The Land That Time Forgot..............................................................................................................................1

Edgar Rice Burroughs ..............................................................................................................................1

It must have been a little after three o'clock in the afternoon that it happenedthe afternoon of June 3rd,

1916. It seems incredible that all that I have passed throughall those weird and terrifying

experiencesshould have been encompassed within so short a span as three brief months. Rather might I

have experienced a cosmic cycle, with all its changes and evolutions for that which I have seen with my own

eyes in this brief interval of timethings that no other mortal eye had seen before, glimpses of a world past,

a world dead, a world so long dead that even in the lowest Cambrian stratum no trace of it remains. Fused

with the melting inner crust, it has passed forever beyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket of the

earth whither fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed. I am here and here must remain.

After reading this far, my interest, which already had been stimulated by the finding of the manuscript, was

approaching the boilingpoint. I had come to Greenland for the summer, on the advice of my physician, and

was slowly being bored to extinction, as I had thoughtlessly neglected to bring sufficient readingmatter.

Being an indifferent fisherman, my enthusiasm for this form of sport soon waned; yet in the absence of other

forms of recreation I was now risking my life in an entirely inadequate boat off Cape Farewell at the

Greenland! As a descriptive appellation, it is a sorry jokebut my story has nothing to do with Greenland,

nothing to do with me; so I shall get through with the one and the other as rapidly as possible.

The inadequate boat finally arrived at a precarious landing, the natives, waistdeep in the surf, assisting. I

was carried ashore, and while the evening meal was being prepared, I wandered to and fro along the rocky,

shattered shore. Bits of surfharried beach clove the worn granite, or whatever the rocks of Cape Farewell

may be composed of, and as I followed the ebbing tide down one of these soft stretches, I saw the thing.

Were one to bump into a Bengal tiger in the ravine behind the Bimini Baths, one could be no more surprised

than was I to see a perfectly good quart thermos bottle turning and twisting in the surf of Cape Farewell at the

southern extremity of Greenland. I rescued it, but I was soaked above the knees doing it; and then I sat down

in the sand and opened it, and in the long twilight read the manuscript, neatly written and tightly folded,

You have read the opening paragraph, and if you are an imaginative idiot like myself, you will want to read

the rest of it; so I shall give it to you here, omitting quotation markswhich are difficult of remembrance. In

My home is in Santa Monica. I am, or was, junior member of my father's firm. We are shipbuilders. Of

recent years we have specialized on submarines, which we have built for Germany, England, France and the

United States. I know a sub as a mother knows her baby's face, and have commanded a score of them on their

trial runs. Yet my inclinations were all toward aviation. I graduated under Curtiss, and after a long siege with

my father obtained his permission to try for the Lafayette Escadrille. As a steppingstone I obtained an

appointment in the American ambulance service and was on my way to France when three shrill whistles

I was sitting on deck with some of the fellows who were going into the American ambulance service with me,

my Airedale, Crown Prince Nobbler, asleep at my feet, when the first blast of the whistle shattered the peace

and security of the ship. Ever since entering the Uboat zone we had been on the lookout for periscopes, and

children that we were, bemoaning the unkind fate that was to see us safely into France on the morrow without

a glimpse of the dread marauders. We were young; we craved thrills, and God knows we got them that day;

yet by comparison with that through which I have since passed they were as tame as a PunchandJudy

I shall never forget the ashy faces of the passengers as they stampeded for their lifebelts, though there was

no panic. Nobs rose with a low growl. I rose, also, and over the ship's side, I saw not two hundred yards

distant the periscope of a submarine, while racing toward the liner the wake of a torpedo was distinctly

visible. We were aboard an American shipwhich, of course, was not armed. We were entirely defenseless;

I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo. It struck us on the starboard side almost

amidships. The vessel rocked as though the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano. We were

thrown to the decks, bruised and stunned, and then above the ship, carrying with it fragments of steel and

wood and dismembered human bodies, rose a column of water hundreds of feet into the air.

The silence which followed the detonation of the exploding torpedo was almost equally horrifying. It lasted

for perhaps two seconds, to be followed by the screams and moans of the wounded, the cursing of the men

and the hoarse commands of the ship's officers. They were splendidthey and their crew. Never before had I

been so proud of my nationality as I was that moment. In all the chaos which followed the torpedoing of the

liner no officer or member of the crew lost his head or showed in the slightest any degree of panic or fear.

While we were attempting to lower boats, the submarine emerged and trained guns on us. The officer in

command ordered us to lower our flag, but this the captain of the liner refused to do. The ship was listing

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 and scrambling into the few

boats left to us, the submarine commenced shelling the ship. I saw one shell burst in a group of women and

When I looked again to horror was added chagrin, for with the emerging of the Uboat I had recognized her

as a product of our own shipyard. I knew her to a rivet. I had superintended her construction. I had sat in that

very conningtower and directed the efforts of the sweating crew below when first her prow clove the sunny

summer waters of the Pacific; and now this creature of my brain and hand had turned Frankenstein, bent upon

A second shell exploded upon the deck. One of the lifeboats, frightfully overcrowded, swung at a dangerous

angle from its davits. A fragment of the shell shattered the bow tackle, and I saw the women and children and

the men vomited into the sea beneath, while the boat dangled stern up for a moment from its single davit, and

at last with increasing momentum dived into the midst of the struggling victims screaming upon the face of

Now I saw men spring to the rail and leap into the ocean. The deck was tilting to an impossible angle. Nobs

braced himself with all four feet to keep from slipping into the scuppers and looked up into my face with a

"Come on, boy!" I cried, and running to the side of the ship, dived headforemost over the rail. When I came

up, the first thing I saw was Nobs swimming about in a bewildered sort of way a few yards from me. At sight

The submarine was withdrawing toward the north, but all the time it was shelling the open boats, three of

them, loaded to the gunwales with survivors. Fortunately the small boats presented a rather poor target,

which, combined with the bad marksmanship of the Germans preserved their occupants from harm; and after

a few minutes a blotch of smoke appeared upon the eastern horizon and the Uboat submerged and

All the time the lifeboats has been pulling away from the danger of the sinking liner, and now, though I

yelled at the top of my lungs, they either did not hear my appeals for help or else did not dare return to succor

me. Nobs and I had gained some little distance from the ship when it rolled completely over and sank. We

were caught in the suction only enough to be drawn backward a few yards, neither of us being carried

beneath the surface. I glanced hurriedly about for something to which to cling. My eyes were directed toward

the point at which the liner had disappeared when there came from the depths of the ocean the muffled

reverberation of an explosion, and almost simultaneously a geyser of water in which were shattered lifeboats,

human bodies, steam, coal, oil, and the flotsam of a liner's deck leaped high above the surface of the seaa

watery column momentarily marking the grave of another ship in this greatest cemetery of the seas.

When the turbulent waters had somewhat subsided and the sea had ceased to spew up wreckage, I ventured to

swim back in search of something substantial enough to support my weight and that of Nobs as well. I had

gotten well over the area of the wreck when not a halfdozen yards ahead of me a lifeboat shot bow foremost

out of the ocean almost its entire length to flop down upon its keel with a mighty splash. It must have been

carried far below, held to its mother ship by a single rope which finally parted to the enormous strain put

upon it. In no other way can I account for its having leaped so far out of the watera beneficent

circumstance to which I doubtless owe my life, and that of another far dearer to me than my own. I say

beneficent circumstance even in the face of the fact that a fate far more hideous confronts us than that which

we escaped that day; for because of that circumstance I have met her whom otherwise I never should have

known; I have met and loved her. At least I have had that great happiness in life; nor can Caspak, with all her

So for the thousandth time I thank the strange fate which sent that lifeboat hurtling upward from the green pit

of destruction to which it had been draggedsent it far up above the surface, emptying its water as it rose

It did not take me long to clamber over its side and drag Nobs in to comparative safety, and then I glanced

around upon the scene of death and desolation which surrounded us. The sea was littered with wreckage

among which floated the pitiful forms of women and children, buoyed up by their useless lifebelts. Some

were torn and mangled; others lay rolling quietly to the motion of the sea, their countenances composed and

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 was turned upward, held above the surface by her lifebelt, and was framed in a floating mass

of dark and waving hair. She was very beautiful. I had never looked upon such perfect features, such a divine

molding which was at the same time human intensely human. It was a face filled with character and

strength and femininitythe face of one who was created to love and to be loved. The cheeks were flushed

to the hue of life and health and vitality, and yet she lay there upon the bosom of the sea, dead. I felt

something rise in my throat as I looked down upon that radiant vision, and I swore that I should live to

And then I let my eyes drop once more to the face upon the water, and what I saw nearly tumbled me

backward into the sea, for the eyes in the dead face had opened; the lips had parted; and one hand was raised

toward me in a mute appeal for succor. She lived! She was not dead! I leaned over the boat's side and drew

her quickly in to the comparative safety which God had given me. I removed her lifebelt and my soggy coat

and made a pillow for her head. I chafed her hands and arms and feet. I worked over her for an hour, and at

last I was rewarded by a deep sigh, and again those great eyes opened and looked into mine.

At that I was all embarrassment. I have never been a ladies' man; at LelandStanford I was the butt of the

class because of my hopeless imbecility 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 redhot rivet.

Those eyes took me in slowly from head to foot; then they wandered slowly around the horizon marked by

the rising and falling gunwales of the lifeboat. They looked at Nobs and softened, and then came back to me

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

"Ayeaye, sir!" she replied faintly, and again her lips drooped, and her long lashes swept the firm, fair texture

"Do you know," she said after a moment of silence, "I have been awake for a long time! But I did not dare

open my eyes. I thought I must be dead, and I was afraid to look, for fear that I should see nothing but

blackness about me. I am afraid to die! Tell me what happened after the ship went down. I remember all that

happened beforeoh, but I wish that I might forget it!" A sob broke her voice. "The beasts!" she went on

after a moment. "And to think that I was to have married one of thema lieutenant in the Germany navy."

Presently she resumed as though she had not ceased speaking. "I went down and down and down. I thought I

should never cease to sink. I felt no particular distress until I suddenly started upward at everincreasing

velocity; then my lungs seemed about to burst, and I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing

more until I opened my eyes after listening to a torrent of invective against Germany and Germans. Tell me,

I told her, then, as well as I could, all that I had seenthe submarine shelling the open boats and all the rest

of it. She thought it marvelous that we should have been spared in so providential a manner, and I had a

pretty speech upon my tongue's end, but lacked the nerve to deliver it. Nobs had come over and nosed his

muzzle into her lap, and she stroked his ugly face, and at last she leaned over and put her cheek against his

forehead. I have always admired Nobs; but this was the first time that it had ever occurred to me that I might

wish to be Nobs. I wondered how he would take it, for he is as unused to women as I. But he took to it as a

duck takes to water. What I lack of being a ladies' man, Nobs certainly makes up for as a ladies' dog. The old

scalawag just closed his eyes and put on one of the softest "sugarwouldn'tmeltinmymouth" expressions

Whether she meant anything personal in that reply I did not know; but I took it as personal and it made me

As we drifted about upon that vast expanse of loneliness it is not strange that we should quickly become well

acquainted. Constantly we scanned the horizon for signs of smoke, venturing guesses as to our chances of

rescue; but darkness settled, and the black night enveloped us without ever the sight of a speck upon the

We were thirsty, hungry, uncomfortable, and cold. Our wet garments had dried but little and I knew that the

girl must be in grave danger from the 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 the water out of the boat with cupped

hands, ending by mopping the balance up with my handkerchiefa slow and backbreaking procedure; thus

I had made a comparatively dry place for the girl to lie down low in the bottom of the boat, where the sides

would protect her from the night wind, and when at last she did so, almost overcome as she was by weakness

and fatigue, I threw my wet coat over her further to thwart the chill. But it was of no avail; as I sat watching

her, the moonlight marking out the graceful curves of her slender young body, I saw her shiver.

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

Nobbler came and lay down on the thwart beside me, his back against my leg, and I sat staring in dumb

misery at the girl, knowing in my heart of hearts that she might die before morning came, for what with the

shock and exposure, she had already gone through enough to kill almost any woman. And as I gazed down at

her, so small and delicate and helpless, there was born slowly within my breast a new emotion. It had never

been there before; now it will never cease to be there. It made me almost frantic in my desire to find some

way to keep warm and cooling lifeblood in her veins. I was cold myself, though I had almost forgotten it until

Nobbler moved and I felt a new sensation of cold along my leg against which he had lain, and suddenly

realized that in that one spot I had been warm. Like a great light came the understanding of a means to warm

the girl. Immediately I knelt beside her to put my scheme into practice when suddenly I was overwhelmed

with embarrassment. Would she permit it, even if I could muster the courage to suggest it? Then I saw her

frame convulse, shudderingly, her muscles reacting to her rapidly lowering temperature, and casting prudery

to the winds, I threw myself down beside her and took her in my arms, pressing her body close to mine.

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

"Forgive me," I managed to stammer. "It is the only way. You will die of exposure if you are not warmed,

and Nobs and I are the only means we can command for furnishing warmth." And I held her tightly while I

called Nobs and bade him lie down at her back. The girl didn't struggle any more when she learned my

purpose; but she gave two or three little gasps, and then began to cry softly, burying her face on my arm, and

Toward morning, I must have dozed, though it seemed to me at the time that I had lain awake for days,

instead of hours. When I finally opened 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 had turned her head during the night so that as I opened

It was Nobs who finally awoke her. He got up, stretched, turned around a few times and lay down again, and

the girl opened her eyes and looked into mine. Hers went very wide at first, and then slowly comprehension

"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 than she; the circulation all along my left side seeming to be paralyzed entirely. "You

have been very good to me." And that was the only mention she ever made of it; yet I know that she was

thankful and that only reserve prevented her from referring to what, to say the least, was an embarrassing

Shortly after daylight we saw smoke apparently coming straight toward us, and after a time we made out the

squat lines of a tugone of those fearless exponents of England's supremacy of the sea that tows sailing

ships into French and English ports. I stood up on a thwart and waved my soggy coat above my head. Nobs

stood upon another and barked. The girl sat at my feet straining her eyes toward the deck of the oncoming

boat. "They see us," she said at last. "There is a man answering your signal." She was right. A lump came into

my throatfor her sake rather than for mine. She was saved, and none too soon. She could not have lived

through another night upon the Channel; she might not have lived 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 aboard without assistance. The rough men were gentle as mothers with the girl.

Plying us both with questions they hustled her to the captain's cabin and me to the boilerroom. They told the

girl to take off her wet 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't have to tell me to strip after I once got into the warmth of the

boilerroom. In a jiffy, my clothes hung about where they might dry most quickly, and I myself was

absorbing, through every pore, the welcome heat of the stifling compartment. They brought us hot soup and

coffee, and then those who were not on duty sat around and helped me damn the Kaiser and his brood.

As soon as our clothes were dry, they bade us don them, as the chances were always more than fair in those

waters that we should run into trouble with the enemy, as I was only too well aware. What with the warmth

and the feeling of safety for the girl, and the knowledge that a little rest and food would quickly overcome the

effects of her experiences of the past dismal hours, I was feeling more content than I had experienced since

those three whistleblasts had shattered the peace of my world the previous afternoon.

But peace upon the Channel has been but a transitory thing since August, 1914. It proved itself such that

morning, for I had scarce gotten into my dry clothes and taken the girl's apparel to the captain's cabin when

an order was shouted down into the engineroom for full 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 two hundred yards off our

port bow. She had signaled us to stop, and our skipper had ignored the order; but now she had her gun trained

on us, and the second shot grazed the cabin, warning the belligerent tugcaptain that it was time to obey.

Once again an order went down to the engineroom, and the tug reduced speed. The Uboat ceased firing

and ordered the tug to come about and approach. Our momentum had carried us a little beyond the enemy

craft, but we were turning now on the arc of a circle that would bring us alongside her. As I stood watching

the maneuver and wondering what was to become of us, I felt something touch my elbow and turned to see

the girl standing at my side. She looked up into my face with a rueful expression. "They seem bent on our

destruction," she said, "and it looks like the same boat that sunk us yesterday."

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

The girl drew back from me with a little exclamation of surprise and disappointment. "I thought you were an

"Nor am I," I replied. "Americans have been building submarines for all nations for many years. I wish,

though, that we had gone bankrupt, my father and I, before ever we turned out that Frankenstein of a thing."

We were approaching the Uboat at half speed now, and I could almost distinguish the features of the men

upon her deck. A sailor stepped to my side and slipped something hard and cold into my hand. I did not have

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 Uboat now as I heard word passed to the engine for full speed

ahead. I instantly grasped the brazen effrontery of the plucky English skipperhe was going to ram five

hundreds tons of Uboat in the face of her trained gun. I could scarce repress a cheer. At first the boches

didn't seem to grasp his intention. Evidently they thought they were witnessing an exhibition of poor

seamanship, and they yelled their warnings to the tug to reduce speed and throw the helm hard to port.

We were within fifty feet of them when they awakened to the intentional menace of our maneuver. Their gun

crew was off its guard; but they sprang to their piece now and sent a futile shell above our heads. Nobs leaped

about and barked furiously. "Let 'em have it!" commanded the tugcaptain, and instantly revolvers and rifles

poured bullets upon the deck of the submersible. Two of the guncrew went down; the other trained their

piece at the waterline of the oncoming tug. The balance of those on deck replied to our smallarms fire,

I hastily pushed the girl down the companionway leading to the engineroom, and then I raised my pistol and

fired my first shot at a boche. What happened in the next few seconds happened so quickly that details are

rather blurred in my memory. I saw the helmsman lunge forward upon the wheel, pulling the helm around so

that the tug sheered off quickly from her course, and I recall realizing that all our efforts were to be in vain,

because of all the men aboard, Fate had decreed that this one should fall first to an enemy bullet. I saw the

depleted guncrew on the submarine fire their piece and I felt the shock of impact and heard the loud

I saw and realized these things even as I was leaping into the pilothouse and grasping the wheel, standing

astride the dead body of the helmsman. With all my strength I threw the helm to starboard; but it was too late

to effect the purpose of our skipper. The best I did was to scrape alongside the sub. I heard someone shriek an

order into the engineroom; the boat shuddered and trembled to the sudden reversing of the engines, and our

speed quickly lessened. Then I saw what that madman of a skipper planned since his first scheme had gone

With a loudyelled command, he leaped to the slippery deck of the submersible, and at his heels came his

hardy crew. I sprang from the pilothouse and followed, not to be left out in the cold when it came to strafing

the boches. From the engine room companionway came the engineer and stockers, and together we leaped

after the balance of the crew and into the handtohand fight that was covering the wet deck with red blood.

Beside me came Nobs, silent now, and grim. Germans were 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 loud commands of the

commander and his junior; but presently we were too indiscriminately mixed to make it safe to use our

firearms, and the battle resolved itself into a handtohand struggle for possession of the deck.

The sole aim of each of us was to hurl one of the opposing force into the sea. I shall never forget the hideous

expression upon the face of the great Prussian with whom chance confronted me. He lowered his head and

rushed at me, bellowing like a bull. With a quick sidestep and ducking low beneath his outstretched arms, I

eluded him; and as he turned to come back at me, I landed a blow upon his chin which sent him spinning

toward the edge of the deck. I saw his wild endeavors to regain his equilibrium; I saw him reel drunkenly for

an instant upon the 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 and lifted me entirely off my feet. Kick and squirm as I would, I

could neither turn toward my antagonist nor free myself from his maniacal grasp. Relentlessly he was rushing

me toward the side of the vessel and death. There was none to stay him, for each of my companions was more

than occupied by from one to three of the enemy. For an instant I was fearful for myself, and then I saw that

My boche was bearing me toward the side of the submarine against which the tug was still pounding. That I

should be ground to death between the two was lost upon me as I saw the girl standing alone upon the tug's

deck, as I saw the stern high in air and the bow rapidly settling for the final dive, as I saw death from which I

could not save her clutching at the skirts of the woman I now knew all too well that I loved.

I had perhaps the fraction of a second longer to live when I heard an angry growl behind us mingle with a cry

of pain and rage from the giant who carried me. Instantly he went backward to the deck, and as he did so he

threw his arms outwards to save himself, freeing me. I fell heavily upon him, but was upon my feet in the

instant. As I arose, I cast a single glance at my opponent. Never again would he menace me or another, for

Nob's great jaws had closed upon his throat. Then I sprang toward the edge of the deck closest to the girl

"Jump!" I cried. "Jump!" And I held out my arms to her. Instantly as though with implicit confidence in my

ability to save her, she leaped over the side of the tug onto the sloping, slippery side of the Uboat. I reached

far over to seize her hand. At the same instant the tug pointed its stern straight toward the sky and plunged

out of sight. My hand missed the girl's by a fraction of an inch, and I saw her slip into the sea; but scarce had

The sinking tug drew us far below the surface; but I had seized her the moment I struck the water, and so we

went down together, and together we came upa few yards from the Uboat. The first thing I heard was

Nobs barking furiously; evidently he had missed me and was searching. A single glance at the vessel's deck

assured me that the battle was over and that we had been victorious, for I saw our survivors holding a handful

of the enemy at pistol points while one by one the rest of the crew was coming out of the craft's interior and

As I swam toward the submarine with the girl, Nobs' persistent barking attracted the attention of some of the

tug's crew, so that as soon as we reached the side there were hands to help us aboard. I asked the girl if she

was hurt, but she assured me that she was none the worse for this second wetting; nor did she seem to suffer

any from shock. I was to learn for myself that this slender and seemingly delicate creature possessed the heart

As we joined our own party, I found the tug's mate checking up our survivors. There were ten of us left, not

including the girl. Our brave skipper was missing, as were eight others. There had been nineteen of us in the

attacking party and we had accounted in one way and another during the battle for sixteen Germans and had

"Not a bad day's work," said Bradley, the mate, when he had completed his roll. "Only losing the skipper," he

Olsonwho in spite of his name was Irish, and in spite of his not being Scotch had been the tug's

engineerwas standing with Bradley and me. "Yis," he agreed, "it's a day's worrk we're after doin', but

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

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

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

Both men looked at me in astonishment, and then I had to explain all over again as I had explained to the girl.

Bradley and Olson were delighted. Immediately I was put in command, and the first thing I did was to go

below with Olson and inspect the craft thoroughly for hidden boches and damaged machinery. There were no

Germans below, and everything was intact and in shipshape working order. I then ordered all hands below

except one man who was to act as lookout. Questioning the Germans, I found that all except the commander

were willing to resume their posts and aid in bringing the vessel into an English port. I believe that they were

relieved at the prospect of being detained at a comfortable English prisoncamp for the duration of the war

after the perils and privations through which they had passed. The officer, however, assured me that he would

There was, therefore, nothing to do but put the man in irons. As we were preparing to put this decision into

force, the girl descended from the deck. It was the first time that she or the German officer had seen each

other's faces since we had boarded the Uboat. I was assisting the girl down the ladder and still retained a

hold upon her armpossibly after such support was no longer necessarywhen she turned and looked

squarely into the face of the German. Each voiced a sudden exclamation of surprise and dismay.

The girl's eyes went wide, and slowly filled with a great horror, as she shrank back. Then her slender figure

stiffened to the erectness of a soldier, and with chin in air and without a word she turned her back upon the

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

When he had gone, the girl raised her eyes to mine. "He is the German of whom I spoke," she said. "He is

I merely inclined my head. She had loved him! I wondered if in her heart of hearts she did not love him yet.

Immediately I became insanely jealous. I hated Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts with such utter intensity

But I didn't have much chance to enjoy my hatred then, for almost immediately the lookout poked his face

over the hatchway and bawled down that there was smoke on the horizon, dead ahead. Immediately I went on

"If she's friendly," he said, "we'll speak her. If she's not, we'll sink hereh, captain?"

We hoisted the Union Jack and remained on deck, asking Bradley to go below and assign to each member of

More rapidly now we closed the distance between ourselves and the stranger, until I could plainly see the red

ensign of the British merchant marine. My heart swelled with pride at the thought that presently admiring

British tars would be congratulating us upon our notable capture; and just about then the merchant steamer

must have sighted us, for she veered suddenly toward the north, and a moment later dense volumes of smoke

issued from her funnels. Then, steering a zigzag course, she fled from us as though we had been the bubonic

plague. I altered the course of the submarine and set off in chase; but the steamer was faster than we, and

With a rueful smile, I directed that our original course be resumed, and once again we set off toward merry

England. That was three months ago, and we haven't arrived yet; nor is there any likelihood that we ever

shall. The steamer we had just sighted must have wirelessed a warning, for it wasn't half an hour before we

saw more smoke on the horizon, and this time the vessel flew the white ensign of the Royal Navy and carried

guns. She didn't veer to the north or anywhere else, but bore down on us rapidly. I was just preparing to

signal her, when a flame flashed from her bows, and an instant later the water in front of us was thrown high

Bradley had come on deck and was standing beside me. "About one more of those, and she'll have our

A second shell passed over us, and then I gave the command to change our direction, at the same time

directing Bradley to go below and give the order to submerge. I passed Nobs down to him, and following,

It seemed to me that the divingtanks never had filled so slowly. We heard a loud explosion apparently

directly above us; the craft trembled to the shock which threw us all to the deck. I expected momentarily to

feel the deluge of inrushing water, but none came. Instead we continued to submerge until the manometer

registered forty feet and then I knew that we were safe. Safe! I almost smiled. I had relieved Olson, who had

remained in the tower at my direction, having been a member of one of the early British submarine crews,

and therefore having some knowledge of the business. Bradley was at my side. He looked at me quizzically.

"What the devil are we to do?" he asked. "The merchantman will flee us; the warvessel will destroy us;

neither will believe our colors or give us a chance to explain. We will meet even a worse reception if we go

"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 and fled at our approach. For two days we cruised up and down the

Channel trying to tell some one, who would listen, that we were friends; but no one would listen. After our

encounter with the first warship I had given instructions that a wireless message be sent out explaining our

predicament; but to my chagrin I discovered that both sending and receiving 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. If you wish, I will take you there, and I can promise that you will be treated

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

Those were anxious days, during which I had but little opportunity to associate with Lys. I had given her the

commander's room, Bradley and I taking that of the deckofficer, while Olson and two of our best men

occupied the room ordinarily allotted to petty officers. I made Nobs' bed down in Lys' room, for I knew she

Nothing of much moment occurred for a while after we left British waters behind us. We ran steadily along

upon the surface, making good time. The first two boats we sighted made off as fast as they could go; and the

third, a huge freighter, fired on us, forcing us to submerge. It was after this that our troubles commenced. One

of the Diesel engines broke down in the morning, and while we were working on it, the forward port

divingtank commenced to fill. I was on deck at the time and noted the gradual list. Guessing at once what

was happening, 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 the head with a most unpleasant list to port, and I didn't wait to transmit

orders to some one else but ran as fast as I could for the valve that let the sea into the forward port

divingtank. It was wide open. To close it and to have the pump started that would empty it were the work of

I knew that the valve had never opened itself. Some one had opened itsome one who was willing to die

After that I kept a guard pacing the length of the narrow craft. We worked upon the engine all that day and

night and half the following day. Most of the time we drifted idly upon the surface, but toward noon we

sighted smoke due west, and having found that only enemies inhabited the world for us, I ordered that the

other engine be started so that we could move out of the path of the oncoming steamer. The moment the

engine started to turn, however, there was a grinding sound of tortured steel, and when it had been stopped,

It was another two days before we were ready to limp along, half repaired. The night before the repairs were

completed, the sentry came to my room and awoke me. He was rather an intelligent fellow of the English

He raised his finger to his lips and came closer to me. "I think I've found out who's doin' the mischief," he

whispered, and nodded his head toward the girl's room. "I seen her sneakin' from the crew's room just now,"

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' he never puts two an' two

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

"Say nothing of this to anyone," I ordered. "Keep your eyes and ears open and report every suspicious thing

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 I fell into a troubled sleep. It was daylight when I awoke. We were steaming along

slowly upon the surface, my orders having been to proceed at half speed until we could take an observation

and determine our position. The sky had been overcast all the previous day and all night; but as I stepped into

the centrale that morning I was delighted to see that the sun was again shining. The spirits of the men seemed

improved; everything seemed propitious. I forgot at once the cruel misgivings of the past night as I set to

What a blow awaited me! The sextant and chronometer had both been broken beyond repair, and they had

been broken just this very night. They had been broken upon the night that Lys had been seen talking with

von Schoenvorts. I think that it was this last thought which hurt me the worst. I could look the other disaster

in the face with equanimity; 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, but for the life of me I couldn't bring

myself to repeat what Wilson had reported to me the previous night. In fact, as I had given the matter thought,

it seemed incredible that the girl could have passed through my room, in which Bradley and I slept, and then

carried on a conversation in the crew's room, in which Von Schoenvorts was kept, without having been seen

Bradley shook his head. "I can't make it out," he said. "One of those boches must be pretty clever to come it

over us all like this; but they haven't harmed us as much as they think; there are still the extra instruments."

It was my turn now to shake a doleful head. "There are no extra instruments," I told them. "They too have

Both men looked at me in amazement. "We still have the compass and the sun," said Olson. "They may be

after getting the compass some night; but they's 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 hatchway and seeing me, asked permission to

come on deck and get a breath of fresh air. I recognized him as Benson, the man who, Wilson had said,

reported having seen Lys with von Schoenvorts two nights before. I motioned him on deck and then called

him to one side, asking if he had seen anything out of the way or unusual during his trick on watch the night

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 seen the girl in the crew's room about midnight talking with the German commander, but

as there hadn't seemed to him to be any harm in that, he hadn't said anything about it. Telling him never to

fail to report to me anything in the slightest out of the ordinary routine of the ship, I dismissed him.

Several of the other men now asked permission to come on deck, and soon all but those actually engaged in

some necessary duty were standing around smoking and talking, all in the best of spirits. I took advantage of

the absence of the men upon the deck to go below for my breakfast, which the cook was already preparing

upon the electric stove. Lys, followed by Nobs, appeared as I entered the centrale. She met me with a pleasant

"Good morning!" which I am afraid I replied to in a tone that was rather constrained and surly.

"Will you breakfast with me?" I suddenly asked the girl, determined to commence a probe of my own along

She nodded a sweet acceptance of my invitation, and together we sat down at the little table of the officers'

Her manner was so straightforward and honest that I could not bring myself to believe in her duplicity;

yetThinking to surprise her into a betrayal of her guilt, I blurted out: "The chronometer and sextant were

both destroyed last night; there is a traitor among us." But she never turned a hair by way of evidencing guilty

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

"Men are often glad to die for an idealan ideal of patriotism, perhaps," I replied; "and a willingness to

martyr themselves includes a willingness to sacrifice others, even those who love them. Women are much the

same, except that they will go even further than most menthey will sacrifice everything, even honor, for

I watched her face carefully as I spoke, and I thought that I detected a very faint flush mounting her cheek.

"Take von Schoenvorts, for instance," I continued: "he would doubtless be glad to die and take us all with

him, could he prevent in no other way the falling of his vessel into enemy hands. He would sacrifice anyone,

even you; and if you still love him, you might be his ready tool. Do you understand me?"

She looked at me in wideeyed consternation for a moment, and then she went very white and rose from her

seat. "I do," she replied, and turning her back upon me, she walked quickly toward her room. I started to

follow, for even believing what I did, I was sorry that I had hurt her. I reached the door to the crew's room

just behind her and in time to see von Schoenvorts lean forward and whisper something to her as she passed;

That afternoon it clouded over; the wind mounted to a gale, and the sea rose until the craft was wallowing and

rolling frightfully. Nearly everyone aboard was sick; the air became foul and oppressive. For twentyfour

hours I did not leave my post in the conning tower, as both Olson and Bradley were sick. Finally I found that

I must get a little rest, and so I looked about for some one to relieve me. Benson volunteered. He had not been

sick, and assured me that he was a former R.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 his loyalty, and so it was with a feeling

I slept twelve hours straight, and when I awoke and discovered what I had done, I lost no time in getting to

the conning tower. There sat Benson as wide awake as could be, and the compass showed that we were

heading straight into the west. The storm was still raging; nor did it abate its fury until the fourth day. We

were all pretty well done up and looked forward to the time when we could go on deck and fill our lungs with

fresh air. During the whole four days I had not seen the girl, as she evidently kept closely to her room; and

during this time no untoward incident had occurred aboard the boata fact which seemed to strengthen the

For six more days after the storm lessened we still had fairly rough weather; nor did the sun once show

himself during all that time. For the seasonit was now the middle of Junethe storm was unusual; but

being from southern California, I was accustomed to unusual weather. In fact, I have discovered that the

We kept steadily to our westward course, and as the U33 was one of the fastest submersibles we had ever

turned out, I knew that we must be pretty close to the North American coast. What puzzled me most was the

fact that for six days we had not sighted a single ship. It seemed remarkable that we could cross the Atlantic

almost to the coast of the American continent without glimpsing smoke or sail, and at last I came to the

conclusion that we were way off our course, but whether to the north or to the south of it I could not

On the seventh day the sea lay comparatively calm at early dawn. There was a slight haze upon the ocean

which had cut off our view of the stars; but conditions all pointed toward a clear morrow, and I was on deck

anxiously awaiting the rising of the sun. My eyes were glued upon the impenetrable mist astern, for there in

the east I should see the first glow of the rising sun that would assure me we were still upon the right course.

Gradually the heavens lightened; but astern I could see no intenser glow that would indicate the rising sun

I looked and gasped, for there directly to port I saw outlined through the haze the red top of the rising sun.

