The Land that Time Forgot

By

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Chapter 1

It must have been a little after three o'clock in the afternoon that ithappened--the afternoon of June 3rd, 1916. It seems incredible thatall that I have passed through--all those weird and terrifyingexperiences--should have been encompassed within so short a span asthree brief months. Rather might I have experienced a cosmic cycle, with all its changes and evolutions for that which I have seen with myown eyes in this brief interval of time--things that no other mortaleye had seen before, glimpses of a world past, a world dead, a world solong dead that even in the lowest Cambrian stratum no trace of itremains. Fused with the melting inner crust, it has passed foreverbeyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket of the earthwhither fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed. I am here andhere must remain. 

After reading this far, my interest, which already had been stimulatedby the finding of the manuscript, was approaching the boiling-point. Ihad come to Greenland for the summer, on the advice of my physician, and was slowly being bored to extinction, as I had thoughtlesslyneglected to bring sufficient reading-matter. Being an indifferentfisherman, my enthusiasm for this form of sport soon waned; yet in theabsence of other forms of recreation I was now risking my life in anentirely inadequate boat off Cape Farewell at the southernmostextremity of Greenland. 

Greenland! As a descriptive appellation, it is a sorry joke--but mystory has nothing to do with Greenland, nothing to do with me; so Ishall get through with the one and the other as rapidly as possible. 

The inadequate boat finally arrived at a precarious landing, thenatives, waist-deep in the surf, assisting. I was carried ashore, andwhile the evening meal was being prepared, I wandered to and fro alongthe rocky, shattered shore. Bits of surf-harried beach clove the worngranite, or whatever the rocks of Cape Farewell may be composed of, andas I followed the ebbing tide down one of these soft stretches, I sawthe thing. Were one to bump into a Bengal tiger in the ravine behindthe Bimini Baths, one could be no more surprised than was I to see aperfectly good quart thermos bottle turning and twisting in the surf ofCape Farewell at the southern extremity of Greenland. I rescued it, butI was soaked above the knees doing it; and then I sat down in the sandand opened it, and in the long twilight read the manuscript, neatlywritten and tightly folded, which was its contents. 

You have read the opening paragraph, and if you are an imaginativeidiot like myself, you will want to read the rest of it; so I shallgive it to you here, omitting quotation marks--which are difficult ofremembrance. In two minutes you will forget me. 

My home is in Santa Monica. I am, or was, junior member of my father'sfirm. We are ship-builders. Of recent years we have specialized onsubmarines, which we have built for Germany, England, France and theUnited States. I know a sub as a mother knows her baby's face, andhave commanded a score of them on their trial runs. Yet myinclinations were all toward aviation. I graduated under Curtiss, andafter a long siege with my father obtained his permission to try forthe Lafayette Escadrille. As a stepping-stone I obtained anappointment in the American ambulance service and was on my way toFrance when three shrill whistles altered, in as many seconds, myentire scheme of life. 

I was sitting on deck with some of the fellows who were going into theAmerican ambulance service with me, my Airedale, Crown Prince Nobbler, asleep at my feet, when the first blast of the whistle shattered thepeace and security of the ship. Ever since entering the U-boat zone wehad been on the lookout for periscopes, and children that we were, bemoaning the unkind fate that was to see us safely into France on themorrow without a glimpse of the dread marauders. We were young; wecraved thrills, and God knows we got them that day; yet by comparisonwith that through which I have since passed they were as tame as aPunch-and-Judy show. 

I shall never forget the ashy faces of the passengers as they stampededfor their life-belts, though there was no panic. Nobs rose with a lowgrowl. I rose, also, and over the ship's side, I saw not two hundredyards distant the periscope of a submarine, while racing toward theliner the wake of a torpedo was distinctly visible. We were aboard anAmerican ship--which, of course, was not armed. We were entirelydefenseless; yet without warning, we were being torpedoed. 

I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo. Itstruck us on the starboard side almost amidships. The vessel rocked asthough the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano. We werethrown to the decks, bruised and stunned, and then above the ship, carrying with it fragments of steel and wood and dismembered humanbodies, rose a column of water hundreds of feet into the air. 

The silence which followed the detonation of the exploding torpedo wasalmost equally horrifying. It lasted for perhaps two seconds, to befollowed by the screams and moans of the wounded, the cursing of themen and the hoarse commands of the ship's officers. They weresplendid--they and their crew. Never before had I been so proud of mynationality as I was that moment. In all the chaos which followed thetorpedoing of the liner no officer or member of the crew lost his heador showed in the slightest any degree of panic or fear. 

While we were attempting to lower boats, the submarine emerged andtrained guns on us. The officer in command ordered us to lower ourflag, but this the captain of the liner refused to do. The ship waslisting frightfully to starboard, rendering the port boats useless, while half the starboard boats had been demolished by the explosion. Even while the passengers were crowding the starboard rail andscrambling into the few boats left to us, the submarine commencedshelling the ship. I saw one shell burst in a group of women andchildren, and then I turned my head and covered my eyes. 

When I looked again to horror was added chagrin, for with the emergingof the U-boat I had recognized her as a product of our own shipyard. Iknew her to a rivet. I had superintended her construction. I had satin that very conning-tower and directed the efforts of the sweatingcrew below when first her prow clove the sunny summer waters of thePacific; and now this creature of my brain and hand had turnedFrankenstein, bent upon pursuing me to my death. 

A second shell exploded upon the deck. One of the lifeboats, frightfully overcrowded, swung at a dangerous angle from its davits. Afragment of the shell shattered the bow tackle, and I saw the women andchildren and the men vomited into the sea beneath, while the boatdangled stern up for a moment from its single davit, and at last withincreasing momentum dived into the midst of the struggling victimsscreaming upon the face of the waters. 

Now I saw men spring to the rail and leap into the ocean. The deck wastilting to an impossible angle. Nobs braced himself with all four feetto keep from slipping into the scuppers and looked up into my face witha questioning whine. I stooped and stroked his head. 

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

The submarine was withdrawing toward the north, but all the time it wasshelling the open boats, three of them, loaded to the gunwales withsurvivors. Fortunately the small boats presented a rather poor target, which, combined with the bad marksmanship of the Germans preservedtheir occupants from harm; and after a few minutes a blotch of smokeappeared upon the eastern horizon and the U-boat submerged anddisappeared. 

All the time the lifeboats has been pulling away from the danger of thesinking liner, and now, though I yelled at the top of my lungs, theyeither did not hear my appeals for help or else did not dare return tosuccor me. Nobs and I had gained some little distance from the shipwhen it rolled completely over and sank. We were caught in the suctiononly enough to be drawn backward a few yards, neither of us beingcarried beneath the surface. I glanced hurriedly about for something towhich to cling. My eyes were directed toward the point at which theliner had disappeared when there came from the depths of the ocean themuffled reverberation of an explosion, and almost simultaneously ageyser of water in which were shattered lifeboats, human bodies, steam, coal, oil, and the flotsam of a liner's deck leaped high above thesurface of the sea--a watery column momentarily marking the grave ofanother ship in this greatest cemetery of the seas. 

When the turbulent waters had somewhat subsided and the sea had ceasedto spew up wreckage, I ventured to swim back in search of somethingsubstantial enough to support my weight and that of Nobs as well. Ihad gotten well over the area of the wreck when not a half-dozen yardsahead of me a lifeboat shot bow foremost out of the ocean almost itsentire length to flop down upon its keel with a mighty splash. It musthave been carried far below, held to its mother ship by a single ropewhich finally parted to the enormous strain put upon it. In no otherway can I account for its having leaped so far out of the water--abeneficent circumstance to which I doubtless owe my life, and that ofanother far dearer to me than my own. I say beneficent circumstanceeven in the face of the fact that a fate far more hideous confronts usthan that which we escaped that day; for because of that circumstance Ihave met her whom otherwise I never should have known; I have met andloved her. At least I have had that great happiness in life; nor canCaspak, with all her horrors, expunge that which has been. 

So for the thousandth time I thank the strange fate which sent thatlifeboat hurtling upward from the green pit of destruction to which ithad been dragged--sent it far up above the surface, emptying its wateras it rose above the waves, and dropping it upon the surface of thesea, buoyant and safe. 

It did not take me long to clamber over its side and drag Nobs in tocomparative safety, and then I glanced around upon the scene of deathand desolation which surrounded us. The sea was littered with wreckageamong which floated the pitiful forms of women and children, buoyed upby their useless lifebelts. Some were torn and mangled; others layrolling quietly to the motion of the sea, their countenances composedand peaceful; others were set in hideous lines of agony or horror. Close to the boat's side floated the figure of a girl. Her face wasturned upward, held above the surface by her life-belt, and was framedin a floating mass of dark and waving hair. She was very beautiful. Ihad never looked upon such perfect features, such a divine moldingwhich was at the same time human--intensely human. It was a facefilled with character and strength and femininity--the face of one whowas created to love and to be loved. The cheeks were flushed to thehue of life and health and vitality, and yet she lay there upon thebosom of the sea, dead. I felt something rise in my throat as I lookeddown upon that radiant vision, and I swore that I should live to avengeher murder. 

And then I let my eyes drop once more to the face upon the water, andwhat I saw nearly tumbled me backward into the sea, for the eyes in thedead face had opened; the lips had parted; and one hand was raisedtoward me in a mute appeal for succor. She lived! She was not dead! Ileaned over the boat's side and drew her quickly in to the comparativesafety which God had given me. I removed her life-belt and my soggycoat and made a pillow for her head. I chafed her hands and arms andfeet. I worked over her for an hour, and at last I was rewarded by adeep sigh, and again those great eyes opened and looked into mine. 

At that I was all embarrassment. I have never been a ladies' man; atLeland-Stanford I was the butt of the class because of my hopelessimbecility in the presence of a pretty girl; but the men liked me, nevertheless. I was rubbing one of her hands when she opened her eyes, and I dropped it as though it were a red-hot rivet. Those eyes took mein slowly from head to foot; then they wandered slowly around thehorizon marked by the rising and falling gunwales of the lifeboat. They looked at Nobs and softened, and then came back to me filled withquestioning. 

"I--I--" I stammered, moving away and stumbling over the next thwart. The vision smiled wanly. 

"Aye-aye, sir!" she replied faintly, and again her lips drooped, andher long lashes swept the firm, fair texture of her skin. 

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

"Do you know, " she said after a moment of silence, "I have been awakefor a long time! But I did not dare open my eyes. I thought I must bedead, and I was afraid to look, for fear that I should see nothing butblackness about me. I am afraid to die! Tell me what happened afterthe ship went down. I remember all that happened before--oh, but I wishthat I might forget it!" A sob broke her voice. "The beasts!" shewent on after a moment. "And to think that I was to have married oneof them--a lieutenant in the German navy. "

Presently she resumed as though she had not ceased speaking. "I wentdown and down and down. I thought I should never cease to sink. Ifelt no particular distress until I suddenly started upward atever-increasing velocity; then my lungs seemed about to burst, and Imust have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing more until Iopened my eyes after listening to a torrent of invective againstGermany and Germans. Tell me, please, all that happened after the shipsank. "

I told her, then, as well as I could, all that I had seen--thesubmarine shelling the open boats and all the rest of it. She thoughtit marvelous that we should have been spared in so providential amanner, and I had a pretty speech upon my tongue's end, but lacked thenerve to deliver it. Nobs had come over and nosed his muzzle into herlap, and she stroked his ugly face, and at last she leaned over and puther cheek against his forehead. I have always admired Nobs; but thiswas the first time that it had ever occurred to me that I might wish tobe Nobs. I wondered how he would take it, for he is as unused to womenas I. But he took to it as a duck takes to water. What I lack ofbeing a ladies' man, Nobs certainly makes up for as a ladies' dog. Theold scalawag just closed his eyes and put on one of the softest"sugar-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth" expressions you ever saw and stoodthere taking it and asking for more. It made me jealous. 

"You seem fond of dogs, " I said. 

"I am fond of this dog, " she replied. 

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

As we drifted about upon that vast expanse of loneliness it is notstrange that we should quickly become well acquainted. Constantly wescanned the horizon for signs of smoke, venturing guesses as to ourchances of rescue; but darkness settled, and the black night envelopedus without ever the sight of a speck upon the waters. 

We were thirsty, hungry, uncomfortable, and cold. Our wet garments haddried but little and I knew that the girl must be in grave danger fromthe exposure to a night of cold and wet upon the water in an open boat, without sufficient clothing and no food. I had managed to bail all thewater out of the boat with cupped hands, ending by mopping the balanceup with my handkerchief--a slow and back-breaking procedure; thus I hadmade a comparatively dry place for the girl to lie down low in thebottom of the boat, where the sides would protect her from the nightwind, and when at last she did so, almost overcome as she was byweakness and fatigue, I threw my wet coat over her further to thwartthe chill. But it was of no avail; as I sat watching her, themoonlight marking out the graceful curves of her slender young body, Isaw her shiver. 

"Isn't there something I can do?" I asked. "You can't lie therechilled through all night. Can't you suggest something?"

She shook her head. "We must grin and bear it, " she replied after amoment. 

Nobbler came and lay down on the thwart beside me, his back against myleg, and I sat staring in dumb misery at the girl, knowing in my heartof hearts that she might die before morning came, for what with theshock and exposure, she had already gone through enough to kill almostany woman. And as I gazed down at her, so small and delicate andhelpless, there was born slowly within my breast a new emotion. It hadnever been there before; now it will never cease to be there. It mademe almost frantic in my desire to find some way to keep warm andcooling lifeblood in her veins. I was cold myself, though I had almostforgotten it until Nobbler moved and I felt a new sensation of coldalong my leg against which he had lain, and suddenly realized that inthat one spot I had been warm. Like a great light came theunderstanding of a means to warm the girl. Immediately I knelt besideher to put my scheme into practice when suddenly I was overwhelmed withembarrassment. Would she permit it, even if I could muster the courageto suggest it? Then I saw her frame convulse, shudderingly, hermuscles reacting to her rapidly lowering temperature, and castingprudery to the winds, I threw myself down beside her and took her in myarms, pressing her body close to mine. 

She drew away suddenly, voicing a little cry of fright, and tried topush me from her. 

"Forgive me, " I managed to stammer. "It is the only way. You will dieof exposure if you are not warmed, and Nobs and I are the only means wecan command for furnishing warmth. " And I held her tightly while Icalled Nobs and bade him lie down at her back. The girl didn'tstruggle any more when she learned my purpose; but she gave two orthree little gasps, and then began to cry softly, burying her face onmy arm, and thus she fell asleep. 

Chapter 2

Toward morning, I must have dozed, though it seemed to me at the timethat I had lain awake for days, instead of hours. When I finallyopened my eyes, it was daylight, and the girl's hair was in my face, and she was breathing normally. I thanked God for that. She hadturned her head during the night so that as I opened my eyes I saw herface not an inch from mine, my lips almost touching hers. 

It was Nobs who finally awoke her. He got up, stretched, turned arounda few times and lay down again, and the girl opened her eyes and lookedinto mine. Hers went very wide at first, and then slowly comprehensioncame to her, and she smiled. 

"You have been very good to me, " she said, as I helped her to rise, though if the truth were known I was more in need of assistance thanshe; the circulation all along my left side seeming to be paralyzedentirely. "You have been very good to me. " And that was the onlymention she ever made of it; yet I know that she was thankful and thatonly reserve prevented her from referring to what, to say the least, was an embarrassing situation, however unavoidable. 

Shortly after daylight we saw smoke apparently coming straight towardus, and after a time we made out the squat lines of a tug--one of thosefearless exponents of England's supremacy of the sea that tows sailingships into French and English ports. I stood up on a thwart and wavedmy soggy coat above my head. Nobs stood upon another and barked. Thegirl sat at my feet straining her eyes toward the deck of the oncomingboat. "They see us, " she said at last. "There is a man answering yoursignal. " She was right. A lump came into my throat--for her sakerather than for mine. She was saved, and none too soon. She could nothave lived through another night upon the Channel; she might not havelived through the coming day. 

The tug came close beside us, and a man on deck threw us a rope. Willing hands dragged us to the deck, Nobs scrambling nimbly aboardwithout assistance. The rough men were gentle as mothers with thegirl. Plying us both with questions they hustled her to the captain'scabin and me to the boiler-room. They told the girl to take off herwet clothes and throw them outside the door that they might be dried, and then to slip into the captain's bunk and get warm. They didn'thave to tell me to strip after I once got into the warmth of theboiler-room. In a jiffy, my clothes hung about where they might drymost quickly, and I myself was absorbing, through every pore, thewelcome heat of the stifling compartment. They brought us hot soup andcoffee, and then those who were not on duty sat around and helped medamn the Kaiser and his brood. 

As soon as our clothes were dry, they bade us don them, as the chanceswere always more than fair in those waters that we should run intotrouble with the enemy, as I was only too well aware. What with thewarmth and the feeling of safety for the girl, and the knowledge that alittle rest and food would quickly overcome the effects of herexperiences of the past dismal hours, I was feeling more content than Ihad experienced since those three whistle-blasts had shattered thepeace of my world the previous afternoon. 

But peace upon the Channel has been but a transitory thing sinceAugust, 1914. It proved itself such that morning, for I had scarcegotten into my dry clothes and taken the girl's apparel to thecaptain's cabin when an order was shouted down into the engine-room forfull speed ahead, and an instant later I heard the dull boom of a gun. In a moment I was up on deck to see an enemy submarine about twohundred yards off our port bow. She had signaled us to stop, and ourskipper had ignored the order; but now she had her gun trained on us, and the second shot grazed the cabin, warning the belligerenttug-captain that it was time to obey. Once again an order went down tothe engine-room, and the tug reduced speed. The U-boat ceased firingand ordered the tug to come about and approach. Our momentum hadcarried us a little beyond the enemy craft, but we were turning now onthe arc of a circle that would bring us alongside her. As I stoodwatching the maneuver and wondering what was to become of us, I feltsomething touch my elbow and turned to see the girl standing at myside. She looked up into my face with a rueful expression. "They seembent on our destruction, " she said, "and it looks like the same boatthat sunk us yesterday. "

"It is, " I replied. "I know her well. I helped design her and tookher out on her first run. "

The girl drew back from me with a little exclamation of surprise anddisappointment. "I thought you were an American, " she said. "I had noidea you were a--a--"

"Nor am I, " I replied. "Americans have been building submarines forall nations for many years. I wish, though, that we had gone bankrupt, my father and I, before ever we turned out that Frankenstein of athing. "

We were approaching the U-boat at half speed now, and I could almostdistinguish the features of the men upon her deck. A sailor stepped tomy side and slipped something hard and cold into my hand. I did nothave to look at it to know that it was a heavy pistol. "Tyke 'er an'use 'er, " was all he said. 

Our bow was pointed straight toward the U-boat now as I heard wordpassed to the engine for full speed ahead. I instantly grasped thebrazen effrontery of the plucky English skipper--he was going to ramfive hundreds tons of U-boat in the face of her trained gun. I couldscarce repress a cheer. At first the boches didn't seem to grasp hisintention. Evidently they thought they were witnessing an exhibitionof poor seamanship, and they yelled their warnings to the tug to reducespeed and throw the helm hard to port. 

We were within fifty feet of them when they awakened to the intentionalmenace of our maneuver. Their gun crew was off its guard; but theysprang to their piece now and sent a futile shell above our heads. Nobs leaped about and barked furiously. "Let 'em have it!" commandedthe tug-captain, and instantly revolvers and rifles poured bullets uponthe deck of the submersible. Two of the gun-crew went down; the othertrained their piece at the water-line of the oncoming tug. The balanceof those on deck replied to our small-arms fire, directing theirefforts toward the man at our wheel. 

I hastily pushed the girl down the companionway leading to theengine-room, and then I raised my pistol and fired my first shot at aboche. What happened in the next few seconds happened so quickly thatdetails are rather blurred in my memory. I saw the helmsman lungeforward upon the wheel, pulling the helm around so that the tug sheeredoff quickly from her course, and I recall realizing that all ourefforts were to be in vain, because of all the men aboard, Fate haddecreed that this one should fall first to an enemy bullet. I saw thedepleted gun-crew on the submarine fire their piece and I felt theshock of impact and heard the loud explosion as the shell struck andexploded in our bows. 

