The Land That Time Forgot
steaks for himself.”
We discussed the future and ventured opinions as to what lay before us; but we
could only theorize at best, for none of us knew. If the whole land was
infested by these and similar horrid monsters, life would be impossible upon
it, and we decided that we would only search long enough to find and take
aboard fresh water and such meat and fruits as might be safely procurable and
then retrace our way beneath the cliffs to the open sea.
And so at last we turned into our narrow bunks, hopeful, happy and at peace
with ourselves, our lives and our God, to awaken the following morning
refreshed and still optimistic. We had an easy time getting away—as we learned
later, because the saurians do not commence to feed until late in the morning.
From noon to midnight their curve of activity is at its height, while from dawn
to about nine o’clock it is lowest. As a matter of fact, we didn’t see one of
them all the time we were getting under way, though I had the cannon raised to
the deck and manned against an assault. I hoped, but I was none too sure, that
shells might discourage them. The trees were full of monkeys of all sizes and
shades, and once we thought we saw a manlike creature watching us from the
depth of the forest.
Shortly after we resumed our course upstream, we saw the mouth of another and
smaller river emptying into the main channel from the south—that is, upon our
right; and almost immediately after we came upon a large island five or six
miles in length; and at fifty miles there was a still larger river than the
last coming in from the northwest, the course of the main stream having now
changed to northeast by southwest. The water was quite free from reptiles, and
the vegetation upon the banks of the river had altered to more open and
parklike forest, with eucalyptus and acacia mingled with a scattering of tree
ferns, as though two distinct periods of geologic time had overlapped and
merged. The grass, too, was less flowering, though there were still gorgeous
patches mottling the greensward; and lastly, the fauna was less multitudinous.
Six or seven miles farther, and the river widened considerably; before us
opened an expanse of water to the farther horizon, and then we sailed out upon
an inland sea so large that only a shore-line upon our side was visible to us.
The waters all about us were alive with life. There were still a few reptiles;
but there were fish by the thousands, by the millions.
The water of the inland sea was very warm, almost hot, and the atmosphere was
hot and heavy above it. It seemed strange that beyond the buttressed walls of
Caprona icebergs floated and the south wind was biting, for only a gentle
breeze moved across the face of these living waters, and that was damp and
warm. Gradually, we commenced to divest ourselves of our clothing, retaining
only sufficient for modesty; but the sun was not hot. It was more the heat of a
steam-room than of an oven.
We coasted up the shore of the lake in a north-westerly direction, sounding all
the time. We found the lake deep and the bottom rocky and steeply shelving
toward the center, and once when I moved straight out from shore to take other
soundings we could find no bottom whatsoever. In open spaces along the shore we
caught occasional glimpses of the distant cliffs, and here they appeared only a
trifle less precipitous than those which bound Caprona on the seaward side. My
theory is that in a far distant era Caprona was a mighty mountain—perhaps the
world’s mightiest mountain—and that in some titanic eruption volcanic action
blew off the entire crest, blew thousands of feet of the mountain upward and
outward and onto the surrounding continent, leaving a great crater; and then,
possibly, the continent sank as ancient continents have been known to do,
leaving only the summit of Caprona above the sea. The encircling walls, the
central lake, the hot springs which feed the lake, all point to such a
conclusion, and the fauna and the flora bear indisputable evidence that Caprona
was once part of some great land-mass.
As we cruised up along the coast, the landscape continued a more or less open
forest, with here and there a small plain where we saw animals grazing. With my
glass I could make out a species of large red deer, some antelope and what
appeared to be a species of horse; and once I saw the shaggy form of what might
have been a monstrous bison. Here was game a plenty! There seemed little danger
of starving upon Caprona. The game, however, seemed wary; for the instant the
animals discovered us, they threw up their heads and tails and went cavorting
off, those farther inland following the example of the others until all were
lost in the mazes of the distant forest. Only the great, shaggy ox stood his
ground. With lowered head he watched us until we had passed, and then continued
feeding.
About twenty miles up the coast from the mouth of the river we encountered low
cliffs of sandstone, broken and tortured evidence of the great upheaval which
had torn Caprona asunder in the past, intermingling upon a common level the
rock formations of widely separated eras, fusing some and leaving others
untouched.
