Out of Time's AbyssOut of Time's Abyss
     by 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 had been awakened.  Brady would stand 
the last guard from two to four, as they had determined to start the moment that 
it became light enough to insure comparative safety upon the trail.
     The snapping of a twig aroused Brady out of a dead sleep, and as he opened 
his eyes, he saw that it was broad daylight and that at twenty paces from him 
stood a huge lion.  As the man sprang to his feet, his rifle ready in his hand, 
Sinclair awoke and took in the scene in a single swift glance.  The fire was out 
and Bradley was nowhere in sight.  For a long moment the lion and the men eyed 
one another.  The latter had no mind to fire if the beast minded its own 
affairs--they were only too glad to let it go its way if it would; but the lion 
was of a different mind.
     Suddenly the long tail snapped stiffly erect, and as though it had been 
attached to two trigger fingers the two rifles spoke in unison, for both men 
knew this signal only too well--the immediate forerunner of a deadly charge.  As 
the brute's head had been raised, his spine had not been visible; and so they 
did what they had learned by long experience was best to do.  Each covered a 
front leg, and as the tail snapped aloft, fired.  With a hideous roar the mighty 
flesh-eater lurched forward to the ground with both front legs broken.  It was 
an easy accomplishment in the instant before the beast charged--after, it would 
have been well-nigh an impossible feat.  Brady stepped close in and finished him 
with a shot in the base of the brain lest his terrific roarings should attract 
his mate or others of their kind.
     Then the two men turned and looked at one another.  "Where is Lieutenant 
Bradley?" asked Sinclair.  They walked to the fire.  Only a few smoking embers 
remained.  A few feet away lay Bradley's rifle.  There was no evidence of a 
struggle.  The two men circled about the camp twice and on the last lap Brady 
stooped and picked up an object which had lain about ten yards beyond the 
fire--it was Bradley's cap.  Again the two looked questioningly at one another, 
and then, simultaneously, both pairs of eyes swung upward and searched the sky.  
A moment later Brady was examining the ground about the spot where Bradley's cap 
had lain.  It was one of those little barren, sandy stretches that they had 
found only upon this stony plateau.  Brady's own footsteps showed as plainly as 
black ink upon white paper; but his was the only foot that had marred the 
smooth, windswept surface--there was no sign that Bradley had crossed the spot 
upon the surface of the ground, and yet his cap lay well toward the center of 
it.
     Breakfastless and with shaken nerves the two survivors plunged madly into 
the long day's march.  Both were strong, courageous, resourceful men; but each 
had reached the limit of human nerve endurance and each felt that he would 
rather die than spend another night in the hideous open of that frightful land.  
Vivid in the mind of each was a picture of Bradley's end, for though neither had 
witnessed the tragedy, both could imagine almost precisely what had occurred.  
They did not discuss it--they did not even mention it--yet all day long the 
thing was uppermost in the mind of each and mingled with it a similar picture 
with himself as victim should they fail to make Fort Dinosaur before dark.
     And so they plunged forward at reckless speed, their clothes, their hands, 
their faces torn by the retarding underbrush that reached forth to hinder them.  
Again and again they fell; but be it to their credit that the one always waited 
and helped the other and that into the mind of neither entered the thought or 
the temptation to desert his companion--they would reach the fort together if 
both survived, or neither would reach it.
     They encountered the usual number of savage beasts and reptiles; but they 
met them with a courageous recklessness born of desperation, and by virtue of 
the very madness of the chances they took, they came through unscathed and with 
the minimum of delay.
     Shortly after noon they reached the end of the plateau.  Before them was a 
drop of two hundred feet to the valley beneath.  To the left, in the distance, 
they could see the waters of the great inland sea that covers a considerable 
portion of the area of the crater island of Caprona and at a little lesser 
distance to the south of the cliffs they saw a thin spiral of smoke arising 
above the tree-tops.
     The landscape was familiar--each recognized it immediately and knew that 
that smoky column marked the spot where Dinosaur had stood.  Was the fort still 
there, or did the smoke arise from the smoldering embers of the building they 
had helped to fashion for the housing of their party?  Who could say!
     Thirty precious minutes that seemed as many hours to the impatient men were 
consumed in locating a precarious way from the summit to the base of the cliffs 
that bounded the plateau upon the south, and then once again they struck off 
upon level ground toward their goal.  The closer they approached the fort the 
greater became their apprehension that all would not be well.  They pictured the 
barracks deserted or the small company massacred and the buildings in ashes.  It 
was almost in a frenzy of fear that they broke through the final fringe of 
jungle and stood at last upon the verge of the open meadow a half-mile from Fort 
Dinosaur.
     "Lord!" ejaculated Sinclair.  "They are still there!"  And he fell to his 
knees, sobbing.
     Brady trembled like a leaf as he crossed himself and gave silent thanks, 
for there before them stood the sturdy ramparts of Dinosaur and from inside the 
inclosure rose a thin spiral of smoke that marked the location of the 
cook-house.  All was well, then, and their comrades were preparing the evening 
meal!
     Across the clearing they raced as though they had not already covered in a 
single day a trackless, primeval country that might easily have required two 
days by fresh and untired men.  Within hailing distance they set up such a loud 
shouting that presently heads appeared above the top of the parapet and soon 
answering shouts were rising from within Fort Dinosaur.  A moment later three 
men issued from the inclosure and came forward to meet the survivors and listen 
to the hurried story of the eleven eventful days since they had set out upon 
their expedition to the barrier cliffs.  They heard of the deaths of Tippet and 
James and of the disappearance of Lieutenant Bradley, and a new terror settled 
upon Dinosaur.
     Olson, the Irish engineer, with Whitely and Wilson constituted the remnants 
of Dinosaur's defenders, and to Brady and Sinclair they narrated the salient 
events that had transpired since Bradley and his party had marched away on 
September 4th.  They told them of the infamous act of Baron Friedrich von 
Schoenvorts and his German crew who had stolen the U-33, breaking their parole, 
and steaming away toward the subterranean opening through the barrier cliffs 
that carried the waters of the inland sea into the open Pacific beyond; and of 
the cowardly shelling of the fort.
     They told of the disappearance of Miss La Rue in the night of September 
11th, and of the departure of Bowen Tyler in search of her, accompanied only by 
his Airedale, Nobs.  Thus of the original party of eleven Allies and nine 
Germans that had constituted the company of the U-33 when she left English 
waters after her capture by the crew of the English tug there were but five now 
to be accounted for at Fort Dinosaur.  Benson, Tippet, James, and one of the 
Germans were known to be dead.  It was assumed that Bradley, Tyler and the girl 
had already succumbed to some of the savage denizens of Caspak, while the fate 
of the Germans was equally unknown, though it might readily be believed that 
they had made good their escape.  They had had ample time to provision the ship 
and the refining of the crude oil they had discovered north of the fort could 
have insured them an ample supply to carry them back to Germany.
     
 
Chapter 2
      When bradley went on guard at midnight, September 14th, his thoughts were 
largely occupied with rejoicing that the night was almost spent without serious 
mishap and that the morrow would doubtless see them all safely returned to Fort 
Dinosaur.  The hopefulness of his mood was tinged with sorrow by recollection of 
the two members of his party who lay back there in the savage wilderness and for 
whom there would never again be a homecoming.
     No premonition of impending ill cast gloom over his anticipations for the 
coming day, for Bradley was a man who, while taking every precaution against 
possible danger, permitted no gloomy forebodings to weigh down his spirit.  When 
danger threatened, he was prepared; but he was not forever courting disaster, 
and so it was that when about one o'clock in the morning of the fifteenth, he 
heard the dismal flapping of giant wings overhead, he was neither surprised nor 
frightened but idly prepared for an attack he had known might reasonably be 
expected.
     The sound seemed to come from the south, and presently, low above the trees 
in that direction, the man made out a dim, shadowy form circling slowly about.  
Bradley was a brave man, yet so keen was the feeling of revulsion engendered by 
the sight and sound of that grim, uncanny shape that he distinctly felt the 
gooseflesh rise over the surface of his body, and it was with difficulty that he 
refrained from following an instinctive urge to fire upon the nocturnal 
intruder.  Better, far better would it have been had he given in to the 
insistent demand of his subconscious mentor; but his almost fanatical obsession 
to save ammunition proved now his undoing, for while his attention was riveted 
upon the thing circling before him and while his ears were filled with the 
beating of its wings, there swooped silently out of the black night behind him 
another weird and ghostly shape.  With its huge wings partly closed for the dive 
and its white robe fluttering in its wake, the apparition swooped down upon the 
Englishman.
     So great was the force of the impact when the thing struck Bradley between 
the shoulders that the man was half stunned.  His rifle flew from his grasp; he 
felt clawlike talons of great strength seize him beneath his arms and sweep him 
off his feet; and then the thing rose swiftly with him, so swiftly that his cap 
was blown from his head by the rush of air as he was borne rapidly upward into 
the inky sky and the cry of warning to his companions was forced back into his 
lungs.
     The creature wheeled immediately toward the east and was at once joined by 
its fellow, who circled them once and then fell in behind them.  Bradley now 
realized the strategy that the pair had used to capture him and at once 
concluded that he was in the power of reasoning beings closely related to the 
human race if not actually of it.
     Past experience suggested that the great wings were a part of some 
ingenious mechanical device, for the limitations of the human mind, which is 
always loath to accept aught beyond its own little experience, would not permit 
him to entertain the idea that the creatures might be naturally winged and at 
the same time of human origin.  From his position Bradley could not see the 
wings of his captor, nor in the darkness had he been able to examine those of 
the second creature closely when it circled before him.  He listened for the 
puff of a motor or some other telltale sound that would prove the correctness of 
his theory.  However, he was rewarded with nothing more than the constant 
flap-flap.
     Presently, far below and ahead, he saw the waters of the inland sea, and a 
moment later he was borne over them.  Then his captor did that which proved 
beyond doubt to Bradley that he was in the hands of human beings who had devised 
an almost perfect scheme of duplicating, mechanically, the wings of a bird--the 
thing spoke to its companion and in a language that Bradley partially 
understood, since he recognized words that he had learned from the savage races 
of Caspak.  From this he judged that they were human, and being human, he knew 
that they could have no natural wings--for who had ever seen a human being so 
adorned!  Therefore their wings must be mechanical.  Thus Bradley reasoned-- 
thus most of us reason; not by what might be possible; but by what has fallen 
within the range of our experience.
     What he heard them say was to the effect that having covered half the 
distance the burden would now be transferred from one to the other.  Bradley 
wondered how the exchange was to be accomplished.  He knew that those giant 
wings would not permit the creatures to approach one another closely enough to 
effect the transfer in this manner; but he was soon to discover that they had 
other means of doing it.
     He felt the thing that carried him rise to a greater altitude, and below he 
glimpsed momentarily the second white-robed figure; then the creature above 
sounded a low call, it was answered from below, and instantly Bradley felt the 
clutching talons release him; gasping for breath, he hurtled downward through 
space.
     For a terrifying instant, pregnant with horror, Bradley fell; then 
something swooped for him from behind, another pair of talons clutched him 
beneath the arms, his downward rush was checked, within another hundred feet, 
and close to the surface of the sea he was again borne upward.  As a hawk dives 
for a songbird on the wing, so this great, human bird dived for Bradley.  It was 
a harrowing experience, but soon over, and once again the captive was being 
carried swiftly toward the east and what fate he could not even guess.
     It was immediately following his transfer in mid-air that Bradley made out 
the shadowy form of a large island far ahead, and not long after, he realized 
that this must be the intended destination of his captors.  Nor was he mistaken. 
 Three quarters of an hour from the time of his seizure his captors dropped 
gently to earth in the strangest city that human eye had ever rested upon.  Just 
a brief glimpse of his immediate surroundings vouchsafed Bradley before he was 
whisked into the interior of one of the buildings; but in that momentary glance 
he saw strange piles of stone and wood and mud fashioned into buildings of all 
conceivable sizes and shapes, sometimes piled high on top of one another, 
sometimes standing alone in an open court-way, but usually crowded and jammed 
together, so that there were no streets or alleys between them other than a few 
which ended almost as soon as they began.  The principal doorways appeared to be 
in the roofs, and it was through one of these that Bradley was inducted into the 
dark interior of a low-ceiled room.  Here he was pushed roughly into a corner 
where he tripped over a thick mat, and there his captors left him.  He heard 
them moving about in the darkness for a moment, and several times he saw their 
large luminous eyes glowing in the dark.  Finally, these disappeared and silence 
reigned, broken only by the breathing of the creature which indicated to the 
Englishman that they were sleeping somewhere in the same apartment.
     It was now evident that the mat upon the floor was intended for sleeping 
purposes and that the rough shove that had sent him to it had been a rude 
invitation to repose.  After taking stock of himself and finding that he still 
had his pistol and ammunition, some matches, a little tobacco, a canteen full of 
water and a razor, Bradley made himself comfortable upon the mat and was soon 
asleep, knowing that an attempted escape in the darkness without knowledge of 
his surroundings would be predoomed to failure.
     When he awoke, it was broad daylight, and the sight that met his eyes made 
him rub them again and again to assure himself that they were really open and 
that he was not dreaming.  A broad shaft of morning light poured through the 
open doorway in the ceiling of the room which was about thirty feet square, or 
roughly square, being irregular in shape, one side curving outward, another 
being indented by what might have been the corner of another building jutting 
into it, another alcoved by three sides of an octagon, while the fourth was 
serpentine in contour.  Two windows let in more daylight, while two doors 
evidently gave ingress to other rooms.  The walls were partially ceiled with 
thin strips of wood, nicely fitted and finished, partially plastered and the 
rest covered with a fine, woven cloth.  Figures of reptiles and beasts were 
painted without regard to any uniform scheme here and there upon the walls.  A 
striking feature of the decorations consisted of several engaged columns set 
into the walls at no regular intervals, the capitals of each supporting a human 
skull the cranium of which touched the ceiling, as though the latter was 
supported by these grim reminders either of departed relatives or of some 
hideous tribal rite--Bradley could not but wonder which.
     Yet it was none of these things that filled him with greatest wonder--no, 
it was the figures of the two creatures that had captured him and brought him 
hither.  At one end of the room a stout pole about two inches in diameter ran 
horizontally from wall to wall some six or seven feet from the floor, its ends 
securely set in two of the columns.  Hanging by their knees from this perch, 
their heads downward and their bodies wrapped in their huge wings, slept the 
creatures of the night before--like two great, horrid bats they hung, asleep.
     As Bradley gazed upon them in wide-eyed astonishment, he saw plainly that 
all his intelligence, all his acquired knowledge through years of observation 
and experience were set at naught by the simple evidence of the fact that stood 
out glaringly before his eyes--the creatures' wings were not mechanical devices 
but as natural appendages, growing from their shoulderblades, as were their arms 
and legs.  He saw, too, that except for their wings the pair bore a strong 
resemblance to human beings, though fashioned in a most grotesque mold.
     As he sat gazing at them, one of the two awoke, separated his wings to 
release his arms that had been folded across his breast, placed his hands upon 
the floor, dropped his feet and stood erect.  For a moment he stretched his 
great wings slowly, solemnly blinking his large round eyes.  Then his gaze fell 
upon Bradley.  The thin lips drew back tightly against yellow teeth in a grimace 
that was nothing but hideous.  It could not have been termed a smile, and what 
emotion it registered the Englishman was at a loss to guess.  No expression 
whatever altered the steady gaze of those large, round eyes; there was no color 
upon the pasty, sunken cheeks.  A death's head grimaced as though a man long 
dead raised his parchment-covered skull from an old grave.
     The creature stood about the height of an average man but appeared much 
taller from the fact that the joints of his long wings rose fully a foot above 
his hairless head.  The bare arms were long and sinewy, ending in strong, bony 
hands with clawlike fingers--almost talonlike in their suggestiveness.  The 
white robe was separated in front, revealing skinny legs and the further fact 
that the thing wore but the single garment, which was of fine, woven cloth.  
From crown to sole the portions of the body exposed were entirely hairless, and 
as he noted this, Bradley also noted for the first time the cause of much of the 
seeming expressionlessness of the creature's countenance--it had neither 
eye-brows or lashes.  The ears were small and rested flat against the skull, 
which was noticeably round, though the face was quite flat.  The creature had 
small feet, beautifully arched and plump, but so out of keeping with every other 
physical attribute it possessed as to appear ridiculous.
     After eyeing Bradley for a moment the thing approached him.  "Where from?" 
it asked.
     "England," replied Bradley, as briefly.
     "Where is England and what?" pursued the questioner.
     "It is a country far from here," answered the Englishman.
     "Are your people cor-sva-jo or cos-ata-lu?"
     "I do not understand you," said Bradley; "and now suppose you answer a few 
questions.  Who are you?  What country is this?  Why did you bring me here?"
     Again the sepulchral grimace.  "We are Wieroos--Luata is our father.  
Caspak is ours.  This, our country, is called Oo-oh.  We brought you here for 
(literally) Him Who Speaks for Luata to gaze upon and question.  He would know 
from whence you came and why; but principally if you be cos-ata-lu."
     "And if I am not cos--whatever you call the bloomin' beast-- what of it?"
     The Wieroo raised his wings in a very human shrug and waved his bony claws 
toward the human skulls supporting the ceiling.  His gesture was eloquent; but 
he embellished it by remarking, "And possibly if you are."
     "I'm hungry," snapped Bradley.
     The Wieroo motioned him to one of the doors which he threw open, permitting 
Bradley to pass out onto another roof on a level lower than that upon which they 
had landed earlier in the morning.  By daylight the city appeared even more 
remarkable than in the moonlight, though less weird and unreal.  The houses of 
all shapes and sizes were piled about as a child might pile blocks of various 
forms and colors.  He saw now that there were what might be called streets or 
alleys, but they ran in baffling turns and twists, nor ever reached a 
destination, always ending in a dead wall where some Wieroo had built a house 
across them.