I saw and realized these things even as I was leaping into thepilot-house and grasping the wheel, standing astride the dead body ofthe helmsman. With all my strength I threw the helm to starboard; butit was too late to effect the purpose of our skipper. The best I didwas to scrape alongside the sub. I heard someone shriek an order intothe engine-room; the boat shuddered and trembled to the suddenreversing of the engines, and our speed quickly lessened. Then I sawwhat that madman of a skipper planned since his first scheme had gonewrong. 

With a loud-yelled command, he leaped to the slippery deck of thesubmersible, and at his heels came his hardy crew. I sprang from thepilot-house and followed, not to be left out in the cold when it cameto strafing the boches. From the engine room companionway came theengineer and stockers, and together we leaped after the balance of thecrew and into the hand-to-hand fight that was covering the wet deckwith red blood. Beside me came Nobs, silent now, and grim. Germanswere emerging from the open hatch to take part in the battle on deck. At first the pistols cracked amidst the cursing of the men and the loudcommands of the commander and his junior; but presently we were tooindiscriminately mixed to make it safe to use our firearms, and thebattle resolved itself into a hand-to-hand struggle for possession ofthe deck. 

The sole aim of each of us was to hurl one of the opposing force intothe sea. I shall never forget the hideous expression upon the face ofthe great Prussian with whom chance confronted me. He lowered his headand rushed at me, bellowing like a bull. With a quick side-step andducking low beneath his outstretched arms, I eluded him; and as heturned to come back at me, I landed a blow upon his chin which sent himspinning toward the edge of the deck. I saw his wild endeavors toregain his equilibrium; I saw him reel drunkenly for an instant uponthe brink of eternity and then, with a loud scream, slip into the sea. At the same instant a pair of giant arms encircled me from behind andlifted me entirely off my feet. Kick and squirm as I would, I couldneither turn toward my antagonist nor free myself from his maniacalgrasp. Relentlessly he was rushing me toward the side of the vesseland death. There was none to stay him, for each of my companions wasmore than occupied by from one to three of the enemy. For an instant Iwas fearful for myself, and then I saw that which filled me with a fargreater terror for another. 

My boche was bearing me toward the side of the submarine against whichthe tug was still pounding. That I should be ground to death betweenthe two was lost upon me as I saw the girl standing alone upon thetug's deck, as I saw the stern high in air and the bow rapidly settlingfor the final dive, as I saw death from which I could not save herclutching at the skirts of the woman I now knew all too well that Iloved. 

I had perhaps the fraction of a second longer to live when I heard anangry growl behind us mingle with a cry of pain and rage from the giantwho carried me. Instantly he went backward to the deck, and as he didso he threw his arms outwards to save himself, freeing me. I fellheavily upon him, but was upon my feet in the instant. As I arose, Icast a single glance at my opponent. Never again would he menace me oranother, for Nob's great jaws had closed upon his throat. Then Isprang toward the edge of the deck closest to the girl upon the sinkingtug. 

"Jump!" I cried. "Jump!" And I held out my arms to her. Instantly asthough with implicit confidence in my ability to save her, she leapedover the side of the tug onto the sloping, slippery side of the U-boat. I reached far over to seize her hand. At the same instant the tugpointed its stern straight toward the sky and plunged out of sight. Myhand missed the girl's by a fraction of an inch, and I saw her slipinto the sea; but scarce had she touched the water when I was in afterher. 

The sinking tug drew us far below the surface; but I had seized her themoment I struck the water, and so we went down together, and togetherwe came up--a few yards from the U-boat. The first thing I heard wasNobs barking furiously; evidently he had missed me and was searching. A single glance at the vessel's deck assured me that the battle wasover and that we had been victorious, for I saw our survivors holding ahandful of the enemy at pistol points while one by one the rest of thecrew was coming out of the craft's interior and lining up on deck withthe other prisoners. 

As I swam toward the submarine with the girl, Nobs' persistent barkingattracted the attention of some of the tug's crew, so that as soon aswe reached the side there were hands to help us aboard. I asked thegirl if she was hurt, but she assured me that she was none the worsefor this second wetting; nor did she seem to suffer any from shock. Iwas to learn for myself that this slender and seemingly delicatecreature possessed the heart and courage of a warrior. 

As we joined our own party, I found the tug's mate checking up oursurvivors. There were ten of us left, not including the girl. Ourbrave skipper was missing, as were eight others. There had beennineteen of us in the attacking party and we had accounted in one wayand another during the battle for sixteen Germans and had taken nineprisoners, including the commander. His lieutenant had been killed. 

"Not a bad day's work, " said Bradley, the mate, when he had completedhis roll. "Only losing the skipper, " he added, "was the worst. He wasa fine man, a fine man. "

Olson--who in spite of his name was Irish, and in spite of his notbeing Scotch had been the tug's engineer--was standing with Bradley andme. "Yis, " he agreed, "it's a day's wor-rk we're after doin', but whatare we goin' to be doin' wid it now we got it?"

"We'll run her into the nearest English port, " said Bradley, "and thenwe'll all go ashore and get our V. C. 's, " he concluded, laughing. 

"How you goin' to run her?" queried Olson. "You can't trust theseDutchmen. "

Bradley scratched his head. "I guess you're right, " he admitted. "AndI don't know the first thing about a sub. "

"I do, " I assured him. "I know more about this particular sub than theofficer who commanded her. "

Both men looked at me in astonishment, and then I had to explain allover again as I had explained to the girl. Bradley and Olson weredelighted. Immediately I was put in command, and the first thing I didwas to go below with Olson and inspect the craft thoroughly for hiddenboches and damaged machinery. There were no Germans below, andeverything was intact and in ship-shape working order. I then orderedall hands below except one man who was to act as lookout. Questioningthe Germans, I found that all except the commander were willing toresume their posts and aid in bringing the vessel into an English port. I believe that they were relieved at the prospect of being detained ata comfortable English prison-camp for the duration of the war after theperils and privations through which they had passed. The officer, however, assured me that he would never be a party to the capture ofhis vessel. 

There was, therefore, nothing to do but put the man in irons. As wewere preparing to put this decision into force, the girl descended fromthe deck. It was the first time that she or the German officer hadseen each other's faces since we had boarded the U-boat. I wasassisting the girl down the ladder and still retained a hold upon herarm--possibly after such support was no longer necessary--when sheturned and looked squarely into the face of the German. Each voiced asudden exclamation of surprise and dismay. 

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

The girl's eyes went wide, and slowly filled with a great horror, asshe shrank back. Then her slender figure stiffened to the erectness ofa soldier, and with chin in air and without a word she turned her backupon the officer. 

"Take him away, " I directed the two men who guarded him, "and put himin irons. "

When he had gone, the girl raised her eyes to mine. "He is the Germanof whom I spoke, " she said. "He is Baron von Schoenvorts. "

I merely inclined my head. She had loved him! I wondered if in herheart of hearts she did not love him yet. Immediately I becameinsanely jealous. I hated Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts with suchutter intensity that the emotion thrilled me with a species ofexaltation. 

But I didn't have much chance to enjoy my hatred then, for almostimmediately the lookout poked his face over the hatchway and bawleddown that there was smoke on the horizon, dead ahead. Immediately Iwent on deck to investigate, and Bradley came with me. 

"If she's friendly, " he said, "we'll speak her. If she's not, we'llsink her--eh, captain?"

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

We hoisted the Union Jack and remained on deck, asking Bradley to gobelow and assign to each member of the crew his duty, placing oneEnglishman with a pistol beside each German. 

"Half speed ahead, " I commanded. 

More rapidly now we closed the distance between ourselves and thestranger, until I could plainly see the red ensign of the Britishmerchant marine. My heart swelled with pride at the thought thatpresently admiring British tars would be congratulating us upon ournotable capture; and just about then the merchant steamer must havesighted us, for she veered suddenly toward the north, and a momentlater dense volumes of smoke issued from her funnels. Then, steering azigzag course, she fled from us as though we had been the bubonicplague. I altered the course of the submarine and set off in chase;but the steamer was faster than we, and soon left us hopelessly astern. 

With a rueful smile, I directed that our original course be resumed, and once again we set off toward merry England. That was three monthsago, and we haven't arrived yet; nor is there any likelihood that weever shall. 

The steamer we had just sighted must have wirelessed a warning, for itwasn't half an hour before we saw more smoke on the horizon, and thistime the vessel flew the white ensign of the Royal Navy and carriedguns. She didn't veer to the north or anywhere else, but bore down onus rapidly. I was just preparing to signal her, when a flame flashedfrom her bows, and an instant later the water in front of us was thrownhigh by the explosion of a shell. 

Bradley had come on deck and was standing beside me. "About one moreof those, and she'll have our range, " he said. "She doesn't seem totake much stock in our Union Jack. "

A second shell passed over us, and then I gave the command to changeour direction, at the same time directing Bradley to go below and givethe order to submerge. I passed Nobs down to him, and following, sawto the closing and fastening of the hatch. 

It seemed to me that the diving-tanks never had filled so slowly. Weheard a loud explosion apparently directly above us; the craft trembledto the shock which threw us all to the deck. I expected momentarily tofeel the deluge of inrushing water, but none came. Instead we continuedto submerge until the manometer registered forty feet and then I knewthat we were safe. Safe! I almost smiled. I had relieved Olson, whohad remained in the tower at my direction, having been a member of oneof the early British submarine crews, and therefore having someknowledge of the business. Bradley was at my side. He looked at mequizzically. 

"What the devil are we to do?" he asked. "The merchantman will fleeus; the war-vessel will destroy us; neither will believe our colors orgive us a chance to explain. We will meet even a worse reception if wego nosing around a British port--mines, nets and all of it. We can'tdo it. "

"Let's try it again when this fellow has lost the scent, " I urged. "There must come a ship that will believe us. "

And try it again we did, only to be almost rammed by a huge freighter. Later we were fired upon by a destroyer, and two merchantmen turned andfled at our approach. For two days we cruised up and down the Channeltrying to tell some one, who would listen, that we were friends; but noone would listen. After our encounter with the first warship I hadgiven instructions that a wireless message be sent out explaining ourpredicament; but to my chagrin I discovered that both sending andreceiving instruments had disappeared. 

"There is only one place you can go, " von Schoenvorts sent word to me, "and that is Kiel. You can't land anywhere else in these waters. Ifyou wish, I will take you there, and I can promise that you will betreated well. "

"There is another place we can go, " I sent back my reply, "and we willbefore we'll go to Germany. That place is hell. "

Chapter 3

Those were anxious days, during which I had but little opportunity toassociate with Lys. I had given her the commander's room, Bradley andI taking that of the deck-officer, while Olson and two of our best menoccupied the room ordinarily allotted to petty officers. I made Nobs'bed down in Lys' room, for I knew she would feel less alone. 

Nothing of much moment occurred for a while after we left Britishwaters behind us. We ran steadily along upon the surface, making goodtime. The first two boats we sighted made off as fast as they couldgo; and the third, a huge freighter, fired on us, forcing us tosubmerge. It was after this that our troubles commenced. One of theDiesel engines broke down in the morning, and while we were working onit, the forward port diving-tank commenced to fill. I was on deck atthe time and noted the gradual list. Guessing at once what washappening, I leaped for the hatch and slamming it closed above my head, dropped to the centrale. By this time the craft was going down by thehead with a most unpleasant list to port, and I didn't wait to transmitorders to some one else but ran as fast as I could for the valve thatlet the sea into the forward port diving-tank. It was wide open. Toclose it and to have the pump started that would empty it were the workof but a minute; but we had had a close call. 

I knew that the valve had never opened itself. Some one had openedit--some one who was willing to die himself if he might at the sametime encompass the death of all of us. 

After that I kept a guard pacing the length of the narrow craft. Weworked upon the engine all that day and night and half the followingday. Most of the time we drifted idly upon the surface, but towardnoon we sighted smoke due west, and having found that only enemiesinhabited the world for us, I ordered that the other engine be startedso that we could move out of the path of the oncoming steamer. Themoment the engine started to turn, however, there was a grinding soundof tortured steel, and when it had been stopped, we found that some onehad placed a cold-chisel in one of the gears. 

It was another two days before we were ready to limp along, halfrepaired. The night before the repairs were completed, the sentry cameto my room and awoke me. He was rather an intelligent fellow of theEnglish middle class, in whom I had much confidence. 

"Well, Wilson, " I asked. "What's the matter now?"

He raised his finger to his lips and came closer to me. "I think I'vefound out who's doin' the mischief, " he whispered, and nodded his headtoward the girl's room. "I seen her sneakin' from the crew's room justnow, " he went on. "She'd been in gassin' wit' the boche commander. Benson seen her in there las' night, too, but he never said nothin'till I goes on watch tonight. Benson's sorter slow in the head, an' henever puts two an' two together till some one else has made four out ofit. "

If the man had come in and struck me suddenly in the face, I could havebeen no more surprised. 

"Say nothing of this to anyone, " I ordered. "Keep your eyes and earsopen and report every suspicious thing you see or hear. "

The man saluted and left me; but for an hour or more I tossed, restless, upon my hard bunk in an agony of jealousy and fear. Finally Ifell into a troubled sleep. It was daylight when I awoke. We weresteaming along slowly upon the surface, my orders having been toproceed at half speed until we could take an observation and determineour position. The sky had been overcast all the previous day and allnight; but as I stepped into the centrale that morning I was delightedto see that the sun was again shining. The spirits of the men seemedimproved; everything seemed propitious. I forgot at once the cruelmisgivings of the past night as I set to work to take my observations. 

What a blow awaited me! The sextant and chronometer had both beenbroken beyond repair, and they had been broken just this very night. They had been broken upon the night that Lys had been seen talking withvon Schoenvorts. I think that it was this last thought which hurt methe worst. I could look the other disaster in the face withequanimity; but the bald fact that Lys might be a traitor appalled me. 

I called Bradley and Olson on deck and told them what had happened, butfor the life of me I couldn't bring myself to repeat what Wilson hadreported to me the previous night. In fact, as I had given the matterthought, it seemed incredible that the girl could have passed throughmy room, in which Bradley and I slept, and then carried on aconversation in the crew's room, in which Von Schoenvorts was kept, without having been seen by more than a single man. 

Bradley shook his head. "I can't make it out, " he said. "One of thoseboches must be pretty clever to come it over us all like this; but theyhaven't harmed us as much as they think; there are still the extrainstruments. "

It was my turn now to shake a doleful head. "There are no extrainstruments, " I told them. "They too have disappeared as did thewireless apparatus. "

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

It was then that one of the men stuck his head up through the hatchwayand seeing me, asked permission to come on deck and get a breath offresh air. I recognized him as Benson, the man who, Wilson had said, reported having seen Lys with von Schoenvorts two nights before. Imotioned him on deck and then called him to one side, asking if he hadseen anything out of the way or unusual during his trick on watch thenight before. The fellow scratched his head a moment and said, "No, "and then as though it was an afterthought, he told me that he had seenthe girl in the crew's room about midnight talking with the Germancommander, but as there hadn't seemed to him to be any harm in that, hehadn't said anything about it. Telling him never to fail to report tome anything in the slightest out of the ordinary routine of the ship, Idismissed him. 

Several of the other men now asked permission to come on deck, and soonall but those actually engaged in some necessary duty were standingaround smoking and talking, all in the best of spirits. I tookadvantage of the absence of the men upon the deck to go below for mybreakfast, which the cook was already preparing upon the electricstove. Lys, followed by Nobs, appeared as I entered the centrale. Shemet me with a pleasant "Good morning!" which I am afraid I replied toin a tone that was rather constrained and surly. 

"Will you breakfast with me?" I suddenly asked the girl, determined tocommence a probe of my own along the lines which duty demanded. 

She nodded a sweet acceptance of my invitation, and together we satdown at the little table of the officers' mess. 

"You slept well last night?" I asked. 

"All night, " she replied. "I am a splendid sleeper. "

Her manner was so straightforward and honest that I could not bringmyself to believe in her duplicity; yet--Thinking to surprise her intoa betrayal of her guilt, I blurted out: "The chronometer and sextantwere both destroyed last night; there is a traitor among us. " But shenever turned a hair by way of evidencing guilty knowledge of thecatastrophe. 

"Who could it have been?" she cried. "The Germans would be crazy to doit, for their lives are as much at stake as ours. "

"Men are often glad to die for an ideal--an ideal of patriotism, perhaps, " I replied; "and a willingness to martyr themselves includes awillingness to sacrifice others, even those who love them. Women aremuch the same, except that they will go even further than mostmen--they will sacrifice everything, even honor, for love. "

I watched her face carefully as I spoke, and I thought that I detecteda very faint flush mounting her cheek. Seeing an opening and anadvantage, I sought to follow it up. 

"Take von Schoenvorts, for instance, " I continued: "he would doubtlessbe glad to die and take us all with him, could he prevent in no otherway the falling of his vessel into enemy hands. He would sacrificeanyone, even you; and if you still love him, you might be his readytool. Do you understand me?"

She looked at me in wide-eyed consternation for a moment, and then shewent very white and rose from her seat. "I do, " she replied, andturning her back upon me, she walked quickly toward her room. Istarted to follow, for even believing what I did, I was sorry that Ihad hurt her. I reached the door to the crew's room just behind herand in time to see von Schoenvorts lean forward and whisper somethingto her as she passed; but she must have guessed that she might bewatched, for she passed on. 

That afternoon it clouded over; the wind mounted to a gale, and the searose until the craft was wallowing and rolling frightfully. Nearlyeveryone aboard was sick; the air became foul and oppressive. Fortwenty-four hours I did not leave my post in the conning tower, as bothOlson and Bradley were sick. Finally I found that I must get a littlerest, and so I looked about for some one to relieve me. Bensonvolunteered. He had not been sick, and assured me that he was a formerR. N. Man and had been detailed for submarine duty for over two years. I was glad that it was he, for I had considerable confidence in hisloyalty, and so it was with a feeling of security that I went below andlay down. 

I slept twelve hours straight, and when I awoke and discovered what Ihad done, I lost no time in getting to the conning tower. There satBenson as wide awake as could be, and the compass showed that we wereheading straight into the west. The storm was still raging; nor did itabate its fury until the fourth day. We were all pretty well done upand looked forward to the time when we could go on deck and fill ourlungs with fresh air. During the whole four days I had not seen thegirl, as she evidently kept closely to her room; and during this timeno untoward incident had occurred aboard the boat--a fact which seemedto strengthen the web of circumstantial evidence about her. 

For six more days after the storm lessened we still had fairly roughweather; nor did the sun once show himself during all that time. Forthe season--it was now the middle of June--the storm was unusual; butbeing from southern California, I was accustomed to unusual weather. In fact, I have discovered that the world over, unusual weatherprevails at all times of the year. 

We kept steadily to our westward course, and as the U-33 was one of thefastest submersibles we had ever turned out, I knew that we must bepretty close to the North American coast. What puzzled me most was thefact that for six days we had not sighted a single ship. It seemedremarkable that we could cross the Atlantic almost to the coast of theAmerican continent without glimpsing smoke or sail, and at last I cameto the conclusion that we were way off our course, but whether to thenorth or to the south of it I could not determine. 

On the seventh day the sea lay comparatively calm at early dawn. Therewas a slight haze upon the ocean which had cut off our view of thestars; but conditions all pointed toward a clear morrow, and I was ondeck anxiously awaiting the rising of the sun. My eyes were glued uponthe impenetrable mist astern, for there in the east I should see thefirst glow of the rising sun that would assure me we were still uponthe right course. Gradually the heavens lightened; but astern I couldsee no intenser glow that would indicate the rising sun behind themist. Bradley was standing at my side. Presently he touched my arm. 

"Look, captain, " he said, and pointed south. 

