initial commit of ebook 123HEADmain

1 files changed, 5130 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/123-0.txt b/123-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dc8ee04
--- /dev/null
+++ b/123-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5130 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 123 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+At the Earth’s Core
+
+By Edgar Rice Burroughs
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ PROLOG
+ CHAPTER I. TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES
+ CHAPTER II. A STRANGE WORLD
+ CHAPTER III. A CHANGE OF MASTERS
+ CHAPTER IV. DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL
+ CHAPTER V. SLAVES
+ CHAPTER VI. THE BEGINNING OF HORROR
+ CHAPTER VII. FREEDOM
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE MAHAR TEMPLE
+ CHAPTER IX. THE FACE OF DEATH
+ CHAPTER X. PHUTRA AGAIN
+ CHAPTER XI. FOUR DEAD MAHARS
+ CHAPTER XII. PURSUIT
+ CHAPTER XIII. THE SLY ONE
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE GARDEN OF EDEN
+ CHAPTER XV. BACK TO EARTH
+
+
+
+
+PROLOG
+
+
+In the first place please bear in mind that I do not expect you to
+believe this story. Nor could you wonder had you witnessed a recent
+experience of mine when, in the armor of blissful and stupendous
+ignorance, I gaily narrated the gist of it to a Fellow of the Royal
+Geological Society on the occasion of my last trip to London.
+
+You would surely have thought that I had been detected in no less a
+heinous crime than the purloining of the Crown Jewels from the Tower,
+or putting poison in the coffee of His Majesty the King.
+
+The erudite gentleman in whom I confided congealed before I was half
+through!—it is all that saved him from exploding—and my dreams of an
+Honorary Fellowship, gold medals, and a niche in the Hall of Fame faded
+into the thin, cold air of his arctic atmosphere.
+
+But I believe the story, and so would you, and so would the learned
+Fellow of the Royal Geological Society, had you and he heard it from
+the lips of the man who told it to me. Had you seen, as I did, the fire
+of truth in those gray eyes; had you felt the ring of sincerity in that
+quiet voice; had you realized the pathos of it all—you, too, would
+believe. You would not have needed the final ocular proof that I
+had—the weird rhamphorhynchus-like creature which he had brought back
+with him from the inner world.
+
+I came upon him quite suddenly, and no less unexpectedly, upon the rim
+of the great Sahara Desert. He was standing before a goat-skin tent
+amidst a clump of date palms within a tiny oasis. Close by was an Arab
+douar of some eight or ten tents.
+
+I had come down from the north to hunt lion. My party consisted of a
+dozen children of the desert—I was the only “white” man. As we
+approached the little clump of verdure I saw the man come from his tent
+and with hand-shaded eyes peer intently at us. At sight of me he
+advanced rapidly to meet us.
+
+“A white man!” he cried. “May the good Lord be praised! I have been
+watching you for hours, hoping against hope that THIS time there would
+be a white man. Tell me the date. What year is it?”
+
+And when I had told him he staggered as though he had been struck full
+in the face, so that he was compelled to grasp my stirrup leather for
+support.
+
+“It cannot be!” he cried after a moment. “It cannot be! Tell me that
+you are mistaken, or that you are but joking.”
+
+“I am telling you the truth, my friend,” I replied. “Why should I
+deceive a stranger, or attempt to, in so simple a matter as the date?”
+
+For some time he stood in silence, with bowed head.
+
+“Ten years!” he murmured, at last. “Ten years, and I thought that at
+the most it could be scarce more than one!” That night he told me his
+story—the story that I give you here as nearly in his own words as I
+can recall them.
+
+
+
+
+I
+TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES
+
+
+I was born in Connecticut about thirty years ago. My name is David
+Innes. My father was a wealthy mine owner. When I was nineteen he died.
+All his property was to be mine when I had attained my
+majority—provided that I had devoted the two years intervening in close
+application to the great business I was to inherit.
+
+I did my best to fulfil the last wishes of my parent—not because of the
+inheritance, but because I loved and honored my father. For six months
+I toiled in the mines and in the counting-rooms, for I wished to know
+every minute detail of the business.
+
+Then Perry interested me in his invention. He was an old fellow who had
+devoted the better part of a long life to the perfection of a
+mechanical subterranean prospector. As relaxation he studied
+paleontology. I looked over his plans, listened to his arguments,
+inspected his working model—and then, convinced, I advanced the funds
+necessary to construct a full-sized, practical prospector.
+
+I shall not go into the details of its construction—it lies out there
+in the desert now—about two miles from here. Tomorrow you may care to
+ride out and see it. Roughly, it is a steel cylinder a hundred feet
+long, and jointed so that it may turn and twist through solid rock if
+need be. At one end is a mighty revolving drill operated by an engine
+which Perry said generated more power to the cubic inch than any other
+engine did to the cubic foot. I remember that he used to claim that
+that invention alone would make us fabulously wealthy—we were going to
+make the whole thing public after the successful issue of our first
+secret trial—but Perry never returned from that trial trip, and I only
+after ten years.
+
+I recall as it were but yesterday the night of that momentous occasion
+upon which we were to test the practicality of that wondrous invention.
+It was near midnight when we repaired to the lofty tower in which Perry
+had constructed his “iron mole” as he was wont to call the thing. The
+great nose rested upon the bare earth of the floor. We passed through
+the doors into the outer jacket, secured them, and then passing on into
+the cabin, which contained the controlling mechanism within the inner
+tube, switched on the electric lights.
+
+Perry looked to his generator; to the great tanks that held the
+life-giving chemicals with which he was to manufacture fresh air to
+replace that which we consumed in breathing; to his instruments for
+recording temperatures, speed, distance, and for examining the
+materials through which we were to pass.
+
+He tested the steering device, and overlooked the mighty cogs which
+transmitted its marvelous velocity to the giant drill at the nose of
+his strange craft.
+
+Our seats, into which we strapped ourselves, were so arranged upon
+transverse bars that we would be upright whether the craft were
+ploughing her way downward into the bowels of the earth, or running
+horizontally along some great seam of coal, or rising vertically toward
+the surface again.
+
+At length all was ready. Perry bowed his head in prayer. For a moment
+we were silent, and then the old man’s hand grasped the starting lever.
+There was a frightful roaring beneath us—the giant frame trembled and
+vibrated—there was a rush of sound as the loose earth passed up through
+the hollow space between the inner and outer jackets to be deposited in
+our wake. We were off!
+
+The noise was deafening. The sensation was frightful. For a full minute
+neither of us could do aught but cling with the proverbial desperation
+of the drowning man to the handrails of our swinging seats. Then Perry
+glanced at the thermometer.
+
+“Gad!” he cried, “it cannot be possible—quick! What does the distance
+meter read?”
+
+That and the speedometer were both on my side of the cabin, and as I
+turned to take a reading from the former I could see Perry muttering.
+
+“Ten degrees rise—it cannot be possible!” and then I saw him tug
+frantically upon the steering wheel.
+
+As I finally found the tiny needle in the dim light I translated
+Perry’s evident excitement, and my heart sank within me. But when I
+spoke I hid the fear which haunted me. “It will be seven hundred feet,
+Perry,” I said, “by the time you can turn her into the horizontal.”
+
+“You’d better lend me a hand then, my boy,” he replied, “for I cannot
+budge her out of the vertical alone. God give that our combined
+strength may be equal to the task, for else we are lost.”
+
+I wormed my way to the old man’s side with never a doubt but that the
+great wheel would yield on the instant to the power of my young and
+vigorous muscles. Nor was my belief mere vanity, for always had my
+physique been the envy and despair of my fellows. And for that very
+reason it had waxed even greater than nature had intended, since my
+natural pride in my great strength had led me to care for and develop
+my body and my muscles by every means within my power. What with
+boxing, football, and baseball, I had been in training since childhood.
+
+And so it was with the utmost confidence that I laid hold of the huge
+iron rim; but though I threw every ounce of my strength into it, my
+best effort was as unavailing as Perry’s had been—the thing would not
+budge—the grim, insensate, horrible thing that was holding us upon the
+straight road to death!
+
+At length I gave up the useless struggle, and without a word returned
+to my seat. There was no need for words—at least none that I could
+imagine, unless Perry desired to pray. And I was quite sure that he
+would, for he never left an opportunity neglected where he might
+sandwich in a prayer. He prayed when he arose in the morning, he prayed
+before he ate, he prayed when he had finished eating, and before he
+went to bed at night he prayed again. In between he often found excuses
+to pray even when the provocation seemed far-fetched to my worldly
+eyes—now that he was about to die I felt positive that I should witness
+a perfect orgy of prayer—if one may allude with such a simile to so
+solemn an act.
+
+But to my astonishment I discovered that with death staring him in the
+face Abner Perry was transformed into a new being. From his lips there
+flowed—not prayer—but a clear and limpid stream of undiluted profanity,
+and it was all directed at that quietly stubborn piece of unyielding
+mechanism.
+
+“I should think, Perry,” I chided, “that a man of your professed
+religiousness would rather be at his prayers than cursing in the
+presence of imminent death.”
+
+“Death!” he cried. “Death is it that appalls you? That is nothing by
+comparison with the loss the world must suffer. Why, David within this
+iron cylinder we have demonstrated possibilities that science has
+scarce dreamed. We have harnessed a new principle, and with it animated
+a piece of steel with the power of ten thousand men. That two lives
+will be snuffed out is nothing to the world calamity that entombs in
+the bowels of the earth the discoveries that I have made and proved in
+the successful construction of the thing that is now carrying us
+farther and farther toward the eternal central fires.”
+
+I am frank to admit that for myself I was much more concerned with our
+own immediate future than with any problematic loss which the world
+might be about to suffer. The world was at least ignorant of its
+bereavement, while to me it was a real and terrible actuality.
+
+“What can we do?” I asked, hiding my perturbation beneath the mask of a
+low and level voice.
+
+“We may stop here, and die of asphyxiation when our atmosphere tanks
+are empty,” replied Perry, “or we may continue on with the slight hope
+that we may later sufficiently deflect the prospector from the vertical
+to carry us along the arc of a great circle which must eventually
+return us to the surface. If we succeed in so doing before we reach the
+higher internal temperature we may even yet survive. There would seem
+to me to be about one chance in several million that we shall
+succeed—otherwise we shall die more quickly but no more surely than as
+though we sat supinely waiting for the torture of a slow and horrible
+death.”
+
+I glanced at the thermometer. It registered 110 degrees. While we were
+talking the mighty iron mole had bored its way over a mile into the
+rock of the earth’s crust.
+
+“Let us continue on, then,” I replied. “It should soon be over at this
+rate. You never intimated that the speed of this thing would be so
+high, Perry. Didn’t you know it?”
+
+“No,” he answered. “I could not figure the speed exactly, for I had no
+instrument for measuring the mighty power of my generator. I reasoned,
+however, that we should make about five hundred yards an hour.”
+
+“And we are making seven miles an hour,” I concluded for him, as I sat
+with my eyes upon the distance meter. “How thick is the Earth’s crust,
+Perry?” I asked.
+
+“There are almost as many conjectures as to that as there are
+geologists,” was his answer. “One estimates it thirty miles, because
+the internal heat, increasing at the rate of about one degree to each
+sixty to seventy feet depth, would be sufficient to fuse the most
+refractory substances at that distance beneath the surface. Another
+finds that the phenomena of precession and nutation require that the
+earth, if not entirely solid, must at least have a shell not less than
+eight hundred to a thousand miles in thickness. So there you are. You
+may take your choice.”
+
+“And if it should prove solid?” I asked.
+
+“It will be all the same to us in the end, David,” replied Perry. “At
+the best our fuel will suffice to carry us but three or four days,
+while our atmosphere cannot last to exceed three. Neither, then, is
+sufficient to bear us in safety through eight thousand miles of rock to
+the antipodes.”
+
+“If the crust is of sufficient thickness we shall come to a final stop
+between six and seven hundred miles beneath the earth’s surface; but
+during the last hundred and fifty miles of our journey we shall be
+corpses. Am I correct?” I asked.
+
+“Quite correct, David. Are you frightened?”
+
+“I do not know. It all has come so suddenly that I scarce believe that
+either of us realizes the real terrors of our position. I feel that I
+should be reduced to panic; but yet I am not. I imagine that the shock
+has been so great as to partially stun our sensibilities.”
+
+Again I turned to the thermometer. The mercury was rising with less
+rapidity. It was now but 140 degrees, although we had penetrated to a
+depth of nearly four miles. I told Perry, and he smiled.
+
+“We have shattered one theory at least,” was his only comment, and then
+he returned to his self-assumed occupation of fluently cursing the
+steering wheel. I once heard a pirate swear, but his best efforts would
+have seemed like those of a tyro alongside of Perry’s masterful and
+scientific imprecations.
+
+Once more I tried my hand at the wheel, but I might as well have
+essayed to swing the earth itself. At my suggestion Perry stopped the
+generator, and as we came to rest I again threw all my strength into a
+supreme effort to move the thing even a hair’s breadth—but the results
+were as barren as when we had been traveling at top speed.
+
+I shook my head sadly, and motioned to the starting lever. Perry pulled
+it toward him, and once again we were plunging downward toward eternity
+at the rate of seven miles an hour. I sat with my eyes glued to the
+thermometer and the distance meter. The mercury was rising very slowly
+now, though even at 145 degrees it was almost unbearable within the
+narrow confines of our metal prison.
+
+About noon, or twelve hours after our start upon this unfortunate
+journey, we had bored to a depth of eighty-four miles, at which point
+the mercury registered 153 degrees F.
+
+Perry was becoming more hopeful, although upon what meager food he
+sustained his optimism I could not conjecture. From cursing he had
+turned to singing—I felt that the strain had at last affected his mind.
+For several hours we had not spoken except as he asked me for the
+readings of the instruments from time to time, and I announced them. My
+thoughts were filled with vain regrets. I recalled numerous acts of my
+past life which I should have been glad to have had a few more years to
+live down. There was the affair in the Latin Commons at Andover when
+Calhoun and I had put gunpowder in the stove—and nearly killed one of
+the masters. And then—but what was the use, I was about to die and
+atone for all these things and several more. Already the heat was
+sufficient to give me a foretaste of the hereafter. A few more degrees
+and I felt that I should lose consciousness.
+
+“What are the readings now, David?” Perry’s voice broke in upon my
+somber reflections.
