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When Super-Apes Plot
CHAPTER I. FROM ANOTHER WORLD.
DAWN in the Borneo jungle! The rising sun shone down upon what may have been the strangest sight seen in that vast wilderness since the beginning of time. A dark and gloomy lake, some ten miles wide, lay shimmering beneath gray mists which rose like clouds of steam from its glassy surface; here and there this surface was broken by waterspouts which constantly boiled up and fell back again as though heated from the depths' beneath by gigantic fires.
On all sides was virgin jungle. A dense rank growth of trees and vines rose up from the very edge of the water like a living wall, hemming in the lake with an almost solid mass of vegetation which reached unbroken for miles and miles.
Near the center of this lake there was an island. Like the mainland, this island seemed to be covered with verdure, but from near the middle of it the twin peaks of a great mountain reared up far above the treetops, and from between these peaks rose a tall column of yellowish smoke that spiraled sullenly into the upper atmosphere. To the eyes of the initiated this lazy smoke wreath told the reason for those boiling the whole region was volcanic, undermined with sleeping fires of a vastness beyond the conception of man.
Unusual as were these natural phenomena, however, there was a far stranger thing in the lake that morning—a thing which had not been there when the sun rose on the previous day. Some two hundred feet from the shore of the island, near a point where a little sandy beach broke the monotony of the tree-fringed coast and where the black water was free from geysers, a huge seaplane lay floating gently on the still surface.
Like some great fowl of an unknown species this visitor from another world rested in its dark setting, its metal parts and white planes, nearly a hundred feet across, reflecting the early rays of the sun, its propellers and engines motionless and silent.
As the sun climbed higher in the sky and the lake mists evaporated and disappeared, there were sundry indications of life in the anchored seaplane. A canvas curtain which inclosed the entire hull was rolled up, and a tall, strong-looking man, about thirty years of age, thrust his head and shoulders over the side to survey the island.
DAWN in the Borneo jungle! The rising sun shone down upon what may have been the strangest sight seen in that vast wilderness since the beginning of time. A dark and gloomy lake, some ten miles wide, lay shimmering beneath gray mists which rose like clouds of steam from its glassy surface; here and there this surface was broken by waterspouts which constantly boiled up and fell back again as though heated from the depths' beneath by gigantic fires.
On all sides was virgin jungle. A dense rank growth of trees and vines rose up from the very edge of the water like a living wall, hemming in the lake with an almost solid mass of vegetation which reached unbroken for miles and miles.
Near the center of this lake there was an island. Like the mainland, this island seemed to be covered with verdure, but from near the middle of it the twin peaks of a great mountain reared up far above the treetops, and from between these peaks rose a tall column of yellowish smoke that spiraled sullenly into the upper atmosphere. To the eyes of the initiated this lazy smoke wreath told the reason for those boiling the whole region was volcanic, undermined with sleeping fires of a vastness beyond the conception of man.
Unusual as were these natural phenomena, however, there was a far stranger thing in the lake that morning—a thing which had not been there when the sun rose on the previous day. Some two hundred feet from the shore of the island, near a point where a little sandy beach broke the monotony of the tree-fringed coast and where the black water was free from geysers, a huge seaplane lay floating gently on the still surface.
Like some great fowl of an unknown species this visitor from another world rested in its dark setting, its metal parts and white planes, nearly a hundred feet across, reflecting the early rays of the sun, its propellers and engines motionless and silent.
As the sun climbed higher in the sky and the lake mists evaporated and disappeared, there were sundry indications of life in the anchored seaplane. A canvas curtain which inclosed the entire hull was rolled up, and a tall, strong-looking man, about thirty years of age, thrust his head and shoulders over the side to survey the island.
44 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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