I looked and gasped, for there directly to port I saw outlined throughthe haze the red top of the rising sun. Hurrying to the tower, Ilooked at the compass. It showed that we were holding steadily uponour westward course. Either the sun was rising in the south, or thecompass had been tampered with. The conclusion was obvious. 

I went back to Bradley and told him what I had discovered. "And, " Iconcluded, "we can't make another five hundred knots without oil; ourprovisions are running low and so is our water. God only knows how farsouth we have run. "

"There is nothing to do, " he replied, "other than to alter our courseonce more toward the west; we must raise land soon or we shall all belost. "

I told him to do so; and then I set to work improvising a crude sextantwith which we finally took our bearings in a rough and mostunsatisfactory manner; for when the work was done, we did not know howfar from the truth the result might be. It showed us to be about 20'north and 30' west--nearly twenty-five hundred miles off our course. In short, if our reading was anywhere near correct, we must have beentraveling due south for six days. Bradley now relieved Benson, for wehad arranged our shifts so that the latter and Olson now divided thenights, while Bradley and I alternated with one another during the days. 

I questioned both Olson and Benson closely in the matter of thecompass; but each stoutly maintained that no one had tampered with itduring his tour of duty. Benson gave me a knowing smile, as much as tosay: "Well, you and I know who did this. " Yet I could not believethat it was the girl. 

We kept to our westerly course for several hours when the lookout's cryannounced a sail. I ordered the U-33's course altered, and we boredown upon the stranger, for I had come to a decision which was theresult of necessity. We could not lie there in the middle of theAtlantic and starve to death if there was any way out of it. Thesailing ship saw us while we were still a long way off, as wasevidenced by her efforts to escape. There was scarcely any wind, however, and her case was hopeless; so when we drew near and signaledher to stop, she came into the wind and lay there with her sailsflapping idly. We moved in quite close to her. She was the Balmen ofHalmstad, Sweden, with a general cargo from Brazil for Spain. 

I explained our circumstances to her skipper and asked for food, waterand oil; but when he found that we were not German, he became veryangry and abusive and started to draw away from us; but I was in nomood for any such business. Turning toward Bradley, who was in theconning-tower, I snapped out: "Gun-service on deck! To the divingstations!" We had no opportunity for drill; but every man had beenposted as to his duties, and the German members of the crew understoodthat it was obedience or death for them, as each was accompanied by aman with a pistol. Most of them, though, were only too glad to obey me. 

Bradley passed the order down into the ship and a moment later thegun-crew clambered up the narrow ladder and at my direction trainedtheir piece upon the slow-moving Swede. "Fire a shot across her bow, "I instructed the gun-captain. 

Accept it from me, it didn't take that Swede long to see the error ofhis way and get the red and white pennant signifying "I understand" tothe masthead. Once again the sails flapped idly, and then I orderedhim to lower a boat and come after me. With Olson and a couple of theEnglishmen I boarded the ship, and from her cargo selected what weneeded--oil, provisions and water. I gave the master of the Balmen areceipt for what we took, together with an affidavit signed by Bradley, Olson, and myself, stating briefly how we had come into possession ofthe U-33 and the urgency of our need for what we took. We addressedboth to any British agent with the request that the owners of theBalmen be reimbursed; but whether or not they were, I do not know. [1]

With water, food, and oil aboard, we felt that we had obtained a newlease of life. Now, too, we knew definitely where we were, and Idetermined to make for Georgetown, British Guiana--but I was destinedto again suffer bitter disappointment. 

Six of us of the loyal crew had come on deck either to serve the gun orboard the Swede during our set-to with her; and now, one by one, wedescended the ladder into the centrale. I was the last to come, andwhen I reached the bottom, I found myself looking into the muzzle of apistol in the hands of Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts--I saw all mymen lined up at one side with the remaining eight Germans standingguard over them. 

I couldn't imagine how it had happened; but it had. Later I learnedthat they had first overpowered Benson, who was asleep in his bunk, andtaken his pistol from him, and then had found it an easy matter todisarm the cook and the remaining two Englishmen below. After that ithad been comparatively simple to stand at the foot of the ladder andarrest each individual as he descended. 

The first thing von Schoenvorts did was to send for me and announcethat as a pirate I was to be shot early the next morning. Then heexplained that the U-33 would cruise in these waters for a time, sinking neutral and enemy shipping indiscriminately, and looking forone of the German raiders that was supposed to be in these parts. 

He didn't shoot me the next morning as he had promised, and it hasnever been clear to me why he postponed the execution of my sentence. Instead he kept me ironed just as he had been; then he kicked Bradleyout of my room and took it all to himself. 

We cruised for a long time, sinking many vessels, all but one bygunfire, but we did not come across a German raider. I was surprisedto note that von Schoenvorts often permitted Benson to take command;but I reconciled this by the fact that Benson appeared to know more ofthe duties of a submarine commander than did any of the Stupid Germans. 

Once or twice Lys passed me; but for the most part she kept to herroom. The first time she hesitated as though she wished to speak tome; but I did not raise my head, and finally she passed on. Then oneday came the word that we were about to round the Horn and that vonSchoenvorts had taken it into his fool head to cruise up along thePacific coast of North America and prey upon all sorts and conditionsof merchantmen. 

"I'll put the fear of God and the Kaiser into them, " he said. 

The very first day we entered the South Pacific we had an adventure. Itturned out to be quite the most exciting adventure I had everencountered. It fell about this way. About eight bells of theforenoon watch I heard a hail from the deck, and presently thefootsteps of the entire ship's company, from the amount of noise Iheard at the ladder. Some one yelled back to those who had not yetreached the level of the deck: "It's the raider, the German raiderGeier!"

I saw that we had reached the end of our rope. Below all wasquiet--not a man remained. A door opened at the end of the narrowhull, and presently Nobs came trotting up to me. He licked my face androlled over on his back, reaching for me with his big, awkward paws. Then other footsteps sounded, approaching me. I knew whose they were, and I looked straight down at the flooring. The girl was coming almostat a run--she was at my side immediately. "Here!" she cried. "Quick!"And she slipped something into my hand. It was a key--the key to myirons. At my side she also laid a pistol, and then she went on intothe centrale. As she passed me, I saw that she carried another pistolfor herself. It did not take me long to liberate myself, and then Iwas at her side. "How can I thank you?" I started; but she shut me upwith a word. 

"Do not thank me, " she said coldly. "I do not care to hear your thanksor any other expression from you. Do not stand there looking at me. Ihave given you a chance to do something--now do it!" The last was aperemptory command that made me jump. 

Glancing up, I saw that the tower was empty, and I lost no time inclambering up, looking about me. About a hundred yards off lay asmall, swift cruiser-raider, and above her floated the Germanman-of-war's flag. A boat had just been lowered, and I could see itmoving toward us filled with officers and men. The cruiser lay deadahead. "My, " I thought, "what a wonderful targ--" I stopped eventhinking, so surprised and shocked was I by the boldness of my imagery. The girl was just below me. I looked down on her wistfully. Could Itrust her? Why had she released me at this moment? I must! I must!There was no other way. I dropped back below. "Ask Olson to step downhere, please, " I requested; "and don't let anyone see you ask him. "

She looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face for the barestfraction of a second, and then she turned and went up the ladder. Amoment later Olson returned, and the girl followed him. "Quick!" Iwhispered to the big Irishman, and made for the bow compartment wherethe torpedo-tubes are built into the boat; here, too, were thetorpedoes. The girl accompanied us, and when she saw the thing I hadin mind, she stepped forward and lent a hand to the swinging of thegreat cylinder of death and destruction into the mouth of its tube. With oil and main strength we shoved the torpedo home and shut thetube; then I ran back to the conning-tower, praying in my heart ofhearts that the U-33 had not swung her bow away from the prey. No, thank God!

Never could aim have been truer. I signaled back to Olson: "Let 'ergo!" The U-33 trembled from stem to stern as the torpedo shot from itstube. I saw the white wake leap from her bow straight toward the enemycruiser. A chorus of hoarse yells arose from the deck of our owncraft: I saw the officers stand suddenly erect in the boat that wasapproaching us, and I heard loud cries and curses from the raider. Then I turned my attention to my own business. Most of the men on thesubmarine's deck were standing in paralyzed fascination, staring at thetorpedo. Bradley happened to be looking toward the conning-tower andsaw me. I sprang on deck and ran toward him. "Quick!" I whispered. "While they are stunned, we must overcome them. "

A German was standing near Bradley--just in front of him. TheEnglishman struck the fellow a frantic blow upon the neck and at thesame time snatched his pistol from its holster. Von Schoenvorts hadrecovered from his first surprise quickly and had turned toward themain hatch to investigate. I covered him with my revolver, and at thesame instant the torpedo struck the raider, the terrific explosiondrowning the German's command to his men. 

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

Olson was below, so that there were only nine of us against eightGermans, for the man Bradley had struck still lay upon the deck. Onlytwo of us were armed; but the heart seemed to have gone out of theboches, and they put up but half-hearted resistance. Von Schoenvortswas the worst--he was fairly frenzied with rage and chagrin, and hecame charging for me like a mad bull, and as he came he discharged hispistol. If he'd stopped long enough to take aim, he might have gottenme; but his pace made him wild, so that not a shot touched me, and thenwe clinched and went to the deck. This left two pistols, which two ofmy own men were quick to appropriate. The Baron was no match for me ina hand-to-hand encounter, and I soon had him pinned to the deck and thelife almost choked out of him. 

A half-hour later things had quieted down, and all was much the same asbefore the prisoners had revolted--only we kept a much closer watch onvon Schoenvorts. The Geier had sunk while we were still battling uponour deck, and afterward we had drawn away toward the north, leaving thesurvivors to the attention of the single boat which had been making itsway toward us when Olson launched the torpedo. I suppose the poordevils never reached land, and if they did, they most probably perishedon that cold and unhospitable shore; but I couldn't permit them aboardthe U-33. We had all the Germans we could take care of. 

That evening the girl asked permission to go on deck. She said thatshe felt the effects of long confinement below, and I readily grantedher request. I could not understand her, and I craved an opportunityto talk with her again in an effort to fathom her and her intentions, and so I made it a point to follow her up the ladder. It was a clear, cold, beautiful night. The sea was calm except for the white water atour bows and the two long radiating swells running far off into thedistance upon either hand astern, forming a great V which ourpropellers filled with choppy waves. Benson was in the tower, we werebound for San Diego and all looked well. 

Lys stood with a heavy blanket wrapped around her slender figure, andas I approached her, she half turned toward me to see who it was. Whenshe recognized me, she immediately turned away. 

"I want to thank you, " I said, "for your bravery and loyalty--you weremagnificent. I am sorry that you had reason before to think that Idoubted you. "

"You did doubt me, " she replied in a level voice. "You practicallyaccused me of aiding Baron von Schoenvorts. I can never forgive you. "

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

"I could not believe it, " I said; "and yet two of my men reportedhaving seen you in conversation with von Schoenvorts late at night upontwo separate occasions--after each of which some great damage was founddone us in the morning. I didn't want to doubt you; but I carried allthe responsibility of the lives of these men, of the safety of theship, of your life and mine. I had to watch you, and I had to put youon your guard against a repetition of your madness. "

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

"Who told you that I spoke with Baron von Schoenvorts at night, or anyother time?" she asked. 

"I cannot tell you, Lys, " I replied, "but it came to me from twodifferent sources. "

"Then two men have lied, " she asserted without heat. "I have notspoken to Baron von Schoenvorts other than in your presence when firstwe came aboard the U-33. And please, when you address me, rememberthat to others than my intimates I am Miss La Rue. "

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

[1] Late in July, 1916, an item in the shipping news mentioned aSwedish sailing vessel, Balmen, Rio de Janeiro to Barcelona, sunk by aGerman raider sometime in June. A single survivor in an open boat waspicked up off the Cape Verde Islands, in a dying condition. He expiredwithout giving any details. 

Chapter 4

For several days things went along in about the same course. I took ourposition every morning with my crude sextant; but the results werealways most unsatisfactory. They always showed a considerable westingwhen I knew that we had been sailing due north. I blamed my crudeinstrument, and kept on. Then one afternoon the girl came to me. 

"Pardon me, " she said, "but were I you, I should watch this manBenson--especially when he is in charge. " I asked her what she meant, thinking I could see the influence of von Schoenvorts raising asuspicion against one of my most trusted men. 

"If you will note the boat's course a half-hour after Benson goes onduty, " she said, "you will know what I mean, and you will understandwhy he prefers a night watch. Possibly, too, you will understand someother things that have taken place aboard. "

Then she went back to her room, thus ending the conversation. I waiteduntil half an hour after Benson had gone on duty, and then I went ondeck, passing through the conning-tower where Benson sat, and lookingat the compass. It showed that our course was north by west--that is, one point west of north, which was, for our assumed position, aboutright. I was greatly relieved to find that nothing was wrong, for thegirl's words had caused me considerable apprehension. I was about toreturn to my room when a thought occurred to me that again caused me tochange my mind--and, incidentally, came near proving my death-warrant. 

When I had left the conning-tower little more than a half-hour since, the sea had been breaking over the port bow, and it seemed to me quiteimprobable that in so short a time an equally heavy sea could bedeluging us from the opposite side of the ship--winds may changequickly, but not a long, heavy sea. There was only one othersolution--since I left the tower, our course had been altered someeight points. Turning quickly, I climbed out upon the conning-tower. A single glance at the heavens confirmed my suspicions; theconstellations which should have been dead ahead were directlystarboard. We were sailing due west. 

Just for an instant longer I stood there to check up my calculations--Iwanted to be quite sure before I accused Benson of perfidy, and aboutthe only thing I came near making quite sure of was death. I cannotsee even now how I escaped it. I was standing on the edge of theconning-tower, when a heavy palm suddenly struck me between theshoulders and hurled me forward into space. The drop to the triangulardeck forward of the conning-tower might easily have broken a leg forme, or I might have slipped off onto the deck and rolled overboard; butfate was upon my side, as I was only slightly bruised. As I came to myfeet, I heard the conning-tower cover slam. There is a ladder whichleads from the deck to the top of the tower. Up this I scrambled, asfast as I could go; but Benson had the cover tight before I reached it. 

I stood there a moment in dumb consternation. What did the fellowintend? What was going on below? If Benson was a traitor, how could Iknow that there were not other traitors among us? I cursed myself formy folly in going out upon the deck, and then this thought suggestedanother--a hideous one: who was it that had really been responsible formy being here?

Thinking to attract attention from inside the craft, I again ran downthe ladder and onto the small deck only to find that the steel coversof the conning-tower windows were shut, and then I leaned with my backagainst the tower and cursed myself for a gullible idiot. 

I glanced at the bow. The sea seemed to be getting heavier, for everywave now washed completely over the lower deck. I watched them for amoment, and then a sudden chill pervaded my entire being. It was notthe chill of wet clothing, or the dashing spray which drenched my face;no, it was the chill of the hand of death upon my heart. In an instantI had turned the last corner of life's highway and was looking GodAlmighty in the face--the U-33 was being slowly submerged!

It would be difficult, even impossible, to set down in writing mysensations at that moment. All I can particularly recall is that Ilaughed, though neither from a spirit of bravado nor from hysteria. And I wanted to smoke. Lord! how I did want to smoke; but that was outof the question. 

I watched the water rise until the little deck I stood on was awash, and then I clambered once more to the top of the conning-tower. Fromthe very slow submergence of the boat I knew that Benson was doing theentire trick alone--that he was merely permitting the diving-tanks tofill and that the diving-rudders were not in use. The throbbing of theengines ceased, and in its stead came the steady vibration of theelectric motors. The water was halfway up the conning-tower! I hadperhaps five minutes longer on the deck. I tried to decide what Ishould do after I was washed away. Should I swim until exhaustionclaimed me, or should I give up and end the agony at the first plunge?

From below came two muffled reports. They sounded not unlike shots. Was Benson meeting with resistance? Personally it could mean little tome, for even though my men might overcome the enemy, none would know ofmy predicament until long after it was too late to succor me. The topof the conning-tower was now awash. I clung to the wireless mast, while the great waves surged sometimes completely over me. 

I knew the end was near and, almost involuntarily, I did that which Ihad not done since childhood--I prayed. After that I felt better. 

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

Instead it receded. Now the top of the conning-tower received only thecrests of the higher waves; now the little triangular deck below becamevisible! What had occurred within? Did Benson believe me alreadygone, and was he emerging because of that belief, or had he and hisforces been vanquished? The suspense was more wearing than that whichI had endured while waiting for dissolution. Presently the main deckcame into view, and then the conning-tower opened behind me, and Iturned to look into the anxious face of Bradley. An expression ofrelief overspread his features. 

"Thank God, man!" was all he said as he reached forth and dragged meinto the tower. I was cold and numb and rather all in. Another fewminutes would have done for me, I am sure, but the warmth of theinterior helped to revive me, aided and abetted by some brandy whichBradley poured down my throat, from which it nearly removed themembrane. That brandy would have revived a corpse. 

When I got down into the centrale, I saw the Germans lined up on oneside with a couple of my men with pistols standing over them. VonSchoenvorts was among them. On the floor lay Benson, moaning, andbeyond him stood the girl, a revolver in one hand. I looked about, bewildered. 

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

Bradley replied. "You see the result, sir, " he said. "It might havebeen a very different result but for Miss La Rue. We were all asleep. Benson had relieved the guard early in the evening; there was no one towatch him--no one but Miss La Rue. She felt the submergence of theboat and came out of her room to investigate. She was just in time tosee Benson at the diving rudders. When he saw her, he raised hispistol and fired point-blank at her, but he missed and she fired--anddidn't miss. The two shots awakened everyone, and as our men werearmed, the result was inevitable as you see it; but it would have beenvery different had it not been for Miss La Rue. It was she who closedthe diving-tank sea-cocks and roused Olson and me, and had the pumpsstarted to empty them. "

And there I had been thinking that through her machinations I had beenlured to the deck and to my death! I could have gone on my knees toher and begged her forgiveness--or at least I could have, had I notbeen Anglo-Saxon. As it was, I could only remove my soggy cap and bowand mumble my appreciation. She made no reply--only turned and walkedvery rapidly toward her room. Could I have heard aright? Was it reallya sob that came floating back to me through the narrow aisle of theU-33?

Benson died that night. He remained defiant almost to the last; butjust before he went out, he motioned to me, and I leaned over to catchthe faintly whispered words. 

"I did it alone, " he said. "I did it because I hate you--I hate allyour kind. I was kicked out of your shipyard at Santa Monica. I waslocked out of California. I am an I. W. W. I became a Germanagent--not because I love them, for I hate them too--but because Iwanted to injure Americans, whom I hated more. I threw the wirelessapparatus overboard. I destroyed the chronometer and the sextant. Idevised a scheme for varying the compass to suit my wishes. I toldWilson that I had seen the girl talking with von Schoenvorts, and Imade the poor egg think he had seen her doing the same thing. I amsorry--sorry that my plans failed. I hate you. "

He didn't die for a half-hour after that; nor did he speakagain--aloud; but just a few seconds before he went to meet his Maker, his lips moved in a faint whisper; and as I leaned closer to catch hiswords, what do you suppose I heard? "Now--I--lay me--down--to--sleep"That was all; Benson was dead. We threw his body overboard. 

The wind of that night brought on some pretty rough weather with a lotof black clouds which persisted for several days. We didn't know whatcourse we had been holding, and there was no way of finding out, as wecould no longer trust the compass, not knowing what Benson had done toit. The long and the short of it was that we cruised about aimlesslyuntil the sun came out again. I'll never forget that day or itssurprises. We reckoned, or rather guessed, that we were somewhere offthe coast of Peru. The wind, which had been blowing fitfully from theeast, suddenly veered around into the south, and presently we felt asudden chill. 

"Peru!" snorted Olson. "When were yez after smellin' iceber-rgs offPeru?"

