Caprona the first law of nature as theyseemed to understand it was to kill--kill--kill. And so it was thatBradley had no desire to follow up the little stream toward the poolnear which were sure to be the caves of some savage tribe, but fortuneplayed him an unkind trick, for the pool was much closer than heimagined, its southern end reaching fully a mile south of the point atwhich they crossed the stream, and so it was that after forcing theirway through a tangle of jungle vegetation they came out upon the edgeof the pool which they had wished to avoid. 

Almost simultaneously there appeared south of them a party of naked menarmed with clubs and hatchets. Both parties halted as they caughtsight of one another. The men from the fort saw before them a huntingparty evidently returning to its caves or village laden with meat. They were large men with features closely resembling those of theAfrican Negro though their skins were white. Short hair grew upon alarge portion of their limbs and bodies, which still retained aconsiderable trace of apish progenitors. They were, however, adistinctly higher type than the Bo-lu, or club-men. 

Bradley would have been glad to have averted a meeting; but as hedesired to lead his party south around the end of the pool, and as itwas hemmed in by the jungle on one side and the water on the other, there seemed no escape from an encounter. 

On the chance that he might avoid a clash, Bradley stepped forward withupraised hand. "We are friends, " he called in the tongue of Ahm, theBolu, who had been held a prisoner at the fort; "permit us to pass inpeace. We will not harm you. "

At this the hatchet-men set up a great jabbering with much laughter, loud and boisterous. "No, " shouted one, "you will not harm us, for weshall kill you. Come! We kill! We kill!" And with hideous shoutsthey charged down upon the Europeans. 

"Sinclair, you may fire, " said Bradley quietly. "Pick off the leader. Can't waste ammunition. "

The Englishman raised his piece to his shoulder and took quick aim atthe breast of the yelling savage leaping toward them. Directly behindthe leader came another hatchet-man, and with the report of Sinclair'srifle both warriors lunged forward in the tall grass, pierced by thesame bullet. The effect upon the rest of the band was electrical. Asone man they came to a sudden halt, wheeled to the east and dashed intothe jungle, where the men could hear them forcing their way in aneffort to put as much distance as possible between themselves and theauthors of this new and frightful noise that killed warriors at a greatdistance. 

Both the savages were dead when Bradley approached to examine them, andas the Europeans gathered around, other eyes were bent upon them withgreater curiosity than they displayed for the victim of Sinclair'sbullet. When the party again took up the march around the southern endof the pool the owner of the eyes followed them--large, round eyes, almost expressionless except for a certain cold cruelty which glintedmalignly from under their pale gray irises. 

All unconscious of the stalker, the men came, late in the afternoon, toa spot which seemed favorable as a campsite. A cold spring bubbledfrom the base of a rocky formation which overhung and partiallyencircled a small inclosure. At Bradley's command, the men took up theduties assigned them--gathering wood, building a cook-fire andpreparing the evening meal. It was while they were thus engaged thatBrady's attention was attracted by the dismal flapping of huge wings. He glanced up, expecting to see one of the great flying reptiles of abygone age, his rifle ready in his hand. Brady was a brave man. Hehad groped his way up narrow tenement stairs and taken an armed maniacfrom a dark room without turning a hair; but now as he looked up, hewent white and staggered back. 

"Gawd!" he almost screamed. "What is it?"

Attracted by Brady's cry the others seized their rifles as theyfollowed his wide-eyed, frozen gaze, nor was there one of them that wasnot moved by some species of terror or awe. Then Brady spoke again inan almost inaudible voice. "Holy Mother protect us--it's a banshee!"

Bradley, always cool almost to indifference in the face of danger, felta strange, creeping sensation run over his flesh, as slowly, not ahundred feet above them, the thing flapped itself across the sky, itshuge, round eyes glaring down upon them. And until it disappeared overthe tops of the trees of a near-by wood the five men stood as thoughparalyzed, their eyes never leaving the weird shape; nor never one ofthem appearing to recall that he grasped a loaded rifle in his hands. 

With the passing of the thing, came the reaction. Tippet sank to theground and buried his face in his hands. "Oh, Gord, " he moaned. "Tykeme awy from this orful plice. " Brady, recovered from the first shock, swore loud and luridly. He called upon all the saints to witness thathe was unafraid and that anybody with half an eye could have seen thatthe creature was nothing more than "one av thim flyin' alligators" thatthey all were familiar with. 

"Yes, " said Sinclair with fine sarcasm, "we've saw so many of them withwhite shrouds on 'em. "

"Shut up, you fool!" growled Brady. "If you know so much, tell us whatit was after bein' then. "

Then he turned toward Bradley. "What was it, sor, do you think?" heasked. 

Bradley shook his head. "I don't know, " he said. "It looked like awinged human being clothed in a flowing white robe. Its face was morehuman than otherwise. That is the way it looked to me; but what itreally was I can't even guess, for such a creature is as far beyond myexperience or knowledge as it is beyond yours. All that I am sure ofis that whatever else it may have been, it was quite material--it wasno ghost; rather just another of the strange forms of life which wehave met here and with which we should be accustomed by this time. "

Tippet looked up. His face was still ashy. "Yer cawn't tell me, " hecried. "Hi seen hit. Blime, Hi seen hit. Hit was ha dead man flyin'through the hair. Didn't Hi see 'is heyes? Oh, Gord! Didn't Hi see'em?"

"It didn't look like any beast or reptile to me, " spoke up Sinclair. "It was lookin' right down at me when I looked up and I saw its faceplain as I see yours. It had big round eyes that looked all cold anddead, and its cheeks were sunken in deep, and I could see its yellowteeth behind thin, tight-drawn lips--like a man who had been dead along while, sir, " he added, turning toward Bradley. 

"Yes!" James had not spoken since the apparition had passed over them, and now it was scarce speech which he uttered--rather a series ofarticulate gasps. "Yes--dead--a--long--while. It--means something. It--come--for some--one. For one--of us. One--of us is goin'--to die. I'm goin' to die!" he ended in a wail. 

"Come! Come!" snapped Bradley. "Won't do. Won't do at all. Get towork, all of you. Waste of time. Can't waste time. "

His authoritative tones brought them all up standing, and presentlyeach was occupied with his own duties; but each worked in silence andthere was no singing and no bantering such as had marked the making ofprevious camps. Not until they had eaten and to each had been issuedthe little ration of smoking tobacco allowed after each evening mealdid any sign of a relaxation of taut nerves appear. It was Brady whoshowed the first signs of returning good spirits. He commenced humming"It's a Long Way to Tipperary" and presently to voice the words, but hewas well into his third song before anyone joined him, and even thenthere seemed a dismal note in even the gayest of tunes. 

A huge fire blazed in the opening of their rocky shelter that theprowling carnivora might be kept at bay; and always one man stood onguard, watchfully alert against a sudden rush by some maddened beast ofthe jungle. Beyond the fire, yellow-green spots of flame appeared, moved restlessly about, disappeared and reappeared, accompanied by ahideous chorus of screams and growls and roars as the hungrymeat-eaters hunting through the night were attracted by the light orthe scent of possible prey. 

But to such sights and sounds as these the five men had become callous. They sang or talked as unconcernedly as they might have done in thebar-room of some publichouse at home. 

Sinclair was standing guard. The others were listening to Brady'sdescription of traffic congestion at the Rush Street bridge during therush hour at night. The fire crackled cheerily. The owners of theyellow-green eyes raised their frightful chorus to the heavens. Conditions seemed again to have returned to normal. And then, asthough the hand of Death had reached out and touched them all, the fivemen tensed into sudden rigidity. 

Above the nocturnal diapason of the teeming jungle sounded a dismalflapping of wings and over head, through the thick night, a shadowyform passed across the diffused light of the flaring camp-fire. Sinclair raised his rifle and fired. An eerie wail floated down fromabove and the apparition, whatever it might have been, was swallowed bythe darkness. For several seconds the listening men heard the sound ofthose dismally flapping wings lessening in the distance until theycould no longer be heard. 

Bradley was the first to speak. "Shouldn't have fired, Sinclair, " hesaid; "can't waste ammunition. " But there was no note of censure inhis tone. It was as though he understood the nervous reaction that hadcompelled the other's act. 

"I couldn't help it, sir, " said Sinclair. "Lord, it would take an ironman to keep from shootin' at that awful thing. Do you believe inghosts, sir?"

"No, " replied Bradley. "No such things. "

"I don't know about that, " said Brady. "There was a woman murderedover on the prairie near Brighton--her throat was cut from ear to ear, and--"

"Shut up, " snapped Bradley. 

"My grandaddy used to live down Coppington wy, " said Tippet. "Theywere a hold ruined castle on a 'ill near by, hand at midnight they usedto see pale blue lights through the windows an 'ear--"

"Will you close your hatch!" demanded Bradley. "You fools will haveyourselves scared to death in a minute. Now go to sleep. "

But there was little sleep in camp that night until utter exhaustionovertook the harassed men toward morning; nor was there any return ofthe weird creature that had set the nerves of each of them on edge. 

The following forenoon the party reached the base of the barrier cliffsand for two days marched northward in an effort to discover a break inthe frowning abutment that raised its rocky face almost perpendicularlyabove them, yet nowhere was there the slightest indication that thecliffs were scalable. 

Disheartened, Bradley determined to turn back toward the fort, as healready had exceeded the time decided upon by Bowen Tyler and himselffor the expedition. The cliffs for many miles had been trending in anortheasterly direction, indicating to Bradley that they wereapproaching the northern extremity of the island. According to thebest of his calculations they had made sufficient easting during thepast two days to have brought them to a point almost directly north ofFort Dinosaur and as nothing could be gained by retracing their stepsalong the base of the cliffs he decided to strike due south through theunexplored country between them and the fort. 

That night (September 9, 1916), they made camp a short distance fromthe cliffs beside one of the numerous cool springs that are to be foundwithin Caspak, oftentimes close beside the still more numerous warm andhot springs which feed the many pools. After supper the men laysmoking and chatting among themselves. Tippet was on guard. Fewernight prowlers threatened them, and the men were commenting upon thefact that the farther north they had traveled the smaller the number ofall species of animals became, though it was still present in whatwould have seemed appalling plenitude in any other part of the world. The diminution in reptilian life was the most noticeable change in thefauna of northern Caspak. Here, however, were forms they had not metelsewhere, several of which were of gigantic proportions. 

According to their custom all, with the exception of the man on guard, sought sleep early, nor, once disposed upon the ground for slumber, were they long in finding it. It seemed to Bradley that he hadscarcely closed his eyes when he was brought to his feet, wide awake, by a piercing scream which was punctuated by the sharp report of arifle from the direction of the fire where Tippet stood guard. As heran toward the man, Bradley heard above him the same uncanny wail thathad set every nerve on edge several nights before, and the dismalflapping of huge wings. He did not need to look up at thewhite-shrouded figure winging slowly away into the night to know thattheir grim visitor had returned. 

The muscles of his arm, reacting to the sight and sound of the menacingform, carried his hand to the butt of his pistol; but after he haddrawn the weapon, he immediately returned it to its holster with ashrug. 

"What for?" he muttered. "Can't waste ammunition. " Then he walkedquickly to where Tippet lay sprawled upon his face. By this timeJames, Brady and Sinclair were at his heels, each with his rifle inreadiness. 

"Is he dead, sir?" whispered James as Bradley kneeled beside theprostrate form. 

Bradley turned Tippet over on his back and pressed an ear close to theother's heart. In a moment he raised his head. "Fainted, " heannounced. "Get water. Hurry!" Then he loosened Tippet's shirt atthe throat and when the water was brought, threw a cupful in the man'sface. Slowly Tippet regained consciousness and sat up. At first helooked curiously into the faces of the men about him; then anexpression of terror overspread his features. He shot a startledglance up into the black void above and then burying his face in hisarms began to sob like a child. 

"What's wrong, man?" demanded Bradley. "Buck up! Can't play cry-baby. Waste of energy. What happened?"

"Wot 'appened, sir!" wailed Tippet. "Oh, Gord, sir! Hit came back. Hit came for me, sir. Right hit did, sir; strite hat me, sir; handwith long w'ite 'ands it clawed for me. Oh, Gord! Hit almost caughtme, sir. Hi'm has good as dead; Hi'm a marked man; that's wot Hi ham. Hit was a-goin' for to carry me horf, sir. "

"Stuff and nonsense, " snapped Bradley. "Did you get a good look at it?"

Tippet said that he did--a much better look than he wanted. The thinghad almost clutched him, and he had looked straight into itseyes--"dead heyes in a dead face, " he had described them. 

"Wot was it after bein', do you think?" inquired Brady. 

"Hit was Death, " moaned Tippet, shuddering, and again a pall of gloomfell upon the little party. 

The following day Tippet walked as one in a trance. He never spokeexcept in reply to a direct question, which more often than not had tobe repeated before it could attract his attention. He insisted that hewas already a dead man, for if the thing didn't come for him during theday he would never live through another night of agonized apprehension, waiting for the frightful end that he was positive was in store forhim. "I'll see to that, " he said, and they all knew that Tippet meantto take his own life before darkness set in. 

Bradley tried to reason with him, in his short, crisp way, but soon sawthe futility of it; nor could he take the man's weapons from himwithout subjecting him to almost certain death from any of thenumberless dangers that beset their way. 

The entire party was moody and glum. There was none of the banteringthat had marked their intercourse before, even in the face of blightinghardships and hideous danger. This was a new menace that threatenedthem, something that they couldn't explain; and so, naturally, itaroused within them superstitious fear which Tippet's attitude onlytended to augment. To add further to their gloom, their way ledthrough a dense forest, where, on account of the underbrush, it wasdifficult to make even a mile an hour. Constant watchfulness wasrequired to avoid the many snakes of various degrees of repulsivenessand enormity that infested the wood; and the only ray of hope they hadto cling to was that the forest would, like the majority of Caspakianforests, prove to be of no considerable extent. 

Bradley was in the lead when he came suddenly upon a grotesque creatureof Titanic proportions. Crouching among the trees, which herecommenced to thin out slightly, Bradley saw what appeared to be anenormous dragon devouring the carcass of a mammoth. From frightfuljaws to the tip of its long tail it was fully forty feet in length. Its body was covered with plates of thick skin which bore a strikingresemblance to armor-plate. The creature saw Bradley almost at thesame instant that he saw it and reared up on its enormous hind legsuntil its head towered a full twenty-five feet above the ground. Fromthe cavernous jaws issued a hissing sound of a volume equal to theescaping steam from the safety-valves of half a dozen locomotives, andthen the creature came for the man. 

"Scatter!" shouted Bradley to those behind him; and all but Tippetheeded the warning. The man stood as though dazed, and when Bradleysaw the other's danger, he too stopped and wheeling about sent a bulletinto the massive body forcing its way through the trees toward him. The shot struck the creature in the belly where there was no protectingarmor, eliciting a new note which rose in a shrill whistle and ended ina wail. It was then that Tippet appeared to come out of his trance, for with a cry of terror he turned and fled to the left. Bradley, seeing that he had as good an opportunity as the others to escape, nowturned his attention to extricating himself; and as the woods seemeddense on the right, he ran in that direction, hoping that the close-setboles would prevent pursuit on the part of the great reptile. Thedragon paid no further attention to him, however, for Tippet's suddenbreak for liberty had attracted its attention; and after Tippet itwent, bowling over small trees, uprooting underbrush and leaving a wakebehind it like that of a small tornado. 

Bradley, the moment he had discovered the thing was pursuing Tippet, had followed it. He was afraid to fire for fear of hitting the man, and so it was that he came upon them at the very moment that themonster lunged its great weight forward upon the doomed man. Thesharp, three-toed talons of the forelimbs seized poor Tippet, andBradley saw the unfortunate fellow lifted high above the ground as thecreature again reared up on its hind legs, immediately transferringTippet's body to its gaping jaws, which closed with a sickening, crunching sound as Tippet's bones cracked beneath the great teeth. 

Bradley half raised his rifle to fire again and then lowered it with ashake of his head. Tippet was beyond succor--why waste a bullet thatCaspak could never replace? If he could now escape the further noticeof the monster it would be a wiser act than to throw his life away infutile revenge. He saw that the reptile was not looking in hisdirection, and so he slipped noiselessly behind the bole of a largetree and thence quietly faded away in the direction he believed theothers to have taken. At what he considered a safe distance he haltedand looked back. Half hidden by the intervening trees he still couldsee the huge head and the massive jaws from which protrude the limplegs of the dead man. Then, as though struck by the hammer of Thor, the creature collapsed and crumpled to the ground. Bradley's singlebullet, penetrating the body through the soft skin of the belly, hadslain the Titan. 

A few minutes later, Bradley found the others of the party. The fourreturned cautiously to the spot where the creature lay and afterconvincing themselves that it was quite dead, came close to it. It wasan arduous and gruesome job extricating Tippet's mangled remains fromthe powerful jaws, the men working for the most part silently. 

"It was the work of the banshee all right, " muttered Brady. "It warnedpoor Tippet, it did. "

"Hit killed him, that's wot hit did, hand hit'll kill some more of us, "said James, his lower lip trembling. 

"If it was a ghost, " interjected Sinclair, "and I don't say as it was;but if it was, why, it could take on any form it wanted to. It mighthave turned itself into this thing, which ain't no natural thing atall, just to get poor Tippet. If it had of been a lion or somethingelse humanlike it wouldn't look so strange; but this here thing ain'thumanlike. There ain't no such thing an' never was. "

"Bullets don't kill ghosts, " said Bradley, "so this couldn't have beena ghost. Furthermore, there are no such things. I've been trying toplace this creature. Just succeeded. It's a tyrannosaurus. Sawpicture of skeleton in magazine. There's one in New York NaturalHistory Museum. Seems to me it said it was found in place called HellCreek somewhere in western North America. Supposed to have lived aboutsix million years ago. "

"Hell Creek's in Montana, " said Sinclair. "I used to punch cows inWyoming, an' I've heard of Hell Creek. Do you s'pose that therething's six million years old?" His tone was skeptical. 

"No, " replied Bradley; "But it would indicate that the island ofCaprona has stood almost without change for more than six millionyears. "

The conversation and Bradley's assurance that the creature was not ofsupernatural origin helped to raise a trifle the spirits of the men;and then came another diversion in the form of ravenous meat-eatersattracted to the spot by the uncanny sense of smell which had apprisedthem of the presence of flesh, killed and ready for the eating. 

It was a constant battle while they dug a grave and consigned all thatwas mortal of John Tippet to his last, lonely resting-place. Nor wouldthey leave then; but remained to fashion a rude headstone from acrumbling out-cropping of sandstone and to gather a mass of thegorgeous flowers growing in such great profusion around them and heapthe new-made grave with bright blooms. Upon the headstone Sinclairscratched in rude characters the words:

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

and Bradley repeated a short prayer before they left their comradeforever. 

For three days the party marched due south through forests andmeadow-land and great park-like areas where countless herbivorousanimals grazed--deer and antelope and bos and the little ecca, thesmallest species of Caspakian horse, about the size of a rabbit. Therewere other horses too; but all were small, the largest being not aboveeight hands in height. Preying continually upon the herbivora were themeat-eaters, large and small--wolves, hyaenadons, panthers, lions, tigers, and bear as well as several large and ferocious species ofreptilian life. 

On September twelfth the party scaled a line of sandstone cliffs whichcrossed their route toward the south; but they crossed them only afteran encounter with the tribe that inhabited the numerous caves whichpitted the face of the escarpment. That night they camped upon a rockyplateau which was sparsely wooded with jarrah, and here once again theywere visited by the weird, nocturnal apparition that had already filledthem with a nameless terror. 