+
+“Ninety miles and 153 degrees,” I replied.
+
+“Gad, but we’ve knocked that thirty-mile-crust theory into a cocked
+hat!” he cried gleefully.
+
+“Precious lot of good it will do us,” I growled back.
+
+“But my boy,” he continued, “doesn’t that temperature reading mean
+anything to you? Why it hasn’t gone up in six miles. Think of it, son!”
+
+“Yes, I’m thinking of it,” I answered; “but what difference will it
+make when our air supply is exhausted whether the temperature is 153
+degrees or 153,000? We’ll be just as dead, and no one will know the
+difference, anyhow.” But I must admit that for some unaccountable
+reason the stationary temperature did renew my waning hope. What I
+hoped for I could not have explained, nor did I try. The very fact, as
+Perry took pains to explain, of the blasting of several very exact and
+learned scientific hypotheses made it apparent that we could not know
+what lay before us within the bowels of the earth, and so we might
+continue to hope for the best, at least until we were dead—when hope
+would no longer be essential to our happiness. It was very good, and
+logical reasoning, and so I embraced it.
+
+At one hundred miles the temperature had DROPPED TO 152 1/2 DEGREES!
+When I announced it Perry reached over and hugged me.
+
+From then on until noon of the second day, it continued to drop until
+it became as uncomfortably cold as it had been unbearably hot before.
+At the depth of two hundred and forty miles our nostrils were assailed
+by almost overpowering ammonia fumes, and the temperature had dropped
+to TEN BELOW ZERO! We suffered nearly two hours of this intense and
+bitter cold, until at about two hundred and forty-five miles from the
+surface of the earth we entered a stratum of solid ice, when the
+mercury quickly rose to 32 degrees. During the next three hours we
+passed through ten miles of ice, eventually emerging into another
+series of ammonia-impregnated strata, where the mercury again fell to
+ten degrees below zero.
+
+Slowly it rose once more until we were convinced that at last we were
+nearing the molten interior of the earth. At four hundred miles the
+temperature had reached 153 degrees. Feverishly I watched the
+thermometer. Slowly it rose. Perry had ceased singing and was at last
+praying.
+
+Our hopes had received such a deathblow that the gradually increasing
+heat seemed to our distorted imaginations much greater than it really
+was. For another hour I saw that pitiless column of mercury rise and
+rise until at four hundred and ten miles it stood at 153 degrees. Now
+it was that we began to hang upon those readings in almost breathless
+anxiety.
+
+One hundred and fifty-three degrees had been the maximum temperature
+above the ice stratum. Would it stop at this point again, or would it
+continue its merciless climb? We knew that there was no hope, and yet
+with the persistence of life itself we continued to hope against
+practical certainty.
+
+Already the air tanks were at low ebb—there was barely enough of the
+precious gases to sustain us for another twelve hours. But would we be
+alive to know or care? It seemed incredible.
+
+At four hundred and twenty miles I took another reading.
+
+“Perry!” I shouted. “Perry, man! She’s going down! She’s going down!
+She’s 152 degrees again.”
+
+“Gad!” he cried. “What can it mean? Can the earth be cold at the
+center?”
+
+“I do not know, Perry,” I answered; “but thank God, if I am to die it
+shall not be by fire—that is all that I have feared. I can face the
+thought of any death but that.”
+
+Down, down went the mercury until it stood as low as it had seven miles
+from the surface of the earth, and then of a sudden the realization
+broke upon us that death was very near. Perry was the first to discover
+it. I saw him fussing with the valves that regulate the air supply. And
+at the same time I experienced difficulty in breathing. My head felt
+dizzy—my limbs heavy.
+
+I saw Perry crumple in his seat. He gave himself a shake and sat erect
+again. Then he turned toward me.
+
+“Good-bye, David,” he said. “I guess this is the end,” and then he
+smiled and closed his eyes.
+
+“Good-bye, Perry, and good luck to you,” I answered, smiling back at
+him. But I fought off that awful lethargy. I was very young—I did not
+want to die.
+
+For an hour I battled against the cruelly enveloping death that
+surrounded me upon all sides. At first I found that by climbing high
+into the framework above me I could find more of the precious
+life-giving elements, and for a while these sustained me. It must have
+been an hour after Perry had succumbed that I at last came to the
+realization that I could no longer carry on this unequal struggle
+against the inevitable.
+
+With my last flickering ray of consciousness I turned mechanically
+toward the distance meter. It stood at exactly five hundred miles from
+the earth’s surface—and then of a sudden the huge thing that bore us
+came to a stop. The rattle of hurtling rock through the hollow jacket
+ceased. The wild racing of the giant drill betokened that it was
+running loose in AIR—and then another truth flashed upon me. The point
+of the prospector was ABOVE us. Slowly it dawned on me that since
+passing through the ice strata it had been above. We had turned in the
+ice and sped upward toward the earth’s crust. Thank God! We were safe!
+
+I put my nose to the intake pipe through which samples were to have
+been taken during the passage of the prospector through the earth, and
+my fondest hopes were realized—a flood of fresh air was pouring into
+the iron cabin. The reaction left me in a state of collapse, and I lost
+consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+II
+A STRANGE WORLD
+
+
+I was unconscious little more than an instant, for as I lunged forward
+from the crossbeam to which I had been clinging, and fell with a crash
+to the floor of the cabin, the shock brought me to myself.
+
+My first concern was with Perry. I was horrified at the thought that
+upon the very threshold of salvation he might be dead. Tearing open his
+shirt I placed my ear to his breast. I could have cried with relief—his
+heart was beating quite regularly.
+
+At the water tank I wetted my handkerchief, slapping it smartly across
+his forehead and face several times. In a moment I was rewarded by the
+raising of his lids. For a time he lay wide-eyed and quite
+uncomprehending. Then his scattered wits slowly foregathered, and he
+sat up sniffing the air with an expression of wonderment upon his face.
+
+“Why, David,” he cried at last, “it’s air, as sure as I live. Why—why
+what does it mean? Where in the world are we? What has happened?”
+
+“It means that we’re back at the surface all right, Perry,” I cried;
+“but where, I don’t know. I haven’t opened her up yet. Been too busy
+reviving you. Lord, man, but you had a close squeak!”
+
+“You say we’re back at the surface, David? How can that be? How long
+have I been unconscious?”
+
+“Not long. We turned in the ice stratum. Don’t you recall the sudden
+whirling of our seats? After that the drill was above you instead of
+below. We didn’t notice it at the time; but I recall it now.”
+
+“You mean to say that we turned back in the ice stratum, David? That is
+not possible. The prospector cannot turn unless its nose is deflected
+from the outside—by some external force or resistance—the steering
+wheel within would have moved in response. The steering wheel has not
+budged, David, since we started. You know that.”
+
+I did know it; but here we were with our drill racing in pure air, and
+copious volumes of it pouring into the cabin.
+
+“We couldn’t have turned in the ice stratum, Perry, I know as well as
+you,” I replied; “but the fact remains that we did, for here we are
+this minute at the surface of the earth again, and I am going out to
+see just where.”
+
+“Better wait till morning, David—it must be midnight now.”
+
+I glanced at the chronometer.
+
+“Half after twelve. We have been out seventy-two hours, so it must be
+midnight. Nevertheless I am going to have a look at the blessed sky
+that I had given up all hope of ever seeing again,” and so saying I
+lifted the bars from the inner door, and swung it open. There was quite
+a quantity of loose material in the jacket, and this I had to remove
+with a shovel to get at the opposite door in the outer shell.
+
+In a short time I had removed enough of the earth and rock to the floor
+of the cabin to expose the door beyond. Perry was directly behind me as
+I threw it open. The upper half was above the surface of the ground.
+With an expression of surprise I turned and looked at Perry—it was
+broad daylight without!
+
+“Something seems to have gone wrong either with our calculations or the
+chronometer,” I said. Perry shook his head—there was a strange
+expression in his eyes.
+
+“Let’s have a look beyond that door, David,” he cried.
+
+Together we stepped out to stand in silent contemplation of a landscape
+at once weird and beautiful. Before us a low and level shore stretched
+down to a silent sea. As far as the eye could reach the surface of the
+water was dotted with countless tiny isles—some of towering, barren,
+granitic rock—others resplendent in gorgeous trappings of tropical
+vegetation, myriad starred with the magnificent splendor of vivid
+blooms.
+
+Behind us rose a dark and forbidding wood of giant arborescent ferns
+intermingled with the commoner types of a primeval tropical forest.
+Huge creepers depended in great loops from tree to tree, dense
+under-brush overgrew a tangled mass of fallen trunks and branches. Upon
+the outer verge we could see the same splendid coloring of countless
+blossoms that glorified the islands, but within the dense shadows all
+seemed dark and gloomy as the grave.
+
+And upon all the noonday sun poured its torrid rays out of a cloudless
+sky.
+
+“Where on earth can we be?” I asked, turning to Perry.
+
+For some moments the old man did not reply. He stood with bowed head,
+buried in deep thought. But at last he spoke.
+
+“David,” he said, “I am not so sure that we are ON earth.”
+
+“What do you mean, Perry?” I cried. “Do you think that we are dead, and
+this is heaven?” He smiled, and turning, pointing to the nose of the
+prospector protruding from the ground at our backs.
+
+“But for that, David, I might believe that we were indeed come to the
+country beyond the Styx. The prospector renders that theory
+untenable—it, certainly, could never have gone to heaven. However I am
+willing to concede that we actually may be in another world from that
+which we have always known. If we are not ON earth, there is every
+reason to believe that we may be IN it.”
+
+“We may have quartered through the earth’s crust and come out upon some
+tropical island of the West Indies,” I suggested. Again Perry shook his
+head.
+
+“Let us wait and see, David,” he replied, “and in the meantime suppose
+we do a bit of exploring up and down the coast—we may find a native who
+can enlighten us.”
+
+As we walked along the beach Perry gazed long and earnestly across the
+water. Evidently he was wrestling with a mighty problem.
+
+“David,” he said abruptly, “do you perceive anything unusual about the
+horizon?”
+
+As I looked I began to appreciate the reason for the strangeness of the
+landscape that had haunted me from the first with an illusive
+suggestion of the bizarre and unnatural—THERE WAS NO HORIZON! As far as
+the eye could reach out the sea continued and upon its bosom floated
+tiny islands, those in the distance reduced to mere specks; but ever
+beyond them was the sea, until the impression became quite real that
+one was LOOKING UP at the most distant point that the eyes could
+fathom—the distance was lost in the distance. That was all—there was no
+clear-cut horizontal line marking the dip of the globe below the line
+of vision.
+
+“A great light is commencing to break on me,” continued Perry, taking
+out his watch. “I believe that I have partially solved the riddle. It
+is now two o’clock. When we emerged from the prospector the sun was
+directly above us. Where is it now?”
+
+I glanced up to find the great orb still motionless in the center of
+the heaven. And such a sun! I had scarcely noticed it before. Fully
+thrice the size of the sun I had known throughout my life, and
+apparently so near that the sight of it carried the conviction that one
+might almost reach up and touch it.
+
+“My God, Perry, where are we?” I exclaimed. “This thing is beginning to
+get on my nerves.”
+
+“I think that I may state quite positively, David,” he commenced, “that
+we are—” but he got no further. From behind us in the vicinity of the
+prospector there came the most thunderous, awe-inspiring roar that ever
+had fallen upon my ears. With one accord we turned to discover the
+author of that fearsome noise.
+
+Had I still retained the suspicion that we were on earth the sight that
+met my eyes would quite entirely have banished it. Emerging from the
+forest was a colossal beast which closely resembled a bear. It was
+fully as large as the largest elephant and with great forepaws armed
+with huge claws. Its nose, or snout, depended nearly a foot below its
+lower jaw, much after the manner of a rudimentary trunk. The giant body
+was covered by a coat of thick, shaggy hair.
+
+Roaring horribly it came toward us at a ponderous, shuffling trot. I
+turned to Perry to suggest that it might be wise to seek other
+surroundings—the idea had evidently occurred to Perry previously, for
+he was already a hundred paces away, and with each second his
+prodigious bounds increased the distance. I had never guessed what
+latent speed possibilities the old gentleman possessed.
+
+I saw that he was headed toward a little point of the forest which ran
+out toward the sea not far from where we had been standing, and as the
+mighty creature, the sight of which had galvanized him into such
+remarkable action, was forging steadily toward me, I set off after
+Perry, though at a somewhat more decorous pace. It was evident that the
+massive beast pursuing us was not built for speed, so all that I
+considered necessary was to gain the trees sufficiently ahead of it to
+enable me to climb to the safety of some great branch before it came
+up.
+
+Notwithstanding our danger I could not help but laugh at Perry’s
+frantic capers as he essayed to gain the safety of the lower branches
+of the trees he now had reached. The stems were bare for a distance of
+some fifteen feet—at least on those trees which Perry attempted to
+ascend, for the suggestion of safety carried by the larger of the
+forest giants had evidently attracted him to them. A dozen times he
+scrambled up the trunks like a huge cat only to fall back to the ground
+once more, and with each failure he cast a horrified glance over his
+shoulder at the oncoming brute, simultaneously emitting terror-stricken
+shrieks that awoke the echoes of the grim forest.
+
+At length he spied a dangling creeper about the bigness of one’s wrist,
+and when I reached the trees he was racing madly up it, hand over hand.
+He had almost reached the lowest branch of the tree from which the
+creeper depended when the thing parted beneath his weight and he fell
+sprawling at my feet.
+
+The misfortune now was no longer amusing, for the beast was already too
+close to us for comfort. Seizing Perry by the shoulder I dragged him to
+his feet, and rushing to a smaller tree—one that he could easily
+encircle with his arms and legs—I boosted him as far up as I could, and
+then left him to his fate, for a glance over my shoulder revealed the
+awful beast almost upon me.
+
+It was the great size of the thing alone that saved me. Its enormous
+bulk rendered it too slow upon its feet to cope with the agility of my
+young muscles, and so I was enabled to dodge out of its way and run
+completely behind it before its slow wits could direct it in pursuit.
+
+The few seconds of grace that this gave me found me safely lodged in
+the branches of a tree a few paces from that in which Perry had at last
+found a haven.
+
+Did I say safely lodged? At the time I thought we were quite safe, and
+so did Perry. He was praying—raising his voice in thanksgiving at our
+deliverance—and had just completed a sort of paeon of gratitude that
+the thing couldn’t climb a tree when without warning it reared up
+beneath him on its enormous tail and hind feet, and reached those
+fearfully armed paws quite to the branch upon which he crouched.