Icebergs! "Icebergs, nothin'!" exclaimed one of the Englishmen. "Why, man, they don't come north of fourteen here in these waters. "

"Then, " replied Olson, "ye're sout' of fourteen, me b'y. "

We thought he was crazy; but he wasn't, for that afternoon we sighted agreat berg south of us, and we'd been running north, we thought, fordays. I can tell you we were a discouraged lot; but we got a faintthrill of hope early the next morning when the lookout bawled down theopen hatch: "Land! Land northwest by west!"

I think we were all sick for the sight of land. I know that I was; butmy interest was quickly dissipated by the sudden illness of three ofthe Germans. Almost simultaneously they commenced vomiting. Theycouldn't suggest any explanation for it. I asked them what they hadeaten, and found they had eaten nothing other than the food cooked forall of us. "Have you drunk anything?" I asked, for I knew that therewas liquor aboard, and medicines in the same locker. 

"Only water, " moaned one of them. "We all drank water together thismorning. We opened a new tank. Maybe it was the water. "

I started an investigation which revealed a terrifying condition--someone, probably Benson, had poisoned all the running water on the ship. It would have been worse, though, had land not been in sight. Thesight of land filled us with renewed hope. 

Our course had been altered, and we were rapidly approaching whatappeared to be a precipitous headland. Cliffs, seemingly risingperpendicularly out of the sea, faded away into the mist upon eitherhand as we approached. The land before us might have been a continent, so mighty appeared the shoreline; yet we knew that we must be thousandsof miles from the nearest western land-mass--New Zealand or Australia. 

We took our bearings with our crude and inaccurate instruments; wesearched the chart; we cudgeled our brains; and at last it was Bradleywho suggested a solution. He was in the tower and watching thecompass, to which he called my attention. The needle was pointingstraight toward the land. Bradley swung the helm hard to starboard. Icould feel the U-33 respond, and yet the arrow still clung straight andsure toward the distant cliffs. 

"What do you make of it?" I asked him. 

"Did you ever hear of Caproni?" he asked. 

"An early Italian navigator?" I returned. 

"Yes; he followed Cook about 1721. He is scarcely mentioned even bycontemporaneous historians--probably because he got into politicaldifficulties on his return to Italy. It was the fashion to scoff athis claims, but I recall reading one of his works--his only one, Ibelieve--in which he described a new continent in the south seas, acontinent made up of `some strange metal' which attracted the compass;a rockbound, inhospitable coast, without beach or harbor, whichextended for hundreds of miles. He could make no landing; nor in theseveral days he cruised about it did he see sign of life. He called itCaprona and sailed away. I believe, sir, that we are looking upon thecoast of Caprona, uncharted and forgotten for two hundred years. "

"If you are right, it might account for much of the deviation of thecompass during the past two days, " I suggested. "Caprona has beenluring us upon her deadly rocks. Well, we'll accept her challenge. We'll land upon Caprona. Along that long front there must be avulnerable spot. We will find it, Bradley, for we must find it. Wemust find water on Caprona, or we must die. "

And so we approached the coast upon which no living eyes had everrested. Straight from the ocean's depths rose towering cliffs, shotwith brown and blues and greens--withered moss and lichen and theverdigris of copper, and everywhere the rusty ocher of iron pyrites. The cliff-tops, though ragged, were of such uniform height as tosuggest the boundaries of a great plateau, and now and again we caughtglimpses of verdure topping the rocky escarpment, as though bush orjungle-land had pushed outward from a lush vegetation farther inland tosignal to an unseeing world that Caprona lived and joyed in life beyondher austere and repellent coast. 

But metaphor, however poetic, never slaked a dry throat. To enjoyCaprona's romantic suggestions we must have water, and so we came inclose, always sounding, and skirted the shore. As close in as we daredcruise, we found fathomless depths, and always the same undentedcoastline of bald cliffs. As darkness threatened, we drew away and laywell off the coast all night. We had not as yet really commenced tosuffer for lack of water; but I knew that it would not be long beforewe did, and so at the first streak of dawn I moved in again and oncemore took up the hopeless survey of the forbidding coast. 

Toward noon we discovered a beach, the first we had seen. It was anarrow strip of sand at the base of a part of the cliff that seemedlower than any we had before scanned. At its foot, half buried in thesand, lay great boulders, mute evidence that in a bygone age somemighty natural force had crumpled Caprona's barrier at this point. Itwas Bradley who first called our attention to a strange object lyingamong the boulders above the surf. 

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

I looked long and carefully and could have sworn that the thing I sawwas the sprawled figure of a human being. Miss La Rue was on deck withus. I turned and asked her to go below. Without a word she did as Ibade. Then I stripped, and as I did so, Nobs looked questioningly atme. He had been wont at home to enter the surf with me, and evidentlyhe had not forgotten it. 

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

"I'm going to see what that thing is on shore, " I replied. "If it's aman, it may mean that Caprona is inhabited, or it may merely mean thatsome poor devils were shipwrecked here. I ought to be able to tell fromthe clothing which is more near the truth. 

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

"Here you are, sir, " cried one of the men. 

It was a long slim blade he offered--one that I could carry between myteeth--and so I accepted it gladly. 

"Keep close in, " I directed Bradley, and then I dived over the side andstruck out for the narrow beach. There was another splash directlybehind me, and turning my head, I saw faithful old Nobs swimmingvaliantly in my wake. 

The surf was not heavy, and there was no undertow, so we made shoreeasily, effecting an equally easy landing. The beach was composedlargely of small stones worn smooth by the action of water. There waslittle sand, though from the deck of the U-33 the beach had appeared tobe all sand, and I saw no evidences of mollusca or crustacea such asare common to all beaches I have previously seen. I attribute this tothe fact of the smallness of the beach, the enormous depth ofsurrounding water and the great distance at which Caprona lies from hernearest neighbor. 

As Nobs and I approached the recumbent figure farther up the beach, Iwas appraised by my nose that whether or not, the thing had once beenorganic and alive, but that for some time it had been dead. Nobshalted, sniffed and growled. A little later he sat down upon hishaunches, raised his muzzle to the heavens and bayed forth a mostdismal howl. I shied a small stone at him and bade him shut up--hisuncanny noise made me nervous. When I had come quite close to thething, I still could not say whether it had been man or beast. Thecarcass was badly swollen and partly decomposed. There was no sign ofclothing upon or about it. A fine, brownish hair covered the chest andabdomen, and the face, the palms of the hands, the feet, the shouldersand back were practically hairless. The creature must have been aboutthe height of a fair sized man; its features were similar to those of aman; yet had it been a man?

I could not say, for it resembled an ape no more than it did a man. Its large toes protruded laterally as do those of the semiarborealpeoples of Borneo, the Philippines and other remote regions where lowtypes still persist. The countenance might have been that of a crossbetween Pithecanthropus, the Java ape-man, and a daughter of thePiltdown race of prehistoric Sussex. A wooden cudgel lay beside thecorpse. 

Now this fact set me thinking. There was no wood of any description insight. There was nothing about the beach to suggest a wrecked mariner. There was absolutely nothing about the body to suggest that it mightpossibly in life have known a maritime experience. It was the body ofa low type of man or a high type of beast. In neither instance wouldit have been of a seafaring race. Therefore I deduced that it wasnative to Caprona--that it lived inland, and that it had fallen or beenhurled from the cliffs above. Such being the case, Caprona wasinhabitable, if not inhabited, by man; but how to reach the inhabitableinterior! That was the question. A closer view of the cliffs than hadbeen afforded me from the deck of the U-33 only confirmed my convictionthat no mortal man could scale those perpendicular heights; there wasnot a finger-hold, not a toe-hold, upon them. I turned away baffled. 

Nobs and I met with no sharks upon our return journey to the submarine. My report filled everyone with theories and speculations, and withrenewed hope and determination. They all reasoned along the same linesthat I had reasoned--the conclusions were obvious, but not the water. We were now thirstier than ever. 

The balance of that day we spent in continuing a minute and fruitlessexploration of the monotonous coast. There was not another break inthe frowning cliffs--not even another minute patch of pebbly beach. Asthe sun fell, so did our spirits. I had tried to make advances to thegirl again; but she would have none of me, and so I was not onlythirsty but otherwise sad and downhearted. I was glad when the new daybroke the hideous spell of a sleepless night. 

The morning's search brought us no shred of hope. Caprona wasimpregnable--that was the decision of all; yet we kept on. It musthave been about two bells of the afternoon watch that Bradley called myattention to the branch of a tree, with leaves upon it, floating on thesea. "It may have been carried down to the ocean by a river, " hesuggested. 

"Yes, " I replied, "it may have; it may have tumbled or been thrown offthe top of one of these cliffs. "

Bradley's face fell. "I thought of that, too, " he replied, "but Iwanted to believe the other. "

"Right you are!" I cried. "We must believe the other until we prove itfalse. We can't afford to give up heart now, when we need heart most. The branch was carried down by a river, and we are going to find thatriver. " I smote my open palm with a clenched fist, to emphasize adetermination unsupported by hope. "There!" I cried suddenly. "Seethat, Bradley?" And I pointed at a spot closer to shore. "See that, man!" Some flowers and grasses and another leafy branch floated towardus. We both scanned the water and the coastline. Bradley evidentlydiscovered something, or at least thought that he had. He called downfor a bucket and a rope, and when they were passed up to him, helowered the former into the sea and drew it in filled with water. Ofthis he took a taste, and straightening up, looked into my eyes with anexpression of elation--as much as to say "I told you so!"

"This water is warm, " he announced, "and fresh!"

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

"Did you ever taste water from a stagnant pool full of tadpoles?"Bradley asked. 

"That's it, " I exclaimed, "--that's just the taste exactly, though Ihaven't experienced it since boyhood; but how can water from a flowingstream, taste thus, and what the dickens makes it so warm? It must beat least 70 or 80 Fahrenheit, possibly higher. "

"Yes, " agreed Bradley, "I should say higher; but where does it comefrom?"

"That is easily discovered now that we have found it, " I answered. "Itcan't come from the ocean; so it must come from the land. All that wehave to do is follow it, and sooner or later we shall come upon itssource. "

We were already rather close in; but I ordered the U-33's prow turnedinshore and we crept slowly along, constantly dipping up the water andtasting it to assure ourselves that we didn't get outside thefresh-water current. There was a very light off-shore wind andscarcely any breakers, so that the approach to the shore was continuedwithout finding bottom; yet though we were already quite close, we sawno indication of any indention in the coast from which even a tinybrooklet might issue, and certainly no mouth of a large river such asthis must necessarily be to freshen the ocean even two hundred yardsfrom shore. The tide was running out, and this, together with thestrong flow of the freshwater current, would have prevented our goingagainst the cliffs even had we not been under power; as it was we hadto buck the combined forces in order to hold our position at all. Wecame up to within twenty-five feet of the sheer wall, which loomed highabove us. There was no break in its forbidding face. As we watched theface of the waters and searched the cliff's high face, Olson suggestedthat the fresh water might come from a submarine geyser. This, hesaid, would account for its heat; but even as he spoke a bush, coveredthickly with leaves and flowers, bubbled to the surface and floated offastern. 

"Flowering shrubs don't thrive in the subterranean caverns from whichgeysers spring, " suggested Bradley. 

Olson shook his head. "It beats me, " he said. 

"I've got it!" I exclaimed suddenly. "Look there!" And I pointed atthe base of the cliff ahead of us, which the receding tide wasgradually exposing to our view. They all looked, and all saw what Ihad seen--the top of a dark opening in the rock, through which waterwas pouring out into the sea. "It's the subterranean channel of aninland river, " I cried. "It flows through a land covered withvegetation--and therefore a land upon which the sun shines. Nosubterranean caverns produce any order of plant life even remotelyresembling what we have seen disgorged by this river. Beyond thosecliffs lie fertile lands and fresh water--perhaps, game!"

"Yis, sir, " said Olson, "behoind the cliffs! Ye spoke a true word, sir--behoind!"

Bradley laughed--a rather sorry laugh, though. "You might as well callour attention to the fact, sir, " he said, "that science has indicatedthat there is fresh water and vegetation on Mars. "

"Not at all, " I rejoined. "A U-boat isn't constructed to navigatespace, but it is designed to travel below the surface of the water. "

"You'd be after sailin' into that blank pocket?" asked Olson. 

"I would, Olson, " I replied. "We haven't one chance for life in ahundred thousand if we don't find food and water upon Caprona. Thiswater coming out of the cliff is not salt; but neither is it fit todrink, though each of us has drunk. It is fair to assume that inlandthe river is fed by pure streams, that there are fruits and herbs andgame. Shall we lie out here and die of thirst and starvation with aland of plenty possibly only a few hundred yards away? We have themeans for navigating a subterranean river. Are we too cowardly toutilize this means?"

"Be afther goin' to it, " said Olson. 

"I'm willing to see it through, " agreed Bradley. 

"Then under the bottom, wi' the best o' luck an' give 'em hell!" crieda young fellow who had been in the trenches. 

"To the diving-stations!" I commanded, and in less than a minute thedeck was deserted, the conning-tower covers had slammed to and the U-33was submerging--possibly for the last time. I know that I had thisfeeling, and I think that most of the others did. 

As we went down, I sat in the tower with the searchlight projecting itsseemingly feeble rays ahead. We submerged very slowly and withoutheadway more than sufficient to keep her nose in the right direction, and as we went down, I saw outlined ahead of us the black opening inthe great cliff. It was an opening that would have admitted ahalf-dozen U-boats at one and the same time, roughly cylindrical incontour--and dark as the pit of perdition. 

As I gave the command which sent the U-33 slowly ahead, I could not butfeel a certain uncanny presentiment of evil. Where were we going?What lay at the end of this great sewer? Had we bidden farewellforever to the sunlight and life, or were there before us dangers evengreater than those which we now faced? I tried to keep my mind fromvain imagining by calling everything which I observed to the eager earsbelow. I was the eyes of the whole company, and I did my best not tofail them. We had advanced a hundred yards, perhaps, when our firstdanger confronted us. Just ahead was a sharp right-angle turn in thetunnel. I could see the river's flotsam hurtling against the rockywall upon the left as it was driven on by the mighty current, and Ifeared for the safety of the U-33 in making so sharp a turn under suchadverse conditions; but there was nothing for it but to try. I didn'twarn my fellows of the danger--it could have but caused them uselessapprehension, for if we were to be smashed against the rocky wall, nopower on earth could avert the quick end that would come to us. I gavethe command full speed ahead and went charging toward the menace. Iwas forced to approach the dangerous left-hand wall in order to makethe turn, and I depended upon the power of the motors to carry usthrough the surging waters in safety. Well, we made it; but it was anarrow squeak. As we swung around, the full force of the currentcaught us and drove the stern against the rocks; there was a thud whichsent a tremor through the whole craft, and then a moment of nastygrinding as the steel hull scraped the rock wall. I expectedmomentarily the inrush of waters that would seal our doom; butpresently from below came the welcome word that all was well. 

In another fifty yards there was a second turn, this time toward theleft! but it was more of a gentle curve, and we took it withouttrouble. After that it was plain sailing, though as far as I couldknow, there might be most anything ahead of us, and my nerves strainedto the snapping-point every instant. After the second turn the channelran comparatively straight for between one hundred and fifty and twohundred yards. The waters grew suddenly lighter, and my spirits roseaccordingly. I shouted down to those below that I saw daylight ahead, and a great shout of thanksgiving reverberated through the ship. Amoment later we emerged into sunlit water, and immediately I raised theperiscope and looked about me upon the strangest landscape I had everseen. 

We were in the middle of a broad and now sluggish river the banks ofwhich were lined by giant, arboraceous ferns, raising their mightyfronds fifty, one hundred, two hundred feet into the quiet air. Closeby us something rose to the surface of the river and dashed at theperiscope. I had a vision of wide, distended jaws, and then all wasblotted out. A shiver ran down into the tower as the thing closed uponthe periscope. A moment later it was gone, and I could see again. Above the trees there soared into my vision a huge thing on batlikewings--a creature large as a large whale, but fashioned more after theorder of a lizard. Then again something charged the periscope andblotted out the mirror. I will confess that I was almost gasping forbreath as I gave the commands to emerge. Into what sort of strangeland had fate guided us?

The instant the deck was awash, I opened the conning-tower hatch andstepped out. In another minute the deck-hatch lifted, and those whowere not on duty below streamed up the ladder, Olson bringing Nobsunder one arm. For several minutes no one spoke; I think they musteach have been as overcome by awe as was I. All about us was a floraand fauna as strange and wonderful to us as might have been those upona distant planet had we suddenly been miraculously transported throughether to an unknown world. Even the grass upon the nearer bank wasunearthly--lush and high it grew, and each blade bore upon its tip abrilliant flower--violet or yellow or carmine or blue--making asgorgeous a sward as human imagination might conceive. But the life!It teemed. The tall, fernlike trees were alive with monkeys, snakes, and lizards. Huge insects hummed and buzzed hither and thither. Mightyforms could be seen moving upon the ground in the thick forest, whilethe bosom of the river wriggled with living things, and above flappedthe wings of gigantic creatures such as we are taught have been extinctthroughout countless ages. 

"Look!" cried Olson. "Would you look at the giraffe comin' up out o'the bottom of the say?" We looked in the direction he pointed and sawa long, glossy neck surmounted by a small head rising above the surfaceof the river. Presently the back of the creature was exposed, brownand glossy as the water dripped from it. It turned its eyes upon us, opened its lizard-like mouth, emitted a shrill hiss and came for us. The thing must have been sixteen or eighteen feet in length and closelyresembled pictures I had seen of restored plesiosaurs of the lowerJurassic. It charged us as savagely as a mad bull, and one would havethought it intended to destroy and devour the mighty U-boat, as Iverily believe it did intend. 

We were moving slowly up the river as the creature bore down upon uswith distended jaws. The long neck was far outstretched, and the fourflippers with which it swam were working with powerful strokes, carrying it forward at a rapid pace. When it reached the craft's side, the jaws closed upon one of the stanchions of the deck rail and tore itfrom its socket as though it had been a toothpick stuck in putty. Atthis exhibition of titanic strength I think we all simultaneouslystepped backward, and Bradley drew his revolver and fired. The bulletstruck the thing in the neck, just above its body; but instead ofdisabling it, merely increased its rage. Its hissing rose to a shrillscream as it raised half its body out of water onto the sloping sidesof the hull of the U-33 and endeavored to scramble upon the deck todevour us. A dozen shots rang out as we who were armed drew ourpistols and fired at the thing; but though struck several times, itshowed no signs of succumbing and only floundered farther aboard thesubmarine. 

I had noticed that the girl had come on deck and was standing not farbehind me, and when I saw the danger to which we were all exposed, Iturned and forced her toward the hatch. We had not spoken for somedays, and we did not speak now; but she gave me a disdainful look, which was quite as eloquent as words, and broke loose from my grasp. Isaw I could do nothing with her unless I exerted force, and so I turnedwith my back toward her that I might be in a position to shield herfrom the strange reptile should it really succeed in reaching the deck;and as I did so I saw the thing raise one flipper over the rail, dartits head forward and with the quickness of lightning seize upon one ofthe boches. I ran forward, discharging my pistol into the creature'sbody in an effort to force it to relinquish its prey; but I might asprofitably have shot at the sun. 

Shrieking and screaming, the German was dragged from the deck, and themoment the reptile was clear of the boat, it dived beneath the surfaceof the water with its terrified prey. I think we were all more or lessshaken by the frightfulness of the tragedy--until Olson remarked thatthe balance of power now rested where it belonged. Following the deathof Benson we had been nine and nine--nine Germans and nine "Allies, " aswe called ourselves, now there were but eight Germans. We nevercounted the girl on either side, I suppose because she was a girl, though we knew well enough now that she was ours. 

And so Olson's remark helped to clear the atmosphere for the Allies atleast, and then our attention was once more directed toward the river, for around us there had sprung up a perfect bedlam of screams andhisses and a seething caldron of hideous reptiles, devoid of fear andfilled only with hunger and with rage. They clambered, squirmed andwriggled to the deck, forcing us steadily backward, though we emptiedour pistols into them. There were all sorts and conditions of horriblethings--huge, hideous, grotesque, monstrous--a veritable Mesozoicnightmare. I saw that the girl was gotten below as quickly as possible, and she took Nobs with her--poor Nobs had nearly barked his head off;and I think, too, that for the first time since his littlest puppyhoodhe had known fear; nor can I blame him. After the girl I sent Bradleyand most of the Allies and then the Germans who were on deck--vonSchoenvorts being still in irons below. 