As on the night of September ninth the first warning came from thesentinel standing guard over his sleeping companions. Aterror-stricken cry punctuated by the crack of a rifle brought Bradley, Sinclair and Brady to their feet in time to see James, with clubbedrifle, battling with a white-robed figure that hovered on widespreadwings on a level with the Englishman's head. As they ran, shouting, forward, it was obvious to them that the weird and terrible apparitionwas attempting to seize James; but when it saw the others coming to hisrescue, it desisted, flapping rapidly upward and away, its long, raggedwings giving forth the peculiarly dismal notes which alwayscharacterized the sound of its flying. 

Bradley fired at the vanishing menacer of their peace and safety; butwhether he scored a hit or not, none could tell, though, following theshot, there was wafted back to them the same piercing wail that had onother occasions frozen their marrow. 

Then they turned toward James, who lay face downward upon the ground, trembling as with ague. For a time he could not even speak, but atlast regained sufficient composure to tell them how the thing must haveswooped silently upon him from above and behind as the firstpremonition of danger he had received was when the long, clawlikefingers had clutched him beneath either arm. In the melee his riflehad been discharged and he had broken away at the same instant andturned to defend himself with the butt. The rest they had seen. 

From that instant James was an absolutely broken man. He maintainedwith shaking lips that his doom was sealed, that the thing had markedhim for its own, and that he was as good as dead, nor could any amountof argument or raillery convince him to the contrary. He had seenTippet marked and claimed and now he had been marked. Nor were hisconstant reiterations of this belief without effect upon the rest ofthe party. Even Bradley felt depressed, though for the sake of theothers he managed to hide it beneath a show of confidence he was farfrom feeling. 

And on the following day William James was killed by a saber-toothtiger--September 13, 1916. Beneath a jarrah tree on the stony plateauon the northern edge of the Sto-lu country in the land that Timeforgot, he lies in a lonely grave marked by a rough headstone. 

Southward from his grave marched three grim and silent men. To thebest of Bradley's reckoning they were some twenty-five miles north ofFort Dinosaur, and that they might reach the fort on the following day, they plodded on until darkness overtook them. With comparative safetyfifteen miles away, they made camp at last; but there was no singingnow and no joking. In the bottom of his heart each prayed that theymight come safely through just this night, for they knew that duringthe morrow they would make the final stretch, yet the nerves of eachwere taut with strained anticipation of what gruesome thing might flapdown upon them from the black sky, marking another for its own. Whowould be the next?

As was their custom, they took turns at guard, each man doing two hoursand then arousing the next. Brady had gone on from eight to ten, followed by Sinclair from ten to twelve, then Bradley had beenawakened. Brady would stand the last guard from two to four, as theyhad determined to start the moment that it became light enough toinsure comparative safety upon the trail. 

The snapping of a twig aroused Brady out of a dead sleep, and as heopened his eyes, he saw that it was broad daylight and that at twentypaces from him stood a huge lion. As the man sprang to his feet, hisrifle ready in his hand, Sinclair awoke and took in the scene in asingle swift glance. The fire was out and Bradley was nowhere insight. For a long moment the lion and the men eyed one another. Thelatter had no mind to fire if the beast minded its own affairs--theywere only too glad to let it go its way if it would; but the lion wasof a different mind. 

Suddenly the long tail snapped stiffly erect, and as though it had beenattached to two trigger fingers the two rifles spoke in unison, forboth men knew this signal only too well--the immediate forerunner of adeadly charge. As the brute's head had been raised, his spine had notbeen visible; and so they did what they had learned by long experiencewas best to do. Each covered a front leg, and as the tail snappedaloft, fired. With a hideous roar the mighty flesh-eater lurchedforward to the ground with both front legs broken. It was an easyaccomplishment in the instant before the beast charged--after, it wouldhave been well-nigh an impossible feat. Brady stepped close in andfinished him with a shot in the base of the brain lest his terrificroarings should attract his mate or others of their kind. 

Then the two men turned and looked at one another. "Where isLieutenant Bradley?" asked Sinclair. They walked to the fire. Only afew smoking embers remained. A few feet away lay Bradley's rifle. There was no evidence of a struggle. The two men circled about thecamp twice and on the last lap Brady stooped and picked up an objectwhich had lain about ten yards beyond the fire--it was Bradley's cap. Again the two looked questioningly at one another, and then, simultaneously, both pairs of eyes swung upward and searched the sky. A moment later Brady was examining the ground about the spot whereBradley's cap had lain. It was one of those little barren, sandystretches that they had found only upon this stony plateau. Brady'sown footsteps showed as plainly as black ink upon white paper; but hiswas the only foot that had marred the smooth, windswept surface--therewas no sign that Bradley had crossed the spot upon the surface of theground, and yet his cap lay well toward the center of it. 

Breakfastless and with shaken nerves the two survivors plunged madlyinto the long day's march. Both were strong, courageous, resourcefulmen; but each had reached the limit of human nerve endurance and eachfelt that he would rather die than spend another night in the hideousopen of that frightful land. Vivid in the mind of each was a pictureof Bradley's end, for though neither had witnessed the tragedy, bothcould imagine almost precisely what had occurred. They did not discussit--they did not even mention it--yet all day long the thing wasuppermost in the mind of each and mingled with it a similar picturewith himself as victim should they fail to make Fort Dinosaur beforedark. 

And so they plunged forward at reckless speed, their clothes, theirhands, their faces torn by the retarding underbrush that reached forthto hinder them. Again and again they fell; but be it to their creditthat the one always waited and helped the other and that into the mindof neither entered the thought or the temptation to desert hiscompanion--they would reach the fort together if both survived, orneither would reach it. 

They encountered the usual number of savage beasts and reptiles; butthey met them with a courageous recklessness born of desperation, andby virtue of the very madness of the chances they took, they camethrough unscathed and with the minimum of delay. 

Shortly after noon they reached the end of the plateau. Before themwas a drop of two hundred feet to the valley beneath. To the left, inthe distance, they could see the waters of the great inland sea thatcovers a considerable portion of the area of the crater island ofCaprona and at a little lesser distance to the south of the cliffs theysaw a thin spiral of smoke arising above the tree-tops. 

The landscape was familiar--each recognized it immediately and knewthat that smoky column marked the spot where Dinosaur had stood. Wasthe fort still there, or did the smoke arise from the smoldering embersof the building they had helped to fashion for the housing of theirparty? Who could say!

Thirty precious minutes that seemed as many hours to the impatient menwere consumed in locating a precarious way from the summit to the baseof the cliffs that bounded the plateau upon the south, and then onceagain they struck off upon level ground toward their goal. The closerthey approached the fort the greater became their apprehension that allwould not be well. They pictured the barracks deserted or the smallcompany massacred and the buildings in ashes. It was almost in afrenzy of fear that they broke through the final fringe of jungle andstood at last upon the verge of the open meadow a half-mile from FortDinosaur. 

"Lord!" ejaculated Sinclair. "They are still there!" And he fell tohis knees, sobbing. 

Brady trembled like a leaf as he crossed himself and gave silentthanks, for there before them stood the sturdy ramparts of Dinosaur andfrom inside the inclosure rose a thin spiral of smoke that marked thelocation of the cook-house. All was well, then, and their comradeswere preparing the evening meal!

Across the clearing they raced as though they had not already coveredin a single day a trackless, primeval country that might easily haverequired two days by fresh and untired men. Within hailing distancethey set up such a loud shouting that presently heads appeared abovethe top of the parapet and soon answering shouts were rising fromwithin Fort Dinosaur. A moment later three men issued from theinclosure and came forward to meet the survivors and listen to thehurried story of the eleven eventful days since they had set out upontheir expedition to the barrier cliffs. They heard of the deaths ofTippet and James and of the disappearance of Lieutenant Bradley, and anew terror settled upon Dinosaur. 

Olson, the Irish engineer, with Whitely and Wilson constituted theremnants of Dinosaur's defenders, and to Brady and Sinclair theynarrated the salient events that had transpired since Bradley and hisparty had marched away on September 4th. They told them of theinfamous act of Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts and his German crew whohad stolen the U-33, breaking their parole, and steaming away towardthe subterranean opening through the barrier cliffs that carried thewaters of the inland sea into the open Pacific beyond; and of thecowardly shelling of the fort. 

They told of the disappearance of Miss La Rue in the night of September11th, and of the departure of Bowen Tyler in search of her, accompaniedonly by his Airedale, Nobs. Thus of the original party of elevenAllies and nine Germans that had constituted the company of the U-33when she left English waters after her capture by the crew of theEnglish tug there were but five now to be accounted for at FortDinosaur. Benson, Tippet, James, and one of the Germans were known tobe dead. It was assumed that Bradley, Tyler and the girl had alreadysuccumbed to some of the savage denizens of Caspak, while the fate ofthe Germans was equally unknown, though it might readily be believedthat they had made good their escape. They had had ample time toprovision the ship and the refining of the crude oil they haddiscovered north of the fort could have insured them an ample supply tocarry them back to Germany. 

Chapter 2

When bradley went on guard at midnight, September 14th, his thoughtswere largely occupied with rejoicing that the night was almost spentwithout serious mishap and that the morrow would doubtless see them allsafely returned to Fort Dinosaur. The hopefulness of his mood wastinged with sorrow by recollection of the two members of his party wholay back there in the savage wilderness and for whom there would neveragain be a homecoming. 

No premonition of impending ill cast gloom over his anticipations forthe coming day, for Bradley was a man who, while taking everyprecaution against possible danger, permitted no gloomy forebodings toweigh down his spirit. When danger threatened, he was prepared; but hewas not forever courting disaster, and so it was that when about oneo'clock in the morning of the fifteenth, he heard the dismal flappingof giant wings overhead, he was neither surprised nor frightened butidly prepared for an attack he had known might reasonably be expected. 

The sound seemed to come from the south, and presently, low above thetrees in that direction, the man made out a dim, shadowy form circlingslowly about. Bradley was a brave man, yet so keen was the feeling ofrevulsion engendered by the sight and sound of that grim, uncanny shapethat he distinctly felt the gooseflesh rise over the surface of hisbody, and it was with difficulty that he refrained from following aninstinctive urge to fire upon the nocturnal intruder. Better, farbetter would it have been had he given in to the insistent demand ofhis subconscious mentor; but his almost fanatical obsession to saveammunition proved now his undoing, for while his attention was rivetedupon the thing circling before him and while his ears were filled withthe beating of its wings, there swooped silently out of the black nightbehind him another weird and ghostly shape. With its huge wings partlyclosed for the dive and its white robe fluttering in its wake, theapparition swooped down upon the Englishman. 

So great was the force of the impact when the thing struck Bradleybetween the shoulders that the man was half stunned. His rifle flewfrom his grasp; he felt clawlike talons of great strength seize himbeneath his arms and sweep him off his feet; and then the thing roseswiftly with him, so swiftly that his cap was blown from his head bythe rush of air as he was borne rapidly upward into the inky sky andthe cry of warning to his companions was forced back into his lungs. 

The creature wheeled immediately toward the east and was at once joinedby its fellow, who circled them once and then fell in behind them. Bradley now realized the strategy that the pair had used to capture himand at once concluded that he was in the power of reasoning beingsclosely related to the human race if not actually of it. 

Past experience suggested that the great wings were a part of someingenious mechanical device, for the limitations of the human mind, which is always loath to accept aught beyond its own little experience, would not permit him to entertain the idea that the creatures might benaturally winged and at the same time of human origin. From hisposition Bradley could not see the wings of his captor, nor in thedarkness had he been able to examine those of the second creatureclosely when it circled before him. He listened for the puff of amotor or some other telltale sound that would prove the correctness ofhis theory. However, he was rewarded with nothing more than theconstant flap-flap. 

Presently, far below and ahead, he saw the waters of the inland sea, and a moment later he was borne over them. Then his captor did thatwhich proved beyond doubt to Bradley that he was in the hands of humanbeings who had devised an almost perfect scheme of duplicating, mechanically, the wings of a bird--the thing spoke to its companion andin a language that Bradley partially understood, since he recognizedwords that he had learned from the savage races of Caspak. From thishe judged that they were human, and being human, he knew that theycould have no natural wings--for who had ever seen a human being soadorned! Therefore their wings must be mechanical. Thus Bradleyreasoned--thus most of us reason; not by what might be possible; but bywhat has fallen within the range of our experience. 

What he heard them say was to the effect that having covered half thedistance the burden would now be transferred from one to the other. Bradley wondered how the exchange was to be accomplished. He knew thatthose giant wings would not permit the creatures to approach oneanother closely enough to effect the transfer in this manner; but hewas soon to discover that they had other means of doing it. 

He felt the thing that carried him rise to a greater altitude, andbelow he glimpsed momentarily the second white-robed figure; then thecreature above sounded a low call, it was answered from below, andinstantly Bradley felt the clutching talons release him; gasping forbreath, he hurtled downward through space. 

For a terrifying instant, pregnant with horror, Bradley fell; thensomething swooped for him from behind, another pair of talons clutchedhim beneath the arms, his downward rush was checked, within anotherhundred feet, and close to the surface of the sea he was again borneupward. As a hawk dives for a songbird on the wing, so this great, human bird dived for Bradley. It was a harrowing experience, but soonover, and once again the captive was being carried swiftly toward theeast and what fate he could not even guess. 

It was immediately following his transfer in mid-air that Bradley madeout the shadowy form of a large island far ahead, and not long after, he realized that this must be the intended destination of his captors. Nor was he mistaken. Three quarters of an hour from the time of hisseizure his captors dropped gently to earth in the strangest city thathuman eye had ever rested upon. Just a brief glimpse of his immediatesurroundings vouchsafed Bradley before he was whisked into the interiorof one of the buildings; but in that momentary glance he saw strangepiles of stone and wood and mud fashioned into buildings of allconceivable sizes and shapes, sometimes piled high on top of oneanother, sometimes standing alone in an open court-way, but usuallycrowded and jammed together, so that there were no streets or alleysbetween them other than a few which ended almost as soon as they began. The principal doorways appeared to be in the roofs, and it was throughone of these that Bradley was inducted into the dark interior of alow-ceiled room. Here he was pushed roughly into a corner where hetripped over a thick mat, and there his captors left him. He heardthem moving about in the darkness for a moment, and several times hesaw their large luminous eyes glowing in the dark. Finally, thesedisappeared and silence reigned, broken only by the breathing of thecreature which indicated to the Englishman that they were sleepingsomewhere in the same apartment. 

It was now evident that the mat upon the floor was intended forsleeping purposes and that the rough shove that had sent him to it hadbeen a rude invitation to repose. After taking stock of himself andfinding that he still had his pistol and ammunition, some matches, alittle tobacco, a canteen full of water and a razor, Bradley madehimself comfortable upon the mat and was soon asleep, knowing that anattempted escape in the darkness without knowledge of his surroundingswould be predoomed to failure. 

When he awoke, it was broad daylight, and the sight that met his eyesmade him rub them again and again to assure himself that they werereally open and that he was not dreaming. A broad shaft of morninglight poured through the open doorway in the ceiling of the room whichwas about thirty feet square, or roughly square, being irregular inshape, one side curving outward, another being indented by what mighthave been the corner of another building jutting into it, anotheralcoved by three sides of an octagon, while the fourth was serpentinein contour. Two windows let in more daylight, while two doorsevidently gave ingress to other rooms. The walls were partially ceiledwith thin strips of wood, nicely fitted and finished, partiallyplastered and the rest covered with a fine, woven cloth. Figures ofreptiles and beasts were painted without regard to any uniform schemehere and there upon the walls. A striking feature of the decorationsconsisted of several engaged columns set into the walls at no regularintervals, the capitals of each supporting a human skull the cranium ofwhich touched the ceiling, as though the latter was supported by thesegrim reminders either of departed relatives or of some hideous tribalrite--Bradley could not but wonder which. 

Yet it was none of these things that filled him with greatestwonder--no, it was the figures of the two creatures that had capturedhim and brought him hither. At one end of the room a stout pole abouttwo inches in diameter ran horizontally from wall to wall some six orseven feet from the floor, its ends securely set in two of the columns. Hanging by their knees from this perch, their heads downward and theirbodies wrapped in their huge wings, slept the creatures of the nightbefore--like two great, horrid bats they hung, asleep. 

As Bradley gazed upon them in wide-eyed astonishment, he saw plainlythat all his intelligence, all his acquired knowledge through years ofobservation and experience were set at naught by the simple evidence ofthe fact that stood out glaringly before his eyes--the creatures' wingswere not mechanical devices but as natural appendages, growing fromtheir shoulderblades, as were their arms and legs. He saw, too, thatexcept for their wings the pair bore a strong resemblance to humanbeings, though fashioned in a most grotesque mold. 

As he sat gazing at them, one of the two awoke, separated his wings torelease his arms that had been folded across his breast, placed hishands upon the floor, dropped his feet and stood erect. For a momenthe stretched his great wings slowly, solemnly blinking his large roundeyes. Then his gaze fell upon Bradley. The thin lips drew backtightly against yellow teeth in a grimace that was nothing but hideous. It could not have been termed a smile, and what emotion it registeredthe Englishman was at a loss to guess. No expression whatever alteredthe steady gaze of those large, round eyes; there was no color upon thepasty, sunken cheeks. A death's head grimaced as though a man longdead raised his parchment-covered skull from an old grave. 

The creature stood about the height of an average man but appeared muchtaller from the fact that the joints of his long wings rose fully afoot above his hairless head. The bare arms were long and sinewy, ending in strong, bony hands with clawlike fingers--almost talonlike intheir suggestiveness. The white robe was separated in front, revealingskinny legs and the further fact that the thing wore but the singlegarment, which was of fine, woven cloth. From crown to sole theportions of the body exposed were entirely hairless, and as he notedthis, Bradley also noted for the first time the cause of much of theseeming expressionlessness of the creature's countenance--it hadneither eye-brows or lashes. The ears were small and rested flatagainst the skull, which was noticeably round, though the face wasquite flat. The creature had small feet, beautifully arched and plump, but so out of keeping with every other physical attribute it possessedas to appear ridiculous. 

After eyeing Bradley for a moment the thing approached him. "Wherefrom?" it asked. 

"England, " replied Bradley, as briefly. 

"Where is England and what?" pursued the questioner. 

"It is a country far from here, " answered the Englishman. 

"Are your people cor-sva-jo or cos-ata-lu?"

"I do not understand you, " said Bradley; "and now suppose you answer afew questions. Who are you? What country is this? Why did you bringme here?"

Again the sepulchral grimace. "We are Wieroos--Luata is our father. Caspak is ours. This, our country, is called Oo-oh. We brought youhere for (literally) Him Who Speaks for Luata to gaze upon andquestion. He would know from whence you came and why; but principallyif you be cos-ata-lu. "

"And if I am not cos--whatever you call the bloomin' beast--what of it?"

The Wieroo raised his wings in a very human shrug and waved his bonyclaws toward the human skulls supporting the ceiling. His gesture waseloquent; but he embellished it by remarking, "And possibly if you are. "

"I'm hungry, " snapped Bradley. 

The Wieroo motioned him to one of the doors which he threw open, permitting Bradley to pass out onto another roof on a level lower thanthat upon which they had landed earlier in the morning. By daylightthe city appeared even more remarkable than in the moonlight, thoughless weird and unreal. The houses of all shapes and sizes were piledabout as a child might pile blocks of various forms and colors. He sawnow that there were what might be called streets or alleys, but theyran in baffling turns and twists, nor ever reached a destination, always ending in a dead wall where some Wieroo had built a house acrossthem. 

