| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 1 | 20 | 40 | 59 | 79 |
|
www.freeclassicebooks.com
would never know; and I could not but be glad that they would not know that
Tom Billings had sealed their death-warrants by his criminal selfishness.
All these useless regrets were getting me in a bad way; but at last I shook myself
and tried to put such things out of my mind and take hold of conditions as they
existed and do my level best to wrest victory from defeat. I was badly shaken up
and bruised, but considered myself mighty lucky to escape with my life. The
plane hung at a precarious angle, so that it was with difficulty and considerable
danger that I climbed from it into the tree and then to the ground.
My predicament was grave. Between me and my friends lay an inland sea fully
sixty miles wide at this point and an estimated land-distance of some three
hundred miles around the northern end of the sea, through such hideous
dangers as I am perfectly free to admit had me pretty well buffaloed. I had seen
quite enough of Caspak this day to assure me that Bowen had in no way
exaggerated its perils. As a matter of fact, I am inclined to believe that he had
become so accustomed to them before he started upon his manuscript that he
rather slighted them. As I stood there beneath that tree--a tree which should
have been part of a coal-bed countless ages since--and looked out across a sea
teeming with frightful life--life which should have been fossil before God
conceived of Adam--I would not have given a minim of stale beer for my chances
of ever seeing my friends or the outside world again; yet then and there I swore to
fight my way as far through this hideous land as circumstances would permit. I
had plenty of ammunition, an automatic pistol and a heavy rifle--the latter one of
twenty added to our equipment on the strength of Bowen's description of the
huge beasts of prey which ravaged Caspak. My greatest danger lay in the
hideous reptilia whose low nervous organizations permitted their carnivorous
instincts to function for several minutes after they had ceased to live.
But to these things I gave less thought than to the sudden frustration of all our
plans. With the bitterest of thoughts I condemned myself for the foolish
weakness that had permitted me to be drawn from the main object of my flight
into premature and useless exploration. It seemed to me then that I must be
totally eliminated from further search for Bowen, since, as I estimated it, the
three hundred miles of Caspakian territory I must traverse to reach the base of
the cliffs beyond which my party awaited me were practically impassable for a
single individual unaccustomed to Caspakian life and ignorant of all that lay
before him. Yet I could not give up hope entirely. My duty lay clear before me; I
must follow it while life remained to me, and so I set forth toward the north.
The country through which I took my way was as lovely as it was unusual--I had
almost said unearthly, for the plants, the trees, the blooms were not of the earth
that I knew. They were larger, the colors more brilliant and the shapes startling,
1
2
Page
Quick Jump
|