Edgar Rice Burroughs - Out of Time's Abyss

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Out of Time's Abyss

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Chapter I

This is the tale of Bradley after he left Fort Dinosaur upon the west coast of the great lake that is

in the center of the island.

Upon the fourth day of September, 1916, he set out with four companions, Sinclair, Brady,

James, and Tippet, to search along the base of the barrier cliffs for a point at which they might be

scaled.

Through the heavy Caspakian air, beneath the swollen sun, the five men marched northwest from

Fort Dinosaur, now waist-deep in lush, jungle grasses starred with myriad gorgeous blooms, now

across open meadow-land and parklike expanses and again plunging into dense forests of

eucalyptus and acacia and giant arboreous ferns with feathered fronds waving gently a hundred feet

above their heads.

About them upon the ground, among the trees and in the air over them moved and swung and

soared the countless forms of Caspak's teeming life. Always were they menaced by some frightful

thing and seldom were their rifles cool, yet even in the brief time they had dwelt upon Caprona they

had become callous to danger, so that they swung along laughing and chatting like soldiers on a

summer hike.

"This reminds me of South Clark Street," remarked Brady, who had once served on the traffic

squad in Chicago; and as no one asked him why, he volunteered that it was "because it's no place

for an Irishman."

"South Clark Street and heaven have something in common, then," suggested Sinclair. James

and Tippet laughed, and then a hideous growl broke from a dense thicket ahead and diverted their

attention to other matters.

"One of them behemoths of 'Oly Writ," muttered Tippet as they came to a halt and with guns

ready awaited the almost inevitable charge.

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

For a moment no further sound came from the thicket. "He may be feeding now," suggested

Bradley. "We'll try to go around him. Can't waste ammunition. Won't last forever. Follow me."

And he set off at right angles to their former course, hoping to avert a charge. They had taken a

dozen steps, perhaps, when the thicket moved to the advance of the thing within it, the leafy

branches parted, and the hideous head of a gigantic bear emerged.

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

The men looked about them. The bear took a couple of steps forward, still growling menacingly.

He was exposed to the shoulders now. Tippet took one look at the monster and bolted for the

nearest tree; and then the bear charged. He charged straight for Tippet. The other men scattered

for the various trees they had selected--all except Bradley. He stood watching Tippet and the bear.

The man had a good start and the tree was not far away; but the speed of the enormous creature

behind him was something to marvel at, yet Tippet was in a fair way to make his sanctuary when

his foot caught in a tangle of roots and down he went, his rifle flying from his hand and falling

several yards away. Instantly Bradley's piece was at his shoulder, there was a sharp report

answered by a roar of mingled rage and pain from the carnivore. Tippet attempted to scramble to

his feet.

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

The bear halted in its tracks, wheeled toward Bradley and then back again toward Tippet. Again

the former's rifle spit angrily, and the bear turned again in his direction. Bradley shouted loudly.

"Come on, you behemoth of Holy Writ!" he cried. "Come on, you duffer! Can't waste

ammunition." And as he saw the bear apparently upon the verge of deciding to charge him, he

encouraged the idea by backing rapidly away, knowing that an angry beast will more often charge

one who moves than one who lies still.

And the bear did charge. Like a bolt of lightning he flashed down upon the Englishman. "Now

run!" Bradley called to Tippet and himself turned in flight toward a nearby tree. The other men,

now safely ensconced upon various branches, watched the race with breathless interest. Would

Bradley make it? It seemed scarce possible. And if he didn't! James gasped at the thought. Six

feet at the shoulder stood the frightful mountain of blood-mad flesh and bone and sinew that was

bearing down with the speed of an express train upon the seemingly slow-moving man.

It all happened in a few seconds; but they were seconds that seemed like hours to the men who

watched. They saw Tippet leap to his feet at Bradley's shouted warning. They saw him run,

stooping to recover his rifle as he passed the spot where it had fallen. They saw him glance back

toward Bradley, and then they saw him stop short of the tree that might have given him safety and

turn back in the direction of the bear. Firing as he ran, Tippet raced after the great cave bear--the

monstrous thing that should have been extinct ages before--ran for it and fired even as the beast

was almost upon Bradley. The men in the trees scarcely breathed. It seemed to them such a futile

thing for Tippet to do, and Tippet of all men! They had never looked upon Tippet as a coward--

there seemed to be no cowards among that strangely assorted company that Fate had gathered

together from the four corners of the earth--but Tippet was considered a cautious man.