Upon each house was a slender column supporting a human skull. Sometimes the columns were at one corner of the roof, sometimes atanother, or again they rose from the center or near the center, and thecolumns were of varying heights, from that of a man to those which rosetwenty feet above their roofs. The skulls were, as a rule, painted--blue or white, or in combinations of both colors. The mosteffective were painted blue with the teeth white and the eye-socketsrimmed with white. 

There were other skulls--thousands of them--tens, hundreds ofthousands. They rimmed the eaves of every house, they were set in theplaster of the outer walls and at no great distance from where Bradleystood rose a round tower built entirely of human skulls. And the cityextended in every direction as far as the Englishman could see. 

All about him Wieroos were moving across the roofs or winging throughthe air. The sad sound of their flapping wings rose and fell like asolemn dirge. Most of them were appareled all in white, like hiscaptors; but others had markings of red or blue or yellow slashedacross the front of their robes. 

His guide pointed toward a doorway in an alley below them. "Go thereand eat, " he commanded, "and then come back. You cannot escape. Ifany question you, say that you belong to Fosh-bal-soj. There is theway. " And this time he pointed to the top of a ladder which protrudedabove the eaves of the roof near-by. Then he turned and reentered thehouse. 

Bradley looked about him. No, he could not escape--that seemedevident. The city appeared interminable, and beyond the city, if not asavage wilderness filled with wild beasts, there was the broad inlandsea infested with horrid monsters. No wonder his captor felt safe inturning him loose in Oo-oh--he wondered if that was the name of thecountry or the city and if there were other cities like this upon theisland. 

Slowly he descended the ladder to the seemingly deserted alley whichwas paved with what appeared to be large, round cobblestones. Helooked again at the smooth, worn pavement, and a rueful grin crossedhis features--the alley was paved with skulls. "The City of HumanSkulls, " mused Bradley. "They must have been collectin' 'em sinceAdam, " he thought, and then he crossed and entered the building throughthe doorway that had been pointed out to him. 

Inside he found a large room in which were many Wieroos seated beforepedestals the tops of which were hollowed out so that they resembledthe ordinary bird drinking- and bathing-fonts so commonly seen onsuburban lawns. A seat protruded from each of the four sides of thepedestals--just a flat board with a support running from its outer enddiagonally to the base of the pedestal. 

As Bradley entered, some of the Wieroos espied him, and a dismal wailarose. Whether it was a greeting or a threat, Bradley did not know. Suddenly from a dark alcove another Wieroo rushed out toward him. "Whoare you?" he cried. "What do you want?"

"Fosh-bal-soj sent me here to eat, " replied Bradley. 

"Do you belong to Fosh-bal-soj?" asked the other. 

"That appears to be what he thinks, " answered the Englishman. 

"Are you cos-ata-lu?" demanded the Wieroo. 

"Give me something to eat or I'll be all of that, " replied Bradley. 

The Wieroo looked puzzled. "Sit here, jaal-lu, " he snapped, andBradley sat down unconscious of the fact that he had been insulted bybeing called a hyena-man, an appellation of contempt in Caspak. 

The Wieroo had seated him at a pedestal by himself, and as he satwaiting for what was next to transpire, he looked about him at theWieroo in his immediate vicinity. He saw that in each font was aquantity of food, and that each Wieroo was armed with a wooden skewer, sharpened at one end; with which they carried solid portions of food totheir mouths. At the other end of the skewer was fastened a smallclam-shell. This was used to scoop up the smaller and softer portionsof the repast into which all four of the occupants of each table dippedimpartially. The Wieroo leaned far over their food, scooping it uprapidly and with much noise, and so great was their haste that a partof each mouthful always fell back into the common dish; and when theychoked, by reason of the rapidity with which they attempted to bolttheir food, they often lost it all. Bradley was glad that he had apedestal all to himself. 

Soon the keeper of the place returned with a wooden bowl filled withfood. This he dumped into Bradley's "trough, " as he already thought ofit. The Englishman was glad that he could not see into the dark alcoveor know what were all the ingredients that constituted the mess beforehim, for he was very hungry. 

After the first mouthful he cared even less to investigate theantecedents of the dish, for he found it peculiarly palatable. Itseemed to consist of a combination of meat, fruits, vegetables, smallfish and other undistinguishable articles of food all seasoned toproduce a gastronomic effect that was at once baffling and delicious. 

When he had finished, his trough was empty, and then he commenced towonder who was to settle for his meal. As he waited for the proprietorto return, he fell to examining the dish from which he had eaten andthe pedestal upon which it rested. The font was of stone worn smoothby long-continued use, the four outer edges hollowed and polished bythe contact of the countless Wieroo bodies that had leaned against themfor how long a period of time Bradley could not even guess. Everythingabout the place carried the impression of hoary age. The carvedpedestals were black with use, the wooden seats were worn hollow, thefloor of stone slabs was polished by the contact of possibly millionsof naked feet and worn away in the aisles between the pedestals so thatthe latter rested upon little mounds of stone several inches above thegeneral level of the floor. 

Finally, seeing that no one came to collect, Bradley arose and startedfor the doorway. He had covered half the distance when he heard thevoice of mine host calling to him: "Come back, jaal-lu, " screamed theWieroo; and Bradley did as he was bid. As he approached the creaturewhich stood now behind a large, flat-topped pedestal beside the alcove, he saw lying upon the smooth surface something that almost elicited agasp of astonishment from him--a simple, common thing it was, or wouldhave been almost anywhere in the world but Caspak--a square bit ofpaper!

And on it, in a fine hand, written compactly, were many strangehieroglyphics! These remarkable creatures, then, had a written as wellas a spoken language and besides the art of weaving cloth possessedthat of paper-making. Could it be that such grotesque beingsrepresented the high culture of the human race within the boundaries ofCaspak? Had natural selection produced during the countless ages ofCaspakian life a winged monstrosity that represented the earthlypinnacle of man's evolution?

Bradley had noted something of the obvious indications of a gradualevolution from ape to spearman as exemplified by the severaloverlapping races of Alalus, club-men and hatchet-men that formed theconnecting links between the two extremes with which he, had come incontact. He had heard of the Krolus and the Galus--reputed to be stillhigher in the plane of evolution--and now he had indisputable evidenceof a race possessing refinements of civilization eons in advance of thespear-men. The conjectures awakened by even a momentary considerationof the possibilities involved became at once as wildly bizarre as theinsane imagings of a drug addict. 

As these thoughts flashed through his mind, the Wieroo held out a penof bone fixed to a wooden holder and at the same time made a sign thatBradley was to write upon the paper. It was difficult to judge fromthe expressionless features of the Wieroo what was passing in thecreature's mind, but Bradley could not but feel that the thing cast asupercilious glance upon him as much as to say, "Of course you do notknow how to write, you poor, low creature; but you can make your mark. "

Bradley seized the pen and in a clear, bold hand wrote: "John Bradley, England. " The Wieroo showed evidences of consternation as it seizedthe piece of paper and examined the writing with every mark ofincredulity and surprise. Of course it could make nothing of thestrange characters; but it evidently accepted them as proof thatBradley possessed knowledge of a written language of his own, forfollowing the Englishman's entry it made a few characters of its own. 

"You will come here again just before Lua hides his face behind thegreat cliff, " announced the creature, "unless before that you aresummoned by Him Who Speaks for Luata, in which case you will not haveto eat any more. "

"Reassuring cuss, " thought Bradley as he turned and left the building. 

Outside were several Wieroos that had been eating at the pedestalswithin. They immediately surrounded him, asking all sorts ofquestions, plucking at his garments, his ammunition-belt and hispistol. Their demeanor was entirely different from what it had beenwithin the eating-place and Bradley was to learn that a house of foodwas sanctuary for him, since the stern laws of the Wieroos forbadealtercations within such walls. Now they were rough and threatening, as with wings half spread they hovered about him in menacing attitudes, barring his way to the ladder leading to the roof from whence he haddescended; but the Englishman was not one to brook interference forlong. He attempted at first to push his way past them, and then whenone seized his arm and jerked him roughly back, Bradley swung upon thecreature and with a heavy blow to the jaw felled it. 

Instantly pandemonium reigned. Loud wails arose, great wings openedand closed with a loud, beating noise and many clawlike hands reachedforth to clutch him. Bradley struck to right and left. He dared notuse his pistol for fear that once they discovered its power he would beovercome by weight of numbers and relieved of possession of what heconsidered his trump card, to be reserved until the last moment that itmight be used to aid in his escape, for already the Englishman wasplanning, though almost hopelessly, such an attempt. 

A few blows convinced Bradley that the Wieroos were arrant cowards andthat they bore no weapons, for after two or three had fallen beneathhis fists the others formed a circle about him, but at a safe distanceand contented themselves with threatening and blustering, while thosewhom he had felled lay upon the pavement without trying to arise, thewhile they moaned and wailed in lugubrious chorus. 

Again Bradley strode toward the ladder, and this time the circle partedbefore him; but no sooner had he ascended a few rungs than he wasseized by one foot and an effort made to drag him down. With a quickbackward glance the Englishman, clinging firmly to the ladder with bothhands, drew up his free foot and with all the strength of a powerfulleg, planted a heavy shoe squarely in the flat face of the Wieroo thatheld him. Shrieking horribly, the creature clapped both hands to itsface and sank to the ground while Bradley clambered quickly theremaining distance to the roof, though no sooner did he reach the topof the ladder than a great flapping of wings beneath him warned himthat the Wieroos were rising after him. A moment later they swarmedabout his head as he ran for the apartment in which he had spent theearly hours of the morning after his arrival. 

It was but a short distance from the top of the ladder to the doorway, and Bradley had almost reached his goal when the door flew open andFosh-bal-soj stepped out. Immediately the pursuing Wieroos demandedpunishment of the jaal-lu who had so grievously maltreated them. Fosh-bal-soj listened to their complaints and then with a sudden sweepof his right hand seized Bradley by the scruff of the neck and hurledhim sprawling through the doorway upon the floor of the chamber. 

So sudden was the assault and so surprising the strength of the Wieroothat the Englishman was taken completely off his guard. When he arose, the door was closed, and Fosh-bal-soj was standing over him, hishideous face contorted into an expression of rage and hatred. 

"Hyena, snake, lizard!" he screamed. "You would dare lay your low, vile, profaning hands upon even the lowliest of the Wieroos--the sacredchosen of Luata!"

Bradley was mad, and so he spoke in a very low, calm voice while ahalf-smile played across his lips but his cold, gray eyes wereunsmiling. 

"What you did to me just now, " he said, "--I am going to kill you forthat, " and even as he spoke, he launched himself at the throat ofFosh-bal-soj. The other Wieroo that had been asleep when Bradley leftthe chamber had departed, and the two were alone. Fosh-bal-sojdisplayed little of the cowardice of those that had attacked Bradley inthe alleyway, but that may have been because he had so slightopportunity, for Bradley had him by the throat before he could utter acry and with his right hand struck him heavily and repeatedly upon hisface and over his heart--ugly, smashing, short-arm jabs of the sortthat take the fight out of a man in quick time. 

But Fosh-bal-soj was of no mind to die passively. He clawed and struckat Bradley while with his great wings he attempted to shield himselffrom the merciless rain of blows, at the same time searching for a holdupon his antagonist's throat. Presently he succeeded in tripping theEnglishman, and together the two fell heavily to the floor, Bradleyunderneath, and at the same instant the Wieroo fastened his long talonsabout the other's windpipe. 

Fosh-bal-soj was possessed of enormous strength and he was fighting forhis life. The Englishman soon realized that the battle was goingagainst him. Already his lungs were pounding painfully for air as hereached for his pistol. It was with difficulty that he drew it fromits holster, and even then, with death staring him in the face, hethought of his precious ammunition. "Can't waste it, " he thought; andslipping his fingers to the barrel he raised the weapon and struckFosh-bal-soj a terrific blow between the eyes. Instantly the clawlikefingers released their hold, and the creature sank limply to the floorbeside Bradley, who lay for several minutes gasping painfully in aneffort to regain his breath. 

When he was able, he rose, and leaned close over the Wieroo, lyingsilent and motionless, his wings dropping limply and his great, roundeyes staring blankly toward the ceiling. A brief examination convincedBradley that the thing was dead, and with the conviction came anoverwhelming sense of the dangers which must now confront him; but howwas he to escape?

His first thought was to find some means for concealing the evidence ofhis deed and then to make a bold effort to escape. Stepping to thesecond door he pushed it gently open and peered in upon what seemed tobe a store room. In it was a litter of cloth such as the Wieroos'robes were fashioned from, a number of chests painted blue and white, with white hieroglyphics painted in bold strokes upon the blue and bluehieroglyphics upon the white. In one corner was a pile of human skullsreaching almost to the ceiling and in another a stack of dried Wieroowings. The chamber was as irregularly shaped as the other and had buta single window and a second door at the further end, but was withoutthe exit through the roof and, most important of all, there was nocreature of any sort in it. 

As quickly as possible Bradley dragged the dead Wieroo through thedoorway and closed the door; then he looked about for a place toconceal the corpse. One of the chests was large enough to hold thebody if the knees were bent well up, and with this idea in view Bradleyapproached the chest to open it. The lid was made in two pieces, eachbeing hinged at an opposite end of the chest and joining nicely wherethey met in the center of the chest, making a snug, well-fitting joint. There was no lock. Bradley raised one half the cover and looked in. With a smothered "By Jove!" he bent closer to examine the contents--thechest was about half filled with an assortment of golden trinkets. There were what appeared to be bracelets, anklets and brooches ofvirgin gold. 

Realizing that there was no room in the chest for the body of theWieroo, Bradley turned to seek another means of concealing the evidenceof his crime. There was a space between the chests and the wall, andinto this he forced the corpse, piling the discarded robes upon ituntil it was entirely hidden from sight; but now how was he to makegood his escape in the bright glare of that early Spring day?

He walked to the door at the far end of the apartment and cautiouslyopened it an inch. Before him and about two feet away was the blankwall of another building. Bradley opened the door a little farther andlooked in both directions. There was no one in sight to the left overa considerable expanse of roof-top, and to the right another buildingshut off his line of vision at about twenty feet. Slipping out, heturned to the right and in a few steps found a narrow passagewaybetween two buildings. Turning into this he passed about half itslength when he saw a Wieroo appear at the opposite end and halt. Thecreature was not looking down the passageway; but at any moment itmight turn its eyes toward him, when he would be immediately discovered. 

To Bradley's left was a triangular niche in the wall of one of thehouses and into this he dodged, thus concealing himself from the sightof the Wieroo. Beside him was a door painted a vivid yellow andconstructed after the same fashion as the other Wieroo doors he hadseen, being made up of countless narrow strips of wood from four to sixinches in length laid on in patches of about the same width, the stripsin adjacent patches never running in the same direction. The resultbore some resemblance to a crazy patchwork quilt, which was heightenedwhen, as in one of the doors he had seen, contiguous patches werepainted different colors. The strips appeared to have been boundtogether and to the underlying framework of the door with gut or fiberand also glued, after which a thick coating of paint had been applied. One edge of the door was formed of a straight, round pole about twoinches in diameter that protruded at top and bottom, the projectionssetting in round holes in both lintel and sill forming the axis uponwhich the door swung. An eccentric disk upon the inside face of thedoor engaged a slot in the frame when it was desired to secure the dooragainst intruders. 

As Bradley stood flattened against the wall waiting for the Wieroo tomove on, he heard the creature's wings brushing against the sides ofthe buildings as it made its way down the narrow passage in hisdirection. As the yellow door offered the only means of escape withoutdetection, the Englishman decided to risk whatever might lie beyond it, and so, boldly pushing it in, he crossed the threshold and entered asmall apartment. 

As he did so, he heard a muffled ejaculation of surprise, and turninghis eyes in the direction from whence the sound had come, he beheld awide-eyed girl standing flattened against the opposite wall, anexpression of incredulity upon her face. At a glance he saw that shewas of no race of humans that he had come in contact with since hisarrival upon Caprona--there was no trace about her form or features ofany relationship to those low orders of men, nor was she appareled asthey--or, rather, she did not entirely lack apparel as did most of them. 

A soft hide fell from her left shoulder to just below her left hip onone side and almost to her right knee on the other, a loose girdle wasabout her waist, and golden ornaments such as he had seen in theblue-and-white chest encircled her arms and legs, while a golden filletwith a triangular diadem bound her heavy hair above her brows. Herskin was white as from long confinement within doors; but it was clearand fine. Her figure, but partially concealed by the soft deerskin, was all curves of symmetry and youthful grace, while her features mighteasily have been the envy of the most feted of Continental beauties. 

If the girl was surprised by the sudden appearance of Bradley, thelatter was absolutely astounded to discover so wondrous a creatureamong the hideous inhabitants of the City of Human Skulls. For amoment the two looked at one another in unconcealed consternation, andthen Bradley spoke, using to the best of his poor ability, the commontongue of Caspak. 

"Who are you, " he asked, "and from where do you come? Do not tell methat you are a Wieroo. "

"No, " she replied, "I am no Wieroo. " And she shuddered slightly as shepronounced the word. "I am a Galu; but who and what are you? I amsure that you are no Galu, from your garments; but you are like theGalus in other respects. I know that you are not of this frightfulcity, for I have been here for almost ten moons, and never have I seena male Galu brought hither before, nor are there such as you and I, other than prisoners in the land of Oo-oh, and these are all females. Are you a prisoner, then?"

He told her briefly who and what he was, though he doubted if sheunderstood, and from her he learned that she had been a prisoner therefor many months; but for what purpose he did not then learn, as in themidst of their conversation the yellow door swung open and a Wieroowith a robe slashed with yellow entered. 

At sight of Bradley the creature became furious. "Whence came thisreptile?" it demanded of the girl. "How long has it been here withyou?"

"It came through the doorway just ahead of you, " Bradley answered forthe girl. 

The Wieroo looked relieved. "It is well for the girl that this is so, "it said, "for now only you will have to die. " And stepping to the doorthe creature raised its voice in one of those uncanny, depressing wails. 

The Englishman looked toward the girl. "Shall I kill it?" he asked, half drawing his pistol. "What is best to do?--I do not wish toendanger you. "

The Wieroo backed toward the door. "Defiler!" it screamed. "You dareto threaten one of the sacred chosen of Luata!"

"Do not kill him, " cried the girl, "for then there could be no hope foryou. That you are here, alive, shows that they may not intend to killyou at all, and so there is a chance for you if you do not anger them;but touch him in violence and your bleached skull will top the loftiestpedestal of Oo-oh. "

"And what of you?" asked Bradley. 

"I am already doomed, " replied the girl; "I am cos-ata-lo. "

"Cos-ata-lo! cos-ata-lu!" What did these phrases mean that they wereso oft repeated by the denizens of Oo-oh? Lu and lo, Bradley knew tomean man and woman; ata; was employed variously to indicate life, eggs, young, reproduction and kindred subject; cos was a negative; but incombination they were meaningless to the European. 

"Do you mean they will kill you?" asked Bradley. 

"I but wish that they would, " replied the girl. "My fate is to beworse than death--in just a few nights more, with the coming of the newmoon. "

"Poor she-snake!" snapped the Wieroo. "You are to become sacred aboveall other shes. He Who Speaks for Luata has chosen you for himself. Today you go to his temple--" the Wieroo used a phrase meaningliterally High Place--"where you will receive the sacred commands. "

The girl shuddered and cast a sorrowful glance toward Bradley. "Ah, "she sighed, "if I could but see my beloved country once again!"

The man stepped suddenly close to her side before the Wieroo couldinterpose and in a low voice asked her if there was no way by which hemight encompass her escape. She shook her head sorrowfully. "Even ifwe escaped the city, " she replied, "there is the big water between theisland of Oo-oh and the Galu shore. "

"And what is beyond the city, if we could leave it?" pursued Bradley. 

