"What? What do you want to tell me?"
"This. When we stop—night in the forest, you understand? I will watch for a way to help you. It will be dark—I can get you out, you and this girl." She paused breathlessly, then blazed. "Take her! Never let Turber see her again!"
I could gladly agree to that. I whispered vehemently: "Yes, of course. That's what I want. How will—"
"Later I find a way. Madre di Dios, he—"
She saw Turber down the corridor. She murmured swiftly: "You be ready."
She turned and was gone. In the corridor I saw her pass Turber. He seized her and kissed her; and this time she submitted.
Turber joined us. "Ah, so you are entertaining my little Nanette?" I moved away at his command. He sat down. "We are only half a million years before the Time of Christ now."
500,000 B.C.! A new land was here now. A shadowy, rolling area of forests. Fertile jungles. Miasmic. Primeval tangles of rank vegetation. Land reptiles were here. We could not see them—not even the shadows of them. The great life-span of one of them, had it lain motionless beneath us, would have been too swift and brief a shadow for our sight. But I knew that they were here. Giant things. Dinosaurs and monster birds. Land vertebrates.
And the mammals were here now as well. The end of ancient life was come. The end of the great reptiles was at hand. Nature had made an error, and was busy now in rectifying it. The giants, handicapped by their huge size, unwieldy bulk and dull-witted brains, were sorely pressed in the great struggle for existence. Creatures smaller were evolving; creatures more agile of body; more quick-witted of brain. They fought their environment better. They lived; they thrived.