+
+The accompanying roar was all but drowned in Perry’s scream of fright,
+and he came near tumbling headlong into the gaping jaws beneath him, so
+precipitate was his impetuous haste to vacate the dangerous limb. It
+was with a deep sigh of relief that I saw him gain a higher branch in
+safety.
+
+And then the brute did that which froze us both anew with horror.
+Grasping the tree’s stem with his powerful paws he dragged down with
+all the great weight of his huge bulk and all the irresistible force of
+those mighty muscles. Slowly, but surely, the stem began to bend toward
+him. Inch by inch he worked his paws upward as the tree leaned more and
+more from the perpendicular. Perry clung chattering in a panic of
+terror. Higher and higher into the bending and swaying tree he
+clambered. More and more rapidly was the tree top inclining toward the
+ground.
+
+I saw now why the great brute was armed with such enormous paws. The
+use that he was putting them to was precisely that for which nature had
+intended them. The sloth-like creature was herbivorous, and to feed
+that mighty carcass entire trees must be stripped of their foliage. The
+reason for its attacking us might easily be accounted for on the
+supposition of an ugly disposition such as that which the fierce and
+stupid rhinoceros of Africa possesses. But these were later
+reflections. At the moment I was too frantic with apprehension on
+Perry’s behalf to consider aught other than a means to save him from
+the death that loomed so close.
+
+Realizing that I could outdistance the clumsy brute in the open, I
+dropped from my leafy sanctuary intent only on distracting the thing’s
+attention from Perry long enough to enable the old man to gain the
+safety of a larger tree. There were many close by which not even the
+terrific strength of that titanic monster could bend.
+
+As I touched the ground I snatched a broken limb from the tangled mass
+that matted the jungle-like floor of the forest and, leaping unnoticed
+behind the shaggy back, dealt the brute a terrific blow. My plan worked
+like magic. From the previous slowness of the beast I had been led to
+look for no such marvelous agility as he now displayed. Releasing his
+hold upon the tree he dropped on all fours and at the same time swung
+his great, wicked tail with a force that would have broken every bone
+in my body had it struck me; but, fortunately, I had turned to flee at
+the very instant that I felt my blow land upon the towering back.
+
+As it started in pursuit of me I made the mistake of running along the
+edge of the forest rather than making for the open beach. In a moment I
+was knee-deep in rotting vegetation, and the awful thing behind me was
+gaining rapidly as I floundered and fell in my efforts to extricate
+myself.
+
+A fallen log gave me an instant’s advantage, for climbing upon it I
+leaped to another a few paces farther on, and in this way was able to
+keep clear of the mush that carpeted the surrounding ground. But the
+zigzag course that this necessitated was placing such a heavy handicap
+upon me that my pursuer was steadily gaining upon me.
+
+Suddenly from behind I heard a tumult of howls, and sharp, piercing
+barks—much the sound that a pack of wolves raises when in full cry.
+Involuntarily I glanced backward to discover the origin of this new and
+menacing note with the result that I missed my footing and went
+sprawling once more upon my face in the deep muck.
+
+My mammoth enemy was so close by this time that I knew I must feel the
+weight of one of his terrible paws before I could rise, but to my
+surprise the blow did not fall upon me. The howling and snapping and
+barking of the new element which had been infused into the melee now
+seemed centered quite close behind me, and as I raised myself upon my
+hands and glanced around I saw what it was that had distracted the
+DYRYTH, as I afterward learned the thing is called, from my trail.
+
+It was surrounded by a pack of some hundred wolf-like creatures—wild
+dogs they seemed—that rushed growling and snapping in upon it from all
+sides, so that they sank their white fangs into the slow brute and were
+away again before it could reach them with its huge paws or sweeping
+tail.
+
+But these were not all that my startled eyes perceived. Chattering and
+gibbering through the lower branches of the trees came a company of
+manlike creatures evidently urging on the dog pack. They were to all
+appearances strikingly similar in aspect to the Negro of Africa. Their
+skins were very black, and their features much like those of the more
+pronounced Negroid type except that the head receded more rapidly above
+the eyes, leaving little or no forehead. Their arms were rather longer
+and their legs shorter in proportion to the torso than in man, and
+later I noticed that their great toes protruded at right angles from
+their feet—because of their arboreal habits, I presume. Behind them
+trailed long, slender tails which they used in climbing quite as much
+as they did either their hands or feet.
+
+I had stumbled to my feet the moment that I discovered that the
+wolf-dogs were holding the dyryth at bay. At sight of me several of the
+savage creatures left off worrying the great brute to come slinking
+with bared fangs toward me, and as I turned to run toward the trees
+again to seek safety among the lower branches, I saw a number of the
+man-apes leaping and chattering in the foliage of the nearest tree.
+
+Between them and the beasts behind me there was little choice, but at
+least there was a doubt as to the reception these grotesque parodies on
+humanity would accord me, while there was none as to the fate which
+awaited me beneath the grinning fangs of my fierce pursuers.
+
+And so I raced on toward the trees intending to pass beneath that which
+held the man-things and take refuge in another farther on; but the
+wolf-dogs were very close behind me—so close that I had despaired of
+escaping them, when one of the creatures in the tree above swung down
+headforemost, his tail looped about a great limb, and grasping me
+beneath my armpits swung me in safety up among his fellows.
+
+There they fell to examining me with the utmost excitement and
+curiosity. They picked at my clothing, my hair, and my flesh. They
+turned me about to see if I had a tail, and when they discovered that I
+was not so equipped they fell into roars of laughter. Their teeth were
+very large and white and even, except for the upper canines which were
+a trifle longer than the others—protruding just a bit when the mouth
+was closed.
+
+When they had examined me for a few moments one of them discovered that
+my clothing was not a part of me, with the result that garment by
+garment they tore it from me amidst peals of the wildest laughter.
+Apelike, they essayed to don the apparel themselves, but their
+ingenuity was not sufficient to the task and so they gave it up.
+
+In the meantime I had been straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of
+Perry, but nowhere about could I see him, although the clump of trees
+in which he had first taken refuge was in full view. I was much
+exercised by fear that something had befallen him, and though I called
+his name aloud several times there was no response.
+
+Tired at last of playing with my clothing the creatures threw it to the
+ground, and catching me, one on either side, by an arm, started off at
+a most terrifying pace through the tree tops. Never have I experienced
+such a journey before or since—even now I oftentimes awake from a deep
+sleep haunted by the horrid remembrance of that awful experience.
+
+From tree to tree the agile creatures sprang like flying squirrels,
+while the cold sweat stood upon my brow as I glimpsed the depths
+beneath, into which a single misstep on the part of either of my
+bearers would hurl me. As they bore me along, my mind was occupied with
+a thousand bewildering thoughts. What had become of Perry? Would I ever
+see him again? What were the intentions of these half-human things into
+whose hands I had fallen? Were they inhabitants of the same world into
+which I had been born? No! It could not be. But yet where else? I had
+not left that earth—of that I was sure. Still neither could I reconcile
+the things which I had seen to a belief that I was still in the world
+of my birth. With a sigh I gave it up.
+
+
+
+
+III
+A CHANGE OF MASTERS
+
+
+We must have traveled several miles through the dark and dismal wood
+when we came suddenly upon a dense village built high among the
+branches of the trees. As we approached it my escort broke into wild
+shouting which was immediately answered from within, and a moment later
+a swarm of creatures of the same strange race as those who had captured
+me poured out to meet us. Again I was the center of a wildly chattering
+horde. I was pulled this way and that. Pinched, pounded, and thumped
+until I was black and blue, yet I do not think that their treatment was
+dictated by either cruelty or malice—I was a curiosity, a freak, a new
+plaything, and their childish minds required the added evidence of all
+their senses to back up the testimony of their eyes.
+
+Presently they dragged me within the village, which consisted of
+several hundred rude shelters of boughs and leaves supported upon the
+branches of the trees.
+
+Between the huts, which sometimes formed crooked streets, were dead
+branches and the trunks of small trees which connected the huts upon
+one tree to those within adjoining trees; the whole network of huts and
+pathways forming an almost solid flooring a good fifty feet above the
+ground.
+
+I wondered why these agile creatures required connecting bridges
+between the trees, but later when I saw the motley aggregation of
+half-savage beasts which they kept within their village I realized the
+necessity for the pathways. There were a number of the same vicious
+wolf-dogs which we had left worrying the dyryth, and many goatlike
+animals whose distended udders explained the reasons for their
+presence.
+
+My guard halted before one of the huts into which I was pushed; then
+two of the creatures squatted down before the entrance—to prevent my
+escape, doubtless. Though where I should have escaped to I certainly
+had not the remotest conception. I had no more than entered the dark
+shadows of the interior than there fell upon my ears the tones of a
+familiar voice, in prayer.
+
+“Perry!” I cried. “Dear old Perry! Thank the Lord you are safe.”
+
+“David! Can it be possible that you escaped?” And the old man stumbled
+toward me and threw his arms about me.
+
+He had seen me fall before the dyryth, and then he had been seized by a
+number of the ape-creatures and borne through the tree tops to their
+village. His captors had been as inquisitive as to his strange clothing
+as had mine, with the same result. As we looked at each other we could
+not help but laugh.
+
+“With a tail, David,” remarked Perry, “you would make a very handsome
+ape.”
+
+“Maybe we can borrow a couple,” I rejoined. “They seem to be quite the
+thing this season. I wonder what the creatures intend doing with us,
+Perry. They don’t seem really savage. What do you suppose they can be?
+You were about to tell me where we are when that great hairy frigate
+bore down upon us—have you really any idea at all?”
+
+“Yes, David,” he replied, “I know precisely where we are. We have made
+a magnificent discovery, my boy! We have proved that the earth is
+hollow. We have passed entirely through its crust to the inner world.”
+
+“Perry, you are mad!”
+
+“Not at all, David. For two hundred and fifty miles our prospector bore
+us through the crust beneath our outer world. At that point it reached
+the center of gravity of the five-hundred-mile-thick crust. Up to that
+point we had been descending—direction is, of course, merely relative.
+Then at the moment that our seats revolved—the thing that made you
+believe that we had turned about and were speeding upward—we passed the
+center of gravity and, though we did not alter the direction of our
+progress, yet we were in reality moving upward—toward the surface of
+the inner world. Does not the strange fauna and flora which we have
+seen convince you that you are not in the world of your birth? And the
+horizon—could it present the strange aspects which we both noted unless
+we were indeed standing upon the inside surface of a sphere?”
+
+“But the sun, Perry!” I urged. “How in the world can the sun shine
+through five hundred miles of solid crust?”
+
+“It is not the sun of the outer world that we see here. It is another
+sun—an entirely different sun—that casts its eternal noonday effulgence
+upon the face of the inner world. Look at it now, David—if you can see
+it from the doorway of this hut—and you will see that it is still in
+the exact center of the heavens. We have been here for many hours—yet
+it is still noon.
+
+“And withal it is very simple, David. The earth was once a nebulous
+mass. It cooled, and as it cooled it shrank. At length a thin crust of
+solid matter formed upon its outer surface—a sort of shell; but within
+it was partially molten matter and highly expanded gases. As it
+continued to cool, what happened? Centrifugal force hurled the
+particles of the nebulous center toward the crust as rapidly as they
+approached a solid state. You have seen the same principle practically
+applied in the modern cream separator. Presently there was only a small
+super-heated core of gaseous matter remaining within a huge vacant
+interior left by the contraction of the cooling gases. The equal
+attraction of the solid crust from all directions maintained this
+luminous core in the exact center of the hollow globe. What remains of
+it is the sun you saw today—a relatively tiny thing at the exact center
+of the earth. Equally to every part of this inner world it diffuses its
+perpetual noonday light and torrid heat.
+
+“This inner world must have cooled sufficiently to support animal life
+long ages after life appeared upon the outer crust, but that the same
+agencies were at work here is evident from the similar forms of both
+animal and vegetable creation which we have already seen. Take the
+great beast which attacked us, for example. Unquestionably a
+counterpart of the Megatherium of the post-Pliocene period of the outer
+crust, whose fossilized skeleton has been found in South America.”
+
+“But the grotesque inhabitants of this forest?” I urged. “Surely they
+have no counterpart in the earth’s history.”
+
+“Who can tell?” he rejoined. “They may constitute the link between ape
+and man, all traces of which have been swallowed by the countless
+convulsions which have racked the outer crust, or they may be merely
+the result of evolution along slightly different lines—either is quite
+possible.”
+
+Further speculation was interrupted by the appearance of several of our
+captors before the entrance of the hut. Two of them entered and dragged
+us forth. The perilous pathways and the surrounding trees were filled
+with the black ape-men, their females, and their young. There was not
+an ornament, a weapon, or a garment among the lot.
+
+“Quite low in the scale of creation,” commented Perry.
+
+“Quite high enough to play the deuce with us, though,” I replied. “Now
+what do you suppose they intend doing with us?”
+
+We were not long in learning. As on the occasion of our trip to the
+village we were seized by a couple of the powerful creatures and
+whirled away through the tree tops, while about us and in our wake
+raced a chattering, jabbering, grinning horde of sleek, black
+ape-things.
+
+Twice my bearers missed their footing, and my heart ceased beating as
+we plunged toward instant death among the tangled deadwood beneath. But
+on both occasions those lithe, powerful tails reached out and found
+sustaining branches, nor did either of the creatures loosen their grasp
+upon me. In fact, it seemed that the incidents were of no greater
+moment to them than would be the stubbing of one’s toe at a street
+crossing in the outer world—they but laughed uproariously and sped on
+with me.
+
+For some time they continued through the forest—how long I could not
+guess for I was learning, what was later borne very forcefully to my
+mind, that time ceases to be a factor the moment means for measuring it
+cease to exist. Our watches were gone, and we were living beneath a
+stationary sun. Already I was puzzled to compute the period of time
+which had elapsed since we broke through the crust of the inner world.
+It might be hours, or it might be days—who in the world could tell
+where it was always noon! By the sun, no time had elapsed—but my
+judgment told me that we must have been several hours in this strange
+world.
