Project Gutenberg's The People that Time Forgot, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Title: The People that Time Forgot

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Posting Date: July 30, 2008 [EBook #552]
Release Date: June, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines.

The People That Time Forgot

By

Edgar Rice Burroughs

JTABLE 4 7 1

Chapter 1

I am forced to admit that even though I had traveled a long distance to
place Bowen Tyler's manuscript in the hands of his father, I was still
a trifle skeptical as to its sincerity, since I could not but recall
that it had not been many years since Bowen had been one of the most
notorious practical jokers of his alma mater. The truth was that as I
sat in the Tyler library at Santa Monica I commenced to feel a trifle
foolish and to wish that I had merely forwarded the manuscript by
express instead of bearing it personally, for I confess that I do not
enjoy being laughed at. I have a well-developed sense of humor--when
the joke is not on me.

Mr. Tyler, Sr., was expected almost hourly. The last steamer in from
Honolulu had brought information of the date of the expected sailing of
his yacht Toreador, which was now twenty-four hours overdue. Mr.
Tyler's assistant secretary, who had been left at home, assured me that
there was no doubt but that the Toreador had sailed as promised, since
he knew his employer well enough to be positive that nothing short of
an act of God would prevent his doing what he had planned to do. I was
also aware of the fact that the sending apparatus of the Toreador's
wireless equipment was sealed, and that it would only be used in event
of dire necessity. There was, therefore, nothing to do but wait, and
we waited.

We discussed the manuscript and hazarded guesses concerning it and the
strange events it narrated. The torpedoing of the liner upon which
Bowen J. Tyler, Jr., had taken passage for France to join the American
Ambulance was a well-known fact, and I had further substantiated by
wire to the New York office of the owners, that a M