Front matter
Moreby Acklom translation
(LES DIEUX ROUGES)
By JEAN D'ESME
A ROMANCE
Translated from the French by MOREBY ACKLOM
NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1924 BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
This extraordinary story undoubtedly had its inception in a peculiar passage in the Report of a French official mission in Indo-China in 1912, entitled Les Jungles Moïs (The Moï Jungles). The translation of the passage runs as follows:
"This is not the first time that I have met this strange story of savage men, dwellers in the forests of the mountains. They have been reported from the wild region of the Annamite range. According to the local descriptions these 'savages' must be covered with a thick mat of red hair. They have been very seldom met with and are now never seen; but everywhere one still comes upon the traces which they left behind them."
Romances of the discovery of prehistoric or vanished races are not uncommon; but I cannot recall any in which the discovery was made the subject of as splendid a piece of descriptive work, and at the same time of as poignantly tragic a drama as in this instance. I think even the most hardened reader of adventure-stories will admit that in The Red Gods he has got something distinctly out of the common.
M. A.