+
+Presently the forest terminated, and we came out upon a level plain. A
+short distance before us rose a few low, rocky hills. Toward these our
+captors urged us, and after a short time led us through a narrow pass
+into a tiny, circular valley. Here they got down to work, and we were
+soon convinced that if we were not to die to make a Roman holiday, we
+were to die for some other purpose. The attitude of our captors altered
+immediately as they entered the natural arena within the rocky hills.
+Their laughter ceased. Grim ferocity marked their bestial faces—bared
+fangs menaced us.
+
+We were placed in the center of the amphitheater—the thousand creatures
+forming a great ring about us. Then a wolf-dog was brought—HYAENODON
+Perry called it—and turned loose with us inside the circle. The thing’s
+body was as large as that of a full-grown mastiff, its legs were short
+and powerful, and its jaws broad and strong. Dark, shaggy hair covered
+its back and sides, while its breast and belly were quite white. As it
+slunk toward us it presented a most formidable aspect with its upcurled
+lips baring its mighty fangs.
+
+Perry was on his knees, praying. I stooped and picked up a small stone.
+At my movement the beast veered off a bit and commenced circling us.
+Evidently it had been a target for stones before. The ape-things were
+dancing up and down urging the brute on with savage cries, until at
+last, seeing that I did not throw, he charged us.
+
+At Andover, and later at Yale, I had pitched on winning ball teams. My
+speed and control must both have been above the ordinary, for I made
+such a record during my senior year at college that overtures were made
+to me in behalf of one of the great major-league teams; but in the
+tightest pitch that ever had confronted me in the past I had never been
+in such need for control as now.
+
+As I wound up for the delivery, I held my nerves and muscles under
+absolute command, though the grinning jaws were hurtling toward me at
+terrific speed. And then I let go, with every ounce of my weight and
+muscle and science in back of that throw. The stone caught the
+hyaenodon full upon the end of the nose, and sent him bowling over upon
+his back.
+
+At the same instant a chorus of shrieks and howls arose from the circle
+of spectators, so that for a moment I thought that the upsetting of
+their champion was the cause; but in this I soon saw that I was
+mistaken. As I looked, the ape-things broke in all directions toward
+the surrounding hills, and then I distinguished the real cause of their
+perturbation. Behind them, streaming through the pass which leads into
+the valley, came a swarm of hairy men—gorilla-like creatures armed with
+spears and hatchets, and bearing long, oval shields. Like demons they
+set upon the ape-things, and before them the hyaenodon, which had now
+regained its senses and its feet, fled howling with fright. Past us
+swept the pursued and the pursuers, nor did the hairy ones accord us
+more than a passing glance until the arena had been emptied of its
+former occupants. Then they returned to us, and one who seemed to have
+authority among them directed that we be brought with them.
+
+When we had passed out of the amphitheater onto the great plain we saw
+a caravan of men and women—human beings like ourselves—and for the
+first time hope and relief filled my heart, until I could have cried
+out in the exuberance of my happiness. It is true that they were a
+half-naked, wild-appearing aggregation; but they at least were
+fashioned along the same lines as ourselves—there was nothing grotesque
+or horrible about them as about the other creatures in this strange,
+weird world.
+
+But as we came closer, our hearts sank once more, for we discovered
+that the poor wretches were chained neck to neck in a long line, and
+that the gorilla-men were their guards. With little ceremony Perry and
+I were chained at the end of the line, and without further ado the
+interrupted march was resumed.
+
+Up to this time the excitement had kept us both up; but now the
+tiresome monotony of the long march across the sun-baked plain brought
+on all the agonies consequent to a long-denied sleep. On and on we
+stumbled beneath that hateful noonday sun. If we fell we were prodded
+with a sharp point. Our companions in chains did not stumble. They
+strode along proudly erect. Occasionally they would exchange words with
+one another in a monosyllabic language. They were a noble-appearing
+race with well-formed heads and perfect physiques. The men were heavily
+bearded, tall and muscular; the women, smaller and more gracefully
+molded, with great masses of raven hair caught into loose knots upon
+their heads. The features of both sexes were well proportioned—there
+was not a face among them that would have been called even plain if
+judged by earthly standards. They wore no ornaments; but this I later
+learned was due to the fact that their captors had stripped them of
+everything of value. As garmenture the women possessed a single robe of
+some light-colored, spotted hide, rather similar in appearance to a
+leopard’s skin. This they wore either supported entirely about the
+waist by a leathern thong, so that it hung partially below the knee on
+one side, or possibly looped gracefully across one shoulder. Their feet
+were shod with skin sandals. The men wore loin cloths of the hide of
+some shaggy beast, long ends of which depended before and behind nearly
+to the ground. In some instances these ends were finished with the
+strong talons of the beast from which the hides had been taken.
+
+Our guards, whom I already have described as gorilla-like men, were
+rather lighter in build than a gorilla, but even so they were indeed
+mighty creatures. Their arms and legs were proportioned more in
+conformity with human standards, but their entire bodies were covered
+with shaggy, brown hair, and their faces were quite as brutal as those
+of the few stuffed specimens of the gorilla which I had seen in the
+museums at home.
+
+Their only redeeming feature lay in the development of the head above
+and back of the ears. In this respect they were not one whit less human
+than we. They were clothed in a sort of tunic of light cloth which
+reached to the knees. Beneath this they wore only a loin cloth of the
+same material, while their feet were shod with thick hide of some
+mammoth creature of this inner world.
+
+Their arms and necks were encircled by many ornaments of metal—silver
+predominating—and on their tunics were sewn the heads of tiny reptiles
+in odd and rather artistic designs. They talked among themselves as
+they marched along on either side of us, but in a language which I
+perceived differed from that employed by our fellow prisoners. When
+they addressed the latter they used what appeared to be a third
+language, and which I later learned is a mongrel tongue rather
+analogous to the Pidgin-English of the Chinese coolie.
+
+How far we marched I have no conception, nor has Perry. Both of us were
+asleep much of the time for hours before a halt was called—then we
+dropped in our tracks. I say “for hours,” but how may one measure time
+where time does not exist! When our march commenced the sun stood at
+zenith. When we halted our shadows still pointed toward nadir. Whether
+an instant or an eternity of earthly time elapsed who may say. That
+march may have occupied nine years and eleven months of the ten years
+that I spent in the inner world, or it may have been accomplished in
+the fraction of a second—I cannot tell. But this I do know that since
+you have told me that ten years have elapsed since I departed from this
+earth I have lost all respect for time—I am commencing to doubt that
+such a thing exists other than in the weak, finite mind of man.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL
+
+
+When our guards aroused us from sleep we were much refreshed. They gave
+us food. Strips of dried meat it was, but it put new life and strength
+into us, so that now we too marched with high-held heads, and took
+noble strides. At least I did, for I was young and proud; but poor
+Perry hated walking. On earth I had often seen him call a cab to travel
+a square—he was paying for it now, and his old legs wobbled so that I
+put my arm about him and half carried him through the balance of those
+frightful marches.
+
+The country began to change at last, and we wound up out of the level
+plain through mighty mountains of virgin granite. The tropical verdure
+of the lowlands was replaced by hardier vegetation, but even here the
+effects of constant heat and light were apparent in the immensity of
+the trees and the profusion of foliage and blooms. Crystal streams
+roared through their rocky channels, fed by the perpetual snows which
+we could see far above us. Above the snowcapped heights hung masses of
+heavy clouds. It was these, Perry explained, which evidently served the
+double purpose of replenishing the melting snows and protecting them
+from the direct rays of the sun.
+
+By this time we had picked up a smattering of the bastard language in
+which our guards addressed us, as well as making good headway in the
+rather charming tongue of our co-captives. Directly ahead of me in the
+chain gang was a young woman. Three feet of chain linked us together in
+a forced companionship which I, at least, soon rejoiced in. For I found
+her a willing teacher, and from her I learned the language of her
+tribe, and much of the life and customs of the inner world—at least
+that part of it with which she was familiar.
+
+She told me that she was called Dian the Beautiful, and that she
+belonged to the tribe of Amoz, which dwells in the cliffs above the
+Darel Az, or shallow sea.
+
+“How came you here?” I asked her.
+
+“I was running away from Jubal the Ugly One,” she answered, as though
+that was explanation quite sufficient.
+
+“Who is Jubal the Ugly One?” I asked. “And why did you run away from
+him?”
+
+She looked at me in surprise.
+
+“Why DOES a woman run away from a man?” she answered my question with
+another.
+
+“They do not, where I come from,” I replied. “Sometimes they run after
+them.”
+
+But she could not understand. Nor could I get her to grasp the fact
+that I was of another world. She was quite as positive that creation
+was originated solely to produce her own kind and the world she lived
+in as are many of the outer world.
+
+“But Jubal,” I insisted. “Tell me about him, and why you ran away to be
+chained by the neck and scourged across the face of a world.”
+
+“Jubal the Ugly One placed his trophy before my father’s house. It was
+the head of a mighty tandor. It remained there and no greater trophy
+was placed beside it. So I knew that Jubal the Ugly One would come and
+take me as his mate. None other so powerful wished me, or they would
+have slain a mightier beast and thus have won me from Jubal. My father
+is not a mighty hunter. Once he was, but a sadok tossed him, and never
+again had he the full use of his right arm. My brother, Dacor the
+Strong One, had gone to the land of Sari to steal a mate for himself.
+Thus there was none, father, brother, or lover, to save me from Jubal
+the Ugly One, and I ran away and hid among the hills that skirt the
+land of Amoz. And there these Sagoths found me and made me captive.”
+
+“What will they do with you?” I asked. “Where are they taking us?”
+
+Again she looked her incredulity.
+
+“I can almost believe that you are of another world,” she said, “for
+otherwise such ignorance were inexplicable. Do you really mean that you
+do not know that the Sagoths are the creatures of the Mahars—the mighty
+Mahars who think they own Pellucidar and all that walks or grows upon
+its surface, or creeps or burrows beneath, or swims within its lakes
+and oceans, or flies through its air? Next you will be telling me that
+you never before heard of the Mahars!”
+
+I was loath to do it, and further incur her scorn; but there was no
+alternative if I were to absorb knowledge, so I made a clean breast of
+my pitiful ignorance as to the mighty Mahars. She was shocked. But she
+did her very best to enlighten me, though much that she said was as
+Greek would have been to her. She described the Mahars largely by
+comparisons. In this way they were like unto thipdars, in that to the
+hairless lidi.
+
+About all I gleaned of them was that they were quite hideous, had
+wings, and webbed feet; lived in cities built beneath the ground; could
+swim under water for great distances, and were very, very wise. The
+Sagoths were their weapons of offense and defense, and the races like
+herself were their hands and feet—they were the slaves and servants who
+did all the manual labor. The Mahars were the heads—the brains—of the
+inner world. I longed to see this wondrous race of supermen.
+
+Perry learned the language with me. When we halted, as we occasionally
+did, though sometimes the halts seemed ages apart, he would join in the
+conversation, as would Ghak the Hairy One, he who was chained just
+ahead of Dian the Beautiful. Ahead of Ghak was Hooja the Sly One. He
+too entered the conversation occasionally. Most of his remarks were
+directed toward Dian the Beautiful. It didn’t take half an eye to see
+that he had developed a bad case; but the girl appeared totally
+oblivious to his thinly veiled advances. Did I say thinly veiled? There
+is a race of men in New Zealand, or Australia, I have forgotten which,
+who indicate their preference for the lady of their affections by
+banging her over the head with a bludgeon. By comparison with this
+method Hooja’s lovemaking might be called thinly veiled. At first it
+caused me to blush violently although I have seen several Old Years out
+at Rectors, and in other less fashionable places off Broadway, and in
+Vienna, and Hamburg.
+
+But the girl! She was magnificent. It was easy to see that she
+considered herself as entirely above and apart from her present
+surroundings and company. She talked with me, and with Perry, and with
+the taciturn Ghak because we were respectful; but she couldn’t even see
+Hooja the Sly One, much less hear him, and that made him furious. He
+tried to get one of the Sagoths to move the girl up ahead of him in the
+slave gang, but the fellow only poked him with his spear and told him
+that he had selected the girl for his own property—that he would buy
+her from the Mahars as soon as they reached Phutra. Phutra, it seemed,
+was the city of our destination.
+
+After passing over the first chain of mountains we skirted a salt sea,
+upon whose bosom swam countless horrid things. Seal-like creatures
+there were with long necks stretching ten and more feet above their
+enormous bodies and whose snake heads were split with gaping mouths
+bristling with countless fangs. There were huge tortoises too, paddling
+about among these other reptiles, which Perry said were Plesiosaurs of
+the Lias. I didn’t question his veracity—they might have been most
+anything.
+
+Dian told me they were tandorazes, or tandors of the sea, and that the
+other, and more fearsome reptiles, which occasionally rose from the
+deep to do battle with them, were azdyryths, or sea-dyryths—Perry
+called them Ichthyosaurs. They resembled a whale with the head of an
+alligator.
+
+I had forgotten what little geology I had studied at school—about all
+that remained was an impression of horror that the illustrations of
+restored prehistoric monsters had made upon me, and a well-defined
+belief that any man with a pig’s shank and a vivid imagination could
+“restore” most any sort of paleolithic monster he saw fit, and take
+rank as a first class paleontologist. But when I saw these sleek, shiny
+carcasses shimmering in the sunlight as they emerged from the ocean,
+shaking their giant heads; when I saw the waters roll from their
+sinuous bodies in miniature waterfalls as they glided hither and
+thither, now upon the surface, now half submerged; as I saw them meet,
+open-mouthed, hissing and snorting, in their titanic and interminable
+warring I realized how futile is man’s poor, weak imagination by
+comparison with Nature’s incredible genius.
+
+And Perry! He was absolutely flabbergasted. He said so himself.
+
+“David,” he remarked, after we had marched for a long time beside that
+awful sea. “David, I used to teach geology, and I thought that I
+believed what I taught; but now I see that I did not believe it—that it
+is impossible for man to believe such things as these unless he sees
+them with his own eyes. We take things for granted, perhaps, because we
+are told them over and over again, and have no way of disproving
+them—like religions, for example; but we don’t believe them, we only
+think we do. If you ever get back to the outer world you will find that
+the geologists and paleontologists will be the first to set you down a
+liar, for they know that no such creatures as they restore ever
+existed. It is all right to IMAGINE them as existing in an equally
+imaginary epoch—but now? poof!”
