Through the crater's rimVerrill, A. Hyatt (Alpheus Hyatt)
Science
Through the crater's rim
Verrill, A. Hyatt (Alpheus Hyatt)
Central America -- Fiction; Explorers -- Fiction
Beneath us now was forest, and with a shudder I recognized it as that
death-dealing, nightmare grove of cannibal trees. Fascinated I gazed
down and suddenly from the mountain side behind us burst a frothing
yellow torrent. The pressure of the flood had been too great. The
overwhelming waters had forced the stone door of the tunnel by which I
had entered that incredible valley. Before my wondering eyes the
devastating deluge swept down the slope. I saw the monstrous trees
shiver and sway and crash before the irresistible force. They gave way
and like matchsticks went tossing, tumbling, bobbing down the
hillside.
Higher and higher we rose. The water-filled crater was now but a
silvery lake. The slope up which I had fought and raced from the
ravenous, blood-sucking trees was bare, red earth scarred deep by the
plunging stream that flowed over it. Far to the west gleamed the blue
Pacific. Like a vast map Darien was spread below us. Northward we
sped. Before us was civilization. Behind us death and destruction. The
man-eating trees were a thing of the past. The lost city was lost
forever.
(The End)
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 1926 issue
of Amazing Stories magazine.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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