The People the Time forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs (best free ereader .TXT) 📖

extinct progenitors, or descendants, of Western
Europe.

Should any of my friends chance to read the story of my adventures
upon Caprona, I hope they will not be bored by these diversions,
and if they are, I can only say that I am writing my memoirs for
my own edification and therefore setting down those things which
interested me particularly at the time. I have no desire that
the general public should ever have access to these pages; but it
is possible that my friends may, and also certain savants who are
interested; and to them, while I do not apologize for my philosophizing,
I humbly explain that they are witnessing the groupings of a
finite mind after the infinite, the search for explanations of the
inexplicable.

In a far recess of the cavern my captors bade me halt. Again
my hands were secured, and this time my feet as well. During the
operation they questioned me, and I was mighty glad that the marked
similarity between the various tribal tongues of Caspak enabled us
to understand each other perfectly, even though they were unable
to believe or even to comprehend the truth of my origin and the
circumstances of my advent in Caspak; and finally they left me
saying that they would come for me before the dance of death upon
the morrow. Before they departed with their torches, I saw that
I had not been conducted to the farthest extremity of the cavern,
for a dark and gloomy corridor led beyond my prison room into the
heart of the cliff.

I could not but marvel at the immensity of this great underground
grotto. Already I had traversed several hundred yards of it, from
many points of which other corridors diverged. The whole cliff
must be honeycombed with apartments and passages of which this
community occupied but a comparatively small part, so that the
possibility of the more remote passages being the lair of savage
beasts that have other means of ingress and egress than that used
by the Band-lu filled me with dire forebodings.

I believe that I am not ordinarily hysterically apprehensive; yet
I must confess that under the conditions with which I was confronted,
I felt my nerves to be somewhat shaken. On the morrow I was to die
some sort of nameless death for the diversion of a savage horde,
but the morrow held fewer terrors for me than the present, and
I submit to any fair-minded man if it is not a terrifying thing
to lie bound hand and foot in the Stygian blackness of an immense
cave peopled by unknown dangers in a land overrun by hideous beasts
and reptiles of the greatest ferocity. At any moment, perhaps at
this very moment, some silent-footed beast of prey might catch my
scent where it laired in some contiguous passage, and might creep
stealthily upon me. I craned my neck about, and stared through the
inky darkness for the twin spots of blazing hate which I knew would
herald the coming of my executioner. So real were the imaginings
of my overwrought brain that I broke into a cold sweat in absolute
conviction that some beast was close before me; yet the hours
dragged, and no sound broke the grave-like stillness of the cavern.

During that period of eternity many events of my life passed before
my mental vision, a vast parade of friends and occurrences which
would be blotted out forever on the morrow. I cursed myself for
the foolish act which had taken me from the search-party that so
depended upon me, and I wondered what progress, if any, they had
made. Were they still beyond the barrier cliffs, awaiting my return?
Or had they found a way into Caspak? I felt that the latter would
be the truth, for the party was not made up of men easily turned
from a purpose. Quite probable it was that they were already
searching for me; but that they would ever find a trace of me
I doubted. Long since, had I come to the conclusion that it was
beyond human prowess to circle the shores of the inland sea of Caspak
in the face of the myriad menaces which lurked in every shadow by
day and by night. Long since, had I given up any hope of reaching
the point where I had made my entry into the country, and so I was
now equally convinced that our entire expedition had been worse
than futile before ever it was conceived, since Bowen J. Tyler
and his wife could not by any possibility have survived during all
these long months; no more could Bradley and his party of seamen
be yet in existence. If the superior force and equipment of my
party enabled them to circle the north end of the sea, they might
some day come upon the broken wreck of my plane hanging in the
great tree to the south; but long before that, my bones would be
added to the litter upon the floor of this mighty cavern.

And through all my thoughts, real and fanciful, moved the image of
a perfect girl, clear-eyed and strong and straight and beautiful,
with the carriage of a queen and the supple, undulating grace of
a leopard. Though I loved my friends, their fate seemed of less
importance to me than the fate of this little barbarian stranger
for whom, I had convinced myself many a time, I felt no greater
sentiment than passing friendship for a fellow-wayfarer in this
land of horrors. Yet I so worried and fretted about her and her
future that at last I quite forgot my own predicament, though I
still struggled intermittently with bonds in vain endeavor to free
myself; as much, however, that I might hasten to her protection as
that I might escape the fate which had been planned for me. And
while I was thus engaged and had for the moment forgotten my
apprehensions concerning prowling beasts, I was startled into tense
silence by a distinct and unmistakable sound coming from the dark
corridor farther toward the heart of the cliff--the sound of padded
feet moving stealthily in my direction.