Hurrying to the tower, I looked at the compass. It showed that we were holding steadily upon our westward

course. Either the sun was rising in the south, or the compass had been tampered with. The conclusion was

I went back to Bradley and told him what I had discovered. "And," I concluded, "we can't make another five

hundred knots without oil; our provisions are running low and so is our water. God only knows how far south

"There is nothing to do," he replied, "other than to alter our course once more toward the west; we must raise

I told him to do so; and then I set to work improvising a crude sextant with which we finally took our

bearings in a rough and most unsatisfactory manner; for when the work was done, we did not know how far

from the truth the result might be. It showed us to be about 20' north and 30' west nearly twentyfive

hundred miles off our course. In short, if our reading was anywhere near correct, we must have been traveling

due south for six days. Bradley now relieved Benson, for we had arranged our shifts so that the latter and

Olson now divided the nights, while Bradley and I alternated with one another during the days.

I questioned both Olson and Benson closely in the matter of the compass; but each stoutly maintained that no

one had tampered with it during his tour of duty. Benson gave me a knowing smile, as much as to say: "Well,

We kept to our westerly course for several hours when the lookout's cry announced a sail. I ordered the

U33's course altered, and we bore down upon the stranger, for I had come to a decision which was the result

of necessity. We could not lie there in the middle of the Atlantic and starve to death if there was any way out

of it. The sailing ship saw us while we were still a long way off, as was evidenced by her efforts to escape.

There was scarcely any wind, however, and her case was hopeless; so when we drew near and signaled her to

stop, she came into the wind and lay there with her sails flapping idly. We moved in quite close to her. She

I explained our circumstances to her skipper and asked for food, water and oil; but when he found that we

were not German, he became very angry and abusive and started to draw away from us; but I was in no mood

for any such business. Turning toward Bradley, who was in the conningtower, I snapped out: "Gunservice

on deck! To the diving stations!" We had no opportunity for drill; but every man had been posted as to his

duties, and the German members of the crew understood that it was obedience or death for them, as each was

accompanied by a man 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 the guncrew clambered up the narrow

ladder and at my direction trained their piece upon the slowmoving Swede. "Fire a shot across her bow," I

Accept it from me, it didn't take that Swede long to see the error of his way and get the red and white pennant

signifying "I understand" to the masthead. Once again the sails flapped idly, and then I ordered him to lower

a boat and come after me. With Olson and a couple of the Englishmen I boarded the ship, and from her cargo

selected what we neededoil, provisions and water. I gave the master of the Balmen a receipt for what we

took, together with an affidavit signed by Bradley, Olson, and myself, stating briefly how we had come into

possession of the U33 and the urgency of our need for what we took. We addressed both to any British

agent with the request that the owners of the Balmen be reimbursed; but whether or not they were, I do not

[1] Late in July, 1916, an item in the shipping news mentioned a Swedish sailing vessel, Balmen, Rio de

Janiero to Barcelona, sunk by a German raider sometime in June. A single survivor in an open boat was

picked up off the Cape Verde Islands, in a dying condition. He expired without giving any details.

With water, food, and oil aboard, we felt that we had obtained a new lease of life. Now, too, we knew

definitely where we were, and I determined to make for Georgetown, British Guianabut I was destined to

Six of us of the loyal crew had come on deck either to serve the gun or board the Swede during our setto

with her; and now, one by one, we descended the ladder into the centrale. I was the last to come, and when I

reached the bottom, I found myself looking into the muzzle of a pistol in the hands of Baron Friedrich von

SchoenvortsI saw all my men lined up at one side with the remaining eight Germans standing guard over

I couldn't imagine how it had happened; but it had. Later I learned that they had first overpowered Benson,

who was asleep in his bunk, and taken his pistol from him, and then had found it an easy matter to disarm the

cook and the remaining two Englishmen below. After that it had been comparatively simple to stand at the

The first thing von Schoenvorts did was to send for me and announce that as a pirate I was to be shot early

the next morning. Then he explained that the U33 would cruise in these waters for a time, sinking neutral

and enemy shipping indiscriminately, and looking for one of the German raiders that was supposed to be in

He didn't shoot me the next morning as he had promised, and it has never 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 Bradley out of

We cruised for a long time, sinking many vessels, all but one by gunfire, but we did not come across a

German raider. I was surprised to note that von Schoenvorts often permitted Benson to take command; but I

reconciled this by the fact that Benson appeared to know more of the duties of a submarine commander than

Once or twice Lys passed me; but for the most part she kept to her room. The first time she hesitated as

though she wished to speak to me; but I did not raise my head, and finally she passed on. Then one day came

the word that we were about to round the Horn and that von Schoenvorts had taken it into his fool head to

cruise up along the Pacific coast of North America and prey upon all sorts and conditions of merchantmen.

The very first day we entered the South Pacific we had an adventure. It turned out to be quite the most

exciting adventure I had ever encountered. It fell about this way. About eight bells of the forenoon watch I

heard a hail from the deck, and presently the footsteps of the entire ship's company, from the amount of noise

I heard at the ladder. Some one yelled back to those who had not yet reached the level of the deck: "It's the

I saw that we had reached the end of our rope. Below all was quietnot a man remained. A door opened at

the end of the narrow hull, and presently Nobs came trotting up to me. He licked my face and rolled 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 almost at a runshe

was at my side immediately. "Here!" she cried. "Quick!" And she slipped something into my hand. It was a

keythe key to my irons. At my side she also laid a pistol, and then she went on into the centrale. As she

passed me, I saw that she carried another pistol for herself. It did not take me long to liberate myself, and then

I was at her side. "How can I thank you?" I started; but she shut me up with a word.

"Do not thank me," she said coldly. "I do not care to hear your thanks or any other expression from you. Do

not stand there looking at me. I have given you a chance to do somethingnow do it!" The last was a

Glancing up, I saw that the tower was empty, and I lost no time in clambering up, looking about me. About a

hundred yards off lay a small, swift cruiserraider, and above her floated the German manofwar's flag. A

boat had just been lowered, and I could see it moving toward us filled with officers and men. The cruiser lay

dead ahead. "My," I thought, "what a wonderful targ" I stopped even thinking, 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 I

trust 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 down here, 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 barest fraction of a second, and then she

turned and went up the ladder. A moment later Olson returned, and the girl followed him. "Quick!" I

whispered to the big Irishman, and made for the bow compartment where the torpedotubes are built into the

boat; here, too, were the torpedoes. The girl accompanied us, and when she saw the thing I had in mind, she

stepped forward and lent a hand to the swinging of the great cylinder of death and destruction into the mouth

of its tube. With oil and main strength we shoved the torpedo home and shut the tube; then I ran back to the

conningtower, praying in my heart of hearts that the U33 had not swung her bow away from the prey. No,

Never could aim have been truer. I signaled back to Olson: "Let 'er go!" The U33 trembled from stem to

stern as the torpedo shot from its tube. I saw the white wake leap from her bow straight toward the enemy

cruiser. A chorus of hoarse yells arose from the deck of our own craft: I saw the officers stand suddenly erect

in the boat that was approaching 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 the submarine's deck were standing in paralyzed

fascination, staring at the torpedo. Bradley happened to be looking toward the conningtower and saw me. I

sprang on deck and ran toward him. "Quick!" I whispered. "While they are stunned, we must overcome

A German was standing near Bradleyjust in front of him. The Englishman struck the fellow a frantic blow

upon the neck and at the same time snatched his pistol from its holster. Von Schoenvorts had recovered from

his first surprise quickly and had turned toward the main hatch to investigate. I covered him with my

revolver, and at the same instant the torpedo struck the raider, the terrific explosion drowning the German's

Bradley was now running from one to another of our men, and though some of the Germans saw and heard

Olson was below, so that there were only nine of us against eight Germans, for the man Bradley had struck

still lay upon the deck. Only two of us were armed; but the heart seemed to have gone out of the boches, and

they put up but halfhearted resistance. Von Schoenvorts was the worsthe was fairly frenzied with rage

and chagrin, and he came charging for me like a mad bull, and as he came he discharged his pistol. If he'd

stopped long enough to take aim, he might have gotten me; but his pace made him wild, so that not a shot

touched me, and then we clinched and went to the deck. This left two pistols, which two of my own men

were quick to appropriate. The Baron was no match for me in a handtohand encounter, and I soon had him

A halfhour later things had quieted down, and all was much the same as before the prisoners had

revoltedonly we kept a much closer watch on von Schoenvorts. The Geier had sunk while we were still

battling upon our deck, and afterward we had drawn away toward the north, leaving the survivors to the

attention of the single boat which had been making its way toward us when Olson launched the torpedo. I

suppose the poor devils never reached land, and if they did, they most probably perished on that cold and

unhospitable shore; but I couldn't permit them aboard the U33. We had all the Germans we could take care

That evening the girl asked permission to go on deck. She said that she felt the effects of long confinement

below, and I readily granted her request. I could not understand her, and I craved an opportunity to 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 at our bows and the two long

radiating swells running far off into the distance upon either hand astern, forming a great V which our

propellers filled with choppy waves. Benson was in the tower, we were bound for San Diego and all looked

Lys stood with a heavy blanket wrapped around her slender figure, and as I approached her, she half turned

toward me to see who it was. When she recognized me, she immediately turned away.

"I want to thank you," I said, "for your bravery and loyaltyyou were magnificent. I am sorry that you had

"You did doubt me," she replied in a level voice. "You practically accused me of aiding Baron von

"I could not believe it," I said; "and yet two of my men reported having seen you in conversation with von

Schoenvorts late at night upon two separate occasionsafter each of which some great damage was found

done us in the morning. I didn't want to doubt you; but I carried all the responsibility of the lives of these

men, of the safety of the ship, of your life and mine. I had to watch you, and I had to put you on your guard

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

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

"Then two men have lied," she asserted without heat. "I have not spoken to Baron von Schoenvorts other than

in your presence when first we came aboard the U33. And please, when you address me, remember that to

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 the hot, 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 me swear inwardly a thousand solemn oaths that I

For several days things went along in about the same course. I took our position every morning with my

crude sextant; but the results were always most unsatisfactory. They always showed a considerable westing

when I knew that we had been sailing due north. I blamed my crude instrument, and kept on. Then one

"Pardon me," she said, "but were I you, I should watch this man Bensonespecially when he is in charge." I

asked her what she meant, thinking I could see the influence of von Schoenvorts raising a suspicion against

"If you will note the boat's course a halfhour after Benson goes on duty," she said, "you will know what I

mean, and you will understand why he prefers a night watch. Possibly, too, you will understand some other

Then she went back to her room, thus ending the conversation. I waited until half an hour after Benson had

gone on duty, and then I went on deck, passing through the conningtower where Benson sat, and looking at

the compass. It showed that our course was north by westthat is, one point west of north, which was, for

our assumed position, about right. I was greatly relieved to find that nothing was wrong, for the girl's words

had caused me considerable apprehension. I was about to return to my room when a thought occurred to me

that again caused me to change my mindand, incidentally, came near proving my deathwarrant.

When I had left the conningtower little more than a halfhour since, the sea had been breaking over the port

bow, and it seemed to me quite improbable that in so short a time an equally heavy sea could be deluging us

from the opposite side of the shipwinds may change quickly, but not a long, heavy sea. There was only one

other solutionsince I left the tower, our course had been altered some eight points. Turning quickly, I

climbed out upon the conningtower. A single glance at the heavens confirmed my suspicions; the

constellations which should have been dead ahead were directly starboard. We were sailing due west.

Just for an instant longer I stood there to check up my calculationsI wanted to be quite sure before I

accused Benson of perfidy, and about the only thing I came near making quite sure of was death. I cannot see

even now how I escaped it. I was standing on the edge of the conningtower, when a heavy palm suddenly

struck me between the shoulders and hurled me forward into space. The drop to the triangular deck forward

of the conningtower might easily have broken a leg for me, or I might have slipped off onto the deck and

rolled overboard; but fate was upon my side, as I was only slightly bruised. As I came to my feet, I heard the

conningtower cover slam. There is a ladder which leads from the deck to the top of the tower. Up this I

scrambled, as fast 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 fellow intend? What was going on below? If

Benson was a traitor, how could I know that there were not other traitors among us? I cursed myself for my

folly in going out upon the deck, and then this thought suggested anothera hideous one: who was it that

Thinking to attract attention from inside the craft, I again ran down the ladder and onto the small deck only to

find that the steel covers of the conningtower windows were shut, and then I leaned with my back against

I glanced at the bow. The sea seemed to be getting heavier, for every wave now washed completely over the

lower deck. I watched them for a moment, and then a sudden chill pervaded my entire being. It was not the

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 instant I had turned the last corner of life's highway and was looking God Almighty in

It would be difficult, even impossible, to set down in writing my sensations at that moment. All I can

particularly recall is that I laughed, though neither from a spirit of bravado nor from hysteria. And I wanted to

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 conningtower. From the very slow submergence of the boat I knew that Benson was doing the entire

trick alonethat he was merely permitting the divingtanks to fill and that the divingrudders were not in

use. The throbbing of the engines ceased, and in its stead came the steady vibration of the electric motors.

The water was halfway up the conningtower! I had perhaps five minutes longer on the deck. I tried to decide

what I should do after I was washed away. Should I swim until exhaustion claimed me, or should I give up

From below came two muffled reports. They sounded not unlike shots. Was Benson meeting with resistance?

Personally it could mean little to me, for even though my men might overcome the enemy, none would know

of my predicament until long after it was too late to succor me. The top of the conningtower 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 I had not done since childhoodI prayed.

Instead it receded. Now the top of the conningtower received only the crests of the higher waves; now the

little triangular deck below became visible! What had occurred within? Did Benson believe me already gone,

and was he emerging because of that belief, or had he and his forces been vanquished? The suspense was

more wearing than that which I had endured while waiting for dissolution. Presently the main deck came into

view, and then the conningtower opened behind me, and I turned to look into the anxious face of Bradley.

"Thank God, man!" was all he said as he reached forth and dragged me into the tower. I was cold and numb

and rather all in. Another few minutes would have done for me, I am sure, but the warmth of the interior

helped to revive me, aided and abetted by some brandy which Bradley poured down my throat, from which it

When I got down into the centrale, I saw the Germans lined up on one side with a couple of my men with

pistols standing over them. Von Schoenvorts was among them. On the floor lay Benson, moaning, and

Bradley replied. "You see the result, sir," he said. "It might have been 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 to watch

himno one but Miss La Rue. She felt the submergence of the boat and came out of her room to investigate.

She was just in time to see Benson at the diving rudders. When he saw her, he raised his pistol and fired

pointblank at her, but he missed and she firedand didn't miss. The two shots awakened everyone, and as

our men were armed, the result was inevitable as you see it; but it would have been very different had it not

been for Miss La Rue. It was she who closed the divingtank seacocks and roused Olson and me, and had

And there I had been thinking that through her machinations I had been lured to the deck and to my death! I

could have gone on my knees to her and begged her forgivenessor at least I could have, had I not been

AngloSaxon. As it was, I could only remove my soggy cap and bow and mumble my appreciation. She

made no replyonly turned and walked very rapidly toward her room. Could I have heard aright? Was it

Benson died that night. He remained defiant almost to the last; but just before he went out, he motioned to

"I did it alone," he said. "I did it because I hate youI hate all your kind. I was kicked out of your shipyard

at Santa Monica. I was locked out of California. I am an I. W. W. I became a German agentnot because I

love them, for I hate them toobut because I wanted to injure Americans, whom I hated more. I threw the

wireless apparatus overboard. I destroyed the chronometer and the sextant. I devised a scheme for varying the

compass to suit my wishes. I told Wilson that I had seen the girl talking with von Schoenvorts, and I made

the poor egg think he had seen her doing the same thing. I am sorrysorry that my plans failed. I hate you."

He didn't die for a halfhour after that; nor did he speak againaloud; 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 his words, what do you

suppose I heard? "NowIlay medowntosleep" That was all; Benson was dead. We threw his

The wind of that night brought on some pretty rough weather with a lot of black clouds which persisted for

several days. We didn't know what course we had been holding, and there was no way of finding out, as we

could no longer trust the compass, not knowing what Benson had done to it. The long and the short of it was

that we cruised about aimlessly until the sun came out again. I'll never forget that day or its surprises. We

reckoned, or rather guessed, that we were somewhere off the coast of Peru. The wind, which had been

blowing fitfully from the east, suddenly veered around into the south, and presently we felt a sudden chill.

Icebergs! "Icebergs, nothin'!" exclaimed one of the Englishmen. "Why, man, they don't come north of

We thought he was crazy; but he wasn't, for that afternoon we sighted a great berg south of us, and we'd been

running north, we thought, for days. I can tell you we were a discouraged lot; but we got a faint thrill of hope

early the next morning when the lookout bawled down the open hatch: "Land! Land northwest by west!"

I think we were all sick for the sight of land. I know that I was; but my interest was quickly dissipated by the

sudden illness of three of the Germans. Almost simultaneously they commenced vomiting. They couldn't

suggest any explanation for it. I asked them what they had eaten, and found they had eaten nothing other than

the food cooked for all of us. "Have you drunk anything?" I asked, for I knew that there was liquor aboard,

"Only water," moaned one of them. "We all drank water together this morning. We opened a new tank.

I started an investigation which revealed a terrifying condition some one, probably Benson, had poisoned

all the running water on the ship. It would have been worse, though, had land not been in sight. The sight of

Our course had been altered, and we were rapidly approaching what appeared to be a precipitous headland.