Overcautious, some thought him. How futile he and his little pop-gun appeared as he dashed after

that living engine of destruction! But, oh, how glorious! It was some such thought as this that ran

through Brady's mind, though articulated it might have been expressed otherwise, albeit more

forcefully.

Just then it occurred to Brady to fire and he, too, opened upon the bear, but at the same instant

the animal stumbled and fell forward, though still growling most fearsomely. Tippet never stopped

running or firing until he stood within a foot of the brute, which lay almost touching Bradley and

was already struggling to regain its feet. Placing the muzzle of his gun against the bear's ear,

Tippet pulled the trigger. The creature sank limply to the ground and Bradley scrambled to his feet.

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

And then they resumed the march and in fifteen minutes the encounter had ceased even to be a

topic of conversation.

For two days they continued upon their perilous way. Already the cliffs loomed high and

forbidding close ahead without sign of break to encourage hope that somewhere they might be

scaled. Late in the afternoon the party crossed a small stream of warm water upon the sluggishly

moving surface of which floated countless millions of tiny green eggs surrounded by a light scum

of the same color, though of a darker shade. Their past experience of Caspak had taught them that

they might expect to come upon a stagnant pool of warm water if they followed the stream to its

source; but there they were almost certain to find some of Caspak's grotesque, manlike creatures.

Already since they had disembarked from the U-33 after its perilous trip through the subterranean

channel beneath the barrier cliffs had brought them into the inland sea of Caspak, had they

encountered what had appeared to be three distinct types of these creatures. There had been the

pure apes--huge, gorillalike beasts--and those who walked, a trifle more erect and had features with

just a shade more of the human cast about them. Then there were men like Ahm, whom they had

captured and confined at the fort--Ahm, the club-man. "Well-known club-man," Tyler had called

him. Ahm and his people had knowledge of a speech. They had a language, in which they were

unlike the race just inferior to them, and they walked much more erect and were less hairy: but it

was principally the fact that they possessed a spoken language and carried a weapon that

differentiated them from the others.

All of these peoples had proven belligerent in the extreme. In common with the rest of the fauna

of Caprona the first law of nature as they seemed to understand it was to kill--kill--kill. And so it

was that Bradley had no desire to follow up the little stream toward the pool near which were sure

to be the caves of some savage tribe, but fortune played him an unkind trick, for the pool was much

closer than he imagined, its southern end reaching fully a mile south of the point at which they

crossed the stream, and so it was that after forcing their way through a tangle of jungle vegetation

they came out upon the edge of the pool which they had wished to avoid.

Almost simultaneously there appeared south of them a party of naked men armed with clubs and

hatchets. Both parties halted as they caught sight of one another. The men from the fort saw

before them a hunting party evidently returning to its caves or village laden with meat. They were

large men with features closely resembling those of the African Negro though their skins were

white. Short hair grew upon a large portion of their limbs and bodies, which still retained a

considerable trace of apish progenitors. They were, however, a distinctly higher type than the Bo-

lu, or club-men.

Bradley would have been glad to have averted a meeting; but as he desired to lead his party south

around the end of the pool, and as it was hemmed in by the jungle on one side and the water on the

other, there seemed no escape from an encounter.

On the chance that he might avoid a clash, Bradley stepped forward with upraised hand. "We are

friends, " he called in the tongue of Ahm, the Bolu, who had been held a prisoner at the fort;

"permit us to pass in peace. We will not harm you."

At this the hatchet-men set up a great jabbering with much laughter, loud and boisterous. "No,"

shouted one, "you will not harm us, for we shall kill you. Come! We kill! We kill!" And with

hideous shouts they charged down upon the Europeans.

