Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines.
The Land that Time Forgot
By
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Chapter 1
It must have been a little after three o'clock in the afternoon that ithappened--the afternoon of June 3rd, 1916. It seems incredible thatall that I have passed through--all those weird and terrifyingexperiences--should have been encompassed within so short a span asthree brief months. Rather might I have experienced a cosmic cycle,with all its changes and evolutions for that which I have seen with myown eyes in this brief interval of time--things that no other mortaleye had seen before, glimpses of a world past, a world dead, a world solong dead that even in the lowest Cambrian stratum no trace of itremains. Fused with the melting inner crust, it has passed foreverbeyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket of the earthwhither fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed. I am here andhere must remain.
After reading this far, my interest, which already had been stimulatedby the finding of the manuscript, was approaching the boiling-point. Ihad come to Greenland for the summer, on the advice of my physician,and was slowly being bored to extinction, as I had thoughtlesslyneglected to bring sufficient reading-matter. Being an indifferentfisherman, my enthusiasm for this form of sport soon waned; yet in theabsence of other forms of recreation I was now risking my life in anentirely inadequate boat off Cape Farewell at the southernmostextremity of Greenland.
Greenland! As a descriptive appellation, it is a sorry joke--but mystory has nothing to do with Greenland, nothing to do with me; so Ishall get through with the one and the other as rapidly as possible.
The inadequate boat finally arrived at a precarious landing, thenatives, waist-deep in the surf, assisting. I was carried ashore, andwhile the evening meal was being prepared, I wandered to and fro alongthe rocky, shattered shore. Bits of surf-harried beach clove the worngranite, or whatever the rocks of Cape Farewell may be composed of, andas I followed the ebbing tide down one of these soft stretches, I sawthe thing. Were one to bump into a Bengal tiger in the ravine behindthe Bimini Baths, one could be no more surprised than was I to see aperfectly good quart thermos bottle turning and twisting in the surf ofCape Farewell at the southern extremity of Greenland. I rescued it, butI was soaked above the knees doing it; and then I sat down in the sandand opened it, and in the long twilight read the manuscript, neatlywritten and tightly folded, which was its contents.
You have read the opening paragraph, and if you are an imaginativeidiot like myself, you will want to read the rest of it; so I shallgive it to you here, omitting quotation marks--which are difficult ofremembrance. In two minutes you will forget me.
My home is in Santa Monica. I am, or was, junior member of my father'sfirm. We are ship-builders. Of recent years we have specialized onsubmarines, which we have built for Germany, England, France and theUnited States. I know a sub as a mother knows her baby's face, andhave commanded a score of them on their trial runs. Yet myinclinations were all toward aviation. I graduated under Curtiss, andafter a long siege with my father obtained his permission to try forthe Lafayette Escadrille. As a stepping-stone I obtained anappointment in the American ambulance service and was on my way toFrance when three shrill whistles altered, in as many seconds, myentire scheme of life.
I was sitting on deck with some of the fellows who were going into theAmerican ambulance service with me, my Airedale, Crown Prince Nobbler,asleep at my feet, when the first blast of the whistle shattered thepeace and security of the ship. Ever since entering the U-boat zone wehad been on the lookout for periscopes, and children that we were,bemoaning the unkind fate that was to see us safely into France on themorrow without a glimpse of the dread marauders. We were young; wecraved thrills, and God knows we got them that day; yet by comparisonwith that through which I have since passed they were as tame as aPunch-and-Judy show.
I shall never forget the ashy faces of the passengers as they stampededfor their life-belts, though there was no panic. Nobs rose with a lowgrowl. I rose, also, and over the ship's side, I saw not two hundredyards distant the periscope of a submarine, while racing toward theliner the wake of a torpedo was distinctly visible. We were aboard anAmerican ship--which, of course, was not armed. We were entirelydefenseless; yet without warning, we were being torpedoed.
I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo. Itstruck us on the starboard side almost amidships. The vessel rocked asthough the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano. We werethrown to the decks, bruised and stunned, and then above the ship,carrying with it fragments of steel and wood and dismembered humanbodies, rose a column of water hundreds of feet into the air.
The silence which followed the detonation of the exploding torpedo wasalmost equally horrifying. It lasted for perhaps two seconds, to befollowed by the screams and moans of the wounded, the cursing of themen and the hoarse commands of the ship's officers. They weresplendid--they and their crew. Never before had I been so proud of mynationality as I was that moment. In all the chaos which followed thetorpedoing of the liner no officer or member of the crew lost his heador showed in the slightest any degree of panic or fear.
While we were attempting to lower boats, the submarine emerged andtrained guns on us. The officer in command ordered us to lower ourflag, but this the captain of the liner refused to do. The ship waslisting frightfully to starboard, rendering the port boats useless,while half the starboard boats had been demolished by the explosion.Even while the passengers were crowding the starboard rail andscrambling into the few boats left to us, the submarine commencedshelling the ship. I saw one shell burst in a group of women andchildren, and then I turned my head and covered my eyes.
