"Burroughs, Edgar Rice - People That Time Forgot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

with a hail of bullets. The battle must have lasted a minute
or more before the thing suddenly turned completely over in the
air and fell to the ground.

Bowen and I roomed together at college, and I learned a lot
from him outside my regular course. He was a pretty good
scholar despite his love of fun, and his particular hobby
was paleontology. He used to tell me about the various forms
of animal and vegetable life which had covered the globe during
former eras, and so I was pretty well acquainted with the
fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals of paleolithic times.
I knew that the thing that had attacked me was some sort of
pterodactyl which should have been extinct millions of years ago.
It was all that I needed to realize that Bowen had exaggerated
nothing in his manuscript.

Having disposed of my first foe, I set myself once more to
search for a landing-place near to the base of the cliffs
beyond which my party awaited me. I knew how anxious they
would be for word from me, and I was equally anxious to relieve
their minds and also to get them and our supplies well within
Caspak, so that we might set off about our business of finding
and rescuing Bowen Tyler; but the pterodactyl's carcass had
scarcely fallen before I was surrounded by at least a dozen of
the hideous things, some large, some small, but all bent upon
my destruction. I could not cope with them all, and so I rose
rapidly from among them to the cooler strata wherein they dared
not follow; and then I recalled that Bowen's narrative
distinctly indicated that the farther north one traveled in
Caspak, the fewer were the terrible reptiles which rendered
human life impossible at the southern end of the island.

There seemed nothing now but to search out a more northerly
landing-place and then return to the Toreador and transport
my companions, two by two, over the cliffs and deposit them at
the rendezvous. As I flew north, the temptation to explore
overcame me. I knew that I could easily cover Caspak and
return to the beach with less petrol than I had in my tanks;
and there was the hope, too, that I might find Bowen or some of
his party. The broad expanse of the inland sea lured me out
over its waters, and as I crossed, I saw at either extremity of
the great body of water an island--one to the south and one to
the north; but I did not alter my course to examine either
closely, leaving that to a later time.

The further shore of the sea revealed a much narrower strip of
land between the cliffs and the water than upon the western
side; but it was a hillier and more open country. There were
splendid landing-places, and in the distance, toward the north,
I thought I descried a village; but of that I was not positive.