Edgar Rice Burroughs The People That Time Forgot: Original Text internet üzerinden ibook

I am forced to admit that even though I had traveled a long distance to place BowenTyler's manuscript in the hands of his father, I was still a trifle skeptical as to its sincerity, since I could not but recall that it had not been many years since Bowen had been one ofthe most notorious practical jokers of his alma mater. The truth was that as I sat in theTyler library at Santa Monica I commenced to feel a trifle foolish and to wish that I hadmerely forwarded the manuscript by express instead of bearing it personally, for I confessthat I do not enjoy being laughed at. I have a well-developed sense of humor-when thejoke is not on me.Mr. Tyler, Sr., was expected almost hourly. The last steamer in from Honolulu hadbrought information of the date of the expected sailing of his yacht Toreador, which wasnow twenty-four hours overdue. Mr. Tyler's assistant secretary, who had been left at home, assured me that there was no doubt but that the Toreador had sailed as promised, since heknew his employer well enough to be positive that nothing short of an act of God wouldprevent his doing what he had planned to do. I was also aware of the fact that the sendingapparatus of the Toreador's wireless equipment was sealed, and that it would only be usedin event of dire necessity. There was, therefore, nothing to do but wait, and we waited.We discussed the manuscript and hazarded guesses concerning it and the strangeevents it narrated. The torpedoing of the liner upon which Bowen J. Tyler, Jr., had takenpassage for France to join the American Ambulance was a well-known fact, and I hadfurther substantiated by wire to the New York office of the owners, that a Miss La Rue hadbeen booked for passage. Further, neither she nor Bowen had been mentioned among thelist of survivors; nor had the body of either of them been recovered.Their rescue by the English tug was entirely probable; the capture of the enemy U-33 bythe tug's crew was not beyond the range of possibility; and their adventures during theperilous cruise which the treachery and deceit of Benson extended until they foundthemselves in the waters of the far South Pacific with depleted stores and poisoned watercasks, while bordering upon the fantastic, appeared logical enough as narrated, event byevent, in the manuscrip