+
+At the next halt Hooja the Sly One managed to find enough slack chain
+to permit him to worm himself back quite close to Dian. We were all
+standing, and as he edged near the girl she turned her back upon him in
+such a truly earthly feminine manner that I could scarce repress a
+smile; but it was a short-lived smile for on the instant the Sly One’s
+hand fell upon the girl’s bare arm, jerking her roughly toward him.
+
+I was not then familiar with the customs or social ethics which
+prevailed within Pellucidar; but even so I did not need the appealing
+look which the girl shot to me from her magnificent eyes to influence
+my subsequent act. What the Sly One’s intention was I paused not to
+inquire; but instead, before he could lay hold of her with his other
+hand, I placed a right to the point of his jaw that felled him in his
+tracks.
+
+A roar of approval went up from those of the other prisoners and the
+Sagoths who had witnessed the brief drama; not, as I later learned,
+because I had championed the girl, but for the neat and, to them,
+astounding method by which I had bested Hooja.
+
+And the girl? At first she looked at me with wide, wondering eyes, and
+then she dropped her head, her face half averted, and a delicate flush
+suffused her cheek. For a moment she stood thus in silence, and then
+her head went high, and she turned her back upon me as she had upon
+Hooja. Some of the prisoners laughed, and I saw the face of Ghak the
+Hairy One go very black as he looked at me searchingly. And what I
+could see of Dian’s cheek went suddenly from red to white.
+
+Immediately after we resumed the march, and though I realized that in
+some way I had offended Dian the Beautiful I could not prevail upon her
+to talk with me that I might learn wherein I had erred—in fact I might
+quite as well have been addressing a sphinx for all the attention I
+got. At last my own foolish pride stepped in and prevented my making
+any further attempts, and thus a companionship that without my
+realizing it had come to mean a great deal to me was cut off.
+Thereafter I confined my conversation to Perry. Hooja did not renew his
+advances toward the girl, nor did he again venture near me.
+
+Again the weary and apparently interminable marching became a perfect
+nightmare of horrors to me. The more firmly fixed became the
+realization that the girl’s friendship had meant so much to me, the
+more I came to miss it; and the more impregnable the barrier of silly
+pride. But I was very young and would not ask Ghak for the explanation
+which I was sure he could give, and that might have made everything all
+right again.
+
+On the march, or during halts, Dian refused consistently to notice
+me—when her eyes wandered in my direction she looked either over my
+head or directly through me. At last I became desperate, and determined
+to swallow my self-esteem, and again beg her to tell me how I had
+offended, and how I might make reparation. I made up my mind that I
+should do this at the next halt. We were approaching another range of
+mountains at the time, and when we reached them, instead of winding
+across them through some high-flung pass we entered a mighty natural
+tunnel—a series of labyrinthine grottoes, dark as Erebus.
+
+The guards had no torches or light of any description. In fact we had
+seen no artificial light or sign of fire since we had entered
+Pellucidar. In a land of perpetual noon there is no need of light above
+ground, yet I marveled that they had no means of lighting their way
+through these dark, subterranean passages. So we crept along at a
+snail’s pace, with much stumbling and falling—the guards keeping up a
+singsong chant ahead of us, interspersed with certain high notes which
+I found always indicated rough places and turns.
+
+Halts were now more frequent, but I did not wish to speak to Dian until
+I could see from the expression of her face how she was receiving my
+apologies. At last a faint glow ahead forewarned us of the end of the
+tunnel, for which I for one was devoutly thankful. Then at a sudden
+turn we emerged into the full light of the noonday sun.
+
+But with it came a sudden realization of what meant to me a real
+catastrophe—Dian was gone, and with her a half-dozen other prisoners.
+The guards saw it too, and the ferocity of their rage was terrible to
+behold. Their awesome, bestial faces were contorted in the most
+diabolical expressions, as they accused each other of responsibility
+for the loss. Finally they fell upon us, beating us with their spear
+shafts, and hatchets. They had already killed two near the head of the
+line, and were like to have finished the balance of us when their
+leader finally put a stop to the brutal slaughter. Never in all my life
+had I witnessed a more horrible exhibition of bestial rage—I thanked
+God that Dian had not been one of those left to endure it.
+
+Of the twelve prisoners who had been chained ahead of me each alternate
+one had been freed commencing with Dian. Hooja was gone. Ghak remained.
+What could it mean? How had it been accomplished? The commander of the
+guards was investigating. Soon he discovered that the rude locks which
+had held the neckbands in place had been deftly picked.
+
+“Hooja the Sly One,” murmured Ghak, who was now next to me in line. “He
+has taken the girl that you would not have,” he continued, glancing at
+me.
+
+“That I would not have!” I cried. “What do you mean?”
+
+He looked at me closely for a moment.
+
+“I have doubted your story that you are from another world,” he said at
+last, “but yet upon no other grounds could your ignorance of the ways
+of Pellucidar be explained. Do you really mean that you do not know
+that you offended the Beautiful One, and how?”
+
+“I do not know, Ghak,” I replied.
+
+“Then shall I tell you. When a man of Pellucidar intervenes between
+another man and the woman the other man would have, the woman belongs
+to the victor. Dian the Beautiful belongs to you. You should have
+claimed her or released her. Had you taken her hand, it would have
+indicated your desire to make her your mate, and had you raised her
+hand above her head and then dropped it, it would have meant that you
+did not wish her for a mate and that you released her from all
+obligation to you. By doing neither you have put upon her the greatest
+affront that a man may put upon a woman. Now she is your slave. No man
+will take her as mate, or may take her honorably, until he shall have
+overcome you in combat, and men do not choose slave women as their
+mates—at least not the men of Pellucidar.”
+
+“I did not know, Ghak,” I cried. “I did not know. Not for all
+Pellucidar would I have harmed Dian the Beautiful by word, or look, or
+act of mine. I do not want her as my slave. I do not want her as my—”
+but here I stopped. The vision of that sweet and innocent face floated
+before me amidst the soft mists of imagination, and where I had on the
+second believed that I clung only to the memory of a gentle friendship
+I had lost, yet now it seemed that it would have been disloyalty to her
+to have said that I did not want Dian the Beautiful as my mate. I had
+not thought of her except as a welcome friend in a strange, cruel
+world. Even now I did not think that I loved her.
+
+I believe Ghak must have read the truth more in my expression than in
+my words, for presently he laid his hand upon my shoulder.
+
+“Man of another world,” he said, “I believe you. Lips may lie, but when
+the heart speaks through the eyes it tells only the truth. Your heart
+has spoken to me. I know now that you meant no affront to Dian the
+Beautiful. She is not of my tribe; but her mother is my sister. She
+does not know it—her mother was stolen by Dian’s father who came with
+many others of the tribe of Amoz to battle with us for our women—the
+most beautiful women of Pellucidar. Then was her father king of Amoz,
+and her mother was daughter of the king of Sari—to whose power I, his
+son, have succeeded. Dian is the daughter of kings, though her father
+is no longer king since the sadok tossed him and Jubal the Ugly One
+wrested his kingship from him. Because of her lineage the wrong you did
+her was greatly magnified in the eyes of all who saw it. She will never
+forgive you.”
+
+I asked Ghak if there was not some way in which I could release the
+girl from the bondage and ignominy I had unwittingly placed upon her.
+
+“If ever you find her, yes,” he answered. “Merely to raise her hand
+above her head and drop it in the presence of others is sufficient to
+release her; but how may you ever find her, you who are doomed to a
+life of slavery yourself in the buried city of Phutra?”
+
+“Is there no escape?” I asked.
+
+“Hooja the Sly One escaped and took the others with him,” replied Ghak.
+“But there are no more dark places on the way to Phutra, and once there
+it is not so easy—the Mahars are very wise. Even if one escaped from
+Phutra there are the thipdars—they would find you, and then—” the Hairy
+One shuddered. “No, you will never escape the Mahars.”
+
+It was a cheerful prospect. I asked Perry what he thought about it; but
+he only shrugged his shoulders and continued a longwinded prayer he had
+been at for some time. He was wont to say that the only redeeming
+feature of our captivity was the ample time it gave him for the
+improvisation of prayers—it was becoming an obsession with him. The
+Sagoths had begun to take notice of his habit of declaiming throughout
+entire marches. One of them asked him what he was saying—to whom he was
+talking. The question gave me an idea, so I answered quickly before
+Perry could say anything.
+
+“Do not interrupt him,” I said. “He is a very holy man in the world
+from which we come. He is speaking to spirits which you cannot see—do
+not interrupt him or they will spring out of the air upon you and rend
+you limb from limb—like that,” and I jumped toward the great brute with
+a loud “Boo!” that sent him stumbling backward.
+
+I took a long chance, I realized, but if we could make any capital out
+of Perry’s harmless mania I wanted to make it while the making was
+prime. It worked splendidly. The Sagoths treated us both with marked
+respect during the balance of the journey, and then passed the word
+along to their masters, the Mahars.
+
+Two marches after this episode we came to the city of Phutra. The
+entrance to it was marked by two lofty towers of granite, which guarded
+a flight of steps leading to the buried city. Sagoths were on guard
+here as well as at a hundred or more other towers scattered about over
+a large plain.
+
+
+
+
+V
+SLAVES
+
+
+As we descended the broad staircase which led to the main avenue of
+Phutra I caught my first sight of the dominant race of the inner world.
+Involuntarily I shrank back as one of the creatures approached to
+inspect us. A more hideous thing it would be impossible to imagine. The
+all-powerful Mahars of Pellucidar are great reptiles, some six or eight
+feet in length, with long narrow heads and great round eyes. Their
+beak-like mouths are lined with sharp, white fangs, and the backs of
+their huge, lizard bodies are serrated into bony ridges from their
+necks to the end of their long tails. Their feet are equipped with
+three webbed toes, while from the fore feet membranous wings, which are
+attached to their bodies just in front of the hind legs, protrude at an
+angle of 45 degrees toward the rear, ending in sharp points several
+feet above their bodies.
+
+I glanced at Perry as the thing passed me to inspect him. The old man
+was gazing at the horrid creature with wide astonished eyes. When it
+passed on, he turned to me.
+
+“A rhamphorhynchus of the Middle Olitic, David,” he said, “but, gad,
+how enormous! The largest remains we ever have discovered have never
+indicated a size greater than that attained by an ordinary crow.”
+
+As we continued on through the main avenue of Phutra we saw many
+thousand of the creatures coming and going upon their daily duties.
+They paid but little attention to us. Phutra is laid out underground
+with a regularity that indicates remarkable engineering skill. It is
+hewn from solid limestone strata. The streets are broad and of a
+uniform height of twenty feet. At intervals tubes pierce the roof of
+this underground city, and by means of lenses and reflectors transmit
+the sunlight, softened and diffused, to dispel what would otherwise be
+Cimmerian darkness. In like manner air is introduced.
+
+Perry and I were taken, with Ghak, to a large public building, where
+one of the Sagoths who had formed our guard explained to a Maharan
+official the circumstances surrounding our capture. The method of
+communication between these two was remarkable in that no spoken words
+were exchanged. They employed a species of sign language. As I was to
+learn later, the Mahars have no ears, not any spoken language. Among
+themselves they communicate by means of what Perry says must be a sixth
+sense which is cognizant of a fourth dimension.
+
+I never did quite grasp him, though he endeavored to explain it to me
+upon numerous occasions. I suggested telepathy, but he said no, that it
+was not telepathy since they could only communicate when in each
+others’ presence, nor could they talk with the Sagoths or the other
+inhabitants of Pellucidar by the same method they used to converse with
+one another.
+
+“What they do,” said Perry, “is to project their thoughts into the
+fourth dimension, when they become appreciable to the sixth sense of
+their listener. Do I make myself quite clear?”
+
+“You do not, Perry,” I replied. He shook his head in despair, and
+returned to his work. They had set us to carrying a great accumulation
+of Maharan literature from one apartment to another, and there
+arranging it upon shelves. I suggested to Perry that we were in the
+public library of Phutra, but later, as he commenced to discover the
+key to their written language, he assured me that we were handling the
+ancient archives of the race.
+
+During this period my thoughts were continually upon Dian the
+Beautiful. I was, of course, glad that she had escaped the Mahars, and
+the fate that had been suggested by the Sagoth who had threatened to
+purchase her upon our arrival at Phutra. I often wondered if the little
+party of fugitives had been overtaken by the guards who had returned to
+search for them. Sometimes I was not so sure but that I should have
+been more contented to know that Dian was here in Phutra, than to think
+of her at the mercy of Hooja the Sly One. Ghak, Perry, and I often
+talked together of possible escape, but the Sarian was so steeped in
+his lifelong belief that no one could escape from the Mahars except by
+a miracle, that he was not much aid to us—his attitude was of one who
+waits for the miracle to come to him.
+
+At my suggestion Perry and I fashioned some swords of scraps of iron
+which we discovered among some rubbish in the cells where we slept, for
+we were permitted almost unrestrained freedom of action within the
+limits of the building to which we had been assigned. So great were the
+number of slaves who waited upon the inhabitants of Phutra that none of
+us was apt to be overburdened with work, nor were our masters unkind to
+us.
+
+We hid our new weapons beneath the skins which formed our beds, and
+then Perry conceived the idea of making bows and arrows—weapons
+apparently unknown within Pellucidar. Next came shields; but these I
+found it easier to steal from the walls of the outer guardroom of the
+building.
+
+We had completed these arrangements for our protection after leaving
+Phutra when the Sagoths who had been sent to recapture the escaped
+prisoners returned with four of them, of whom Hooja was one. Dian and
+two others had eluded them. It so happened that Hooja was confined in
+the same building with us. He told Ghak that he had not seen Dian or
+the others after releasing them within the dark grotto. What had become
+of them he had not the faintest conception—they might be wandering yet,
+lost within the labyrinthine tunnel, if not dead from starvation.
+
+I was now still further apprehensive as to the fate of Dian, and at
+this time, I imagine, came the first realization that my affection for
+the girl might be prompted by more than friendship. During my waking
+hours she was constantly the subject of my thoughts, and when I slept
+her dear face haunted my dreams. More than ever was I determined to
+escape the Mahars.
+
+“Perry,” I confided to the old man, “if I have to search every inch of
+this diminutive world I am going to find Dian the Beautiful and right
+the wrong I unintentionally did her.” That was the excuse I made for
+Perry’s benefit.
+
+“Diminutive world!” he scoffed. “You don’t know what you are talking
+about, my boy,” and then he showed me a map of Pellucidar which he had
+recently discovered among the manuscript he was arranging.