"I may only guess from what I have heard since I was brought here, "she answered; "but by reports and chance remarks I take it to be abeautiful land in which there are but few wild beasts and no men, foronly the Wieroos live upon this island and they dwell always in citiesof which there are three, this being the largest. The others are atthe far end of the island, which is about three marches from end to endand at its widest point about one march. "

From his own experience and from what the natives on the mainland hadtold him, Bradley knew that ten miles was a good day's march in Caspak, owing to the fact that at most points it was a trackless wilderness andat all times travelers were beset by hideous beasts and reptiles thatgreatly impeded rapid progress. 

The two had spoken rapidly but were now interrupted by the adventthrough the opening in the roof of several Wieroos who had come inanswer to the alarm it of the yellow slashing had uttered. 

"This jaal-lu, " cried the offended one, "has threatened me. Take itshatchet from it and make it fast where it can do no harm until He WhoSpeaks for Luata has said what shall be done with it. It is one ofthose strange creatures that Fosh-bal-soj discovered first above theBand-lu country and followed back toward the beginning. He Who Speaksfor Luata sent Fosh-bal-soj to fetch him one of the creatures, and hereit is. It is hoped that it may be from another world and hold thesecret of the cos-ata-lus. "

The Wieroos approached boldly to take Bradley's "hatchet" from him, their leader having indicated the pistol hanging in its holster at theEnglishman's hip, but the first one went reeling backward against hisfellows from the blow to the chin which Bradley followed up with a rushand the intention to clean up the room in record time; but he hadreckoned without the opening in the roof. Two were down and a greatwailing and moaning was arising when reinforcements appeared fromabove. Bradley did not see them; but the girl did, and though shecried out a warning, it came too late for him to avoid a large Wieroowho dived headforemost for him, striking him between the shoulders andbearing him to the floor. Instantly a dozen more were piling on top ofhim. His pistol was wrenched from its holster and he was securelypinioned down by the weight of numbers. 

At a word from the Wieroo of the yellow slashing who evidently was aperson of authority, one left and presently returned with fiber ropeswith which Bradley was tightly bound. 

"Now bear him to the Blue Place of Seven Skulls, " directed the chiefWieroo, "and one take the word of all that has passed to Him Who Speaksfor Luata. "

Each of the creatures raised a hand, the back against its face, asthough in salute. One seized Bradley and carried him through theyellow doorway to the roof from whence it rose upon its wide-spreadwings and flapped off across the roof-tops of Oo-oh with its heavyburden clutched in its long talons. 

Below him Bradley could see the city stretching away to a distance onevery hand. It was not as large as he had imagined, though he judgedthat it was at least three miles square. The houses were piled inindescribable heaps, sometimes to a height of a hundred feet. Thestreets and alleys were short and crooked and there were many areaswhere buildings had been wedged in so closely that no light couldpossibly reach the lowest tiers, the entire surface of the ground beingpacked solidly with them. 

The colors were varied and startling, the architecture amazing. Manyroofs were cup or saucer-shaped with a small hole in the center ofeach, as though they had been constructed to catch rain-water andconduct it to a reservoir beneath; but nearly all the others had thelarge opening in the top that Bradley had seen used by these flying menin lieu of doorways. At all levels were the myriad poles surmounted bygrinning skulls; but the two most prominent features of the city werethe round tower of human skulls that Bradley had noted earlier in theday and another and much larger edifice near the center of the city. As they approached it, Bradley saw that it was a huge building rising ahundred feet in height from the ground and that it stood alone in thecenter of what might have been called a plaza in some other part of theworld. Its various parts, however, were set together with the samestrange irregularity that marked the architecture of the city as awhole; and it was capped by an enormous saucer-shaped roof whichprojected far beyond the eaves, having the appearance of a colossalChinese coolie hat, inverted. 

The Wieroo bearing Bradley passed over one corner of the open spaceabout the large building, revealing to the Englishman grass and treesand running water beneath. They passed the building and about fivehundred yards beyond the creature alighted on the roof of a square, blue building surmounted by seven poles bearing seven skulls. Thisthen, thought Bradley, is the Blue Place of Seven Skulls. 

Over the opening in the roof was a grated covering, and this the Wierooremoved. The thing then tied a piece of fiber rope to one of Bradley'sankles and rolled him over the edge of the opening. All was dark belowand for an instant the Englishman came as near to experiencing realterror as he had ever come in his life before. As he rolled off intothe black abyss he felt the rope tighten about his ankle and an instantlater he was stopped with a sudden jerk to swing pendulumlike, headdownward. Then the creature lowered away until Bradley's head came insudden and painful contact with the floor below, after which the Wieroolet loose of the rope entirely and the Englishman's body crashed to thewooden planking. He felt the free end of the rope dropped upon him andheard the grating being slid into place above him. 

Chapter 3

Half-stunned, Bradley lay for a minute as he had fallen and then slowlyand painfully wriggled into a less uncomfortable position. He couldsee nothing of his surroundings in the gloom about him until after afew minutes his eyes became accustomed to the dark interior when herolled them from side to side in survey of his prison. 

He discovered himself to be in a bare room which was windowless, norcould he see any other opening than that through which he had beenlowered. In one corner was a huddled mass that might have been almostanything from a bundle of rags to a dead body. 

Almost immediately after he had taken his bearings Bradley commencedworking with his bonds. He was a man of powerful physique, and as fromthe first he had been imbued with a belief that the fiber ropes weretoo weak to hold him, he worked on with a firm conviction that sooneror later they would part to his strainings. After a matter of fiveminutes he was positive that the strands about his wrists werebeginning to give; but he was compelled to rest then from exhaustion. 

As he lay, his eyes rested upon the bundle in the corner, and presentlyhe could have sworn that the thing moved. With eyes straining throughthe gloom the man lay watching the grim and sinister thing in thecorner. Perhaps his overwrought nerves were playing a sorry joke uponhim. He thought of this and also that his condition of utterhelplessness might still further have stimulated his imagination. Heclosed his eyes and sought to relax his muscles and his nerves; butwhen he looked again, he knew that he had not been mistaken--the thinghad moved; now it lay in a slightly altered form and farther from thewall. It was nearer him. 

With renewed strength Bradley strained at his bonds, his fascinatedgaze still glued upon the shapeless bundle. No longer was there anydoubt that it moved--he saw it rise in the center several inches andthen creep closer to him. It sank and arose again--a headless, hideous, monstrous thing of menace. Its very silence rendered it themore terrible. 

Bradley was a brave man; ordinarily his nerves were of steel; but to beat the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be unable todefend himself--it was these things that almost unstrung him, for atbest he was only human. To stand in the open, even with the odds allagainst him; to be able to use his fists, to put up some sort ofdefense, to inflict punishment upon his adversary--then he could facedeath with a smile. It was not death that he feared now--it was thathorror of the unknown that is part of the fiber of every son of woman. 

Closer and closer came the shapeless mass. Bradley lay motionless andlistened. What was that he heard! Breathing? He could not bemistaken--and then from out of the bundle of rags issued a hollowgroan. Bradley felt his hair rise upon his head. He struggled withthe slowly parting strands that held him. The thing beside him rose uphigher than before and the Englishman could have sworn that he saw asingle eye peering at him from among the tumbled cloth. For a momentthe bundle remained motionless--only the sound of breathing issued fromit, then there broke from it a maniacal laugh. 

Cold sweat stood upon Bradley's brow as he tugged for liberation. Hesaw the rags rise higher and higher above him until at last theytumbled upon the floor from the body of a naked man--a thin, a bony, ahideous caricature of man, that mouthed and mummed and, wabbling uponits weak and shaking legs, crumpled to the floor again, stilllaughing--laughing horribly. 

It crawled toward Bradley. "Food! Food!" it screamed. "There is away out! There is a way out!"

Dragging itself to his side the creature slumped upon the Englishman'sbreast. "Food!" it shrilled as with its bony fingers and its teeth, itsought the man's bare throat. 

"Food! There is a way out!" Bradley felt teeth upon his jugular. Heturned and twisted, shaking himself free for an instant; but once morewith hideous persistence the thing fastened itself upon him. The weakjaws were unable to send the dull teeth through the victim's flesh; butBradley felt it pawing, pawing, pawing, like a monstrous rat, seekinghis life's blood. 

The skinny arms now embraced his neck, holding the teeth to his throatagainst all his efforts to dislodge the thing. Weak as it was it hadstrength enough for this in its mad efforts to eat. Mumbling as itworked, it repeated again and again, "Food! Food! There is a wayout!" until Bradley thought those two expressions alone would drive himmad. 

And all but mad he was as with a final effort backed by almost maniacalstrength he tore his wrists from the confining bonds and grasping therepulsive thing upon his breast hurled it halfway across the room. Panting like a spent hound Bradley worked at the thongs about hisankles while the maniac lay quivering and mumbling where it had fallen. Presently the Englishman leaped to his feet--freer than he had everbefore felt in all his life, though he was still hopelessly a prisonerin the Blue Place of Seven Skulls. 

With his back against the wall for support, so weak the reaction lefthim, Bradley stood watching the creature upon the floor. He saw itmove and slowly raise itself to its hands and knees, where it swayed toand fro as its eyes roved about in search of him; and when at last theyfound him, there broke from the drawn lips the mumbled words: "Food!Food! There is a way out!" The pitiful supplication in the tonestouched the Englishman's heart. He knew that this could be no Wieroo, but possibly once a man like himself who had been cast into this pit ofsolitary confinement with this hideous result that might in time be hisfate, also. 

And then, too, there was the suggestion of hope held out by theconstant reiteration of the phrase, "There is a way out. " Was there away out? What did this poor thing know?

"Who are you and how long have you been here?" Bradley suddenlydemanded. 

For a moment the man upon the floor made no response, then mumblinglycame the words: "Food! Food!"

"Stop!" commanded the Englishman--the injunction might have been barkedfrom the muzzle of a pistol. It brought the man to a sitting posture, his hands off the ground. He stopped swaying to and fro and appearedto be startled into an attempt to master his faculties of concentrationand thought. 

Bradley repeated his questions sharply. 

"I am An-Tak, the Galu, " replied the man. "Luata alone knows how longI have been here--maybe ten moons, maybe ten moons three times"--it wasthe Caspakian equivalent of thirty. "I was young and strong when theybrought me here. Now I am old and very weak. I am cos-ata-lu--that iswhy they have not killed me. If I tell them the secret of becomingcos-ata-lu they will take me out; but how can I tell them that whichLuata alone knows?

"What is cos-ata-lu?" demanded Bradley. 

"Food! Food! There is a way out!" mumbled the Galu. 

Bradley strode across the floor, seized the man by his shoulders andshook him. 

"Tell me, " he cried, "what is cos-ata-lu?"

"Food!" whimpered An-Tak. 

Bradley bethought himself. His haversack had not been taken from him. In it besides his razor and knife were odds and ends of equipment and asmall quantity of dried meat. He tossed a small strip of the latter tothe starving Galu. An-Tak seized upon it and devoured it ravenously. It instilled new life in the man. 

"What is cos-ata-lu?" insisted Bradley again. 

An-Tak tried to explain. His narrative was often broken by lapses ofconcentration during which he reverted to his plaintive mumbling forfood and recurrence to the statement that there was a way out; but byfirmness and patience the Englishman drew out piece-meal a more or lesslucid exposition of the remarkable scheme of evolution that rules inCaspak. In it he found explanations of the hitherto inexplicable. Hediscovered why he had seen no babes or children among the Caspakiantribes with which he had come in contact; why each more northerly tribeevinced a higher state of development than those south of them; whyeach tribe included individuals ranging in physical and mentalcharacteristics from the highest of the next lower race to the lowestof the next higher, and why the women of each tribe immersed themselvesmorning for an hour or more in the warm pools near which thehabitations of their people always were located; and, too, hediscovered why those pools were almost immune from the attacks ofcarnivorous animals and reptiles. 

He learned that all but those who were cos-ata-lu came up cor-sva-jo, or from the beginning. The egg from which they first developed intotadpole form was deposited, with millions of others, in one of the warmpools and with it a poisonous serum that the carnivora instinctivelyshunned. Down the warm stream from the pool floated the countlessbillions of eggs and tadpoles, developing as they drifted slowly towardthe sea. Some became tadpoles in the pool, some in the sluggish streamand some not until they reached the great inland sea. In the nextstage they became fishes or reptiles, An-Tak was not positive which, and in this form, always developing, they swam far to the south, where, amid the rank and teeming jungles, some of them evolved intoamphibians. Always there were those whose development stopped at thefirst stage, others whose development ceased when they became reptiles, while by far the greater proportion formed the food supply of theravenous creatures of the deep. 

Few indeed were those that eventually developed into baboons and thenapes, which was considered by Caspakians the real beginning ofevolution. From the egg, then, the individual developed slowly into ahigher form, just as the frog's egg develops through various stagesfrom a fish with gills to a frog with lungs. With that thought in mindBradley discovered that it was not difficult to believe in thepossibility of such a scheme--there was nothing new in it. 

From the ape the individual, if it survived, slowly developed into thelowest order of man--the Alu--and then by degrees to Bo-lu, Sto-lu, Band-lu, Kro-lu and finally Galu. And in each stage countless millionsof other eggs were deposited in the warm pools of the various races andfloated down to the great sea to go through a similar process ofevolution outside the womb as develops our own young within; but inCaspak the scheme is much more inclusive, for it combines not onlyindividual development but the evolution of species and genera. If anegg survives it goes through all the stages of development that man haspassed through during the unthinkable eons since life first moved uponthe earth's face. 

The final stage--that which the Galus have almost attained and forwhich all hope--is cos-ata-lu, which literally, means no-egg-man, orone who is born directly as are the young of the outer world ofmammals. Some of the Galus produce cos-ata-lu and cos-ata-lo both; theWeiroos only cos-ata-lu--in other words all Wieroos are born male, andso they prey upon the Galus for their women and sometimes capture andtorture the Galu men who are cos-ata-lu in an endeavor to learn thesecret which they believe will give them unlimited power over all otherdenizens of Caspak. 

No Wieroos come up from the beginning--all are born of the Wieroofathers and Galu mothers who are cos-ata-lo, and there are very few ofthe latter owing to the long and precarious stages of development. Seven generations of the same ancestor must come up from the beginningbefore a cos-ata-lu child may be born; and when one considers thefrightful dangers that surround the vital spark from the moment itleaves the warm pool where it has been deposited to float down to thesea amid the voracious creatures that swarm the surface and the deepsand the almost equally unthinkable trials of its effort to surviveafter it once becomes a land animal and starts northward through thehorrors of the Caspakian jungles and forests, it is plainly a wonderthat even a single babe has ever been born to a Galu woman. 

Seven cycles it requires before the seventh Galu can complete theseventh danger-infested circle since its first Galu ancestor achievedthe state of Galu. For ages before, the ancestors of this first Galumay have developed from a Band-lu or Bo-lu egg without ever oncecompleting the whole circle--that is from a Galu egg, back to a fullydeveloped Galu. 

Bradley's head was whirling before he even commenced to grasp thecomplexities of Caspakian evolution; but as the truth slowly filteredinto his understanding--as gradually it became possible for him tovisualize the scheme, it appeared simpler. In fact, it seemed evenless difficult of comprehension than that with which he was familiar. 

For several minutes after An-Tak ceased speaking, his voice havingtrailed off weakly into silence, neither spoke again. Then the Galurecommenced his, "Food! Food! There is a way out!" Bradley tossed himanother bit of dried meat, waiting patiently until he had eaten it, this time more slowly. 

"What do you mean by saying there is a way out?" he asked. 

"He who died here just after I came, told me, " replied An-Tak. "Hesaid there was a way out, that he had discovered it but was too weak touse his knowledge. He was trying to tell me how to find it when hedied. Oh, Luata, if he had lived but a moment more!"

"They do not feed you here?" asked Bradley. 

"No, they give me water once a day--that is all. "

"But how have you lived, then?"

"The lizards and the rats, " replied An-Tak. "The lizards are not sobad; but the rats are foul to taste. However, I must eat them or theywould eat me, and they are better than nothing; but of late they do notcome so often, and I have not had a lizard for a long time. I shalleat though, " he mumbled. "I shall eat now, for you cannot remain awakeforever. " He laughed, a cackling, dry laugh. "When you sleep, An-Takwill eat. "

It was horrible. Bradley shuddered. For a long time each sat insilence. The Englishman could guess why the other made no sound--heawaited the moment that sleep should overcome his victim. In the longsilence there was born upon Bradley's ears a faint, monotonous sound asof running water. He listened intently. It seemed to come from farbeneath the floor. 

"What is that noise?" he asked. "That sounds like water runningthrough a narrow channel. "

"It is the river, " replied An-Tak. "Why do you not go to sleep? Itpasses directly beneath the Blue Place of Seven Skulls. It runsthrough the temple grounds, beneath the temple and under the city. When we die, they will cut off our heads and throw our bodies into theriver. At the mouth of the river await many large reptiles. Thus dothey feed. The Wieroos do likewise with their own dead, keeping onlythe skulls and the wings. Come, let us sleep. "

"Do the reptiles come up the river into the city?" asked Bradley. 

"The water is too cold--they never leave the warm water of the greatpool, " replied An-Tak. 

"Let us search for the way out, " suggested Bradley. 

An-Tak shook his head. "I have searched for it all these moons, " hesaid. "If I could not find it, how would you?"

Bradley made no reply but commenced a diligent examination of the wallsand floor of the room, pressing over each square foot and tapping withhis knuckles. About six feet from the floor he discovered asleeping-perch near one end of the apartment. He asked An-Tak aboutit, but the Galu said that no Weiroo had occupied the place since hehad been incarcerated there. Again and again Bradley went over thefloor and walls as high up as he could reach. Finally he swung himselfto the perch, that he might examine at least one end of the room allthe way to the ceiling. 

In the center of the wall close to the top, an area about three feetsquare gave forth a hollow sound when he rapped upon it. Bradley feltover every square inch of that area with the tips of his fingers. Nearthe top he found a small round hole a trifle larger in diameter thanhis forefinger, which he immediately stuck into it. The panel, if suchit was, seemed about an inch thick, and beyond it his fingerencountered nothing. Bradley crooked his finger upon the opposite sideof the panel and pulled toward him, steadily but with considerableforce. Suddenly the panel flew inward, nearly precipitating the man tothe floor. It was hinged at the bottom, and when lowered the outeredge rested upon the perch, making a little platform parallel with thefloor of the room. 

Beyond the opening was an utterly dark void. The Englishman leanedthrough it and reached his arm as far as possible into the blacknessbut touched nothing. Then he fumbled in his haversack for a match, afew of which remained to him. When he struck it, An-Tak gave a cry ofterror. Bradley held the light far into the opening before him and inits flickering rays saw the top of a ladder descending into a blackabyss below. How far down it extended he could not guess; but that heshould soon know definitely he was positive. 

"You have found it! You have found the way out!" screamed An-Tak. "Oh, Luata! And now I am too weak to go. Take me with you! Take mewith you!"

"Shut up!" admonished Bradley. "You will have the whole flock of birdsaround our heads in a minute, and neither of us will escape. Be quiet, and I'll go ahead. If I find a way out, I'll come back and help you, if you'll promise not to try to eat me up again. "

"I promise, " cried An-Tak. "Oh, Luata! How could you blame me? I amhalf crazed of hunger and long confinement and the horror of thelizards and the rats and the constant waiting for death. "

"I know, " said Bradley simply. "I'm sorry for you, old top. Keep astiff upper lip. " And he slipped through the opening, found the ladderwith his feet, closed the panel behind him, and started downward intothe darkness. 