Cliffs, seemingly rising perpendicularly out of the sea, faded away into the mist upon either hand as we

approached. The land before us might have been a continent, so mighty appeared the shoreline; yet we knew

that we must be thousands of miles from the nearest western landmassNew Zealand or Australia.

We took our bearings with our crude and inaccurate instruments; we searched the chart; we cudgeled our

brains; and at last it was Bradley who suggested a solution. He was in the tower and watching the compass, to

which he called my attention. The needle was pointing straight toward the land. Bradley swung the helm hard

to starboard. I could feel the U33 respond, and yet the arrow still clung straight and sure toward the distant

"Yes; he followed Cook about 1721. He is scarcely mentioned even by contemporaneous

historiansprobably because he got into political difficulties on his return to Italy. It was the fashion to scoff

at his claims, but I recall reading one of his workshis only one, I believein which he described a new

continent in the south seas, a continent made up of `some strange metal' which attracted the compass; a

rockbound, inhospitable coast, without beach or harbor, which extended for hundreds of miles. He could

make no landing; nor in the several days he cruised about it did he see sign of life. He called it Caprona and

sailed away. I believe, sir, that we are looking upon the coast of Caprona, uncharted and forgotten for two

"If you are right, it might account for much of the deviation of the compass during the past two days," I

suggested. "Caprona has been luring us upon her deadly rocks. Well, we'll accept her challenge. We'll land

upon Caprona. Along that long front there must be a vulnerable spot. We will find it, Bradley, for we must

And so we approached the coast upon which no living eyes had ever rested. Straight from the ocean's depths

rose towering cliffs, shot with brown and blues and greenswithered moss and lichen and the verdigris of

copper, and everywhere the rusty ocher of iron pyrites. The clifftops, though ragged, were of such uniform

height as to suggest the boundaries of a great plateau, and now and again we caught glimpses of verdure

topping the rocky escarpment, as though bush or jungleland had pushed outward from a lush vegetation

farther inland to signal to an unseeing world that Caprona lived and joyed in life beyond her austere and

But metaphor, however poetic, never slaked a dry throat. To enjoy Caprona's romantic suggestions we must

have water, and so we came in close, always sounding, and skirted the shore. As close in as we dared cruise,

we found fathomless depths, and always the same undented coastline of bald cliffs. As darkness threatened,

we drew away and lay well off the coast all night. We had not as yet really commenced to suffer for lack of

water; but I knew that it would not be long before we did, and so at the first streak of dawn I moved in again

Toward noon we discovered a beach, the first we had seen. It was a narrow strip of sand at the base of a part

of the cliff that seemed lower than any we had before scanned. At its foot, half buried in the sand, lay great

boulders, mute evidence that in a bygone age some mighty natural force had crumpled Caprona's barrier at

this point. It was Bradley who first called our attention to a strange object lying among the boulders above the

I looked long and carefully and could have sworn that the thing I saw was the sprawled figure of a human

being. Miss La Rue was on deck with us. I turned and asked her to go below. Without a word she did as I

bade. Then I stripped, and as I did so, Nobs looked questioningly at me. He had been wont at home to enter

"I'm going to see what that thing is on shore," I replied. "If it's a man, it may mean that Caprona is inhabited,

or it may merely mean that some poor devils were shipwrecked here. I ought to be able to tell from the

It was a long slim blade he offeredone that I could carry between my teethand so I accepted it gladly.

"Keep close in," I directed Bradley, and then I dived over the side and struck out for the narrow beach. There

was another splash directly behind me, and turning my head, I saw faithful old Nobs swimming valiantly in

The surf was not heavy, and there was no undertow, so we made shore easily, effecting an equally easy

landing. The beach was composed largely of small stones worn smooth by the action of water. There was

little sand, though from the deck of the U33 the beach had appeared to be all sand, and I saw no evidences

of mollusca or crustacea such as are common to all beaches I have previously seen. I attribute this to the fact

of the smallness of the beach, the enormous depth of surrounding water and the great distance at which

As Nobs and I approached the recumbent figure farther up the beach, I was appraised by my nose that

whether or not, the thing had once been organic and alive, but that for some time it had been dead. Nobs

halted, sniffed and growled. A little later he sat down upon his haunches, raised his muzzle to the heavens

and bayed forth a most dismal howl. I shied a small stone at him and bade him shut uphis uncanny noise

made me nervous. When I had come quite close to the thing, I still could not say whether it had been man or

beast. The carcass was badly swollen and partly decomposed. There was no sign of clothing upon or about it.

A fine, brownish hair covered the chest and abdomen, and the face, the palms of the hands, the feet, the

shoulders and back were practically hairless. The creature must have been about the height of a fair sized

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 semiarboreal peoples of Borneo, the Philippines and other remote regions where low types still

persist. The countenance might have been that of a cross between Pithecanthropus, the Java apeman, and a

daughter of the Piltdown race of prehistoric Sussex. A wooden cudgel lay beside the corpse.

Now this fact set me thinking. There was no wood of any description in sight. There was nothing about the

beach to suggest a wrecked mariner. There was absolutely nothing about the body to suggest that it might

possibly in life have known a maritime experience. It was the body of a low type of man or a high type of

beast. In neither instance would it have been of a seafaring race. Therefore I deduced that it was native to

Capronathat it lived inland, and that it had fallen or been hurled from the cliffs above. Such being the case,

Caprona was inhabitable, if not inhabited, by man; but how to reach the inhabitable interior! That was the

question. A closer view of the cliffs than had been afforded me from the deck of the U33 only confirmed

my conviction that no mortal man could scale those perpendicular heights; there was not a fingerhold, not a

Nobs and I met with no sharks upon our return journey to the submarine. My report filled everyone with

theories and speculations, and with renewed hope and determination. They all reasoned along the same lines

that I had reasonedthe 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 fruitless exploration of the monotonous coast.

There was not another break in the frowning cliffsnot even another minute patch of pebbly beach. As the

sun fell, so did our spirits. I had tried to make advances to the girl again; but she would have none of me, and

so I was not only thirsty but otherwise sad and downhearted. I was glad when the new day broke the hideous

The morning's search brought us no shred of hope. Caprona was impregnablethat was the decision of all;

yet we kept on. It must have been about two bells of the afternoon watch that Bradley called my attention to

the branch of a tree, with leaves upon it, floating on the sea. "It may have been carried down to the ocean by a

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

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

"Right you are!" I cried. "We must believe the other until we prove it false. We can't afford to give up heart

now, when we need heart most. The branch was carried down by a river, and we are going to find that river."

I smote my open palm with a clenched fist, to emphasize a determination unsupported by hope. "There!" I

cried suddenly. "See that, Bradley?" And I pointed at a spot closer to shore. "See that, man!" Some flowers

and grasses and another leafy branch floated toward us. We both scanned the water and the coastline. Bradley

evidently discovered something, or at least thought that he had. He called down for a bucket and a rope, and

when they were passed up to him, he lowered the former into the sea and drew it in filled with water. Of this

he took a taste, and straightening up, looked into my eyes with an expression of elationas much as to say "I

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

"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 I haven't experienced it since boyhood; but

how can water from a flowing stream, taste thus, and what the dickens makes it so warm? It must be at least

"That is easily discovered now that we have found it," I answered. "It can't come from the ocean; so it must

come from the land. All that we have to do is follow it, and sooner or later we shall come upon its source."

We were already rather close in; but I ordered the U33's prow turned inshore and we crept slowly along,

constantly dipping up the water and tasting it to assure ourselves that we didn't get outside the freshwater

current. There was a very light offshore wind and scarcely any breakers, so that the approach to the shore

was continued without finding bottom; yet though we were already quite close, we saw no indication of any

indention in the coast from which even a tiny brooklet might issue, and certainly no mouth of a large river

such as this must necessarily be to freshen the ocean even two hundred yards from shore. The tide was

running out, and this, together with the strong flow of the freshwater current, would have prevented our going

against the cliffs even had we not been under power; as it was we had to buck the combined forces in order to

hold our position at all. We came up to within twentyfive feet of the sheer wall, which loomed high above

us. There was no break in its forbidding face. As we watched the face of the waters and searched the cliff's

high face, Olson suggested that the fresh water might come from a submarine geyser. This, he said, would

account for its heat; but even as he spoke a bush, covered thickly with leaves and flowers, bubbled to the

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

"I've got it!" I exclaimed suddenly. "Look there!" And I pointed at the base of the cliff ahead of us, which the

receding tide was gradually exposing to our view. They all looked, and all saw what I had seenthe top of a

dark opening in the rock, through which water was pouring out into the sea. "It's the subterranean channel of

an inland river," I cried. "It flows through a land covered with vegetationand therefore a land upon which

the sun shines. No subterranean caverns produce any order of plant life even remotely resembling what we

have seen disgorged by this river. Beyond those cliffs lie fertile lands and fresh waterperhaps, game!"

Bradley laugheda rather sorry laugh, though. "You might as well call our attention to the fact, sir," he said,

"Not at all," I rejoined. "A Uboat isn't constructed to navigate space, but it is designed to travel below the

"I would, Olson," I replied. "We haven't one chance for life in a hundred thousand if we don't find food and

water upon Caprona. This water coming out of the cliff is not salt; but neither is it fit to drink, though each of

us has drunk. It is fair to assume that inland the river is fed by pure streams, that there are fruits and herbs and

game. Shall we lie out here and die of thirst and starvation with a land of plenty possibly only a few hundred

yards away? We have the means for navigating a subterranean river. Are we too cowardly to utilize this

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

"To the divingstations!" I commanded, and in less than a minute the deck was deserted, the conningtower

covers had slammed to and the U33 was submergingpossibly for the last time. I know that I had this

As we went down, I sat in the tower with the searchlight projecting its seemingly feeble rays ahead. We

submerged very slowly and without headway 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 in the great cliff. It was an opening that would

have admitted a halfdozen Uboats at one and the same time, roughly cylindrical in contourand dark as

As I gave the command which sent the U33 slowly ahead, I could not but feel a certain uncanny

presentiment of evil. Where were we going? What lay at the end of this great sewer? Had we bidden farewell

forever to the sunlight and life, or were there before us dangers even greater than those which we now faced?

I tried to keep my mind from vain imagining by calling everything which I observed to the eager ears below.

I was the eyes of the whole company, and I did my best not to fail them. We had advanced a hundred yards,

perhaps, when our first danger confronted us. Just ahead was a sharp rightangle turn in the tunnel. I could

see the river's flotsam hurtling against the rocky wall upon the left as it was driven on by the mighty current,

and I feared for the safety of the U33 in making so sharp a turn under such adverse conditions; but there was

nothing for it but to try. I didn't warn my fellows of the dangerit could have but caused them useless

apprehension, for if we were to be smashed against the rocky wall, no power on earth could avert the quick

end that would come to us. I gave the command full speed ahead and went charging toward the menace. I was

forced to approach the dangerous lefthand wall in order to make the turn, and I depended upon the power of

the motors to carry us through the surging waters in safety. Well, we made it; but it was a narrow squeak. As

we swung around, the full force of the current caught us and drove the stern against the rocks; there was a

thud which sent a tremor through the whole craft, and then a moment of nasty grinding as the steel hull

scraped the rock wall. I expected momentarily the inrush of waters that would seal our doom; but presently

In another fifty yards there was a second turn, this time toward the left! but it was more of a gentle curve, and

we took it without trouble. After that it was plain sailing, though as far as I could know, there might be most

anything ahead of us, and my nerves strained to the snappingpoint every instant. After the second turn the

channel ran comparatively straight for between one hundred and fifty and two hundred yards. The waters

grew suddenly lighter, and my spirits rose accordingly. I shouted down to those below that I saw daylight

ahead, and a great shout of thanksgiving reverberated through the ship. A moment later we emerged into

sunlit water, and immediately I raised the periscope and looked about me upon the strangest landscape I had

We were in the middle of a broad and now sluggish river the banks of which were lined by giant, arboraceous

ferns, raising their mighty fronds fifty, one hundred, two hundred feet into the quiet air. Close by us

something rose to the surface of the river and dashed at the periscope. I had a vision of wide, distended jaws,

and then all was blotted out. A shiver ran down into the tower as the thing closed upon the periscope. A

moment later it was gone, and I could see again. Above the trees there soared into my vision a huge thing on

batlike wingsa creature large as a large whale, but fashioned more after the order of a lizard. Then again

something charged the periscope and blotted out the mirror. I will confess that I was almost gasping for

breath as I gave the commands to emerge. Into what sort of strange land had fate guided us?

The instant the deck was awash, I opened the conningtower hatch and stepped out. In another minute the

deckhatch lifted, and those who were not on duty below streamed up the ladder, Olson bringing Nobs under

one arm. For several minutes no one spoke; I think they must each have been as overcome by awe as was I.

All about us was a flora and fauna as strange and wonderful to us as might have been those upon a distant

planet had we suddenly been miraculously transported through ether to an unknown world. Even the grass

upon the nearer bank was unearthlylush and high it grew, and each blade bore upon its tip a brilliant

flower violet or yellow or carmine or bluemaking as gorgeous 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. Mighty forms could be seen moving upon the ground in the

thick forest, while the bosom of the river wriggled with living things, and above flapped the wings of gigantic

"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 saw a long, glossy neck surmounted by a small head rising above the surface of

the river. Presently the back of the creature was exposed, brown and glossy as the water dripped from it. It

turned its eyes upon us, opened its lizardlike mouth, emitted a shrill hiss and came for us. The thing must

have been sixteen or eighteen feet in length and closely resembled pictures I had seen of restored plesiosaurs

of the lower Jurassic. It charged us as savagely as a mad bull, and one would have thought it intended to

We were moving slowly up the river as the creature bore down upon us with distended jaws. The long neck

was far outstretched, and the four flippers 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 it from its socket as though it had been a toothpick stuck in putty. At this exhibition of

titanic strength I think we all simultaneously stepped backward, and Bradley drew his revolver and fired. The

bullet struck the thing in the neck, just above its body; but instead of disabling it, merely increased its rage.

Its hissing rose to a shrill scream as it raised half its body out of water onto the sloping sides of the hull of the

U33 and endeavored to scramble upon the deck to devour us. A dozen shots rang out as we who were armed

drew our pistols and fired at the thing; but though struck several times, it showed no signs of succumbing and

I had noticed that the girl had come on deck and was standing not far behind me, and when I saw the danger

to which we were all exposed, I turned and forced her toward the hatch. We had not spoken for some days,

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. I saw I could do nothing with her unless I exerted force, and so I turned with my

back toward her that I might be in a position to shield her from 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, dart its head forward and with

the quickness of lightning seize upon one of the boches. I ran forward, discharging my pistol into the

creature's body in an effort to force it to relinquish its prey; but I might as profitably have shot at the sun.

Shrieking and screaming, the German was dragged from the deck, and the moment the reptile was clear of the

boat, it dived beneath the surface of the water with its terrified prey. I think we were all more or less shaken

by the frightfulness o the tragedyuntil Olson remarked that the balance of power now rested where it

belonged. Following the death of Benson we had been nine and ninenine Germans and nine "Allies," as we

called ourselves, now there were but eight Germans. We never counted the girl on either side, I suppose

And so Olson's remark helped to clear the atmosphere for the Allies at least, and then our attention was once

more directed toward the river, for around us there had sprung up a perfect bedlam of screams and hisses and

a seething caldron of hideous reptiles, devoid of fear and filled only with hunger and with rage. They

clambered, squirmed and wriggled to the deck, forcing us steadily backward, though we emptied our pistols

into them. There were all sorts and conditions of horrible thingshuge, hideous, grotesque, monstrousa

veritable Mesozoic nightmare. I saw that the girl was gotten below as quickly as possible, and she took Nobs

with herpoor Nobs had nearly barked his head off; and I think, too, that for the first time since his littlest

puppyhood he had known fear; nor can I blame him. After the girl I sent Bradley and most of the Allies and

The creatures were approaching perilously close before I dropped through the hatchway and slammed down

the cover. Then I went into the tower and ordered full speed ahead, hoping to distance the fearsome things;

but it was useless. Not only could any of them easily outdistance the U33, but the further upstream we

progressed the greater the number of our besiegers, until fearful of navigating a strange river at high speed, I

gave orders to reduce and moved slowly and majestically through the plunging, hissing mass. I was mighty

glad that our entrance into the interior of Caprona had been inside a submarine rather than in any other form

of vessel. I could readily understand how it might have been that Caprona had been invaded in the past by

venturesome navigators without word of it ever reaching the outside world, for I can assure you that only by

We proceeded up the river for some forty miles before darkness overtook us. I was afraid to submerge and lie

on the bottom overnight for fear that the mud might be deep enough to hold us, and as we could not hold with

the anchor, I ran in close to shore, and in a brief interim of attack from the reptiles we made fast to a large

tree. We also dipped up some of the river water and found it, though quite warm, a little sweeter than before.

We had food enough, and with the water we were all quite refreshed; but we missed fresh meat. It had been

weeks, now, since we had tasted it, and the sight of the reptiles gave me an ideathat a steak or two from

one of them might not be bad eating. So I went on deck with a rifle, twenty of which were aboard the U33.

