The Lost Continent
For an instant he stood silent and motionless as one of the mangy
effigies at home, but only for an instant. Then, with a most ferocious
roar, and without the slightest hesitancy or warning, he charged upon
me.
He forsook the prey already dead beneath him for the pleasures of the
delectable tidbit, man. From the remorselessness with which the great
Carnivora of modern England hunted man, I am constrained to believe
that, whatever their appetites in times past, they have cultivated a
gruesome taste for human flesh.
As I threw my rifle to my shoulder, I thanked God, the ancient God of
my ancestors, that I had replaced the hard-jacketed bullets in my
weapon with soft-nosed projectiles, for though this was my first
experience with Felis leo, I knew the moment that I faced that charge
that even my wonderfully perfected firearm would be as futile as a
peashooter unless I chanced to place my first bullet in a vital spot.
Unless you had seen it you could not believe credible the speed of a
charging lion. Apparently the animal is not built for speed, nor can he
maintain it for long. But for a matter of forty or fifty yards there
is, I believe, no animal on earth that can overtake him.
Like a bolt he bore down upon me, but, fortunately for me, I did not
lose my head. I guessed that no bullet would kill him instantly. I
doubted that I could pierce his skull. There was hope, though, in
finding his heart through his exposed chest, or, better yet, of
breaking his shoulder or foreleg, and bringing him up long enough to
pump more bullets into him and finish him.
I covered his left shoulder and pulled the trigger as he was almost
upon me. It stopped him. With a terrific howl of pain and rage, the
brute rolled over and over upon the ground almost to my feet. As he
came I pumped two more bullets into him, and as he struggled to rise,
clawing viciously at me, I put a bullet in his spine.
That finished him, and I am free to admit that I was mighty glad of it.
There was a great tree close behind me, and, stepping within its shade,
I leaned against it, wiping the perspiration from my face, for the day
was hot, and the exertion and excitement left me exhausted.
I stood there, resting, for a moment, preparatory to turning and
retracing my steps to the launch, when, without warning, something
whizzed through space straight toward me. There was a dull thud of
impact as it struck the tree, and as I dodged to one side and turned to
look at the thing I saw a heavy spear imbedded in the wood not three
inches from where my head had been.
The thing had come from a little to one side of me, and, without
waiting to investigate at the instant, I leaped behind the tree, and,
circling it, peered around the other side to get a sight of my would-be
murderer.
This time I was pitted against men—the spear told me that all too
plainly—but so long as they didn’t take me unawares or from behind I
had little fear of them.
Cautiously I edged about the far side of the trees until I could obtain
a view of the spot from which the spear must have come, and when I did
I saw the head of a man just emerging from behind a bush.
The fellow was quite similar in type to those I had seen upon the Isle
of Wight. He was hairy and unkempt, and as he finally stepped into view
I saw that he was garbed in the same primitive fashion.
He stood for a moment gazing about in search of me, and then he
advanced. As he did so a number of others, precisely like him, stepped
from the concealing verdure of nearby bushes and followed in his wake.
Keeping the trees between them and me, I ran back a short distance
until I found a clump of underbrush that would effectually conceal me,
for I wished to discover the strength of the party and its armament
before attempting to parley with it.
The useless destruction of any of these poor creatures was the farthest
idea from my mind. I should have liked to have spoken with them, but I
did not care to risk having to use my high-powered rifle upon them
other than in the last extremity.
Once in my new place of concealment, I watched them as they approached
the tree. There were about thirty men in the party and one woman—a girl
whose hands seemed to be bound behind her and who was being pulled
along by two of the men.
They came forward warily, peering cautiously into every bush and
halting often. At the body of the lion, they paused, and I could see
from their gesticulations and the higher pitch of their voices that
they were much excited over my kill.
But presently they resumed their search for me, and as they advanced I
became suddenly aware of the unnecessary brutality with which the
girl’s guards were treating her. She stumbled once, not far from my
place of concealment, and after the balance of the party had passed me.
As she did so one of the men at her side jerked her roughly to her feet
and struck her across the mouth with his fist.
Instantly my blood boiled, and forgetting every consideration of
caution, I leaped from my concealment, and, springing to the manl’s
side, felled him with a blow.
So unexpected had been my act that it found him and his fellow
unprepared; but instantly the latter drew the knife that protruded from
his belt and lunged viciously at me, at the same time giving voice to a
wild cry of alarm.
The girl shrank back at sight of me, her eyes wide in astonishment, and
then my antagonist was upon me. I parried his first blow with my
forearm, at the same time delivering a powerful blow to his jaw that
sent him reeling back; but he was at me again in an instant, though in
the brief interim I had time to draw my revolver.
I saw his companion crawling slowly to his feet, and the others of the
party racing down upon me. There was no time to argue now, other than
with the weapons we wore, and so, as the fellow lunged at me again with
the wicked-looking knife, I covered his heart and pulled the trigger.