Below him rose more and more distinctly the sound of running water. The air felt damp and cool. He could see nothing of his surroundingsand felt nothing but the smooth, worn sides and rungs of the ladderdown which he felt his way cautiously lest a broken rung or a misstepshould hurl him downward. 

As he descended thus slowly, the ladder seemed interminable and the pitbottomless, yet he realized when at last he reached the bottom that hecould not have descended more than fifty feet. The bottom of theladder rested on a narrow ledge paved with what felt like large roundstones, but what he knew from experience to be human skulls. He couldnot but marvel as to where so many countless thousands of the thingshad come from, until he paused to consider that the infancy of Caspakdated doubtlessly back into remote ages, far beyond what the outerworld considered the beginning of earthly time. For all these eons theWieroos might have been collecting human skulls from their enemies andtheir own dead--enough to have built an entire city of them. 

Feeling his way along the narrow ledge, Bradley came presently to ablank wall that stretched out over the water swirling beneath him, asfar as he could reach. Stooping, he groped about with one hand, reaching down toward the surface of the water, and discovered that thebottom of the wall arched above the stream. How much space there wasbetween the water and the arch he could not tell, nor how deep theformer. There was only one way in which he might learn these things, and that was to lower himself into the stream. For only an instant hehesitated weighing his chances. Behind him lay almost certainly thehorrid fate of An-Tak; before him nothing worse than a comparativelypainless death by drowning. Holding his haversack above his head withone hand he lowered his feet slowly over the edge of the narrowplatform. Almost immediately he felt the swirling of cold water abouthis ankles, and then with a silent prayer he let himself drop gentlyinto the stream. 

Great was Bradley's relief when he found the water no more than waistdeep and beneath his feet a firm, gravel bottom. Feeling his waycautiously he moved downward with the current, which was not so strongas he had imagined from the noise of the running water. 

Beneath the first arch he made his way, following the windingcurvatures of the right-hand wall. After a few yards of progress hishand came suddenly in contact with a slimy thing clinging to thewall--a thing that hissed and scuttled out of reach. What it was, theman could not know; but almost instantly there was a splash in thewater just ahead of him and then another. 

On he went, passing beneath other arches at varying distances, andalways in utter darkness. Unseen denizens of this great sewer, disturbed by the intruder, splashed into the water ahead of him andwriggled away. Time and again his hand touched them and never for aninstant could he be sure that at the next step some gruesome thingmight not attack him. He had strapped his haversack about his neck, well above the surface of the water, and in his left hand he carriedhis knife. Other precautions there were none to take. 

The monotony of the blind trail was increased by the fact that from themoment he had started from the foot of the ladder he had counted hisevery step. He had promised to return for An-Tak if it proved humanlypossible to do so, and he knew that in the blackness of the tunnel hecould locate the foot of the ladder in no other way. 

He had taken two hundred and sixty-nine steps--afterward he knew thathe should never forget that number--when something bumped gentlyagainst him from behind. Instantly he wheeled about and with knifeready to defend himself stretched forth his right hand to push away theobject that now had lodged against his body. His fingers feelingthrough the darkness came in contact with something cold andclammy--they passed to and fro over the thing until Bradley knew thatit was the face of a dead man floating upon the surface of the stream. With an oath he pushed his gruesome companion out into mid-stream tofloat on down toward the great pool and the awaiting scavengers of thedeep. 

At his four hundred and thirteenth step another corpse bumped againsthim--how many had passed him without touching he could not guess; butsuddenly he experienced the sensation of being surrounded by dead facesfloating along with him, all set in hideous grimaces, their dead eyesglaring at this profaning alien who dared intrude upon the waters ofthis river of the dead--a horrid escort, pregnant with dire forebodingsand with menace. 

Though he advanced very slowly, he tried always to take steps of aboutthe same length; so that he knew that though considerable time hadelapsed, yet he had really advanced no more than four hundred yardswhen ahead he saw a lessening of the pitch-darkness, and at the nextturn of the stream his surroundings became vaguely discernible. Abovehim was an arched roof and on either hand walls pierced at intervals byapertures covered with wooden doors. Just ahead of him in the roof ofthe aqueduct was a round, black hole about thirty inches in diameter. His eyes still rested upon the opening when there shot downward from itto the water below the naked body of a human being which almostimmediately rose to the surface again and floated off down the stream. In the dim light Bradley saw that it was a dead Wieroo from which thewings and head had been removed. A moment later another headless bodyfloated past, recalling what An-Tak had told him of theskull-collecting customs of the Wieroo. Bradley wondered how ithappened that the first corpse he had encountered in the stream had notbeen similarly mutilated. 

The farther he advanced now, the lighter it became. The number ofcorpses was much smaller than he had imagined, only two more passinghim before, at six hundred steps, or about five hundred yards, from thepoint he had taken to the stream, he came to the end of the tunnel andlooked out upon sunlit water, running between grassy banks. 

One of the last corpses to pass him was still clothed in the white robeof a Wieroo, blood-stained over the headless neck that it concealed. 

Drawing closer to the opening leading into the bright daylight, Bradleysurveyed what lay beyond. A short distance before him a large buildingstood in the center of several acres of grass and tree-covered ground, spanning the stream which disappeared through an opening in itsfoundation wall. From the large saucer-shaped roof and the vividcolorings of the various heterogeneous parts of the structure herecognized it as the temple past which he had been borne to the BluePlace of Seven Skulls. 

To and fro flew Wieroos, going to and from the temple. Others passedon foot across the open grounds, assisting themselves with their greatwings, so that they barely skimmed the earth. To leave the mouth ofthe tunnel would have been to court instant discovery and capture; butby what other avenue he might escape, Bradley could not guess, unlesshe retraced his steps up the stream and sought egress from the otherend of the city. The thought of traversing that dark and horror-riddentunnel for perhaps miles he could not entertain--there must be someother way. Perhaps after dark he could steal through the templegrounds and continue on downstream until he had come beyond the city;and so he stood and waited until his limbs became almost paralyzed withcold, and he knew that he must find some other plan for escape. 

A half-formed decision to risk an attempt to swim under water to thetemple was crystallizing in spite of the fact that any chance Wierooflying above the stream might easily see him, when again a floatingobject bumped against him from behind and lodged across his back. Turning quickly he saw that the thing was what he had immediatelyguessed it to be--a headless and wingless Wieroo corpse. With a gruntof disgust he was about to push it from him when the white garmentenshrouding it suggested a bold plan to his resourceful brain. Grasping the corpse by an arm he tore the garment from it and then letthe body float downward toward the temple. With great care he drapedthe robe about him; the bloody blotch that had covered the severed neckhe arranged about his own head. His haversack he rolled as tightly aspossible and stuffed beneath his coat over his breast. Then he fellgently to the surface of the stream and lying upon his back floateddownward with the current and out into the open sunlight. 

Through the weave of the cloth he could distinguish large objects. Hesaw a Wieroo flap dismally above him; he saw the banks of the streamfloat slowly past; he heard a sudden wail upon the right-hand shore, and his heart stood still lest his ruse had been discovered; but neverby a move of a muscle did he betray that aught but a cold lump of clayfloated there upon the bosom of the water, and soon, though it seemedan eternity to him, the direct sunlight was blotted out, and he knewthat he had entered beneath the temple. 

Quickly he felt for bottom with his feet and as quickly stood erect, snatching the bloody, clammy cloth from his face. On both sides wereblank walls and before him the river turned a sharp corner anddisappeared. Feeling his way cautiously forward he approached the turnand looked around the corner. To his left was a low platform about afoot above the level of the stream, and onto this he lost no time inclimbing, for he was soaked from head to foot, cold and almostexhausted. 

As he lay resting on the skull-paved shelf, he saw in the center of thevault above the river another of those sinister round holes throughwhich he momentarily expected to see a headless corpse shoot downwardin its last plunge to a watery grave. A few feet along the platform aclosed door broke the blankness of the wall. As he lay looking at itand wondering what lay behind, his mind filled with fragments of manywild schemes of escape, it opened and a white robed Wieroo stepped outupon the platform. The creature carried a large wooden basin filledwith rubbish. Its eyes were not upon Bradley, who drew himself to asquatting position and crouched as far back in the corner of the nichein which the platform was set as he could force himself. The Wieroostepped to the edge of the platform and dumped the rubbish into thestream. If it turned away from him as it started to retrace its stepsto the doorway, there was a small chance that it might not see him; butif it turned toward him there was none at all. Bradley held his breath. 

The Wieroo paused a moment, gazing down into the water, then itstraightened up and turned toward the Englishman. Bradley did notmove. The Wieroo stopped and stared intently at him. It approachedhim questioningly. Still Bradley remained as though carved of stone. The creature was directly in front of him. It stopped. There was nochance on earth that it would not discover what he was. 

With the quickness of a cat, Bradley sprang to his feet and with allhis great strength, backed by his heavy weight, struck the Wieroo uponthe point of the chin. Without a sound the thing crumpled to theplatform, while Bradley, acting almost instinctively to the urge of thefirst law of nature, rolled the inanimate body over the edge into theriver. 

Then he looked at the open doorway, crossed the platform and peeredwithin the apartment beyond. What he saw was a large room, dimlylighted, and about the side rows of wooden vessels stacked one uponanother. There was no Wieroo in sight, so the Englishman entered. Atthe far end of the room was another door, and as he crossed toward it, he glanced into some of the vessels, which he found were filled withdried fruits, vegetables and fish. Without more ado he stuffed hispockets and his haversack full, thinking of the poor creature awaitinghis return in the gloom of the Place of Seven Skulls. 

When night came, he would return and fetch An-Tak this far at least;but in the meantime it was his intention to reconnoiter in the hopethat he might discover some easier way out of the city than thatoffered by the chill, black channel of the ghastly river of corpses. 

Beyond the farther door stretched a long passageway from which closeddoorways led into other parts of the cellars of the temple. A fewyards from the storeroom a ladder rose from the corridor through anaperture in the ceiling. Bradley paused at the foot of it, debatingthe wisdom of further investigation against a return to the river; butstrong within him was the spirit of exploration that has scattered hisrace to the four corners of the earth. What new mysteries lay hiddenin the chambers above? The urge to know was strong upon him though hisbetter judgment warned him that the safer course lay in retreat. For amoment he stood thus, running his fingers through his hair; then hecast discretion to the winds and began the ascent. 

In conformity with such Wieroo architecture as he had already observed, the well through which the ladder rose continually canted at an anglefrom the perpendicular. At more or less regular stages it was piercedby apertures closed by doors, none of which he could open until he hadclimbed fully fifty feet from the river level. Here he discovered adoor already ajar opening into a large, circular chamber, the walls andfloors of which were covered with the skins of wild beasts and withrugs of many colors; but what interested him most was the occupants ofthe room--a Wieroo, and a girl of human proportions. She was standingwith her back against a column which rose from the center of theapartment from floor to ceiling--a hollow column about forty inches indiameter in which he could see an opening some thirty inches across. The girl's side was toward Bradley, and her face averted, for she waswatching the Wieroo, who was now advancing slowly toward her, talkingas he came. 

Bradley could distinctly hear the words of the creature, who was urgingthe girl to accompany him to another Wieroo city. "Come with me, " hesaid, "and you shall have your life; remain here and He Who Speaks forLuata will claim you for his own; and when he is done with you, yourskull will bleach at the top of a tall staff while your body feeds thereptiles at the mouth of the River of Death. Even though you bringinto the world a female Wieroo, your fate will be the same if you donot escape him, while with me you shall have life and food and noneshall harm you. "

He was quite close to the girl when she replied by striking him in theface with all her strength. "Until I am slain, " she cried, "I shallfight against you all. " From the throat of the Wieroo issued thatdismal wail that Bradley had heard so often in the past--it was like ascream of pain smothered to a groan--and then the thing leaped upon thegirl, its face working in hideous grimaces as it clawed and beat at herto force her to the floor. 

The Englishman was upon the point of entering to defend her when a doorat the opposite side of the chamber opened to admit a huge Wierooclothed entirely in red. At sight of the two struggling upon the floorthe newcomer raised his voice in a shriek of rage. Instantly theWieroo who was attacking the girl leaped to his feet and faced theother. 

"I heard, " screamed he who had just entered the room. "I heard, andwhen He Who Speaks for Lu-ata shall have heard--" He paused and made asuggestive movement of a finger across his throat. 

"He shall not hear, " returned the first Wieroo as, with a powerfulmotion of his great wings, he launched himself upon the red-robedfigure. The latter dodged the first charge, drew a wicked-lookingcurved blade from beneath its red robe, spread its wings and dived forits antagonist. Beating their wings, wailing and groaning, the twohideous things sparred for position. The white-robed one being unarmedsought to grasp the other by the wrist of its knife-hand and by thethroat, while the latter hopped around on its dainty white feet, seeking an opening for a mortal blow. Once it struck and missed, andthen the other rushed in and clinched, at the same time securing boththe holds it sought. Immediately the two commenced beating at eachother's heads with the joints of their wings, kicking with their soft, puny feet and biting, each at the other's face. 

In the meantime the girl moved about the room, keeping out of the wayof the duelists, and as she did so, Bradley caught a glimpse of herfull face and immediately recognized her as the girl of the place ofthe yellow door. He did not dare intervene now until one of the Wieroohad overcome the other, lest the two should turn upon him at once, whenthe chances were fair that he would be defeated in so unequal a battleas the curved blade of the red Wieroo would render it, and so hewaited, watching the white-robed figure slowly choking the life fromhim of the red robe. The protruding tongue and the popping eyesproclaimed that the end was near and a moment later the red robe sankto the floor of the room, the curved blade slipping from nervelessfingers. For an instant longer the victor clung to the throat of hisdefeated antagonist and then he rose, dragging the body after him, andapproached the central column. Here he raised the body and thrust itinto the aperture where Bradley saw it drop suddenly from sight. Instantly there flashed into his memory the circular openings in theroof of the river vault and the corpses he had seen drop from them tothe water beneath. 

As the body disappeared, the Wieroo turned and cast about the room forthe girl. For a moment he stood eying her. "You saw, " he muttered, "and if you tell them, He Who Speaks for Luata will have my wingssevered while still I live and my head will be severed and I shall becast into the River of Death, for thus it happens even to the highestwho slay one of the red robe. You saw, and you must die!" he endedwith a scream as he rushed upon the girl. 

Bradley waited no longer. Leaping into the room he ran for the Wieroo, who had already seized the girl, and as he ran, he stooped and pickedup the curved blade. The creature's back was toward him as, with hisleft hand, he seized it by the neck. Like a flash the great wings beatbackward as the creature turned, and Bradley was swept from his feet, though he still retained his hold upon the blade. Instantly the Wieroowas upon him. Bradley lay slightly raised upon his left elbow, hisright arm free, and as the thing came close, he cut at the hideous facewith all the strength that lay within him. The blade struck at thejunction of the neck and torso and with such force as to completelydecapitate the Wieroo, the hideous head dropping to the floor and thebody falling forward upon the Englishman. Pushing it from him he roseto his feet and faced the wide-eyed girl. 

"Luata!" she exclaimed. "How came you here?"

Bradley shrugged. "Here I am, " he said; "but the thing now is to getout of here--both of us. "

The girl shook her head. "It cannot be, " she stated sadly. 

"That is what I thought when they dropped me into the Blue Place ofSeven Skulls, " replied Bradley. "Can't be done. I did it. --Here!You're mussing up the floor something awful, you. " This last to thedead Wieroo as he stooped and dragged the corpse to the central shaft, where he raised it to the aperture and let it slip into the tube. Thenhe picked up the head and tossed it after the body. "Don't be soglum, " he admonished the former as he carried it toward the well;"smile!"

"But how can he smile?" questioned the girl, a half-puzzled, half-frightened look upon her face. "He is dead. "

"That's so, " admitted Bradley, "and I suppose he does feel a bit cut upabout it. "

The girl shook her head and edged away from the man--toward the door. 

"Come!" said the Englishman. "We've got to get out of here. If youdon't know a better way than the river, it's the river then. "

The girl still eyed him askance. "But how could he smile when he wasdead?"

Bradley laughed aloud. "I thought we English were supposed to have theleast sense of humor of any people in the world, " he cried; "but nowI've found one human being who hasn't any. Of course you don't knowhalf I'm saying; but don't worry, little girl; I'm not going to hurtyou, and if I can get you out of here, I'll do it. "

Even if she did not understand all he said, she at least read somethingin his smiling, countenance--something which reassured her. "I do notfear you, " she said; "though I do not understand all that you say eventhough you speak my own tongue and use words that I know. But as forescaping"--she sighed--"alas, how can it be done?"

"I escaped from the Blue Place of Seven Skulls, " Bradley reminded her. "Come!" And he turned toward the shaft and the ladder that he hadascended from the river. "We cannot waste time here. "

The girl followed him; but at the doorway both drew back, for frombelow came the sound of some one ascending. 

Bradley tiptoed to the door and peered cautiously into the well; thenhe stepped back beside the girl. "There are half a dozen of themcoming up; but possibly they will pass this room. "

"No, " she said, "they will pass directly through this room--they are ontheir way to Him Who Speaks for Luata. We may be able to hide in thenext room--there are skins there beneath which we may crawl. They willnot stop in that room; but they may stop in this one for a shorttime--the other room is blue. "

"What's that go to do with it?" demanded the Englishman. 

"They fear blue, " she replied. "In every room where murder has beendone you will find blue--a certain amount for each murder. When theroom is all blue, they shun it. This room has much blue; but evidentlythey kill mostly in the next room, which is now all blue. "

"But there is blue on the outside of every house I have seen, " saidBradley. 

"Yes, " assented the girl, "and there are blue rooms in each of thosehouses--when all the rooms are blue then the whole outside of the housewill be blue as is the Blue Place of Seven Skulls. There are many suchhere. "

"And the skulls with blue upon them?" inquired Bradley. "Did theybelong to murderers?"

"They were murdered--some of them; those with only a small amount ofblue were murderers--known murderers. All Wieroos are murderers. Whenthey have committed a certain number of murders without being caught atit, they confess to Him Who Speaks for Luata and are advanced, afterwhich they wear robes with a slash of some color--I think yellow comesfirst. When they reach a point where the entire robe is of yellow, they discard it for a white robe with a red slash; and when one wins acomplete red robe, he carries such a long, curved knife as you have inyour hand; after that comes the blue slash on a white robe, and then, Isuppose, an all blue robe. I have never seen such a one. "

As they talked in low tones they had moved from the room of the deathshaft into an all blue room adjoining, where they sat down together ina corner with their backs against a wall and drew a pile of hides overthemselves. A moment later they heard a number of Wieroos enter thechamber. They were talking together as they crossed the floor, or thetwo could not have heard them. Halfway across the chamber they haltedas the door toward which they were advancing opened and a dozen othersof their kind entered the apartment. 

Bradley could guess all this by the increased volume of sound and thedismal greetings; but the sudden silence that almost immediately ensuedhe could not fathom, for he could not know that from beneath one of thehides that covered him protruded one of his heavy army shoes, or thatsome eighteen large Wieroos with robes either solid red or slashed withred or blue were standing gazing at it. Nor could he hear theirstealthy approach. 

The first intimation he had that he had been discovered was when hisfoot was suddenly seized, and he was yanked violently from beneath thehides to find himself surrounded by menacing blades. They would haveslain him on the spot had not one clothed all in red held them back, saying that He Who Speaks for Luata desired to see this strangecreature. 

