"Burroughs, Edgar Rice - The People That Time Forgot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

even guess. Their lives, too, might be sacrificed to my
suicidal foolishness. That I was doomed seemed inevitable; but
I can honestly say that the fate of my friends concerned me
more greatly than did my own.

Beyond the barrier cliffs my party was even now nervously
awaiting my return. Presently apprehension and fear would
claim them--and they would never know! They would attempt to
scale the cliffs--of that I was sure; but I was not so positive
that they would succeed; and after a while they would turn
back, what there were left of them, and go sadly and mournfully
upon their return journey to home. Home! I set my jaws and
tried to forget the word, for I knew that I should never again
see home.

And what of Bowen and his girl? I had doomed them too. They would
never even know that an attempt had been made to rescue them.
If they still lived, they might some day come upon the ruined
remnants of this great plane hanging in its lofty sepulcher and
hazard vain guesses and be filled with wonder; but they would
never know; and I could not but be glad that they would not
know that Tom Billings had sealed their death-warrants by his
criminal selfishness.

All these useless regrets were getting me in a bad way; but at
last I shook myself and tried to put such things out of my mind
and take hold of conditions as they existed and do my level
best to wrest victory from defeat. I was badly shaken up and
bruised, but considered myself mighty lucky to escape with my life.
The plane hung at a precarious angle, so that it was with
difficulty and considerable danger that I climbed from it into
the tree and then to the ground.

My predicament was grave. Between me and my friends lay an
inland sea fully sixty miles wide at this point and an
estimated land-distance of some three hundred miles around the
northern end of the sea, through such hideous dangers as I am
perfectly free to admit had me pretty well buffaloed. I had
seen quite enough of Caspak this day to assure me that Bowen
had in no way exaggerated its perils. As a matter of fact, I
am inclined to believe that he had become so accustomed to them
before he started upon his manuscript that he rather slighted them.
As I stood there beneath that tree--a tree which should have been
part of a coal-bed countless ages since--and looked out across
a sea teeming with frightful life--life which should have been
fossil before God conceived of Adam--I would not have given a
minim of stale beer for my chances of ever seeing my friends or
the outside world again; yet then and there I swore to fight my
way as far through this hideous land as circumstances would permit.
I had plenty of ammunition, an automatic pistol and a heavy rifle--