+
+“Look,” he cried, pointing to it, “this is evidently water, and all
+this land. Do you notice the general configuration of the two areas?
+Where the oceans are upon the outer crust, is land here. These
+relatively small areas of ocean follow the general lines of the
+continents of the outer world.
+
+“We know that the crust of the globe is 500 miles in thickness; then
+the inside diameter of Pellucidar must be 7,000 miles, and the
+superficial area 165,480,000 square miles. Three-fourths of this is
+land. Think of it! A land area of 124,110,000 square miles! Our own
+world contains but 53,000,000 square miles of land, the balance of its
+surface being covered by water. Just as we often compare nations by
+their relative land areas, so if we compare these two worlds in the
+same way we have the strange anomaly of a larger world within a smaller
+one!
+
+“Where within vast Pellucidar would you search for your Dian? Without
+stars, or moon, or changing sun how could you find her even though you
+knew where she might be found?”
+
+The proposition was a corker. It quite took my breath away; but I found
+that it left me all the more determined to attempt it.
+
+“If Ghak will accompany us we may be able to do it,” I suggested.
+
+Perry and I sought him out and put the question straight to him.
+
+“Ghak,” I said, “we are determined to escape from this bondage. Will
+you accompany us?”
+
+“They will set the thipdars upon us,” he said, “and then we shall be
+killed; but—” he hesitated—“I would take the chance if I thought that I
+might possibly escape and return to my own people.”
+
+“Could you find your way back to your own land?” asked Perry. “And
+could you aid David in his search for Dian?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“But how,” persisted Perry, “could you travel to strange country
+without heavenly bodies or a compass to guide you?”
+
+Ghak didn’t know what Perry meant by heavenly bodies or a compass, but
+he assured us that you might blindfold any man of Pellucidar and carry
+him to the farthermost corner of the world, yet he would be able to
+come directly to his own home again by the shortest route. He seemed
+surprised to think that we found anything wonderful in it. Perry said
+it must be some sort of homing instinct such as is possessed by certain
+breeds of earthly pigeons. I didn’t know, of course, but it gave me an
+idea.
+
+“Then Dian could have found her way directly to her own people?” I
+asked.
+
+“Surely,” replied Ghak, “unless some mighty beast of prey killed her.”
+
+I was for making the attempted escape at once, but both Perry and Ghak
+counseled waiting for some propitious accident which would insure us
+some small degree of success. I didn’t see what accident could befall a
+whole community in a land of perpetual daylight where the inhabitants
+had no fixed habits of sleep. Why, I am sure that some of the Mahars
+never sleep, while others may, at long intervals, crawl into the dark
+recesses beneath their dwellings and curl up in protracted slumber.
+Perry says that if a Mahar stays awake for three years he will make up
+all his lost sleep in a long year’s snooze. That may be all true, but I
+never saw but three of them asleep, and it was the sight of these three
+that gave me a suggestion for our means of escape.
+
+I had been searching about far below the levels that we slaves were
+supposed to frequent—possibly fifty feet beneath the main floor of the
+building—among a network of corridors and apartments, when I came
+suddenly upon three Mahars curled up upon a bed of skins. At first I
+thought they were dead, but later their regular breathing convinced me
+of my error. Like a flash the thought came to me of the marvelous
+opportunity these sleeping reptiles offered as a means of eluding the
+watchfulness of our captors and the Sagoth guards.
+
+Hastening back to Perry where he pored over a musty pile of, to me,
+meaningless hieroglyphics, I explained my plan to him. To my surprise
+he was horrified.
+
+“It would be murder, David,” he cried.
+
+“Murder to kill a reptilian monster?” I asked in astonishment.
+
+“Here they are not monsters, David,” he replied. “Here they are the
+dominant race—we are the ‘monsters’—the lower orders. In Pellucidar
+evolution has progressed along different lines than upon the outer
+earth. These terrible convulsions of nature time and time again wiped
+out the existing species—but for this fact some monster of the
+Saurozoic epoch might rule today upon our own world. We see here what
+might well have occurred in our own history had conditions been what
+they have been here.
+
+“Life within Pellucidar is far younger than upon the outer crust. Here
+man has but reached a stage analogous to the Stone Age of our own
+world’s history, but for countless millions of years these reptiles
+have been progressing. Possibly it is the sixth sense which I am sure
+they possess that has given them an advantage over the other and more
+frightfully armed of their fellows; but this we may never know. They
+look upon us as we look upon the beasts of our fields, and I learn from
+their written records that other races of Mahars feed upon men—they
+keep them in great droves, as we keep cattle. They breed them most
+carefully, and when they are quite fat, they kill and eat them.”
+
+I shuddered.
+
+“What is there horrible about it, David?” the old man asked. “They
+understand us no better than we understand the lower animals of our own
+world. Why, I have come across here very learned discussions of the
+question as to whether gilaks, that is men, have any means of
+communication. One writer claims that we do not even reason—that our
+every act is mechanical, or instinctive. The dominant race of
+Pellucidar, David, have not yet learned that men converse among
+themselves, or reason. Because we do not converse as they do it is
+beyond them to imagine that we converse at all. It is thus that we
+reason in relation to the brutes of our own world. They know that the
+Sagoths have a spoken language, but they cannot comprehend it, or how
+it manifests itself, since they have no auditory apparatus. They
+believe that the motions of the lips alone convey the meaning. That the
+Sagoths can communicate with us is incomprehensible to them.
+
+“Yes, David,” he concluded, “it would entail murder to carry out your
+plan.”
+
+“Very well then, Perry.” I replied. “I shall become a murderer.”
+
+He got me to go over the plan again most carefully, and for some reason
+which was not at the time clear to me insisted upon a very careful
+description of the apartments and corridors I had just explored.
+
+“I wonder, David,” he said at length, “as you are determined to carry
+out your wild scheme, if we could not accomplish something of very real
+and lasting benefit for the human race of Pellucidar at the same time.
+Listen, I have learned much of a most surprising nature from these
+archives of the Mahars. That you may appreciate my plan I shall briefly
+outline the history of the race.
+
+“Once the males were all-powerful, but ages ago the females, little by
+little, assumed the mastery. For other ages no noticeable change took
+place in the race of Mahars. It continued to progress under the
+intelligent and beneficent rule of the ladies. Science took vast
+strides. This was especially true of the sciences which we know as
+biology and eugenics. Finally a certain female scientist announced the
+fact that she had discovered a method whereby eggs might be fertilized
+by chemical means after they were laid—all true reptiles, you know, are
+hatched from eggs.
+
+“What happened? Immediately the necessity for males ceased to exist—the
+race was no longer dependent upon them. More ages elapsed until at the
+present time we find a race consisting exclusively of females. But here
+is the point. The secret of this chemical formula is kept by a single
+race of Mahars. It is in the city of Phutra, and unless I am greatly in
+error I judge from your description of the vaults through which you
+passed today that it lies hidden in the cellar of this building.
+
+“For two reasons they hide it away and guard it jealously. First,
+because upon it depends the very life of the race of Mahars, and
+second, owing to the fact that when it was public property as at first
+so many were experimenting with it that the danger of over-population
+became very grave.
+
+“David, if we can escape, and at the same time take with us this great
+secret what will we not have accomplished for the human race within
+Pellucidar!” The very thought of it fairly overpowered me. Why, we two
+would be the means of placing the men of the inner world in their
+rightful place among created things. Only the Sagoths would then stand
+between them and absolute supremacy, and I was not quite sure but that
+the Sagoths owed all their power to the greater intelligence of the
+Mahars—I could not believe that these gorilla-like beasts were the
+mental superiors of the human race of Pellucidar.
+
+“Why, Perry,” I exclaimed, “you and I may reclaim a whole world!
+Together we can lead the races of men out of the darkness of ignorance
+into the light of advancement and civilization. At one step we may
+carry them from the Age of Stone to the twentieth century. It’s
+marvelous—absolutely marvelous just to think about it.”
+
+“David,” said the old man, “I believe that God sent us here for just
+that purpose—it shall be my life work to teach them His word—to lead
+them into the light of His mercy while we are training their hearts and
+hands in the ways of culture and civilization.”
+
+“You are right, Perry,” I said, “and while you are teaching them to
+pray I’ll be teaching them to fight, and between us we’ll make a race
+of men that will be an honor to us both.”
+
+Ghak had entered the apartment some time before we concluded our
+conversation, and now he wanted to know what we were so excited about.
+Perry thought we had best not tell him too much, and so I only
+explained that I had a plan for escape. When I had outlined it to him,
+he seemed about as horror-struck as Perry had been; but for a different
+reason. The Hairy One only considered the horrible fate that would be
+ours were we discovered; but at last I prevailed upon him to accept my
+plan as the only feasible one, and when I had assured him that I would
+take all the responsibility for it were we captured, he accorded a
+reluctant assent.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+THE BEGINNING OF HORROR
+
+
+Within Pellucidar one time is as good as another. There were no nights
+to mask our attempted escape. All must be done in broad daylight—all
+but the work I had to do in the apartment beneath the building. So we
+determined to put our plan to an immediate test lest the Mahars who
+made it possible should awake before I reached them; but we were doomed
+to disappointment, for no sooner had we reached the main floor of the
+building on our way to the pits beneath, than we encountered hurrying
+bands of slaves being hastened under strong Sagoth guard out of the
+edifice to the avenue beyond.
+
+Other Sagoths were darting hither and thither in search of other
+slaves, and the moment that we appeared we were pounced upon and
+hustled into the line of marching humans.
+
+What the purpose or nature of the general exodus we did not know, but
+presently through the line of captives ran the rumor that two escaped
+slaves had been recaptured—a man and a woman—and that we were marching
+to witness their punishment, for the man had killed a Sagoth of the
+detachment that had pursued and overtaken them.
+
+At the intelligence my heart sprang to my throat, for I was sure that
+the two were of those who escaped in the dark grotto with Hooja the Sly
+One, and that Dian must be the woman. Ghak thought so too, as did
+Perry.
+
+“Is there naught that we may do to save her?” I asked Ghak.
+
+“Naught,” he replied.
+
+Along the crowded avenue we marched, the guards showing unusual cruelty
+toward us, as though we, too, had been implicated in the murder of
+their fellow. The occasion was to serve as an object-lesson to all
+other slaves of the danger and futility of attempted escape, and the
+fatal consequences of taking the life of a superior being, and so I
+imagine that Sagoths felt amply justified in making the entire
+proceeding as uncomfortable and painful to us as possible.
+
+They jabbed us with their spears and struck at us with the hatchets at
+the least provocation, and at no provocation at all. It was a most
+uncomfortable half-hour that we spent before we were finally herded
+through a low entrance into a huge building the center of which was
+given up to a good-sized arena. Benches surrounded this open space upon
+three sides, and along the fourth were heaped huge bowlders which rose
+in receding tiers toward the roof.
+
+At first I couldn’t make out the purpose of this mighty pile of rock,
+unless it were intended as a rough and picturesque background for the
+scenes which were enacted in the arena before it, but presently, after
+the wooden benches had been pretty well filled by slaves and Sagoths, I
+discovered the purpose of the bowlders, for then the Mahars began to
+file into the enclosure.
+
+They marched directly across the arena toward the rocks upon the
+opposite side, where, spreading their bat-like wings, they rose above
+the high wall of the pit, settling down upon the bowlders above. These
+were the reserved seats, the boxes of the elect.
+
+Reptiles that they are, the rough surface of a great stone is to them
+as plush as upholstery to us. Here they lolled, blinking their hideous
+eyes, and doubtless conversing with one another in their
+sixth-sense-fourth-dimension language.
+
+For the first time I beheld their queen. She differed from the others
+in no feature that was appreciable to my earthly eyes, in fact all
+Mahars look alike to me: but when she crossed the arena after the
+balance of her female subjects had found their bowlders, she was
+preceded by a score of huge Sagoths, the largest I ever had seen, and
+on either side of her waddled a huge thipdar, while behind came another
+score of Sagoth guardsmen.
+
+At the barrier the Sagoths clambered up the steep side with truly
+apelike agility, while behind them the haughty queen rose upon her
+wings with her two frightful dragons close beside her, and settled down
+upon the largest bowlder of them all in the exact center of that side
+of the amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant race. Here she
+squatted, a most repulsive and uninteresting queen; though doubtless
+quite as well assured of her beauty and divine right to rule as the
+proudest monarch of the outer world.
+
+And then the music started—music without sound! The Mahars cannot hear,
+so the drums and fifes and horns of earthly bands are unknown among
+them. The “band” consists of a score or more Mahars. It filed out in
+the center of the arena where the creatures upon the rocks might see
+it, and there it performed for fifteen or twenty minutes.
+
+Their technic consisted in waving their tails and moving their heads in
+a regular succession of measured movements resulting in a cadence which
+evidently pleased the eye of the Mahar as the cadence of our own
+instrumental music pleases our ears. Sometimes the band took measured
+steps in unison to one side or the other, or backward and again
+forward—it all seemed very silly and meaningless to me, but at the end
+of the first piece the Mahars upon the rocks showed the first
+indications of enthusiasm that I had seen displayed by the dominant
+race of Pellucidar. They beat their great wings up and down, and smote
+their rocky perches with their mighty tails until the ground shook.
+Then the band started another piece, and all was again as silent as the
+grave. That was one great beauty about Mahar music—if you didn’t happen
+to like a piece that was being played all you had to do was shut your
+eyes.
+
+When the band had exhausted its repertory it took wing and settled upon
+the rocks above and behind the queen. Then the business of the day was
+on. A man and woman were pushed into the arena by a couple of Sagoth
+guardsmen. I leaned forward in my seat to scrutinize the female—hoping
+against hope that she might prove to be another than Dian the
+Beautiful. Her back was toward me for a while, and the sight of the
+great mass of raven hair piled high upon her head filled me with alarm.
+
+Presently a door in one side of the arena wall was opened to admit a
+huge, shaggy, bull-like creature.
+
+“A Bos,” whispered Perry, excitedly. “His kind roamed the outer crust
+with the cave bear and the mammoth ages and ages ago. We have been
+carried back a million years, David, to the childhood of a planet—is it
+not wondrous?”