The creatures were approaching perilously close before I droppedthrough the hatchway and slammed down the cover. Then I went into thetower and ordered full speed ahead, hoping to distance the fearsomethings; but it was useless. Not only could any of them easilyoutdistance the U-33, but the further upstream we progressed thegreater the number of our besiegers, until fearful of navigating astrange river at high speed, I gave orders to reduce and moved slowlyand majestically through the plunging, hissing mass. I was mighty gladthat our entrance into the interior of Caprona had been inside asubmarine rather than in any other form of vessel. I could readilyunderstand how it might have been that Caprona had been invaded in thepast by venturesome navigators without word of it ever reaching theoutside world, for I can assure you that only by submarine could manpass up that great sluggish river, alive. 

We proceeded up the river for some forty miles before darkness overtookus. I was afraid to submerge and lie on the bottom overnight for fearthat the mud might be deep enough to hold us, and as we could not holdwith the anchor, I ran in close to shore, and in a brief interim ofattack from the reptiles we made fast to a large tree. We also dippedup some of the river water and found it, though quite warm, a littlesweeter than before. We had food enough, and with the water we were allquite refreshed; but we missed fresh meat. It had been weeks, now, since we had tasted it, and the sight of the reptiles gave me anidea--that a steak or two from one of them might not be bad eating. SoI went on deck with a rifle, twenty of which were aboard the U-33. Atsight of me a huge thing charged and climbed to the deck. I retreatedto the top of the conning-tower, and when it had raised its mighty bulkto the level of the little deck on which I stood, I let it have abullet right between the eyes. 

The thing stopped then and looked at me a moment as much as to say:"Why this thing has a stinger! I must be careful. " And then it reachedout its long neck and opened its mighty jaws and grabbed for me; but Iwasn't there. I had tumbled backward into the tower, and I mighty nearkilled myself doing it. When I glanced up, that little head on the endof its long neck was coming straight down on top of me, and once more Itumbled into greater safety, sprawling upon the floor of the centrale. 

Olson was looking up, and seeing what was poking about in the tower, ran for an ax; nor did he hesitate a moment when he returned with one, but sprang up the ladder and commenced chopping away at that hideousface. The thing didn't have sufficient brainpan to entertain more thana single idea at once. Though chopped and hacked, and with a bulletholebetween its eyes, it still persisted madly in its attempt to get insidethe tower and devour Olson, though its body was many times the diameterof the hatch; nor did it cease its efforts until after Olson hadsucceeded in decapitating it. Then the two men went on deck throughthe main hatch, and while one kept watch, the other cut a hind quarteroff Plesiosaurus Olsoni, as Bradley dubbed the thing. Meantime Olsoncut off the long neck, saying that it would make fine soup. By thetime we had cleared away the blood and refuse in the tower, the cookhad juicy steaks and a steaming broth upon the electric stove, and thearoma arising from P. Olsoni filled us an with a hitherto unfeltadmiration for him and all his kind. 

Chapter 5

The steaks we had that night, and they were fine; and the followingmorning we tasted the broth. It seemed odd to be eating a creaturethat should, by all the laws of paleontology, have been extinct forseveral million years. It gave one a feeling of newness that wasalmost embarrassing, although it didn't seem to embarrass ourappetites. Olson ate until I thought he would burst. 

The girl ate with us that night at the little officers' mess just backof the torpedo compartment. The narrow table was unfolded; the fourstools were set out; and for the first time in days we sat down to eat, and for the first time in weeks we had something to eat other than themonotony of the short rations of an impoverished U-boat. Nobs satbetween the girl and me and was fed with morsels of the Plesiosaurussteak, at the risk of forever contaminating his manners. He looked atme sheepishly all the time, for he knew that no well-bred dog shouldeat at table; but the poor fellow was so wasted from improper food thatI couldn't enjoy my own meal had he been denied an immediate share init; and anyway Lys wanted to feed him. So there you are. 

Lys was coldly polite to me and sweetly gracious to Bradley and Olson. She wasn't of the gushing type, I knew; so I didn't expect much fromher and was duly grateful for the few morsels of attention she threwupon the floor to me. We had a pleasant meal, with only oneunfortunate occurrence--when Olson suggested that possibly the creaturewe were eating was the same one that ate the German. It was some timebefore we could persuade the girl to continue her meal, but at lastBradley prevailed upon her, pointing out that we had come upstreamnearly forty miles since the boche had been seized, and that duringthat time we had seen literally thousands of these denizens of theriver, indicating that the chances were very remote that this was thesame Plesiosaur. "And anyway, " he concluded, "it was only a scheme ofMr. Olson's to get all the steaks for himself. "

We discussed the future and ventured opinions as to what lay before us;but we could only theorize at best, for none of us knew. If the wholeland was infested by these and similar horrid monsters, life would beimpossible upon it, and we decided that we would only search longenough to find and take aboard fresh water and such meat and fruits asmight be safely procurable and then retrace our way beneath the cliffsto the open sea. 

And so at last we turned into our narrow bunks, hopeful, happy and atpeace with ourselves, our lives and our God, to awaken the followingmorning refreshed and still optimistic. We had an easy time gettingaway--as we learned later, because the saurians do not commence to feeduntil late in the morning. From noon to midnight their curve ofactivity is at its height, while from dawn to about nine o'clock it islowest. As a matter of fact, we didn't see one of them all the time wewere getting under way, though I had the cannon raised to the deck andmanned against an assault. I hoped, but I was none too sure, thatshells might discourage them. The trees were full of monkeys of allsizes and shades, and once we thought we saw a manlike creaturewatching us from the depth of the forest. 

Shortly after we resumed our course upstream, we saw the mouth ofanother and smaller river emptying into the main channel from thesouth--that is, upon our right; and almost immediately after we cameupon a large island five or six miles in length; and at fifty milesthere was a still larger river than the last coming in from thenorthwest, the course of the main stream having now changed tonortheast by southwest. The water was quite free from reptiles, andthe vegetation upon the banks of the river had altered to more open andparklike forest, with eucalyptus and acacia mingled with a scatteringof tree ferns, as though two distinct periods of geologic time hadoverlapped and merged. The grass, too, was less flowering, though therewere still gorgeous patches mottling the greensward; and lastly, thefauna was less multitudinous. 

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

The water of the inland sea was very warm, almost hot, and theatmosphere was hot and heavy above it. It seemed strange that beyondthe buttressed walls of Caprona icebergs floated and the south wind wasbiting, for only a gentle breeze moved across the face of these livingwaters, and that was damp and warm. Gradually, we commenced to divestourselves of our clothing, retaining only sufficient for modesty; butthe sun was not hot. It was more the heat of a steam-room than of anoven. 

We coasted up the shore of the lake in a north-westerly direction, sounding all the time. We found the lake deep and the bottom rocky andsteeply shelving toward the center, and once when I moved straight outfrom shore to take other soundings we could find no bottom whatsoever. In open spaces along the shore we caught occasional glimpses of thedistant cliffs, and here they appeared only a trifle less precipitousthan those which bound Caprona on the seaward side. My theory is thatin a far distant era Caprona was a mighty mountain--perhaps the world'smightiest volcanic action blew off the entire crest, blew thousands offeet of the mountain upward and outward and onto the surroundingcontinent, leaving a great crater; and then, possibly, the continentsank as ancient continents have been known to do, leaving only thesummit of Caprona above the sea. The encircling walls, the centrallake, the hot springs which feed the lake, all point to a conclusion, and the fauna and the flora bear indisputable evidence that Caprona wasonce part of some great land-mass. 

As we cruised up along the coast, the landscape continued a more orless open forest, with here and there a small plain where we sawanimals grazing. With my glass I could make out a species of large reddeer, some antelope and what appeared to be a species of horse; andonce I saw the shaggy form of what might have been a monstrous bison. Here was game a plenty! There seemed little danger of starving uponCaprona. The game, however, seemed wary; for the instant the animalsdiscovered us, they threw up their heads and tails and went cavortingoff, those farther inland following the example of the others until allwere lost in the mazes of the distant forest. Only the great, shaggyox stood his ground. With lowered head he watched us until we hadpassed, and then continued feeding. 

About twenty miles up the coast from the mouth of the river weencountered low cliffs of sandstone, broken and tortured evidence ofthe great upheaval which had torn Caprona asunder in the past, intermingling upon a common level the rock formations of widelyseparated eras, fusing some and leaving others untouched. 

We ran along beside them for a matter of ten miles, arriving off abroad cleft which led into what appeared to be another lake. As we werein search of pure water, we did not wish to overlook any portion of thecoast, and so after sounding and finding that we had ample depth, I ranthe U-33 between head-lands into as pretty a landlocked harbor assailormen could care to see, with good water right up to within a fewyards of the shore. As we cruised slowly along, two of the bochesagain saw what they believed to be a man, or manlike creature, watchingus from a fringe of trees a hundred yards inland, and shortly after wediscovered the mouth of a small stream emptying into the bay: It wasthe first stream we had found since leaving the river, and I at oncemade preparations to test its water. To land, it would be necessary torun the U-33 close in to the shore, at least as close as we could, foreven these waters were infested, though, not so thickly, by savagereptiles. I ordered sufficient water let into the diving-tanks tolower us about a foot, and then I ran the bow slowly toward the shore, confident that should we run aground, we still had sufficient liftingforce to free us when the water should be pumped out of the tanks; butthe bow nosed its way gently into the reeds and touched the shore withthe keel still clear. 

My men were all armed now with both rifles and pistols, each havingplenty of ammunition. I ordered one of the Germans ashore with a line, and sent two of my own men to guard him, for from what little we hadseen of Caprona, or Caspak as we learned later to call the interior, werealized that any instant some new and terrible danger might confrontus. The line was made fast to a small tree, and at the same time I hadthe stern anchor dropped. 

As soon as the boche and his guard were aboard again, I called allhands on deck, including von Schoenvorts, and there I explained to themthat the time had come for us to enter into some sort of an agreementamong ourselves that would relieve us of the annoyance andembarrassment of being divided into two antagonistic parts--prisonersand captors. I told them that it was obvious our very existencedepended upon our unity of action, that we were to all intent andpurpose entering a new world as far from the seat and causes of our ownworld-war as if millions of miles of space and eons of time separatedus from our past lives and habitations. 

"There is no reason why we should carry our racial and politicalhatreds into Caprona, " I insisted. "The Germans among us might killall the English, or the English might kill the last German, withoutaffecting in the slightest degree either the outcome of even thesmallest skirmish upon the western front or the opinion of a singleindividual in any belligerent or neutral country. I therefore put theissue squarely to you all; shall we bury our animosities and worktogether with and for one another while we remain upon Caprona, or mustwe continue thus divided and but half armed, possibly until death hasclaimed the last of us? And let me tell you, if you have not alreadyrealized it, the chances are a thousand to one that not one of us everwill see the outside world again. We are safe now in the matter offood and water; we could provision the U-33 for a long cruise; but weare practically out of fuel, and without fuel we cannot hope to reachthe ocean, as only a submarine can pass through the barrier cliffs. What is your answer?" I turned toward von Schoenvorts. 

He eyed me in that disagreeable way of his and demanded to know, incase they accepted my suggestion, what their status would be in eventof our finding a way to escape with the U-33. I replied that I feltthat if we had all worked loyally together we should leave Caprona upona common footing, and to that end I suggested that should the remotepossibility of our escape in the submarine develop into reality, weshould then immediately make for the nearest neutral port and giveourselves into the hands of the authorities, when we should allprobably be interned for the duration of the war. To my surprise heagreed that this was fair and told me that they would accept myconditions and that I could depend upon their loyalty to the commoncause. 

I thanked him and then addressed each one of his men individually, andeach gave me his word that he would abide by all that I had outlined. It was further understood that we were to act as a militaryorganization under military rules and discipline--I as commander, withBradley as my first lieutenant and Olson as my second, in command ofthe Englishmen; while von Schoenvorts was to act as an additionalsecond lieutenant and have charge of his own men. The four of us wereto constitute a military court under which men might be tried andsentenced to punishment for infraction of military rules anddiscipline, even to the passing of the death-sentence. 

I then had arms and ammunition issued to the Germans, and leavingBradley and five men to guard the U-33, the balance of us went ashore. The first thing we did was to taste the water of the littlestream--which, to our delight, we found sweet, pure and cold. Thisstream was entirely free from dangerous reptiles, because, as I laterdiscovered, they became immediately dormant when subjected to a muchlower temperature than 70 degrees Fahrenheit. They dislike cold waterand keep as far away from it as possible. There were countlessbrook-trout here, and deep holes that invited us to bathe, and alongthe bank of the stream were trees bearing a close resemblance to ashand beech and oak, their characteristics evidently induced by the lowertemperature of the air above the cold water and by the fact that theirroots were watered by the water from the stream rather than from thewarm springs which we afterward found in such abundance elsewhere. 

Our first concern was to fill the water tanks of the U-33 with freshwater, and that having been accomplished, we set out to hunt for gameand explore inland for a short distance. Olson, von Schoenvorts, twoEnglishmen and two Germans accompanied me, leaving ten to guard theship and the girl. I had intended leaving Nobs behind, but he got awayand joined me and was so happy over it that I hadn't the heart to sendhim back. We followed the stream upward through a beautiful countryfor about five miles, and then came upon its source in a littleboulder-strewn clearing. From among the rocks bubbled fully twentyice-cold springs. North of the clearing rose sandstone cliffs to aheight of some fifty to seventy-five feet, with tall trees growing attheir base and almost concealing them from our view. To the west thecountry was flat and sparsely wooded, and here it was that we saw ourfirst game--a large red deer. It was grazing away from us and had notseen us when one of my men called my attention to it. Motioning forsilence and having the rest of the party lie down, I crept toward thequarry, accompanied only by Whitely. We got within a hundred yards ofthe deer when he suddenly raised his antlered head and pricked up hisgreat ears. We both fired at once and had the satisfaction of seeingthe buck drop; then we ran forward to finish him with our knives. Thedeer lay in a small open space close to a clump of acacias, and we hadadvanced to within several yards of our kill when we both haltedsuddenly and simultaneously. Whitely looked at me, and I looked atWhitely, and then we both looked back in the direction of the deer. 

"Blime!" he said. "Wot is hit, sir?"

"It looks to me, Whitely, like an error, " I said; "some assistant godwho had been creating elephants must have been temporarily transferredto the lizard-department. "

"Hi wouldn't s'y that, sir, " said Whitely; "it sounds blasphemous. "

"It is more blasphemous than that thing which is swiping our meat, " Ireplied, for whatever the thing was, it had leaped upon our deer andwas devouring it in great mouthfuls which it swallowed withoutmastication. The creature appeared to be a great lizard at least tenfeet high, with a huge, powerful tail as long as its torso, mighty hindlegs and short forelegs. When it had advanced from the wood, it hoppedmuch after the fashion of a kangaroo, using its hind feet and tail topropel it, and when it stood erect, it sat upon its tail. Its head waslong and thick, with a blunt muzzle, and the opening of the jaws ranback to a point behind the eyes, and the jaws were armed with longsharp teeth. The scaly body was covered with black and yellow spotsabout a foot in diameter and irregular in contour. These spots wereoutlined in red with edgings about an inch wide. The underside of thechest, body and tail were a greenish white. 

"Wot s'y we pot the bloomin' bird, sir?" suggested Whitely. 

I told him to wait until I gave the word; then we would firesimultaneously, he at the heart and I at the spine. 

"Hat the 'eart, sir--yes, sir, " he replied, and raised his piece to hisshoulder. 

Our shots rang out together. The thing raised its head and lookedabout until its eyes rested upon us; then it gave vent to a mostappalling hiss that rose to the crescendo of a terrific shriek and camefor us. 

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

We were about a quarter of a mile from the rest of our party, and infull sight of them as they lay in the tall grass watching us. That theysaw all that had happened was evidenced by the fact that they now roseand ran toward us, and at their head leaped Nobs. The creature in ourrear was gaining on us rapidly when Nobs flew past me like a meteor andrushed straight for the frightful reptile. I tried to recall him, buthe would pay no attention to me, and as I couldn't see him sacrificed, I, too, stopped and faced the monster. The creature appeared to be moreimpressed with Nobs than by us and our firearms, for it stopped as theAiredale dashed at it growling, and struck at him viciously with itspowerful jaws. 

Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking beastand dodged his opponent's thrust with ease. Then he raced to the rearof the tremendous thing and seized it by the tail. There Nobs made theerror of his life. Within that mottled organ were the muscles of aTitan, the force of a dozen mighty catapults, and the owner of the tailwas fully aware of the possibilities which it contained. With a singleflip of the tip it sent poor Nobs sailing through the air a hundredfeet above the ground, straight back into the clump of acacias fromwhich the beast had leaped upon our kill--and then the grotesque thingsank lifeless to the ground. 

Olson and von Schoenvorts came up a minute later with their men; thenwe all cautiously approached the still form upon the ground. Thecreature was quite dead, and an examination resulted in disclosing thefact that Whitely's bullet had pierced its heart, and mine had severedthe spinal cord. 

"But why didn't it die instantly?" I exclaimed. 

"Because, " said von Schoenvorts in his disagreeable way, "the beast isso large, and its nervous organization of so low a caliber, that ittook all this time for the intelligence of death to reach and beimpressed upon the minute brain. The thing was dead when your bulletsstruck it; but it did not know it for several seconds--possibly aminute. If I am not mistaken, it is an Allosaurus of the UpperJurassic, remains of which have been found in Central Wyoming, in thesuburbs of New York. "

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

I had been calling Nobs in the meantime and was about to set out insearch of him, fearing, to tell the truth, to do so lest I find himmangled and dead among the trees of the acacia grove, when he suddenlyemerged from among the boles, his ears flattened, his tail between hislegs and his body screwed into a suppliant S. He was unharmed exceptfor minor bruises; but he was the most chastened dog I have ever seen. 

We gathered up what was left of the red deer after skinning andcleaning it, and set out upon our return journey toward the U-boat. Onthe way Olson, von Schoenvorts and I discussed the needs of ourimmediate future, and we were unanimous in placing foremost thenecessity of a permanent camp on shore. The interior of a U-boat isabout as impossible and uncomfortable an abiding-place as one can wellimagine, and in this warm climate, and in warm water, it was almostunendurable. So we decided to construct a palisaded camp. 

Chapter 6

As we strolled slowly back toward the boat, planning and discussingthis, we were suddenly startled by a loud and unmistakable detonation. 

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

"What can be after signifyin'?" queried Olson. 

"They are in trouble, " I answered for all, "and it's up to us to getback to them. Drop that carcass, " I directed the men carrying themeat, "and follow me!" I set off at a rapid run in the direction ofthe harbor. 

We ran for the better part of a mile without hearing anything more fromthe direction of the harbor, and then I reduced the speed to a walk, for the exercise was telling on us who had been cooped up for so longin the confined interior of the U-33. Puffing and panting, we ploddedon until within about a mile of the harbor we came upon a sight thatbrought us all up standing. We had been passing through a littleheavier timber than was usual to this part of the country, when wesuddenly emerged into an open space in the center of which was such aband as might have caused the most courageous to pause. It consistedof upward of five hundred individuals representing several speciesclosely allied to man. There were anthropoid apes and gorillas--theseI had no difficulty in recognizing; but there were other forms which Ihad never before seen, and I was hard put to it to say whether theywere ape or man. Some of them resembled the corpse we had found uponthe narrow beach against Caprona's sea-wall, while others were of astill lower type, more nearly resembling the apes, and yet others wereuncannily manlike, standing there erect, being less hairy andpossessing better shaped heads. 