We ran along beside them for a matter of ten miles, arriving off a broad cleft
which led into what appeared to be another lake. As we were in search of pure
water, we did not wish to overlook any portion of the coast, and so after
sounding and finding that we had ample depth, I ran the _U_-33 between
head-lands into as pretty a landlocked harbor as sailormen could care to see,
with good water right up to within a few yards of the shore. As we cruised
slowly along, two of the boches again saw what they believed to be a man, or
manlike creature, watching us from a fringe of trees a hundred yards inland,
and shortly after we discovered the mouth of a small stream emptying into the
bay. It was the first stream we had found since leaving the river, and I at
once made preparations to test its water. To land, it would be necessary to run
the _U_-33 close in to the shore, at least as close as we could, for even
these waters were infested, though, not so thickly, by savage reptiles. I
ordered sufficient water let into the diving-tanks to lower us about a foot,
and then I ran the bow slowly toward the shore, confident that should we run
aground, we still had sufficient lifting force to free us when the water should
be pumped out of the tanks; but the bow nosed its way gently into the reeds and
touched the shore with the keel still clear.
My men were all armed now with both rifles and pistols, each having plenty of
ammunition. I ordered one of the Germans ashore with a line, and sent two of my
own men to guard him, for from what little we had seen of Caprona, or Caspak as
we learned later to call the interior, we realized that any instant some new
and terrible danger might confront us. The line was made fast to a small tree,
and at the same time I had the stern anchor dropped.
As soon as the boche and his guard were aboard again, I called all hands on
deck, including von Schoenvorts, and there I explained to them that the time
had come for us to enter into some sort of an agreement among ourselves that
would relieve us of the annoyance and embarrassment of being divided into two
antagonistic parts—prisoners and captors. I told them that it was obvious our
very existence depended upon our unity of action, that we were to all intent
and purpose entering a new world as far from the seat and causes of our own
world-war as if millions of miles of space and eons of time separated us from
our past lives and habitations.
“There is no reason why we should carry our racial and political hatreds into
Caprona,” I insisted. “The Germans among us might kill all the English, or the
English might kill the last German, without affecting in the slightest degree
either the outcome of even the smallest skirmish upon the western front or the
opinion of a single individual in any belligerent or neutral country. I
therefore put the issue squarely to you all; shall we bury our animosities and
work together with and for one another while we remain upon Caprona, or must we
continue thus divided and but half armed, possibly until death has claimed the
last of us? And let me tell you, if you have not already realized it, the
chances are a thousand to one that not one of us ever will see the outside
world again. We are safe now in the matter of food and water; we could
provision the _U_-33 for a long cruise; but we are practically out of
fuel, and without fuel we cannot hope to reach the ocean, as only a submarine
can pass through the barrier cliffs. What is your answer?” I turned toward von
Schoenvorts.
He eyed me in that disagreeable way of his and demanded to know, in case they
accepted my suggestion, what their status would be in event of our finding a
way to escape with the _U_-33. I replied that I felt that if we had all
worked loyally together we should leave Caprona upon a common footing, and to
that end I suggested that should the remote possibility of our escape in the
submarine develop into reality, we should then immediately make for the nearest
neutral port and give ourselves into the hands of the authorities, when we
should all probably be interned for the duration of the war. To my surprise he
agreed that this was fair and told me that they would accept my conditions and
that I could depend upon their loyalty to the common cause.
I thanked him and then addressed each one of his men individually, and each
gave me his word that he would abide by all that I had outlined. It was further
understood that we were to act as a military organization under military rules
and discipline—I as commander, with Bradley as my first lieutenant and Olson as
my second, in command of the Englishmen; while von Schoenvorts was to act as an
additional second lieutenant and have charge of his own men. The four of us
were to constitute a military court under which men might be tried and
sentenced to punishment for infraction of military rules and discipline, even
to the passing of the death-sentence.
I then had arms and ammunition issued to the Germans, and leaving Bradley and
five men to guard the _U_-33, the balance of us went ashore. The first
thing we did was to taste the water of the little stream—which, to our delight,
we found sweet, pure and cold. This stream was entirely free from dangerous
reptiles, because, as I later discovered, they became immediately dormant when
subjected to a much lower temperature than 70 degrees Fahrenheit. They dislike
cold water and keep as far away from it as possible. There were countless
brook-trout here, and deep holes that invited us to bathe, and along the bank
of the stream were trees bearing a close resemblance to ash and beech and oak,
their characteristics evidently induced by the lower temperature of the air
above the cold water and by the fact that their roots were watered by the water
from the stream rather than from the warm springs which we afterward found in
such abundance elsewhere.
Our first concern was to fill the water tanks of the _U_-33 with fresh
water, and that having been accomplished, we set out to hunt for game and
explore inland for a short distance. Olson, von Schoenvorts, two Englishmen and
two Germans accompanied me, leaving ten to guard the ship and the girl. I had
intended leaving Nobs behind, but he got away and joined me and was so happy
over it that I hadn’t the heart to send him back. We followed the stream upward
through a beautiful country for about five miles, and then came upon its source
in a little boulder-strewn clearing. From among the rocks bubbled fully twenty
ice-cold springs. North of the clearing rose sandstone cliffs to a height of