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

The Englishman raised his piece to his shoulder and took quick aim at the breast of the yelling

savage leaping toward them. Directly behind the leader came another hatchet-man, and with the

report of Sinclair's rifle both warriors lunged forward in the tall grass, pierced by the same bullet.

The effect upon the rest of the band was electrical. As one man they came to a sudden halt,

wheeled to the east and dashed into the jungle, where the men could hear them forcing their way in

an effort to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the authors of this new and

frightful noise that killed warriors at a great distance.

Both the savages were dead when Bradley approached to examine them, and as the Europeans

gathered around, other eyes were bent upon them with greater curiosity than they displayed for the

victim of Sinclair's bullet. When the party again took up the march around the southern end of the

pool the owner of the eyes followed them--large, round eyes, almost expressionless except for a

certain cold cruelty which glinted malignly from under their pale gray irises.

All unconscious of the stalker, the men came, late in the afternoon, to a spot which seemed

favorable as a campsite. A cold spring bubbled from the base of a rocky formation which overhung

and partially encircled a small inclosure. At Bradley's command, the men took up the duties

assigned them--gathering wood, building a cook-fire and preparing the evening meal. It was while

they were thus engaged that Brady's attention was attracted by the dismal flapping of huge wings.

He glanced up, expecting to see one of the great flying reptiles of a bygone age, his rifle ready in

his hand. Brady was a brave man. He had groped his way up narrow tenement stairs and taken an

armed maniac from a dark room without turning a hair; but now as he looked up, he went white and

staggered back.

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

Attracted by Brady's cry the others seized their rifles as they followed his wide-eyed, frozen

gaze, nor was there one of them that was not moved by some species of terror or awe. Then Brady

spoke again in an almost inaudible voice. "Holy Mother protect us--it's a banshee!"

Bradley, always cool almost to indifference in the face of danger, felt a strange, creeping

sensation run over his flesh, as slowly, not a hundred feet above them, the thing flapped itself

across the sky, its huge, round eyes glaring down upon them. And until it disappeared over the tops

of the trees of a near-by wood the five men stood as though paralyzed, their eyes never leaving the

weird shape; nor never one of them appearing to recall that he grasped a loaded rifle in his hands.

With the passing of the thing, came the reaction. Tippet sank to the ground and buried his face

in his hands. "Oh, Gord," he moaned. "Tyke me awy from this orful plice." Brady, recovered

from the first shock, swore loud and luridly. He called upon all the saints to witness that he was

unafraid and that anybody with half an eye could have seen that the creature was nothing more than

"one av thim flyin' alligators" that they all were familiar with.

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

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

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

Bradley shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "It looked like a winged human being clothed

in a flowing white robe. Its face was more human than otherwise. That is the way it looked to me;

but what it really was I can't even guess, for such a creature is as far beyond my experience or

knowledge as it is beyond yours. All that I am sure of is that whatever else it may have been, it was

quite material--it was no ghost; rather just another of the strange forms of life which we have met

here and with which we should be accustomed by this time."

Tippet looked up. His face was still ashy. "Yer cawn't tell me," he cried. "Hi seen hit. Blime,

Hi seen hit. Hit was ha dead man flyin' through the hair. Didn't Hi see 'is heyes? Oh, Gord! Didn't

Hi see 'em?"

"It didn't look like any beast or reptile to me," spoke up Sinclair. "It was lookin' right down at

me when I looked up and I saw its face plain as I see yours. It had big round eyes that looked all

cold and dead, and its cheeks were sunken in deep, and I could see its yellow teeth behind thin,

tight-drawn lips--like a man who had been dead a long while, sir," he added, turning toward

Bradley.

"Yes!" James had not spoken since the apparition had passed over them, and now it was scarce

speech which he uttered--rather a series of articulate gasps. "Yes--dead--a--long--while. It--means

something. It--come--for some--one. For one--of us. One--of us is goin'-- to die. I'm goin' to die!"

he ended in a wail.

"Come! Come!" snapped Bradley. "Won't do. Won't do at all. Get to work, all of you. Waste

of time. Can't waste time."

