Once a day I descend to the base of the cliff and hunt, and fillmy stomach with water from a clear cold spring. I have threegourds which I fill with water and take back to my cave againstthe long nights. I have fashioned a spear and a bow and arrow,that I may conserve my ammunition, which is running low. My clothesare worn to shreds. Tomorrow I shall discard them for leopard-skinswhich I have tanned and sewn into a garment strong and warm. It iscold up here. I have a fire burning and I sit bent over it whileI write; but I am safe here. No other living creature venturesto the chill summit of the barrier cliffs. I am safe, and I amalone with my sorrows and my remembered joys--but without hope.It is said that hope springs eternal in the human breast; but thereis none in mine.

I am about done. Presently I shall fold these pages and pushthem into my thermos bottle. I shall cork it and screw the captight, and then I shall hurl it as far out into the sea as mystrength will permit. The wind is off-shore; the tide is runningout; perhaps it will be carried into one of those numerousocean-currents which sweep perpetually from pole to pole andfrom continent to continent, to be deposited at last upon someinhabited shore. If fate is kind and this does happen, then, forGod's sake, come and get me!

It was a week ago that I wrote the preceding paragraph, which Ithought 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 itwith water) before attaching my signature, when faintly from thevalley far below came an unmistakable sound which brought me tomy feet, trembling with excitement, to peer eagerly downward frommy dizzy ledge. How full of meaning that sound was to me you mayguess when I tell you that it was the report of a firearm! For amoment my gaze traversed the landscape beneath until it wascaught and held by four figures near the base of the cliff--ahuman figure held at bay by three hyaenodons, those ferocious andblood-thirsty wild dogs of the Eocene. A fourth beast lay deador dying near by.

I couldn't be sure, looking down from above as I was; but yet Itrembled like a leaf in the intuitive belief that it was Lys, andmy judgment served to confirm my wild desire, for whoever it wascarried only a pistol, and thus had Lys been armed. The firstwave of sudden joy which surged through me was short-lived in theface of the swift-following conviction that the one who foughtbelow was already doomed. Luck and only luck it must havebeen which had permitted that first shot to lay low one of thesavage creatures, for even such a heavy weapon as my pistol isentirely inadequate against even the lesser carnivora of Caspak.In a moment the three would charge! a futile shot would but tendmore greatly to enrage the one it chanced to hit; and then thethree would drag down the little human figure and tear it to pieces.

And maybe it was Lys! My heart stood still at the thought, but mindand muscle responded to the quick decision I was forced to make.There was but a single hope--a single chance--and I took it.I raised my rifle to my shoulder and took careful aim. It wasa long shot, a dangerous shot, for unless one is accustomed toit, shooting from a considerable altitude is most deceptive work.There is, though, something about marksmanship which is quitebeyond all scientific laws.

Upon no other theory can I explain my marksmanship of that moment.Three times my rifle spoke--three quick, short syllables of death.I did not take conscious aim; and yet at each report a beastcrumpled in its tracks!

From my ledge to the base of the cliff is a matter of severalthousand feet of dangerous climbing; yet I venture to say thatthe first ape from whose loins my line has descended never couldhave equaled the speed with which I literally dropped down theface of that rugged escarpment. The last two hundred feet isover a steep incline of loose rubble to the valley bottom, and Ihad just reached the top of this when there arose to my ears anagonized cry--"Bowen! Bowen! Quick, my love, quick!"

I had been too much occupied with the dangers of the descent toglance down toward the valley; but that cry which told me that itwas indeed Lys, and that she was again in danger, brought my eyesquickly upon her in time to see a hairy, burly brute seize herand start off at a run toward the near-by wood. From rock torock, chamoislike, I leaped downward toward the valley, inpursuit of Lys and her hideous abductor.

He was heavier than I by many pounds, and so weighted by theburden he carried that I easily overtook him; and at last heturned, snarling, to face me. It was Kho of the tribe of Tsa,the hatchet-men. He recognized me, and with a low growl hethrew Lys aside and came for me. "The she is mine," he cried."I kill! I kill!"

