The Lost World MEGAPACK®. Lin Carter

his strong bronzed body into the tossing waves of the Sogar-Jad.

      As the half-naked, brawny body of the Cro-Magnon warrior clove the waves of the Sogar-Jad, heading directly toward the sides of the great pirate galley, the sailors along the rail caught sight of their unexpected visitor and called the attention of their captain, who had just come aboard with his naked, and furiously struggling, captive.

      “O reis Kâiradine! Behold!” they shouted, pointing.

      The hawklike gaze of the Barbaray pirate narrowed; he could not help admiring the reckless courage of the savage boy to strive single-handedly to rescue his jungle sweetheart. But his numbers were already depleted by battle with the Apemen of Kor and other savage peoples he had encounterd during his voyage.

      He raised his jewelled hand carelessly, and at the signal his pirates quickly unlimbered their horn bows, nocking barbed and deadly arrows and drawing the feathered shafts tight.

      Oblivious to his danger, the young warrior of Thandar swam to the side of the pirate craft, and had just reached it when the misty waves of the sea were ripped and torn by a deadly rain of hissing arrows.

      The waves burst into seething froth as Jorn kicked and struggled. Then his body sank beneath the waters of the prehistoric sea, and vanished from sight.

      “Cast off, my corsairs!” cried Kâiradine Redbeard. And as the anchor rose dripping from the Sogar-Jad and strong hands tugged the sails into position, and the sharp keel of the galley swung about for El-Cazar, the Barbary pirate seized up his helpless captive and bore within his cabin the naked form of Darya of Thandar.

      The cabin door thudded shut behind them, muffling her sudden scream of terror.

      And on the shores of the Sogar-Jad, an old man in dilapidated and travel-stained garments fell forward weakly to his knees and buried his face in shaking hands.

      Darya carried off by pirates, and Jorn slain! And, he, himself, alone and friendless in a savage world of prehistoric monsters and primitive fighting men!

      It was too much even for the brave and gallant spirit of Professor Percival P. Potter. And the old scientist fell forward in a dead faint, there at the feet of the Peaks of Peril, by the shores of the prehistoric sea.

      THE END

      But the Adventures of Eric Carstairs in the Underground World continue in “ZANTHODON,” the second volume in this series, available soon in The Zanthodon Megapack.

APPENDIX: A STONE AGE GLOSSARY

      DRUGAR: Literally, “Ugly One.” The Cro-Magnons’ name for the Neanderthals.

      DRUNTH: The stegosaurus.

      GOMAD: The title of the daughter of a High Chief, or Omad. Has much the same meaning as “princess.”

      GOROTH: The mighty bull aurochs of the Ice Ages, resembling the bison.

      GRYMP: Triceratops, one of the more terrible of the Jurassic dinosaurs.

      JAD: The word for “sea”; also, “water.”

      JAMAD: The son of an Omad, or High Chief; literally, “prince.”

      LUGAR: A word meaning “smaller” or “lesser,” as in Lugar-Jad, the Lesser Sea.

      OMAD: The High Chief or ruler of a country; literally, “king.”

      OMODON: The giant cave bear of Ice Age Europe, larger and fiercer than the grizzly.

      PANJAN: Literally “Smoothskin.” The Neanderthals’ name for the Cro-Magnons. The plural is panjani.

      SOGAR: A superlative: “great” or “greater,” as in Sogar-Jad, the Greater Sea.

      SUJAT: Anything which the peoples of Zanthodon regard with superstitious awe is considered sujat. The word has much the same meaning as both “sacred” and “supernatural.”

      THAKDOL: A pterodactyl, the great flying lizard of the Jurassic Age.

      THANTOR: The wooly mammoth of Ice Age Europe.

      ULD: A small, plump, harmless mammal. Eric Carstairs is of the opinion that the uld may be eohippus, the remote ancestor of the horses of today. The people of Thandar and, perhaps, of Kor, may hunt or even breed the uld for meat.

      VANDAR: The great saber-tooth tiger of the Stone Age, one of the most feared and cunning of all the predators of the jungles of Zanthodon.

      VATOR: The word for “father” in the universal language of Zanthodon. The word for “mother” is not given in the tex, but may be mator.

      VATHRIB: A species of gigantic albino spider which inhabits the subterranean depths.

      XUNTH: Enormous serpents, dwelling in caverns in the mountains.

      YITH: The dragon-snake of the primordial seas of Zanthodon, which Professor Potter has identified with the extinct plesiosaurus.

      ZOMAK: A primitive species of feathered bird-reptile, which Eric Carstairs considers to be the archaeopteryx.

THE MOON POOL, by A. Merritt [Part 1]

      Originally published in 1919.

      FOREWORD

      The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter T. Goodwin has been authorized by the Executive Council of the International Association of Science.

      First:

      To end officially what is beginning to be called the Throckmartin Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port, and the subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife and associate from the camp of their expedition in the Caroline Islands.

      Second:

      Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr. Goodwin’s experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save the three, and the lessons and warnings within those experiences, are too important to humanity as a whole to be hidden away in scientific papers understandable only to the technically educated; or to be presented through the newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary.

      For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned Mr. A. Merritt to transcribe into form to be readily understood by the layman the stenographic notes of Dr. Goodwin’s own report to the Council, supplemented by further oral reminiscences and comments by Dr. Goodwin; this transcription, edited and censored by the Executive Council of the Association, forms the contents of this book.

      Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, Ph.D., F.R.G.S. etc., is without cavil the foremost of American botanists, an observer of international reputation and the author of several epochal treaties upon his chosen branch of science. His story, amazing in the best sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by proofs brought forward by him and accepted by the organization of which I have the honor to be president. What matter has been elided from this popular presentation—because of the excessively menacing potentialities it contains, which unrestricted dissemination might develop—will be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of carefully guarded circulation.

      The International Association of Science

      Per J. B. K., President

      CHAPTER I

      The Thing on the Moon Path

      For two months I had been on the d’Entrecasteaux Islands gathering data for the concluding chapters of my book upon the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The day before I had reached Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the Southern Queen. As I sat on the upper deck I thought, with homesick mind, of the long leagues between me and Melbourne, and the longer ones between Melbourne and New York.

      It was one of Papua’s