At sight of me a huge thing charged and climbed to the deck. I retreated to the top of the conningtower, and

when it had raised its mighty bulk to the level of the little deck on which I stood, I let it have a bullet right

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 reached out its long neck and opened its mighty jaws and grabbed for me; but I

wasn't there. I had tumbled backward into the tower, and I mighty near killed myself doing it. When I glanced

up, that little head on the end of its long neck was coming straight down on top of me, and once more I

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 hideous

face. The thing didn't have sufficient brainpan to entertain more than a single idea at once. Though chopped

and hacked, and with a bullethole between its eyes, it still persisted madly in its attempt to get inside the

tower and devour Olson, though its body was many times the diameter of the hatch; nor did it cease its efforts

until after Olson had succeeded in decapitating it. Then the two men went on deck through the main hatch,

and while one kept watch, the other cut a hind quarter off Plesiosaurus Olsoni, as Bradley dubbed the thing.

Meantime Olson cut off the long neck, saying that it would make fine soup. By the time we had cleared away

the blood and refuse in the tower, the cook had juicy steaks and a steaming broth upon the electric stove, and

the aroma arising from P. Olsoni filled us an with a hitherto unfelt admiration for him and all his kind.

The steaks we had that night, and they were fine; and the following morning we tasted the broth. It seemed

odd to be eating a creature that should, by all the laws of paleontology, have been extinct for several million

years. It gave one a feeling of newness that was almost embarrassing, although it didn't seem to embarrass

The girl ate with us that night at the little officers' mess just back of the torpedo compartment. The narrow

table was unfolded; the four stools 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 the monotony of the short rations of an impoverished

Uboat. Nobs sat between the girl and me and was fed with morsels of the Plesiosaurus steak, at the risk of

forever contaminating his manners. He looked at me sheepishly all the time, for he knew that no wellbred

dog should eat at table; but the poor fellow was so wasted from improper food that I couldn't enjoy my own

meal had he been denied an immediate share in it; and anyway Lys wanted to feed him. So there you are.

Lys was coldly polite to me and sweetly gracious to Bradley and Olson. She wasn't of the gushing type, I

knew; so I didn't expect much from her and was duly grateful for the few morsels of attention she threw upon

the floor to me. We had a pleasant meal, with only one unfortunate occurrencewhen Olson suggested that

possibly the creature we were eating was the same one that ate the German. It was some time before we could

persuade the girl to continue her meal, but at last Bradley prevailed upon her, pointing out that we had come

upstream nearly forty miles since the boche had been seized, and that during that time we had seen literally

thousands of these denizens of the river, indicating that the chances were very remote that this was the same

Plesiosaur. "And anyway," he concluded, "it was only a scheme of Mr. Olson's to get all the steaks for

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 whole land was infested by these and similar horrid monsters, life would be

impossible upon it, and we decided that we would only search long enough to find and take aboard fresh

water and such meat and fruits as might be safely procurable and then retrace our way beneath the cliffs to

And so at last we turned into our narrow bunks, hopeful, happy and at peace with ourselves, our lives and our

God, to awaken the following morning refreshed and still optimistic. We had an easy time getting awayas

we learned later, because the saurians do not commence to feed until late in the morning. From noon to

midnight their curve of activity is at its height, while from dawn to about nine o'clock it is lowest. As a matter

of fact, we didn't see one of them all the time we were getting under way, though I had the cannon raised to

the deck and manned against an assault. I hoped, but I was none too sure, that shells might discourage them.

The trees were full of monkeys of all sizes and shades, and once we thought we saw a manlike creature

Shortly after we resumed our course upstream, we saw the mouth of another and smaller river emptying into

the main channel from the souththat is, upon our right; and almost immediately after we came upon a large

island five or six miles in length; and at fifty miles there was a still larger river than the last coming in from

the northwest, the course of the main stream having now changed to northeast by southwest. The water was

quite free from reptiles, and the vegetation upon the banks of the river had altered to more open and parklike

forest, with eucalyptus and acacia mingled with a scattering of tree ferns, as though two distinct periods of

geologic time had overlapped and merged. The grass, too, was less flowering, though there were still

gorgeous patches mottling the greensward; and lastly, the fauna was less multitudinous.

Six or seven miles farther, and the river widened considerably; before us opened an expanse of water to the

farther horizon, and then we sailed out upon an inland sea so large that only a shoreline upon our side was

visible to us. The waters all about us were alive with life. There were still a few reptiles; but there were fish

The water of the inland sea was very warm, almost hot, and the atmosphere was hot and heavy above it. It

seemed strange that beyond the buttressed walls of Caprona icebergs floated and the south wind was biting,

for only a gentle breeze moved across the face of these living waters, and that was damp and warm.

Gradually, we commenced to divest ourselves of our clothing, retaining only sufficient for modesty; but the

We coasted up the shore of the lake in a northwesterly direction, sounding all the time. We found the lake

deep and the bottom rocky and steeply shelving toward the center, and once when I moved straight out from

shore to take other soundings we could find no bottom whatsoever. In open spaces along the shore we caught

occasional glimpses of the distant cliffs, and here they appeared only a trifle less precipitous than those which

bound Caprona on the seaward side. My theory is that in a far distant era Caprona was a mighty

mountainperhaps the world's mightiest volcanic action blew off the entire crest, blew thousands of feet of

the mountain upward and outward and onto the surrounding continent, leaving a great crater; and then,

possibly, the continent sank as ancient continents have been known to do, leaving only the summit of

Caprona above the sea. The encircling walls, the central lake, the hot springs which feed the lake, all point to

a conclusion, and the fauna and the flora bear indisputable evidence that Caprona was once part of some great

As we cruised up along the coast, the landscape continued a more or less open forest, with here and there a

small plain where we saw animals grazing. With my glass I could make out a species of large red deer, some

antelope and what appeared to be a species of horse; and once I saw the shaggy form of what might have

been a monstrous bison. Here was game a plenty! There seemed little danger of starving upon Caprona. The

game, however, seemed wary; for the instant the animals discovered us, they threw up their heads and tails

and went cavorting off, those farther inland following the example of the others until all were lost in the

mazes of the distant forest. Only the great, shaggy ox stood his ground. With lowered head he watched us

About twenty miles up the coast from the mouth of the river we encountered low cliffs of sandstone, broken

and tortured evidence of the great upheaval which had torn Caprona asunder in the past, intermingling upon a

common level the rock formations of widely separated eras, fusing some and leaving others untouched.

We ran along beside them for a matter of ten miles, arriving off a broad cleft which led into what appeared to

be another lake. As we were in search of pure water, we did not wish to overlook any portion of the coast,

and so after sounding and finding that we had ample depth, I ran the U33 between headlands into as pretty

a landlocked harbor as sailormen could care to see, with good water right up to within a few yards of the

shore. As we cruised slowly along, two of the boches again saw what they believed to be a man, or manlike

creature, watching us from a fringe of trees a hundred yards inland, and shortly after we discovered the mouth

of a small stream emptying into the bay: It was the first stream we had found since leaving the river, and I at

once made preparations to test its water. To land, it would be necessary to run the U33 close in to the shore,

at least as close as we could, for even these waters were infested, though, not so thickly, by savage reptiles. I

ordered sufficient water let into the divingtanks to lower us about a foot, and then I ran the bow slowly

toward the shore, confident that should we run aground, we still had sufficient lifting force to free us when

the water should be pumped out of the tanks; but the bow nosed its way gently into the reeds and touched the

My men were all armed now with both rifles and pistols, each having plenty 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 had seen

of Caprona, or Caspak as we learned later to call the interior, we realized that any instant some new and

terrible danger might confront us. The line was made fast to a small tree, and at the same time I had the stern

As soon as the boche and his guard were aboard again, I called all hands on deck, including von Schoenvorts,

and there I explained to them that the time had come for us to enter into some sort of an agreement among

ourselves that would relieve us of the annoyance and embarrassment of being divided into two antagonistic

partsprisoners and captors. I told them that it was obvious our very existence depended upon our unity of

action, that we were to all intent and purpose entering a new world as far from the seat and causes of our own

worldwar as if millions of miles of space and eons of time separated us from our past lives and habitations.

"There is no reason why we should carry our racial and political hatreds into Caprona," I insisted. "The

Germans among us might kill all the English, or the English might kill the last German, without affecting in

the slightest degree either the outcome of even the smallest skirmish upon the western front or the opinion of

a single individual in any belligerent or neutral country. I therefore put the issue squarely to you all; shall we

bury our animosities and work together with and for one another while we remain upon Caprona, or must we

continue thus divided and but half armed, possibly until death has claimed the last of us? And let me tell you,

if you have not already realized it, the chances are a thousand to one that not one of us ever will see the

outside world again. We are safe now in the matter of food and water; we could provision the U33 for a

long cruise; but we are practically out of fuel, and without fuel we cannot hope to reach the 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, in case they accepted my suggestion,

what their status would be in event of our finding a way to escape with the U33. I replied that I felt that if

we had all worked loyally together we should leave Caprona upon a common footing, and to that end I

suggested that should the remote possibility of our escape in the submarine develop into reality, we should

then immediately make for the nearest neutral port and give ourselves into the hands of the authorities, when

we should all probably be interned for the duration of the war. To my surprise he agreed that this was fair and

told me that they would accept my conditions and that I could depend upon their loyalty to the common

I thanked him and then addressed each one of his men individually, and each 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 military organization under

military rules and disciplineI as commander, with Bradley as my first lieutenant and Olson as my second,

in command of the Englishmen; while von Schoenvorts was to act as an additional second lieutenant and

have charge of his own men. The four of us were to constitute a military court under which men might be

tried and sentenced to punishment for infraction of military rules and discipline, even to the passing of the

I then had arms and ammunition issued to the Germans, and leaving Bradley and five men to guard the U33,

the balance of us went ashore. The first thing we did was to taste the water of the little stream which, to

our delight, we found sweet, pure and cold. This stream was entirely free from dangerous reptiles, because, as

I later discovered, they became immediately dormant when subjected to a much lower temperature than 70

degrees Fahrenheit. They dislike cold water and keep as far away from it as possible. There were countless

brooktrout here, and deep holes that invited us to bathe, and along the bank of the stream were trees bearing

a close resemblance to ash and beech and oak, their characteristics evidently induced by the lower

temperature of the air above the cold water and by the fact that their roots were watered by the water from the

stream rather than from the warm springs which we afterward found in such abundance elsewhere.

Our first concern was to fill the water tanks of the U33 with fresh water, and that having been

accomplished, we set out to hunt for game and explore inland for a short distance. Olson, von Schoenvorts,

two Englishmen and two Germans accompanied me, leaving ten to guard the ship and the girl. I had intended

leaving Nobs behind, but he got away and joined me and was so happy over it that I hadn't the heart to send

him back. We followed the stream upward through a beautiful country for about five miles, and then came

upon its source in a little boulderstrewn clearing. From among the rocks bubbled fully twenty icecold

springs. North of the clearing rose sandstone cliffs to a height of some fifty to seventyfive feet, with tall

trees growing at their base and almost concealing them from our view. To the west the country was flat and

sparsely wooded, and here it was that we saw our first gamea large red deer. It was grazing away from us

and had not seen us when one of my men called my attention to it. Motioning for silence and having the rest

of the party lie down, I crept toward the quarry, accompanied only by Whitely. We got within a hundred

yards of the deer when he suddenly raised his antlered head and pricked up his great ears. We both fired at

once and had the satisfaction of seeing the buck drop; then we ran forward to finish him with our knives. The

deer lay in a small open space close to a clump of acacias, and we had advanced to within several yards of

our kill when we both halted suddenly and simultaneously. Whitely looked at me, and I looked at Whitely,

and then we both looked back 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 god who had been creating elephants must

"It is more blasphemous than that thing which is swiping our meat," I replied, for whatever the thing was, it

had leaped upon our deer and was devouring it in great mouthfuls which it swallowed without mastication.

The creature appeared to be a great lizard at least ten feet high, with a huge, powerful tail as long as its torso,

mighty hind legs and short forelegs. When it had advanced from the wood, it hopped much after the fashion

of a kangaroo, using its hind feet and tail to propel it, and when it stood erect, it sat upon its tail. Its head was

long and thick, with a blunt muzzle, and the opening of the jaws ran back to a point behind the eyes, and the

jaws were armed with long sharp teeth. The scaly body was covered with black and yellow spots about a foot

in diameter and irregular in contour. These spots were outlined in red with edgings about an inch wide. The

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

Our shots rang out together. The thing raised its head and looked about until its eyes rested upon us; then it

gave vent to a most appalling hiss that rose to the crescendo of a terrific shriek and came for us.

We were about a quarter of a mile from the rest of our party, and in full sight of them as they lay in the tall

grass watching us. That they saw all that had happened was evidenced by the fact that they now rose and ran

toward us, and at their head leaped Nobs. The creature in our rear was gaining on us rapidly when Nobs flew

past me like a meteor and rushed straight for the frightful reptile. I tried to recall him, but he would pay no

attention to me, and as I couldn't see him sacrificed, I, too, stopped and faced the monster. The creature

appeared to be more impressed with Nobs than by us and our firearms, for it stopped as the Airedale dashed

Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking beast and dodged his opponent's thrust

with ease. Then he raced to the rear of the tremendous thing and seized it by the tail. There Nobs made the

error of his life. Within that mottled organ were the muscles of a Titan, the force of a dozen mighty catapults,

and the owner of the tail was fully aware of the possibilities which it contained. With a single flip of the tip it

sent poor Nobs sailing through the air a hundred feet above the ground, straight back into the clump of

acacias from which the beast had leaped upon our killand then the grotesque thing sank lifeless to the

Olson and von Schoenvorts came up a minute later with their men; then we all cautiously approached the still

form upon the ground. The creature was quite dead, and an examination resulted in disclosing the fact that

"Because," said von Schoenvorts in his disagreeable way, "the beast is so large, and its nervous organization

of so low a caliber, that it took all this time for the intelligence of death to reach and be impressed upon the

minute brain. The thing was dead when your bullets struck it; but it did not know it for several

secondspossibly a minute. If I am not mistaken, it is an Allosaurus of the Upper Jurassic, remains of which

An Irishman by the name of Brady grinned. I afterward learned that he had served three years on the

I had been calling Nobs in the meantime and was about to set out in search of him, fearing, to tell the truth, to

do so lest I find him mangled and dead among the trees of the acacia grove, when he suddenly emerged from

among the boles, his ears flattened, his tail between his legs and his body screwed into a suppliant S. He was

unharmed except for 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 and cleaning it, and set out upon our return

journey toward the Uboat. On the way Olson, von Schoenvorts and I discussed the needs of our immediate

future, and we were unanimous in placing foremost the necessity of a permanent camp on shore. The interior

of a Uboat is about as impossible and uncomfortable an abidingplace as one can well imagine, and in this

warm climate, and in warm water, it was almost unendurable. So we decided to construct a palisaded camp.

As we strolled slowly back toward the boat, planning and discussing this, we were suddenly startled by a loud

"They are in trouble," I answered for all, "and it's up to us to get back to them. Drop that carcass," I directed

the men carrying the meat, "and follow me!" I set off at a rapid run in the direction of the harbor.

We ran for the better part of a mile without hearing anything more from the 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 long in the

confined interior of the U33. Puffing and panting, we plodded on until within about a mile of the harbor we

came upon a sight that brought us all up standing. We had been passing through a little heavier timber than

was usual to this part of the country, when we suddenly emerged into an open space in the center of which

was such a band as might have caused the most courageous to pause. It consisted of upward of five hundred

individuals representing several species closely allied to man. There were anthropoid apes and

gorillasthese I had no difficulty in recognizing; but there were other forms which I had never before seen,

and I was hard put to it to say whether they were ape or man. Some of them resembled the corpse we had

found upon the narrow beach against Caprona's seawall, while others were of a still lower type, more nearly

resembling the apes, and yet others were uncannily manlike, standing there erect, being less hairy and

There was one among the lot, evidently the leader of them, who bore a close resemblance to the socalled

Neanderthal man of La ChapelleauxSaints. There was the same short, stocky trunk upon which rested an

enormous head habitually bent forward into the same curvature as the back, the arms shorter than the legs,

and the lower leg considerably shorter than that of modern man, the knees bent forward and never

straightened. This creature and one or two others who appeared to be of a lower order than he, yet higher than

that of the apes, carried heavy clubs; the others were armed only with giant muscles and fighting

fangsnature's weapons. All were males, and all were entirely naked; nor was there upon even the highest

At sight of us they turned with bared fangs and low growls to confront us. I did not wish to fire among them

unless it became absolutely necessary, and so I started to lead my party around them; but the instant that the

Neanderthal man guessed my intention, he evidently attributed it to cowardice upon our part, and with a wild

cry he leaped toward us, waving his cudgel above his head. The others followed him, and in a minute we

should have been overwhelmed. I gave the order to fire, and at the first volley six of them went down,

including the Neanderthal man. The others hesitated a moment and then broke for the trees, some running

nimbly among the branches, while others lost themselves to us between the boles. Both von Schoenvorts and

I noticed that at least two of the higher, manlike types took to the trees quite as nimbly as the apes, while

others that more nearly approached man in carriage and appearance sought safety upon the ground with the

An examination disclosed that five of our erstwhile opponents were dead and the sixth, the Neanderthal man,

was but slightly wounded, a bullet having glanced from his thick skull, stunning him. We decided to take him

with us to camp, and by means of belts we managed to secure his hands behind his back and place a leash

around his neck before he regained consciousness. We then retraced our steps for our meat being convinced

by our own experience that those aboard the U33 had been able to frighten off this party with a single

On the return journey Whitely and I preceded the rest of the party by about a hundred yards in the hope of

getting another shot at something edible, for we were all greatly disgusted and disappointed by the loss of our

venison. Whitely and I advanced very cautiously, and not having the whole party with us, we fared better

than on the journey out, bagging two large antelope not a halfmile from the harbor; so with our game and

our prisoner we made a cheerful return to the boat, where we found that all were safe. On the shore a little

north of where we lay there were the corpses of twenty of the wild creatures who had attacked Bradley and

his party in our absence, and the rest of whom we had met and scattered a few minutes later.