When I looked again to horror was added chagrin, for with the emergingof the U-boat I had recognized her as a product of our own shipyard. Iknew her to a rivet. I had superintended her construction. I had satin that very conning-tower and directed the efforts of the sweatingcrew below when first her prow clove the sunny summer waters of thePacific; and now this creature of my brain and hand had turnedFrankenstein, bent upon pursuing me to my death.
A second shell exploded upon the deck. One of the lifeboats,frightfully overcrowded, swung at a dangerous angle from its davits. Afragment of the shell shattered the bow tackle, and I saw the women andchildren and the men vomited into the sea beneath, while the boatdangled stern up for a moment from its single davit, and at last withincreasing momentum dived into the midst of the struggling victimsscreaming upon the face of the waters.
Now I saw men spring to the rail and leap into the ocean. The deck wastilting to an impossible angle. Nobs braced himself with all four feetto keep from slipping into the scuppers and looked up into my face witha questioning whine. I stooped and stroked his head.
"Come on, boy!" I cried, and running to the side of the ship, divedheadforemost over the rail. When I came up, the first thing I saw wasNobs swimming about in a bewildered sort of way a few yards from me.At sight of me his ears went flat, and his lips parted in acharacteristic grin.
The submarine was withdrawing toward the north, but all the time it wasshelling the open boats, three of them, loaded to the gunwales withsurvivors. Fortunately the small boats presented a rather poor target,which, combined with the bad marksmanship of the Germans preservedtheir occupants from harm; and after a few minutes a blotch of smokeappeared upon the eastern horizon and the U-boat submerged anddisappeared.
All the time the lifeboats had been pulling away from the danger of thesinking liner, and now, though I yelled at the top of my lungs, theyeither did not hear my appeals for help or else did not dare return tosuccor me. Nobs and I had gained some little distan
ce from the shipwhen it rolled completely over and sank. We were caught in the suctiononly enough to be drawn backward a few yards, neither of us beingcarried beneath the surface. I glanced hurriedly about for something towhich to cling. My eyes were directed toward the point at which theliner had disappeared when there came from the depths of the ocean themuffled reverberation of an explosion, and almost simultaneously ageyser of water in which were shattered lifeboats, human bodies, steam,coal, oil, and the flotsam of a liner's deck leaped high above thesurface of the sea--a watery column momentarily marking the grave ofanother ship in this greatest cemetery of the seas.
When the turbulent waters had somewhat subsided and the sea had ceasedto spew up wreckage, I ventured to swim back in search of somethingsubstantial enough to support my weight and that of Nobs as well. Ihad gotten well over the area of the wreck when not a half-dozen yardsahead of me a lifeboat shot bow foremost out of the ocean almost itsentire length to flop down upon its keel with a mighty splash. It musthave been carried far below, held to its mother ship by a single ropewhich finally parted to the enormous strain put upon it. In no otherway can I account for its having leaped so far out of the water--abeneficent circumstance to which I doubtless owe my life, and that ofanother far dearer to me than my own. I say beneficent circumstanceeven in the face of the fact that a fate far more hideous confronts usthan that which we escaped that day; for because of that circumstance Ihave met her whom otherwise I never should have known; I have met andloved her. At least I have had that great happiness in life; nor canCaspak, with all her horrors, expunge that which has been.
So for the thousandth time I thank the strange fate which sent thatlifeboat hurtling upward from the green pit of destruction to which ithad been dragged--sent it far up above the surface, emptying its wateras it rose above the waves, and dropping it upon the surface of thesea, buoyant and safe.
It did not take me long to clamber over its side and drag Nobs in tocomparative safety, and then I glanced around upon the scene of deathand desolation which surrounded us. The sea was littered with wreckageamong which floated the pitiful forms of women and children, buoyed upby their useless lifebelts. Some were torn and mangled; others layrolling quietly to the motion of the sea, their countenances composedand peaceful; others were set in hideous lines of agony or horror.Close to the boat's side floated the figure of a girl. Her face wasturned upward, held above the surface by her life-belt, and was framedin a floating mass of dark and waving hair. She was very beautiful. Ihad never looked upon such perfect features, such a divine moldingwhich was at the same time human--intensely human. It was a facefilled with character and strength and femininity--the face of one whowas created to love and to be loved. The cheeks were flushed to thehue of life and health and vitality, and yet she lay there upon thebosom of the sea, dead. I felt something rise in my throat as I lookeddown upon that radiant vision, and I swore that I should live to avengeher murder.
And then I let my eyes drop once more to the face upon the water, andwhat I saw nearly tumbled me backward into the sea, for the eyes in thedead face had opened; the lips had parted; and one hand was raisedtoward me in a mute appeal for succor. She lived! She was not dead! Ileaned over the boat's side and drew her quickly in to the comparativesafety which God had given me. I removed her life-belt and my soggycoat and made a pillow for her head. I chafed her hands and arms andfeet. I worked over her for an hour, and at last I was rewarded by adeep sigh, and again those great eyes opened and looked into mine.
