The Land That Time Forgot

l, a warm body fell on top of me, and hands grasped my arms and legs. When I could look up, I saw a number of giant figures pinioning me down, while others stood about surveying m

stone-shod spears, stone knives, and hatchets-and they wore ornaments and breech-cloths-the former of feathers worn

conceited, but I may as well admit that I am proud of my strength and the science that I have acquired and developed in the directing of it-that and my horsemanship I always have been proud of. And now, that day, all the long hours that I had put into careful study, practice and training brought me in

inactive surprise, I unslung my rifle-which, carelessly, I had been carrying across my back; and when they charged, as I felt they would, I put a bullet in the forehead of one of them. This stopped them all temporarily-not the death of their fellow, but the report of the rifle, the first they had ever h

ire was to find my way back to my companions. He asked where they were and I told him toward the south somewhere, using the Caspakian phrase which, li

not know who the Galus may be; I have never seen them. This is the farthest north I have been. Look at me-look at

y head and also make him a present of the "bang-spear," as he called it. I refused to give him my rifle, but promised to show him the trick he wished to learn if he would guide me in the right direction. He told me that he would do so tomorrow, that it was too late today

and small, rudely circular stone ovens. The walls of the cavern to which I was conducted were covered with drawings scratched upon the sandstone. There were the outlines of the giant red-deer, of mammoths, of tigers and other beasts. Here, as in the last tribe, there were no children or any old people. The men of this tribe had two names, or rather names of two syllables, and their language contained words of t

language. In that word I recognized what to me seemed the most remarkable discovery I had made upon Caprona, for unless it were mere coincidence, I had come upon a word that had been handed down from the beginning of spoken language upon earth, been handed down for millions of years, perhaps, with little change. It was the sole remaining thread of the ancient wo

r down and kicking her into a corner of the cavern. I leaped between them while he was still kicking her, and obtaining a quick hold upon him, dragged him screaming with pain from th

confided to me that she w

ced people than the Band-lus. I pondered a long time upon all that I had heard, before sleep came to me. I tried to find some connection between these various races that would explain the universal hope which each of them harbored that some day they would become Galus. So-ta had given me a suggestion; but the resulting idea was so weird that I could scarce even entertain it; yet it coincided with Ahm's expressed hope, with the various steps in evolution I had noted in t

rely tied and my weapons had been taken from me. How they did it without awakening me I cannot tell you. It was

y head and break his neck, for I am going to kill

remark here, had, however, lost much of his terror for me. I had become a disciple of Lys' fleeting philosophy of the valuelessness of human life. I realized that she wa

and with the palm toward me-the Caspakian

and the women left-the men for the hunt, and the women, as I later learned from So-ta, for the warm pool where they immersed their bodies

hree hours when at last So-ta entered the cave. She carried

the Band-lu. Together we will go to the Kro-lu, and after that the Galus. To-jo will kil

replied, "but then I must return to

forbidden. They would kill you. Thus fa

My people are there. I must return

my own people and lead them north into a land where the dangers were fewer and the people less murderous. She brought me all my belongings that

er having advanced this far. So she left me. She was a dear girl and a stanch and true comrade-more like a man than a woman. In her simple barbaric way she was both refined and chaste. She had been the wife of To-jo. Among the Kro-lu she would find ano

d not care to be detained by a meeting with To-jo. On the sixth day I came to the cliffs of the Sto-lu, and my heart beat fast as I approached them, for here was Lys. Soon I would hold her tight in my arms again; soon her warm lips would merge w

s quite close to the base of the cliffs, I saw that which dashed my hopes and my happiness to earth. Strewn along the ground were a score of mute and horrible suggestions of wha

y one of the twenty-odd skulls, I found none that was the skull of a creature but slightly removed from the ape. Hope, then, still lived. For another three days I searched north and south

met with were fewer in number but infinitely more terrible in temper; yet I lived on until there came to me the realization that I was hopelessly lost, that a year of sunshine would not again give me my bearings; and while I was cast down by this terrifying kn

I could not bring myself to believe that they did. I was sure that Lys was dead. I wanted myself to die, and yet I clung to life-useless and hopeless and harrowing a thing as it had become. I cl

nife; but at last I scaled them. Near the summit I came upon a huge cavern. It is the abode of some mighty winged creature of the Triassic-or rather it was. Now it is mine. I slew the thing and took its abode. I reached the