We felt that we had taught these wild apemen a lesson and that because of it we would be safer in the

futureat least safer from them; but we decided not to abate our carefulness one whit; feeling that this new

The following morning we commenced work upon our camp, Bradley, Olson, von Schoenvorts, Miss La Rue,

and I having sat up half the night discussing the matter and drawing plans. We set the men at work felling

trees, selecting for the purpose jarrah, a hard, weatherresisting timber which grew in profusion near by. Half

the men labored while the other half stood guard, alternating each hour with an hour off at noon. Olson

directed this work. Bradley, von Schoenvorts and I, with Miss La Rue's help, staked out the various buildings

and the outer wall. When the day was done, we had quite an array of logs nicely notched and ready for our

building operations on the morrow, and we were all tired, for after the buildings had been staked out we all

fell in and helped with the loggingall but von Schoenvorts. He, being a Prussian and a gentleman, couldn't

stoop to such menial labor in the presence of his men, and I didn't see fit to ask it of him, as the work was

purely voluntary upon our part. He spent the afternoon shaping a swaggerstick from the branch of jarrah and

talking with Miss La 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 were we menaced by any of the strange

denizens of Caprona, when some frightful nightmare of the sky swooped down upon us, only to be driven off

by a fusillade of bullets. The thing appeared to be some variety of pterodactyl, and what with its enormous

size and ferocious aspect was most aweinspiring. There was another incident, too, which to me at least was

far more unpleasant than the sudden onslaught of the prehistoric reptile. Two of the men, both Germans, were

stripping a felled tree of its branches. Von Schoenvorts had completed his swaggerstick, and he and I were

One of them threw to his rear a small branch that he had just chopped off, and as misfortune would have it, it

struck von Schoenvorts across the face. It couldn't have hurt him, for it didn't leave a mark; but he flew into a

terrific rage, shouting: "Attention!" in a loud voice. The sailor immediately straightened up, faced his officer,

clicked his heels together and saluted. "Pig!" roared the Baron, and struck the fellow across the face, breaking

his nose. I grabbed von Schoenvorts' arm and jerked him away before he could strike again, if such had been

his intention, and then he raised his little stick to strike me; but before it descended the muzzle of my pistol

was against his belly and he must have seen in my eyes that nothing would suit me better than an excuse 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 to his side and started to turn away; but I pulled him back, and there before his men I told

him that such a thing must never again occurthat no man was to be struck or otherwise punished other than

in due process of the laws that we had made and the court that we had established. All the time the sailor

stood rigidly at attention, nor could I tell from his expression whether he most resented the blow his officer

had struck him or my interference in the gospel of the Kaiserbreed. Nor did he move until I said to him:

"Plesser, you may return to your quarters and dress your wound." Then he saluted and marched stiffly off

Just before dusk we moved out into the bay a hundred yards from shore and dropped anchor, for I felt that we

should be safer there than elsewhere. I also detailed men to stand watch during the night and appointed Olson

officer of the watch for the entire night, telling him to bring his blankets on deck and get what rest he could.

At dinner we tasted our first roast Caprona antelope, and we had a mess of greens that the cook had found

growing along the stream. All during the meal von Schoenvorts was silent and surly.

After dinner we all went on deck and watched the unfamiliar scenes of a Capronian nightthat is, all but von

Schoenvorts. There was less to see than to hear. From the great inland lake behind us came the hissing and

the screaming of countless saurians. Above us we heard the flap of giant wings, while from the shore rose the

multitudinous voices of a tropical jungleof a warm, damp atmosphere such as must have enveloped the

entire earth during the Palezoic and Mesozoic eras. But here were intermingled the voices of later erasthe

scream of the panther, the roar of the lion, the baying of wolves and a thunderous growling which we could

attribute to nothing earthly but which one day we were to connect with the most fearsome of ancient

One by one the others went to their rooms, until the girl and I were left alone together, for I had permitted the

watch to go below for a few minutes, knowing that I would be on deck. Miss La Rue was very quiet, though

she replied graciously enough to whatever I had to say that 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 feel of so little consequenceso small and

helpless in the face of all these myriad manifestations of life stripped to the bone of its savagery and brutality.

I realize as never before how cheap and valueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. You

are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some

other form of life which crosses your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anything but

yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradle to the grave. Yes, that is our troublewe

take ourselves too seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that." She paused and laughed.

"You have evolved a beautiful philosophy," I said. "It fills such a longing in the human breast. It is full, it is

satisfying, it is ennobling. What wonderous strides toward perfection the human race might have made if the

first man had evolved it and it had persisted until now as the creed of humanity."

"What other sort of soul, then, would you expect from `a comic little figure hopping from the cradle to the

grave'?" I inquired. "And what difference does it make, anyway, what you like and what you don't like? You

She looked up at me with a smile. "I imagine that I am frightened and blue," she said, "and I know that I am

very, very homesick and lonely." There was almost a sob in her voice as she concluded. It was the first time

that she had spoken thus to me. Involuntarily, I laid my hand upon hers where it rested on the rail.

"I know how difficult your position is," I said; "but don't feel that you are alone. There isis one here

whowho would do anything in the world for you," I ended lamely. She did not withdraw her hand, and she

looked up into my face with tears on her cheeks and I read in her eyes the thanks her lips could not voice.

Then she looked away across the weird moonlit landscape and sighed. Evidently her newfound philosophy

had tumbled about her ears, for she was seemingly taking herself seriously. I wanted to take her in my arms

and tell her how I loved her, and had taken her hand from the rail and started to draw her toward me when

Olson came blundering up on deck with his bedding. The following morning we started building operations

in earnest, and things 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 savage when approached; but after a time he became more

docile, and then we tried to discover if he had a language. Lys spent a great deal of time talking to him and

trying to draw him out; but for a long while she was unsuccessful. It took us three weeks to build all the

houses, which we constructed 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 flat buildingstone we needed, and so we constructed a stone wall entirely around the

buildings. It was in the form of a square, with bastions and towers at each corner which would permit an

enfilading fire along any side of the fort, and was about one hundred and thirtyfive feet square on the

outside, with walls three feet thick at the bottom and about a foot and a half wide at the top, and fifteen feet

high. It took a long time to build that wall, and we all turned in and helped except von Schoenvorts, who, by

the way, had not spoken to me except in the line of official business since our encountera condition of

armed neutrality which suited me to a T. We have just finished it, the last touches being put on today. I quit

about a week ago and commenced working on this chronicle for our strange adventures, which will account

for any minor errors in chronology which may have crept in; there was so much material that I may have

I see in reading over the last few pages that I neglected to state that Lys finally discovered that the

Neanderthal man possessed a language. She had learned to speak it, and so have I, to some extent. It was

hehis name he says is Am, or Ahm who told us that this country is called Caspak. When we asked him

how far it extended, he waved both arms about his head in an allincluding gesture which took in, apparently,

the entire universe. He is more tractable now, and we are going to release him, for he has assured us that he

will not permit his fellows to harm us. He calls us Galus and says that in a short time he will be a Galu. It is

not quite clear to us what he means. He says that there are many Galus north of us, and that as soon as he

Ahm went out to hunt with us yesterday and was much impressed by the ease with which our rifles brought

down antelopes and deer. We have been living upon the fat of the land, Ahm, having shown us the edible

fruits, 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 know what may come. Our drying process is really smoking. We have also dried a

large quantity of two varieties of cereal which grow wild a few miles south of us. One of these is a giant

Indian maizea lofty perennial often fifty and sixty feet in height, with ears the size off a man's body and

kernels as large as your fist. We have had to construct a second store house for the great quantity of this that

September 3, 1916: Three months ago today the torpedo from the U33 started me from the peaceful deck of

the American liner upon the strange voyage which has ended here in Caspak. We have settled down to an

acceptance of our fate, for all are convinced that none of us will ever see the outer world again. Ahm's

repeated assertions that there are human beings like ourselves in Caspak have roused the men to a keen desire

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 twentyfive miles due west, encountering many terrible

beasts and reptiles and not a few manlike creatures whom Ahm sent away. Here is Bradley's report of the

Marched fifteen miles the first day, camping on the bank of a large stream which runs southward. Game was

plentiful and we saw several varieties which we had not before encountered in Caspak. Just before making

camp we were charged by an enormous woolly rhinoceros, which Plesser dropped with a perfect shot. We

had rhinocerossteaks for supper. Ahm called the thing "Atis." It was almost a continuous battle from the

time we left the fort until we arrived at camp. The mind of man can scarce conceive the plethora of

carnivorous life in this 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. Saw manlike creatures and a low order of ape in one band, and some of the men swore that

there was a white man among them. They were inclined to attack us at first; but a volley from our rifles

caused them to change their minds. We scaled the cliffs as far as we could; but near the top they are

absolutely perpendicular without any sufficient cleft or protuberance to give hand or foothold. All were

disappointed, for we hungered for a view of the ocean and the outside world. We even had a hope that we

might see and attract the attention of a passing ship. Our exploration has determined one thing which will

probably be of little value to us and never heard of beyond Caprona's wallsthis crater was once entirely

Our return journey occupied two days and was as filled with adventure as usual. We are all becoming

accustomed to adventure. It is beginning to pall on us. We suffered no casualties and there was no illness.

I had to smile as I read Bradley's report. In those four days he had doubtless passed through more adventures

than an African biggame hunter experiences in a lifetime, and yet he covered it all in a few lines. Yes, we

are becoming accustomed to adventure. Not a day passes that one or more of us does not face death at least

once. Ahm taught us a few things that have proved profitable and saved us much ammunition, which it is

useless to expend except for food or in the last recourse of selfpreservation. Now when we are attacked by

large flying reptiles we run beneath spreading trees; when land carnivora threaten us, we climb into trees, and

we have learned not to fire at any of the dinosaurs unless we can keep out of their reach for at least two

minutes after hitting them in the brain or spine, or five minutes after puncturing their heartsit takes them so

long to die. To hit them elsewhere is worse than useless, for they do not seem to notice it, and we had

September 7, 1916: Much has happened since I last wrote. Bradley is away again on another exploration

expedition to the cliffs. He expects to be gone several weeks and to follow along their base in search of a

point where they may be scaled. He took Sinclair, Brady, James, and Tippet with him. Ahm has disappeared.

He has been gone about three days; but the most startling thing I have on record is that von Schoenvorts and

Olson while out hunting the other day discovered oil about fifteen miles north of us beyond the sandstone

cliffs. Olson says there is a geyser of oil there, and von Schoenvorts is making preparations to refine it. If he

succeeds, we shall have the means for leaving Caspak and returning to our own world. I can scarce believe

the truth of it. We are all elated to the seventh heaven of bliss. Pray God we shall not be disappointed.

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

October 8, 1916: This is the last entry I shall make upon my manuscript. When this is done, I shall be

through. Though I may pray that it reaches the haunts of civilized man, my better judgment tells me that it

will never be perused by other eyes than mine, and that even though it should, it would be too late to avail

me. I am alone upon the summit of the great cliff overlooking the broad Pacific. A chill south wind bites at

my marrow, while far below me I can see the tropic foliage of Caspak on the one hand and huge icebergs

from the near Antarctic upon the other. Presently I shall stuff my folded manuscript into the thermos bottle I

have carried with me for the purpose since I left the fortFort Dinosaur we named itand hurl it far

outward over the clifftop into the Pacific. What current washes the shore of Caprona I know not; whither

my bottle will be borne I cannot even guess; but I have done all that mortal man may do to notify the world

of my whereabouts and the dangers that threaten those of us who remain alive in Caspakif there be any

About the 8th of September I accompanied Olson and von Schoenvorts to the oilgeyser. Lys came with us,

and we took a number of things which von Schoenvorts wanted for the purpose of erecting a crude refinery.

We went up the coast some ten or twelve miles in the U33, tying up to shore near the mouth of a small

stream which emptied great volumes of crude oil into the seaI find it difficult to call this great lake by any

other name. Then we disembarked and went inland about five miles, where we came upon a small lake

On the edge of the lake we helped von Schoenvorts build his primitive refinery. We worked with him for two

days until he got things fairly well started, and then we returned to Fort Dinosaur, as I feared that Bradley

might return and be worried by our absence. The U33 merely landed those of us that were to return to the

fort and then retraced its course toward the oilwell. Olson, Whitely, Wilson, Miss La Rue, and myself

disembarked, while von Schoenvorts and his German crew returned to refine the oil. The next day Plesser and

two other Germans came down overland for ammunition. Plesser said they had been attacked by wild men

and had exhausted a great deal of ammunition. He also asked permission to get some dried meat and maize,

saying that they were 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 suspicion of their intentions enter my mind. They returned to

the oilwell the same day, while we continued with the multitudinous duties of camp life.

For three days nothing of moment occurred. Bradley did not return; nor did we have any word from von

Schoenvorts. In the evening Lys and I went up into one of the bastion towers and listened to the grim and

terrible nightlife of the frightful ages of the past. Once a sabertooth screamed almost beneath us, and the girl

shrank close against me. As I felt her body against mine, all the pent love of these three long months

shattered the bonds of timidity and conviction, and I swept her up into my arms and covered her face and lips

with kisses. She did not struggle to free herself; but instead her dear arms crept up about my neck and drew

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

My heart filled with rapture then, and it fills now as it has each of the countless times I have recalled those

dear words, as it shall fill always until death has claimed me. I may never see her again; she may not know

how I love hershe may question, she may doubt; but always true and steady, and warm with the fires of

love my heart beats for the girl who said that night: "I love you beyond all conception."

For a long time we sat there upon the little bench constructed for the sentry that we had not as yet thought it

necessary to post in more than one of the four towers. We learned to know one another better in those two

brief hours than we had in all the months that had intervened since we had been thrown together. She told me

that she had loved me from the first, and that she never had loved von Schoenvorts, their engagement having

That was the happiest evening of my life; nor ever do I expect to experience its like; but at last, as is the way

of happiness, it terminated. We descended to the compound, and I walked with Lys to the door of her

quarters. There again she kissed me and bade me good night, and then she went in and closed the door.

I went to my own room, and there I sat by the light of one of the crude candles we had made from the tallow

of the beasts we had killed, and lived over the events of the evening. At last I turned in and fell asleep,

dreaming happy dreams and planning for the future, for even in savage Caspak I was bound to make my girl

safe and happy. It was daylight when I awoke. Wilson, who was acting as cook, was up and astir at his duties

in the cookhouse. The others slept; but I arose and followed by Nobs went down to the stream for a plunge.

As was our custom, I went armed with both rifle and revolver; but I stripped and had my swim without

further disturbance than the approach of a large hyena, a number of which occupied caves in the sandstone

cliffs north of the camp. These brutes are enormous and exceedingly ferocious. I imagine they correspond

with the cavehyena of prehistoric times. This fellow charged Nobs, whose Capronian experiences had

taught him that discretion is the better part of valorwith the result that he dived head foremost into the

stream beside me after giving vent to a series of ferocious growls which had no more effect upon Hyaena

spelaeus than might 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 a rawmeat eater during our numerous hunting expeditions, upon

Whitely and Olson were up and dressed when we returned, and we all sat down to a good breakfast. I could

not but wonder at Lys' absence from the table, for she had always been one of the earliest risers in camp; so

about nine o'clock, becoming apprehensive lest she might be indisposed, I went to the door of her room and

knocked. I received no response, though I finally pounded with all my strength; then I turned the knob and

entered, only to find that she was not there. Her bed had been occupied, and her clothing lay where she had

placed it the previous night upon retiring; but Lys was gone. To say that I was distracted with terror would be

to put it mildly. Though I knew she could not be in camp, I searched every square inch of the compound and

It was Whitely who discovered the first cluea huge humanlike footprint in the soft earth beside the spring,

Then I found a tiny handkerchief close to the outer wall. Lys had been stolen! It was all too plain. Some

hideous member of the apeman tribe had entered the fort and carried her off. While I stood stunned and

horrified at the frightful evidence before me, there came from the direction of the great lake an increasing

sound that rose to the volume of a shriek. We all looked up as the noise approached apparently just above us,

and a moment later there followed a terrific explosion which hurled us to the ground. When we clambered to

our feet, we saw a large section of the west wall torn and shattered. It was Olson who first recovered from his

"A shell!" he cried. "And there ain't no shells in Caspak besides what's on the U33. The dirty boches are

shellin' the fort. Come on!" And he grasped his rifle and started on a run toward the lake. It was over two

miles, but we did not pause until the harbor was in view, and still we could not see the lake because of the

sandstone cliffs which intervened. We ran as fast as we could around the lower end of the harbor, scrambled

up the cliffs and at last stood upon their summit in full view of the lake. Far away down the coast, toward the

river through which we had come to reach the lake, we saw upon the surface the outline of the U33, black

Von Schoenvorts had succeeded in refining the oil! The cur had broken his every pledge and was leaving us

there to our fates. He had even shelled the fort as a parting compliment; nor could anything have been more

Olson, Whitely, Wilson, and I stood for a moment looking at one another. It seemed incredible that man

could be so perfidiousthat we had really seen with our own eyes the thing that we had seen; but when we

returned to the fort, the shattered wall gave us ample evidence that there was no mistake.

