
Transcriber's Note:
By IVAR JORGENSEN and ADAM CHASE
CHAPTER I - Mansion of Mystery
CHAPTER II - The Great Clock of Tarth
CHAPTER III - The Man in the Cavern
CHAPTER IV - John Pride's Story
CHAPTER V - Question Upon Question
CHAPTER VI - On the Plains of Ofrid
CHAPTER VII - The White God
CHAPTER VIII - The Brown Virgin
A lone traveler, drawn by an irresistible promise, pushes past haunted psychological barriers on a winding road to an iron‑gate that has stood sealed for a century. Inside a foreboding stone mansion he discovers a dying, ancient figure who speaks of a long‑held bargain and a hidden destiny that hinges on a mysterious book clutched in the stranger’s pocket. The old man’s breathless plea urges the newcomer deeper, toward a great clock whose toll may awaken something far beyond ordinary reckoning.
From that moment the journey spirals outward, taking the protagonist across strange plains, icy fields, and forgotten ruins, each step revealing fragments of a forgotten past and a looming threat tied to an enigmatic “Golden Ape.” Along the way, allies and adversaries surface—men with cryptic motives, a white god, a brown virgin—while the clock’s relentless ticking drives the quest toward a confrontation that could reshape the world’s fragile balance.
Language
en
Duration
~3 hours (187K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
Jun 23, 2010
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1909–1977
A prolific American writer and editor, he moved easily between science fiction, mystery, westerns, gothic fiction, and television tie-ins. He also wrote under several pseudonyms, leaving behind a lively and wide-ranging body of work.
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1928–2008
A versatile writer who moved easily between science fiction, hard-boiled mysteries, and imaginative historical fiction, Stephen Marlowe built a long career under several pen names. He is best known for creating detective Chester Drum and for bringing figures such as Christopher Columbus, Goya, Cervantes, and Edgar Allan Poe to life in fictional autobiographies.
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