There was one among the lot, evidently the leader of them, who bore aclose resemblance to the so-called Neanderthal man of LaChapelle-aux-Saints. There was the same short, stocky trunk upon whichrested an enormous head habitually bent forward into the same curvatureas the back, the arms shorter than the legs, and the lower legconsiderably shorter than that of modern man, the knees bent forwardand never straightened. This creature and one or two others whoappeared to be of a lower order than he, yet higher than that of theapes, carried heavy clubs; the others were armed only with giantmuscles and fighting fangs--nature's weapons. All were males, and allwere entirely naked; nor was there upon even the highest among them asign of ornamentation. 

At sight of us they turned with bared fangs and low growls to confrontus. I did not wish to fire among them unless it became absolutelynecessary, and so I started to lead my party around them; but theinstant that the Neanderthal man guessed my intention, he evidentlyattributed it to cowardice upon our part, and with a wild cry he leapedtoward us, waving his cudgel above his head. The others followed him, and in a minute we should have been overwhelmed. I gave the order tofire, and at the first volley six of them went down, including theNeanderthal man. The others hesitated a moment and then broke for thetrees, some running nimbly among the branches, while others lostthemselves to us between the boles. Both von Schoenvorts and I noticedthat at least two of the higher, manlike types took to the trees quiteas nimbly as the apes, while others that more nearly approached man incarriage and appearance sought safety upon the ground with the gorillas. 

An examination disclosed that five of our erstwhile opponents were deadand the sixth, the Neanderthal man, was but slightly wounded, a bullethaving glanced from his thick skull, stunning him. We decided to takehim with us to camp, and by means of belts we managed to secure hishands behind his back and place a leash around his neck before heregained consciousness. We then retraced our steps for our meat beingconvinced by our own experience that those aboard the U-33 had beenable to frighten off this party with a single shell--but when we cameto where we had left the deer it had disappeared. 

On the return journey Whitely and I preceded the rest of the party byabout a hundred yards in the hope of getting another shot at somethingedible, for we were all greatly disgusted and disappointed by the lossof our venison. Whitely and I advanced very cautiously, and not havingthe whole party with us, we fared better than on the journey out, bagging two large antelope not a half-mile from the harbor; so with ourgame and our prisoner we made a cheerful return to the boat, where wefound that all were safe. On the shore a little north of where we laythere were the corpses of twenty of the wild creatures who had attackedBradley and his party in our absence, and the rest of whom we had metand scattered a few minutes later. 

We felt that we had taught these wild ape-men a lesson and that becauseof it we would be safer in the future--at least safer from them; but wedecided not to abate our carefulness one whit; feeling that this newworld was filled with terrors still unknown to us; nor were we wrong. 

The following morning we commenced work upon our camp, Bradley, Olson, von Schoenvorts, Miss La Rue, and I having sat up half the nightdiscussing the matter and drawing plans. We set the men at workfelling trees, selecting for the purpose jarrah, a hard, weather-resisting timber which grew in profusion near by. Half the menlabored while the other half stood guard, alternating each hour with anhour off at noon. Olson directed this work. Bradley, von Schoenvortsand I, with Miss La Rue's help, staked out the various buildings andthe outer wall. When the day was done, we had quite an array of logsnicely notched and ready for our building operations on the morrow, andwe were all tired, for after the buildings had been staked out we allfell in and helped with the logging--all but von Schoenvorts. He, being a Prussian and a gentleman, couldn't stoop to such menial laborin the presence of his men, and I didn't see fit to ask it of him, asthe work was purely voluntary upon our part. He spent the afternoonshaping a swagger-stick from the branch of jarrah and talking with MissLa Rue, who had sufficiently unbent toward him to notice his existence. 

We saw nothing of the wild men of the previous day, and only once werewe menaced by any of the strange denizens of Caprona, when somefrightful nightmare of the sky swooped down upon us, only to be drivenoff by a fusillade of bullets. The thing appeared to be some varietyof pterodactyl, and what with its enormous size and ferocious aspectwas most awe-inspiring. There was another incident, too, which to meat least was far more unpleasant than the sudden onslaught of theprehistoric reptile. Two of the men, both Germans, were stripping afelled tree of its branches. Von Schoenvorts had completed hisswagger-stick, and he and I were passing close to where the two worked. 

One of them threw to his rear a small branch that he had just choppedoff, and as misfortune would have it, it struck von Schoenvorts acrossthe face. It couldn't have hurt him, for it didn't leave a mark; buthe flew into a terrific rage, shouting: "Attention!" in a loud voice. The sailor immediately straightened up, faced his officer, clicked hisheels together and saluted. "Pig!" roared the Baron, and struck thefellow across the face, breaking his nose. I grabbed von Schoenvorts'arm and jerked him away before he could strike again, if such had beenhis intention, and then he raised his little stick to strike me; butbefore it descended the muzzle of my pistol was against his belly andhe must have seen in my eyes that nothing would suit me better than anexcuse to pull the trigger. Like all his kind and all other bullies, von Schoenvorts was a coward at heart, and so he dropped his hand tohis side and started to turn away; but I pulled him back, and therebefore his men I told him that such a thing must never againoccur--that no man was to be struck or otherwise punished other than indue process of the laws that we had made and the court that we hadestablished. All the time the sailor stood rigidly at attention, norcould I tell from his expression whether he most resented the blow hisofficer had struck him or my interference in the gospel of theKaiser-breed. Nor did he move until I said to him: "Plesser, you mayreturn to your quarters and dress your wound. " Then he saluted andmarched stiffly off toward the U-33. 

Just before dusk we moved out into the bay a hundred yards from shoreand dropped anchor, for I felt that we should be safer there thanelsewhere. I also detailed men to stand watch during the night andappointed Olson officer of the watch for the entire night, telling himto bring his blankets on deck and get what rest he could. At dinner wetasted our first roast Caprona antelope, and we had a mess of greensthat the cook had found growing along the stream. All during the mealvon Schoenvorts was silent and surly. 

After dinner we all went on deck and watched the unfamiliar scenes of aCapronian night--that is, all but von Schoenvorts. There was less tosee than to hear. From the great inland lake behind us came thehissing and the screaming of countless saurians. Above us we heard theflap of giant wings, while from the shore rose the multitudinous voicesof a tropical jungle--of a warm, damp atmosphere such as must haveenveloped the entire earth during the Palezoic and Mesozoic eras. Buthere were intermingled the voices of later eras--the scream of thepanther, the roar of the lion, the baying of wolves and a thunderousgrowling which we could attribute to nothing earthly but which one daywe were to connect with the most fearsome of ancient creatures. 

One by one the others went to their rooms, until the girl and I wereleft alone together, for I had permitted the watch to go below for afew minutes, knowing that I would be on deck. Miss La Rue was veryquiet, though she replied graciously enough to whatever I had to saythat required reply. I asked her if she did not feel well. 

"Yes, " she said, "but I am depressed by the awfulness of it all. I feelof so little consequence--so small and helpless in the face of allthese myriad manifestations of life stripped to the bone of itssavagery and brutality. I realize as never before how cheap andvalueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. Youare a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be lesspowerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crossesyour path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anythingbut yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradleto the grave. Yes, that is our trouble--we take ourselves tooseriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that. " She paused andlaughed. 

"You have evolved a beautiful philosophy, " I said. "It fills such alonging in the human breast. It is full, it is satisfying, it isennobling. What wonderous strides toward perfection the human racemight have made if the first man had evolved it and it had persisteduntil now as the creed of humanity. "

"I don't like irony, " she said; "it indicates a small soul. "

"What other sort of soul, then, would you expect from `a comic littlefigure hopping from the cradle to the grave'?" I inquired. "And whatdifference does it make, anyway, what you like and what you don't like?You are here for but an instant, and you mustn't take yourself tooseriously. "

She looked up at me with a smile. "I imagine that I am frightened andblue, " she said, "and I know that I am very, very homesick and lonely. "There was almost a sob in her voice as she concluded. It was the firsttime that she had spoken thus to me. Involuntarily, I laid my handupon hers where it rested on the rail. 

"I know how difficult your position is, " I said; "but don't feel thatyou are alone. There is--is one here who--who would do anything in theworld for you, " I ended lamely. She did not withdraw her hand, and shelooked up into my face with tears on her cheeks and I read in her eyesthe thanks her lips could not voice. Then she looked away across theweird moonlit landscape and sighed. Evidently her new-found philosophyhad tumbled about her ears, for she was seemingly taking herselfseriously. I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her how I lovedher, and had taken her hand from the rail and started to draw hertoward me when Olson came blundering up on deck with his bedding. 

The following morning we started building operations in earnest, andthings progressed finely. The Neanderthal man was something of a care, for we had to keep him in irons all the time, and he was mighty savagewhen approached; but after a time he became more docile, and then wetried to discover if he had a language. Lys spent a great deal of timetalking to him and trying to draw him out; but for a long while she wasunsuccessful. It took us three weeks to build all the houses, which weconstructed close by a cold spring some two miles from the harbor. 

We changed our plans a trifle when it came to building the palisade, for we found a rotted cliff near by where we could get all the flatbuilding-stone we needed, and so we constructed a stone wall entirelyaround the buildings. It was in the form of a square, with bastionsand towers at each corner which would permit an enfilading fire alongany side of the fort, and was about one hundred and thirty-five feetsquare on the outside, with walls three feet thick at the bottom andabout a foot and a half wide at the top, and fifteen feet high. Ittook a long time to build that wall, and we all turned in and helpedexcept von Schoenvorts, who, by the way, had not spoken to me except inthe line of official business since our encounter--a condition of armedneutrality which suited me to a T. We have just finished it, the lasttouches being put on today. I quit about a week ago and commencedworking on this chronicle for our strange adventures, which willaccount for any minor errors in chronology which may have crept in;there was so much material that I may have made some mistakes, but Ithink they are but minor and few. 

I see in reading over the last few pages that I neglected to state thatLys finally discovered that the Neanderthal man possessed a language. She had learned to speak it, and so have I, to some extent. It washe--his name he says is Am, or Ahm--who told us that this country iscalled Caspak. When we asked him how far it extended, he waved botharms about his head in an all-including gesture which took in, apparently, the entire universe. He is more tractable now, and we aregoing to release him, for he has assured us that he will not permit hisfellows to harm us. He calls us Galus and says that in a short time hewill be a Galu. It is not quite clear to us what he means. He saysthat there are many Galus north of us, and that as soon as he becomesone he will go and live with them. 

Ahm went out to hunt with us yesterday and was much impressed by theease with which our rifles brought down antelopes and deer. We havebeen living upon the fat of the land, Ahm, having shown us the ediblefruits, tubers and herbs, and twice a week we go out after fresh meat. A certain proportion of this we dry and store away, for we do not knowwhat may come. Our drying process is really smoking. We have alsodried a large quantity of two varieties of cereal which grow wild a fewmiles south of us. One of these is a giant Indian maize--a loftyperennial often fifty and sixty feet in height, with ears the size offa man's body and kernels as large as your fist. We have had toconstruct a second store house for the great quantity of this that wehave gathered. 

September 3, 1916: Three months ago today the torpedo from the U-33started me from the peaceful deck of the American liner upon thestrange voyage which has ended here in Caspak. We have settled down toan acceptance of our fate, for all are convinced that none of us willever see the outer world again. Ahm's repeated assertions that thereare human beings like ourselves in Caspak have roused the men to a keendesire for exploration. I sent out one party last week under Bradley. Ahm, who is now free to go and come as he wishes, accompanied them. They marched about twenty-five miles due west, encountering manyterrible beasts and reptiles and not a few manlike creatures whom Ahmsent away. Here is Bradley's report of the expedition:

Marched fifteen miles the first day, camping on the bank of a largestream which runs southward. Game was plentiful and we saw severalvarieties which we had not before encountered in Caspak. Just beforemaking camp we were charged by an enormous woolly rhinoceros, whichPlesser dropped with a perfect shot. We had rhinoceros-steaks forsupper. Ahm called the thing "Atis. " It was almost a continuousbattle from the time we left the fort until we arrived at camp. Themind of man can scarce conceive the plethora of carnivorous life inthis lost world; and their prey, of course, is even more abundant. 

The second day we marched about ten miles to the foot of the cliffs. Passed through dense forests close to the base of the cliffs. Sawmanlike creatures and a low order of ape in one band, and some of themen swore that there was a white man among them. They were inclined toattack us at first; but a volley from our rifles caused them to changetheir minds. We scaled the cliffs as far as we could; but near the topthey are absolutely perpendicular without any sufficient cleft orprotuberance to give hand or foot-hold. All were disappointed, for wehungered for a view of the ocean and the outside world. We even had ahope that we might see and attract the attention of a passing ship. Ourexploration has determined one thing which will probably be of littlevalue to us and never heard of beyond Caprona's walls--this crater wasonce entirely filled with water. Indisputable evidence of this is onthe face of the cliffs. 

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

I had to smile as I read Bradley's report. In those four days he haddoubtless passed through more adventures than an African big-gamehunter experiences in a lifetime, and yet he covered it all in a fewlines. Yes, we are becoming accustomed to adventure. Not a day passesthat one or more of us does not face death at least once. Ahm taughtus a few things that have proved profitable and saved us muchammunition, which it is useless to expend except for food or in thelast recourse of self-preservation. Now when we are attacked by largeflying reptiles we run beneath spreading trees; when land carnivorathreaten us, we climb into trees, and we have learned not to fire atany of the dinosaurs unless we can keep out of their reach for at leasttwo minutes after hitting them in the brain or spine, or five minutesafter puncturing their hearts--it takes them so long to die. To hitthem elsewhere is worse than useless, for they do not seem to noticeit, and we had discovered that such shots do not kill or even disablethem. 

September 7, 1916: Much has happened since I last wrote. Bradley isaway again on another exploration expedition to the cliffs. He expectsto be gone several weeks and to follow along their base in search of apoint where they may be scaled. He took Sinclair, Brady, James, andTippet with him. Ahm has disappeared. He has been gone about threedays; but the most startling thing I have on record is that vonSchoenvorts and Olson while out hunting the other day discovered oilabout fifteen miles north of us beyond the sandstone cliffs. Olson saysthere is a geyser of oil there, and von Schoenvorts is makingpreparations to refine it. If he succeeds, we shall have the means forleaving Caspak and returning to our own world. I can scarce believe thetruth of it. We are all elated to the seventh heaven of bliss. PrayGod we shall not be disappointed. 

I have tried on several occasions to broach the subject of my love toLys; but she will not listen. 

Chapter 7

October 8, 1916: This is the last entry I shall make upon mymanuscript. When this is done, I shall be through. Though I may praythat it reaches the haunts of civilized man, my better judgment tellsme that it will never be perused by other eyes than mine, and that eventhough it should, it would be too late to avail me. I am alone uponthe summit of the great cliff overlooking the broad Pacific. A chillsouth wind bites at my marrow, while far below me I can see the tropicfoliage of Caspak on the one hand and huge icebergs from the nearAntarctic upon the other. Presently I shall stuff my folded manuscriptinto the thermos bottle I have carried with me for the purpose since Ileft the fort--Fort Dinosaur we named it--and hurl it far outward overthe cliff-top into the Pacific. What current washes the shore ofCaprona I know not; whither my bottle will be borne I cannot evenguess; but I have done all that mortal man may do to notify the worldof my whereabouts and the dangers that threaten those of us who remainalive in Caspak--if there be any other than myself. 

About the 8th of September I accompanied Olson and von Schoenvorts tothe oil-geyser. Lys came with us, and we took a number of things whichvon Schoenvorts wanted for the purpose of erecting a crude refinery. We went up the coast some ten or twelve miles in the U-33, tying up toshore near the mouth of a small stream which emptied great volumes ofcrude oil into the sea--I find it difficult to call this great lake byany other name. Then we disembarked and went inland about five miles, where we came upon a small lake entirely filled with oil, from thecenter of which a geyser of oil spouted. 

On the edge of the lake we helped von Schoenvorts build his primitiverefinery. We worked with him for two days until he got things fairlywell started, and then we returned to Fort Dinosaur, as I feared thatBradley might return and be worried by our absence. The U-33 merelylanded those of us that were to return to the fort and then retracedits course toward the oil-well. Olson, Whitely, Wilson, Miss La Rue, and myself disembarked, while von Schoenvorts and his German crewreturned to refine the oil. The next day Plesser and two other Germanscame down overland for ammunition. Plesser said they had been attackedby wild men and had exhausted a great deal of ammunition. He alsoasked permission to get some dried meat and maize, saying that theywere so busy with the work of refining that they had no time to hunt. I let him have everything he asked for, and never once did a suspicionof their intentions enter my mind. They returned to the oil-well thesame day, while we continued with the multitudinous duties of camp life. 

For three days nothing of moment occurred. Bradley did not return; nordid we have any word from von Schoenvorts. In the evening Lys and Iwent up into one of the bastion towers and listened to the grim andterrible nightlife of the frightful ages of the past. Once asaber-tooth screamed almost beneath us, and the girl shrank closeagainst me. As I felt her body against mine, all the pent love ofthese three long months shattered the bonds of timidity and conviction, and I swept her up into my arms and covered her face and lips withkisses. She did not struggle to free herself; but instead her deararms crept up about my neck and drew my own face even closer to hers. 

"You love me, Lys?" I cried. 

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

Low and sweet and tender came the answer: "I love you beyond allconception. "

My heart filled with rapture then, and it fills now as it has each ofthe countless times I have recalled those dear words, as it shall fillalways until death has claimed me. I may never see her again; she maynot know how I love her--she may question, she may doubt; but alwaystrue and steady, and warm with the fires of love my heart beats for thegirl who said that night: "I love you beyond all conception. "

For a long time we sat there upon the little bench constructed for thesentry that we had not as yet thought it necessary to post in more thanone of the four towers. We learned to know one another better in thosetwo brief hours than we had in all the months that had intervened sincewe had been thrown together. She told me that she had loved me fromthe first, and that she never had loved von Schoenvorts, theirengagement having been arranged by her aunt for social reasons. 

That was the happiest evening of my life; nor ever do I expect toexperience its like; but at last, as is the way of happiness, itterminated. We descended to the compound, and I walked with Lys to thedoor of her quarters. There again she kissed me and bade me goodnight, and then she went in and closed the door. 

I went to my own room, and there I sat by the light of one of the crudecandles we had made from the tallow of the beasts we had killed, andlived over the events of the evening. At last I turned in and fellasleep, dreaming happy dreams and planning for the future, for even insavage Caspak I was bound to make my girl safe and happy. It wasdaylight when I awoke. Wilson, who was acting as cook, was up andastir at his duties in the cook-house. The others slept; but I aroseand followed by Nobs went down to the stream for a plunge. As was ourcustom, I went armed with both rifle and revolver; but I stripped andhad my swim without further disturbance than the approach of a largehyena, a number of which occupied caves in the sand-stone cliffs northof the camp. These brutes are enormous and exceedingly ferocious. Iimagine they correspond with the cave-hyena of prehistoric times. Thisfellow charged Nobs, whose Capronian experiences had taught him thatdiscretion is the better part of valor--with the result that he divedhead foremost into the stream beside me after giving vent to a seriesof ferocious growls which had no more effect upon Hyaena spelaeus thanmight a sweet smile upon an enraged tusker. Afterward I shot the beast, and Nobs had a feast while I dressed, for he had become quite araw-meat eater during our numerous hunting expeditions, upon which wealways gave him a portion of the kill. 

Whitely and Olson were up and dressed when we returned, and we all satdown to a good breakfast. I could not but wonder at Lys' absence fromthe table, for she had always been one of the earliest risers in camp;so about nine o'clock, becoming apprehensive lest she might beindisposed, I went to the door of her room and knocked. I received noresponse, though I finally pounded with all my strength; then I turnedthe knob and entered, only to find that she was not there. Her bed hadbeen occupied, and her clothing lay where she had placed it theprevious night upon retiring; but Lys was gone. To say that I wasdistracted with terror would be to put it mildly. Though I knew shecould not be in camp, I searched every square inch of the compound andall the buildings, yet without avail. 

It was Whitely who discovered the first clue--a huge human-likefootprint in the soft earth beside the spring, and indications of astruggle in the mud. 