Then we began to speculate as to whether it had been an apeman or a Prussian that had abducted Lys. From

what we knew of von Schoenvorts, we would not have been surprised at anything from him; but the

footprints by the spring seemed indisputable evidence that one of Caprona's undeveloped men had borne off

As soon as I had assured myself that such was the case, I made my preparations to follow and rescue her.

Olson, Whitely, and Wilson each wished to accompany me; but I told them that they were needed here, since

with Bradley's party still absent and the Germans gone it was necessary that we conserve our force as far as

It was a sad leavetaking as in silence I shook hands with each of the three remaining men. Even poor Nobs

appeared dejected as we quit the compound and set out upon the wellmarked spoor of the abductor. Not

once did I turn my eyes backward toward Fort Dinosaur. I have not looked upon it sincenor in all

likelihood shall I ever look upon it again. The trail led northwest until it reached the western end of the

sandstone cliffs to the north of the fort; there it ran into a welldefined path which wound northward into a

country we had not as yet explored. It was a beautiful, gently rolling country, broken by occasional

outcroppings of sandstone and by patches of dense forest relieved by open, parklike stretches and broad

meadows whereon grazed countless herbivorous animalsred deer, aurochs, and infinite variety of antelope

and at least three distinct species of horse, the latter ranging in size from a creature about as large as Nobs to

a magnificent animal fourteen to sixteen hands high. These creatures fed together in perfect amity; nor did

they show any great indications of terror when Nobs and I approached. They moved out of our way and kept

The path led straight across the clearing into another forest, lying upon the verge of which I saw a bit of

white. It appeared to stand out in marked contrast and incongruity to all its surroundings, and when I stopped

to examine it, I found that it was a small strip of muslinpart of the hem of a garment. At once I was all

excitement, for I knew that it was a sign left by Lys that she had been carried this way; it was a tiny bit torn

from the hem of the undergarment that she wore in lieu of the nightrobes she had lost with the sinking of the

liner. Crushing the bit of fabric to my lips, I pressed on even more rapidly than before, because I now knew

that I was upon the right trail and that up to this, point at least, Lys still had lived.

I made over twenty miles that day, for I was now hardened to fatigue and accustomed to long hikes, having

spent considerable time hunting and exploring in the immediate vicinity of camp. A dozen times that day was

my life threatened by fearsome creatures of the earth or sky, though I could not but note that the farther north

I traveled, the fewer were the great dinosaurs, though they still persisted in lesser numbers. On the other hand

the quantity of ruminants and the variety and frequency of carnivorous animals increased. Each square mile

At intervals along the way I found bits of muslin, and often they reassured me when otherwise I should have

been doubtful of the trail to take where two crossed or where there were forks, as occurred at several points.

And so, as night was drawing on, I came to the southern 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 pungent aroma of woodsmoke. What

could it mean? There could, to my mind, be but a single solution: man abided close by, a higher order of man

than we had as yet seen, other than Ahm, the Neanderthal man. I wondered again as I had so many times that

Cautiously I approached the flank of the cliffs, where they terminated in an abrupt escarpment as though

some all powerful hand had broken off a great section of rock and set it upon the surface of the earth. It was

now quite dark, and as I crept around the edge of the cliff, I saw at a little distance a great fire around which

were many figuresapparently human figures. Cautioning Nobs to silence, and he had learned many lessons

in the value of obedience since we had entered Caspak, I slunk forward, taking advantage of whatever cover I

could find, until from behind a bush I could distinctly see the creatures assembled by the fire. They were

human and yet not human. I should say that they were a little higher in the scale of evolution than Ahm,

possibly occupying a place of evolution between that of the Neanderthal man and what is known as the

Grimaldi race. Their features were distinctly negroid, though their skins were white. A considerable portion

of both torso and limbs were covered with short hair, and their physical proportions were in many aspects

apelike, though not so much so as were Ahm's. They carried themselves in a more erect position, although

their arms were considerably longer than those of the Neanderthal man. As I watched them, I saw that they

possessed a language, that they had knowledge of fire and that they carried besides the wooden club of Ahm,

a thing which resembled a crude stone hatchet. Evidently they were very low in the scale of humanity, but

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 kneesa bit of muslin torn and ragged about the lower hem. It was Lys, and she was

alive and so far as I could see, unharmed. A huge brute with thick lips and prognathous jaw stood at her

shoulder. He was talking loudly and gesticulating wildly. I was close enough to hear his words, which were

similar to the language of Ahm, though much fuller, for there were many words I could not understand.

However I caught the gist of what he was sayingwhich in effect was that he had found and captured this

Galu, that she was his and that he defied anyone to question his right of possession. It appeared to me, as I

afterward learned was the fact, that I was witnessing the most primitive of marriage ceremonies. The

assembled members of the tribe looked on and listened in a sort of dull and perfunctory apathy, for the

There seemed no one to dispute his claims when he said, or rather shouted, in stentorian tones: "I am Tsa.

"I do," I said in the language of Ahm, and I stepped out into the firelight before them. Lys gave a little cry of

"The she is mine," I replied, "and I have come to claim her. I kill if you do not let her come to me." And I

raised my pistol to a level with his heart. Of course the creature had no conception of the purpose of the

strange little implement which I was poking toward him. With a sound that was half human and half the

growl of a wild beast, he sprang toward me. I aimed at his heart and fired, and as he sprawled headlong to the

ground, the others of his tribe, overcome by fright at the report of the pistol, scattered toward the

As I crushed her to me, there rose from the black night behind us and then to our right and to our left a series

of frightful screams and shrieks, bellowings, roars and growls. It was the nightlife of this jungle world

coming into its ownthe huge, carnivorous nocturnal beasts which make the nights of Caspak hideous. A

shuddering sob ran through Lys' figure. "O God," she cried, "give me the strength to endure, for his sake!" I

saw that she was upon the verge of a breakdown, after all that she must have passed through of fear and

horror 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 of life had we against the frightful hunters of the night who even now were

Now I turned to see what had become of the tribe, and in the fitful glare of the fire I perceived that the face of

the cliff was pitted with large holes into which the manthings were clambering. "Come," I said to Lys, "we

must follow them. We cannot last a halfhour out here. We must find a cave." Already we could see the

blazing green eyes of the hungry carnivora. I seized a brand from the fire and hurled it out into the night, and

there came back an answering chorus of savage and rageful protest; but the eyes vanished for a short time.

Selecting a burning branch for each of us, we advanced toward the cliffs, where we were met by angry

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

"They will not kill us so surely as will those others out there," I replied. "I am going to seek shelter in one of

these caves; nor will the manthings prevent." And I kept on in the direction of the cliff's base. A huge

creature stood upon a ledge and brandished his stone hatchet. "Come and I will kill you and take the she," he

"You saw how Tsa fared when he would have kept my she," I replied in his own tongue. "Thus will you fare

and all your fellows if you do not permit 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 not harm you. Some day will we be Galus;

but now we are not. You do not belong among us. Go away or we will kill you. The she may remain if she is

"The he won't depart," I replied, and approached still nearer. Rough and narrow ledges formed by nature gave

access to the upper caves. A man might scale them if unhampered and unhindered, but to clamber upward in

the face of a belligerent tribe of halfmen and with a girl to 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

I placed a foot upon the lowest ledge and clambered upward, reaching down and pulling Lys to my side.

Already I felt safer. Soon we would be out of danger of the beasts again closing in upon us. The man above

us raised his stone hatchet above his head and leaped lightly down to meet us. His position above me gave

him a great advantage, or at least so he probably thought, for he came with every show of confidence. I hated

to do it, but there seemed no other way, and so I shot him down as I had shot down Tsa.

"You see," I cried to his fellows, "that I can kill you wherever you may be. A long way off I can kill you as

well as I can kill you near by. Let us come among you in peace. I will not harm you if you do not harm us.

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

The creature showed us the mouth of a black cave, but he kept at a distance while he did it, and Lys followed

me as I crawled in to explore. I had matches with me, and in the light of one I found a small cavern with a flat

roof and floor which followed the cleavage of the strata. Pieces of the roof had fallen at some longdistant

date, as was evidenced by the depth of the filth and rubble in which they were embedded. Even a superficial

examination revealed the fact that nothing had ever been attempted that might have improved the livability of

the cavern; nor, should I judge, had it ever been cleaned out. With considerable difficulty I loosened some of

the larger pieces of broken rock which littered the floor and placed them as a barrier before the doorway. It

was too dark to do more than this. I then gave Lys a piece of dried meat, and sitting inside the entrance, we

dined as must have some of our ancient forbears at the dawning of the age of man, while far below the open

diapason of the savage night rose weird and horrifying to our ears. In the light of the great fire still burning

we could see huge, skulking forms, and in the blacker background countless flaming eyes.

Lys shuddered, and I put my arm around her and drew her to me; and thus we sat throughout the hot night.

She told me of her abduction and of the fright she had undergone, and together we thanked God that she had

come through unharmed, because the great brute had dared not pause along the dangerinfested way. She

said that they had but just reached the cliffs when I arrived, for on several occasions her captor had been

forced to take to the trees with her to escape the clutches of some hungry cavelion or sabertoothed tiger, and

that twice they had been obliged to remain for considerable periods before the beasts had retired.

Nobs, by dint of much scrambling and one or two narrow escapes from death, had managed to follow us up

the cliff and was now curled between me and the doorway, having devoured a piece of the dried meat, which

he seemed to relish immensely. He was the first to fall asleep; but I imagine we must have followed suit soon,

for we were both tired. I had laid aside my ammunitionbelt and rifle, though both were close beside me; but

my pistol I kept in my lap beneath my hand. However, we were not disturbed during the night, and when I

awoke, the sun was shining on the treetops in the distance. Lys' head had drooped to my breast, and my arm

Shortly afterward Lys awoke, and for a moment she could not seem to comprehend her situation. She looked

at me and then turned and glanced at my arm about her, and then she seemed quite suddenly to realize the

scantiness of her apparel and drew away, covering her face with her palms and blushing furiously. I drew her

back toward me and kissed her, and then she threw her arms about my neck and wept softly in mute surrender

It was an hour later before the tribe began to stir about. We watched them from our "apartment," as Lys

called it. Neither men nor women wore any sort of clothing or ornaments, and they all seemed to be about of

an age; nor were there any babies or children among them. This was, to us, the strangest and most

inexplicable of facts, but it recalled to us that though we had seen many of the lesser developed wild people

After a while they became less suspicious of us and then quite friendly in their brutish way. They picked at

the fabric of our clothing, which seemed to interest them, and examined my rifle and pistol and the

ammunition in the belt around my waist. I showed them the thermosbottle, and when I poured a little water

from it, they were delighted, thinking that it was a spring which I carried about with mea neverfailing

One thing we both noticed among their other characteristics: they never laughed 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 jerked his head to the south.

"We all come from there," he said. "After a while we go there." And this time he jerked his head toward the

Many times now had we heard this reference to becoming Galus. Ahm had spoken of it many times. Lys and

I decided that it was a sort of original religious conviction, as much a part of them as their instinct for

selfpreservationa primal acceptance of a hereafter and a holier state. It was a brilliant theory, but it was

all wrong. I know it now, and how far we were from guessing the wonderful, the miraculous, the gigantic

truth which even yet I may only guess atthe thing that sets Caspak apart from all the rest of the world far

more definitely than her isolated geographical position or her impregnable barrier of giant cliffs. If I could

live to return to civilization, I should have meat for the clergy and the layman to chew upon for yearsand

After breakfast the men set out to hunt, while the women went to a large pool of warm water covered with a

green scum and filled with billions of tadpoles. They waded in to where the water was about a foot deep and

lay down in the mud. They remained there from one to two hours and then returned to the cliff. While we

were with them, we saw this same thing repeated every morning; but though we asked them why they did it

we could get no reply which was intelligible to us. All they vouchsafed in way of explanation was the single

word Ata. They tried to get Lys to go in with them and could not understand why she refused. After the first

day I went hunting with the men, leaving my pistol and Nobs with Lys, but she never had to use them, for no

reptile or beast ever approached the pool while the women were therenor, so far as we know, at other

times. There was no spoor of wild beast in the soft mud along the banks, and the water certainly didn't look

This tribe lived largely upon the smaller animals which they bowled over with their stone hatchets after

making a wide circle about their quarry and driving it so that it had to pass close to one of their number. The

little horses and the smaller antelope they secured in sufficient numbers to support life, and they also ate

numerous varieties of fruits and vegetables. They never brought in more than sufficient food for their

immediate needs; but why bother? The food problem of Caspak is not one to cause worry to her inhabitants.

The fourth day Lys told me that she thought she felt equal to attempting the return journey on the morrow,

and so I set out for the hunt in high spirits, for I was anxious to return to the fort and learn if Bradley and his

party had returned and what had been the result of his expedition. I also wanted to relieve their minds as to

Lys and myself, as I knew that they must have already given us up for dead. It was a cloudy day, though

warm, as it always is in Caspak. It seemed odd to realize that just a few miles away winter lay upon the

stormtossed ocean, and that snow might be falling all about Caprona; but no snow could ever penetrate the

We had to go quite a bit farther than usual before we could surround a little bunch of antelope, and as I was

helping drive them, I saw a fine red deer a couple of hundred yards behind me. He must have been asleep in

the long grass, for I saw him rise and look about him in a bewildered way, and then I raised my gun and let

him have it. He dropped, 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, he staggered to his feet and ran on for another two hundred yardswhen

I dropped him again. Once more was this repeated before I was able to reach 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 see

nothing of them. I called a few times and waited, but there was no response and no one came. At last I

became disgusted, and cutting off all the meat that I could conveniently carry, I set off in the direction of the

cliffs. I must have gone about a mile before the truth dawn upon meI was lost, hopelessly lost.

The entire sky was still completely blotted out by dense clouds; nor was 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 imagine must

have been about due north, without detecting a single familiar object. In a dense wood I suddenly stumbled

upon a thing which at first filled me with hope and later with the most utter despair and dejection. It was a

little mound of newturned earth sprinkled with flowers long since withered, and at one end was a flat slab of

sandstone stuck in the ground. It was a grave, and it meant for me that I had at last stumbled into a country

inhabited by human beings. I would find them; they would direct me to the cliffs; perhaps they would

accompany me and take us back with them to their abodesto the abodes of men and women like ourselves.

My hopes and my imagination ran riot in the few yards I had to cover to reach that lonely grave and stoop

that I might read the rude characters scratched upon the simple headstone. This is what I read:

Tippet! It seemed incredible. Tippet lying here in this gloomy wood! Tippet dead! He had been a good man,

but the personal loss was not what affected me. It was the fact that this silent grave gave evidence that

Bradley had come this far upon his expedition and that he too probably was lost, for it was not our intention

that he should be long gone. If I had stumbled upon the grave of one of the party, was it not within reason to

As I stood looking down upon that sad and lonely mound, wrapped in the most dismal of reflections and

premonitions, I was suddenly seized from behind 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 a number of giant fingers pinioning

me down, while others stood about surveying me. Here again was a new type of mana higher type than the

primitive tribe I had just quitted. They were a taller people, too, with bettershaped skulls and more

intelligent faces. There were less of the ape characteristics about their features, and less of the negroid, too.

They carried weapons, stoneshod spears, stone knives, and hatchets and they wore ornaments and

breechclothsthe former of feathers worn in their hair and the latter made of a single snakeskin cured

Of course I did not take in all these details upon the instant of my capture, for I was busy with other matters.