     Upon each house was a slender column supporting a human skull.  Sometimes 
the columns were at one corner of the roof, sometimes at another, or again they 
rose from the center or near the center, and the columns were of varying 
heights, from that of a man to those which rose twenty feet above their roofs.  
The skulls were, as a rule, painted--blue or white, or in combinations of both 
colors.  The most effective were painted blue with the teeth white and the 
eye-sockets rimmed with white.
     There were other skulls--thousands of them--tens, hundreds of thousands.  
They rimmed the eaves of every house, they were set in the plaster of the outer 
walls and at no great distance from where Bradley stood rose a round tower built 
entirely of human skulls.  And the city extended in every direction as far as 
the Englishman could see.
     All about him Wieroos were moving across the roofs or winging through the 
air.  The sad sound of their flapping wings rose and fell like a solemn dirge.  
Most of them were appareled all in white, like his captors; but others had 
markings of red or blue or yellow slashed across the front of their robes.
     His guide pointed toward a doorway in an alley below them.  "Go there and 
eat," he commanded, "and then come back.  You cannot escape.  If any question 
you, say that you belong to Fosh-bal-soj.  There is the way."  And this time he 
pointed to the top of a ladder which protruded above the eaves of the roof 
near-by.  Then he turned and reentered the house.
     Bradley looked about him.  No, he could not escape--that seemed evident.  
The city appeared interminable, and beyond the city, if not a savage wilderness 
filled with wild beasts, there was the broad inland sea infested with horrid 
monsters.  No wonder his captor felt safe in turning him loose in Oo-oh--he 
wondered if that was the name of the country or the city and if there were other 
cities like this upon the island.
     Slowly he descended the ladder to the seemingly deserted alley which was 
paved with what appeared to be large, round cobblestones.  He looked again at 
the smooth, worn pavement, and a rueful grin crossed his features--the alley was 
paved with skulls.  "The City of Human Skulls," mused Bradley.  "They must have 
been collectin' 'em since Adam," he thought, and then he crossed and entered the 
building through the doorway that had been pointed out to him.
     Inside he found a large room in which were many Wieroos seated before 
pedestals the tops of which were hollowed out so that they resembled the 
ordinary bird drinking- and bathing-fonts so commonly seen on suburban lawns.  A 
seat protruded from each of the four sides of the pedestals--just a flat board 
with a support running from its outer end diagonally to the base of the 
pedestal.
     As Bradley entered, some of the Wieroos espied him, and a dismal wail 
arose.  Whether it was a greeting or a threat, Bradley did not know.  Suddenly 
from a dark alcove another Wieroo rushed out toward him.  "Who are you?" he 
cried.  "What do you want?"
     "Fosh-bal-soj sent me here to eat," replied Bradley.
     "Do you belong to Fosh-bal-soj?" asked the other.
     "That appears to be what he thinks," answered the Englishman.
     "Are you cos-ata-lu?" demanded the Wieroo.
     "Give me something to eat or I'll be all of that," replied Bradley.
     The Wieroo looked puzzled.  "Sit here, jaal-lu," he snapped, and Bradley 
sat down unconscious of the fact that he had been insulted by being called a 
hyena-man, an appellation of contempt in Caspak.
     The Wieroo had seated him at a pedestal by himself, and as he sat waiting 
for what was next to transpire, he looked about him at the Wieroo in his 
immediate vicinity.  He saw that in each font was a quantity of food, and that 
each Wieroo was armed with a wooden skewer, sharpened at one end; with which 
they carried solid portions of food to their mouths.  At the other end of the 
skewer was fastened a small clam-shell.  This was used to scoop up the smaller 
and softer portions of the repast into which all four of the occupants of each 
table dipped impartially.  The Wieroo leaned far over their food, scooping it up 
rapidly and with much noise, and so great was their haste that a part of each 
mouthful always fell back into the common dish; and when they choked, by reason 
of the rapidity with which they attempted to bolt their food, they often lost it 
all.  Bradley was glad that he had a pedestal all to himself.
     Soon the keeper of the place returned with a wooden bowl filled with food.  
This he dumped into Bradley's "trough," as he already thought of it.  The 
Englishman was glad that he could not see into the dark alcove or know what were 
all the ingredients that constituted the mess before him, for he was very 
hungry.
     After the first mouthful he cared even less to investigate the antecedents 
of the dish, for he found it peculiarly palatable.  It seemed to consist of a 
combination of meat, fruits, vegetables, small fish and other undistinguishable 
articles of food all seasoned to produce a gastronomic effect that was at once 
baffling and delicious.
     When he had finished, his trough was empty, and then he commenced to wonder 
who was to settle for his meal.  As he waited for the proprietor to return, he 
fell to examining the dish from which he had eaten and the pedestal upon which 
it rested.  The font was of stone worn smooth by long-continued use, the four 
outer edges hollowed and polished by the contact of the countless Wieroo bodies 
that had leaned against them for how long a period of time Bradley could not 
even guess.  Everything about the place carried the impression of hoary age.  
The carved pedestals were black with use, the wooden seats were worn hollow, the 
floor of stone slabs was polished by the contact of possibly millions of naked 
feet and worn away in the aisles between the pedestals so that the latter rested 
upon little mounds of stone several inches above the general level of the floor.
     Finally, seeing that no one came to collect, Bradley arose and started for 
the doorway.  He had covered half the distance when he heard the voice of mine 
host calling to him:  "Come back, jaal-lu," screamed the Wieroo; and Bradley did 
as he was bid.  As he approached the creature which stood now behind a large, 
flat-topped pedestal beside the alcove, he saw lying upon the smooth surface 
something that almost elicited a gasp of astonishment from him--a simple, common 
thing it was, or would have been almost anywhere in the world but Caspak--a 
square bit of paper!
     And on it, in a fine hand, written compactly, were many strange 
hieroglyphics!  These remarkable creatures, then, had a written as well as a 
spoken language and besides the art of weaving cloth possessed that of 
paper-making.  Could it be that such grotesque beings represented the high 
culture of the human race within the boundaries of Caspak?  Had natural 
selection produced during the countless ages of Caspakian life a winged 
monstrosity that represented the earthly pinnacle of man's evolution?
     Bradley had noted something of the obvious indications of a gradual 
evolution from ape to spearman as exemplified by the several overlapping races 
of Alalus, club-men and hatchet-men that formed the connecting links between the 
two extremes with which he, had come in contact.  He had heard of the Krolus and 
the Galus--reputed to be still higher in the plane of evolution-- and now he had 
indisputable evidence of a race possessing refinements of civilization eons in 
advance of the spear-men.  The conjectures awakened by even a momentary 
consideration of the possibilities involved became at once as wildly bizarre as 
the insane imagings of a drug addict.
     As these thoughts flashed through his mind, the Wieroo held out a pen of 
bone fixed to a wooden holder and at the same time made a sign that Bradley was 
to write upon the paper.  It was difficult to judge from the expressionless 
features of the Wieroo what was passing in the creature's mind, but Bradley 
could not but feel that the thing cast a supercilious glance upon him as much as 
to say, "Of course you do not know how to write, you poor, low creature; but you 
can make your mark."
     Bradley seized the pen and in a clear, bold hand wrote:  "John Bradley, 
England."  The Wieroo showed evidences of consternation as it seized the piece 
of paper and examined the writing with every mark of incredulity and surprise.  
Of course it could make nothing of the strange characters; but it evidently 
accepted them as proof that Bradley possessed knowledge of a written language of 
his own, for following the Englishman's entry it made a few characters of its 
own.
     "You will come here again just before Lua hides his face behind the great 
cliff," announced the creature, "unless before that you are summoned by Him Who 
Speaks for Luata, in which case you will not have to eat any more."
     "Reassuring cuss," thought Bradley as he turned and left the building.
     Outside were several Wieroos that had been eating at the pedestals within.  
They immediately surrounded him, asking all sorts of questions, plucking at his 
garments, his ammunition-belt and his pistol.  Their demeanor was entirely 
different from what it had been within the eating-place and Bradley was to learn 
that a house of food was sanctuary for him, since the stern laws of the Wieroos 
forbade altercations within such walls.  Now they were rough and threatening, as 
with wings half spread they hovered about him in menacing attitudes, barring his 
way to the ladder leading to the roof from whence he had descended; but the 
Englishman was not one to brook interference for long.  He attempted at first to 
push his way past them, and then when one seized his arm and jerked him roughly 
back, Bradley swung upon the creature and with a heavy blow to the jaw felled 
it.
     Instantly pandemonium reigned.  Loud wails arose, great wings opened and 
closed with a loud, beating noise and many clawlike hands reached forth to 
clutch him.  Bradley struck to right and left.  He dared not use his pistol for 
fear that once they discovered its power he would be overcome by weight of 
numbers and relieved of possession of what he considered his trump card, to be 
reserved until the last moment that it might be used to aid in his escape, for 
already the Englishman was planning, though almost hopelessly, such an attempt.
     A few blows convinced Bradley that the Wieroos were arrant cowards and that 
they bore no weapons, for after two or three had fallen beneath his fists the 
others formed a circle about him, but at a safe distance and contented 
themselves with threatening and blustering, while those whom he had felled lay 
upon the pavement without trying to arise, the while they moaned and wailed in 
lugubrious chorus.
     Again Bradley strode toward the ladder, and this time the circle parted 
before him; but no sooner had he ascended a few rungs than he was seized by one 
foot and an effort made to drag him down.  With a quick backward glance the 
Englishman, clinging firmly to the ladder with both hands, drew up his free foot 
and with all the strength of a powerful leg, planted a heavy shoe squarely in 
the flat face of the Wieroo that held him.  Shrieking horribly, the creature 
clapped both hands to its face and sank to the ground while Bradley clambered 
quickly the remaining distance to the roof, though no sooner did he reach the 
top of the ladder than a great flapping of wings beneath him warned him that the 
Wieroos were rising after him.  A moment later they swarmed about his head as he 
ran for the apartment in which he had spent the early hours of the morning after 
his arrival.
     It was but a short distance from the top of the ladder to the doorway, and 
Bradley had almost reached his goal when the door flew open and Fosh-bal-soj 
stepped out.  Immediately the pursuing Wieroos demanded punishment of the 
jaal-lu who had so grievously maltreated them.  Fosh-bal-soj listened to their 
complaints and then with a sudden sweep of his right hand seized Bradley by the 
scruff of the neck and hurled him sprawling through the doorway upon the floor 
of the chamber.
     So sudden was the assault and so surprising the strength of the Wieroo that 
the Englishman was taken completely off his guard.  When he arose, the door was 
closed, and Fosh-bal-soj was standing over him, his hideous face contorted into 
an expression of rage and hatred.
     "Hyena, snake, lizard!" he screamed.  "You would dare lay your low, vile, 
profaning hands upon even the lowliest of the Wieroos-- the sacred chosen of 
Luata!"
     Bradley was mad, and so he spoke in a very low, calm voice while a 
half-smile played across his lips but his cold, gray eyes were unsmiling.
     "What you did to me just now," he said, "--I am going to kill you for 
that," and even as he spoke, he launched himself at the throat of Fosh-bal-soj.  
The other Wieroo that had been asleep when Bradley left the chamber had 
departed, and the two were alone.  Fosh-bal-soj displayed little of the 
cowardice of those that had attacked Bradley in the alleyway, but that may have 
been because he had so slight opportunity, for Bradley had him by the throat 
before he could utter a cry and with his right hand struck him heavily and 
repeatedly upon his face and over his heart--ugly, smashing, short-arm jabs of 
the sort that take the fight out of a man in quick time.
     But Fosh-bal-soj was of no mind to die passively.  He clawed and struck at 
Bradley while with his great wings he attempted to shield himself from the 
merciless rain of blows, at the same time searching for a hold upon his 
antagonist's throat.  Presently he succeeded in tripping the Englishman, and 
together the two fell heavily to the floor, Bradley underneath, and at the same 
instant the Wieroo fastened his long talons about the other's windpipe.
     Fosh-bal-soj was possessed of enormous strength and he was fighting for his 
life.  The Englishman soon realized that the battle was going against him.  
Already his lungs were pounding painfully for air as he reached for his pistol.  
It was with difficulty that he drew it from its holster, and even then, with 
death staring him in the face, he thought of his precious ammunition.  "Can't 
waste it," he thought; and slipping his fingers to the barrel he raised the 
weapon and struck Fosh-bal-soj a terrific blow between the eyes.  Instantly the 
clawlike fingers released their hold, and the creature sank limply to the floor 
beside Bradley, who lay for several minutes gasping painfully in an effort to 
regain his breath.
     When he was able, he rose, and leaned close over the Wieroo, lying silent 
and motionless, his wings dropping limply and his great, round eyes staring 
blankly toward the ceiling.  A brief examination convinced Bradley that the 
thing was dead, and with the conviction came an overwhelming sense of the 
dangers which must now confront him; but how was he to escape?
     His first thought was to find some means for concealing the evidence of his 
deed and then to make a bold effort to escape.  Stepping to the second door he 
pushed it gently open and peered in upon what seemed to be a store room.  In it 
was a litter of cloth such as the Wieroos' robes were fashioned from, a number 
of chests painted blue and white, with white hieroglyphics painted in bold 
strokes upon the blue and blue hieroglyphics upon the white.  In one corner was 
a pile of human skulls reaching almost to the ceiling and in another a stack of 
dried Wieroo wings.  The chamber was as irregularly shaped as the other and had 
but a single window and a second door at the further end, but was without the 
exit through the roof and, most important of all, there was no creature of any 
sort in it.
     As quickly as possible Bradley dragged the dead Wieroo through the doorway 
and closed the door; then he looked about for a place to conceal the corpse.  
One of the chests was large enough to hold the body if the knees were bent well 
up, and with this idea in view Bradley approached the chest to open it.  The lid 
was made in two pieces, each being hinged at an opposite end of the chest and 
joining nicely where they met in the center of the chest, making a snug, 
well-fitting joint.  There was no lock.  Bradley raised one half the cover and 
looked in.  With a smothered "By Jove!" he bent closer to examine the 
contents--the chest was about half filled with an assortment of golden trinkets. 
 There were what appeared to be bracelets, anklets and brooches of virgin gold.
     Realizing that there was no room in the chest for the body of the Wieroo, 
Bradley turned to seek another means of concealing the evidence of his crime.  
There was a space between the chests and the wall, and into this he forced the 
corpse, piling the discarded robes upon it until it was entirely hidden from 
sight; but now how was he to make good his escape in the bright glare of that 
early Spring day?
     He walked to the door at the far end of the apartment and cautiously opened 
it an inch.  Before him and about two feet away was the blank wall of another 
building.  Bradley opened the door a little farther and looked in both 
directions.  There was no one in sight to the left over a considerable expanse 
of roof-top, and to the right another building shut off his line of vision at 
about twenty feet.  Slipping out, he turned to the right and in a few steps 
found a narrow passageway between two buildings.  Turning into this he passed 
about half its length when he saw a Wieroo appear at the opposite end and halt.  
The creature was not looking down the passageway; but at any moment it might 
turn its eyes toward him, when he would be immediately discovered.
     To Bradley's left was a triangular niche in the wall of one of the houses 
and into this he dodged, thus concealing himself from the sight of the Wieroo.  
Beside him was a door painted a vivid yellow and constructed after the same 
fashion as the other Wieroo doors he had seen, being made up of countless narrow 
strips of wood from four to six inches in length laid on in patches of about the 
same width, the strips in adjacent patches never running in the same direction.  
The result bore some resemblance to a crazy patchwork quilt, which was 
heightened when, as in one of the doors he had seen, contiguous patches were 
painted different colors.  The strips appeared to have been bound together and 
to the underlying framework of the door with gut or fiber and also glued, after 
which a thick coating of paint had been applied.  One edge of the door was 
formed of a straight, round pole about two inches in diameter that protruded at 
top and bottom, the projections setting in round holes in both lintel and sill 
forming the axis upon which the door swung.  An eccentric disk upon the inside 
face of the door engaged a slot in the frame when it was desired to secure the 
door against intruders.
     As Bradley stood flattened against the wall waiting for the Wieroo to move 
on, he heard the creature's wings brushing against the sides of the buildings as 
it made its way down the narrow passage in his direction.  As the yellow door 
offered the only means of escape without detection, the Englishman decided to 
risk whatever might lie beyond it, and so, boldly pushing it in, he crossed the 
threshold and entered a small apartment.
     As he did so, he heard a muffled ejaculation of surprise, and turning his 
eyes in the direction from whence the sound had come, he beheld a wide-eyed girl 
standing flattened against the opposite wall, an expression of incredulity upon 
her face.  At a glance he saw that she was of no race of humans that he had come 
in contact with since his arrival upon Caprona--there was no trace about her 
form or features of any relationship to those low orders of men, nor was she 
appareled as they--or, rather, she did not entirely lack apparel as did most of 
them.
     A soft hide fell from her left shoulder to just below her left hip on one 
side and almost to her right knee on the other, a loose girdle was about her 
waist, and golden ornaments such as he had seen in the blue-and-white chest 
encircled her arms and legs, while a golden fillet with a triangular diadem 
bound her heavy hair above her brows.  Her skin was white as from long 
confinement within doors; but it was clear and fine.  Her figure, but partially 
concealed by the soft deerskin, was all curves of symmetry and youthful grace, 
while her features might easily have been the envy of the most feted of 
Continental beauties.
     If the girl was surprised by the sudden appearance of Bradley, the latter 
was absolutely astounded to discover so wondrous a creature among the hideous 
inhabitants of the City of Human Skulls.  For a moment the two looked at one 
another in unconcealed consternation, and then Bradley spoke, using to the best 
of his poor ability, the common tongue of Caspak.