His authoritative tones brought them all up standing, and presently each was occupied with his

own duties; but each worked in silence and there was no singing and no bantering such as had

marked the making of previous camps. Not until they had eaten and to each had been issued the

little ration of smoking tobacco allowed after each evening meal did any sign of a relaxation of taut

nerves appear. It was Brady who showed the first signs of returning good spirits. He commenced

humming "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" and presently to voice the words, but he was well into his

third song before anyone joined him, and even then there seemed a dismal note in even the gayest

of tunes.

A huge fire blazed in the opening of their rocky shelter that the prowling carnivora might be kept

at bay; and always one man stood on guard, watchfully alert against a sudden rush by some

maddened beast of the jungle. Beyond the fire, yellow-green spots of flame appeared, moved

restlessly about, disappeared and reappeared, accompanied by a hideous chorus of screams and

growls and roars as the hungry meat-eaters hunting through the night were attracted by the light or

the scent of possible prey.

But to such sights and sounds as these the five men had become callous. They sang or talked as

unconcernedly as they might have done in the bar-room of some publichouse at home.

Sinclair was standing guard. The others were listening to Brady's description of traffic

congestion at the Rush Street bridge during the rush hour at night. The fire crackled cheerily. The

owners of the yellow-green eyes raised their frightful chorus to the heavens. Conditions seemed

again to have returned to normal. And then, as though the hand of Death had reached out and

touched them all, the five men tensed into sudden rigidity.

Above the nocturnal diapason of the teeming jungle sounded a dismal flapping of wings and over

head, through the thick night, a shadowy form passed across the diffused light of the flaring camp-

fire. Sinclair raised his rifle and fired. An eerie wail floated down from above and the apparition,

whatever it might have been, was swallowed by the darkness. For several seconds the listening

men heard the sound of those dismally flapping wings lessening in the distance until they could no

longer be heard. Bradley was the first to speak. "Shouldn't have fired, Sinclair," he said; "can't

waste ammunition." But there was no note of censure in his tone. It was as though he understood

the nervous reaction that had compelled the other's act.

"I couldn't help it, sir," said Sinclair. "Lord, it would take an iron man to keep from shootin' at

that awful thing. Do you believe in ghosts, sir?"

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

"I don't know about that," said Brady. "There was a woman murdered over on the prairie near

Brighton--her throat was cut from ear to ear, and--"

"Shut up," snapped Bradley.

"My grandaddy used to live down Coppington wy," said Tippet. "They were a hold ruined castle

on a 'ill near by, hand at midnight they used to see pale blue lights through the windows an 'ear--"

"Will you close your hatch!" demanded Bradley. "You fools will have yourselves scared to

death in a minute. Now go to sleep."

But there was little sleep in camp that night until utter exhaustion overtook the harassed men

toward morning; nor was there any return of the weird creature that had set the nerves of each of

them on edge.

The following forenoon the party reached the base of the barrier cliffs and for two days marched

northward in an effort to discover a break in the frowning abutment that raised its rocky face almost

perpendicularly above them, yet nowhere was there the slightest indication that the cliffs were

scalable.

Disheartened, Bradley determined to turn back toward the fort, as he already had exceeded the

time decided upon by Bowen Tyler and himself for the expedition. The cliffs for many miles had

been trending in a northeasterly direction, indicating to Bradley that they were approaching the

northern extremity of the island. According to the best of his calculations they had made sufficient

easting during the past two days to have brought them to a point almost directly north of Fort

Dinosaur and as nothing could be gained by retracing their steps along the base of the cliffs he

decided to strike due south through the unexplored country between them and the fort.

That night (September 9, 1916), they made camp a short distance from the cliffs beside one of

the numerous cool springs that are to be found within Caspak, oftentimes close beside the still more

numerous warm and hot springs which feed the many pools. After supper the men lay smoking and

chatting among themselves. Tippet was on guard. Fewer night prowlers threatened them, and the

men were commenting upon the fact that the farther north they had traveled the smaller the number

of all species of animals became, though it was still present in what would have seemed appalling

plenitude in any other part of the world. The diminution in reptilian life was the most noticeable

change in the fauna of northern Caspak. Here, however, were forms they had not met elsewhere,

several of which were of gigantic proportions.

