FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>  
e of the committee members tried to pick a bone up, and it fell to pieces in his fingers. Another man touched a rib, and that broke brittlely. I picked up the broken piece of rib and held it in the rays of King's flashlight. "You remember?" said King in an undertone to me. "You recall the Gray Mahatma's words? 'There will be nothing left for the alligators!' There's neither fat nor moisture in that bone, it's like chalk. See?" He squeezed it in his fingers and it crumbled. "Huh! This fellow has been dead for centuries," said somebody. "He can't have been a Hindu, or they'd have burned him. No use wondering who _he_ was; there's nothing to identify him with--no hair, no clothing--nothing but dead bone." "Nothing! Nothing whatever!" said the priest with a dry laugh, and began kicking the bones here and there all over the cavern. They crumbled as his foot struck them, and turned to dust as he trod on them--all except the teeth. As he kicked the skull across the floor the teeth scattered, but King and I picked up a few of them, and I have mine yet--two molars and two incisors belonging to a man, who to my mind was as much an honest martyr as any in Fox's book. "Well, Mr. King," asked one of the committee in his choicest note of sarcasm, "have you any more marvels to exhibit, or shall we adjourn?" "Adjourn by all means," King advised him. "We know it all, eh?" "Truly, you know it all," King answered without a smile. Then speaking sidewise in an undertone to me: "And you and I know nothing. That's a better place to start from, Ramsden. I don't know how you feel, but I'm going to track their science down until I'm dead or master of it. The very highest knowledge we've attained is ignorance compared to what these fellows showed us. I'm going to discover their secret or break my neck!" ***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAVES OF TERROR*** ******* This file should be named 18970.txt or 18970.zip ******* This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/9/7/18970 Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>  



Top keywords:
editions
 

Nothing

 

crumbled

 
undertone
 
picked
 
copyright
 

United

 

committee

 

fingers

 

States


ignorance
 
discover
 

compared

 

attained

 

fellows

 

showed

 

Ramsden

 

sidewise

 

answered

 

speaking


secret
 

highest

 

knowledge

 
master
 

science

 
Creating
 
renamed
 

public

 

domain

 

previous


Updated

 

replace

 
Special
 
General
 

royalties

 
paying
 

Foundation

 

distribute

 

permission

 

TERROR


GUTENBERG

 

PROJECT

 
gutenberg
 

formats

 
incisors
 
fellow
 

centuries

 

squeezed

 
moisture
 

clothing