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72 pages

English

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Though now best remembered as the creator of the character Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a prolific writer of science fiction and fantasy tales. This novel is the third entry in Burroughs' Caspak trilogy, following The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot. Filled with more tantalizing details about the fantastical world the novels describe, this volume also delves into the science behind the story, positing a feasible evolutionary account for the survival of dinosaurs and other prehistoric flora and fauna on a remote island.

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Science fiction

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775419655
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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OUT OF TIME'S ABYSS
* * *
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

*

Out of Time's Abyss First published in 1918 ISBN 978-1-775419-65-5 © 2010 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 1
*
This is the tale of Bradley after he left Fort Dinosaur upon the westcoast of the great lake that is in the center of the island.
Upon the fourth day of September, 1916, he set out with fourcompanions, Sinclair, Brady, James, and Tippet, to search along thebase of the barrier cliffs for a point at which they might be scaled.
Through the heavy Caspakian air, beneath the swollen sun, the five menmarched northwest from Fort Dinosaur, now waist-deep in lush, junglegrasses starred with myriad gorgeous blooms, now across openmeadow-land and parklike expanses and again plunging into dense forestsof eucalyptus and acacia and giant arboreous ferns with featheredfronds waving gently a hundred feet above their heads.
About them upon the ground, among the trees and in the air over themmoved and swung and soared the countless forms of Caspak's teeminglife. Always were they menaced by some frightful thing and seldom weretheir rifles cool, yet even in the brief time they had dwelt uponCaprona they had become callous to danger, so that they swung alonglaughing and chatting like soldiers on a summer hike.
"This reminds me of South Clark Street," remarked Brady, who had onceserved on the traffic squad in Chicago; and as no one asked him why, hevolunteered 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 growlbroke from a dense thicket ahead and diverted their attention to othermatters.
"One of them behemoths of 'Oly Writ," muttered Tippet as they came to ahalt and with guns ready awaited the almost inevitable charge.
"Hungry lot o' beggars, these," said Bradley; "always trying to eateverything they see."
For a moment no further sound came from the thicket. "He may befeeding now," suggested Bradley. "We'll try to go around him. Can'twaste ammunition. Won't last forever. Follow me." And he set off atright angles to their former course, hoping to avert a charge. Theyhad taken a dozen steps, perhaps, when the thicket moved to the advanceof the thing within it, the leafy branches parted, and the hideous headof 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 othermen scattered for the various trees they had selected—all exceptBradley. He stood watching Tippet and the bear. The man had a goodstart and the tree was not far away; but the speed of the enormouscreature behind him was something to marvel at, yet Tippet was in afair way to make his sanctuary when his foot caught in a tangle ofroots and down he went, his rifle flying from his hand and fallingseveral yards away. Instantly Bradley's piece was at his shoulder,there was a sharp report answered by a roar of mingled rage and painfrom 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 backagain toward Tippet. Again the former's rifle spit angrily, and thebear turned again in his direction. Bradley shouted loudly. "Come on,you behemoth of Holy Writ!" he cried. "Come on, you duffer! Can'twaste ammunition." And as he saw the bear apparently upon the verge ofdeciding to charge him, he encouraged the idea by backing rapidly away,knowing that an angry beast will more often charge one who moves thanone who lies still.
And the bear did charge. Like a bolt of lightning he flashed down uponthe Englishman. "Now run!" Bradley called to Tippet and himselfturned in flight toward a nearby tree. The other men, now safelyensconced upon various branches, watched the race with breathlessinterest. Would Bradley make it? It seemed scarce possible. And ifhe didn't! James gasped at the thought. Six feet at the shoulderstood the frightful mountain of blood-mad flesh and bone and sinew thatwas bearing down with the speed of an express train upon the seeminglyslow-moving man.
It all happened in a few seconds; but they were seconds that seemedlike hours to the men who watched. They saw Tippet leap to his feet atBradley's shouted warning. They saw him run, stooping to recover hisrifle as he passed the spot where it had fallen. They saw him glanceback toward Bradley, and then they saw him stop short of the tree thatmight 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 monstrousthing that should have been extinct ages before—ran for it and firedeven as the beast was almost upon Bradley. The men in the treesscarcely breathed. It seemed to them such a futile thing for Tippet todo, and Tippet of all men! They had never looked upon Tippet as acoward—there seemed to be no cowards among that strangely assortedcompany that Fate had gathered together from the four corners of theearth—but Tippet was considered a cautious man. Overcautious, somethought him. How futile he and his little pop-gun appeared as hedashed after that living engine of destruction! But, oh, how glorious!It was some such thought as this that ran through Brady's mind, thougharticulated it might have been expressed otherwise, albeit moreforcefully.
Just then it occurred to Brady to fire and he, too, opened upon thebear, but at the same instant the animal stumbled and fell forward,though still growling most fearsomely. Tippet never stopped running orfiring until he stood within a foot of the brute, which lay almosttouching Bradley and was already struggling to regain its feet.Placing the muzzle of his gun against the bear's ear, Tippet pulled thetrigger. The creature sank limply to the ground and Bradley scrambledto his feet.
"Good work, Tippet," he said. "Mightily obliged to you—awful waste ofammunition, really."
And then they resumed the march and in fifteen minutes the encounterhad ceased even to be a topic of conversation.
For two days they continued upon their perilous way. Already thecliffs loomed high and forbidding close ahead without sign of break toencourage hope that somewhere they might be scaled. Late in theafternoon the party crossed a small stream of warm water upon thesluggishly moving surface of which floated countless millions of tinygreen eggs surrounded by a light scum of the same color, though of adarker shade. Their past experience of Caspak had taught them thatthey might expect to come upon a stagnant pool of warm water if theyfollowed the stream to its source; but there they were almost certainto find some of Caspak's grotesque, manlike creatures. Already sincethey had disembarked from the U-33 after its perilous trip through thesubterranean channel beneath the barrier cliffs had brought them intothe inland sea of Caspak, had they encountered what had appeared to bethree distinct types of these creatures. There had been the pureapes—huge, gorillalike beasts—and those who walked, a trifle moreerect and had features with just a shade more of the human cast aboutthem. Then there were men like Ahm, whom they had captured andconfined at the fort—Ahm, the club-man. "Well-known club-man," Tylerhad called him. Ahm and his people had knowledge of a speech. Theyhad a language, in which they were unlike the race just inferior tothem, and they walked much more erect and were less hairy: but it wasprincipally the fact that they possessed a spoken language and carrieda weapon that differentiated them from the others.
All of these peoples had proven belligerent in the extreme. In commonwith the rest of the fauna of Caprona the first law of nature as theyseemed to understand it was to kill—kill—kill. And so it was thatBradley had no desire to follow up the little stream toward the poolnear which were sure to be the caves of some savage tribe, but fortuneplayed him an unkind trick, for the pool was much closer than heimagined, its southern end reaching fully a mile south of the point atwhich they crossed the stream, and so it was that after forcing theirway through a tangle of jungle vegetation they came out upon the edgeof the pool which they had wished to avoid.
Almost simultaneously there appeared south of them a party of naked menarmed with clubs and hatchets. Both parties halted as they caughtsight of one another. The men from the fort saw before them a huntingparty evidently returning to its caves or village laden with meat.They were large men with features closely resembling those of theAfrican Negro though their skins were white. Short hair grew upon alarge portion of their limbs and bodies, which still retained aconsiderable trace of apish progenitors. They were, however, adistinctly higher type than the Bo-lu, or club-men.
Bradley would have been glad to have averted a meeting; but as hedesired to lead his party south around the end of the pool, and as itwas 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 forwar