Quotation from: People Out of Time

Written by: Edgar Rice Burroughs


I believe that never before in all my life, even amidst the terrors
of childhood nights, have I suffered such a sensation of extreme
horror as I did that moment in which I realized that I must lie
bound and helpless while some horrid beast of prey crept upon me
to devour me in that utter darkness of the Bandlu pits of Caspak.
I reeked with cold sweat, and my flesh crawled--I could feel it
crawl. If ever I came nearer to abject cowardice, I do not recall
the instance; and yet it was not that I was afraid to die, for I
had long since given myself up as lost--a few days of Caspak must
impress anyone with the utter nothingness of life. The waters,
the land, the air teem with it, and always it is being devoured
by some other form of life. Life is the cheapest thing in Caspak,
as it is the cheapest thing on earth and, doubtless, the cheapest
cosmic production. No, I was not afraid to die; in fact, I
prayed for death, that I might be relieved of the frightfulness of
the interval of life which remained to me--the waiting, the awful
waiting, for that fearsome beast to reach me and to strike.

PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT
Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~
Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.