while bordering upon the fantastic, appeared logical enough as
narrated, event by event, in the manuscript.
Caprona has always been considered a more or less mythical
land, though it is vouched for by an eminent navigator of the
eighteenth century; but Bowen's narrative made it seem very real,
however many miles of trackless ocean lay between us and it.
Yes, the narrative had us guessing. We were agreed that it was
most improbable; but neither of us could say that anything which
it contained was beyond the range of possibility. The weird
flora and fauna of Caspak were as possible under the thick,
warm atmospheric conditions of the super-heated crater as
they were in the Mesozoic era under almost exactly similar
conditions, which were then probably world-wide. The assistant
secretary had heard of Caproni and his discoveries, but admitted
that he never had taken much stock in the one nor the other.
We were agreed that the one statement most difficult of
explanation was that which reported the entire absence of human
young among the various tribes which Tyler had had intercourse.
This was the one irreconcilable statement of the manuscript.
A world of adults! It was impossible.
We speculated upon the probable fate of Bradley and his party
of English sailors. Tyler had found the graves of two of them;
how many more might have perished! And Miss La Rue--could a
young girl long have survived the horrors of Caspak after
having been separated from all of her own kind? The assistant
secretary wondered if Nobs still was with her, and then we both
smiled at this tacit acceptance of the truth of the whole
uncanny tale:
"I suppose I'm a fool," remarked the assistant secretary; "but
by George, I can't help believing it, and I can see that girl
now, with the big Airedale at her side protecting her from the
terrors of a million years ago. I can visualize the entire
scene--the apelike Grimaldi men huddled in their filthy caves;
the huge pterodactyls soaring through the heavy air upon their
bat-like wings; the mighty dinosaurs moving their clumsy hulks
beneath the dark shadows of preglacial forests--the dragons
which we considered myths until science taught us that they
were the true recollections of the first man, handed down
through countless ages by word of mouth from father to son out
of the unrecorded dawn of humanity."
"It is stupendous--if true," I replied. "And to think that
possibly they are still there--Tyler and Miss La
Rue--surrounded by hideous dangers, and that possibly Bradley
still lives, and some of his party! I can't help hoping all
the time that Bowen and the girl have found the others; the
last Bowen knew of them, there were six left, all told--the