Three of the warriors were sitting upon me, trying to hold me down by main strength and awkwardness, and

they were having their hands full in the doing, I can tell you. I don't like to appear conceited, but I may as

well admit that I am proud of my strength and the science that I have acquired and developed in the directing

of itthat and my horsemanship I always have been proud of. And now, that day, all the long hours that I

had put into careful study, practice and training brought me in two or three minutes a full return upon my

investment. Californians, as a rule, are familiar with jujutsu, and I especially had made a study of it for

several years, both at school and in the gym of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, while recently I had had, in my

It took me just about thirty seconds to break the elbow of one of my assailants, trip another and send him

stumbling backward among his fellows, and throw the third completely over my head in such a way that

when he fell his neck was broken. In the instant that the others of the party stood in mute and inactive

surprise, I unslung my riflewhich, carelessly, I had been carrying across my back; and when they charged,

as I felt they would, I put a bullet in the forehead of one of them. This stopped them all temporarilynot the

death of their fellow, but the report of the rifle, the first they had ever heard. Before they were ready to attack

me again, one of them spoke in a commanding tone to his fellows, and in a language similar but still more

comprehensive than that of the tribe to the south, as theirs was more complete than Ahm's. He commanded

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 my only desire was to find my way back to my companions. He asked where

they were and I told him toward the south somewhere, using the Caspakian phrase which, literally translated,

means "toward the beginning." His surprise showed upon his face before he voiced it in words. "There are no

"I tell you," I said angrily, "that I am from another country, far from Caspak, far beyond the high cliffs. I do

not know who the Galus may be; I have never seen them. This is the farthest north I have been. Look at

melook at my clothing and my weapons. Have you ever seen a Galu or any other creature in Caspak who

He had to admit that he had not, and also that he was much interested in me, my rifle and the way I had

handled his three warriors. Finally he became half convinced that I was telling him the truth and offered to

aid me if I would show him how I had thrown the man over my head and also make him a present of the

"bangspear," as he called it. I refused to give him my rifle, but promised to show him the trick he wished to

learn if he would guide me in the right direction. He told me that he would do so tomorrow, that it was too

late today and that I might come to their village and spend the night with them. I was loath to lose so much

time; but the fellow was obdurate, and so I accompanied them. The two dead men they left where they had

These people also were cavedwellers, but their caves showed the result of a higher intelligence that brought

them a step nearer to civilized man than the tribe next "toward the beginning." The interiors of their caverns

were cleared of rubbish, though still far from clean, and they had 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 was conducted were covered with drawings scratched upon

the sandstone. There were the outlines of the giant reddeer, of mammoths, of tigers and other beasts. Here,

as in the last tribe, there were no children or any old people. The men of this tribe had two names, or rather

names of two syllables, and their language contained words of two syllables; whereas in the tribe of Tsa the

words were all of a single syllable, with the exception of a very few like Atis and Galus. The chief's name

was Tojo, and his household consisted of seven females and himself. These women were much more

comely, or rather less hideous than those of Tsa's people; one of them, even, was almost pretty, being less

They were all much interested in me and examined my clothing and equipment carefully, handling and

feeling and smelling of each article. I learned from them that their people were known as Bandlu, or

spearmen; Tsa's race was called Stolu hatchetmen. Below these in the scale of evolution came the

Bolu, or clubmen, and then the Alus, who had no weapons and no language. In that word I recognized

what to me seemed the most remarkable discovery I had made upon Caprona, for unless it were mere

coincidence, I had come upon a word that had been handed down from the beginning of spoken language

upon earth, been handed down for millions of years, perhaps, with little change. It was the sole remaining

thread of the ancient woof of a dawning culture which had been woven when Caprona was a fiery mount

upon a great landmass teeming with life. It linked the unfathomable then to the eternal now. And yet it may

have been pure coincidence; my better judgment tells me that it is coincidence that in Caspak the term for

The comely woman of whom I spoke was called Sota, and she took such a lively interest in me that Tojo

finally objected to her attentions, emphasizing his displeasure by knocking her down and kicking her into a

corner of the cavern. I leaped between them while he was still kicking her, and obtaining a quick hold upon

him, dragged him screaming with pain from the cave. Then I made him promise not to hurt the she again,

upon pain of worse punishment. Sota gave me a grateful look; but Tojo and the balance of his women were

"Sota soon to be Krolu," she confided in a low whisper. I asked her what a Krolu might be, and she tried

to explain, but I do not yet know if I understood her. From her gestures I deduced that the Krolus were a

people who were armed with bows and arrows, had vessels in which to cook their food and huts of some sort

in which they lived, and were accompanied by animals. It was all very fragmentary and vague, but the idea

seemed to be that the Krolus were a more advanced people than the Bandlus. I pondered a long time upon

all that I had heard, before sleep came to me. I tried to find some connection between these various races that

would explain the universal hope which each of them harbored that some day they would become Galus.

Sota had given me a suggestion; but the resulting idea was so weird that I could scarce even entertain it; yet

it coincided with Ahm's expressed hope, with the various steps in evolution I had noted in the several tribes I

had encountered and with the range of type represented in each tribe. For example, among the Bandlu were

such types as Sota, who seemed to me to be the highest in the scale of evolution, and Tojo, who was just a

shade 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 of the

Thinking the thoughts of a lunatic or a dopefiend, I fell asleep; and when I awoke, my hands and feet were

securely tied and my weapons had been taken from me. How they did it without awakening me I cannot tell

you. It was humiliating, but it was true. Tojo stood above me. The early light of morning was dimly filtering

"Tell me," he demanded, "how to throw a man over my head and break his neck, for I am going to kill you,

Of all the ingenuous declarations I have ever heard, this one copped the proverbial bun. It struck me as so

funny that, even in the face of death, I laughed. Death, I may remark here, had, however, lost much of his

terror for me. I had become a disciple of Lys' fleeting philosophy of the valuelessness of human life. I

realized that she was quite rightthat we were but comic figures hopping from the cradle to the grave, of

interest to practically no other created thing than ourselves and our few intimates.

Behind Tojo stood Sota. She raised one hand with the palm toward methe Caspakian equivalent of a

"Let me think about it," I parried, and Tojo said that he would wait until night. He would give me a day to

think it over; then he left, and the women leftthe men for the hunt, and the women, as I later learned from

Sota, for the warm pool where they immersed their bodies as did the shes of the Stolu. "Ata," explained

Sota, when I questioned her as to the purpose of this matutinal rite; but that was later.

I must have lain there bound and uncomfortable for two or three hours when at last Sota entered the cave.

"Come!" she said. "Sota will go with you back to the Galus. It is time that Sota left the Bandlu. Together

we will go to the Krolu, and after that the Galus. Tojo will kill you tonight. He will kill Sota if he knows

"I will go with you to the Krolu," I replied, "but then I must return to my own people `toward the

"You cannot go back," she said. "It is forbidden. They would kill you. Thus far have you comethere is no

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

She insisted, and I insisted; but at last we compromised. I was to escort her as far as the country of the Krolu

and then I was to go back after my own people and lead them north into a land where the dangers were fewer

and the people less murderous. She brought me all my belongings that had been filched from merifle,

ammunition, knife, and thermos bottle, and then hand in hand we descended the cliff and set off toward the

For three days we continued upon our way, until we arrived outside a village of thatched huts just at dusk.

Sota said that she would enter alone; I must not be seen if I did not intend to remain, as it was forbidden that

one should return and live after having advanced this far. So she left me. She was a dear girl and a stanch and

true comrademore like a man than a woman. In her simple barbaric way she was both refined and chaste.

She had been the wife of Tojo. Among the Krolu she would find another mate after the manner of the

strange Caspakian 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 all others. I was becoming a ladies' man after a lifetime of

At the outskirts of the village I left her without even seeing the sort of people who inhabited it, and set off

through the growing darkness toward the south. On the third day I made a detour westward to avoid the

country of the Bandlu, as I did not care to be detained by a meeting with Tojo. On the sixth day I came to

the cliffs of the Stolu, 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 would merge with mine. I felt sure that she was still safe among

the hatchet people, and I was already picturing the joy and the lovelight in her eyes when she should see me

once more as I emerged from the last clump of trees and almost ran toward the cliffs.

It was late in the morning. The women must have returned from the pool; yet as I drew near, I saw no sign of

life whatever. "They have remained longer," I thought; but when I was quite close to the base of the cliffs, I

saw that which dashed my hopes and my happiness to earth. Strewn along the ground were a score of mute

and horrible suggestions of what had taken place during my absencebones picked clean of flesh, the bones

of manlike creatures, the bones of many of the tribe of Stolu; nor in any cave was there sign of life.

Closely I examined the ghastly remains fearful each instant that I should find the dainty skull that would

shatter my happiness for life; but though I searched diligently, picking up every one of the twentyodd skulls,

I found none that was the skull of a creature but slightly removed from the ape. Hope, then, still lived. For

another three days I searched north and south, east and west for the hatchetmen of Caspak; but never a trace

of them did I find. It was raining most of the time now, and the weather was as near cold as it ever seems to

At last I gave up the search and set off toward Fort Dinosaur. For a weeka week filled with the terrors and

dangers of a primeval worldI pushed on in the direction I thought was south. The sun never shone; the rain

scarcely ever ceased falling. The beasts I met with were fewer in number but infinitely more terrible in

temper; yet I lived on until there came to me the realization that I was hopelessly lost, that a year of sunshine

would not again give me my bearings; and while I was cast down by this terrifying knowledge, the

knowledge that I never again could find Lys, I stumbled upon another gravethe grave of William James,

with its little crude headstone and its scrawled characters recording that he had died upon the 13th of

I think that I almost gave up then. Never in my life have I felt more hopeless or helpless or alone. I was lost. I

could not find my friends. I did not even know that they still lived; in fact, I could not bring myself to believe

that they did. I was sure that Lys was dead. I wanted myself to die, and yet I clung to lifeuseless and

hopeless and harrowing a thing as it had become. I clung to life because some ancient, reptilian forbear had

clung to life and transmitted to me through the ages the most powerful motive that guided his minute

At last I came to the great barriercliffs; and after three days of mad effortof maniacal effortI scaled

them. I built crude ladders; I wedged sticks in narrow fissures; I chopped toeholds and fingerholds with my

long knife; but at last I scaled them. Near the summit I came upon a huge cavern. It is the abode of some

mighty winged creature of the Triassicor rather it was. Now it is mine. I slew the thing and took its abode.

I reached the summit and looked out upon the broad gray terrible Pacific of the farsouthern winter. It was

cold up there. It is cold here today; yet here I sit watching, watching, watching for the thing I know will never

Once a day I descend to the base of the cliff and hunt, and fill my stomach with water from a clear cold

spring. I have three gourds which I fill with water and take back to my cave against the long nights. I have

fashioned a spear and a bow and arrow, that I may conserve my ammunition, which is running low. My

clothes are worn to shreds. Tomorrow I shall discard them for leopardskins which I have tanned and sewn

into a garment strong and warm. It is cold up here. I have a fire burning and I sit bent over it while I write;

but I am safe here. No other living creature ventures to the chill summit of the barrier cliffs. I am safe, and I

am alone with my sorrows and my remembered joysbut without hope. It is said that hope springs eternal in

I am about done. Presently I shall fold these pages and push them into my thermos bottle. I shall cork it and

screw the cap tight, and then I shall hurl it as far out into the sea as my strength will permit. The wind is

offshore; the tide is running out; perhaps it will be carried into one of those numerous oceancurrents which

sweep perpetually from pole to pole and from continent to continent, to be deposited at last upon 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 thought would end the written record of my

life upon Caprona. I had paused to put a new point on my quill and stir the crude ink (which I made by

crushing a black variety of berry and mixing it with water) before attaching my signature, when faintly from

the valley far below came an unmistakable sound which brought me to my feet, trembling with excitement, to

peer eagerly downward from my dizzy ledge. How full of meaning that sound was to me you may guess

when I tell you that it was the report of a firearm! For a moment my gaze traversed the landscape beneath

until it was caught and held by four figures near the base of the cliffa human figure held at bay by three

hyaenodons, those ferocious and bloodthirsty wild dogs of the Eocene. A fourth beast lay dead or dying

I couldn't be sure, looking down from above as I was; but yet I trembled like a leaf in the intuitive belief that

it was Lys, and my judgment served to confirm my wild desire, for whoever it was carried only a pistol, and

thus had Lys been armed. The first wave of sudden joy which surged through me was shortlived in the face

of the swiftfollowing conviction that the one who fought below was already doomed. Luck and only luck it

must have been which had permitted that first shot to lay low one of the savage creatures, for even such a

heavy weapon as my pistol is entirely inadequate against even the lesser carnivora of Caspak. In a moment

the three would charge! a futile shot would but tend more greatly to enrage the one it chanced to hit; and then

And maybe it was Lys! My heart stood still at the thought, but mind and muscle responded to the quick

decision I was forced to make. There was but a single hopea single chanceand I took it. I raised my rifle

to my shoulder and took careful aim. It was a long shot, a dangerous shot, for unless one is accustomed to it,

shooting from a considerable altitude is most deceptive work. There is, though, something about

Upon no other theory can I explain my marksmanship of that moment. Three times my rifle spokethree

quick, short syllables of death. I did not take conscious aim; and yet at each report a beast crumpled in its

From my ledge to the base of the cliff is a matter of several thousand feet of dangerous climbing; yet I

venture to say that the first ape from whose loins my line has descended never could have equaled the speed

with which I literally dropped down the face of that rugged escarpment. The last two hundred feet is over a

steep incline of loose rubble to the valley bottom, and I had just reached the top of this when there arose to

I had been too much occupied with the dangers of the descent to glance down toward the valley; but that cry

which told me that it was indeed Lys, and that she was again in danger, brought my eyes quickly upon her in

time to see a hairy, burly brute seize her and start off at a run toward the nearby wood. From rock to rock,

chamoislike, I leaped downward 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 he carried that I easily overtook him;

and at last he turned, snarling, to face me. It was Kho of the tribe of Tsa, the hatchetmen. He recognized 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 of the cliff, so that now I was armed only

with a hunting knife, and this I whipped from its scabbard as Kho leaped toward me. He was a mighty beast,

mightily muscled, and the urge that has made males fight since the dawn of life on earth filled him with the

bloodlust and the thirst to slay; but not one whit less did it fill me with the same primal passions. Two

abysmal beasts sprang at each other's throats that day beneath the shadow of earth's oldest cliffsthe man of

now and the manthing of the earliest, forgotten then, imbued by the same deathless passion that has come

down unchanged through all the epochs, periods and eras of time from the beginning, and which shall

continue to the incalculable endwoman, the imperishable Alpha and Omega of life.

Kho closed and sought my jugular with his teeth. He seemed to forget the hatchet dangling by its

aurochshide thong at his hip, as I forgot, for the moment, the dagger in my hand. And I doubt not but that

Kho would easily have bested me in an encounter of that sort had not Lys' voice awakened within my

momentarily reverted brain the skill and cunning of reasoning man. "Bowen!" she cried. "Your knife! Your

knife!" It was enough. It recalled me from the forgotten eon to which my brain had 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

before me; but instead my knife sought and found a space between two ribs over the savage heart. Kho

voiced a single horrid scream, stiffened spasmodically and sank to the earth. And Lys threw herself into my

arms. All the fears and sorrows of the past were wiped away, and once again I was the happiest of men.

With some misgivings I shortly afterward cast my eyes upward toward the precarious ledge which ran before

my cave, for it seemed to me quite beyond all reason to expect a dainty modern belle to essay the perils of

that frightful climb. I asked her if she thought she could brave the ascent, and she laughed gayly in my face.

"Watch!" she cried, and ran eagerly toward the base of the cliff. Like a squirrel she clambered swiftly aloft,

so that I was forced to exert myself to keep pace with her. At first she frightened me; but presently I was

aware that she was quite as safe here as was I. When we finally came to my ledge and I again held her in my

arms, she recalled to my mind that for several weeks she had been living the life of a cavegirl with the tribe

of hatchetmen. They had been driven from their former caves by another tribe which had slain many and

carried off quite half the females, and the new cliffs to which they had flown had 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 been stolen and of how her life had been a

constant nightmare of terror as she sought by night and by day to elude the great brute. For a time Nobs had

been all the protection she required; but one day he disappearednor has she seen him since. She believes

that he was deliberately made away with; and so do I, for we both are sure that he never would have deserted

her. With her means of protection gone, Lys was now at the mercy of the hatchetman; nor was it many

hours before he had caught her at the base of the cliff and seized her; but as he bore her triumphantly aloft

"For three days he has pursued me," she said, "through this horrible world. How I have passed through in

safety I cannot guess, nor how I have always managed to outdistance him; yet I have done it, until just as you

I nodded my head in assent and crushed her to me. And then we talked and planned as I cooked

antelopesteaks over my fire, and we came to the conclusion that there was no hope of rescue, that she and I

were doomed to live and die upon Caprona. Well, it might be worse! I would rather 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 life for her.

It is a hard, fierce, dangerous life, and I shall pray always that we shall be rescued from itfor her sake.

That night the clouds broke, and the moon shone down upon our little ledge; and there, hand in hand, we

turned our faces toward heaven and plighted our troth beneath the eyes of God. No human agency could have

married us more sacredly than we are wed. We are man and wife, and we are content. If God wills it, we shall

live out our lives here. If He wills otherwise, then this manuscript which I shall now consign to the

inscrutable forces of the sea shall fall into friendly hands. However, we are each without hope. And so we say