I had had to discard my rifle before I commenced the rapid descentof the cliff, so that now I was armed only with a hunting knife,and this I whipped from its scabbard as Kho leaped toward me.He was a mighty beast, mightily muscled, and the urge that hasmade males fight since the dawn of life on earth filled him withthe blood-lust and the thirst to slay; but not one whit less didit fill me with the same primal passions. Two abysmal beastssprang at each other's throats that day beneath the shadow ofearth's oldest cliffs--the man of now and the man-thing of theearliest, forgotten then, imbued by the same deathless passionthat has come down unchanged through all the epochs, periods anderas of time from the beginning, and which shall continue to theincalculable end--woman, the imperishable Alpha and Omega of life.

Kho closed and sought my jugular with his teeth. He seemed toforget the hatchet dangling by its aurochs-hide thong at his hip,as I forgot, for the moment, the dagger in my hand. And I doubtnot but that Kho would easily have bested me in an encounter ofthat sort had not Lys' voice awakened within my momentarilyreverted brain the skill and cunning of reasoning man."Bowen!" she cried. "Your knife! Your knife!"It was enough. It recalled me from the forgotten eon to which mybrain had flown and left me once again a modern man battling witha clumsy, unskilled brute. No longer did my jaws snap at thehairy throat before me; but instead my knife sought and found aspace between two ribs over the savage heart. Kho voiced a singlehorrid scream, stiffened spasmodically and sank to the earth.And Lys threw herself into my arms. All the fears and sorrows ofthe past were wiped away, and once again I was the happiest of men.

With some misgivings I shortly afterward cast my eyes upwardtoward the precarious ledge which ran before my cave, for itseemed to me quite beyond all reason to expect a dainty modernbelle to essay the perils of that frightful climb. I asked herif she thought she could brave the ascent, and she laughed gaylyin my face.

"Watch!" she cried, and ran eagerly toward the base of the cliff.Like a squirrel she clambered swiftly aloft, so that I was forcedto exert myself to keep pace with her. At first she frightened me;but presently I was aware that she was quite as safe here as was I.When we finally came to my ledge and I again held her in my arms,she recalled to my mind that for several weeks she had been livingthe life of a cave-girl with the tribe of hatchet-men. They hadbeen driven from their former caves by another tribe which had slainmany and carried off quite half the females, and the new cliffs towhich they had flown had proven far higher and more precipitous, sothat she had become, through necessity, a most practiced climber.

She told me of Kho's desire for her, since all his females hadbeen stolen and of how her life had been a constant nightmare ofterror as she sought by night and by day to elude the great brute.For a time Nobs had been all the protection she required; but oneday he disappeared--nor has she seen him since. She believes thathe was deliberately made away with; and so do I, for we both aresure that he never would have deserted her. With her means ofprotection gone, Lys was now at the mercy of the hatchet-man;nor was it many hours before he had caught her at the base of thecliff and seized her; but as he bore her triumphantly aloft towardhis cave, she had managed to break loose and escape him.

"For three days he has pursued me," she said, "through thishorrible world. How I have passed through in safety I cannotguess, nor how I have always managed to outdistance him; yet Ihave done it, until just as you discovered me. Fate was kindto us, Bowen."

I nodded my head in assent and crushed her to me. And then wetalked and planned as I cooked antelope-steaks over my fire, andwe came to the conclusion that there was no hope of rescue, thatshe and I were doomed to live and die upon Caprona. Well, itmight be worse! I would rather live here always with Lys than tolive elsewhere without her; and she, dear girl, says the same ofme; but I am afraid of this life for her. It is a hard, fierce,dangerous life, and I shall pray always that we shall be rescuedfrom it--for her sake.

That night the clouds broke, and the moon shone down upon ourlittle ledge; and there, hand in hand, we turned our faces towardheaven and plighted our troth beneath the eyes of God. No humanagency could have married us more sacredly than we are wed. We areman and wife, and we are content. If God wills it, we shall liveout our lives here. If He wills otherwise, then this manuscriptwhich I shall now consign to the inscrutable forces of the seashall fall into friendly hands. However, we are each without hope.And so we say good-bye in this, our last message to the world beyondthe barrier cliffs.

(Signed) Bowen J. Tyler, Jr. Lys La R. Tyler.