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

and executors as a sculptor handles his modeling clay. He formed,
fashioned and forced them to his will. He had been a classmate
of Bowen Tyler at college, and a fraternity brother, and before,
that he had been an impoverished and improvident cow-puncher
on one of the great Tyler ranches. Tyler, Sr., had picked him
out of thousands of employees and made him; or rather Tyler had
given him the opportunity, and then Billings had made himself.
Tyler, Jr., as good a judge of men as his father, had taken him
into his friendship, and between the two of them they had turned
out a man who would have died for a Tyler as quickly as he would
have for his flag. Yet there was none of the sycophant or fawner
in Billings; ordinarily I do not wax enthusiastic about men, but
this man Billings comes as close to my conception of what a
regular man should be as any I have ever met. I venture to say
that before Bowen J. Tyler sent him to college he had never
heard the word ethics, and yet I am equally sure that in
all his life he never has transgressed a single tenet of the
code of ethics of an American gentleman.

Ten days after they brought Mr. Tyler's body off the Toreador,
we steamed out into the Pacific in search of Caprona. There were
forty in the party, including the master and crew of the
Toreador; and Billings the indomitable was in command. We had
a long and uninteresting search for Caprona, for the old map
upon which the assistant secretary had finally located it was
most inaccurate. When its grim walls finally rose out of the
ocean's mists before us, we were so far south that it was a
question as to whether we were in the South Pacific or
the Antarctic. Bergs were numerous, and it was very cold.

All during the trip Billings had steadfastly evaded questions
as to how we were to enter Caspak after we had found Caprona.
Bowen Tyler's manuscript had made it perfectly evident to all
that the subterranean outlet of the Caspakian River was the
only means of ingress or egress to the crater world beyond the
impregnable cliffs. Tyler's party had been able to navigate
this channel because their craft had been a submarine; but the
Toreador could as easily have flown over the cliffs as
sailed under them. Jimmy Hollis and Colin Short whiled away
many an hour inventing schemes for surmounting the obstacle
presented by the barrier cliffs, and making ridiculous wagers
as to which one Tom Billings had in mind; but immediately we
were all assured that we had raised Caprona, Billings called
us together.

"There was no use in talking about these things," he said,
"until we found the island. At best it can be but conjecture on
our part until we have been able to scrutinize the coast closely.
Each of us has formed a mental picture of the Capronian seacoast
from Bowen's manuscript, and it is not likely that any two of