     "Who are you," he asked, "and from where do you come?  Do not tell me that 
you are a Wieroo."
     "No," she replied, "I am no Wieroo."  And she shuddered slightly as she 
pronounced the word.  "I am a Galu; but who and what are you?  I am sure that 
you are no Galu, from your garments; but you are like the Galus in other 
respects.  I know that you are not of this frightful city, for I have been here 
for almost ten moons, and never have I seen a male Galu brought hither before, 
nor are there such as you and I, other than prisoners in the land of Oo-oh, and 
these are all females.  Are you a prisoner, then?"
     He told her briefly who and what he was, though he doubted if she 
understood, and from her he learned that she had been a prisoner there for many 
months; but for what purpose he did not then learn, as in the midst of their 
conversation the yellow door swung open and a Wieroo with a robe slashed with 
yellow entered.
     At sight of Bradley the creature became furious.  "Whence came this 
reptile?" it demanded of the girl.  "How long has it been here with you?"
     "It came through the doorway just ahead of you," Bradley answered for the 
girl.
     The Wieroo looked relieved.  "It is well for the girl that this is so," it 
said, "for now only you will have to die."  And stepping to the door the 
creature raised its voice in one of those uncanny, depressing wails.
     The Englishman looked toward the girl.  "Shall I kill it?" he asked, half 
drawing his pistol.  "What is best to do?--I do not wish to endanger you."
     The Wieroo backed toward the door.  "Defiler!" it screamed.  "You dare to 
threaten one of the sacred chosen of Luata!"
     "Do not kill him," cried the girl, "for then there could be no hope for 
you.  That you are here, alive, shows that they may not intend to kill you at 
all, and so there is a chance for you if you do not anger them; but touch him in 
violence and your bleached skull will top the loftiest pedestal of Oo-oh."
     "And what of you?" asked Bradley.
     "I am already doomed," replied the girl; "I am cos-ata-lo."
     "Cos-ata-lo! cos-ata-lu!"  What did these phrases mean that they were so 
oft repeated by the denizens of Oo-oh?  Lu and lo, Bradley knew to mean man and 
woman; ata; was employed variously to indicate life, eggs, young, reproduction 
and kindred subject; cos was a negative; but in combination they were 
meaningless to the European.
     "Do you mean they will kill you?" asked Bradley.
     "I but wish that they would," replied the girl.  "My fate is to be worse 
than death--in just a few nights more, with the coming of the new moon."
     "Poor she-snake!" snapped the Wieroo.  "You are to become sacred above all 
other shes.  He Who Speaks for Luata has chosen you for himself.  Today you go 
to his temple--"the Wieroo used a phrase meaning literally High Place--"where 
you will receive the sacred commands."
     The girl shuddered and cast a sorrowful glance toward Bradley.  "Ah," she 
sighed, "if I could but see my beloved country once again!"
     The man stepped suddenly close to her side before the Wieroo could 
interpose and in a low voice asked her if there was no way by which he might 
encompass her escape.  She shook her head sorrowfully.  "Even if we escaped the 
city," she replied, "there is the big water between the island of Oo-oh and the 
Galu shore."
     "And what is beyond the city, if we could leave it?" pursued Bradley.
     "I  may only guess from what I have heard since I was brought here," she 
answered; "but by reports and chance remarks I take it to be a beautiful land in 
which there are but few wild beasts and no men, for only the Wieroos live upon 
this island and they dwell always in cities of which there are three, this being 
the largest.  The others are at the far end of the island, which is about three 
marches from end to end and at its widest point about one march."
     From his own experience and from what the natives on the mainland had told 
him, Bradley knew that ten miles was a good day's march in Caspak, owing to the 
fact that at most points it was a trackless wilderness and at all times 
travelers were beset by hideous beasts and reptiles that greatly impeded rapid 
progress.
     The two had spoken rapidly but were now interrupted by the advent through 
the opening in the roof of several Wieroos who had come in answer to the alarm 
it of the yellow slashing had uttered.
     "This jaal-lu,"  cried the offended one, "has threatened me.  Take its 
hatchet from it and make it fast where it can do no harm until He Who Speaks for 
Luata has said what shall be done with it.  It is one of those strange creatures 
that Fosh-bal-soj discovered first above the Band-lu country and followed back 
toward the beginning.  He Who Speaks for Luata sent Fosh-bal-soj to fetch him 
one of the creatures, and here it is.  It is hoped that it may be from another 
world and hold the secret of the cos-ata-lus."
     The Wieroos approached boldly to take Bradley's "hatchet" from him, their 
leader having indicated the pistol hanging in its holster at the Englishman's 
hip, but the first one went reeling backward against his fellows from the blow 
to the chin which Bradley followed up with a rush and the intention to clean up 
the room in record time; but he had reckoned without the opening in the roof.  
Two were down and a great wailing and moaning was arising when reinforcements 
appeared from above.  Bradley did not see them; but the girl did, and though she 
cried out a warning, it came too late for him to avoid a large Wieroo who dived 
headforemost for him, striking him between the shoulders and bearing him to the 
floor.  Instantly a dozen more were piling on top of him.  His pistol was 
wrenched from its holster and he was securely pinioned down by the weight of 
numbers.
     At a word from the Wieroo of the yellow slashing who evidently was a person 
of authority, one left and presently returned with fiber ropes with which 
Bradley was tightly bound.
     "Now bear him to the Blue Place of Seven Skulls," directed the chief 
Wieroo, "and one take the word of all that has passed to Him Who Speaks for 
Luata."
     Each of the creatures raised a hand, the back against its face, as though 
in salute.  One seized Bradley and carried him through the yellow doorway to the 
roof from whence it rose upon its wide-spread wings and flapped off across the 
roof-tops of Oo-oh with its heavy burden clutched in its long talons.
     Below him Bradley could see the city stretching away to a distance on every 
hand.  It was not as large as he had imagined, though he judged that it was at 
least three miles square.  The houses were piled in indescribable heaps, 
sometimes to a height of a hundred feet.  The streets and alleys were short and 
crooked and there were many areas where buildings had been wedged in so closely 
that no light could possibly reach the lowest tiers, the entire surface of the 
ground being packed solidly with them.
     The colors were varied and startling, the architecture amazing.  Many roofs 
were cup or saucer-shaped with a small hole in the center of each, as though 
they had been constructed to catch rain-water and conduct it to a reservoir 
beneath; but nearly all the others had the large opening in the top that Bradley 
had seen used by these flying men in lieu of doorways.  At all levels were the 
myriad poles surmounted by grinning skulls; but the two most prominent features 
of the city were the round tower of human skulls that Bradley had noted earlier 
in the day and another and much larger edifice near the center of the city.  As 
they approached it, Bradley saw that it was a huge building rising a hundred 
feet in height from the ground and that it stood alone in the center of what 
might have been called a plaza in some other part of the world.  Its various 
parts, however, were set together with the same strange irregularity that marked 
the architecture of the city as a whole; and it was capped by an enormous 
saucer-shaped roof which projected far beyond the eaves, having the appearance 
of a colossal Chinese coolie hat, inverted.
     The Wieroo bearing Bradley passed over one corner of the open space about 
the large building, revealing to the Englishman grass and trees and running 
water beneath.  They passed the building and about five hundred yards beyond the 
creature alighted on the roof of a square, blue building surmounted by seven 
poles bearing seven skulls.  This then, thought Bradley, is the Blue Place of 
Seven Skulls.
     Over the opening in the roof was a grated covering, and this the Wieroo 
removed.  The thing then tied a piece of fiber rope to one of Bradley's ankles 
and rolled him over the edge of the opening.  All was dark below and for an 
instant the Englishman came as near to experiencing real terror as he had ever 
come in his life before.  As he rolled off into the black abyss he felt the rope 
tighten about his ankle and an instant later he was stopped with a sudden jerk 
to swing pendulumlike, head downward.  Then the creature lowered away until 
Bradley's head came in sudden and painful contact with the floor below, after 
which the Wieroo let loose of the rope entirely and the Englishman's body 
crashed to the wooden planking.  He felt the free end of the rope dropped upon 
him and heard the grating being slid into place above him.
     
 
Chapter 3
      Half-stunned, Bradley lay for a minute as he had fallen and then slowly 
and painfully wriggled into a less uncomfortable position.  He could see nothing 
of his surroundings in the gloom about him until after a few minutes his eyes 
became accustomed to the dark interior when he rolled them from side to side in 
survey of his prison.
     He discovered himself to be in a bare room which was windowless, nor could 
he see any other opening than that through which he had been lowered.  In one 
corner was a huddled mass that might have been almost anything from a bundle of 
rags to a dead body.
     Almost immediately after he had taken his bearings Bradley commenced 
working with his bonds.  He was a man of powerful physique, and as from the 
first he had been imbued with a belief that the fiber ropes were too weak to 
hold him, he worked on with a firm conviction that sooner or later they would 
part to his strainings.  After a matter of five minutes he was positive that the 
strands about his wrists were beginning to give; but he was compelled to rest 
then from exhaustion.
     As he lay, his eyes rested upon the bundle in the corner, and presently he 
could have sworn that the thing moved.  With eyes straining through the gloom 
the man lay watching the grim and sinister thing in the corner.  Perhaps his 
overwrought nerves were playing a sorry joke upon him.  He thought of this and 
also that his condition of utter helplessness might still further have 
stimulated his imagination.  He closed his eyes and sought to relax his muscles 
and his nerves; but when he looked again, he knew that he had not been 
mistaken--the thing had moved; now it lay in a slightly altered form and farther 
from the wall.  It was nearer him.
     With renewed strength Bradley strained at his bonds, his fascinated gaze 
still glued upon the shapeless bundle.  No longer was there any doubt that it 
moved--he saw it rise in the center several inches and then creep closer to him. 
 It sank and arose again--a headless, hideous, monstrous thing of menace.  Its 
very silence rendered it the more terrible.
     Bradley was a brave man; ordinarily his nerves were of steel; but to be at 
the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be unable to defend 
himself--it was these things that almost unstrung him, for at best he was only 
human.  To stand in the open, even with the odds all against him; to be able to 
use his fists, to put up some sort of defense, to inflict punishment upon his 
adversary--then he could face death with a smile.  It was not death that he 
feared now--it was that horror of the unknown that is part of the fiber of every 
son of woman.
     Closer and closer came the shapeless mass.  Bradley lay motionless and 
listened.  What was that he heard!  Breathing?  He could not be mistaken--and 
then from out of the bundle of rags issued a hollow groan.  Bradley felt his 
hair rise upon his head.  He struggled with the slowly parting strands that held 
him.  The thing beside him rose up higher than before and the Englishman could 
have sworn that he saw a single eye peering at him from among the tumbled cloth. 
 For a moment the bundle remained motionless--only the sound of breathing issued 
from it, then there broke from it a maniacal laugh.
     Cold sweat stood upon Bradley's brow as he tugged for liberation.  He saw 
the rags rise higher and higher above him until at last they tumbled upon the 
floor from the body of a naked man--a thin, a bony, a hideous caricature of man, 
that mouthed and mummed and, wabbling upon its weak and shaking legs, crumpled 
to the floor again, still laughing--laughing horribly.
     It crawled toward Bradley.  "Food!  Food!" it screamed.  "There is a way 
out! There is a way out!"
     Dragging itself to his side the creature slumped upon the Englishman's 
breast.  "Food!" it shrilled as with its bony fingers and its teeth, it sought 
the man's bare throat.
     "Food!  There is a way out!"  Bradley felt teeth upon his jugular.  He 
turned and twisted, shaking himself free for an instant; but once more with 
hideous persistence the thing fastened itself upon him.  The weak jaws were 
unable to send the dull teeth through the victim's flesh; but Bradley felt it 
pawing, pawing, pawing, like a monstrous rat, seeking his life's blood.
     The skinny arms now embraced his neck, holding the teeth to his throat 
against all his efforts to dislodge the thing.  Weak as it was it had strength 
enough for this in its mad efforts to eat.  Mumbling as it worked, it repeated 
again and again, "Food!  Food!  There is a way out!" until Bradley thought those 
two expressions alone would drive him mad.
     And all but mad he was as with a final effort backed by almost maniacal 
strength he tore his wrists from the confining bonds and grasping the repulsive 
thing upon his breast hurled it halfway across the room.  Panting like a spent 
hound Bradley worked at the thongs about his ankles while the maniac lay 
quivering and mumbling where it had fallen.  Presently the Englishman leaped to 
his feet--freer than he had ever before felt in all his life, though he was 
still hopelessly a prisoner in the Blue Place of Seven Skulls.
     With his back against the wall for support, so weak the reaction left him, 
Bradley stood watching the creature upon the floor.  He saw it move and slowly 
raise itself to its hands and knees, where it swayed to and fro as its eyes 
roved about in search of him; and when at last they found him, there broke from 
the drawn lips the mumbled words:  "Food!  Food!  There is a way out!"  The 
pitiful supplication in the tones touched the Englishman's heart.  He knew that 
this could be no Wieroo, but possibly once a man like himself who had been cast 
into this pit of solitary confinement with this hideous result that might in 
time be his fate, also.
     And then, too, there was the suggestion of hope held out by the constant 
reiteration of the phrase, "There is a way out."  Was there a way out?  What did 
this poor thing know?
     "Who are you and how long have you been here?" Bradley suddenly demanded.
     For a moment the man upon the floor made no response, then mumblingly came 
the words:  "Food!  Food!"
     "Stop!" commanded the Englishman--the injunction might have been barked 
from the muzzle of a pistol.  It brought the man to a sitting posture, his hands 
off the ground.  He stopped swaying to and fro and appeared to be startled into 
an attempt to master his faculties of concentration and thought.
     Bradley repeated his questions sharply.
     "I am An-Tak, the Galu," replied the man.  "Luata alone knows how long I 
have been here--maybe ten moons, maybe ten moons three times"--it was the 
Caspakian equivalent of thirty.  "I was young and strong when they brought me 
here.  Now I am old and very weak.  I am cos-ata-lu--that is why they have not 
killed me.  If I tell them the secret of becoming cos-ata-lu they will take me 
out; but how can I tell them that which Luata alone knows?
     "What is cos-ata-lu?" demanded Bradley.
     "Food!  Food!  There is a way out!" mumbled the Galu.
     Bradley strode across the floor, seized the man by his shoulders and shook 
him.
     "Tell me," he cried, "what is cos-ata-lu?"
     "Food!" whimpered An-Tak.
     Bradley bethought himself.  His haversack had not been taken from him.  In 
it besides his razor and knife were odds and ends of equipment and a small 
quantity of dried meat.  He tossed a small strip of the latter to the starving 
Galu.  An-Tak seized upon it and devoured it ravenously.  It instilled new life 
in the man.
     "What is cos-ata-lu?" insisted Bradley again.
     An-Tak tried to explain.  His narrative was often broken by lapses of 
concentration during which he reverted to his plaintive mumbling for food and 
recurrence to the statement that there was a way out; but by firmness and 
patience the Englishman drew out piece-meal a more or less lucid exposition of 
the remarkable scheme of evolution that rules in Caspak.  In it he found 
explanations of the hitherto inexplicable.  He discovered why he had seen no 
babes or children among the Caspakian tribes with which he had come in contact; 
why each more northerly tribe evinced a higher state of development than those 
south of them; why each tribe included individuals ranging in physical and 
mental characteristics from the highest of the next lower race to the lowest of 
the next higher, and why the women of each tribe immersed themselves morning for 
an hour or more in the warm pools near which the habitations of their people 
always were located; and, too, he discovered why those pools were almost immune 
from the attacks of carnivorous animals and reptiles.
     He learned that all but those who were cos-ata-lu came up cor-sva-jo, or 
from the beginning.  The egg from which they first developed into tadpole form 
was deposited, with millions of others, in one of the warm pools and with it a 
poisonous serum that the carnivora instinctively shunned.  Down the warm stream 
from the pool floated the countless billions of eggs and tadpoles, developing as 
they drifted slowly toward the sea.  Some became tadpoles in the pool, some in 
the sluggish stream and some not until they reached the great inland sea.  In 
the next stage they became fishes or reptiles, An-Tak was not positive which, 
and in this form, always developing, they swam far to the south, where, amid the 
rank and teeming jungles, some of them evolved into amphibians.  Always there 
were those whose development stopped at the first stage, others whose 
development ceased when they became reptiles, while by far the greater 
proportion formed the food supply of the ravenous creatures of the deep.
     Few indeed were those that eventually developed into baboons and then apes, 
which was considered by Caspakians the real beginning of evolution.  From the 
egg, then, the individual developed slowly into a higher form, just as the 
frog's egg develops through various stages from a fish with gills to a frog with 
lungs.  With that thought in mind Bradley discovered that it was not difficult 
to believe in the possibility of such a scheme-- there was nothing new in it.
     From the ape the individual, if it survived, slowly developed into the 
lowest order of man--the Alu--and then by degrees to Bo-lu, Sto-lu, Band-lu, 
Kro-lu and finally Galu.  And in each stage countless millions of other eggs 
were deposited in the warm pools of the various races and floated down to the 
great sea to go through a similar process of evolution outside the womb as 
develops our own young within; but in Caspak the scheme is much more inclusive, 
for it combines not only individual development but the evolution of species and 
genera.  If an egg survives it goes through all the stages of development that 
man has passed through during the unthinkable eons since life first moved upon 
the earth's face.
     The final stage--that which the Galus have almost attained and for which 
all hope--is cos-ata-lu, which literally, means no-egg-man, or one who is born 
directly as are the young of the outer world of mammals.  Some of the Galus 
produce cos-ata-lu and cos-ata-lo both; the Weiroos only cos-ata-lu--in other 
words all Wieroos are born male, and so they prey upon the Galus for their women 
and sometimes capture and torture the Galu men who are cos-ata-lu in an endeavor 
to learn the secret which they believe will give them unlimited power over all 
other denizens of Caspak.
