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one who fled across a broad expanse of meadow. As I dropped lower to have a
better look at these people, they caught the whirring of my propellers and looked
aloft. They paused an instant--pursuers and pursued; and then they broke and
raced for the shelter of the nearest wood. Almost instantaneously a huge bulk
swooped down upon me, and as I looked up, I realized that there were flying
reptiles even in this part of Caspak. The creature dived for my right wing so
quickly that nothing but a sheer drop could have saved me. I was already close
to the ground, so that my maneuver was extremely dangerous; but I was in a fair
way of making it successfully when I saw that I was too closely approaching a
large tree. My effort to dodge the tree and the pterodactyl at the same time
resulted disastrously. One wing touched an upper branch; the plane tipped and
swung around, and then, out of control, dashed into the branches of the tree,
where it came to rest, battered and torn, forty feet above the ground.
Hissing loudly, the huge reptile swept close above the tree in which my plane had
lodged, circled twice over me and then flapped away toward the south. As I
guessed then and was to learn later, forests are the surest sanctuary from these
hideous creatures, which, with their enormous spread of wing and their great
weight, are as much out of place among trees as is a seaplane.
For a minute or so I clung there to my battered flyer, now useless beyond
redemption, my brain numbed by the frightful catastrophe that had befallen me.
All my plans for the succor of Bowen and Miss La Rue had depended upon this
craft, and in a few brief minutes my own selfish love of adventure had wrecked
their hopes and mine. And what effect it might have upon the future of the
balance of the rescuing expedition I could not even guess. Their lives, too, might
be sacrificed to my suicidal foolishness. That I was doomed seemed inevitable;
but I can honestly say that the fate of my friends concerned me more greatly than
did my own.
Beyond the barrier cliffs my party was even now nervously awaiting my return.
Presently apprehension and fear would claim them--and they would never know!
They would attempt to scale the cliffs--of that I was sure; but I was not so positive
that they would succeed; and after a while they would turn back, what there were
left of them, and go sadly and mournfully upon their return journey to home.
Home! I set my jaws and tried to forget the word, for I knew that I should never
again see home.
And what of Bowen and his girl? I had doomed them too. They would never even
know that an attempt had been made to rescue them. If they still lived, they
might some day come upon the ruined remnants of this great plane hanging in its
lofty sepulcher and hazard vain guesses and be filled with wonder; but they
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