As they led Bradley away, he caught an opportunity to glance backtoward the hides to see what had become of the girl, and, to hisgratification, he discovered that she still lay concealed beneath thehides. He wondered if she would have the nerve to attempt the rivertrip alone and regretted that now he could not accompany her. He feltrather all in, himself, more so than he had at any time since he hadbeen captured by the Wieroo, for there appeared not the slightest causefor hope in his present predicament. He had dropped the curved bladebeneath the hides when he had been jerked so violently from theirfancied security. It was almost in a spirit of resigned hopelessnessthat he quietly accompanied his captors through various chambers andcorridors toward the heart of the temple. 

Chapter 4

The farther the group progressed, the more barbaric and the moresumptuous became the decorations. Hides of leopard and tigerpredominated, apparently because of their more beautiful markings, anddecorative skulls became more and more numerous. Many of the latterwere mounted in precious metals and set with colored stones andpriceless gems, while thick upon the hides that covered the walls weregolden ornaments similar to those worn by the girl and those which hadfilled the chests he had examined in the storeroom of Fosh-bal-soj, leading the Englishman to the conviction that all such were spoils ofwar or theft, since each piece seemed made for personal adornment, while in so far as he had seen, no Wieroo wore ornaments of any sort. 

And also as they advanced the more numerous became the Wieroos movinghither and thither within the temple. Many now were the solid redrobes and those that were slashed with blue--a veritable hive ofmurderers. 

At last the party halted in a room in which were many Wieroos whogathered about Bradley questioning his captors and examining him andhis apparel. One of the party accompanying the Englishman spoke to aWieroo that stood beside a door leading from the room. "Tell Him WhoSpeaks for Luata, " he said, "that Fosh-bal-soj we could not find; butthat in returning we found this creature within the temple, hiding. Itmust be the same that Fosh-bal-soj captured in the Sto-lu countryduring the last darkness. Doubtless He Who Speaks for Luata would wishto see and question this strange thing. "

The creature addressed turned and slipped through the doorway, closingthe door after it, but first depositing its curved blade upon the floorwithout. Its post was immediately taken by another and Bradley now sawthat at least twenty such guards loitered in the immediate vicinity. The doorkeeper was gone but for a moment, and when he returned, hesignified that Bradley's party was to enter the next chamber; but firsteach of the Wieroos removed his curved weapon and laid it upon thefloor. The door was swung open, and the party, now reduced to Bradleyand five Wieroos, was ushered across the threshold into a large, irregularly shaped room in which a single, giant Wieroo whose robe wassolid blue sat upon a raised dais. 

The creature's face was white with the whiteness of a corpse, its deadeyes entirely expressionless, its cruel, thin lips tight-drawn againstyellow teeth in a perpetual grimace. Upon either side of it lay anenormous, curved sword, similar to those with which some of the otherWieroos had been armed, but larger and heavier. Constantly itsclawlike fingers played with one or the other of these weapons. 

The walls of the chamber as well as the floor were entirely hidden byskins and woven fabrics. Blue predominated in all the colorations. Fastened against the hides were many pairs of Wieroo wings, mounted sothat they resembled long, black shields. Upon the ceiling were paintedin blue characters a bewildering series of hieroglyphics and uponpedestals set against the walls or standing out well within the roomwere many human skulls. 

As the Wieroos approached the figure upon the dais, they leaned farforward, raising their wings above their heads and stretching theirnecks as though offering them to the sharp swords of the grim andhideous creature. 

"O Thou Who Speakest for Luata!" exclaimed one of the party. "We bringyou the strange creature that Fosh-bal-soj captured and brought thitherat thy command. "

So this then was the godlike figure that spoke for divinity! Thisarch-murderer was the Caspakian representative of God on Earth! Hisblue robe announced him the one and the seeming humility of his minionsthe other. For a long minute he glared at Bradley. Then he began toquestion him--from whence he came and how, the name and description ofhis native country, and a hundred other queries. 

"Are you cos-ata-lu?" the creature asked. 

Bradley replied that he was and that all his kind were, as well asevery living thing in his part of the world. 

"Can you tell me the secret?" asked the creature. 

Bradley hesitated and then, thinking to gain time, replied in theaffirmative. 

"What is it?" demanded the Wieroo, leaning far forward and exhibitingevery evidence of excited interest. 

Bradley leaned forward and whispered: "It is for your ears alone; Iwill not divulge it to others, and then only on condition that youcarry me and the girl I saw in the place of the yellow door near tothat of Fosh-bal-soj back to her own country. "

The thing rose in wrath, holding one of its swords above its head. 

"Who are you to make terms for Him Who Speaks for Luata?" it shrilled. "Tell me the secret or die where you stand!"

"And if I die now, the secret goes with me, " Bradley reminded him. "Never again will you get the opportunity to question another of mykind who knows the secret. " Anything to gain time, to get the rest ofthe Wieroos from the room, that he might plan some scheme for escapeand put it into effect. 

The creature turned upon the leader of the party that had broughtBradley. 

"Is the thing with weapons?" it asked. 

"No, " was the response. 

"Then go; but tell the guard to remain close by, " commanded the highone. 

The Wieroos salaamed and withdrew, closing the door behind them. HeWho Speaks for Luata grasped a sword nervously in his right hand. Athis left side lay the second weapon. It was evident that he lived inconstant dread of being assassinated. The fact that he permitted nonewith weapons within his presence and that he always kept two swords athis side pointed to this. 

Bradley was racking his brain to find some suggestion of a plan wherebyhe might turn the situation to his own account. His eyes wandered pastthe weird figure before him; they played about the walls of theapartment as though hoping to draw inspiration from the dead skulls andthe hides and the wings, and then they came back to the face of theWieroo god, now working in anger. 

"Quick!" screamed the thing. "The secret!"

"Will you give me and the girl our freedom?" insisted Bradley. 

For an instant the thing hesitated, and then it grumbled "Yes. " At thesame instant Bradley saw two hides upon the wall directly back of thedais separate and a face appear in the opening. No change ofexpression upon the Englishman's countenance betrayed that he had seenaught to surprise him, though surprised he was for the face in theaperture was that of the girl he had but just left hidden beneath thehides in another chamber. A white and shapely arm now pushed past theface into the room, and in the hand, tightly clutched, was the curvedblade, smeared with blood, that Bradley had dropped beneath the hidesat the moment he had been discovered and drawn from his concealment. 

"Listen, then, " said Bradley in a low voice to the Wieroo. "You shallknow the secret of cos-ata-lu as well as do I; but none other may hearit. Lean close--I will whisper it into your ear. "

He moved forward and stepped upon the dais. The creature raised itssword ready to strike at the first indication of treachery, and Bradleystooped beneath the blade and put his ear close to the gruesome face. As he did so, he rested his weight upon his hands, one upon either sideof the Wieroo's body, his right hand upon the hilt of the spare swordlying at the left of Him Who Speaks for Luata. 

"This then is the secret of both life and death, " he whispered, and atthe same instant he grasped the Wieroo by the right wrist and with hisown right hand swung the extra blade in a sudden vicious blow againstthe creature's neck before the thing could give even a single cry ofalarm; then without waiting an instant Bradley leaped past the dead godand vanished behind the hides that had hidden the girl. 

Wide-eyed and panting the girl seized his arm. "Oh, what have youdone?" she cried. "He Who Speaks for Luata will be avenged by Luata. Now indeed must you die. There is no escape, for even though wereached my own country Luata can find you out. "

"Bosh!" exclaimed Bradley, and then: "But you were going to knife himyourself. "

"Then I alone should have died, " she replied. 

Bradley scratched his head. "Neither of us is going to die, " he said;"at least not at the hands of any god. If we don't get out of herethough, we'll die right enough. Can you find your way back to the roomwhere I first came upon you in the temple?"

"I know the way, " replied the girl; "but I doubt if we can go backwithout being seen. I came hither because I only met Wieroos who knewthat I am supposed now to be in the temple; but you could go elsewherewithout being discovered. "

Bradley's ingenuity had come up against a stone wall. There seemed nopossibility of escape. He looked about him. They were in a small roomwhere lay a litter of rubbish--torn bits of cloth, old hides, pieces offiber rope. In the center of the room was a cylindrical shaft with anopening in its face. Bradley knew it for what it was. Here thearch-fiend dragged his victims and cast their bodies into the river ofdeath far below. The floor about the opening in the shaft and thesides of the shaft were clotted thick with a dried, dark brownsubstance that the Englishman knew had once been blood. The place hadthe appearance of having been a veritable shambles. An odor ofdecaying flesh permeated the air. 

The Englishman crossed to the shaft and peered into the opening. Allbelow was dark as pitch; but at the bottom he knew was the river. Suddenly an inspiration and a bold scheme leaped to his mind. Turningquickly he hunted about the room until he found what he sought--aquantity of the rope that lay strewn here and there. With rapidfingers he unsnarled the different lengths, the girl helping him, andthen he tied the ends together until he had three ropes aboutseventy-five feet in length. He fastened these together at each endand without a word secured one of the ends about the girl's bodybeneath her arms. 

"Don't be frightened, " he said at length, as he led her toward theopening in the shaft. "I'm going to lower you to the river, and thenI'm coming down after you. When you are safe below, give two quickjerks upon the rope. If there is danger there and you want me to drawyou up into the shaft, jerk once. Don't be afraid--it is the only way. "

"I am not afraid, " replied the girl, rather haughtily Bradley thought, and herself climbed through the aperture and hung by her hands waitingfor Bradley to lower her. 

As rapidly as was consistent with safety, the man paid out the rope. When it was about half out, he heard loud cries and wails suddenlyarise within the room they had just quitted. The slaying of their godhad been discovered by the Wieroos. A search for the slayer wouldbegin at once. 

Lord! Would the girl never reach the river? At last, just as he waspositive that searchers were already entering the room behind him, there came two quick tugs at the rope. Instantly Bradley made the restof the strands fast about the shaft, slipped into the black tube andbegan a hurried descent toward the river. An instant later he stoodwaist deep in water beside the girl. Impulsively she reached towardhim and grasped his arm. A strange thrill ran through him at thecontact; but he only cut the rope from about her body and lifted her tothe little shelf at the river's side. 

"How can we leave here?" she asked. 

"By the river, " he replied; "but first I must go back to the Blue Placeof Seven Skulls and get the poor devil I left there. I'll have to waituntil after dark, though, as I cannot pass through the open stretch ofriver in the temple gardens by day. "

"There is another way, " said the girl. "I have never seen it; butoften I have heard them speak of it--a corridor that runs beside theriver from one end of the city to the other. Through the gardens it isbelow ground. If we could find an entrance to it, we could leave hereat once. It is not safe here, for they will search every inch of thetemple and the grounds. "

"Come, " said Bradley. "We'll have a look for it, anyway. " And sosaying he approached one of the doors that opened onto the skull-pavedshelf. 

They found the corridor easily, for it paralleled the river, separatedfrom it only by a single wall. It took them beneath the gardens andthe city, always through inky darkness. After they had reached theother side of the gardens, Bradley counted his steps until he hadretraced as many as he had taken coming down the stream; but thoughthey had to grope their way along, it was a much more rapid trip thanthe former. 

When he thought he was about opposite the point at which he haddescended from the Blue Place of Seven Skulls, he sought and found adoorway leading out onto the river; and then, still in the blackestdarkness, he lowered himself into the stream and felt up and down uponthe opposite side for the little shelf and the ladder. Ten yards fromwhere he had emerged he found them, while the girl waited upon theopposite side. 

To ascend to the secret panel was the work of but a minute. Here hepaused and listened lest a Wieroo might be visiting the prison insearch of him or the other inmate; but no sound came from the gloomyinterior. Bradley could not but muse upon the joy of the man on theopposite side when he should drop down to him with food and a new hopefor escape. Then he opened the panel and looked into the room. Thefaint light from the grating above revealed the pile of rags in onecorner; but the man lay beneath them, he made no response to Bradley'slow greeting. 

The Englishman lowered himself to the floor of the room and approachedthe rags. Stooping he lifted a corner of them. Yes, there was the manasleep. Bradley shook him--there was no response. He stooped lowerand in the dim light examined An-Tak; then he stood up with a sigh. Arat leaped from beneath the coverings and scurried away. "Poor devil!"muttered Bradley. 

He crossed the room to swing himself to the perch preparatory toquitting the Blue Place of Seven Skulls forever. Beneath the perch hepaused. "I'll not give them the satisfaction, " he growled. "Let thembelieve that he escaped. "

Returning to the pile of rags he gathered the man into his arms. Itwas difficult work raising him to the high perch and dragging himthrough the small opening and thus down the ladder; but presently itwas done, and Bradley had lowered the body into the river and cast itoff. "Good-bye, old top!" he whispered. 

A moment later he had rejoined the girl and hand in hand they werefollowing the dark corridor upstream toward the farther end of thecity. She told him that the Wieroos seldom frequented these lowerpassages, as the air here was too chill for them; but occasionally theycame, and as they could see quite as well by night as by day, theywould be sure to discover Bradley and the girl. 

"If they come close enough, " she said, "we can see their eyes shiningin the dark--they resemble dull splotches of light. They glow, but donot blaze like the eyes of the tiger or the lion. "

The man could not but note the very evident horror with which shementioned the creatures. To him they were uncanny; but she had beenused to them for a year almost, and probably all her life she hadeither seen or heard of them constantly. 

"Why do you fear them so?" he asked. "It seems more than any ordinaryfear of the harm they can do you. "

She tried to explain; but the nearest he could gather was that shelooked upon the Wieroo almost as supernatural beings. "There is alegend current among my people that once the Wieroo were unlike us onlyin that they possessed rudimentary wings. They lived in villages inthe Galu country, and while the two peoples often warred, they held nohatred for one another. In those days each race came up from thebeginning and there was great rivalry as to which was the higher in thescale of evolution. The Wieroo developed the first cos-ata-lu but theywere always male--never could they reproduce woman. Slowly theycommenced to develop certain attributes of the mind which, theyconsidered, placed them upon a still higher level and which gave themmany advantages over us, seeing which they thought only of mentaldevelopment--their minds became like stars and the rivers, movingalways in the same manner, never varying. They called this tas-ad, which means doing everything the right way, or, in other words, theWieroo way. If foe or friend, right or wrong, stood in the way oftas-ad, then it must be crushed. 

"Soon the Galus and the lesser races of men came to hate and fear them. It was then that the Wieroos decided to carry tas-ad into every part ofthe world. They were very warlike and very numerous, although they hadlong since adopted the policy of slaying all those among them whosewings did not show advanced development. 

"It took ages for all this to happen--very slowly came the differentchanges; but at last the Wieroos had wings they could use. But byreason of always making war upon their neighbors they were hated byevery creature of Caspak, for no one wanted their tas-ad, and so theyused their wings to fly to this island when the other races turnedagainst them and threatened to kill them all. So cruel had they becomeand so bloodthirsty that they no longer had hearts that beat with loveor sympathy; but their very cruelty and wickedness kept them fromconquering the other races, since they were also cruel and wicked toone another, so that no Wieroo trusted another. 

"Always were they slaying those above them that they might rise inpower and possessions, until at last came the more powerful than theothers with a tas-ad all his own. He gathered about him a few of themost terrible Wieroos, and among them they made laws which took fromall but these few Wieroos every weapon they possessed. 

"Now their tas-ad has reached a high plane among them. They make manywonderful things that we cannot make. They think great thoughts, nodoubt, and still dream of greatness to come, but their thoughts andtheir acts are regulated by ages of custom--they are all alike--andthey are most unhappy. "

As the girl talked, the two moved steadily along the dark passagewaybeside the river. They had advanced a considerable distance when theresounded faintly from far ahead the muffled roar of falling water, whichincreased in volume as they moved forward until at last it filled thecorridor with a deafening sound. Then the corridor ended in a blankwall; but in a niche to the right was a ladder leading aloft, and tothe left was a door opening onto the river. Bradley tried the latterfirst and as he opened it, felt a heavy spray against his face. Thelittle shelf outside the doorway was wet and slippery, the roaring ofthe water tremendous. There could be but one explanation--they hadreached a waterfall in the river, and if the corridor actuallyterminated here, their escape was effectually cut off, since it wasquite evidently impossible to follow the bed of the river and ascendthe falls. 

As the ladder was the only alternative, the two turned toward it and, the man first, began the ascent, which was through a well similar tothat which had led him to the upper floors of the temple. As heclimbed, Bradley felt for openings in the sides of the shaft; but hediscovered none below fifty feet. The first he came to was ajar, letting a faint light into the well. As he paused, the girl climbed tohis side, and together they looked through the crack into a low-ceiledchamber in which were several Galu women and an equal number of hideouslittle replicas of the full-grown Wieroos with which Bradley was notquite familiar. 

He could feel the body of the girl pressed close to his tremble as hereyes rested upon the inmates of the room, and involuntarily his armencircled her shoulders as though to protect her from some danger whichhe sensed without recognizing. 

"Poor things, " she whispered. "This is their horrible fate--to beimprisoned here beneath the surface of the city with their hideousoffspring whom they hate as they hate their fathers. A Wieroo keepshis children thus hidden until they are full-grown lest they bemurdered by their fellows. The lower rooms of the city are filled withmany such as these. "

Several feet above was a second door beyond which they found a smallroom stored with food in wooden vessels. A grated window in one wallopened above an alley, and through it they could see that they werejust below the roof of the building. Darkness was coming, and atBradley's suggestion they decided to remain hidden here until afterdark and then to ascend to the roof and reconnoiter. 

Shortly after they had settled themselves they heard somethingdescending the ladder from above. They hoped that it would continue ondown the well and fairly held their breath as the sound approached thedoor to the storeroom. Their hearts sank as they heard the door openand from between cracks in the vessels behind which they hid saw ayellow-slashed Wieroo enter the room. Each recognized him immediately, the girl indicating the fact of her own recognition by a suddenpressure of her fingers on Bradley's arm. It was the Wieroo of theyellow slashing whose abode was the place of the yellow door in whichBradley had first seen the girl. 

The creature carried a wooden bowl which it filled with dried food fromseveral of the vessels; then it turned and quit the room. Bradleycould see through the partially open doorway that it descended theladder. The girl told him that it was taking the food to the women andthe young below, and that while it might return immediately, thechances were that it would remain for some time. 

"We are just below the place of the yellow door, " she said. "It is farfrom the edge of the city; so far that we may not hope to escape if weascend to the roofs here. "

"I think, " replied the man, "that of all the places in Oo-oh this willbe the easiest to escape from. Anyway, I want to return to the placeof the yellow door and get my pistol if it is there. "

"It is still there, " replied, the girl. "I saw it placed in a chestwhere he keeps the things he takes from his prisoners and victims. "

"Good!" exclaimed Bradley. "Now come, quickly. " And the two crossedthe room to the well and ascended the ladder a short distance to itstop where they found another door that opened into a vacant room--thesame in which Bradley had first met the girl. To find the pistol was amatter of but a moment's search on the part of Bradley's companion; andthen, at the Englishman's signal, she followed him to the yellow door. 

It was quite dark without as the two entered the narrow passage betweentwo buildings. A few steps brought them undiscovered to the doorway ofthe storeroom where lay the body of Fosh-bal-soj. In the distance, toward the temple, they could hear sounds as of a great gathering ofWieroos--the peculiar, uncanny wailing rising above the dismal flappingof countless wings. 

"They have heard of the killing of Him Who Speaks for Luata, " whisperedthe girl. "Soon they will spread in all directions searching for us. "

"And will they find us?"