     No Wieroos come up from the beginning--all are born of the Wieroo fathers 
and Galu mothers who are cos-ata-lo, and there are very few of the latter owing 
to the long and precarious stages of development.  Seven generations of the same 
ancestor must come up from the beginning before a cos-ata-lu child may be born; 
and when one considers the frightful dangers that surround the vital spark from 
the moment it leaves the warm pool where it has been deposited to float down to 
the sea amid the voracious creatures that swarm the surface and the deeps and 
the almost equally unthinkable trials of its effort to survive after it once 
becomes a land animal and starts northward through the horrors of the Caspakian 
jungles and forests, it is plainly a wonder that even a single babe has ever 
been born to a Galu woman.
     Seven cycles it requires before the seventh Galu can complete the seventh 
danger-infested circle since its first Galu ancestor achieved the state of Galu. 
 For ages before, the ancestors of this first Galu may have developed from a 
Band-lu or Bo-lu egg without ever once completing the whole circle--that is from 
a Galu egg, back to a fully developed Galu.
     Bradley's head was whirling before he even commenced to grasp the 
complexities of Caspakian evolution; but as the truth slowly filtered into his 
understanding--as gradually it became possible for him to visualize the scheme, 
it appeared simpler.  In fact, it seemed even less difficult of comprehension 
than that with which he was familiar.
     For several minutes after An-Tak ceased speaking, his voice having trailed 
off weakly into silence, neither spoke again.  Then the Galu recommenced his, 
"Food!  Food!  There is a way out!" Bradley tossed him another bit of dried 
meat, waiting patiently until he had eaten it, this time more slowly.
     "What do you mean by saying there is a way out?" he asked.
     "He who died here just after I came, told me," replied An-Tak.  "He said 
there was a way out, that he had discovered it but was too weak to use his 
knowledge.  He was trying to tell me how to find it when he died.  Oh, Luata, if 
he had lived but a moment more!"
     "They do not feed you here?" asked Bradley.
     "No, they give me water once a day--that is all."
     "But how have you lived, then?"
     "The lizards and the rats," replied An-Tak. "The lizards are not so bad; 
but the rats are foul to taste.  However, I must eat them or they would eat me, 
and they are better than nothing; but of late they do not come so often, and I 
have not had a lizard for a long time.  I shall eat though," he mumbled.  "I 
shall eat now, for you cannot remain awake forever."  He laughed, a cackling, 
dry laugh.  "When you sleep, An-Tak will eat."
     It was horrible.  Bradley shuddered.  For a long time each sat in silence.  
The Englishman could guess why the other made no sound--he awaited the moment 
that sleep should overcome his victim.  In the long silence there was born upon 
Bradley's ears a faint, monotonous sound as of running water.  He listened 
intently.  It seemed to come from far beneath the floor.
     "What is that noise?" he asked.  "That sounds like water running through a 
narrow channel."
     "It is the river," replied An-Tak.  "Why do you not go to sleep? It passes 
directly beneath the Blue Place of Seven Skulls.  It runs through the temple 
grounds, beneath the temple and under the city.  When we die, they will cut off 
our heads and throw our bodies into the river.  At the mouth of the river await 
many large reptiles.  Thus do they feed.  The Wieroos do likewise with their own 
dead, keeping only the skulls and the wings.  Come, let us sleep."
     "Do the reptiles come up the river into the city?" asked Bradley.
     "The water is too cold--they never leave the warm water of the great pool," 
replied An-Tak.
     "Let us search for the way out," suggested Bradley.
     An-Tak shook his head.  "I have searched for it all these moons," he said.  
"If I could not find it, how would you?"
     Bradley made no reply but commenced a diligent examination of the walls and 
floor of the room, pressing over each square foot and tapping with his knuckles. 
 About six feet from the floor he discovered a sleeping-perch near one end of 
the apartment.  He asked An-Tak about it, but the Galu said that no Weiroo had 
occupied the place since he had been incarcerated there.  Again and again 
Bradley went over the floor and walls as high up as he could reach.  Finally he 
swung himself to the perch, that he might examine at least one end of the room 
all the way to the ceiling.
     In the center of the wall close to the top, an area about three feet square 
gave forth a hollow sound when he rapped upon it.  Bradley felt over every 
square inch of that area with the tips of his fingers.  Near the top he found a 
small round hole a trifle larger in diameter than his forefinger, which he 
immediately stuck into it.  The panel, if such it was, seemed about an inch 
thick, and beyond it his finger encountered nothing.  Bradley crooked his finger 
upon the opposite side of the panel and pulled toward him, steadily but with 
considerable force.  Suddenly the panel flew inward, nearly precipitating the 
man to the floor.  It was hinged at the bottom, and when lowered the outer edge 
rested upon the perch, making a little platform parallel with the floor of the 
room.
     Beyond the opening was an utterly dark void.  The Englishman leaned through 
it and reached his arm as far as possible into the blackness but touched 
nothing.  Then he fumbled in his haversack for a match, a few of which remained 
to him.  When he struck it, An-Tak gave a cry of terror.  Bradley held the light 
far into the opening before him and in its flickering rays saw the top of a 
ladder descending into a black abyss below.  How far down it extended he could 
not guess; but that he should soon know definitely he was positive.
     "You have found it!  You have found the way out!" screamed An-Tak.  "Oh, 
Luata!  And now I am too weak to go.  Take me with you!  Take me with you!"
     "Shut up!" admonished Bradley.  "You will have the whole flock of birds 
around our heads in a minute, and neither of us will escape.  Be quiet, and I'll 
go ahead.  If I find a way out, I'll come back and help you, if you'll promise 
not to try to eat me up again."
     "I promise," cried An-Tak.  "Oh, Luata!  How could you blame me? I am half 
crazed of hunger and long confinement and the horror of the lizards and the rats 
and the constant waiting for death."
     "I know," said Bradley simply.  "I'm sorry for you, old top.  Keep a stiff 
upper lip."  And he slipped through the opening, found the ladder with his feet, 
closed the panel behind him, and started downward into the darkness.
     Below him rose more and more distinctly the sound of running water.  The 
air felt damp and cool.  He could see nothing of his surroundings and felt 
nothing but the smooth, worn sides and rungs of the ladder down which he felt 
his way cautiously lest a broken rung or a misstep should hurl him downward.
     As he descended thus slowly, the ladder seemed interminable and the pit 
bottomless, yet he realized when at last he reached the bottom that he could not 
have descended more than fifty feet.  The bottom of the ladder rested on a 
narrow ledge paved with what felt like large round stones, but what he knew from 
experience to be human skulls.  He could not but marvel as to where so many 
countless thousands of the things had come from, until he paused to consider 
that the infancy of Caspak dated doubtlessly back into remote ages, far beyond 
what the outer world considered the beginning of earthly time.  For all these 
eons the Wieroos might have been collecting human skulls from their enemies and 
their own dead--enough to have built an entire city of them.
     Feeling his way along the narrow ledge, Bradley came presently to a blank 
wall that stretched out over the water swirling beneath him, as far as he could 
reach.  Stooping, he groped about with one hand, reaching down toward the 
surface of the water, and discovered that the bottom of the wall arched above 
the stream.  How much space there was between the water and the arch he could 
not tell, nor how deep the former.  There was only one way in which he might 
learn these things, and that was to lower himself into the stream.  For only an 
instant he hesitated weighing his chances.  Behind him lay almost certainly the 
horrid fate of An-Tak; before him nothing worse than a comparatively painless 
death by drowning.  Holding his haversack above his head with one hand he 
lowered his feet slowly over the edge of the narrow platform.  Almost 
immediately he felt the swirling of cold water about his ankles, and then with a 
silent prayer he let himself drop gently into the stream.
     Great was Bradley's relief when he found the water no more than waist deep 
and beneath his feet a firm, gravel bottom.  Feeling his way cautiously he moved 
downward with the current, which was not so strong as he had imagined from the 
noise of the running water.
     Beneath the first arch he made his way, following the winding curvatures of 
the right-hand wall.  After a few yards of progress his hand came suddenly in 
contact with a slimy thing clinging to the wall--a thing that hissed and 
scuttled out of reach.  What it was, the man could not know; but almost 
instantly there was a splash in the water just ahead of him and then another.
     On he went, passing beneath other arches at varying distances, and always 
in utter darkness.  Unseen denizens of this great sewer, disturbed by the 
intruder, splashed into the water ahead of him and wriggled away.  Time and 
again his hand touched them and never for an instant could he be sure that at 
the next step some gruesome thing might not attack him.  He had strapped his 
haversack about his neck, well above the surface of the water, and in his left 
hand he carried his knife.  Other precautions there were none to take.
     The monotony of the blind trail was increased by the fact that from the 
moment he had started from the foot of the ladder he had counted his every step. 
 He had promised to return for An-Tak if it proved humanly possible to do so, 
and he knew that in the blackness of the tunnel he could locate the foot of the 
ladder in no other way.
     He had taken two hundred and sixty-nine steps--afterward he knew that he 
should never forget that number--when something bumped gently against him from 
behind.  Instantly he wheeled about and with knife ready to defend himself 
stretched forth his right hand to push away the object that now had lodged 
against his body.  His fingers feeling through the darkness came in contact with 
something cold and clammy--they passed to and fro over the thing until Bradley 
knew that it was the face of a dead man floating upon the surface of the stream. 
 With an oath he pushed his gruesome companion out into mid-stream to float on 
down toward the great pool and the awaiting scavengers of the deep.
     At his four hundred and thirteenth step another corpse bumped against 
him--how many had passed him without touching he could not guess; but suddenly 
he experienced the sensation of being surrounded by dead faces floating along 
with him, all set in hideous grimaces, their dead eyes glaring at this profaning 
alien who dared intrude upon the waters of this river of the dead--a horrid 
escort, pregnant with dire forebodings and with menace.
     Though he advanced very slowly, he tried always to take steps of about the 
same length; so that he knew that though considerable time had elapsed, yet he 
had really advanced no more than four hundred yards when ahead he saw a 
lessening of the pitch-darkness, and at the next turn of the stream his 
surroundings became vaguelydiscernible.  Above him was an arched roof and on 
either hand walls pierced at intervals by apertures covered with wooden doors.  
Just ahead of him in the roof of the aqueduct was a round, black hole about 
thirty inches in diameter.  His eyes still rested upon the opening when there 
shot downward from it to the water below the naked body of a human being which 
almost immediately rose to the surface again and floated off down the stream.  
In the dim light Bradley saw that it was a dead Wieroo from which the wings and 
head had been removed.  A moment later another headless body floated past, 
recalling what An-Tak had told him of the skull-collecting customs of the 
Wieroo.  Bradley wondered how it happened that the first corpse he had 
encountered in the stream had not been similarly mutilated.
     The farther he advanced now, the lighter it became.  The number of corpses 
was much smaller than he had imagined, only two more passing him before, at six 
hundred steps, or about five hundred yards, from the point he had taken to the 
stream, he came to the end of the tunnel and looked out upon sunlit water, 
running between grassy banks.
     One of the last corpses to pass him was still clothed in the white robe of 
a Wieroo, blood-stained over the headless neck that it concealed.
     Drawing closer to the opening leading into the bright daylight, Bradley 
surveyed what lay beyond.  A short distance before him a large building stood in 
the center of several acres of grass and tree-covered ground, spanning the 
stream which disappeared through an opening in its foundation wall.  From the 
large saucer-shaped roof and the vivid colorings of the various heterogeneous 
parts of the structure he recognized it as the temple past which he had been 
borne to the Blue Place of Seven Skulls.
     To and fro flew Wieroos, going to and from the temple.  Others passed on 
foot across the open grounds, assisting themselves with their great wings, so 
that they barely skimmed the earth.  To leave the mouth of the tunnel would have 
been to court instant discovery and capture; but by what other avenue he might 
escape, Bradley could not guess, unless he retraced his steps up the stream and 
sought egress from the other end of the city.  The thought of traversing that 
dark and horror-ridden tunnel for perhaps miles he could not entertain--there 
must be some other way.  Perhaps after dark he could steal through the temple 
grounds and continue on downstream until he had come beyond the city; and so he 
stood and waited until his limbs became almost paralyzed with cold, and he knew 
that he must find some other plan for escape.
     A half-formed decision to risk an attempt to swim under water to the temple 
was crystallizing in spite of the fact that any chance Wieroo flying above the 
stream might easily see him, when again a floating object bumped against him 
from behind and lodged across his back.  Turning quickly he saw that the thing 
was what he had immediately guessed it to be--a headless and wingless Wieroo 
corpse.  With a grunt of disgust he was about to push it from him when the white 
garment enshrouding it suggested a bold plan to his resourceful brain.  Grasping 
the corpse by an arm he tore the garment from it and then let the body float 
downward toward the temple.  With great care he draped the robe about him; the 
bloody blotch that had covered the severed neck he arranged about his own head.  
His haversack he rolled as tightly as possible and stuffed beneath his coat over 
his breast.  Then he fell gently to the surface of the stream and lying upon his 
back floated downward with the current and out into the open sunlight.
     Through the weave of the cloth he could distinguish large objects.  He saw 
a Wieroo flap dismally above him; he saw the banks of the stream float slowly 
past; he heard a sudden wail upon the right- hand shore, and his heart stood 
still lest his ruse had been discovered; but never by a move of a muscle did he 
betray that aught but a cold lump of clay floated there upon the bosom of the 
water, and soon, though it seemed an eternity to him, the direct sunlight was 
blotted out, and he knew that he had entered beneath the temple.
     Quickly he felt for bottom with his feet and as quickly stood erect, 
snatching the bloody, clammy cloth from his face.  On both sides were blank 
walls and before him the river turned a sharp corner and disappeared.  Feeling 
his way cautiously forward he approached the turn and looked around the corner.  
To his left was a low platform about a foot above the level of the stream, and 
onto this he lost no time in climbing, for he was soaked from head to foot, cold 
and almost exhausted.
     As he lay resting on the skull-paved shelf, he saw in the center of the 
vault above the river another of those sinister round holes through which he 
momentarily expected to see a headless corpse shoot downward in its last plunge 
to a watery grave.  A few feet along the platform a closed door broke the 
blankness of the wall.  As he lay looking at it and wondering what lay behind, 
his mind filled with fragments of many wild schemes of escape, it opened and a 
white robed Wieroo stepped out upon the platform.  The creature carried a large 
wooden basin filled with rubbish.  Its eyes were not upon Bradley, who drew 
himself to a squatting position and crouched as far back in the corner of the 
niche in which the platform was set as he could force himself.  The Wieroo 
stepped to the edge of the platform and dumped the rubbish into the stream.  If 
it turned away from him as it started to retrace its steps to the doorway, there 
was a small chance that it might not see him; but if it turned toward him there 
was none at all.  Bradley held his breath.
     The Wieroo paused a moment, gazing down into the water, then it 
straightened up and turned toward the Englishman.  Bradley did not move.  The 
Wieroo stopped and stared intently at him.  It approached him questioningly.  
Still Bradley remained as though carved of stone.  The creature was directly in 
front of him.  It stopped.  There was no chance on earth that it would not 
discover what he was.
     With the quickness of a cat, Bradley sprang to his feet and with all his 
great strength, backed by his heavy weight, struck the Wieroo upon the point of 
the chin.  Without a sound the thing crumpled to the platform, while Bradley, 
acting almost instinctively to the urge of the first law of nature, rolled the 
inanimate body over the edge into the river.
     Then he looked at the open doorway, crossed the platform and peered within 
the apartment beyond.  What he saw was a large room, dimly lighted, and about 
the side rows of wooden vessels stacked one upon another.  There was no Wieroo 
in sight, so the Englishman entered.  At the far end of the room was another 
door, and as he crossed toward it, he glanced into some of the vessels, which he 
found were filled with dried fruits, vegetables and fish.  Without more ado he 
stuffed his pockets and his haversack full, thinking of the poor creature 
awaiting his return in the gloom of the Place of Seven Skulls.
     When night came, he would return and fetch An-Tak this far at least; but in 
the meantime it was his intention to reconnoiter in the hope that he might 
discover some easier way out of the city than that offered by the chill, black 
channel of the ghastly river of corpses.
     Beyond the farther door stretched a long passageway from which closed 
doorways led into other parts of the cellars of the temple.  A few yards from 
the storeroom a ladder rose from the corridor through an aperture in the 
ceiling.  Bradley paused at the foot of it, debating the wisdom of further 
investigation against a return to the river; but strong within him was the 
spirit of exploration that has scattered his race to the four corners of the 
earth.  What new mysteries lay hidden in the chambers above?  The urge to know 
was strong upon him though his better judgment warned him that the safer course 
lay in retreat.  For a moment he stood thus, running his fingers through his 
hair; then he cast discretion to the winds and began the ascent.
     In conformity with such Wieroo architecture as he had already observed, the 
well through which the ladder rose continually canted at an angle from the 
perpendicular.  At more or less regular stages it was pierced by apertures 
closed by doors, none of which he could open until he had climbed fully fifty 
feet from the river level.  Here he discovered a door already ajar opening into 
a large, circular chamber, the walls and floors of which were covered with the 
skins of wild beasts and with rugs of many colors; but what interested him most 
was the occupants of the room--a Wieroo, and a girl of human proportions.  She 
was standing with her back against a column which rose from the center of the 
apartment from floor to ceiling--a hollow column about forty inches in diameter 
in which he could see an opening some thirty inches across.  The girl's side was 
toward Bradley, and her face averted, for she was watching the Wieroo, who was 
now advancing slowly toward her, talking as he came.