Then I found a tiny handkerchief close to the outer wall. Lys had beenstolen! It was all too plain. Some hideous member of the ape-mantribe had entered the fort and carried her off. While I stood stunnedand horrified at the frightful evidence before me, there came from thedirection of the great lake an increasing sound that rose to the volumeof a shriek. We all looked up as the noise approached apparently justabove us, and a moment later there followed a terrific explosion whichhurled us to the ground. When we clambered to our feet, we saw a largesection of the west wall torn and shattered. It was Olson who firstrecovered from his daze sufficiently to guess the explanation of thephenomenon. 

"A shell!" he cried. "And there ain't no shells in Caspak besideswhat's on the U-33. The dirty boches are shellin' the fort. Come on!"And he grasped his rifle and started on a run toward the lake. It wasover two miles, but we did not pause until the harbor was in view, andstill we could not see the lake because of the sandstone cliffs whichintervened. We ran as fast as we could around the lower end of theharbor, scrambled up the cliffs and at last stood upon their summit infull view of the lake. Far away down the coast, toward the riverthrough which we had come to reach the lake, we saw upon the surfacethe outline of the U-33, black smoke vomiting from her funnel. 

Von Schoenvorts had succeeded in refining the oil! The cur had brokenhis every pledge and was leaving us there to our fates. He had evenshelled the fort as a parting compliment; nor could anything have beenmore truly Prussian than this leave-taking of the Baron Friedrich vonSchoenvorts. 

Olson, Whitely, Wilson, and I stood for a moment looking at oneanother. It seemed incredible that man could be so perfidious--that wehad really seen with our own eyes the thing that we had seen; but whenwe returned to the fort, the shattered wall gave us ample evidence thatthere was no mistake. 

Then we began to speculate as to whether it had been an ape-man or aPrussian that had abducted Lys. From what we knew of von Schoenvorts, we would not have been surprised at anything from him; but thefootprints by the spring seemed indisputable evidence that one ofCaprona's undeveloped men had borne off the girl I loved. 

As soon as I had assured myself that such was the case, I made mypreparations to follow and rescue her. Olson, Whitely, and Wilson eachwished to accompany me; but I told them that they were needed here, since with Bradley's party still absent and the Germans gone it wasnecessary that we conserve our force as far as might be possible. 

Chapter 8

It was a sad leave-taking as in silence I shook hands with each of thethree remaining men. Even poor Nobs appeared dejected as we quit thecompound and set out upon the well-marked spoor of the abductor. Notonce did I turn my eyes backward toward Fort Dinosaur. I have notlooked upon it since--nor in all likelihood shall I ever look upon itagain. The trail led northwest until it reached the western end of thesandstone cliffs to the north of the fort; there it ran into awell-defined path which wound northward into a country we had not asyet explored. It was a beautiful, gently rolling country, broken byoccasional outcroppings of sandstone and by patches of dense forestrelieved by open, park-like stretches and broad meadows whereon grazedcountless herbivorous animals--red deer, aurochs, and infinite varietyof antelope and at least three distinct species of horse, the latterranging in size from a creature about as large as Nobs to a magnificentanimal fourteen to sixteen hands high. These creatures fed together inperfect amity; nor did they show any great indications of terror whenNobs and I approached. They moved out of our way and kept their eyesupon us until we had passed; then they resumed their feeding. 

The path led straight across the clearing into another forest, lyingupon the verge of which I saw a bit of white. It appeared to stand outin marked contrast and incongruity to all its surroundings, and when Istopped to examine it, I found that it was a small strip ofmuslin--part of the hem of a garment. At once I was all excitement, forI knew that it was a sign left by Lys that she had been carried thisway; it was a tiny bit torn from the hem of the undergarment that shewore in lieu of the night-robes she had lost with the sinking of theliner. Crushing the bit of fabric to my lips, I pressed on even morerapidly than before, because I now knew that I was upon the right trailand that up to this, point at least, Lys still had lived. 

I made over twenty miles that day, for I was now hardened to fatigueand accustomed to long hikes, having spent considerable time huntingand exploring in the immediate vicinity of camp. A dozen times that daywas my life threatened by fearsome creatures of the earth or sky, though I could not but note that the farther north I traveled, thefewer were the great dinosaurs, though they still persisted in lessernumbers. On the other hand the quantity of ruminants and the varietyand frequency of carnivorous animals increased. Each square mile ofCaspak harbored its terrors. 

At intervals along the way I found bits of muslin, and often theyreassured me when otherwise I should have been doubtful of the trail totake where two crossed or where there were forks, as occurred atseveral points. And so, as night was drawing on, I came to thesouthern end of a line of cliffs loftier than any I had seen before, and as I approached them, there was wafted to my nostrils the pungentaroma of woodsmoke. What could it mean? There could, to my mind, bebut a single solution: man abided close by, a higher order of man thanwe had as yet seen, other than Ahm, the Neanderthal man. I wonderedagain as I had so many times that day if it had not been Ahm who stoleLys. 

Cautiously I approached the flank of the cliffs, where they terminatedin an abrupt escarpment as though some all powerful hand had broken offa great section of rock and set it upon the surface of the earth. Itwas now quite dark, and as I crept around the edge of the cliff, I sawat a little distance a great fire around which were manyfigures--apparently human figures. Cautioning Nobs to silence, and hehad learned many lessons in the value of obedience since we had enteredCaspak, I slunk forward, taking advantage of whatever cover I couldfind, until from behind a bush I could distinctly see the creaturesassembled by the fire. They were human and yet not human. I shouldsay that they were a little higher in the scale of evolution than Ahm, possibly occupying a place of evolution between that of the Neanderthalman and what is known as the Grimaldi race. Their features weredistinctly negroid, though their skins were white. A considerableportion of both torso and limbs were covered with short hair, and theirphysical proportions were in many aspects apelike, though not so muchso as were Ahm's. They carried themselves in a more erect position, although their arms were considerably longer than those of theNeanderthal man. As I watched them, I saw that they possessed alanguage, that they had knowledge of fire and that they carried besidesthe wooden club of Ahm, a thing which resembled a crude stone hatchet. Evidently they were very low in the scale of humanity, but they were astep upward from those I had previously seen in Caspak. 

But what interested me most was the slender figure of a dainty girl, clad only in a thin bit of muslin which scarce covered her knees--a bitof muslin torn and ragged about the lower hem. It was Lys, and she wasalive and so far as I could see, unharmed. A huge brute with thicklips and prognathous jaw stood at her shoulder. He was talking loudlyand gesticulating wildly. I was close enough to hear his words, whichwere similar to the language of Ahm, though much fuller, for there weremany words I could not understand. However I caught the gist of what hewas saying--which in effect was that he had found and captured thisGalu, that she was his and that he defied anyone to question his rightof possession. It appeared to me, as I afterward learned was the fact, that I was witnessing the most primitive of marriage ceremonies. Theassembled members of the tribe looked on and listened in a sort of dulland perfunctory apathy, for the speaker was by far the mightiest of theclan. 

There seemed no one to dispute his claims when he said, or rathershouted, in stentorian tones: "I am Tsa. This is my she. Who wishesher more than Tsa?"

"I do, " I said in the language of Ahm, and I stepped out into thefirelight before them. Lys gave a little cry of joy and started towardme, but Tsa grasped her arm and dragged her back. 

"Who are you?" shrieked Tsa. "I kill! I kill! I kill!"

"The she is mine, " I replied, "and I have come to claim her. I kill ifyou do not let her come to me. " And I raised my pistol to a level withhis heart. Of course the creature had no conception of the purpose ofthe strange little implement which I was poking toward him. With asound that was half human and half the growl of a wild beast, he sprangtoward me. I aimed at his heart and fired, and as he sprawled headlongto the ground, the others of his tribe, overcome by fright at thereport of the pistol, scattered toward the cliffs--while Lys, withoutstretched arms, ran toward me. 

As I crushed her to me, there rose from the black night behind us andthen to our right and to our left a series of frightful screams andshrieks, bellowings, roars and growls. It was the night-life of thisjungle world coming into its own--the huge, carnivorous nocturnalbeasts which make the nights of Caspak hideous. A shuddering sob ranthrough Lys' figure. "O God, " she cried, "give me the strength toendure, for his sake!" I saw that she was upon the verge of abreakdown, after all that she must have passed through of fear andhorror that day, and I tried to quiet and reassure her as best I might;but even to me the future looked most unpromising, for what chance oflife had we against the frightful hunters of the night who even nowwere prowling closer to us?

Now I turned to see what had become of the tribe, and in the fitfulglare of the fire I perceived that the face of the cliff was pittedwith large holes into which the man-things were clambering. "Come, " Isaid to Lys, "we must follow them. We cannot last a half-hour out here. We must find a cave. " Already we could see the blazing green eyes ofthe hungry carnivora. I seized a brand from the fire and hurled it outinto the night, and there came back an answering chorus of savage andrageful protest; but the eyes vanished for a short time. Selecting aburning branch for each of us, we advanced toward the cliffs, where wewere met by angry threats. 

"They will kill us, " said Lys. "We may as well keep on in search ofanother refuge. "

"They will not kill us so surely as will those others out there, " Ireplied. "I am going to seek shelter in one of these caves; nor willthe man-things prevent. " And I kept on in the direction of the cliff'sbase. A huge creature stood upon a ledge and brandished his stonehatchet. "Come and I will kill you and take the she, " he boasted. 

"You saw how Tsa fared when he would have kept my she, " I replied inhis own tongue. "Thus will you fare and all your fellows if you do notpermit us to come in peace among you out of the dangers of the night. "

"Go north, " he screamed. "Go north among the Galus, and we will notharm you. Some day will we be Galus; but now we are not. You do notbelong among us. Go away or we will kill you. The she may remain ifshe is afraid, and we will keep her; but the he must depart. "

"The he won't depart, " I replied, and approached still nearer. Roughand narrow ledges formed by nature gave access to the upper caves. Aman might scale them if unhampered and unhindered, but to clamberupward in the face of a belligerent tribe of half-men and with a girlto assist was beyond my capability. 

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

I placed a foot upon the lowest ledge and clambered upward, reachingdown and pulling Lys to my side. Already I felt safer. Soon we wouldbe out of danger of the beasts again closing in upon us. The man aboveus raised his stone hatchet above his head and leaped lightly down tomeet us. His position above me gave him a great advantage, or at leastso he probably thought, for he came with every show of confidence. Ihated to do it, but there seemed no other way, and so I shot him downas I had shot down Tsa. 

"You see, " I cried to his fellows, "that I can kill you wherever youmay be. A long way off I can kill you as well as I can kill you nearby. Let us come among you in peace. I will not harm you if you do notharm us. We will take a cave high up. Speak!"

"Come, then, " said one. "If you will not harm us, you may come. TakeTsa's hole, which lies above you. "

The creature showed us the mouth of a black cave, but he kept at adistance while he did it, and Lys followed me as I crawled in toexplore. I had matches with me, and in the light of one I found asmall cavern with a flat roof and floor which followed the cleavage ofthe strata. Pieces of the roof had fallen at some long-distant date, as was evidenced by the depth of the filth and rubble in which theywere embedded. Even a superficial examination revealed the fact thatnothing had ever been attempted that might have improved the livabilityof the cavern; nor, should I judge, had it ever been cleaned out. Withconsiderable difficulty I loosened some of the larger pieces of brokenrock which littered the floor and placed them as a barrier before thedoorway. It was too dark to do more than this. I then gave Lys a pieceof dried meat, and sitting inside the entrance, we dined as must havesome of our ancient forbears at the dawning of the age of man, whilefar below the open diapason of the savage night rose weird andhorrifying to our ears. In the light of the great fire still burningwe could see huge, skulking forms, and in the blacker backgroundcountless flaming eyes. 

Lys shuddered, and I put my arm around her and drew her to me; and thuswe sat throughout the hot night. She told me of her abduction and ofthe fright she had undergone, and together we thanked God that she hadcome through unharmed, because the great brute had dared not pausealong the danger-infested way. She said that they had but just reachedthe cliffs when I arrived, for on several occasions her captor had beenforced to take to the trees with her to escape the clutches of somehungry cave-lion or saber-toothed tiger, and that twice they had beenobliged to remain for considerable periods before the beasts hadretired. 

Nobs, by dint of much scrambling and one or two narrow escapes fromdeath, had managed to follow us up the cliff and was now curled betweenme and the doorway, having devoured a piece of the dried meat, which heseemed to relish immensely. He was the first to fall asleep; but Iimagine we must have followed suit soon, for we were both tired. I hadlaid aside my ammunition-belt and rifle, though both were close besideme; but my pistol I kept in my lap beneath my hand. However, we werenot disturbed during the night, and when I awoke, the sun was shiningon the tree-tops in the distance. Lys' head had drooped to my breast, and my arm was still about her. 

Shortly afterward Lys awoke, and for a moment she could not seem tocomprehend her situation. She looked at me and then turned and glancedat my arm about her, and then she seemed quite suddenly to realize thescantiness of her apparel and drew away, covering her face with herpalms and blushing furiously. I drew her back toward me and kissedher, and then she threw her arms about my neck and wept softly in mutesurrender to the inevitable. 

It was an hour later before the tribe began to stir about. We watchedthem from our "apartment, " as Lys called it. Neither men nor women woreany sort of clothing or ornaments, and they all seemed to be about ofan age; nor were there any babies or children among them. This was, tous, the strangest and most inexplicable of facts, but it recalled to usthat though we had seen many of the lesser developed wild people ofCaspak, we had never yet seen a child or an old man or woman. 

After a while they became less suspicious of us and then quite friendlyin their brutish way. They picked at the fabric of our clothing, whichseemed to interest them, and examined my rifle and pistol and theammunition in the belt around my waist. I showed them thethermos-bottle, and when I poured a little water from it, they weredelighted, thinking that it was a spring which I carried about withme--a never-failing source of water supply. 

One thing we both noticed among their other characteristics: they neverlaughed nor smiled; and then we remembered that Ahm had never done so, either. I asked them if they knew Ahm; but they said they did not. 

One of them said: "Back there we may have known him. " And he jerkedhis head to the south. 

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

"We all come from there, " he said. "After a while we go there. " Andthis time he jerked his head toward the north. "Be Galus, " heconcluded. 

Many times now had we heard this reference to becoming Galus. Ahm hadspoken of it many times. Lys and I decided that it was a sort oforiginal religious conviction, as much a part of them as their instinctfor self-preservation--a primal acceptance of a hereafter and a holierstate. It was a brilliant theory, but it was all wrong. I know itnow, and how far we were from guessing the wonderful, the miraculous, the gigantic truth which even yet I may only guess at--the thing thatsets Caspak apart from all the rest of the world far more definitelythan her isolated geographical position or her impregnable barrier ofgiant cliffs. If I could live to return to civilization, I should havemeat for the clergy and the layman to chew upon for years--and for theevolutionists, too. 

After breakfast the men set out to hunt, while the women went to alarge pool of warm water covered with a green scum and filled withbillions of tadpoles. They waded in to where the water was about afoot deep and lay down in the mud. They remained there from one to twohours and then returned to the cliff. While we were with them, we sawthis same thing repeated every morning; but though we asked them whythey did it we could get no reply which was intelligible to us. Allthey vouchsafed in way of explanation was the single word Ata. Theytried to get Lys to go in with them and could not understand why sherefused. After the first day I went hunting with the men, leaving mypistol and Nobs with Lys, but she never had to use them, for no reptileor beast ever approached the pool while the women were there--nor, sofar as we know, at other times. There was no spoor of wild beast inthe soft mud along the banks, and the water certainly didn't look fitto drink. 

This tribe lived largely upon the smaller animals which they bowledover with their stone hatchets after making a wide circle about theirquarry and driving it so that it had to pass close to one of theirnumber. The little horses and the smaller antelope they secured insufficient numbers to support life, and they also ate numerousvarieties of fruits and vegetables. They never brought in more thansufficient food for their immediate needs; but why bother? The foodproblem of Caspak is not one to cause worry to her inhabitants. 

The fourth day Lys told me that she thought she felt equal toattempting the return journey on the morrow, and so I set out for thehunt in high spirits, for I was anxious to return to the fort and learnif Bradley and his party had returned and what had been the result ofhis expedition. I also wanted to relieve their minds as to Lys andmyself, as I knew that they must have already given us up for dead. Itwas a cloudy day, though warm, as it always is in Caspak. It seemedodd to realize that just a few miles away winter lay upon thestorm-tossed ocean, and that snow might be falling all about Caprona;but no snow could ever penetrate the damp, hot atmosphere of the greatcrater. 

We had to go quite a bit farther than usual before we could surround alittle bunch of antelope, and as I was helping drive them, I saw a finered deer a couple of hundred yards behind me. He must have been asleepin the long grass, for I saw him rise and look about him in abewildered way, and then I raised my gun and let him have it. Hedropped, and I ran forward to finish him with the long thin knife, which one of the men had given me; but just as I reached him, hestaggered to his feet and ran on for another two hundred yards--when Idropped him again. Once more was this repeated before I was able toreach him and cut his throat; then I looked around for my companions, as I wanted them to come and carry the meat home; but I could seenothing of them. I called a few times and waited, but there was noresponse and no one came. At last I became disgusted, and cutting offall the meat that I could conveniently carry, I set off in thedirection of the cliffs. I must have gone about a mile before thetruth dawn upon me--I was lost, hopelessly lost. 

The entire sky was still completely blotted out by dense clouds; norwas there any landmark visible by which I might have taken my bearings. I went on in the direction I thought was south but which I now imaginemust have been about due north, without detecting a single familiarobject. In a dense wood I suddenly stumbled upon a thing which atfirst filled me with hope and later with the most utter despair anddejection. It was a little mound of new-turned earth sprinkled withflowers long since withered, and at one end was a flat slab ofsandstone stuck in the ground. It was a grave, and it meant for me thatI had at last stumbled into a country inhabited by human beings. Iwould find them; they would direct me to the cliffs; perhaps they wouldaccompany me and take us back with them to their abodes--to the abodesof men and women like ourselves. My hopes and my imagination ran riotin the few yards I had to cover to reach that lonely grave and stoopthat I might read the rude characters scratched upon the simpleheadstone. This is what I read:

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

Tippet! It seemed incredible. Tippet lying here in this gloomy wood!Tippet dead! He had been a good man, but the personal loss was notwhat affected me. It was the fact that this silent grave gave evidencethat Bradley had come this far upon his expedition and that he tooprobably was lost, for it was not our intention that he should be longgone. If I had stumbled upon the grave of one of the party, was it notwithin reason to believe that the bones of the others lay scatteredsomewhere near?

Chapter 9

As I stood looking down upon that sad and lonely mound, wrapped in themost dismal of reflections and premonitions, I was suddenly seized frombehind and thrown to earth. As I fell, a warm body fell on top of me, and hands grasped my arms and legs. When I could look up, I saw anumber of giant fingers pinioning me down, while others stood aboutsurveying me. Here again was a new type of man--a higher type than theprimitive tribe I had just quitted. They were a taller people, too, with better-shaped skulls and more intelligent faces. There were lessof the ape characteristics about their features, and less of thenegroid, too. They carried weapons, stone-shod spears, stone knives, and hatchets--and they wore ornaments and breech-cloths--the former offeathers worn in their hair and the latter made of a single snake-skincured with the head on, the head depending to their knees. 

Of course I did not take in all these details upon the instant of mycapture, for I was busy with other matters. Three of the warriors weresitting upon me, trying to hold me down by main strength andawkwardness, and they were having their hands full in the doing, I cantell you. I don't like to appear conceited, but I may as well admitthat I am proud of my strength and the science that I have acquired anddeveloped in the directing of it--that and my horsemanship I alwayshave been proud of. And now, that day, all the long hours that I hadput into careful study, practice and training brought me in two orthree minutes a full return upon my investment. Californians, as arule, are familiar with ju-jutsu, and I especially had made a study ofit for several years, both at school and in the gym of the Los AngelesAthletic Club, while recently I had had, in my employ, a Jap who was awonder at the art. 