+
+But I saw only the raven hair of a half-naked girl, and my heart stood
+still in dumb misery at the sight of her, nor had I any eyes for the
+wonders of natural history. But for Perry and Ghak I should have leaped
+to the floor of the arena and shared whatever fate lay in store for
+this priceless treasure of the Stone Age.
+
+With the advent of the Bos—they call the thing a thag within
+Pellucidar—two spears were tossed into the arena at the feet of the
+prisoners. It seemed to me that a bean shooter would have been as
+effective against the mighty monster as these pitiful weapons.
+
+As the animal approached the two, bellowing and pawing the ground with
+the strength of many earthly bulls, another door directly beneath us
+was opened, and from it issued the most terrific roar that ever had
+fallen upon my outraged ears. I could not at first see the beast from
+which emanated this fearsome challenge, but the sound had the effect of
+bringing the two victims around with a sudden start, and then I saw the
+girl’s face—she was not Dian! I could have wept for relief.
+
+And now, as the two stood frozen in terror, I saw the author of that
+fearsome sound creeping stealthily into view. It was a huge tiger—such
+as hunted the great Bos through the jungles primeval when the world was
+young. In contour and markings it was not unlike the noblest of the
+Bengals of our own world, but as its dimensions were exaggerated to
+colossal proportions so too were its colorings exaggerated. Its vivid
+yellows fairly screamed aloud; its whites were as eider down; its
+blacks glossy as the finest anthracite coal, and its coat long and
+shaggy as a mountain goat. That it is a beautiful animal there is no
+gainsaying, but if its size and colors are magnified here within
+Pellucidar, so is the ferocity of its disposition. It is not the
+occasional member of its species that is a man hunter—all are man
+hunters; but they do not confine their foraging to man alone, for there
+is no flesh or fish within Pellucidar that they will not eat with
+relish in the constant efforts which they make to furnish their huge
+carcasses with sufficient sustenance to maintain their mighty thews.
+
+Upon one side of the doomed pair the thag bellowed and advanced, and
+upon the other tarag, the frightful, crept toward them with gaping
+mouth and dripping fangs.
+
+The man seized the spears, handing one of them to the woman. At the
+sound of the roaring of the tiger the bull’s bellowing became a
+veritable frenzy of rageful noise. Never in my life had I heard such an
+infernal din as the two brutes made, and to think it was all lost upon
+the hideous reptiles for whom the show was staged!
+
+The thag was charging now from one side, and the tarag from the other.
+The two puny things standing between them seemed already lost, but at
+the very moment that the beasts were upon them the man grasped his
+companion by the arm and together they leaped to one side, while the
+frenzied creatures came together like locomotives in collision.
+
+There ensued a battle royal which for sustained and frightful ferocity
+transcends the power of imagination or description. Time and again the
+colossal bull tossed the enormous tiger high into the air, but each
+time that the huge cat touched the ground he returned to the encounter
+with apparently undiminished strength, and seemingly increased ire.
+
+For a while the man and woman busied themselves only with keeping out
+of the way of the two creatures, but finally I saw them separate and
+each creep stealthily toward one of the combatants. The tiger was now
+upon the bull’s broad back, clinging to the huge neck with powerful
+fangs while its long, strong talons ripped the heavy hide into shreds
+and ribbons.
+
+For a moment the bull stood bellowing and quivering with pain and rage,
+its cloven hoofs widespread, its tail lashing viciously from side to
+side, and then, in a mad orgy of bucking it went careening about the
+arena in frenzied attempt to unseat its rending rider. It was with
+difficulty that the girl avoided the first mad rush of the wounded
+animal.
+
+All its efforts to rid itself of the tiger seemed futile, until in
+desperation it threw itself upon the ground, rolling over and over. A
+little of this so disconcerted the tiger, knocking its breath from it I
+imagine, that it lost its hold and then, quick as a cat, the great thag
+was up again and had buried those mighty horns deep in the tarag’s
+abdomen, pinning him to the floor of the arena.
+
+The great cat clawed at the shaggy head until eyes and ears were gone,
+and naught but a few strips of ragged, bloody flesh remained upon the
+skull. Yet through all the agony of that fearful punishment the thag
+still stood motionless pinning down his adversary, and then the man
+leaped in, seeing that the blind bull would be the least formidable
+enemy, and ran his spear through the tarag’s heart.
+
+As the animal’s fierce clawing ceased, the bull raised his gory,
+sightless head, and with a horrid roar ran headlong across the arena.
+With great leaps and bounds he came, straight toward the arena wall
+directly beneath where we sat, and then accident carried him, in one of
+his mighty springs, completely over the barrier into the midst of the
+slaves and Sagoths just in front of us. Swinging his bloody horns from
+side to side the beast cut a wide swath before him straight upward
+toward our seats. Before him slaves and gorilla-men fought in mad
+stampede to escape the menace of the creature’s death agonies, for such
+only could that frightful charge have been.
+
+Forgetful of us, our guards joined in the general rush for the exits,
+many of which pierced the wall of the amphitheater behind us. Perry,
+Ghak, and I became separated in the chaos which reigned for a few
+moments after the beast cleared the wall of the arena, each intent upon
+saving his own hide.
+
+I ran to the right, passing several exits choked with the fear mad mob
+that were battling to escape. One would have thought that an entire
+herd of thags was loose behind them, rather than a single blinded,
+dying beast; but such is the effect of panic upon a crowd.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+FREEDOM
+
+
+Once out of the direct path of the animal, fear of it left me, but
+another emotion as quickly gripped me—hope of escape that the
+demoralized condition of the guards made possible for the instant.
+
+I thought of Perry, and but for the hope that I might better encompass
+his release if myself free I should have put the thought of freedom
+from me at once. As it was I hastened on toward the right searching for
+an exit toward which no Sagoths were fleeing, and at last I found it—a
+low, narrow aperture leading into a dark corridor.
+
+Without thought of the possible consequence, I darted into the shadows
+of the tunnel, feeling my way along through the gloom for some
+distance. The noises of the amphitheater had grown fainter and fainter
+until now all was as silent as the tomb about me. Faint light filtered
+from above through occasional ventilating and lighting tubes, but it
+was scarce sufficient to enable my human eyes to cope with the
+darkness, and so I was forced to move with extreme care, feeling my way
+along step by step with a hand upon the wall beside me.
+
+Presently the light increased and a moment later, to my delight, I came
+upon a flight of steps leading upward, at the top of which the
+brilliant light of the noonday sun shone through an opening in the
+ground.
+
+Cautiously I crept up the stairway to the tunnel’s end, and peering out
+saw the broad plain of Phutra before me. The numerous lofty, granite
+towers which mark the several entrances to the subterranean city were
+all in front of me—behind, the plain stretched level and unbroken to
+the nearby foothills. I had come to the surface, then, beyond the city,
+and my chances for escape seemed much enhanced.
+
+My first impulse was to await darkness before attempting to cross the
+plain, so deeply implanted are habits of thought; but of a sudden I
+recollected the perpetual noonday brilliance which envelops Pellucidar,
+and with a smile I stepped forth into the daylight.
+
+Rank grass, waist high, grows upon the plain of Phutra—the gorgeous
+flowering grass of the inner world, each particular blade of which is
+tipped with a tiny, five-pointed blossom—brilliant little stars of
+varying colors that twinkle in the green foliage to add still another
+charm to the weird, yet lovely, landscape.
+
+But then the only aspect which attracted me was the distant hills in
+which I hoped to find sanctuary, and so I hastened on, trampling the
+myriad beauties beneath my hurrying feet. Perry says that the force of
+gravity is less upon the surface of the inner world than upon that of
+the outer. He explained it all to me once, but I was never particularly
+brilliant in such matters and so most of it has escaped me. As I recall
+it the difference is due in some part to the counter-attraction of that
+portion of the earth’s crust directly opposite the spot upon the face
+of Pellucidar at which one’s calculations are being made. Be that as it
+may, it always seemed to me that I moved with greater speed and agility
+within Pellucidar than upon the outer surface—there was a certain airy
+lightness of step that was most pleasing, and a feeling of bodily
+detachment which I can only compare with that occasionally experienced
+in dreams.
+
+And as I crossed Phutra’s flower-bespangled plain that time I seemed
+almost to fly, though how much of the sensation was due to Perry’s
+suggestion and how much to actuality I am sure I do not know. The more
+I thought of Perry the less pleasure I took in my new-found freedom.
+There could be no liberty for me within Pellucidar unless the old man
+shared it with me, and only the hope that I might find some way to
+encompass his release kept me from turning back to Phutra.
+
+Just how I was to help Perry I could scarce imagine, but I hoped that
+some fortuitous circumstance might solve the problem for me. It was
+quite evident however that little less than a miracle could aid me, for
+what could I accomplish in this strange world, naked and unarmed? It
+was even doubtful that I could retrace my steps to Phutra should I once
+pass beyond view of the plain, and even were that possible, what aid
+could I bring to Perry no matter how far I wandered?
+
+The case looked more and more hopeless the longer I viewed it, yet with
+a stubborn persistency I forged ahead toward the foothills. Behind me
+no sign of pursuit developed, before me I saw no living thing. It was
+as though I moved through a dead and forgotten world.
+
+I have no idea, of course, how long it took me to reach the limit of
+the plain, but at last I entered the foothills, following a pretty
+little canyon upward toward the mountains. Beside me frolicked a
+laughing brooklet, hurrying upon its noisy way down to the silent sea.
+In its quieter pools I discovered many small fish, of four-or
+five-pound weight I should imagine. In appearance, except as to size
+and color, they were not unlike the whale of our own seas. As I watched
+them playing about I discovered, not only that they suckled their
+young, but that at intervals they rose to the surface to breathe as
+well as to feed upon certain grasses and a strange, scarlet lichen
+which grew upon the rocks just above the water line.
+
+It was this last habit that gave me the opportunity I craved to capture
+one of these herbivorous cetaceans—that is what Perry calls them—and
+make as good a meal as one can on raw, warm-blooded fish; but I had
+become rather used, by this time, to the eating of food in its natural
+state, though I still balked on the eyes and entrails, much to the
+amusement of Ghak, to whom I always passed these delicacies.
+
+Crouching beside the brook, I waited until one of the diminutive purple
+whales rose to nibble at the long grasses which overhung the water, and
+then, like the beast of prey that man really is, I sprang upon my
+victim, appeasing my hunger while he yet wriggled to escape.
+
+Then I drank from the clear pool, and after washing my hands and face
+continued my flight. Above the source of the brook I encountered a
+rugged climb to the summit of a long ridge. Beyond was a steep
+declivity to the shore of a placid, inland sea, upon the quiet surface
+of which lay several beautiful islands.
+
+The view was charming in the extreme, and as no man or beast was to be
+seen that might threaten my new-found liberty, I slid over the edge of
+the bluff, and half sliding, half falling, dropped into the delightful
+valley, the very aspect of which seemed to offer a haven of peace and
+security.
+
+The gently sloping beach along which I walked was thickly strewn with
+strangely shaped, colored shells; some empty, others still housing as
+varied a multitude of mollusks as ever might have drawn out their
+sluggish lives along the silent shores of the antediluvian seas of the
+outer crust. As I walked I could not but compare myself with the first
+man of that other world, so complete the solitude which surrounded me,
+so primal and untouched the virgin wonders and beauties of adolescent
+nature. I felt myself a second Adam wending my lonely way through the
+childhood of a world, searching for my Eve, and at the thought there
+rose before my mind’s eye the exquisite outlines of a perfect face
+surmounted by a loose pile of wondrous, raven hair.
+
+As I walked, my eyes were bent upon the beach so that it was not until
+I had come quite upon it that I discovered that which shattered all my
+beautiful dream of solitude and safety and peace and primal
+overlordship. The thing was a hollowed log drawn upon the sands, and in
+the bottom of it lay a crude paddle.
+
+The rude shock of awakening to what doubtless might prove some new form
+of danger was still upon me when I heard a rattling of loose stones
+from the direction of the bluff, and turning my eyes in that direction
+I beheld the author of the disturbance, a great copper-colored man,
+running rapidly toward me.
+
+There was that in the haste with which he came which seemed quite
+sufficiently menacing, so that I did not need the added evidence of
+brandishing spear and scowling face to warn me that I was in no safe
+position, but whither to flee was indeed a momentous question.
+
+The speed of the fellow seemed to preclude the possibility of escaping
+him upon the open beach. There was but a single alternative—the rude
+skiff—and with a celerity which equaled his, I pushed the thing into
+the sea and as it floated gave a final shove and clambered in over the
+end.
+
+A cry of rage rose from the owner of the primitive craft, and an
+instant later his heavy, stone-tipped spear grazed my shoulder and
+buried itself in the bow of the boat beyond. Then I grasped the paddle,
+and with feverish haste urged the awkward, wobbly thing out upon the
+surface of the sea.
+
+A glance over my shoulder showed me that the copper-colored one had
+plunged in after me and was swimming rapidly in pursuit. His mighty
+strokes bade fair to close up the distance between us in short order,
+for at best I could make but slow progress with my unfamiliar craft,
+which nosed stubbornly in every direction but that which I desired to
+follow, so that fully half my energy was expended in turning its blunt
+prow back into the course.
+
+I had covered some hundred yards from shore when it became evident that
+my pursuer must grasp the stern of the skiff within the next half-dozen
+strokes. In a frenzy of despair, I bent to the grandfather of all
+paddles in a hopeless effort to escape, and still the copper giant
+behind me gained and gained.
+
+His hand was reaching upward for the stern when I saw a sleek, sinuous
+body shoot from the depths below. The man saw it too, and the look of
+terror that overspread his face assured me that I need have no further
+concern as to him, for the fear of certain death was in his look.
+
+And then about him coiled the great, slimy folds of a hideous monster
+of that prehistoric deep—a mighty serpent of the sea, with fanged jaws,
+and darting forked tongue, with bulging eyes, and bony protuberances
+upon head and snout that formed short, stout horns.
+
+As I looked at that hopeless struggle my eyes met those of the doomed
+man, and I could have sworn that in his I saw an expression of hopeless
+appeal. But whether I did or not there swept through me a sudden
+compassion for the fellow. He was indeed a brother-man, and that he
+might have killed me with pleasure had he caught me was forgotten in
+the extremity of his danger.
+
+Unconsciously I had ceased paddling as the serpent rose to engage my
+pursuer, so now the skiff still drifted close beside the two. The
+monster seemed to be but playing with his victim before he closed his
+awful jaws upon him and dragged him down to his dark den beneath the
+surface to devour him. The huge, snakelike body coiled and uncoiled
+about its prey. The hideous, gaping jaws snapped in the victim’s face.
