Publish :  1914

Pages :  131

Download :  24,609

At the Earth's Core

By    Edgar Rice Burroughs

"Edgar Rice Burroughs' inner world evokes fantastic images of a world without time and a landscape like no other. He was not the first to utilize a hollow earth to tell a a story, but his is the best and most completely realized of all the inner world tales."--erblist.com

thin a tiny oasis. Close by was an Arab douar of some eight or ten tents. I had come down from the north to hunt lion. My party consisted of a dozen children of the desert--I was the only "white" man. As we approached the little clump of verdure I saw the man come from his tent and with hand-shaded eyes peer intently at us. At sight of me he advanced rapidly to meet us. "A white man!" he cried. "May the good Lord be praised! I have been watching you for hours, hoping against hope that THIS time there would be a white man. Tell me the date. What year is it?" And when I had told him he staggered as though he had been struck full in the face, so that he was compelled to grasp my stirrup leather for support. "It cannot be!" he cried after a moment. "It cannot be! Tell me that you are mistaken, or that you are but joking." "I am telling you the truth, my friend," I replied. "Why should I deceive a stranger, or attempt to, in so simple a matter as the date?" For some time h