Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
Splendid waterfalls flash down in foam and thunder, scoring deep channels in the perpendicular heights, and bathing thickets of tree-fern and maidenhair in pearly spray. A wild river swirls through the deep ravine, opening towards the ethereal blue of clustering peaks, which lie fold upon fold in the hazy distance of the Native States, and disclose a mystic pathway into dreamland.
He was hideously dizzy when he passed the fourth. For a time he felt as if he had no weight at all. But then, quite abruptly, he was climbing vertically upward and the soughing of tree-fern fronds was loud in his ears, and suddenly the end of the Tube was under his fingers and he stared out into the world of the Fifth Dimension. Now a gentle wind blew in his face.
A puff of smoke, a jet of flame from behind the tree-fern. One of the warriors fell forward on his shield, beating the earth with his great limbs in the throes of death. They had hardly reckoned upon this. Crouching low, now they glide away among the scrub, keeping well within cover. But that solitary, determined man, flattened there against the tree-fern, draws no hope from this.
Was this parley designed to keep him preoccupied while others stole up treacherously to strike him down from behind? To guard against this idea he stepped boldly forth from the tree-fern and advanced towards the half-threatening crowd. "Where are those we have slain?" he said. "Let us examine them."
Normally, the thing should have distanced him in seconds. Even crippled as it was, it moved swiftly. The scaly, duck-shaped head reared a good twenty feet above the fallen tree-fern fronds which carpeted the jungle. The monstrous splayed feet stretched a good yard and a half from front to rear upon the ground. Even its waddling footprints were yards apart, and it moved in terror.
This, Jonathan explained, is part of the miracle; for dried tree-fern is as combustible as tinder, and there were flames shooting out among the stones. Sceptics had affirmed that the skin of a Fijian's foot being a quarter of an inch thick, he would not feel a burn.
Had it not been perfectly straight, Guapo would have bound it to a post and made it so; but it happened to come quite right without further trouble. The tube of the lesser one was now cleaned out thoroughly, and polished by a little bunch of the roots of a tree-fern, until it was as smooth and hard as ebony.
The root of the spaniard, it should be added, will support life for some little time. These roots are sometimes used for firewood, and are very tough, so much so as not unfrequently to break ploughs. It is poisonous for sheep and cattle if eaten on an empty stomach. New Zealand is rich in ferns. We have a tree-fern which grows as high as twenty feet.
For a moment, Tommy saw the huge, dull-red ball that was the sun of this alien planet. Queer mosses took form and color in the daylight, displaying colors never seen on Earth. He saw flying things dart among the tree-fern fronds, and some were scaled and some were not, but none of them were feathered. Then a tiny buzzing noise.
They fled along aluminum roads into the tree-fern forests, while the sky behind them seemed to flame as the city woke to the tumult in its ways. They killed the driver of their vehicle when he refused to take them farther, and it was that murder which saved their lives. It was seen by Ragged Men, the outlaws of the jungle, and it proved their enmity to the Golden City.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking