inal selfishness.

All these useless regrets were getting me in a bad way; but at last I
shook myself and tried to put such things out of my mind and take hold
of conditions as they existed and do my level best to wrest victory
from defeat. I was badly shaken up and bruised, but considered myself
mighty lucky to escape with my life. The plane hung at a precarious
angle, so that it was with difficulty and considerable danger that I
climbed from it into the tree and then to the ground.

My predicament was grave. Between me and my friends lay an inland sea
fully sixty miles wide at this point and an estimated land-distance of
some three hundred miles around the northern end of the sea, through
such hideous dangers as I am perfectly free to admit had me pretty well
buffaloed. I had seen quite enough of Caspak this day to assure me
that Bowen had in no way exaggerated its perils. As a matter of fact,
I am inclined to believe that he had become so accustomed to them
before he started upon his manuscript that he rather slighted them. As
I stood there beneath that tree--a tree which should have been part of
a coal-bed countless ages since--and looked out across a sea teeming
with frightful life--life which should have been fossil before God
conceived of Adam--I would not have given a minim of stale beer for my
chances of ever seeing my friends or the outside world again; yet then
and there I swore to fight my way as far through this hideous land as
circumstances would permit. I had plenty of ammunition, an automatic
pistol and a heavy rifle--the latter one of twenty added to our
equipment on the strength of Bowen's description of the huge beasts of
prey which ravaged Caspak. My greatest danger lay in the hideous
reptilia whose low nervous organizations permitted their carnivorous
instincts to function for several minutes after they had ceased to live.

But to these things I gave less thought than to the sudden frustration
of all our plans. With the bitterest of thoughts I condemned myself
for the foolish weakness that had permitted me to be drawn from the
main object of my flight into premature and useless exploration. It
seemed to me then that I must be totally eliminated from further search
for Bowen, since, as I estimated it, the three hundred miles of
Caspakian territory I must traverse to reach the base of the cliffs
beyond which my party awaited me were practically impassable for a
single individual unaccustom