"As surely as Lua gives light by day, " she replied; "and when they findus, they will tear us to pieces, for only the Wieroos may murder--onlythey may practice tas-ad. "

"But they will not kill you, " said Bradley. "You did not slay him. "

"It will make no difference, " she insisted. "If they find us togetherthey will slay us both. "

"Then they won't find us together, " announced Bradley decisively. "Youstay right here--you won't be any worse off than before I came--andI'll get as far as I can and account for as many of the beggars aspossible before they get me. Good-bye! You're a mighty decent littlegirl. I wish that I might have helped you. "

"No, " she cried. "Do not leave me. I would rather die. I had hopedand hoped to find some way to return to my own country. I wanted to goback to An-Tak, who must be very lonely without me; but I know that itcan never be. It is difficult to kill hope, though mine is nearlydead. Do not leave me. "

"An-Tak!" Bradley repeated. "You loved a man called An-Tak?"

"Yes, " replied the girl. "An-Tak was away, hunting, when the Wieroocaught me. How he must have grieved for me! He also was cos-ata-lu, twelve moons older than I, and all our lives we have been together. "

Bradley remained silent. So she loved An-Tak. He hadn't the heart totell her that An-Tak had died, or how. 

At the door of Fosh-bal-soj's storeroom they halted to listen. Nosound came from within, and gently Bradley pushed open the door. Allwas inky darkness as they entered; but presently their eyes becameaccustomed to the gloom that was partially relieved by the softstarlight without. The Englishman searched and found those things forwhich he had come--two robes, two pairs of dead wings and severallengths of fiber rope. One pair of the wings he adjusted to the girl'sshoulders by means of the rope. Then he draped the robe about her, carrying the cowl over her head. 

He heard her gasp of astonishment when she realized the ingenuity andboldness of his plan; then he directed her to adjust the other pair ofwings and the robe upon him. Working with strong, deft fingers shesoon had the work completed, and the two stepped out upon the roof, toall intent and purpose genuine Wieroos. Besides his pistol Bradleycarried the sword of the slain Wieroo prophet, while the girl was armedwith the small blade of the red Wieroo. 

Side by side they walked slowly across the roofs toward the north edgeof the city. Wieroos flapped above them and several times they passedothers walking or sitting upon the roofs. From the temple still rosethe sounds of commotion, now pierced by occasional shrill screams. 

"The murderers are abroad, " whispered the girl. "Thus will anotherbecome the tongue of Luata. It is well for us, since it keeps them toobusy to give the time for searching for us. They think that we cannotescape the city, and they know that we cannot leave the island--and sodo I. "

Bradley shook his head. "If there is any way, we will find it, " hesaid. 

"There is no way, " replied the girl. 

Bradley made no response, and in silence they continued until the outeredge of roofs was visible before them. "We are almost there, " hewhispered. 

The girl felt for his fingers and pressed them. He could feel herstrembling as he returned the pressure, nor did he relinquish her hand;and thus they came to the edge of the last roof. 

Here they halted and looked about them. To be seen attempting todescend to the ground below would be to betray the fact that they werenot Wieroos. Bradley wished that their wings were attached to theirbodies by sinew and muscle rather than by ropes of fiber. A Wieroo wasflapping far overhead. Two more stood near a door a few yards distant. Standing between these and one of the outer pedestals that supportedone of the numerous skulls Bradley made one end of a piece of rope fastabout the pedestal and dropped the other end to the ground outside thecity. Then they waited. 

It was an hour before the coast was entirely clear and then a momentcame when no Wieroo was in sight. "Now!" whispered Bradley; and thegirl grasped the rope and slid over the edge of the roof into thedarkness below. A moment later Bradley felt two quick pulls upon therope and immediately followed to the girl's side. 

Across a narrow clearing they made their way and into a wood beyond. All night they walked, following the river upward toward its source, and at dawn they took shelter in a thicket beside the stream. At notime did they hear the cry of a carnivore, and though many startledanimals fled as they approached, they were not once menaced by a wildbeast. When Bradley expressed surprise at the absence of the fiercestbeasts that are so numerous upon the mainland of Caprona, the girlexplained the reason that is contained in one of their ancient legends. 

"When the Wieroos first developed wings upon which they could fly, theyfound this island devoid of any life other than a few reptiles thatlive either upon land or in the water and these only close to thecoast. Requiring meat for food the Wieroos carried to the island suchanimals as they wished for that purpose. They still occasionally bringthem, and this with the natural increase keeps them provided withflesh. "

"As it will us, " suggested Bradley. 

The first day they remained in hiding, eating only the dried food thatBradley had brought with him from the temple storeroom, and the nextnight they set out again up the river, continuing steadily on untilalmost dawn, when they came to low hills where the river wound througha gorge--it was little more than rivulet now, the water clear and coldand filled with fish similar to brook trout though much larger. Notwishing to leave the stream the two waded along its bed to a spot wherethe gorge widened between perpendicular bluffs to a wooded acre oflevel land. Here they stopped, for here also the stream ended. Theyhad reached its source--many cold springs bubbling up from the centerof a little natural amphitheater in the hills and forming a clear andbeautiful pool overshadowed by trees upon one side and bounded by alittle clearing upon the other. 

With the coming of the sun they saw they had stumbled upon a placewhere they might remain hidden from the Wieroos for a long time andalso one that they could defend against these winged creatures, sincethe trees would shield them from an attack from above and also hamperthe movements of the creatures should they attempt to follow them intothe wood. 

For three days they rested here before trying to explore theneighboring country. On the fourth, Bradley stated that he was goingto scale the bluffs and learn what lay beyond. He told the girl thatshe should remain in hiding; but she refused to be left, saying thatwhatever fate was to be his, she intended to share it, so that he wasat last forced to permit her to come with him. Through woods at thesummit of the bluff they made their way toward the north and had gonebut a short distance when the wood ended and before them they saw thewaters of the inland sea and dimly in the distance the coveted shore. 

The beach lay some two hundred yards from the foot of the hill on whichthey stood, nor was there a tree nor any other form of shelter betweenthem and the water as far up and down the coast as they could see. Among other plans Bradley had thought of constructing a covered raftupon which they might drift to the mainland; but as such a contrivancewould necessarily be of considerable weight, it must be built in thewater of the sea, since they could not hope to move it even a shortdistance overland. 

"If this wood was only at the edge of the water, " he sighed. 

"But it is not, " the girl reminded him, and then: "Let us make thebest of it. We have escaped from death for a time at least. We havefood and good water and peace and each other. What more could we haveupon the mainland?"

"But I thought you wanted to get back to your own country!" heexclaimed. 

She cast her eyes upon the ground and half turned away. "I do, " shesaid, "yet I am happy here. I could be little happier there. "

Bradley stood in silent thought. "`We have food and good water andpeace and each other!'" he repeated to himself. He turned then andlooked at the girl, and it was as though in the days that they had beentogether this was the first time that he had really seen her. Thecircumstances that had thrown them together, the dangers through whichthey had passed, all the weird and horrible surroundings that hadformed the background of his knowledge of her had had their effect--shehad been but the companion of an adventure; her self-reliance, herendurance, her loyalty, had been only what one man might expect ofanother, and he saw that he had unconsciously assumed an attitudetoward her that he might have assumed toward a man. Yet there had beena difference--he recalled now the strange sensation of elation that hadthrilled him upon the occasions when the girl had pressed his hand inhers, and the depression that had followed her announcement of her lovefor An-Tak. 

He took a step toward her. A fierce yearning to seize her and crushher in his arms, swept over him, and then there flashed upon the screenof recollection the picture of a stately hall set amidst broad gardensand ancient trees and of a proud old man with beetling brows--an oldman who held his head very high--and Bradley shook his head and turnedaway again. 

They went back then to their little acre, and the days came and went, and the man fashioned spear and bow and arrows and hunted with themthat they might have meat, and he made hooks of fishbone and caughtfishes with wondrous flies of his own invention; and the girl gatheredfruits and cooked the flesh and the fish and made beds of branches andsoft grasses. She cured the hides of the animals he killed and madethem soft by much pounding. She made sandals for herself and for theman and fashioned a hide after the manner of those worn by the warriorsof her tribe and made the man wear it, for his own garments were inrags. 

She was always the same--sweet and kind and helpful--but always therewas about her manner and her expression just a trace of wistfulness, and often she sat and looked at the man when he did not know it, herbrows puckered in thought as though she were trying to fathom and tounderstand him. 

In the face of the cliff, Bradley scooped a cave from the rottedgranite of which the hill was composed, making a shelter for themagainst the rains. He brought wood for their cook-fire which they usedonly in the middle of the day--a time when there was little likelihoodof Wieroos being in the air so far from their city--and then he learnedto bank it with earth in such a way that the embers held until thefollowing noon without giving off smoke. 

Always he was planning on reaching the mainland, and never a day passedthat he did not go to the top of the hill and look out across the seatoward the dark, distant line that meant for him comparative freedomand possibly reunion with his comrades. The girl always went with him, standing at his side and watching the stern expression on his face withjust a tinge of sadness on her own. 

"You are not happy, " she said once. 

"I should be over there with my men, " he replied. "I do not know whatmay have happened to them. "

"I want you to be happy, " she said quite simply; "but I should be verylonely if you went away and left me here. "

He put his hand on her shoulder. "I would not do that, little girl, "he said gently. "If you cannot go with me, I shall not go. If eitherof us must go alone, it will be you. "

Her face lighted to a wondrous smile. "Then we shall not beseparated, " she said, "for I shall never leave you as long as we bothlive. "

He looked down into her face for a moment and then: "Who was An-Tak?"he asked. 

"My brother, " she replied. "Why?"

And then, even less than before, could he tell her. It was then thathe did something he had never done before--he put his arms about herand stooping, kissed her forehead. "Until you find An-Tak, " he said, "I will be your brother. "

She drew away. "I already have a brother, " she said, "and I do notwant another. "

Chapter 5

Days became weeks, and weeks became months, and the months followed oneanother in a lazy procession of hot, humid days and warm, humid nights. The fugitives saw never a Wieroo by day though often at night theyheard the melancholy flapping of giant wings far above them. 

Each day was much like its predecessor. Bradley splashed about for afew minutes in the cold pool early each morning and after a time thegirl tried it and liked it. Toward the center it was deep enough forswimming, and so he taught her to swim--she was probably the firsthuman being in all Caspak's long ages who had done this thing. Andthen while she prepared breakfast, the man shaved--this he neverneglected. At first it was a source of wonderment to the girl, for theGalu men are beardless. 

When they needed meat, he hunted, otherwise he busied himself inimproving their shelter, making new and better weapons, perfecting hisknowledge of the girl's language and teaching her to speak and to writeEnglish--anything that would keep them both occupied. He still soughtnew plans for escape, but with ever-lessening enthusiasm, since eachnew scheme presented some insurmountable obstacle. 

And then one day as a bolt out of a clear sky came that which blastedthe peace and security of their sanctuary forever. Bradley was justemerging from the water after his morning plunge when from overheadcame the sound of flapping wings. Glancing quickly up the man saw awhite-robed Wieroo circling slowly above him. That he had beendiscovered he could not doubt since the creature even dropped to alower altitude as though to assure itself that what it saw was a man. Then it rose rapidly and winged away toward the city. 

For two days Bradley and the girl lived in a constant state ofapprehension, awaiting the moment when the hunters would come for them;but nothing happened until just after dawn of the third day, when theflapping of wings apprised them of the approach of Wieroos. Togetherthey went to the edge of the wood and looked up to see five red-robedcreatures dropping slowly in ever-lessening spirals toward their littleamphitheater. With no attempt at concealment they came, sure of theirability to overwhelm these two fugitives, and with the fullest measureof self-confidence they landed in the clearing but a few yards from theman and the girl. 

Following a plan already discussed Bradley and the girl retreatedslowly into the woods. The Wieroos advanced, calling upon them to givethemselves up; but the quarry made no reply. Farther and farther intothe little wood Bradley led the hunters, permitting them to approachever closer; then he circled back again toward the clearing, evidentlyto the great delight of the Wieroos, who now followed more leisurely, awaiting the moment when they should be beyond the trees and able touse their wings. They had opened into semicircular formation now withthe evident intention of cutting the two off from returning into thewood. Each Wieroo advanced with his curved blade ready in his hand, each hideous face blank and expressionless. 

It was then that Bradley opened fire with his pistol--three shots, aimed with careful deliberation, for it had been long since he had usedthe weapon, and he could not afford to chance wasting ammunition onmisses. At each shot a Wieroo dropped; and then the remaining twosought escape by flight, screaming and wailing after the manner oftheir kind. When a Wieroo runs, his wings spread almost without anyvolition upon his part, since from time immemorial he has always usedthem to balance himself and accelerate his running speed so that in theopen they appear to skim the surface of the ground when in the act ofrunning. But here in the woods, among the close-set boles, thespreading of their wings proved their undoing--it hindered and stoppedthem and threw them to the ground, and then Bradley was upon themthreatening them with instant death if they did notsurrender--promising them their freedom if they did his bidding. 

"As you have seen, " he cried, "I can kill you when I wish and at adistance. You cannot escape me. Your only hope of life lies inobedience. Quick, or I kill!"

The Wieroos stopped and faced him. "What do you want of us?" asked one. 

"Throw aside your weapons, " Bradley commanded. After a moment'shesitation they obeyed. 

"Now approach!" A great plan--the only plan--had suddenly come to himlike an inspiration. 

The Wieroos came closer and halted at his command. Bradley turned tothe girl. "There is rope in the shelter, " he said. "Fetch it!"

She did as he bid, and then he directed her to fasten one end of afifty-foot length to the ankle of one of the Wieroos and the oppositeend to the second. The creatures gave evidence of great fear, but theydared not attempt to prevent the act. 

"Now go out into the clearing, " said Bradley, "and remember that I amwalking close behind and that I will shoot the nearer one should eitherattempt to escape--that will hold the other until I can kill him aswell. "

In the open he halted them. "The girl will get upon the back of theone in front, " announced the Englishman. "I will mount the other. Shecarries a sharp blade, and I carry this weapon that you know killseasily at a distance. If you disobey in the slightest, theinstructions that I am about to give you, you shall both die. That wemust die with you, will not deter us. If you obey, I promise to setyou free without harming you. 

"You will carry us due west, depositing us upon the shore of themainland--that is all. It is the price of your lives. Do you agree?"

Sullenly the Wieroos acquiesced. Bradley examined the knots that heldthe rope to their ankles, and feeling them secure directed the girl tomount the back of the leading Wieroo, himself upon the other. Then hegave the signal for the two to rise together. With loud flapping ofthe powerful wings the creatures took to the air, circling once beforethey topped the trees upon the hill and then taking a course due westout over the waters of the sea. 

Nowhere about them could Bradley see signs of other Wieroos, nor ofthose other menaces which he had feared might bring disaster to hisplans for escape--the huge, winged reptilia that are so numerous abovethe southern areas of Caspak and which are often seen, though in lessernumbers, farther north. 

Nearer and nearer loomed the mainland--a broad, parklike expansestretching inland to the foot of a low plateau spread out before them. The little dots in the foreground became grazing herds of deer andantelope and bos; a huge woolly rhinoceros wallowed in a mudhole to theright, and beyond, a mighty mammoth culled the tender shoots from atall tree. The roars and screams and growls of giant carnivora camefaintly to their ears. Ah, this was Caspak. With all of its dangersand its primal savagery it brought a fullness to the throat of theEnglishman as to one who sees and hears the familiar sights and soundsof home after a long absence. Then the Wieroos dropped swiftlydownward to the flower-starred turf that grew almost to the water'sedge, the fugitives slipped from their backs, and Bradley told thered-robed creatures they were free to go. 

When he had cut the ropes from their ankles they rose with that uncannywailing upon their lips that always brought a shudder to theEnglishman, and upon dismal wings they flapped away toward frightfulOo-oh. 

When the creatures had gone, the girl turned toward Bradley. "Why didyou have them bring us here?" she asked. "Now we are far from mycountry. We may never live to reach it, as we are among enemies who, while not so horrible will kill us just as surely as would the Wieroosshould they capture us, and we have before us many marches throughlands filled with savage beasts. "

"There were two reasons, " replied Bradley. "You told me that there aretwo Wieroo cities at the eastern end of the island. To have passednear either of them might have been to have brought about our headshundreds of the creatures from whom we could not possibly have escaped. Again, my friends must be near this spot--it cannot be over two marchesto the fort of which I have told you. It is my duty to return to them. If they still live we shall find a way to return you to your people. "

"And you?" asked the girl. 

"I escaped from Oo-oh, " replied Bradley. "I have accomplished theimpossible once, and so I shall accomplish it again--I shall escapefrom Caspak. "

He was not looking at her face as he answered her, and so he did notsee the shadow of sorrow that crossed her countenance. When he raisedhis eyes again, she was smiling. 

"What you wish, I wish, " said the girl. 

Southward along the coast they made their way following the beach, where the walking was best, but always keeping close enough to trees toinsure sanctuary from the beasts and reptiles that so often menacedthem. It was late in the afternoon when the girl suddenly seizedBradley's arm and pointed straight ahead along the shore. "What isthat?" she whispered. "What strange reptile is it?"

Bradley looked in the direction her slim forefinger indicated. Herubbed his eyes and looked again, and then he seized her wrist and drewher quickly behind a clump of bushes. 

"What is it?" she asked. 

"It is the most frightful reptile that the waters of the world haveever known, " he replied. "It is a German U-boat!"

An expression of amazement and understanding lighted her features. "Itis the thing of which you told me, " she exclaimed, "--the thing thatswims under the water and carries men in its belly!"

"It is, " replied Bradley. 

"Then why do you hide from it?" asked the girl. "You said that now itbelonged to your friends. "

"Many months have passed since I knew what was going on among myfriends, " he replied. "I cannot know what has befallen them. Theyshould have been gone from here in this vessel long since, and so Icannot understand why it is still here. I am going to investigatefirst before I show myself. When I left, there were more Germans onthe U-33 than there were men of my own party at the fort, and I havehad sufficient experience of Germans to know that they will bearwatching--if they have not been properly watched since I left. "

Making their way through a fringe of wood that grew a few yards inlandthe two crept unseen toward the U-boat which lay moored to the shore ata point which Bradley now recognized as being near the oil-pool northof Dinosaur. As close as possible to the vessel they halted, crouchinglow among the dense vegetation, and watched the boat for signs of humanlife about it. The hatches were closed--no one could be seen or heard. For five minutes Bradley watched, and then he determined to board thesubmarine and investigate. He had risen to carry his decision intoeffect when there suddenly broke upon his ear, uttered in loud andmenacing tones, a volley of German oaths and expletives among which heheard Englische schweinhunde repeated several times. The voice did notcome from the direction of the U-boat; but from inland. Creepingforward Bradley reached a spot where, through the creepers hanging fromthe trees, he could see a party of men coming down toward the shore. 

He saw Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts and six of his men--allarmed--while marching in a little knot among them were Olson, Brady, Sinclair, Wilson, and Whitely. 

Bradley knew nothing of the disappearance of Bowen Tyler and Miss LaRue, nor of the perfidy of the Germans in shelling the fort andattempting to escape in the U-33; but he was in no way surprised atwhat he saw before him. 

The little party came slowly onward, the prisoners staggering beneathheavy cans of oil, while Schwartz, one of the German noncommissionedofficers cursed and beat them with a stick of wood, impartially. VonSchoenvorts walked in the rear of the column, encouraging Schwartz andlaughing at the discomfiture of the Britishers. Dietz, Heinz, andKlatz also seemed to enjoy the entertainment immensely; but two of themen--Plesser and Hindle--marched with eyes straight to the front andwith scowling faces. 

