Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 1 — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Piouty La PY ¢ : SS i ae eS ae ’ q wt é + « > - 4 as | 96 with the dying man and wheeled toward Bradley. “Here I am,” he said. “Do with me as you like.” “You will not be punished,” said Bradley. “There are four of you left—if you four want to come along and work with us, we will take you; but you will come as prisoners.” “Tt suits me,” said Plesser. ‘Now that the cap- tain-lieutenant is dead you need not fear us. All our lives we have known nothing but to obey his class. If I had not killed him, I suppose I would be fool enough to obey him again; but he is dead. Now we will obey you—we must obey some one.” “And you?” Bradley turned to the other sur- vivors of the original crew ‘of the U-33. Each promised obedience. The two dead Germans were buried in a single grave, and then the party boarded the submarine and stowed away the oil. Here Bradley told the men what had befallen him since the night of September 14th when he had disappeared so mysteriously from the camp upon the plateau. Now he learned for the first time that Bowen P. Tyler, Jr., and Miss La Rue had been missing even longer than he and that no faintest trace of them had been discovered. Olson told him of how the Germans had returned - and waited in ambush for them outside the fort, capturing them that they might be used to assist in the work of refining the oil and later in manning the U-33, and Plesser told briefly of the experiences of the German crew under von Schoenvorts since they had escaped from Caspak months before— of how they lost their bearings after having been shelled by ships they had attempted to speak to farther north and how at last with provisions gone and fuel almost exhausted they had sought and at last found, more by accident than design, the mys- terious island they had once been so glad to leave behind. “Now,” announced Bradley, “we'll plan for the future. The boat has fuel, provisions and water for a month, I believe you said, Plesser; there are ten of us to man it. We have a last sad duty here —we must search for Miss La Rue and Mr. Tyler. I say a sad duty because we know that we shall not find them; but it is none the less our duty to comb the shore-line, firing signal shells at inter- vals, that we at least may leave finally with full knowledge that we have done all that men might do to locate them.” None di§sented from this conviction, nor was there a voice raised in protest against the plan to at least make assurance doubly sure before quit- ting Caspak forever. The Beautiful Co-Tan ND so they started, cruising slowly up the coast and firing an occasional shot from the gun. Often the vessel was brought to a stop, and always there were anxious eyes scanning the shore for an answering signal. Late in the afternoon they caught sight of a number of Band-lu war- riors but when the .vessel approached the shore and the natives realized that human beings stood upon the back of the strange monster of the sea, =a} Me ¥ > * . ' - ~ 2 - e ie Se oP ae a - @ 4 a. ie . 4 as i ome AMAZING STORIES _ away from you—for you are going with me, & they fled in terror before Bradley could come within hailing distance. That night they dropped anchor at the mouth of a sluggish stream whose warm waters swarmed with millions of tiny tadpolelike organisms— minute human spawn starting on their precarious journey from some inland pool toward “the be- ginning”—a journey which one in millions, per- haps, might survive to complete. Already, almost at the inception of life they were being greeted by thousands of voracious mouths as fish and reptiles of many kinds fought to devour them, the while other and larger creatures pursued the devourers, to be, in turn, preyed upon by some other of the countless forms that inhabit the deeps of Caprona’s frightful sea. The second day was practically a repetition of the first. They moved very slowly with frequent stops, and once they landed in the Kro-lu country to hunt. Here they were attacked by the bow- and-arrow men, whom they could not persuade to palaver with them. So belligerent were the natives - that it became necessary to fire into them in order to escape their persistent and ferocious attentions. “What chance,” asked Bradley, as they were re- turning to the boat with their game, “could Tyler and Miss La Rue have had among such as these?” But they continued on their fruitless quest, and the third day, after cruising along the shore of ‘a deep inlet, they passed a line of lofty cliffs that formed the southern shore of the inlet and rounded a sharp promontory about noon. Co-Tan and Bradley were on deck alone, and as the new shore- line appeared beyond the point, the girl gave an exclamation of joy and seized the man’s hand in hers. “Oh, look!” she cried. “The Galu country! The Galu country! It is my country that I never thought to see again.” S “You are glad to come again, Co-Tan?” asked Bradley. “Oh, so glad!” she cried. “And you will come with me to my people? We may live here among them, and you will be a great warrior—oh, when Jor dies you may even be chief, for there is none so mighty as my warrior. You will come?” Bradley shook his head. “I cannot, little Co- Tan,” he answered. “My country needs me, and I must go back. Maybe some day I shall return. You will not forget me, Co-Tan?” She looked at him in wide-eyed wonder. “You are going away from me?” she asked in a very small voice. “You are going away from Co-Tan?” Bradley looked down upon the little bowed head. He felt the soft cheek against his bare arm; and he felt something else there too—hot drops of mois- ture that ran down to his very finger-tips and splashed upon the deck—tiny little splashes, but each one wrung from a woman’s heart. He bent low and raised the tear-stained face to his own. “No, Co-Tan,” he said, “I am not going You are going back to my own country to be my wife. Tell me that you will, Co-Tan.” And: he bent-still lower from his height and kissed ‘her lips. did he need more than the wonderful’ new: light in her eyes to tell him that she would: go to the comichooks.c Nor 93 Ata ee yar ari Ors ee ~