According to their custom all, with the exception of the man on guard, sought sleep early, nor,

once disposed upon the ground for slumber, were they long in finding it. It seemed to Bradley that

he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was brought to his feet, wide awake, by a piercing scream

which was punctuated by the sharp report of a rifle from the direction of the fire where Tippet stood

guard. As he ran toward the man, Bradley heard above him the same uncanny wail that had set

every nerve on edge several nights before, and the dismal flapping of huge wings. He did not need

to look up at the white-shrouded figure winging slowly away into the night to know that their grim

visitor had returned.

The muscles of his arm, reacting to the sight and sound of the menacing form, carried his hand to

the butt of his pistol; but after he had drawn the weapon, he immediately returned it to its holster

with a shrug.

"What for?" he muttered. "Can't waste ammunition." Then he walked quickly to where Tippet

lay sprawled upon his face. By this time James, Brady and Sinclair were at his heels, each with his

rifle in readiness.

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

Bradley turned Tippet over on his back and pressed an ear close to the other's heart. In a moment

he raised his head. "Fainted," he announced. "Get water. Hurry!" Then he loosened Tippet's shirt

at the throat and when the water was brought, threw a cupful in the man's face. Slowly Tippet

regained consciousness and sat up. At first he looked curiously into the faces of the men about

him; then an expression of terror overspread his features. He shot a startled glance up into the

black void above and then burying his face in his arms began to sob like a child.

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

What happened?"

"Wot 'appened, sir!" wailed Tippet. "Oh, Gord, sir! Hit came back. Hit came for me, sir. Right

hit did, sir; strite hat me, sir; hand with long w'ite 'ands it clawed for me. Oh, Gord! Hit almost

caught me, sir. Hi'm has good as dead; Hi'm a marked man; that's wot Hi ham. Hit was a-goin' for

to carry me horf, sir."

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

Tippet said that he did--a much better look than he wanted. The thing had almost clutched him,

and he had looked straight into its eyes--"dead heyes in a dead face," he had described them.

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

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

The following day Tippet walked as one in a trance. He never spoke except in reply to a direct

question, which more often than not had to be repeated before it could attract his attention. He

insisted that he was already a dead man, for if the thing didn't come for him during the day he

would never live through another night of agonized apprehension, waiting for the frightful end that

he was positive was in store for him. "I'll see to that," he said, and they all knew that Tippet meant

to take his own life before darkness set in.

Bradley tried to reason with him, in his short, crisp way, but soon saw the futility of it; nor could

he take the man's weapons from him without subjecting him to almost certain death from any of the

numberless dangers that beset their way.

The entire party was moody and glum. There was none of the bantering that had marked their

intercourse before, even in the face of blighting hardships and hideous danger. This was a new

menace that threatened them, something that they couldn't explain; and so, naturally, it aroused

within them superstitious fear which Tippet's attitude only tended to augment. To add further to

their gloom, their way led through a dense forest, where, on account of the underbrush, it was

difficult to make even a mile an hour. Constant watchfulness was required to avoid the many

snakes of various degrees of repulsiveness and enormity that infested the wood; and the only ray of

hope they had to cling to was that the forest would, like the majority of Caspakian forests, prove to

be of no considerable extent.

Bradley was in the lead when he came suddenly upon a grotesque creature of Titanic

proportions. Crouching among the trees, which here commenced to thin out slightly, Bradley saw

what appeared to be an enormous dragon devouring the carcass of a mammoth. From frightful

jaws to the tip of its long tail it was fully forty feet in length. Its body was covered with plates of

thick skin which bore a striking resemblance to armor-plate. The creature saw Bradley almost at

the same instant that he saw it and reared up on its enormous hind legs until its head towered a full

twenty-five feet above the ground. From the cavernous jaws issued a hissing sound of a volume

equal to the escaping steam from the safety-valves of half a dozen locomotives, and then the

creature came for the man.