Without a sound, he slipped to the earth, and then I turned the weapon
upon the other guard, who was now about to attack me. He, too,
collapsed, and I was alone with the astonished girl.
The balance of the party was some twenty paces from us, but coming
rapidly. I seized her arm and drew her after me behind a nearby tree,
for I had seen that with both their comrades down the others were
preparing to launch their spears.
With the girl safe behind the tree, I stepped out in sight of the
advancing foe, shouting to them that I was no enemy, and that they
should halt and listen to me. But for answer they only yelled in
derision and launched a couple of spears at me, both of which missed.
I saw then that I must fight, yet still I hated to slay them, and it
was only as a final resort that I dropped two of them with my rifle,
bringing the others to a temporary halt. Again, I appealed to them to
desist. But they only mistook my solicitude for them for fear, and,
with shouts of rage and derision, leaped forward once again to
overwhelm me.
It was now quite evident that I must punish them severely,
or—myself—die and relinquish the girl once more to her captors. Neither
of these things had I the slightest notion of doing, and so I again
stepped from behind the tree, and, with all the care and deliberation
of target practice, I commenced picking off the foremost of my
assailants.
One by one the wild men dropped, yet on came the others, fierce and
vengeful, until, only a few remaining, these seemed to realize the
futility of combating my modern weapon with their primitive spears,
and, still howling wrathfully, withdrew toward the west.
Now, for the first time, I had an opportunity to turn my attention
toward the girl, who had stood, silent and motionless, behind me as I
pumped death into my enemies and hers from my automatic rifle.
She was of medium height, well formed, and with fine, clear-cut
features. Her forehead was high, and her eyes both intelligent and
beautiful. Exposure to the sun had browned a smooth and velvety skin to
a shade which seemed to enhance rather than mar an altogether lovely
picture of youthful femininity.
A trace of apprehension marked her expression—I cannot call it fear
since I have learned to know her—and astonishment was still apparent in
her eyes. She stood quite erect, her hands still bound behind her, and
met my gaze with level, proud return.
“What language do you speak?” I asked. “Do you understand mine?”
“Yes,” she replied. “It is similar to my own. I am Grabritin. What are
you?”
“I am a Pan-American,” I answered. She shook her head. “What is that?”
I pointed toward the west. “Far away, across the ocean.”
Her expression altered a trifle. A slight frown contracted her brow.
The expression of apprehension deepened.
“Take off your cap,” she said, and when, to humor her strange request,
I did as she bid, she appeared relieved. Then she edged to one side and
leaned over seemingly to peer behind me. I turned quickly to see what
she discovered, but finding nothing, wheeled about to see that her
expression was once more altered.
“You are not from there?” and she pointed toward the east. It was a
half question. “You are not from across the water there?”
“No,” I assured her. “I am from Pan-America, far away to the west. Have
you ever heard of Pan-America?”
She shook her head in negation. “I do not care where you are from,” she
explained, “if you are not from there, and I am sure you are not, for
the men from there have horns and tails.”
It was with difficulty that I restrained a smile.
“Who are the men from there?” I asked.
“They are bad men,” she replied. “Some of my people do not believe that
there are such creatures. But we have a legend—a very old, old legend,
that once the men from there came across to Grabritin. They came upon
the water, and under the water, and even in the air. They came in great
numbers, so that they rolled across the land like a great gray fog.
They brought with them thunder and lightning and smoke that killed, and
they fell upon us and slew our people by the thousands and the hundreds
of thousands. But at last we drove them back to the waterl’s edge, back
into the sea, where many were drowned. Some escaped, and these our
people followed—men, women, and even children, we followed them back.
That is all. The legend says our people never returned. Maybe they were
all killed. Maybe they are still there. But this, also, is in the
legend, that as we drove the men back across the water they swore that
they would return, and that when they left our shores they would leave
no human being alive behind them. I was afraid that you were from
there.”
“By what name were these men called?” I asked.
“We call them only the ‘men from there,’” she replied, pointing toward
the east. “I have never heard that they had another name.”
In the light of what I knew of ancient history, it was not difficult
for me to guess the nationality of those she described simply as “the
men from over there.” But what utter and appalling devastation the
Great War must have wrought to have erased not only every sign of
civilization from the face of this great land, but even the name of the
enemy from the knowledge and language of the people.
I could only account for it on the hypothesis that the country had been
entirely depopulated except for a few scattered and forgotten children,
who, in some marvelous manner, had been preserved by Providence to
re-populate the land. These children had, doubtless, been too young to
retain in their memories to transmit to their children any but the
vaguest suggestion of the cataclysm which had overwhelmed their
parents.
Professor Cortoran, since my return to Pan-America, has suggested
another theory which is not entirely without claim to serious