It was a sad leave-taking 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 well-marked spoor
of the abductor. Not once did
I turn my eyes backward toward
Fort Dinosaur. I have not looked
upon it since--nor 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 well-defined 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,
park-like stretches and broad
meadows whereon grazed countless
herbivorous animals--red 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 their
eyes upon us until we had passed;
then they resumed their feeding.
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 muslin--part of the
hem of a garment. At once I was
all excitement, for I knew that
it was a sign left by Lys 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 night-robes
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 of Caspak harbored its terrors.
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 day if it
had not been Ahm who stole Lys.
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 figures--apparently
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 they were a step upward from
those I had previously seen in
Caspak.
But what interested me most
was the slender figure of a dainty
girl, clad only in a thin bit
of muslin which scarce covered
her knees--a 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 saying--which 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 speaker was by
far the mightiest of the clan.
There seemed
no one to dispute his claims
when he said, or rather
shouted, in stentorian tones: "I
am Tsa. This is my she. Who wishes
her more than Tsa?"
"I do," I said
in the language of Ahm, and
I stepped out into
the firelight before them. Lys
gave a little cry of joy and
started toward me, but Tsa grasped
her arm and dragged her back.
"Who are you?" shrieked Tsa. "I
kill! I kill! I kill!"
"The she is mine," I replied, "and
I have come to claim her. I kill
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
cliffs--while Lys, with outstretched
arms, ran toward me.
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
night-life of this jungle world
coming into its own--the 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
prowling closer to us?
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 man-things were clambering. "Come," I
said to Lys, "we must follow
them. We cannot last a half-hour
out here. We must find a cave." Already
we could see the blazing green
eyes 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 threats.
"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 man-things 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 boasted.
"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 afraid,
and we will keep her; but the
he must depart."
"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
half-men 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 me as you harmed
Tsa. Go away!"
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. We will
take a cave high up. Speak!"
"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 long-distant 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 danger-infested 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 cave-lion
or saber- toothed 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 ammunition- belt
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 tree-tops
in the distance. Lys' head had
drooped to my breast, and my
arm was still about her.
Shortly afterward Lys awoke,
and for a moment she could not
seem 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
to the inevitable.
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 of Caspak, we had never
yet seen a child or an old man
or woman.
After a while they became less
suspicious of us and then quite
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 thermos-bottle,
and when I poured a little water
from it, they were delighted,
thinking that it was a spring
which I carried about with me--a
never-failing source of water
supply.
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.
"You came from back there?" I
asked. He looked at me in surprise.
"We all come from there," he
said. "After a while we go there." And
this time he jerked his head
toward the north. "Be Galus," he
concluded.
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 self-preservation--a
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 at--the
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
years--and for the evolutionists,
too.
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 there--nor,
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 fit to drink.
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 storm-tossed ocean,
and that snow might be falling
all about Caprona; but no snow
could ever penetrate the damp,
hot atmosphere of the great crater.
We had to go quite a bit farther
than usual before we could surround
a 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 yards--when
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 me--I 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 new-turned
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 abodes--to
the abodes of men and women like
ourselves. My hopes and my imagination
ran riot in the few yards I had
to cover to reach that lonely
grave and stoop that I might
read the rude characters scratched
upon the simple headstone. This
is what I read:
HERE LIES JOHN TIPPET ENGLISHMAN
KILLED BY TYRANNOSAURUS 10 SEPT.,
A.D. 1916 R. I. P.
Tippet! It seemed incredible.
Tippet lying here in this gloomy
wood! 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 believe that
the bones of the others lay scattered
somewhere near?
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