     Bradley could distinctly hear the words of the creature, who was urging the 
girl to accompany him to another Wieroo city.  "Come with me," he said, "and you 
shall have your life; remain here and He Who Speaks for Luata will claim you for 
his own; and when he is done with you, your skull will bleach at the top of a 
tall staff while your body feeds the reptiles at the mouth of the River of 
Death.  Even though you bring into the world a female Wieroo, your fate will be 
the same if you do not escape him, while with me you shall have life and food 
and none shall harm you."
     He was quite close to the girl when she replied by striking him in the face 
with all her strength.  "Until I am slain," she cried, "I shall fight against 
you all."  From the throat of the Wieroo issued that dismal wail that Bradley 
had heard so often in the past--it was like a scream of pain smothered to a 
groan--and then the thing leaped upon the girl, its face working in hideous 
grimaces as it clawed and beat at her to force her to the floor.
     The Englishman was upon the point of entering to defend her when a door at 
the opposite side of the chamber opened to admit a huge Wieroo clothed entirely 
in red.  At sight of the two struggling upon the floor the newcomer raised his 
voice in a shriek of rage.  Instantly the Wieroo who was attacking the girl 
leaped to his feet and faced the other.
     "I heard," screamed he who had just entered the room.  "I heard, and when 
He Who Speaks for Lu-ata shall have heard--" He paused and made a suggestive 
movement of a finger across his throat.
     "He shall not hear," returned the first Wieroo as, with a powerful motion 
of his great wings, he launched himself upon the red-robed figure.  The latter 
dodged the first charge, drew a wicked-looking curved blade from beneath its red 
robe, spread its wings and dived for its antagonist.  Beating their wings, 
wailing and groaning, the two hideous things sparred for position.  The 
white-robed one being unarmed sought to grasp the other by the wrist of its 
knife-hand and by the throat, while the latter hopped around on its dainty white 
feet, seeking an opening for a mortal blow.  Once it struck and missed, and then 
the other rushed in and clinched, at the same time securing both the holds it 
sought.  Immediately the two commenced beating at each other's heads with the 
joints of their wings, kicking with their soft, puny feet and biting, each at 
the other's face.
     In the meantime the girl moved about the room, keeping out of the way of 
the duelists, and as she did so, Bradley caught a glimpse of her full face and 
immediately recognized her as the girl of the place of the yellow door.  He did 
not dare intervene now until one of the Wieroo had overcome the other, lest the 
two should turn upon him at once, when the chances were fair that he would be 
defeated in so unequal a battle as the curved blade of the red Wieroo would 
render it, and so he waited, watching the white-robed figure slowly choking the 
life from him of the red robe.  The protruding tongue and the popping eyes 
proclaimed that the end was near and a moment later the red robe sank to the 
floor of the room, the curved blade slipping from nerveless fingers.  For an 
instant longer the victor clung to the throat of his defeated antagonist and 
then he rose, dragging the body after him, and approached the central column.  
Here he raised the body and thrust it into the aperture where Bradley saw it 
drop suddenly from sight.  Instantly there flashed into his memory the circular 
openings in the roof of the river vault and the corpses he had seen drop from 
them to the water beneath.
     As the body disappeared, the Wieroo turned and cast about the room for the 
girl.  For a moment he stood eying her.  "You saw," he muttered, "and if you 
tell them, He Who Speaks for Luata will have my wings severed while still I live 
and my head will be severed and I shall be cast into the River of Death, for 
thus it happens even to the highest who slay one of the red robe.  You saw, and 
you must die!" he ended with a scream as he rushed upon the girl.
     Bradley waited no longer.  Leaping into the room he ran for the Wieroo, who 
had already seized the girl, and as he ran, he stooped and picked up the curved 
blade.  The creature's back was toward him as, with his left hand, he seized it 
by the neck.  Like a flash the great wings beat backward as the creature turned, 
and Bradley was swept from his feet, though he still retained his hold upon the 
blade.  Instantly the Wieroo was upon him.  Bradley lay slightly raised upon his 
left elbow, his right arm free, and as the thing came close, he cut at the 
hideous face with all the strength that lay within him.  The blade struck at the 
junction of the neck and torso and with such force as to completely decapitate 
the Wieroo, the hideous head dropping to the floor and the body falling forward 
upon the Englishman.  Pushing it from him he rose to his feet and faced the 
wide-eyed girl.
     "Luata!" she exclaimed.  "How came you here?"
     Bradley shrugged.  "Here I am," he said; "but the thing now is to get out 
of here--both of us."
     The girl shook her head.  "It cannot be," she stated sadly.
     "That is what I thought when they dropped me into the Blue Place of Seven 
Skulls," replied Bradley.  "Can't be done.  I did it.-- Here!  You're mussing up 
the floor something awful, you."  This last to the dead Wieroo as he stooped and 
dragged the corpse to the central shaft, where he raised it to the aperture and 
let it slip into the tube.  Then he picked up the head and tossed it after the 
body.  "Don't be so glum," he admonished the former as he carried it toward the 
well; "smile!"
     "But how can he smile?" questioned the girl, a half-puzzled, 
half-frightened look upon her face.  "He is dead."
     "That's so," admitted Bradley, "and I suppose he does feel a bit cut up 
about it."
     The girl shook her head and edged away from the man--toward the door.
     "Come!" said the Englishman.  "We've got to get out of here.  If you don't 
know a better way than the river, it's the river then."
     The girl still eyed him askance.  "But how could he smile when he was 
dead?"
     Bradley laughed aloud.  "I thought we English were supposed to have the 
least sense of humor of any people in the world," he cried; "but now I've found 
one human being who hasn't any.  Of course you don't know half I'm saying; but 
don't worry, little girl; I'm not going to hurt you, and if I can get you out of 
here, I'll do it.
     Even if she did not understand all he said, she at least read something in 
his smiling, countenance--something which reassured her.  "I do not fear you," 
she said; "though I do not understand all that you say even though you speak my 
own tongue and use words that I know.  But as for escaping"--she sighed--"alas, 
how can it be done?"
     "I escaped from the Blue Place of Seven Skulls," Bradley reminded her.  
"Come!"  And he turned toward the shaft and the ladder that he had ascended from 
the river.  "We cannot waste time here."
     The girl followed him; but at the doorway both drew back, for from below 
came the sound of some one ascending.
     Bradley tiptoed to the door and peered cautiously into the well; then he 
stepped back beside the girl.  "There are half a dozen of them coming up; but 
possibly they will pass this room."
     "No," she said, "they will pass directly through this room--they are on 
their way to Him Who Speaks for Luata.  We may be able to hide in the next 
room--there are skins there beneath which we may crawl.  They will not stop in 
that room; but they may stop in this one for a short time--the other room is 
blue."
     "What's that go to do with it?" demanded the Englishman.
     "They fear blue," she replied.  "In every room where murder has been done 
you will find blue--a certain amount for each murder.  When the room is all 
blue, they shun it.  This room has much blue; but evidently they kill mostly in 
the next room, which is now all blue."
     "But there is blue on the outside of every house I have seen," said 
Bradley.
     "Yes, " assented the girl, "and there are blue rooms in each of those 
houses--when all the rooms are blue then the whole outside of the house will be 
blue as is the Blue Place of Seven Skulls.  There are many such here."
     "And the skulls with blue upon them?" inquired Bradley.  "Did they belong 
to murderers?"
     "They were murdered--some of them; those with only a small amount of blue 
were murderers--known murderers.  All Wieroos are murderers.  When they have 
committed a certain number of murders without being caught at it, they confess 
to Him Who Speaks for Luata and are advanced, after which they wear robes with a 
slash of some color-- I think yellow comes first.  When they reach a point where 
the entire robe is of yellow, they discard it for a white robe with a red slash; 
and when one wins a complete red robe, he carries such a long, curved knife as 
you have in your hand; after that comes the blue slash on a white robe, and 
then, I suppose, an all blue robe.  I have never seen such a one."
     As they talked in low tones they had moved from the room of the death shaft 
into an all blue room adjoining, where they sat down together in a corner with 
their backs against a wall and drew a pile of hides over themselves.  A moment 
later they heard a number of Wieroos enter the chamber.  They were talking 
together as they crossed the floor, or the two could not have heard them.  
Halfway across the chamber they halted as the door toward which they were 
advancing opened and a dozen others of their kind entered the apartment.
     Bradley could guess all this by the increased volume of sound and the 
dismal greetings; but the sudden silence that almost immediately ensued he could 
not fathom, for he could not know that from beneath one of the hides that 
covered him protruded one of his heavy army shoes, or that some eighteen large 
Wieroos with robes either solid red or slashed with red or blue were standing 
gazing at it.  Nor could he hear their stealthy approach.
     The first intimation he had that he had been discovered was when his foot 
was suddenly seized, and he was yanked violently from beneath the hides to find 
himself surrounded by menacing blades.  They would have slain him on the spot 
had not one clothed all in red held them back, saying that He Who Speaks for 
Luata desired to see this strange creature.
     As they led Bradley away, he caught an opportunity to glance back toward 
the hides to see what had become of the girl, and, to his gratification, he 
discovered that she still lay concealed beneath the hides.  He wondered if she 
would have the nerve to attempt the river trip alone and regretted that now he 
could not accompany her.  He felt rather all in, himself, more so than he had at 
any time since he had been captured by the Wieroo, for there appeared not the 
slightest cause for hope in his present predicament.  He had dropped the curved 
blade beneath the hides when he had been jerked so violently from their fancied 
security.  It was almost in a spirit of resigned hopelessness that he quietly 
accompanied his captors through various chambers and corridors toward the heart 
of the temple.
     
 
Chapter 4
      The farther the group progressed, the more barbaric and the more sumptuous 
became the decorations.  Hides of leopard and tiger predominated, apparently 
because of their more beautiful markings, and decorative skulls became more and 
more numerous.  Many of the latter were mounted in precious metals and set with 
colored stones and priceless gems, while thick upon the hides that covered the 
walls were golden ornaments similar to those worn by the girl and those which 
had filled the chests he had examined in the storeroom of Fosh-bal-soj, leading 
the Englishman to the conviction that all such were spoils of war or theft, 
since each piece seemed made for personal adornment, while in so far as he had 
seen, no Wieroo wore ornaments of any sort.
     And also as they advanced the more numerous became the Wieroos moving 
hither and thither within the temple.  Many now were the solid red robes and 
those that were slashed with blue--a veritable hive of murderers.
     At last the party halted in a room in which were many Wieroos who gathered 
about Bradley questioning his captors and examining him and his apparel.  One of 
the party accompanying the Englishman spoke to a Wieroo that stood beside a door 
leading from the room.  "Tell Him Who Speaks for Luata," he said, "that 
Fosh-bal-soj we could not find; but that in returning we found this creature 
within the temple, hiding.  It must be the same that Fosh-bal-soj captured in 
the Sto-lu country during the last darkness.  Doubtless He Who Speaks for Luata 
would wish to see and question this strange thing."
     The creature addressed turned and slipped through the doorway, closing the 
door after it, but first depositing its curved blade upon the floor without.  
Its post was immediately taken by another and Bradley now saw that at least 
twenty such guards loitered in the immediate vicinity.  The doorkeeper was gone 
but for a moment, and when he returned, he signified that Bradley's party was to 
enter the next chamber; but first each of the Wieroos removed his curved weapon 
and laid it upon the floor.  The door was swung open, and the party, now reduced 
to Bradley and five Wieroos, was ushered across the threshold into a large, 
irregularly shaped room in which a single, giant Wieroo whose robe was solid 
blue sat upon a raised dais.
     The creature's face was white with the whiteness of a corpse, its dead eyes 
entirely expressionless, its cruel, thin lips tight-drawn against yellow teeth 
in a perpetual grimace.  Upon either side of it lay an enormous, curved sword, 
similar to those with which some of the other Wieroos had been armed, but larger 
and heavier.  Constantly its clawlike fingers played with one or the other of 
these weapons.
     The walls of the chamber as well as the floor were entirely hidden by skins 
and woven fabrics.  Blue predominated in all the colorations.  Fastened against 
the hides were many pairs of Wieroo wings, mounted so that they resembled long, 
black shields.  Upon the ceiling were painted in blue characters a bewildering 
series of hieroglyphics and upon pedestals set against the walls or standing out 
well within the room were many human skulls.
     As the Wieroos approached the figure upon the dais, they leaned far 
forward, raising their wings above their heads and stretching their necks as 
though offering them to the sharp swords of the grim and hideous creature.
     "O Thou Who Speakest for Luata!" exclaimed one of the party.  "We bring you 
the strange creature that Fosh-bal-soj captured and brought thither at thy 
command."
     So this then was the godlike figure that spoke for divinity!  This 
arch-murderer was the Caspakian representative of God on Earth! His blue robe 
announced him the one and the seeming humility of his minions the other.  For a 
long minute he glared at Bradley.  Then he began to question him--from whence he 
came and how, the name and description of his native country, and a hundred 
other queries.
     "Are you cos-ata-lu?" the creature asked.  
     Bradley replied that he was and that all his kind were, as well as every 
living thing in his part of the world.
     "Can you tell me the secret?" asked the creature.
     Bradley hesitated and then, thinking to gain time, replied in the 
affirmative.
     "What is it?" demanded the Wieroo, leaning far forward and exhibiting every 
evidence of excited interest.
     Bradley leaned forward and whispered:  "It is for your ears alone; I will 
not divulge it to others, and then only on condition that you carry me and the 
girl I saw in the place of the yellow door near to that of Fosh-bal-soj back to 
her own country."
     The thing rose in wrath, holding one of its swords above its head.
     "Who are you to make terms for Him Who Speaks for Luata?" it shrilled.  
"Tell me the secret or die where you stand!"
     "And if I die now, the secret goes with me," Bradley reminded him.  "Never 
again will you get the opportunity to question another of my kind who knows the 
secret."  Anything to gain time, to get the rest of the Wieroos from the room, 
that he might plan some scheme for escape and put it into effect.
     The creature turned upon the leader of the party that had brought Bradley.
     "Is the thing with weapons?" it asked.
     "No," was the response.
     "Then go; but tell the guard to remain close by," commanded the high one.
     The Wieroos salaamed and withdrew, closing the door behind them.  He Who 
Speaks for Luata grasped a sword nervously in his right hand.  At his left side 
lay the second weapon.  It was evident that he lived in constant dread of being 
assassinated.  The fact that he permitted none with weapons within his presence 
and that he always kept two swords at his side pointed to this.
     Bradley was racking his brain to find some suggestion of a plan whereby he 
might turn the situation to his own account.  His eyes wandered past the weird 
figure before him; they played about the walls of the apartment as though hoping 
to draw inspiration from the dead skulls and the hides and the wings, and then 
they came back to the face of the Wieroo god, now working in anger.
     "Quick!" screamed the thing.  "The secret!"
     "Will you give me and the girl our freedom?" insisted Bradley.
     For an instant the thing hesitated, and then it grumbled "Yes." At the same 
instant Bradley saw two hides upon the wall directly back of the dais separate 
and a face appear in the opening.  No change of expression upon the Englishman's 
countenance betrayed that he had seen aught to surprise him, though surprised he 
was for the face in the aperture was that of the girl he had but just left 
hidden beneath the hides in another chamber.  A white and shapely arm now pushed 
past the face into the room, and in the hand, tightly clutched, was the curved 
blade, smeared with blood, that Bradley had dropped beneath the hides at the 
moment he had been discovered and drawn from his concealment.
     "Listen, then," said Bradley in a low voice to the Wieroo.  "You shall know 
the secret of cos-ata-lu as well as do I; but none other may hear it.  Lean 
close--I will whisper it into your ear."
     He moved forward and stepped upon the dais.  The creature raised its sword 
ready to strike at the first indication of treachery, and Bradley stooped 
beneath the blade and put his ear close to the gruesome face.  As he did so, he 
rested his weight upon his hands, one upon either side of the Wieroo's body, his 
right hand upon the hilt of the spare sword lying at the left of Him Who Speaks 
for Luata.
     "This then is the secret of both life and death," he whispered, and at the 
same instant he grasped the Wieroo by the right wrist and with his own right 
hand swung the extra blade in a sudden vicious blow against the creature's neck 
before the thing could give even a single cry of alarm; then without waiting an 
instant Bradley leaped past the dead god and vanished behind the hides that had 
hidden the girl.
     Wide-eyed and panting the girl seized his arm.  "Oh, what have you done?" 
she cried.  "He Who Speaks for Luata will be avenged by Luata.  Now indeed must 
you die.  There is no escape, for even though we reached my own country Luata 
can find you out."
     "Bosh!" exclaimed Bradley, and then:  "But you were going to knife him 
yourself."
     "Then I alone should have died," she replied.
     Bradley scratched his head.  "Neither of us is going to die," he said; "at 
least not at the hands of any god.  If we don't get out of here though, we'll 
die right enough.  Can you find your way back to the room where I first came 
upon you in the temple?"
     "I know the way," replied the girl; "but I doubt if we can go back without 
being seen.  I came hither because I only met Wieroos who knew that I am 
supposed now to be in the temple; but you could go elsewhere without being 
discovered."
     Bradley's ingenuity had come up against a stone wall.   There seemed no 
possibility of escape.  He looked about him.  They were in a small room where 
lay a litter of rubbish--torn bits of cloth, old hides, pieces of fiber rope.  
In the center of the room was a cylindrical shaft with an opening in its face.  
Bradley knew it for what it was.  Here the arch-fiend dragged his victims and 
cast their bodies into the river of death far below.  The floor about the 
opening in the shaft and the sides of the shaft were clotted thick with a dried, 
dark brown substance that the Englishman knew had once been blood.  The place 
had the appearance of having been a veritable shambles.  An odor of decaying 
flesh permeated the air.