"Scatter!" shouted Bradley to those behind him; and all but Tippet heeded the warning. The man

stood as though dazed, and when Bradley saw the other's danger, he too stopped and wheeling

about sent a bullet into the massive body forcing its way through the trees toward him. The shot

struck the creature in the belly where there was no protecting armor, eliciting a new note which

rose in a shrill whistle and ended in a wail. It was then that Tippet appeared to come out of his

trance, for with a cry of terror he turned and fled to the left. Bradley, seeing that he had as good an

opportunity as the others to escape, now turned his attention to extricating himself; and as the

woods seemed dense on the right, he ran in that direction, hoping that the close-set boles would

prevent pursuit on the part of the great reptile. The dragon paid no further attention to him,

however, for Tippet's sudden break for liberty had attracted its attention; and after Tippet it went,

bowling over small trees, uprooting underbrush and leaving a wake behind it like that of a small

tornado.

Bradley, the moment he had discovered the thing was pursuing Tippet, had followed it. He was

afraid to fire for fear of hitting the man, and so it was that he came upon them at the very moment

that the monster lunged its great weight forward upon the doomed man. The sharp, three-toed

talons of the forelimbs seized poor Tippet, and Bradley saw the unfortunate fellow lifted high

above the ground as the creature again reared up on its hind legs, immediately transferring Tippet's

body to its gaping jaws, which closed with a sickening, crunching sound as Tippet's bones cracked

beneath the great teeth.

Bradley half raised his rifle to fire again and then lowered it with a shake of his head. Tippet

was beyond succor--why waste a bullet that Caspak could never replace? If he could now escape

the further notice of the monster it would be a wiser act than to throw his life away in futile

revenge. He saw that the reptile was not looking in his direction, and so he slipped noiselessly

behind the bole of a large tree and thence quietly faded away in the direction he believed the others

to have taken. At what he considered a safe distance he halted and looked back. Half hidden by

the intervening trees he still could see the huge head and the massive jaws from which protrude the

limp legs of the dead man. Then, as though struck by the hammer of Thor, the creature collapsed

and crumpled to the ground. Bradley's single bullet, penetrating the body through the soft skin of

the belly, had slain the Titan.

A few minutes later, Bradley found the others of the party. The four returned cautiously to the

spot where the creature lay and after convincing themselves that it was quite dead, came close to it.

It was an arduous and gruesome job extricating Tippet's mangled remains from the powerful jaws,

the men working for the most part silently.

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

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

trembling.

"If it was a ghost," interjected Sinclair, "and I don't say as it was; but if it was, why, it could take

on any form it wanted to. It might have turned itself into this thing, which ain't no natural thing at

all, just to get poor Tippet. If it had of been a lion or something else humanlike it wouldn't look so

strange; but this here thing ain't humanlike. There ain't no such thing an' never was."

"Bullets don't kill ghosts," said Bradley, "so this couldn't have been a ghost. Furthermore, there

are no such things. I've been trying to place this creature. Just succeeded. It's a tyrannosaurus.

Saw picture of skeleton in magazine. There's one in New York Natural History Museum. Seems to

me it said it was found in place called Hell Creek somewhere in western North America. Supposed

to have lived about six million years ago."

"Hell Creek's in Montana," said Sinclair. "I used to punch cows in Wyoming, an' I've heard of

Hell Creek. Do you s'pose that there thing's six million years old?" His tone was skeptical.

"No," replied Bradley; "But it would indicate that the island of Caprona has stood almost without

change for more than six million years."

The conversation and Bradley's assurance that the creature was not of supernatural origin helped

to raise a trifle the spirits of the men; and then came another diversion in the form of ravenous

meat-eaters attracted to the spot by the uncanny sense of smell which had apprised them of the

presence of flesh, killed and ready for the eating.

It was a constant battle while they dug a grave and consigned all that was mortal of John Tippet

to his last, lonely resting-place. Nor would they leave then; but remained to fashion a rude head-

stone from a crumbling out-cropping of sandstone and to gather a mass of the gorgeous flowers

growing in such great profusion around them and heap the new-made grave with bright blooms.