I believe that never before in all my life, even amidst the terrors
of childhood nights, have I suffered such a sensation of extreme
horror as I did that moment in which I realized that I must lie
bound and helpless while some horrid beast of prey crept upon me
to devour me in that utter darkness of the Band-lu pits of Caspak.
I reeked with cold sweat, and my flesh crawled--I could feel it
crawl. If ever I came nearer to abject cowardice, I do not recall
the instance; and yet it was not that I was afraid to die, for I
had long since given myself up as lost--a few days of Caspak must
impress anyone with the utter nothingness of life. The waters,
the land, the air teem with it, and always it is being devoured
by some other form of life. Life is the cheapest thing in Caspak,
as it is the cheapest thing on earth and, doubtless, the cheapest
cosmic production. No, I was not afraid to die; in fact, I
prayed for death, that I might be relieved of the frightfulness of
the interval of life which remained to me--the waiting, the awful
waiting, for that fearsome beast to reach me and to strike.

Presently it was so close that I could hear its breathing, and then
it touched me and leaped quickly back as though it had come upon
me unexpectedly. For long moments no sound broke the sepulchral
silence of the cave. Then I heard a movement on the part of the
creature near me, and again it touched me, and I felt something
like a hairless hand pass over my face and down until it touched
the collar of my flannel shirt. And then, subdued, but filled with
pent emotion, a voice cried: "Tom!"

I think I nearly fainted, so great was the reaction. "Ajor!" I
managed to say. "Ajor, my girl, can it be you?"

"Oh, Tom!" she cried again in a trembly little voice and flung
herself upon me, sobbing softly. I had not known that Ajor could
cry.

As she cut away my bonds, she told me that from the entrance to
our cave she had seen the Band-lu coming out of the forest with
me, and she had followed until they took me into the cave, which
she had seen was upon the opposite side of the cliff in which ours
was located; and then, knowing that she could do nothing for me
until after the Band-lu slept, she had hastened to return to our
cave. With difficulty she had reached it, after having been stalked
by a cave-lion and almost seized. I trembled at the risk she had
run.

It had been her intention to wait until after midnight, when most
of the carnivora would have made their kills, and then attempt
to reach the cave in which I was imprisoned and rescue me. She
explained that with my rifle and pistol--both of which she assured
me she could use, having watched me so many times--she planned
upon frightening the Band-lu and forcing them to give me up. Brave
little girl! She would have risked her life willingly to save me.
But some time after she reached our cave she heard voices from
the far recesses within, and immediately concluded that we had but
found another entrance to the caves which the Band-lu occupied upon
the other face of the cliff. Then she had set out through those
winding passages and in total darkness had groped her way, guided
solely by a marvelous sense of direction, to where I lay. She had
had to proceed with utmost caution lest she fall into some abyss
in the darkness and in truth she had thrice come upon sheer drops
and had been forced to take the most frightful risks to pass them.
I shudder even now as I contemplate what this girl passed through
for my sake and how she enhanced her peril in loading herself down
with the weight of my arms and ammunition and the awkwardness of
the long rifle which she was unaccustomed to bearing.

I could have knelt and kissed her hand in reverence and gratitude;
nor am I ashamed to say that that is precisely what I did after
I had been freed from my bonds and heard the story of her trials.
Brave little Ajor! Wonder-girl out of the dim, unthinkable past!
Never before had she been kissed; but she seemed to sense something
of the meaning of the new caress, for she leaned forward in the
dark and pressed her own lips to my forehead. A sudden urge surged
through me to seize her and strain her to my bosom and cover her
hot young lips with the kisses of a real love, but I did not do so,
for I knew that I did not love her; and to have kissed her thus,
with passion, would have been to inflict a great wrong upon her
who had offered her life for mine.

No, Ajor should be as safe with me as with her own mother, if she
had one, which I was inclined to doubt, even though she told me that
she had once been a babe and hidden by her mother. I had come to
doubt if there was such a thing as a mother in Caspak, a mother
such as we know. From the Bo-lu to