     The Englishman crossed to the shaft and peered into the opening.  All below 
was dark as pitch; but at the bottom he knew was the river.  Suddenly an 
inspiration and a bold scheme leaped to his mind.  Turning quickly he hunted 
about the room until he found what he sought--a quantity of the rope that lay 
strewn here and there.  With rapid fingers he unsnarled the different lengths, 
the girl helping him, and then he tied the ends together until he had three 
ropes about seventy-five feet in length.  He fastened these together at each end 
and without a word secured one of the ends about the girl's body beneath her 
arms.
     "Don't be frightened," he said at length, as he led her toward the opening 
in the shaft.  "I'm going to lower you to the river, and then I'm coming down 
after you.  When you are safe below, give two quick jerks upon the rope.  If 
there is danger there and you want me to draw you up into the shaft, jerk once.  
Don't be afraid--it is the only way."
     "I am not afraid," replied the girl, rather haughtily Bradley thought, and 
herself climbed through the aperture and hung by her hands waiting for Bradley 
to lower her.
     As rapidly as was consistent with safety, the man paid out the rope.  When 
it was about half out, he heard loud cries and wails suddenly arise within the 
room they had just quitted.  The slaying of their god had been discovered by the 
Wieroos.  A search for the slayer would begin at once.
     Lord!  Would the girl never reach the river?  At last, just as he was 
positive that searchers were already entering the room behind him, there came 
two quick tugs at the rope.  Instantly Bradley made the rest of the strands fast 
about the shaft, slipped into the black tube and began a hurried descent toward 
the river.  An instant later he stood waist deep in water beside the girl.  
Impulsively she reached toward him and grasped his arm.  A strange thrill ran 
through him at the contact; but he only cut the rope from about her body and 
lifted her to the little shelf at the river's side.
     "How can we leave here?" she asked.
     "By the river," he replied; "but first I must go back to the Blue Place of 
Seven Skulls and get the poor devil I left there.  I'll have to wait until after 
dark, though, as I cannot pass through the open stretch of river in the temple 
gardens by day."
     "There is another way," said the girl.  "I have never seen it; but often I 
have heard them speak of it--a corridor that runs beside the river from one end 
of the city to the other.  Through the gardens it is below ground.  If we could 
find an entrance to it, we could leave here at once.  It is not safe here, for 
they will search every inch of the temple and the grounds."
     "Come," said Bradley.  "We'll have a look for it, anyway." And so saying he 
approached one of the doors that opened onto the skull-paved shelf.
     They found the corridor easily, for it paralleled the river, separated from 
it only by a single wall.  It took them beneath the gardens and the city, always 
through inky darkness.  After they had reached the other side of the gardens, 
Bradley counted his steps until he had retraced as many as he had taken coming 
down the stream; but though they had to grope their way along, it was a much 
more rapid trip than the former.
     When he thought he was about opposite the point at which he had descended 
from the Blue Place of Seven Skulls, he sought and found a doorway leading out 
onto the river; and then, still in the blackest darkness, he lowered himself 
into the stream and felt up and down upon the opposite side for the little shelf 
and the ladder.  Ten yards from where he had emerged he found them, while the 
girl waited upon the opposite side.
     To ascend to the secret panel was the work of but a minute.  Here he paused 
and listened lest a Wieroo might be visiting the prison in search of him or the 
other inmate; but no sound came from the gloomy interior.  Bradley could not but 
muse upon the joy of the man on the opposite side when he should drop down to 
him with food and a new hope for escape.  Then he opened the panel and looked 
into the room.  The faint light from the grating above revealed the pile of rags 
in one corner; but the man lay beneath them, he made no response to Bradley's 
low greeting.
     The Englishman lowered himself to the floor of the room and approached the 
rags.  Stooping he lifted a corner of them.  Yes, there was the man asleep.  
Bradley shook him--there was no response.  He stooped lower and in the dim light 
examined An-Tak; then he stood up with a sigh.  A rat leaped from beneath the 
coverings and scurried away.  "Poor devil!" muttered Bradley.
     He crossed the room to swing himself to the perch preparatory to quitting 
the Blue Place of Seven Skulls forever.  Beneath the perch he paused.  "I'll not 
give them the satisfaction," he growled.  "Let them believe that he escaped."
     Returning to the pile of rags he gathered the man into his arms.  It was 
difficult work raising him to the high perch and dragging him through the small 
opening and thus down the ladder; but presently it was done, and Bradley had 
lowered the body into the river and cast it off.  "Good-bye, old top!" he 
whispered.
     A moment later he had rejoined the girl and hand in hand they were 
following the dark corridor upstream toward the farther end of the city.  She 
told him that the Wieroos seldom frequented these lower passages, as the air 
here was too chill for them; but occasionally they came, and as they could see 
quite as well by night as by day, they would be sure to discover Bradley and the 
girl.
     "If they come close enough," she said, "we can see their eyes shining in 
the dark--they resemble dull splotches of light.  They glow, but do not blaze 
like the eyes of the tiger or the lion."
     The man could not but note the very evident horror with which she mentioned 
the creatures.  To him they were uncanny; but she had been used to them for a 
year almost, and probably all her life she had either seen or heard of them 
constantly.
     "Why do you fear them so?" he asked.  "It seems more than any ordinary fear 
of the harm they can do you."
     She tried to explain; but the nearest he could gather was that she looked 
upon the Wieroo almost as supernatural beings.  "There is a legend current among 
my people that once the Wieroo were unlike us only in that they possessed 
rudimentary wings.  They lived in villages in the Galu country, and while the 
two peoples often warred, they held no hatred for one another.  In those days 
each race came up from the beginning and there was great rivalry as to which was 
the higher in the scale of evolution.  The Wieroo developed the first cos-ata-lu 
but they were always male-- never could they reproduce woman.  Slowly they 
commenced to develop certain attributes of the mind which, they considered, 
placed them upon a still higher level and which gave them many advantages over 
us, seeing which they thought only of mental development--their minds became 
like stars and the rivers, moving always in the same manner, never varying.  
They called this tas-ad, which means doing everything the right way, or, in 
other words, the Wieroo way.  If foe or friend, right or wrong, stood in the way 
of tas-ad, then it must be crushed.
     "Soon the Galus and the lesser races of men came to hate and fear them.  It 
was then that the Wieroos decided to carry tas-ad into every part of the world.  
They were very warlike and very numerous, although they had long since adopted 
the policy of slaying all those among them whose wings did not show advanced 
development.
     "It took ages for all this to happen--very slowly came the different 
changes; but at last the Wieroos had wings they could use.  But by reason of 
always making war upon their neighbors they were hated by every creature of 
Caspak, for no one wanted their tas-ad, and so they used their wings to fly to 
this island when the other races turned against them and threatened to kill them 
all.  So cruel had they become and so bloodthirsty that they no longer had 
hearts that beat with love or sympathy; but their very cruelty and wickedness 
kept them from conquering the other races, since they were also cruel and wicked 
to one another, so that no Wieroo trusted another.
     "Always were they slaying those above them that they might rise in power 
and possessions, until at last came the more powerful than the others with a 
tas-ad all his own.  He gathered about him a few of the most terrible Wieroos, 
and among them they made laws which took from all but these few Wieroos every 
weapon they possessed.
     "Now their tas-ad has reached a high plane among them.  They make many 
wonderful things that we cannot make.  They think great thoughts, no doubt, and 
still dream of greatness to come, but their thoughts and their acts are 
regulated by ages of custom--they are all alike--and they are most unhappy.
     As the girl talked, the two moved steadily along the dark passageway beside 
the river.  They had advanced a considerable distance when there sounded faintly 
from far ahead the muffled roar of falling water, which increased in volume as 
they moved forward until at last it filled the corridor with a deafening sound.  
Then the corridor ended in a blank wall; but in a niche to the right was a 
ladder leading aloft, and to the left was a door opening onto the river.  
Bradley tried the latter first and as he opened it, felt a heavy spray against 
his face. The little shelf outside the doorway was wet and slippery, the roaring 
of the water tremendous.  There could be but one explanation--they had reached a 
waterfall in the river, and if the corridor actually terminated here, their 
escape was effectually cut off, since it was quite evidently impossible to 
follow the bed of the river and ascend the falls.
     As the ladder was the only alternative, the two turned toward it and, the 
man first, began the ascent, which was through a well similar to that which had 
led him to the upper floors of the temple.  As he climbed, Bradley felt for 
openings in the sides of the shaft; but he discovered none below fifty feet.  
The first he came to was ajar, letting a faint light into the well.  As he 
paused, the girl climbed to his side, and together they looked through the crack 
into a low-ceiled chamber in which were several Galu women and an equal number 
of hideous little replicas of the full-grown Wieroos with which Bradley was not 
quite familiar.
     He could feel the body of the girl pressed close to his tremble as her eyes 
rested upon the inmates of the room, and involuntarily his arm encircled her 
shoulders as though to protect her from some danger which he sensed without 
recognizing.
     "Poor things," she whispered.  "This is their horrible fate--to be 
imprisoned here beneath the surface of the city with their hideous offspring 
whom they hate as they hate their fathers.  A Wieroo keeps his children thus 
hidden until they are full-grown lest they be murdered by their fellows.  The 
lower rooms of the city are filled with many such as these."
     Several feet above was a second door beyond which they found a small room 
stored with food in wooden vessels.  A grated window in one wall opened above an 
alley, and through it they could see that they were just below the roof of the 
building.  Darkness was coming, and at Bradley's suggestion they decided to 
remain hidden here until after dark and then to ascend to the roof and 
reconnoiter.
     Shortly after they had settled themselves they heard something descending 
the ladder from above.  They hoped that it would continue on down the well and 
fairly held their breath as the sound approached the door to the storeroom.  
Their hearts sank as they heard the door open and from between cracks in the 
vessels behind which they hid saw a yellow-slashed Wieroo enter the room.  Each 
recognized him immediately, the girl indicating the fact of her own recognition 
by a sudden pressure of her fingers on Bradley's arm.  It was the Wieroo of the 
yellow slashing whose abode was the place of the yellow door in which Bradley 
had first seen the girl.
     The creature carried a wooden bowl which it filled with dried food from 
several of the vessels; then it turned and quit the room.  Bradley could see 
through the partially open doorway that it descended the ladder.  The girl told 
him that it was taking the food to the women and the young below, and that while 
it might return immediately, the chances were that it would remain for some 
time.
     "We are just below the place of the yellow door," she said.  "It is far 
from the edge of the city; so far that we may not hope to escape if we ascend to 
the roofs here."
     "I think," replied the man, "that of all the places in Oo-oh this will be 
the easiest to escape from.  Anyway, I want to return to the place of the yellow 
door and get my pistol if it is there."
     "It is still there," replied, the girl.  "I saw it placed in a chest where 
he keeps the things he takes from his prisoners and victims."
     "Good!" exclaimed Bradley.  "Now come, quickly.  "And the two crossed the 
room to the well and ascended the ladder a short distance to its top where they 
found another door that opened into a vacant room--the same in which Bradley had 
first met the girl.  To find the pistol was a matter of but a moment's search on 
the part of Bradley's companion; and then, at the Englishman's signal, she 
followed him to the yellow door.
     It was quite dark without as the two entered the narrow passage between two 
buildings.  A few steps brought them undiscovered to the doorway of the 
storeroom where lay the body of Fosh-bal-soj.  In the distance, toward the 
temple, they could hear sounds as of a great gathering of Wieroos--the peculiar, 
uncanny wailing rising above the dismal flapping of countless wings.
     "They have heard of the killing of Him Who Speaks for Luata," whispered the 
girl.  "Soon they will spread in all directions searching for us."
     "And will they find us?"
     "As surely as Lua gives light by day," she replied; "and when they find us, 
they will tear us to pieces, for only the Wieroos may murder--only they may 
practice tas-ad."
     "But they will not kill you," said Bradley.  "You did not slay him."
     "It will make no difference," she insisted.  "If they find us together they 
will slay us both."
     "Then they won't find us together," announced Bradley decisively.  "You 
stay right here--you won't be any worse off than before I came--and I'll get as 
far as I can and account for as many of the beggars as possible before they get 
me.  Good-bye!  You're a mighty decent little girl.  I wish that I might have 
helped you."
     "No," she cried.  "Do not leave me.  I would rather die.  I had hoped and 
hoped to find some way to return to my own country.  I wanted to go back to 
An-Tak, who must be very lonely without me; but I know that it can never be.  It 
is difficult to kill hope, though mine is nearly dead.  Do not leave me."
     "An-Tak!" Bradley repeated.  "You loved a man called An-Tak?"
     "Yes," replied the girl.  "An-Tak was away, hunting, when the Wieroo caught 
me.  How he must have grieved for me!  He also was cos-ata-lu, twelve moons 
older than I, and all our lives we have been together.
     Bradley remained silent.  So she loved An-Tak.  He hadn't the heart to tell 
her that An-Tak had died, or how.
     At the door of Fosh-bal-soj's storeroom they halted to listen.  No sound 
came from within, and gently Bradley pushed open the door.  All was inky 
darkness as they entered; but presently their eyes became accustomed to the 
gloom that was partially relieved by the soft starlight without.  The Englishman 
searched and found those things for which he had come--two robes, two pairs of 
dead wings and several lengths of fiber rope.  One pair of the wings he adjusted 
to the girl's shoulders by means of the rope.  Then he draped the robe about 
her, carrying the cowl over her head.
     He heard her gasp of astonishment when she realized the ingenuity and 
boldness of his plan; then he directed her to adjust the other pair of wings and 
the robe upon him.  Working with strong, deft fingers she soon had the work 
completed, and the two stepped out upon the roof, to all intent and purpose 
genuine Wieroos.  Besides his pistol Bradley carried the sword of the slain 
Wieroo prophet, while the girl was armed with the small blade of the red Wieroo.
     Side by side they walked slowly across the roofs toward the north edge of 
the city.  Wieroos flapped above them and several times they passed others 
walking or sitting upon the roofs.  From the temple still rose the sounds of 
commotion, now pierced by occasional shrill screams.
     "The murderers are abroad," whispered the girl.  "Thus will another become 
the tongue of Luata.  It is well for us, since it keeps them too busy to give 
the time for searching for us.  They think that we cannot escape the city, and 
they know that we cannot leave the island--and so do I."
     Bradley shook his head.  "If there is any way, we will find it," he said.
     "There is no way," replied the girl.
     Bradley made no response, and in silence they continued until the outer 
edge of roofs was visible before them.  "We are almost there," he whispered.
     The girl felt for his fingers and pressed them.  He could feel hers 
trembling as he returned the pressure, nor did he relinquish her hand; and thus 
they came to the edge of the last roof.
     Here they halted and looked about them.  To be seen attempting to descend 
to the ground below would be to betray the fact that they were not Wieroos.  
Bradley wished that their wings were attached to their bodies by sinew and 
muscle rather than by ropes of fiber.  A Wieroo was flapping far overhead.  Two 
more stood near a door a few yards distant.  Standing between these and one of 
the outer pedestals that supported one of the numerous skulls Bradley made one 
end of a piece of rope fast about the pedestal and dropped the other end to the 
ground outside the city.  Then they waited.
     It was an hour before the coast was entirely clear and then a moment came 
when no Wieroo was in sight.  "Now!" whispered Bradley; and the girl grasped the 
rope and slid over the edge of the roof into the darkness below.  A moment later 
Bradley felt two quick pulls upon the rope and immediately followed to the 
girl's side.
     Across a narrow clearing they made their way and into a wood beyond.  All 
night they walked, following the river upward toward its source, and at dawn 
they took shelter in a thicket beside the stream.  At no time did they hear the 
cry of a carnivore, and though many startled animals fled as they approached, 
they were not once menaced by a wild beast.  When Bradley expressed surprise at 
the absence of the fiercest beasts that are so numerous upon the mainland of 
Caprona, the girl explained the reason that is contained in one of their ancient 
legends.
     "When the Wieroos first developed wings upon which they could fly, they 
found this island devoid of any life other than a few reptiles that live either 
upon land or in the water and these only close to the coast.  Requiring meat for 
food the Wieroos carried to the island such animals as they wished for that 
purpose.  They still occasionally bring them, and this with the natural increase 
keeps them provided with flesh."
     "As it will us," suggested Bradley.
     The first day they remained in hiding, eating only the dried food that 
Bradley had brought with him from the temple storeroom, and the next night they 
set out again up the river, continuing steadily on until almost dawn, when they 
came to low hills where the river wound through a gorge--it was little more than 
rivulet now, the water clear and cold and filled with fish similar to brook 
trout though much larger.  Not wishing to leave the stream the two waded along 
its bed to a spot where the gorge widened between perpendicular bluffs to a 
wooded acre of level land.  Here they stopped, for here also the stream ended.  
They had reached its source--many cold springs bubbling up from the center of a 
little natural amphitheater in the hills and forming a clear and beautiful pool 
overshadowed by trees upon one side and bounded by a little clearing upon the 
other.
     With the coming of the sun they saw they had stumbled upon a place where 
they might remain hidden from the Wieroos for a long time and also one that they 
could defend against these winged creatures, since the trees would shield them 
from an attack from above and also hamper the movements of the creatures should 
they attempt to follow them into the wood.
     For three days they rested here before trying to explore the neighboring 
country.  On the fourth, Bradley stated that he was going to scale the bluffs 
and learn what lay beyond.  He told the girl that she should remain in hiding; 
but she refused to be left, saying that whatever fate was to be his, she 
intended to share it, so that he was at last forced to permit her to come with 
him.  Through woods at the summit of the bluff they made their way toward the 
north and had gone but a short distance when the wood ended and before them they 
saw the waters of the inland sea and dimly in the distance the coveted shore.