Bradley felt his blood boil at sight of the cowardly indignities beingheaped upon his men, and in the brief span of time occupied by thecolumn to come abreast of where he lay hidden he made his plans, foolhardy though he knew them. Then he drew the girl close to him. "Stay here, " he whispered. "I am going out to fight those beasts; butI shall be killed. Do not let them see you. Do not let them take youalive. They are more cruel, more cowardly, more bestial than theWieroos. "

The girl pressed close to him, her face very white. "Go, if that isright, " she whispered; "but if you die, I shall die, for I cannot livewithout you. " He looked sharply into her eyes. "Oh!" he ejaculated. "What an idiot I have been! Nor could I live without you, littlegirl. " And he drew her very close and kissed her lips. "Good-bye. "He disengaged himself from her arms and looked again in time to seethat the rear of the column had just passed him. Then he rose andleaped quickly and silently from the jungle. 

Suddenly von Schoenvorts felt an arm thrown about his neck and hispistol jerked from its holster. He gave a cry of fright and warning, and his men turned to see a half-naked white man holding their leadersecurely from behind and aiming a pistol at them over his shoulder. 

"Drop those guns!" came in short, sharp syllables and perfect Germanfrom the lips of the newcomer. "Drop them or I'll put a bullet throughthe back of von Schoenvorts' head. "

The Germans hesitated for a moment, looking first toward vonSchoenvorts and then to Schwartz, who was evidently second in command, for orders. 

"It's the English pig, Bradley, " shouted the latter, "and he'salone--go and get him!"

"Go yourself, " growled Plesser. Hindle moved close to the side ofPlesser and whispered something to him. The latter nodded. Suddenlyvon Schoenvorts wheeled about and seized Bradley's pistol arm with bothhands, "Now!" he shouted. "Come and take him, quick!"

Schwartz and three others leaped forward; but Plesser and Hindle heldback, looking questioningly toward the English prisoners. Then Plesserspoke. "Now is your chance, Englander, " he called in low tones. "Seize Hindle and me and take our guns from us--we will not fight hard. "

Olson and Brady were not long in acting upon the suggestion. They hadseen enough of the brutal treatment von Schoenvorts accorded his menand the especially venomous attentions he had taken great enjoyment inaccording Plesser and Hindle to understand that these two might besincere in a desire for revenge. In another moment the two Germanswere unarmed and Olson and Brady were running to the support ofBradley; but already it seemed too late. 

Von Schoenvorts had managed to drag the Englishman around so that hisback was toward Schwartz and the other advancing Germans. Schwartz wasalmost upon Bradley with gun clubbed and ready to smash down upon theEnglishman's skull. Brady and Olson were charging the Germans in therear with Wilson, Whitely, and Sinclair supporting them with barefists. It seemed that Bradley was doomed when, apparently out ofspace, an arrow whizzed, striking Schwartz in the side, passinghalf-way through his body to crumple him to earth. With a shriek theman fell, and at the same time Olson and Brady saw the slim figure of ayoung girl standing at the edge of the jungle coolly fitting anotherarrow to her bow. 

Bradley had now succeeded in wrestling his arm free from vonSchoenvorts' grip and in dropping the latter with a blow from the buttof his pistol. The rest of the English and Germans were engaged in ahand-to-hand encounter. Plesser and Hindle standing aside from themelee and urging their comrades to surrender and join with the Englishagainst the tyranny of von Schoenvorts. Heinz and Klatz, possiblyinfluenced by their exhortation, were putting up but a half-heartedresistance; but Dietz, a huge, bearded, bull-necked Prussian, yellinglike a maniac, sought to exterminate the Englische schweinhunde withhis bayonet, fearing to fire his piece lest he kill some of hiscomrades. 

It was Olson who engaged him, and though unused to the long Germanrifle and bayonet, he met the bull-rush of the Hun with the cold, cruelprecision and science of English bayonet-fighting. There was nofeinting, no retiring and no parrying that was not also an attack. Bayonet-fighting today is not a pretty thing to see--it is not anartistic fencing-match in which men give and take--it is slaughterinevitable and quickly over. 

Dietz lunged once madly at Olson's throat. A short point, with just atwist of the bayonet to the left sent the sharp blade over theEnglishman's left shoulder. Instantly he stepped close in, dropped hisrifle through his hands and grasped it with both hands close below themuzzle and with a short, sharp jab sent his blade up beneath Dietz'schin to the brain. So quickly was the thing done and so quick thewithdrawal that Olson had wheeled to take on another adversary beforethe German's corpse had toppled to the ground. 

But there were no more adversaries to take on. Heinz and Klatz hadthrown down their rifles and with hands above their heads were crying"Kamerad! Kamerad!" at the tops of their voices. Von Schoenvortsstill lay where he had fallen. Plesser and Hindle were explaining toBradley that they were glad of the outcome of the fight, as they couldno longer endure the brutality of the U-boat commander. 

The remainder of the men were looking at the girl who now advancedslowly, her bow ready, when Bradley turned toward her and held out hishand. 

"Co-Tan, " he said, "unstring your bow--these are my friends, andyours. " And to the Englishmen: "This is Co-Tan. You who saw her saveme from Schwartz know a part of what I owe her. "

The rough men gathered about the girl, and when she spoke to them inbroken English, with a smile upon her lips enhancing the charm of herirresistible accent, each and every one of them promptly fell in lovewith her and constituted himself henceforth her guardian and her slave. 

A moment later the attention of each was called to Plesser by a volleyof invective. They turned in time to see the man running toward vonSchoenvorts who was just rising from the ground. Plesser carried arifle with bayonet fixed, that he had snatched from the side of Dietz'scorpse. Von Schoenvorts' face was livid with fear, his jaws working asthough he would call for help; but no sound came from his blue lips. 

"You struck me, " shrieked Plesser. "Once, twice, three times, youstruck me, pig. You murdered Schwerke--you drove him insane by yourcruelty until he took his own life. You are only one of yourkind--they are all like you from the Kaiser down. I wish that you werethe Kaiser. Thus would I do!" And he lunged his bayonet through vonSchoenvorts' chest. Then he let his rifle fall with the dying man andwheeled toward Bradley. "Here I am, " he said. "Do with me as youlike. All my life I have been kicked and cuffed by such as that, andyet always have I gone out when they commanded, singing, to give up mylife if need be to keep them in power. Only lately have I come to knowwhat a fool I have been. But now I am no longer a fool, and besides, Iam avenged and Schwerke is avenged, so you can kill me if you wish. Here I am. "

"If I was after bein' the king, " said Olson, "I'd pin the V. C. On yournoble chist; but bein' only an Irishman with a Swede name, for whichGod forgive me, the bist I can do is shake your hand. "

"You will not be punished, " said Bradley. "There are four of youleft--if you four want to come along and work with us, we will takeyou; but you will come as prisoners. "

"It suits me, " said Plesser. "Now that the captain-lieutenant is deadyou need not fear us. All our lives we have known nothing but to obeyhis class. If I had not killed him, I suppose I would be fool enoughto obey him again; but he is dead. Now we will obey you--we must obeysome one. "

"And you?" Bradley turned to the other survivors of the original crewof the U-33. Each promised obedience. 

The two dead Germans were buried in a single grave, and then the partyboarded the submarine and stowed away the oil. 

Here Bradley told the men what had befallen him since the night ofSeptember 14th when he had disappeared so mysteriously from the campupon the plateau. Now he learned for the first time that Bowen J. Tyler, Jr. , and Miss La Rue had been missing even longer than he andthat no faintest trace of them had been discovered. 

Olson told him of how the Germans had returned and waited in ambush forthem outside the fort, capturing them that they might be used to assistin the work of refining the oil and later in manning the U-33, andPlesser told briefly of the experiences of the German crew under vonSchoenvorts since they had escaped from Caspak months before--of howthey lost their bearings after having been shelled by ships they hadattempted to sneak farther north and how at last with provisions goneand fuel almost exhausted they had sought and at last found, more byaccident than design, the mysterious island they had once been so gladto leave behind. 

"Now, " announced Bradley, "we'll plan for the future. The boat hasfuel, provisions and water for a month, I believe you said, Plesser;there are ten of us to man it. We have a last sad duty here--we mustsearch for Miss La Rue and Mr. Tyler. I say a sad duty because we knowthat we shall not find them; but it is none the less our duty to combthe shoreline, firing signal shells at intervals, that we at least mayleave at last with full knowledge that we have done all that men mightdo to locate them. "

None dissented from this conviction, nor was there a voice raised inprotest against the plan to at least make assurance doubly sure beforequitting Caspak forever. 

And so they started, cruising slowly up the coast and firing anoccasional shot from the gun. Often the vessel was brought to a stop, and always there were anxious eyes scanning the shore for an answeringsignal. Late in the afternoon they caught sight of a number of Band-luwarriors; but when the vessel approached the shore and the nativesrealized that human beings stood upon the back of the strange monsterof the sea, they fled in terror before Bradley could come withinhailing distance. 

That night they dropped anchor at the mouth of a sluggish stream whosewarm waters swarmed with millions of tiny tadpolelike organisms--minutehuman spawn starting on their precarious journey from some inland pooltoward "the beginning"--a journey which one in millions, perhaps, mightsurvive to complete. Already almost at the inception of life they werebeing greeted by thousands of voracious mouths as fish and reptiles ofmany kinds fought to devour them, the while other and larger creaturespursued the devourers, to be, in turn, preyed upon by some other of thecountless forms that inhabit the deeps of Caprona's frightful sea. 

The second day was practically a repetition of the first. They movedvery slowly with frequent stops and once they landed in the Kro-lucountry to hunt. Here they were attacked by the bow-and-arrow men, whom they could not persuade to palaver with them. So belligerent werethe natives that it became necessary to fire into them in order toescape their persistent and ferocious attentions. 

"What chance, " asked Bradley, as they were returning to the boat withtheir game, "could Tyler and Miss La Rue have had among such as these?"

But they continued on their fruitless quest, and the third day, aftercruising along the shore of a deep inlet, they passed a line of loftycliffs that formed the southern shore of the inlet and rounded a sharppromontory about noon. Co-Tan and Bradley were on deck alone, and asthe new shoreline appeared beyond the point, the girl gave anexclamation of joy and seized the man's hand in hers. 

"Oh, look!" she cried. "The Galu country! The Galu country! It is mycountry that I never thought to see again. "

"You are glad to come again, Co-Tan?" asked Bradley. 

"Oh, so glad!" she cried. "And you will come with me to my people? Wemay live here among them, and you will be a great warrior--oh, when Jordies you may even be chief, for there is none so mighty as my warrior. You will come?"

Bradley shook his head. "I cannot, little Co-Tan, " he answered. "Mycountry needs me, and I must go back. Maybe someday I shall return. You will not forget me, Co-Tan?"

She looked at him in wide-eyed wonder. "You are going away from me?"she asked in a very small voice. "You are going away from Co-Tan?"

Bradley looked down upon the little bowed head. He felt the soft cheekagainst his bare arm; and he felt something else there too--hot dropsof moisture that ran down to his very finger-tips and splashed, buteach one wrung from a woman's heart. 

He bent low and raised the tear-stained face to his own. "No, Co-Tan, "he said, "I am not going away from you--for you are going with me. Youare going back to my own country to be my wife. Tell me that you will, Co-Tan. " And he bent still lower yet from his height and kissed herlips. Nor did he need more than the wonderful new light in her eyes totell him that she would go to the end of the world with him if he wouldbut take her. And then the gun-crew came up from below again to fire asignal shot, and the two were brought down from the high heaven oftheir new happiness to the scarred and weather-beaten deck of the U-33. 

An hour later the vessel was running close in by a shore of wondrousbeauty beside a parklike meadow that stretched back a mile inland tothe foot of a plateau when Whitely called attention to a score offigures clambering downward from the elevation to the lowland below. The engines were reversed and the boat brought to a stop while allhands gathered on deck to watch the little party coming toward themacross the meadow. 

"They are Galus, " cried Co-Tan; "they are my own people. Let me speakto them lest they think we come to fight them. Put me ashore, my man, and I will go meet them. "

The nose of the U-boat was run close in to the steep bank; but whenCo-Tan would have run forward alone, Bradley seized her hand and heldher back. "I will go with you, Co-Tan, " he said; and together theyadvanced to meet the oncoming party. 

There were about twenty warriors moving forward in a thin line, as ourinfantry advance as skirmishers. Bradley could not but notice themarked difference between this formation and the moblike methods of thelower tribes he had come in contact with, and he commented upon it toCo-Tan. 

"Galu warriors always advance into battle thus, " she said. "The lesserpeople remain in a huddled group where they can scarce use theirweapons the while they present so big a mark to us that our spears andarrows cannot miss them; but when they hurl theirs at our warriors, ifthey miss the first man, there is no chance that they will kill someone behind him. 

"Stand still now, " she cautioned, "and fold your arms. They will notharm us then. "

Bradley did as he was bid, and the two stood with arms folded as theline of warriors approached. When they had come within some fiftyyards, they halted and one spoke. "Who are you and from whence do youcome?" he asked; and then Co-Tan gave a little, glad cry and sprangforward with out-stretched arms. 

"Oh, Tan!" she exclaimed. "Do you not know your little Co-Tan?"

The warrior stared, incredulous, for a moment, and then he, too, ranforward and when they met, took the girl in his arms. It was then thatBradley experienced to the full a sensation that was new to him--asudden hatred for the strange warrior before him and a desire to killwithout knowing why he would kill. He moved quickly to the girl's sideand grasped her wrist. 

"Who is this man?" he demanded in cold tones. 

Co-Tan turned a surprised face toward the Englishman and then of asudden broke forth into a merry peal of laughter. "This is my father, Brad-lee, " she cried. 

"And who is Brad-lee?" demanded the warrior. 

"He is my man, " replied Co-Tan simply. 

"By what right?" insisted Tan. 

And then she told him briefly of all that she had passed through sincethe Wieroos had stolen her and of how Bradley had rescued her andsought to rescue An-Tak, her brother. 

"You are satisfied with him?" asked Tan. 

"Yes, " replied the girl proudly. 

It was then that Bradley's attention was attracted to the edge of theplateau by a movement there, and looking closely he saw a horse bearingtwo figures sliding down the steep declivity. Once at the bottom, theanimal came charging across the meadowland at a rapid run. It was amagnificent animal--a great bay stallion with a white-blazed face andwhite forelegs to the knees, its barrel encircled by a broad surcingleof white; and as it came to a sudden stop beside Tan, the Englishmansaw that it bore a man and a girl--a tall man and a girl as beautifulas Co-Tan. When the girl espied the latter, she slid from the horseand ran toward her, fairly screaming for joy. 

The man dismounted and stood beside Tan. Like Bradley he was garbedafter the fashion of the surrounding warriors; but there was a subtledifference between him and his companion. Possibly he detected asimilar difference in Bradley, for his first question was, "From whatcountry?" and though he spoke in Galu Bradley thought he detected anaccent. 

"England, " replied Bradley. 

A broad smile lighted the newcomer's face as he held out his hand. "Iam Tom Billings of Santa Monica, California, " he said. "I know allabout you, and I'm mighty glad to find you alive. "

"How did you get here?" asked Bradley. "I thought ours was the onlyparty of men from the outer world ever to enter Caprona. "

"It was, until we came in search of Bowen J. Tyler, Jr. , " repliedBillings. "We found him and sent him home with his bride; but I waskept a prisoner here. "

Bradley's face darkened--then they were not among friends after all. "There are ten of us down there on a German sub with small-arms and agun, " he said quickly in English. "It will be no trick to get awayfrom these people. "

"You don't know my jailer, " replied Billings, "or you'd not be so sure. Wait, I'll introduce you. " And then turning to the girl who hadaccompanied him he called her by name. "Ajor, " he said, "permit me tointroduce Lieutenant Bradley; Lieutenant, Mrs. Billings--my jailer!"

The Englishman laughed as he shook hands with the girl. "You are notas good a soldier as I, " he said to Billings. "Instead of being takenprisoner myself I have taken one--Mrs. Bradley, this is Mr. Billings. "

Ajor, quick to understand, turned toward Co-Tan. "You are going backwith him to his country?" she asked. Co-Tan admitted it. 

"You dare?" asked Ajor. "But your father will not permit it--Jor, myfather, High Chief of the Galus, will not permit it, for like me youare cos-ata-lo. Oh, Co-Tan, if we but could! How I would love to seeall the strange and wonderful things of which my Tom tells me!"

Bradley bent and whispered in her ear. "Say the word and you may bothgo with us. "

Billings heard and speaking in English, asked Ajor if she would go. 

"Yes, " she answered, "If you wish it; but you know, my Tom, that if Jorcaptures us, both you and Co-Tan's man will pay the penalty with yourlives--not even his love for me nor his admiration for you can saveyou. "

Bradley noticed that she spoke in English--broken English like Co-Tan'sbut equally appealing. "We can easily get you aboard the ship, " hesaid, "on some pretext or other, and then we can steam away. They canneither harm nor detain us, nor will we have to fire a shot at them. "

And so it was done, Bradley and Co-Tan taking Ajor and Billings aboardto "show" them the vessel, which almost immediately raised anchor andmoved slowly out into the sea. 

"I hate to do it, " said Billings. "They have been fine to me. Jor andTan are splendid men and they will think me an ingrate; but I can'twaste my life here when there is so much to be done in the outer world. "

As they steamed down the inland sea past the island of Oo-oh, thestories of their adventures were retold, and Bradley learned that BowenTyler and his bride had left the Galu country but a fortnight beforeand that there was every reason to believe that the Toreador mightstill be lying in the Pacific not far off the subterranean mouth of theriver which emitted Caprona's heated waters into the ocean. 

Late in the second day, after running through swarms of hideousreptiles, they submerged at the point where the river entered beneaththe cliffs and shortly after rose to the sunlit surface of the Pacific;but nowhere as far as they could see was sign of another craft. Downthe coast they steamed toward the beach where Billings had made hiscrossing in the hydro-aeroplane and just at dusk the lookout announceda light dead ahead. It proved to be aboard the Toreador, and ahalf-hour later there was such a reunion on the deck of the trig littleyacht as no one there had ever dreamed might be possible. Of theAllies there were only Tippet and James to be mourned, and no onemourned any of the Germans dead nor Benson, the traitor, whose uglystory was first told in Bowen Tyler's manuscript. 

Tyler and the rescue party had but just reached the yacht thatafternoon. They had heard, faintly, the signal shots fired by the U-33but had been unable to locate their direction and so had assumed thatthey had come from the guns of the Toreador. 

It was a happy party that sailed north toward sunny, southernCalifornia, the old U-33 trailing in the wake of the Toreador andflying with the latter the glorious Stars and Stripes beneath which shehad been born in the shipyard at Santa Monica. Three newly marriedcouples, their bonds now duly solemnized by the master of the ship, joyed in the peace and security of the untracked waters of the southPacific and the unique honeymoon which, had it not been for stern dutyahead, they could have wished protracted till the end of time. 

And so they came one day to dock at the shipyard which Bowen Tyler nowcontrolled, and here the U-33 still lies while those who passed so manyeventful days within and because of her, have gone their various ways. 

[Transcriber's note: I have made the following changes to the text:

 PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO 10 12 of or 14 19 of animals life of animals 31 26 is arms his arms 37 14 above this above his 37 23 Bradley, Bradley 54 18 man man 57 14 and of Oo-oh of Oo-oh 62 18 spend spent 63 31 and mumbled the mumbled 64 9 things thing 80 30 east cast 104 16 proaching proached 106 30 cos-at-lu cos-ata-lu 126 17 not artistic not an artistic 126 25 close below hands close below 130 1 internals intervals 132 9 than that 132 10 splashes splashed 134 3 know know not know]