It took me just about thirty seconds to break the elbow of one of myassailants, trip another and send him stumbling backward among hisfellows, and throw the third completely over my head in such a way thatwhen he fell his neck was broken. In the instant that the others ofthe party stood in mute and inactive surprise, I unslung myrifle--which, carelessly, I had been carrying across my back; and whenthey charged, as I felt they would, I put a bullet in the forehead ofone of them. This stopped them all temporarily--not the death of theirfellow, but the report of the rifle, the first they had ever heard. Before they were ready to attack me again, one of them spoke in acommanding tone to his fellows, and in a language similar but stillmore comprehensive than that of the tribe to the south, as theirs wasmore complete than Ahm's. He commanded them to stand back and then headvanced and addressed me. 

He asked me who I was, from whence I came and what my intentions were. I replied that I was a stranger in Caspak, that I was lost and that myonly desire was to find my way back to my companions. He asked wherethey were and I told him toward the south somewhere, using theCaspakian phrase which, literally translated, means "toward thebeginning. " His surprise showed upon his face before he voiced it inwords. "There are no Galus there, " he said. 

"I tell you, " I said angrily, "that I am from another country, far fromCaspak, far beyond the high cliffs. I do not know who the Galus maybe; I have never seen them. This is the farthest north I have been. Look at me--look at my clothing and my weapons. Have you ever seen aGalu or any other creature in Caspak who possessed such things?"

He had to admit that he had not, and also that he was much interestedin me, my rifle and the way I had handled his three warriors. Finallyhe became half convinced that I was telling him the truth and offeredto aid me if I would show him how I had thrown the man over my head andalso make him a present of the "bang-spear, " as he called it. Irefused to give him my rifle, but promised to show him the trick hewished to learn if he would guide me in the right direction. He toldme that he would do so tomorrow, that it was too late today and that Imight come to their village and spend the night with them. I was loathto lose so much time; but the fellow was obdurate, and so I accompaniedthem. The two dead men they left where they had fallen, nor gave thema second glance--thus cheap is life upon Caspak. 

These people also were cave-dwellers, but their caves showed the resultof a higher intelligence that brought them a step nearer to civilizedman than the tribe next "toward the beginning. " The interiors of theircaverns were cleared of rubbish, though still far from clean, and theyhad pallets of dried grasses covered with the skins of leopard, lynx, and bear, while before the entrances were barriers of stone and small, rudely circular stone ovens. The walls of the cavern to which I wasconducted were covered with drawings scratched upon the sandstone. There were the outlines of the giant red-deer, of mammoths, of tigersand other beasts. Here, as in the last tribe, there were no childrenor any old people. The men of this tribe had two names, or rathernames of two syllables, and their language contained words of twosyllables; whereas in the tribe of Tsa the words were all of a singlesyllable, with the exception of a very few like Atis and Galus. Thechief's name was To-jo, and his household consisted of seven femalesand himself. These women were much more comely, or rather less hideousthan those of Tsa's people; one of them, even, was almost pretty, beingless hairy and having a rather nice skin, with high coloring. 

They were all much interested in me and examined my clothing andequipment carefully, handling and feeling and smelling of each article. I learned from them that their people were known as Bandlu, orspear-men; Tsa's race was called Sto-lu--hatchet-men. Below these inthe scale of evolution came the Bo-lu, or club-men, and then the Alus, who had no weapons and no language. In that word I recognized what tome seemed the most remarkable discovery I had made upon Caprona, forunless it were mere coincidence, I had come upon a word that had beenhanded down from the beginning of spoken language upon earth, beenhanded down for millions of years, perhaps, with little change. It wasthe sole remaining thread of the ancient woof of a dawning culturewhich had been woven when Caprona was a fiery mount upon a greatland-mass teeming with life. It linked the unfathomable then to theeternal now. And yet it may have been pure coincidence; my betterjudgment tells me that it is coincidence that in Caspak the term forspeechless man is Alus, and in the outer world of our own day it isAlalus. 

The comely woman of whom I spoke was called So-ta, and she took such alively interest in me that To-jo finally objected to her attentions, emphasizing his displeasure by knocking her down and kicking her into acorner of the cavern. I leaped between them while he was still kickingher, and obtaining a quick hold upon him, dragged him screaming withpain from the cave. Then I made him promise not to hurt the she again, upon pain of worse punishment. So-ta gave me a grateful look; but To-joand the balance of his women were sullen and ominous. 

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

"So-ta soon to be Kro-lu, " she confided in a low whisper. I asked herwhat a Kro-lu might be, and she tried to explain, but I do not yet knowif I understood her. From her gestures I deduced that the Kro-lus werea people who were armed with bows and arrows, had vessels in which tocook their food and huts of some sort in which they lived, and wereaccompanied by animals. It was all very fragmentary and vague, but theidea seemed to be that the Kro-lus were a more advanced people than theBand-lus. I pondered a long time upon all that I had heard, beforesleep came to me. I tried to find some connection between thesevarious races that would explain the universal hope which each of themharbored that some day they would become Galus. So-ta had given me asuggestion; but the resulting idea was so weird that I could scarceeven entertain it; yet it coincided with Ahm's expressed hope, with thevarious steps in evolution I had noted in the several tribes I hadencountered and with the range of type represented in each tribe. Forexample, among the Band-lu were such types as So-ta, who seemed to meto be the highest in the scale of evolution, and To-jo, who was just ashade nearer the ape, while there were others who had flatter noses, more prognathous faces and hairier bodies. The question puzzled me. Possibly in the outer world the answer to it is locked in the bosom ofthe Sphinx. Who knows? I do not. 

Thinking the thoughts of a lunatic or a dope-fiend, I fell asleep; andwhen I awoke, my hands and feet were securely tied and my weapons hadbeen taken from me. How they did it without awakening me I cannot tellyou. It was humiliating, but it was true. To-jo stood above me. Theearly light of morning was dimly filtering into the cave. 

"Tell me, " he demanded, "how to throw a man over my head and break hisneck, for I am going to kill you, and I wish to know this thing beforeyou die. "

Of all the ingenuous declarations I have ever heard, this one coppedthe proverbial bun. It struck me as so funny that, even in the face ofdeath, I laughed. Death, I may remark here, had, however, lost much ofhis terror for me. I had become a disciple of Lys' fleeting philosophyof the valuelessness of human life. I realized that she was quiteright--that we were but comic figures hopping from the cradle to thegrave, of interest to practically no other created thing than ourselvesand our few intimates. 

Behind To-jo stood So-ta. She raised one hand with the palm towardme--the Caspakian equivalent of a negative shake of the head. 

"Let me think about it, " I parried, and To-jo said that he would waituntil night. He would give me a day to think it over; then he left, and the women left--the men for the hunt, and the women, as I laterlearned from So-ta, for the warm pool where they immersed their bodiesas did the shes of the Sto-lu. "Ata, " explained So-ta, when Iquestioned her as to the purpose of this matutinal rite; but that waslater. 

I must have lain there bound and uncomfortable for two or three hourswhen at last So-ta entered the cave. She carried a sharp knife--mine, in fact, and with it she cut my bonds. 

"Come!" she said. "So-ta will go with you back to the Galus. It istime that So-ta left the Band-lu. Together we will go to the Kro-lu, and after that the Galus. To-jo will kill you tonight. He will killSo-ta if he knows that So-ta aided you. We will go together. "

"I will go with you to the Kro-lu, " I replied, "but then I must returnto my own people `toward the beginning. '"

"You cannot go back, " she said. "It is forbidden. They would killyou. Thus far have you come--there is no returning. "

"But I must return, " I insisted. "My people are there. I must returnand lead them in this direction. "

She insisted, and I insisted; but at last we compromised. I was toescort her as far as the country of the Kro-lu and then I was to goback after my own people and lead them north into a land where thedangers were fewer and the people less murderous. She brought me all mybelongings that had been filched from me--rifle, ammunition, knife, andthermos bottle, and then hand in hand we descended the cliff and setoff toward the north. 

For three days we continued upon our way, until we arrived outside avillage of thatched huts just at dusk. So-ta said that she would enteralone; I must not be seen if I did not intend to remain, as it wasforbidden that one should return and live after having advanced thisfar. So she left me. She was a dear girl and a stanch and truecomrade--more like a man than a woman. In her simple barbaric way shewas both refined and chaste. She had been the wife of To-jo. Amongthe Kro-lu she would find another mate after the manner of the strangeCaspakian world; but she told me very frankly that whenever I returned, she would leave her mate and come to me, as she preferred me above allothers. I was becoming a ladies' man after a lifetime of bashfulness!

At the outskirts of the village I left her without even seeing the sortof people who inhabited it, and set off through the growing darknesstoward the south. On the third day I made a detour westward to avoidthe country of the Band-lu, as I did not care to be detained by ameeting with To-jo. On the sixth day I came to the cliffs of theSto-lu, and my heart beat fast as I approached them, for here was Lys. Soon I would hold her tight in my arms again; soon her warm lips wouldmerge with mine. I felt sure that she was still safe among the hatchetpeople, and I was already picturing the joy and the love-light in hereyes when she should see me once more as I emerged from the last clumpof trees and almost ran toward the cliffs. 

It was late in the morning. The women must have returned from thepool; yet as I drew near, I saw no sign of life whatever. "They haveremained longer, " I thought; but when I was quite close to the base ofthe cliffs, I saw that which dashed my hopes and my happiness to earth. Strewn along the ground were a score of mute and horrible suggestionsof what had taken place during my absence--bones picked clean of flesh, the bones of manlike creatures, the bones of many of the tribe ofSto-lu; nor in any cave was there sign of life. 

Closely I examined the ghastly remains fearful each instant that Ishould find the dainty skull that would shatter my happiness for life;but though I searched diligently, picking up every one of thetwenty-odd skulls, I found none that was the skull of a creature butslightly removed from the ape. Hope, then, still lived. For anotherthree days I searched north and south, east and west for the hatchetmenof Caspak; but never a trace of them did I find. It was raining mostof the time now, and the weather was as near cold as it ever seems toget on Caprona. 

At last I gave up the search and set off toward Fort Dinosaur. For aweek--a week filled with the terrors and dangers of a primeval world--Ipushed on in the direction I thought was south. The sun never shone;the rain scarcely ever ceased falling. The beasts I met with were fewerin number but infinitely more terrible in temper; yet I lived on untilthere came to me the realization that I was hopelessly lost, that ayear of sunshine would not again give me my bearings; and while I wascast down by this terrifying knowledge, the knowledge that I neveragain could find Lys, I stumbled upon another grave--the grave ofWilliam James, with its little crude headstone and its scrawledcharacters recording that he had died upon the 13th ofSeptember--killed by a saber-tooth tiger. 

I think that I almost gave up then. Never in my life have I felt morehopeless or helpless or alone. I was lost. I could not find myfriends. I did not even know that they still lived; in fact, I couldnot bring myself to believe that they did. I was sure that Lys wasdead. I wanted myself to die, and yet I clung to life--useless andhopeless and harrowing a thing as it had become. I clung to lifebecause some ancient, reptilian forbear had clung to life andtransmitted to me through the ages the most powerful motive that guidedhis minute brain--the motive of self-preservation. 

At last I came to the great barrier-cliffs; and after three days of madeffort--of maniacal effort--I scaled them. I built crude ladders; Iwedged sticks in narrow fissures; I chopped toe-holds and finger-holdswith my long knife; but at last I scaled them. Near the summit I cameupon a huge cavern. It is the abode of some mighty winged creature ofthe Triassic--or rather it was. Now it is mine. I slew the thing andtook its abode. I reached the summit and looked out upon the broadgray terrible Pacific of the far-southern winter. It was cold upthere. It is cold here today; yet here I sit watching, watching, watching for the thing I know will never come--for a sail. 

Chapter 10

Once a day I descend to the base of the cliff and hunt, and fill mystomach with water from a clear cold spring. I have three gourds whichI fill with water and take back to my cave against the long nights. Ihave fashioned a spear and a bow and arrow, that I may conserve myammunition, which is running low. My clothes are worn to shreds. Tomorrow I shall discard them for leopard-skins which I have tanned andsewn into a garment strong and warm. It is cold up here. I have afire burning and I sit bent over it while I write; but I am safe here. No other living creature ventures to the chill summit of the barriercliffs. I am safe, and I am alone with my sorrows and my rememberedjoys--but without hope. It is said that hope springs eternal in thehuman breast; but there is none in mine. 

I am about done. Presently I shall fold these pages and push them intomy thermos bottle. I shall cork it and screw the cap tight, and then Ishall hurl it as far out into the sea as my strength will permit. Thewind is off-shore; the tide is running out; perhaps it will be carriedinto one of those numerous ocean-currents which sweep perpetually frompole to pole and from continent to continent, to be deposited at lastupon some inhabited shore. If fate is kind and this does happen, then, for God's sake, come and get me!

It was a week ago that I wrote the preceding paragraph, which I thoughtwould end the written record of my life upon Caprona. I had paused toput a new point on my quill and stir the crude ink (which I made bycrushing a black variety of berry and mixing it with water) beforeattaching my signature, when faintly from the valley far below came anunmistakable sound which brought me to my feet, trembling withexcitement, to peer eagerly downward from my dizzy ledge. How full ofmeaning that sound was to me you may guess when I tell you that it wasthe report of a firearm! For a moment my gaze traversed the landscapebeneath until it was caught and held by four figures near the base ofthe cliff--a human figure held at bay by three hyaenodons, thoseferocious and blood-thirsty wild dogs of the Eocene. A fourth beastlay dead or dying near by. 

I couldn't be sure, looking down from above as I was; but yet Itrembled like a leaf in the intuitive belief that it was Lys, and myjudgment served to confirm my wild desire, for whoever it was carriedonly a pistol, and thus had Lys been armed. The first wave of suddenjoy which surged through me was short-lived in the face of theswift-following conviction that the one who fought below was alreadydoomed. Luck and only luck it must have been which had permitted thatfirst shot to lay low one of the savage creatures, for even such aheavy weapon as my pistol is entirely inadequate against even thelesser carnivora of Caspak. In a moment the three would charge! Afutile shot would but tend more greatly to enrage the one it chanced tohit; and then the three would drag down the little human figure andtear it to pieces. 

And maybe it was Lys! My heart stood still at the thought, but mindand muscle responded to the quick decision I was forced to make. Therewas but a single hope--a single chance--and I took it. I raised myrifle to my shoulder and took careful aim. It was a long shot, adangerous shot, for unless one is accustomed to it, shooting from aconsiderable altitude is most deceptive work. There is, though, something about marksmanship which is quite beyond all scientific laws. 

Upon no other theory can I explain my marksmanship of that moment. Three times my rifle spoke--three quick, short syllables of death. Idid not take conscious aim; and yet at each report a beast crumpled inits tracks!

From my ledge to the base of the cliff is a matter of several thousandfeet of dangerous climbing; yet I venture to say that the first apefrom whose loins my line has descended never could have equaled thespeed with which I literally dropped down the face of that ruggedescarpment. The last two hundred feet is over a steep incline of looserubble to the valley bottom, and I had just reached the top of thiswhen there arose to my ears an agonized cry--"Bowen! Bowen! Quick, mylove, quick!"

I had been too much occupied with the dangers of the descent to glancedown toward the valley; but that cry which told me that it was indeedLys, and that she was again in danger, brought my eyes quickly upon herin time to see a hairy, burly brute seize her and start off at a runtoward the near-by wood. From rock to rock, chamoislike, I leapeddownward toward the valley, in pursuit of Lys and her hideous abductor. 

He was heavier than I by many pounds, and so weighted by the burden hecarried that I easily overtook him; and at last he turned, snarling, toface me. It was Kho of the tribe of Tsa, the hatchet-men. Herecognized me, and with a low growl he threw Lys aside and came for me. "The she is mine, " he cried. "I kill! I kill!"

I had had to discard my rifle before I commenced the rapid descent ofthe cliff, so that now I was armed only with a hunting knife, and thisI whipped from its scabbard as Kho leaped toward me. He was a mightybeast, mightily muscled, and the urge that has made males fight sincethe dawn of life on earth filled him with the blood-lust and the thirstto slay; but not one whit less did it fill me with the same primalpassions. Two abysmal beasts sprang at each other's throats that daybeneath the shadow of earth's oldest cliffs--the man of now and theman-thing of the earliest, forgotten then, imbued by the same deathlesspassion that has come down unchanged through all the epochs, periodsand eras of time from the beginning, and which shall continue to theincalculable end--woman, the imperishable Alpha and Omega of life. 

Kho closed and sought my jugular with his teeth. He seemed to forgetthe hatchet dangling by its aurochs-hide thong at his hip, as I forgot, for the moment, the dagger in my hand. And I doubt not but that Khowould easily have bested me in an encounter of that sort had not Lys'voice awakened within my momentarily reverted brain the skill andcunning of reasoning man. 

"Bowen!" she cried. "Your knife! Your knife!"

It was enough. It recalled me from the forgotten eon to which my brainhad flown and left me once again a modern man battling with a clumsy, unskilled brute. No longer did my jaws snap at the hairy throat beforeme; but instead my knife sought and found a space between two ribs overthe savage heart. Kho voiced a single horrid scream, stiffenedspasmodically and sank to the earth. And Lys threw herself into myarms. All the fears and sorrows of the past were wiped away, and onceagain I was the happiest of men. 

With some misgivings I shortly afterward cast my eyes upward toward theprecarious ledge which ran before my cave, for it seemed to me quitebeyond all reason to expect a dainty modern belle to essay the perilsof that frightful climb. I asked her if she thought she could bravethe ascent, and she laughed gayly in my face. 

"Watch!" she cried, and ran eagerly toward the base of the cliff. Likea squirrel she clambered swiftly aloft, so that I was forced to exertmyself to keep pace with her. At first she frightened me; butpresently I was aware that she was quite as safe here as was I. When wefinally came to my ledge and I again held her in my arms, she recalledto my mind that for several weeks she had been living the life of acave-girl with the tribe of hatchet-men. They had been driven fromtheir former caves by another tribe which had slain many and carriedoff quite half the females, and the new cliffs to which they had flownhad proven far higher and more precipitous, so that she had become, through necessity, a most practiced climber. 

She told me of Kho's desire for her, since all his females had beenstolen and of how her life had been a constant nightmare of terror asshe sought by night and by day to elude the great brute. For a timeNobs had been all the protection she required; but one day hedisappeared--nor has she seen him since. She believes that he wasdeliberately made away with; and so do I, for we both are sure that henever would have deserted her. With her means of protection gone, Lyswas now at the mercy of the hatchet-man; nor was it many hours beforehe had caught her at the base of the cliff and seized her; but as hebore her triumphantly aloft toward his cave, she had managed to breakloose and escape him. 

"For three days he has pursued me, " she said, "through this horribleworld. How I have passed through in safety I cannot guess, nor how Ihave always managed to outdistance him; yet I have done it, until justas you discovered me. Fate was kind to us, Bowen. "

I nodded my head in assent and crushed her to me. And then we talkedand planned as I cooked antelope-steaks over my fire, and we came tothe conclusion that there was no hope of rescue, that she and I weredoomed to live and die upon Caprona. Well, it might be worse! I wouldrather live here always with Lys than to live elsewhere without her;and she, dear girl, says the same of me; but I am afraid of this lifefor her. It is a hard, fierce, dangerous life, and I shall pray alwaysthat we shall be rescued from it--for her sake. 

That night the clouds broke, and the moon shone down upon our littleledge; and there, hand in hand, we turned our faces toward heaven andplighted our troth beneath the eyes of God. No human agency could havemarried us more sacredly than we are wed. We are man and wife, and weare content. If God wills it, we shall live out our lives here. If Hewills otherwise, then this manuscript which I shall now consign to theinscrutable forces of the sea shall fall into friendly hands. However, we are each without hope. And so we say good-bye in this, our lastmessage to the world beyond the barrier cliffs. 

(Signed) Bowen J. Tyler, Jr. Lys La R. Tyler.