     The beach lay some two hundred yards from the foot of the hill on which 
they stood, nor was there a tree nor any other form of shelter between them and 
the water as far up and down the coast as they could see.  Among other plans 
Bradley had thought of constructing a covered raft upon which they might drift 
to the mainland; but as such a contrivance would necessarily be of considerable 
weight, it must be built in the water of the sea, since they could not hope to 
move it even a short distance overland.
     "If this wood was only at the edge of the water," he sighed.
     "But it is not," the girl reminded him, and then:  "Let us make the best of 
it.  We have escaped from death for a time at least.  We have food and good 
water and peace and each other.  What more could we have upon the mainland?"
     "But I thought you wanted to get back to your own country!" he exclaimed.
     She cast her eyes upon the ground and half turned away.  "I do," she said, 
"yet I am happy here.  I could be little happier there."
     Bradley stood in silent thought.  "`We have food and good water and peace 
and each other!'" he repeated to himself.  He turned then and looked at the 
girl, and it was as though in the days that they had been together this was the 
first time that he had really seen her.  The circumstances that had thrown them 
together, the dangers through which they had passed, all the weird and horrible 
surroundings that had formed the background of his knowledge of her had had 
their effect--she had been but the companion of an adventure; her self-reliance, 
her endurance, her loyalty, had been only what one man might expect of another, 
and he saw that he had unconsciously assumed an attitude toward her that he 
might have assumed toward a man.  Yet there had been a difference--he recalled 
now the strange sensation of elation that had thrilled him upon the occasions 
when the girl had pressed his hand in hers, and the depression that had followed 
her announcement of her love for An-Tak.
     He took a step toward her.  A fierce yearning to seize her and crush her in 
his arms, swept over him, and then there flashed upon the screen of recollection 
the picture of a stately hall set amidst broad gardens and ancient trees and of 
a proud old man with beetling brows--an old man who held his head very high--and 
Bradley shook his head and turned away again.
     They went back then to their little acre, and the days came and went, and 
the man fashioned spear and bow and arrows and hunted with them that they might 
have meat, and he made hooks of fishbone and caught fishes with wondrous flies 
of his own invention; and the girl gathered fruits and cooked the flesh and the 
fish and made beds of branches and soft grasses.  She cured the hides of the 
animals he killed and made them soft by much pounding.  She made sandals for 
herself and for the man and fashioned a hide after the manner of those worn by 
the warriors of her tribe and made the man wear it, for his own garments were in 
rags.
     She was always the same--sweet and kind and helpful--but always there was 
about her manner and her expression just a trace of wistfulness, and often she 
sat and looked at the man when he did not know it, her brows puckered in thought 
as though she were trying to fathom and to understand him.
     In the face of the cliff, Bradley scooped a cave from the rotted granite of 
which the hill was composed, making a shelter for them against the rains.  He 
brought wood for their cook-fire which they used only in the middle of the 
day--a time when there was little likelihood of Wieroos being in the air so far 
from their city--and then he learned to bank it with earth in such a way that 
the embers held until the following noon without giving off smoke.
     Always he was planning on reaching the mainland, and never a day passed 
that he did not go to the top of the hill and look out across the sea toward the 
dark, distant line that meant for him comparative freedom and possibly reunion 
with his comrades.  The girl always went with him, standing at his side and 
watching the stern expression on his face with just a tinge of sadness on her 
own.
     "You are not happy," she said once.
     "I should be over there with my men," he replied.  "I do not know what may 
have happened to them."
     "I  want you to be happy," she said quite simply; "but I should be very 
lonely if you went away and left me here."
     He put his hand on her shoulder.  "I would not do that, little girl," he 
said gently.  "If you cannot go with me, I shall not go.  If either of us must 
go alone, it will be you."
     Her face lighted to a wondrous smile.  "Then we shall not be separated," 
she said, "for I shall never leave you as long as we both live."
     He looked down into her face for a moment and then:  "Who was An-Tak? " he 
asked.
     "My brother," she replied.  "Why?"
     And then, even less than before, could he tell her.  It was then that he 
did something he had never done before--he put his arms about her and stooping, 
kissed her forehead.  "Until you find An-Tak, he said, "I will be your brother."
     She drew away.  "I already have a brother," she said, "and I do not want 
another."
     
 
Chapter 5
      Days became weeks, and weeks became months, and the months followed one 
another in a lazy procession of hot, humid days and warm, humid nights.  The 
fugitives saw never a Wieroo by day though often at night they heard the 
melancholy flapping of giant wings far above them.
     Each day was much like its predecessor.  Bradley splashed about for a few 
minutes in the cold pool early each morning and after a time the girl tried it 
and liked it.  Toward the center it was deep enough for swimming, and so he 
taught her to swim--she was probably the first human being in all Caspak's long 
ages who had done this thing.  And then while she prepared breakfast, the man 
shaved--this he never neglected.  At first it was a source of wonderment to the 
girl, for the Galu men are beardless.
     When they needed meat, he hunted, otherwise he busied himself in improving 
their shelter, making new and better weapons, perfecting his knowledge of the 
girl's language and teaching her to speak and to write English--anything that 
would keep them both occupied.  He still sought new plans for escape, but with 
ever-lessening enthusiasm, since each new scheme presented some insurmountable 
obstacle.  And then one day as a bolt out of a clear sky came that which blasted 
the peace and security of their sanctuary forever.  Bradley was just emerging 
from the water after his morning plunge when from overhead came the sound of 
flapping wings.  Glancing quickly up the man saw a white-robed Wieroo circling 
slowly above him.  That he had been discovered he could not doubt since the 
creature even dropped to a lower altitude as though to assure itself that what 
it saw was a man.  Then it rose rapidly and winged away toward the city.
     For two days Bradley and the girl lived in a constant state of 
apprehension, awaiting the moment when the hunters would come for them; but 
nothing happened until just after dawn of the third day, when the flapping of 
wings apprised them of the approach of Wieroos.  Together they went to the edge 
of the wood and looked up to see five red-robed creatures dropping slowly in 
ever-lessening spirals toward their little amphitheater.  With no attempt at 
concealment they came, sure of their ability to overwhelm these two fugitives, 
and with the fullest measure of self-confidence they landed in the clearing but 
a few yards from the man and the girl.
     Following a plan already discussed Bradley and the girl retreated slowly 
into the woods.  The Wieroos advanced, calling upon them to give themselves up; 
but the quarry made no reply.  Farther and farther into the little wood Bradley 
led the hunters, permitting them to approach ever closer; then he circled back 
again toward the clearing, evidently to the great delight of the Wieroos, who 
now followed more leisurely, awaiting the moment when they should be beyond the 
trees and able to use their wings.  They had opened into semicircular formation 
now with the evident intention of cutting the two off from returning into the 
wood.  Each Wieroo advanced with his curved blade ready in his hand, each 
hideous face blank and expressionless.
     It was then that Bradley opened fire with his pistol--three shots, aimed 
with careful deliberation, for it had been long since he had used the weapon, 
and he could not afford to chance wasting ammunition on misses.  At each shot a 
Wieroo dropped; and then the remaining two sought escape by flight, screaming 
and wailing after the manner of their kind.  When a Wieroo runs, his wings 
spread almost without any volition upon his part, since from time immemorial he 
has always used them to balance himself and accelerate his running speed so that 
in the open they appear to skim the surface of the ground when in the act of 
running.  But here in the woods, among the close-set boles, the spreading of 
their wings proved their undoing--it hindered and stopped them and threw them to 
the ground, and then Bradley was upon them threatening them with instant death 
if they did not surrender-- promising them their freedom if they did his 
bidding.
     "As you have seen," he cried, "I can kill you when I wish and at a 
distance.  You cannot escape me.  Your only hope of life lies in obedience.  
Quick, or I kill!"
     The Wieroos stopped and faced him.  "What do you want of us?" asked one.
     "Throw aside your weapons," Bradley commanded.  After a moment's hesitation 
they obeyed.
     "Now approach!"  A great plan--the only plan--had suddenly come to him like 
an inspiration.
     The Wieroos came closer and halted at his command.  Bradley turned to the 
girl.  "There is rope in the shelter," he said.  "Fetch it!"
     She did as he bid, and then he directed her to fasten one end of a 
fifty-foot length to the ankle of one of the Wieroos and the opposite end to the 
second.  The creatures gave evidence of great fear, but they dared not attempt 
to prevent the act.
     "Now go out into the clearing," said Bradley, "and remember that I am 
walking close behind and that I will shoot the nearer one should either attempt 
to escape--that will hold the other until I can kill him as well."
     In the open he halted them.  "The girl will get upon the back of the one in 
front," announced the Englishman.  "I will mount the other.  She carries a sharp 
blade, and I carry this weapon that you know kills easily at a distance.  If you 
disobey in the slightest, the instructions that I am about to give you, you 
shall both die.  That we must die with you, will not deter us.  If you obey, I 
promise to set you free without harming you.
     "You will carry us due west, depositing us upon the shore of the 
mainland--that is all.  It is the price of your lives.  Do you agree?"
     Sullenly the Wieroos acquiesced.  Bradley examined the knots that held the 
rope to their ankles, and feeling them secure directed the girl to mount the 
back of the leading Wieroo, himself upon the other.  Then he gave the signal for 
the two to rise together.  With loud flapping of the powerful wings the 
creatures took to the air, circling once before they topped the trees upon the 
hill and then taking a course due west out over the waters of the sea.
     Nowhere about them could Bradley see signs of other Wieroos, nor of those 
other menaces which he had feared might bring disaster to his plans for 
escape--the huge, winged reptilia that are so numerous above the southern areas 
of Caspak and which are often seen, though in lesser numbers, farther north.
     Nearer and nearer loomed the mainland--a broad, parklike expanse stretching 
inland to the foot of a low plateau spread out before them.  The little dots in 
the foreground became grazing herds of deer and antelope and bos; a huge woolly 
rhinoceros wallowed in a mudhole to the right, and beyond, a mighty mammoth 
culled the tender shoots from a tall tree.  The roars and screams and growls of 
giant carnivora came faintly to their ears.  Ah, this was Caspak.  With all of 
its dangers and its primal savagery it brought a fullness to the throat of the 
Englishman as to one who sees and hears the familiar sights and sounds of home 
after a long absence.  Then the Wieroos dropped swiftly downward to the 
flower-starred turf that grew almost to the water's edge, the fugitives slipped 
from their backs, and Bradley told the red-robed creatures they were free to go.
     When he had cut the ropes from their ankles they rose with that uncanny 
wailing upon their lips that always brought a shudder to the Englishman, and 
upon dismal wings they flapped away toward frightful Oo-oh.
     When the creatures had gone, the girl turned toward Bradley.  "Why did you 
have them bring us here?" she asked.  "Now we are far from my country.  We may 
never live to reach it, as we are among enemies who, while not so horrible will 
kill us just as surely as would the Wieroos should they capture us, and we have 
before us many marches through lands filled with savage beasts."
     "There were two reasons," replied Bradley.  "You told me that there are two 
Wieroo cities at the eastern end of the island.  To have passed near either of 
them might have been to have brought about our heads hundreds of the creatures 
from whom we could not possibly have escaped.  Again, my friends must be near 
this spot-- it cannot be over two marches to the fort of which I have told you.  
It is my duty to return to them.  If they still live we shall find a way to 
return you to your people."
     "And you?" asked the girl.
     "I escaped from Oo-oh," replied Bradley.  "I have accomplished the 
impossible once, and so I shall accomplish it again--I shall escape from 
Caspak."
     He was not looking at her face as he answered her, and so he did not see 
the shadow of sorrow that crossed her countenance.  When he raised his eyes 
again, she was smiling.
     "What you wish, I wish," said the girl.
     Southward along the coast they made their way following the beach, where 
the walking was best, but always keeping close enough to trees to insure 
sanctuary from the beasts and reptiles that so often menaced them.  It was late 
in the afternoon when the girl suddenly seized Bradley's arm and pointed 
straight ahead along the shore.  "What is that?" she whispered.  "What strange 
reptile is it?"
     Bradley looked in the direction her slim forefinger indicated.  He rubbed 
his eyes and looked again, and then he seized her wrist and drew her quickly 
behind a clump of bushes.
     "What is it?" she asked.
     "It is the most frightful reptile that the waters of the world have ever 
known," he replied.  "It is a German U-boat!"
     An expression of amazement and understanding lighted her features.  "It is 
the thing of which you told me," she exclaimed, "--the thing that swims under 
the water and carries men in its belly!"
     "It is," replied Bradley.
     "Then why do you hide from it?" asked the girl.  "You said that now it 
belonged to your friends."
     "Many months have passed since I knew what was going on among my friends," 
he replied.  "I cannot know what has befallen them.  They should have been gone 
from here in this vessel long since, and so I cannot understand why it is still 
here.  I am going to investigate first before I show myself.  When I left, there 
were more Germans on the U-33 than there were men of my own party at the fort, 
and I have had sufficient experience of Germans to know that they will bear 
watching--if they have not been properly watched since I left."
     Making their way through a fringe of wood that grew a few yards inland the 
two crept unseen toward the U-boat which lay moored to the shore at a point 
which Bradley now recognized as being near the oil-pool north of Dinosaur.  As 
close as possible to the vessel they halted, crouching low among the dense 
vegetation, and watched the boat for signs of human life about it.  The hatches 
were closed--no one could be seen or heard.  For five minutes Bradley watched, 
and then he determined to board the submarine and investigate.  He had risen to 
carry his decision into effect when there suddenly broke upon his ear, uttered 
in loud and menacing tones, a volley of German oaths and expletives among which 
he heard Englische schweinhunde repeated several times.  The voice did not come 
from the direction of the U-boat; but from inland.  Creeping forward Bradley 
reached a spot where, through the creepers hanging from the trees, he could see 
a party of men coming down toward the shore.
     He saw Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts and six of his men--all armed--while 
marching in a little knot among them were Olson, Brady, Sinclair, Wilson, and 
Whitely.
     Bradley knew nothing of the disappearance of Bowen Tyler and Miss La Rue, 
nor of the perfidy of the Germans in shelling the fort and attempting to escape 
in the U-33; but he was in no way surprised at what he saw before him.
     The little party came slowly onward, the prisoners staggering beneath heavy 
cans of oil, while Schwartz, one of the German noncommissioned officers cursed 
and beat them with a stick of wood, impartially.  Von Schoenvorts walked in the 
rear of the column, encouraging Schwartz and laughing at the discomfiture of the 
Britishers.  Dietz, Heinz, and Klatz also seemed to enjoy the entertainment 
immensely; but two of the men--Plesser and Hindle-- marched with eyes straight 
to the front and with scowling faces.
     Bradley felt his blood boil at sight of the cowardly indignities being 
heaped upon his men, and in the brief span of time occupied by the column to 
come abreast of where he lay hidden he made his plans, foolhardy though he knew 
them.  Then he drew the girl close to him.  "Stay here," he whispered.  "I am 
going out to fight those beasts; but I shall be killed.  Do not let them see 
you.  Do not let them take you alive.  They are more cruel, more cowardly, more 
bestial than the Wieroos."
     The girl pressed close to him, her face very white.  "Go, if that is 
right," she whispered; "but if you die, I shall die, for I cannot live without 
you."  He looked sharply into her eyes.  "Oh!" he ejaculated.  "What an idiot I 
have been!  Nor could I live without you, little girl."  And he drew her very 
close and kissed her lips.  "Good-bye."  He disengaged himself from her arms and 
looked again in time to see that the rear of the column had just passed him.  
Then he rose and leaped quickly and silently from the jungle.
     Suddenly von Schoenvorts felt an arm thrown about his neck and his pistol 
jerked from its holster.  He gave a cry of fright and warning, and his men 
turned to see a half-naked white man holding their leader securely from behind 
and aiming a pistol at them over his shoulder.
     "Drop those guns!" came in short, sharp syllables and perfect German from 
the lips of the newcomer.  "Drop them or I'll put a bullet through the back of 
von Schoenvorts' head."
     The Germans hesitated for a moment, looking first toward von Schoenvorts 
and then to Schwartz, who was evidently second in command, for orders.
     "It's the English pig, Bradley," shouted the latter, "and he's alone--go 
and get him!"
     "Go yourself," growled Plesser.  Hindle moved close to the side of Plesser 
and whispered something to him.  The latter nodded.  Suddenly von Schoenvorts 
wheeled about and seized Bradley's pistol arm with both hands, "Now!" he 
shouted.  "Come and take him, quick!"
     Schwartz and three others leaped forward; but Plesser and Hindle held back, 
looking questioningly toward the English prisoners.  Then Plesser spoke.  "Now 
is your chance, Englander," he called in low tones.  "Seize Hindle and me and 
take our guns from us--we will not fight hard."
     Olson and Brady were not long in acting upon the suggestion.  They had seen 
enough of the brutal treatment von Schoenvorts accorded his men and the 
especially venomous attentions he had taken great enjoyment in according Plesser 
and Hindle to understand that these two might be sincere in a desire for 
revenge.  In another moment the two Germans were unarmed and Olson and Brady 
were running to the support of Bradley; but already it seemed too late.
     Von Schoenvorts had managed to drag the Englishman around so that his back 
was toward Schwartz and the other advancing Germans.  Schwartz was almost upon 
Bradley with gun clubbed and ready to smash down upon the Englishman's skull.  
Brady and Olson were charging the Germans in the rear with Wilson, Whitely, and 
Sinclair supporting them with bare fists.  It seemed that Bradley was doomed 
when, apparently out of space, an arrow whizzed, striking Schwartz in the side, 
passing half-way through his body to crumple him to earth.  With a shriek the 
man fell, and at the same time Olson and Brady saw the slim figure of a young 
girl standing at the edge of the jungle coolly fitting another arrow to her bow.
