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Out of Time's Abyss

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Chapter I

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

in the center of the island.

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

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

scaled.

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

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

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

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

above their heads.

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

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

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

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

summer hike.

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

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

for an Irishman."

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

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

attention to other matters.

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

ready awaited the almost inevitable charge.

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

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

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

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