At that I was all embarrassment. I have never been a ladies' man; atLeland-Stanford I was the butt of the class because of my hopelessimbecility in the presence of a pretty girl; but the men liked me,nevertheless. I was rubbing one of her hands when she opened her eyes,and I dropped it as though it were a red-hot rivet. Those eyes took mein slowly from head to foot; then they wandered slowly around thehorizon marked by the rising and falling gunwales of the lifeboat.They looked at Nobs and softened, and then came back to me filled withquestioning.
"I--I--" I stammered, moving away and stumbling over the next thwart.The vision smiled wanly.
"Aye-aye, sir!" she replied faintly, and again her lips drooped, andher long lashes swept the firm, fair texture of her skin.
"I hope that you are feeling better," I finally managed to say.
"Do you know," she said after a moment of silence, "I have been awakefor a long time! But I did not dare open my eyes. I thought I must bedead, and I was afraid to look, for fear that I should see nothing butblackness about me. I am afraid to die! Tell me what happened afterthe ship went down. I remember all that happened before--oh, but I wishthat I might forget it!" A sob broke her voice. "The beasts!" shewent on after a moment. "And to think that I was to have married oneof them--a lieutenant in the German navy."
Presently she resumed as though she had not ceased speaking. "I wentdown and down and down. I thought I should never cease to sink. Ifelt no particular distress until I suddenly started upward atever-increasing velocity; then my lungs seemed about to burst, and Imust have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing more until Iopened my eyes after listening to a torrent of invective againstGermany and Germans. Tell me, please, all that happened after the shipsank."
I told her, then, as well as I could, all that I had seen--thesubmarine shelling the open boats and all the rest of it. She thoughtit marvelous that we should have been spared in so providential amanner, and I had a pretty speech upon my tongue's end, but lacked thenerve to deliver it. Nobs had come over and nosed his muzzle into herlap, and she stroked his ugly face, and at last she leaned over and puther cheek against his forehead. I have always admired Nobs; but thiswas the first time that it had ever occurred to me that I might wish tobe Nobs. I wondered how he would take it, for he is as unused to womenas I. But he took to it as a duck takes to water. What I lack ofbeing a ladies' man, Nobs certainly makes up for as a ladies' dog. Theold scalawag just closed his eyes and put on one of the softest"sugar-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth" expressions you ever saw and stoodthere taking it and asking for more. It made me jealous.
"You seem fond of dogs," I said.
"I am fond of this dog," she replied.
Whether she meant anything personal in that reply I did not know; but Itook it as personal and it made me feel mighty good.
As we drifted about upon that vast expanse of loneliness it is notstrange that we should quickly become well acquainted. Constantly wescanned the horizon for signs of smoke, venturing guesses as to ourchances of rescue; but darkness settled, and the black night envelopedus without ever the sight of a speck upon the waters.
We were thirsty, hungry, uncomfortable, and cold. Our wet garments haddried but little and I knew that the girl must be in grave danger fromthe exposure to a night of cold and wet upon the water in an open boat,without sufficient clothing and no food. I had managed to bail all thewater out of the boat with cupped hands, ending by mopping the balanceup with my handkerchief--a slow and back-breaking procedure; thus I hadmade a comparatively dry place for the girl to lie down low in thebottom of the boat, where the sides would protect her from the nightwind, and when at last she did so, almost overcome as she was byweakness and fatigue, I threw my wet coat over her further to thwartthe chill. But it was of no avail; as I sat watching her, themoonlight marking out the graceful curves of her slender young body, Isaw her shiver.
"Isn't there something I can do?" I asked. "You can't lie therechilled through all night. Can't you suggest something?"
She shook her head. "We must grin and bear it," she replied after amoment.
Nobbler came and lay down on the thwart beside me, his back against myleg, and I sat staring in dumb misery at the girl, knowing in my heartof hearts that she might die before morning came, for what with theshock and exposure, she had already gone through enough to kill almostany woman. And as I gazed down at her, so small and delicate andhelpless, there was born slowly within my breast a new emotion. It hadnever been there bef
ore; now it will never cease to be there. It mademe almost frantic in my desire to find some way to keep warm thecooling lifeblood in her veins. I was cold myself, though I had almostforgotten it until Nobbler moved and I felt a new sensation of coldalong my leg against which he had lain, and suddenly realized that inthat one spot I had been warm. Like a great light came theunderstanding of a means to warm the girl. Immediately I knelt besideher to put my scheme into practice when suddenly I was overwhelmed withembarrassment. Would she permit it, even if I could muster the courageto suggest it? Then I saw her frame convulse, shudderingly, hermuscles reacting to her rapidly lowering temperature, and castingprudery to the winds, I threw myself down beside her and took her in myarms, pressing her body close to mine.
She drew away suddenly, voicing a little cry of fright, and tried topush me from her.
"Forgive me," I managed to stammer. "It is the only way. You will dieof exposure if you are not warmed, and Nobs and I are the only means wecan command for furnishing warmth." And I held her tightly while Icalled Nobs and bade him lie down at her back. The girl didn'tstruggle any more when she learned my purpose; but she gave two orthree little gasps, and then began to cry softly, burying her face onmy arm, and thus she fell asleep.