     Bradley had now succeeded in wrestling his arm free from von Schoenvorts' 
grip and in dropping the latter with a blow from the butt of his pistol.  The 
rest of the English and Germans were engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter.  
Plesser and Hindle standing aside from the melee and urging their comrades to 
surrender and join with the English against the tyranny of von Schoenvorts.  
Heinz and Klatz, possibly influenced by their exhortation, were putting up but a 
half-hearted resistance; but Dietz, a huge, bearded, bull-necked Prussian, 
yelling like a maniac, sought to exterminate the Englische schweinhunde with his 
bayonet, fearing to fire his piece lest he kill some of his comrades.
     It was Olson who engaged him, and though unused to the long German rifle 
and bayonet, he met the bull-rush of the Hun with the cold, cruel precision and 
science of English bayonet-fighting.  There was no feinting, no retiring and no 
parrying that was not also an attack.  Bayonet-fighting today is not a pretty 
thing to see--it is not an artistic fencing-match in which men give and take--it 
is slaughter inevitable and quickly over.
     Dietz lunged once madly at Olson's throat.  A short point, with just a 
twist of the bayonet to the left sent the sharp blade over the Englishman's left 
shoulder.  Instantly he stepped close in, dropped his rifle through his hands 
and grasped it with both hands close below the muzzle and with a short, sharp 
jab sent his blade up beneath Dietz's chin to the brain.  So quickly was the 
thing done and so quick the withdrawal that Olson had wheeled to take on another 
adversary before the German's corpse had toppled to the ground.
     But there were no more adversaries to take on.  Heinz and Klatz had thrown 
down their rifles and with hands above their heads were crying "Kamerad!  
Kamerad!" at the tops of their voices.  Von Schoenvorts still lay where he had 
fallen.  Plesser and Hindle were explaining to Bradley that they were glad of 
the outcome of the fight, as they could no longer endure the brutality of the 
U-boat commander.
     The remainder of the men were looking at the girl who now advanced slowly, 
her bow ready, when Bradley turned toward her and held out his hand.
     "Co-Tan," he said, "unstring your bow--these are my friends, and yours."  
And to the Englishmen:  "This is Co-Tan.  You who saw her save me from Schwartz 
know a part of what I owe her."
     The rough men gathered about the girl, and when she spoke to them in broken 
English, with a smile upon her lips enhancing the charm of her irresistible 
accent, each and every one of them promptly fell in love with her and 
constituted himself henceforth her guardian and her slave.
     A moment later the attention of each was called to Plesser by a volley of 
invective.  They turned in time to see the man running toward von Schoenvorts 
who was just rising from the ground.  Plesser carried a rifle with bayonet 
fixed, that he had snatched from the side of Dietz's corpse.  Von Schoenvorts' 
face was livid with fear, his jaws working as though he would call for help; but 
no sound came from his blue lips.
     "You struck me," shrieked Plesser.  "Once, twice, three times, you struck 
me, pig.  You murdered Schwerke--you drove him insane by your cruelty until he 
took his own life.  You are only one of your kind--they are all like you from 
the Kaiser down.  I wish that you were the Kaiser.  Thus would I do!"  And he 
lunged his bayonet through von Schoenvorts' chest.  Then he let his rifle fall 
with the dying man and wheeled toward Bradley.  "Here I am," he said.  "Do with 
me as you like.  All my life I have been kicked and cuffed by such as that, and 
yet always have I gone out when they commanded, singing, to give up my life if 
need be to keep them in power.  Only lately have I come to know what a fool I 
have been.  But now I am no longer a fool, and besides, I am avenged and 
Schwerke is avenged, so you can kill me if you wish.  Here I am."
     "If I was after bein' the king," said Olson, "I'd pin the V.C. on your 
noble chist; but bein' only an Irishman with a Swede name, for which God forgive 
me, the bist I can do is shake your hand."
     "You will not be punished," said Bradley.  "There are four of you left--if 
you four want to come along and work with us, we will take you; but you will 
come as prisoners."
     "It suits me," said Plesser.  "Now that the captain-lieutenant is dead you 
need not fear us.  All our lives we have known nothing but to obey his class.  
If I had not killed him, I suppose I would be fool enough to obey him again; but 
he is dead.  Now we will obey you--we must obey some one."
     "And you?"  Bradley turned to the other survivors of the original crew of 
the U-33.  Each promised obedience.
     The two dead Germans were buried in a single grave, and then the party 
boarded the submarine and stowed away the oil.
     Here Bradley told the men what had befallen him since the night of 
September 14th when he had disappeared so mysteriously from the camp upon the 
plateau.  Now he learned for the first time that Bowen J. Tyler, Jr., and Miss 
La Rue had been missing even longer than he and that no faintest trace of them 
had been discovered.
     Olson told him of how the Germans had returned and waited in ambush for 
them outside the fort, capturing them that they might be used to assist in the 
work of refining the oil and later in manning the U-33, and Plesser told briefly 
of the experiences of the German crew under von Schoenvorts since they had 
escaped from Caspak months before--of how they lost their bearings after having 
been shelled by ships they had attempted to sneak farther north and how at last 
with provisions gone and fuel almost exhausted they had sought and at last 
found, more by accident than design, the mysterious island they had once been so 
glad to leave behind.
     "Now," announced Bradley, "we'll plan for the future.  The boat has fuel, 
provisions and water for a month, I believe you said, Plesser; there are ten of 
us to man it.  We have a last sad duty here--we must search for Miss La Rue and 
Mr. Tyler.  I say a sad duty because we know that we shall not find them; but it 
is none the less our duty to comb the shoreline, firing signal shells at 
intervals, that we at least may leave at last with full knowledge that we have 
done all that men might do to locate them."
     None dissented from this conviction, nor was there a voice raised in 
protest against the plan to at least make assurance doubly sure before quitting 
Caspak forever.
     And so they started, cruising slowly up the coast and firing an occasional 
shot from the gun.  Often the vessel was brought to a stop, and always there 
were anxious eyes scanning the shore for an answering signal.  Late in the 
afternoon they caught sight of a number of Band-lu warriors; but when the vessel 
approached the shore and the natives realized that human beings stood upon the 
back of the strange monster of the sea, they fled in terror before Bradley could 
come within hailing distance.
     That night they dropped anchor at the mouth of a sluggish stream whose warm 
waters swarmed with millions of tiny tadpolelike organisms--minute human spawn 
starting on their precarious journey from some inland pool toward "the 
beginning"--a journey which one in millions, perhaps, might survive to complete. 
 Already almost at the inception of life they were being greeted by thousands of 
voracious mouths as fish and reptiles of many kinds fought to devour them, the 
while other and larger creatures pursued the devourers, to be, in turn, preyed 
upon by some other of the countless forms that inhabit the deeps of Caprona's 
frightful sea.
     The second day was practically a repetition of the first.  They moved very 
slowly with frequent stops and once they landed in the Kro-lu country to hunt.  
Here they were attacked by the bow-and-arrow men, whom they could not persuade 
to palaver with them.  So belligerent were the natives that it became necessary 
to fire into them in order to escape their persistent and ferocious attentions.
     "What chance," asked Bradley, as they were returning to the boat with their 
game, "could Tyler and Miss La Rue have had among such as these?"
     But they continued on their fruitless quest, and the third day, after 
cruising along the shore of a deep inlet, they passed a line of lofty cliffs 
that formed the southern shore of the inlet and rounded a sharp promontory about 
noon.  Co-Tan and Bradley were on deck alone, and as the new shoreline appeared 
beyond the point, the girl gave an exclamation of joy and seized the man's hand 
in hers.
     "Oh, look!" she cried.  "The Galu country!  The Galu country!  It is my 
country that I never thought to see again."
     "You are glad to come again, Co-Tan?" asked Bradley.
     "Oh, so glad!" she cried.  "And you will come with me to my people?  We may 
live here among them, and you will be a great warrior--oh, when Jor dies you may 
even be chief, for there is none so mighty as my warrior.  You will come?"
     Bradley shook his head.  "I cannot, little Co-Tan," he answered.  "My 
country needs me, and I must go back.  Maybe someday I shall return.  You will 
not forget me, Co-Tan?"
     She looked at him in wide-eyed wonder.  "You are going away from me?" she 
asked in a very small voice.  "You are going away from Co-Tan?"
     Bradley looked down upon the little bowed head.  He felt the soft cheek 
against his bare arm; and he felt something else there too-- hot drops of 
moisture that ran down to his very finger-tips and splashed, but each one wrung 
from a woman's heart.
     He bent low and raised the tear-stained face to his own.  "No, Co-Tan," he 
said, "I am not going away from you--for you are going with me.  You are going 
back to my own country to be my wife.  Tell me that you will, Co-Tan."  And he 
bent still lower yet from his height and kissed her lips.  Nor did he need more 
than the wonderful new light in her eyes to tell him that she would go to the 
end of the world with him if he would but take her.  And then the gun-crew came 
up from below again to fire a signal shot, and the two were brought down from 
the high heaven of their new happiness to the scarred and weather-beaten deck of 
the U-33.
     An hour later the vessel was running close in by a shore of wondrous beauty 
beside a parklike meadow that stretched back a mile inland to the foot of a 
plateau when Whitely called attention to a score of figures clambering downward 
from the elevation to the lowland below.  The engines were reversed and the boat 
brought to a stop while all hands gathered on deck to watch the little party 
coming toward them across the meadow.
     "They are Galus," cried Co-Tan; "they are my own people.  Let me speak to 
them lest they think we come to fight them.  Put me ashore, my man, and I will 
go meet them."
     The nose of the U-boat was run close in to the steep bank; but when Co-Tan 
would have run forward alone, Bradley seized her hand and held her back.  "I 
will go with you, Co-Tan," he said; and together they advanced to meet the 
oncoming party.
     There were about twenty warriors moving forward in a thin line, as our 
infantry advance as skirmishers.  Bradley could not but notice the marked 
difference between this formation and the moblike methods of the lower tribes he 
had come in contact with, and he commented upon it to Co-Tan.
     "Galu warriors always advance into battle thus," she said.  "The lesser 
people remain in a huddled group where they can scarce use their weapons the 
while they present so big a mark to us that our spears and arrows cannot miss 
them; but when they hurl theirs at our warriors, if they miss the first man, 
there is no chance that they will kill some one behind him.
     "Stand still now," she cautioned, "and fold your arms.  They will not harm 
us then."
     Bradley did as he was bid, and the two stood with arms folded as the line 
of warriors approached.  When they had come within some fifty yards, they halted 
and one spoke.  "Who are you and from whence do you come?" he asked; and then 
Co-Tan gave a little, glad cry and sprang forward with out-stretched arms.
     "Oh, Tan!" she exclaimed.  "Do you not know your little Co-Tan?"
     The warrior stared, incredulous, for a moment, and then he, too, ran 
forward and when they met, took the girl in his arms.  It was then that Bradley 
experienced to the full a sensation that was new to him--a sudden hatred for the 
strange warrior before him and a desire to kill without knowing why he would 
kill.  He moved quickly to the girl's side and grasped her wrist.
     "Who is this man?" he demanded in cold tones.
     Co-Tan turned a surprised face toward the Englishman and then of a sudden 
broke forth into a merry peal of laughter.  "This is my father, Brad-lee," she 
cried.
     "And who is Brad-lee?" demanded the warrior.
     "He is my man," replied Co-Tan simply.
     "By what right?" insisted Tan.
     And then she told him briefly of all that she had passed through since the 
Wieroos had stolen her and of how Bradley had rescued her and sought to rescue 
An-Tak, her brother.
     "You are satisfied with him?" asked Tan.
     "Yes," replied the girl proudly.
     It was then that Bradley's attention was attracted to the edge of the 
plateau by a movement there, and looking closely he saw a horse bearing two 
figures sliding down the steep declivity.  Once at the bottom, the animal came 
charging across the meadowland at a rapid run.  It was a magnificent animal--a 
great bay stallion with a white-blazed face and white forelegs to the knees, its 
barrel encircled by a broad surcingle of white; and as it came to a sudden stop 
beside Tan, the Englishman saw that it bore a man and a girl--a tall man and a 
girl as beautiful as Co-Tan.  When the girl espied the latter, she slid from the 
horse and ran toward her, fairly screaming for joy.
     The man dismounted and stood beside Tan.  Like Bradley he was garbed after 
the fashion of the surrounding warriors; but there was a subtle difference 
between him and his companion.  Possibly he detected a similar difference in 
Bradley, for his first question was, "From what country?" and though he spoke in 
Galu Bradley thought he detected an accent.
     "England," replied Bradley.
     A broad smile lighted the newcomer's face as he held out his hand.  "I am 
Tom Billings of Santa Monica, California," he said.  "I know all about you, and 
I'm mighty glad to find you alive."
     "How did you get here?" asked Bradley.  "I thought ours was the only party 
of men from the outer world ever to enter Caprona."
     "It was, until we came in search of Bowen J. Tyler, Jr.," replied Billings. 
 "We  found him and sent him home with his bride; but I was kept a prisoner 
here."
     Bradley's face darkened--then they were not among friends after all.  
"There are ten of us down there on a German sub with small-arms and a gun," he 
said quickly in English.  "It will be no trick to get away from these people."
     "You don't know my jailer," replied Billings, "or you'd not be so sure.  
Wait, I'll introduce you."  And then turning to the girl who had accompanied him 
he called her by name.  "Ajor," he said, "permit me to introduce Lieutenant 
Bradley; Lieutenant, Mrs. Billings--my jailer!"
     The Englishman laughed as he shook hands with the girl.  "You are not as 
good a soldier as I," he said to Billings.  "Instead of being taken prisoner 
myself I have taken one--Mrs. Bradley, this is Mr. Billings."
     Ajor, quick to understand, turned toward Co-Tan.  "You are going back with 
him to his country?" she asked.  Co-Tan admitted it.
     "You dare?" asked Ajor.  "But your father will not permit it-- Jor, my 
father, High Chief of the Galus, will not permit it, for like me you are 
cos-ata-lo.  Oh, Co-Tan, if we but could!  How I would love to see all the 
strange and wonderful things of which my Tom tells me!"
     Bradley bent and whispered in her ear.  "Say the word and you may both go 
with us."
     Billings heard and speaking in English, asked Ajor if she would go.
     "Yes," she answered, "If you wish it; but you know, my Tom, that if Jor 
captures us, both you and Co-Tan's man will pay the penalty with your lives--not 
even his love for me nor his admiration for you can save you."
     Bradley noticed that she spoke in English--broken English like Co-Tan's but 
equally appealing.  "We can easily get you aboard the ship," he said, "on some 
pretext or other, and then we can steam away.  They can neither harm nor detain 
us, nor will we have to fire a shot at them."
     And so it was done, Bradley and Co-Tan taking Ajor and Billings aboard to 
"show" them the vessel, which almost immediately raised anchor and moved slowly 
out into the sea.
     "I hate to do it," said Billings.  "They have been fine to me.  Jor and Tan 
are splendid men and they will think me an ingrate; but I can't waste my life 
here when there is so much to be done in the outer world."
     As they steamed down the inland sea past the island of Oo-oh, the stories 
of their adventures were retold, and Bradley learned that Bowen Tyler and his 
bride had left the Galu country but a fortnight before and that there was every 
reason to believe that the Toreador might still be lying in the Pacific not far 
off the subterranean mouth of the river which emitted Caprona's heated waters 
into the ocean.
     Late in the second day, after running through swarms of hideous reptiles, 
they submerged at the point where the river entered beneath the cliffs and 
shortly after rose to the sunlit surface of the Pacific; but nowhere as far as 
they could see was sign of another craft.  Down the coast they steamed toward 
the beach where Billings had made his crossing in the hydro-aeroplane and just 
at dusk the lookout announced a light dead ahead.  It proved to be aboard the 
Toreador, and a half-hour later there was such a reunion on the deck of the trig 
little yacht as no one there had ever dreamed might be possible.  Of the Allies 
there were only Tippet and James to be mourned, and no one mourned any of the 
Germans dead nor Benson, the traitor, whose ugly story was first told in Bowen 
Tyler's manuscript.
     Tyler and the rescue party had but just reached the yacht that afternoon.  
They had heard, faintly, the signal shots fired by the U-33 but had been unable 
to locate their direction and so had assumed that they had come from the guns of 
the Toreador.
     It was a happy party that sailed north toward sunny, southern California, 
the old U-33 trailing in the wake of the Toreador and flying with the latter the 
glorious Stars and Stripes beneath which she had been born in the shipyard at 
Santa Monica.  Three newly married couples, their bonds now duly solemnized by 
the master of the ship, joyed in the peace and security of the untracked waters 
of the south Pacific and the unique honeymoon which, had it not been for stern 
duty ahead, they could have wished protracted till the end of time.
     And so they came one day to dock at the shipyard which Bowen Tyler now 
controlled, and here the U-33 still lies while those who passed so many eventful 
days within and because of her, have gone their various ways.
      The end of Project Gutenberg etext of "Out of Time's Abyss"
      I have made the following changes to the text:
     PAGE  LINE    ORIGINAL          CHANGED TO   10    12    of                 
or   14    19    of animals life    of animals   31    26    is arms            
his arms   37    14    above this         above his   37    23    Bradley,       
    Bradley   54    18    man                man   57    14    and of Oo-oh      
 of Oo-oh   62    18    spend              spent   63    31    and mumbled       
 the mumbled   64     9    things             thing   80    30    east           
    cast  104    16    proaching          proached  106    30    cos-at-lu       
   cos-ata-lu  126    17    not artistic       not an artistic  126    25    
close below        hands close below  130     1    internals          intervals  
132     9    than               that  132    10    splashes           splashed  
134     3    know know          not know
      The end of Project Gutenberg etext of "Out of Time's Abyss"