Chapter 10

Once a day I descend to the base of the cliff and hunt, and fill

my stomach with water from a clear cold spring. I have three

gourds which I fill with water and take back to my cave against

the long nights. I have fashioned a spear and a bow and arrow,

that I may conserve my ammunition, which is running low. My clothes

are worn to shreds. Tomorrow I shall discard them for leopard-skins

which I have tanned and sewn into a garment strong and warm. It is

cold up here. I have a fire burning and I sit bent over it while

I write; but I am safe here. No other living creature ventures

to the chill summit of the barrier cliffs. I am safe, and I am

alone with my sorrows and my remembered joys--but without hope.

It is said that hope springs eternal in the human breast; but there

is none in mine.

I am about done. Presently I shall fold these pages and push

them into my thermos bottle. I shall cork it and screw the cap

tight, and then I shall hurl it as far out into the sea as my

strength will permit. The wind is off-shore; the tide is running

out; perhaps it will be carried into one of those numerous

ocean-currents which sweep perpetually from pole to pole and

from continent to continent, to be deposited at last upon some

inhabited shore. If fate is kind and this does happen, then, for

God's sake, come and get me!

It was a week ago that I wrote the preceding paragraph, which I

thought would end the written record of my life upon Caprona.

I had paused to put a new point on my quill and stir the crude ink

(which I made by crushing a black variety of berry and mixing it

with water) before attaching my signature, when faintly from the

valley far below came an unmistakable sound which brought me to

my feet, trembling with excitement, to peer eagerly downward from

my dizzy ledge. How full of meaning that sound was to me you may

guess when I tell you that it was the report of a firearm! For a

moment my gaze traversed the landscape beneath until it was

caught and held by four figures near the base of the cliff--a

human figure held at bay by three hyaenodons, those ferocious and

blood-thirsty wild dogs of the Eocene. A fourth beast lay dead

or dying near by.