Upon the headstone Sinclair scratched in rude characters the words:

HERE LIES JOHN TIPPET

ENGLISHMAN

KILLED BY TYRANNOSAURUS

10 SEPT. A.D. 1916

R.I.P.

and Bradley repeated a short prayer before they left their comrade forever.

For three days the party marched due south through forests and meadow-land and great park-like

areas where countless herbivorous animals grazed--deer and antelope and bos and the little ecca,

the smallest species of Caspakian horse, about the size of a rabbit. There were other horses too; but

all were small, the largest being not above eight hands in height. Preying continually upon the

herbivora were the meat-eaters, large and small--wolves, hyaenadons, panthers, lions, tigers, and

bear as well as several large and ferocious species of reptilian life.

On September twelfth the party scaled a line of sandstone cliffs which crossed their route toward

the south; but they crossed them only after an encounter with the tribe that inhabited the numerous

caves which pitted the face of the escarpment. That night they camped upon a rocky plateau which

was sparsely wooded with jarrah, and here once again they were visited by the weird, nocturnal

apparition that had already filled them with a nameless terror.

As on the night of September ninth the first warning came from the sentinel standing guard over

his sleeping companions. A terror-stricken cry punctuated by the crack of a rifle brought Bradley,

Sinclair and Brady to their feet in time to see James, with clubbed rifle, battling with a white-robed

figure that hovered on widespread wings on a level with the Englishman's head. As they ran,

shouting, forward, it was obvious to them that the weird and terrible apparition was attempting to

seize James; but when it saw the others coming to his rescue, it desisted, flapping rapidly upward

and away, its long, ragged wings giving forth the peculiarly dismal notes which always

characterized the sound of its flying.

Bradley fired at the vanishing menacer of their peace and safety; but whether he scored a hit or

not, none could tell, though, following the shot, there was wafted back to them the same piercing

wail that had on other occasions frozen their marrow.

Then they turned toward James, who lay face downward upon the ground, trembling as with

ague. For a time he could not even speak, but at last regained sufficient composure to tell them

how the thing must have swooped silently upon him from above and behind as the first premonition

of danger he had received was when the long, clawlike fingers had clutched him beneath either

arm. In the melee his rifle had been discharged and he had broken away at the same instant and

turned to defend himself with the butt. The rest they had seen.

From that instant James was an absolutely broken man. He maintained with shaking lips that his

doom was sealed, that the thing had marked him for its own, and that he was as good as dead, nor

could any amount of argument or raillery convince him to the contrary. He had seen Tippet marked

and claimed and now he had been marked. Nor were his constant reiterations of this belief without

effect upon the rest of the party. Even Bradley felt depressed, though for the sake of the others he

managed to hide it beneath a show of confidence he was far from feeling.

And on the following day William James was killed by a saber-tooth tiger--September 13, 1916.

Beneath a jarrah tree on the stony plateau on the northern edge of the Sto-lu country in the land that

time forgot, he lies in a lonely grave marked by a rough headstone.

Southward from his grave marched three grim and silent men. To the best of Bradley's

reckoning they were some twenty-five miles north of Fort Dinosaur, and that they might reach the

fort on the following day, they plodded on until darkness overtook them. With comparative safety

fifteen miles away, they made camp at last; but there was no singing now and no joking. In the

bottom of his heart each prayed that they might come safely through just this night, for they knew

that during the morrow they would make the final stretch, yet the nerves of each were taut with

strained anticipation of what gruesome thing might flap down upon them from the black sky,

marking another for its own. Who would be the next?

As was their custom, they took turns at guard, each man doing two hours and then arousing the

next. Brady had gone on from eight to ten, followed by Sinclair from ten to twelve, then Bradley

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OutofTime'sAbyssByEdgarRiceBurroughsChapterIThisisthetaleofBradleyafterheleftFortDinosauruponthewestcoastofthegreatlakethatisinthecenteroftheisland.UponthefourthdayofSeptember,1916,hesetoutwithfourcompanions,Sinclair,Brady,James,andTippet,tosearchalongthebaseofthebarriercliffsforapointatwhichtheymig...

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Edgar Rice Burroughs - Out of Time's Abyss

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