+The forked tongue, lightning-like, ran in and out upon the copper skin.
+
+Nobly the giant battled for his life, beating with his stone hatchet
+against the bony armor that covered that frightful carcass; but for all
+the damage he inflicted he might as well have struck with his open
+palm.
+
+At last I could endure no longer to sit supinely by while a fellowman
+was dragged down to a horrible death by that repulsive reptile.
+Embedded in the prow of the skiff lay the spear that had been cast
+after me by him whom I suddenly desired to save. With a wrench I tore
+it loose, and standing upright in the wobbly log drove it with all the
+strength of my two arms straight into the gaping jaws of the
+hydrophidian.
+
+With a loud hiss the creature abandoned its prey to turn upon me, but
+the spear, imbedded in its throat, prevented it from seizing me though
+it came near to overturning the skiff in its mad efforts to reach me.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+THE MAHAR TEMPLE
+
+
+The aborigine, apparently uninjured, climbed quickly into the skiff,
+and seizing the spear with me helped to hold off the infuriated
+creature. Blood from the wounded reptile was now crimsoning the waters
+about us and soon from the weakening struggles it became evident that I
+had inflicted a death wound upon it. Presently its efforts to reach us
+ceased entirely, and with a few convulsive movements it turned upon its
+back quite dead.
+
+And then there came to me a sudden realization of the predicament in
+which I had placed myself. I was entirely within the power of the
+savage man whose skiff I had stolen. Still clinging to the spear I
+looked into his face to find him scrutinizing me intently, and there we
+stood for some several minutes, each clinging tenaciously to the weapon
+the while we gazed in stupid wonderment at each other.
+
+What was in his mind I do not know, but in my own was merely the
+question as to how soon the fellow would recommence hostilities.
+
+Presently he spoke to me, but in a tongue which I was unable to
+translate. I shook my head in an effort to indicate my ignorance of his
+language, at the same time addressing him in the bastard tongue that
+the Sagoths use to converse with the human slaves of the Mahars.
+
+To my delight he understood and answered me in the same jargon.
+
+“What do you want of my spear?” he asked.
+
+“Only to keep you from running it through me,” I replied.
+
+“I would not do that,” he said, “for you have just saved my life,” and
+with that he released his hold upon it and squatted down in the bottom
+of the skiff.
+
+“Who are you,” he continued, “and from what country do you come?”
+
+I too sat down, laying the spear between us, and tried to explain how I
+came to Pellucidar, and wherefrom, but it was as impossible for him to
+grasp or believe the strange tale I told him as I fear it is for you
+upon the outer crust to believe in the existence of the inner world. To
+him it seemed quite ridiculous to imagine that there was another world
+far beneath his feet peopled by beings similar to himself, and he
+laughed uproariously the more he thought upon it. But it was ever thus.
+That which has never come within the scope of our really pitifully
+meager world-experience cannot be—our finite minds cannot grasp that
+which may not exist in accordance with the conditions which obtain
+about us upon the outside of the insignificant grain of dust which
+wends its tiny way among the bowlders of the universe—the speck of
+moist dirt we so proudly call the World.
+
+So I gave it up and asked him about himself. He said he was a Mezop,
+and that his name was Ja.
+
+“Who are the Mezops?” I asked. “Where do they live?”
+
+He looked at me in surprise.
+
+“I might indeed believe that you were from another world,” he said,
+“for who of Pellucidar could be so ignorant! The Mezops live upon the
+islands of the seas. In so far as I ever have heard no Mezop lives
+elsewhere, and no others than Mezops dwell upon islands, but of course
+it may be different in other far-distant lands. I do not know. At any
+rate in this sea and those near by it is true that only people of my
+race inhabit the islands.
+
+“We are fishermen, though we be great hunters as well, often going to
+the mainland in search of the game that is scarce upon all but the
+larger islands. And we are warriors also,” he added proudly. “Even the
+Sagoths of the Mahars fear us. Once, when Pellucidar was young, the
+Sagoths were wont to capture us for slaves as they do the other men of
+Pellucidar, it is handed down from father to son among us that this is
+so; but we fought so desperately and slew so many Sagoths, and those of
+us that were captured killed so many Mahars in their own cities that at
+last they learned that it were better to leave us alone, and later came
+the time that the Mahars became too indolent even to catch their own
+fish, except for amusement, and then they needed us to supply their
+wants, and so a truce was made between the races. Now they give us
+certain things which we are unable to produce in return for the fish
+that we catch, and the Mezops and the Mahars live in peace.
+
+“The great ones even come to our islands. It is there, far from the
+prying eyes of their own Sagoths, that they practice their religious
+rites in the temples they have builded there with our assistance. If
+you live among us you will doubtless see the manner of their worship,
+which is strange indeed, and most unpleasant for the poor slaves they
+bring to take part in it.”
+
+As Ja talked I had an excellent opportunity to inspect him more
+closely. He was a huge fellow, standing I should say six feet six or
+seven inches, well developed and of a coppery red not unlike that of
+our own North American Indian, nor were his features dissimilar to
+theirs. He had the aquiline nose found among many of the higher tribes,
+the prominent cheek bones, and black hair and eyes, but his mouth and
+lips were better molded. All in all, Ja was an impressive and handsome
+creature, and he talked well too, even in the miserable makeshift
+language we were compelled to use.
+
+During our conversation Ja had taken the paddle and was propelling the
+skiff with vigorous strokes toward a large island that lay some
+half-mile from the mainland. The skill with which he handled his crude
+and awkward craft elicited my deepest admiration, since it had been so
+short a time before that I had made such pitiful work of it.
+
+As we touched the pretty, level beach Ja leaped out and I followed him.
+Together we dragged the skiff far up into the bushes that grew beyond
+the sand.
+
+“We must hide our canoes,” explained Ja, “for the Mezops of Luana are
+always at war with us and would steal them if they found them,” he
+nodded toward an island farther out at sea, and at so great a distance
+that it seemed but a blur hanging in the distant sky. The upward curve
+of the surface of Pellucidar was constantly revealing the impossible to
+the surprised eyes of the outer-earthly. To see land and water curving
+upward in the distance until it seemed to stand on edge where it melted
+into the distant sky, and to feel that seas and mountains hung
+suspended directly above one’s head required such a complete reversal
+of the perceptive and reasoning faculties as almost to stupefy one.
+
+No sooner had we hidden the canoe than Ja plunged into the jungle,
+presently emerging into a narrow but well-defined trail which wound
+hither and thither much after the manner of the highways of all
+primitive folk, but there was one peculiarity about this Mezop trail
+which I was later to find distinguished them from all other trails that
+I ever have seen within or without the earth.
+
+It would run on, plain and clear and well defined to end suddenly in
+the midst of a tangle of matted jungle, then Ja would turn directly
+back in his tracks for a little distance, spring into a tree, climb
+through it to the other side, drop onto a fallen log, leap over a low
+bush and alight once more upon a distinct trail which he would follow
+back for a short distance only to turn directly about and retrace his
+steps until after a mile or less this new pathway ended as suddenly and
+mysteriously as the former section. Then he would pass again across
+some media which would reveal no spoor, to take up the broken thread of
+the trail beyond.
+
+As the purpose of this remarkable avenue dawned upon me I could not but
+admire the native shrewdness of the ancient progenitor of the Mezops
+who hit upon this novel plan to throw his enemies from his track and
+delay or thwart them in their attempts to follow him to his deep-buried
+cities.
+
+To you of the outer earth it might seem a slow and tortuous method of
+traveling through the jungle, but were you of Pellucidar you would
+realize that time is no factor where time does not exist. So
+labyrinthine are the windings of these trails, so varied the connecting
+links and the distances which one must retrace one’s steps from the
+paths’ ends to find them that a Mezop often reaches man’s estate before
+he is familiar even with those which lead from his own city to the sea.
+
+In fact three-fourths of the education of the young male Mezop consists
+in familiarizing himself with these jungle avenues, and the status of
+an adult is largely determined by the number of trails which he can
+follow upon his own island. The females never learn them, since from
+birth to death they never leave the clearing in which the village of
+their nativity is situated except they be taken to mate by a male from
+another village, or captured in war by the enemies of their tribe.
+
+After proceeding through the jungle for what must have been upward of
+five miles we emerged suddenly into a large clearing in the exact
+center of which stood as strange an appearing village as one might well
+imagine.
+
+Large trees had been chopped down fifteen or twenty feet above the
+ground, and upon the tops of them spherical habitations of woven twigs,
+mud covered, had been built. Each ball-like house was surmounted by
+some manner of carven image, which Ja told me indicated the identity of
+the owner.
+
+Horizontal slits, six inches high and two or three feet wide, served to
+admit light and ventilation. The entrances to the house were through
+small apertures in the bases of the trees and thence upward by rude
+ladders through the hollow trunks to the rooms above. The houses varied
+in size from two to several rooms. The largest that I entered was
+divided into two floors and eight apartments.
+
+All about the village, between it and the jungle, lay beautifully
+cultivated fields in which the Mezops raised such cereals, fruits, and
+vegetables as they required. Women and children were working in these
+gardens as we crossed toward the village. At sight of Ja they saluted
+deferentially, but to me they paid not the slightest attention. Among
+them and about the outer verge of the cultivated area were many
+warriors. These too saluted Ja, by touching the points of their spears
+to the ground directly before them.
+
+Ja conducted me to a large house in the center of the village—the house
+with eight rooms—and taking me up into it gave me food and drink. There
+I met his mate, a comely girl with a nursing baby in her arms. Ja told
+her of how I had saved his life, and she was thereafter most kind and
+hospitable toward me, even permitting me to hold and amuse the tiny
+bundle of humanity whom Ja told me would one day rule the tribe, for
+Ja, it seemed, was the chief of the community.
+
+We had eaten and rested, and I had slept, much to Ja’s amusement, for
+it seemed that he seldom if ever did so, and then the red man proposed
+that I accompany him to the temple of the Mahars which lay not far from
+his village. “We are not supposed to visit it,” he said; “but the great
+ones cannot hear and if we keep well out of sight they need never know
+that we have been there. For my part I hate them and always have, but
+the other chieftains of the island think it best that we continue to
+maintain the amicable relations which exist between the two races;
+otherwise I should like nothing better than to lead my warriors amongst
+the hideous creatures and exterminate them—Pellucidar would be a better
+place to live were there none of them.”
+
+I wholly concurred in Ja’s belief, but it seemed that it might be a
+difficult matter to exterminate the dominant race of Pellucidar. Thus
+conversing we followed the intricate trail toward the temple, which we
+came upon in a small clearing surrounded by enormous trees similar to
+those which must have flourished upon the outer crust during the
+carboniferous age.
+
+Here was a mighty temple of hewn rock built in the shape of a rough
+oval with rounded roof in which were several large openings. No doors
+or windows were visible in the sides of the structure, nor was there
+need of any, except one entrance for the slaves, since, as Ja
+explained, the Mahars flew to and from their place of ceremonial,
+entering and leaving the building by means of the apertures in the
+roof.
+
+“But,” added Ja, “there is an entrance near the base of which even the
+Mahars know nothing. Come,” and he led me across the clearing and about
+the end to a pile of loose rock which lay against the foot of the wall.
+Here he removed a couple of large bowlders, revealing a small opening
+which led straight within the building, or so it seemed, though as I
+entered after Ja I discovered myself in a narrow place of extreme
+darkness.
+
+“We are within the outer wall,” said Ja. “It is hollow. Follow me
+closely.”
+
+The red man groped ahead a few paces and then began to ascend a
+primitive ladder similar to that which leads from the ground to the
+upper stories of his house. We ascended for some forty feet when the
+interior of the space between the walls commenced to grow lighter and
+presently we came opposite an opening in the inner wall which gave us
+an unobstructed view of the entire interior of the temple.
+
+The lower floor was an enormous tank of clear water in which numerous
+hideous Mahars swam lazily up and down. Artificial islands of granite
+rock dotted this artificial sea, and upon several of them I saw men and
+women like myself.
+
+“What are the human beings doing here?” I asked.
+
+“Wait and you shall see,” replied Ja. “They are to take a leading part
+in the ceremonies which will follow the advent of the queen. You may be
+thankful that you are not upon the same side of the wall as they.”
+
+Scarcely had he spoken than we heard a great fluttering of wings above
+and a moment later a long procession of the frightful reptiles of
+Pellucidar winged slowly and majestically through the large central
+opening in the roof and circled in stately manner about the temple.
+
+There were several Mahars first, and then at least twenty awe-inspiring
+pterodactyls—thipdars, they are called within Pellucidar. Behind these
+came the queen, flanked by other thipdars as she had been when she
+entered the amphitheater at Phutra.
+
+Three times they wheeled about the interior of the oval chamber, to
+settle finally upon the damp, cold bowlders that fringe the outer edge
+of the pool. In the center of one side the largest rock was reserved
+for the queen, and here she took her place surrounded by her terrible
+guard.
+
+All lay quiet for several minutes after settling to their places. One
+might have imagined them in silent prayer. The poor slaves upon the
+diminutive islands watched the horrid creatures with wide eyes. The
+men, for the most part, stood erect and stately with folded arms,
+awaiting their doom; but the women and children clung to one another,
+hiding behind the males. They are a noble-looking race, these cave men
+of Pellucidar, and if our progenitors were as they, the human race of
+the outer crust has deteriorated rather than improved with the march of
+the ages. All they lack is opportunity. We have opportunity, and little
+else.
+
+Now the queen moved. She raised her ugly head, looking about; then very
+slowly she crawled to the edge of her throne and slid noiselessly into
+the water. Up and down the long tank she swam, turning at the ends as
+you have seen captive seals turn in their tiny tanks, turning upon
+their backs and diving below the surface.
+
+Nearer and nearer to the island she came until at last she remained at
+rest before the largest, which was directly opposite her throne.
+Raising her hideous head from the water she fixed her great, round eyes
+upon the slaves. They were fat and sleek, for they had been brought
+from a distant Mahar city where human beings are kept in droves, and
+bred and fattened, as we breed and fatten beef cattle.
+
+The queen fixed her gaze upon a plump young maiden. Her victim tried to
+turn away, hiding her face in her hands and kneeling behind a woman;
+but the reptile, with unblinking eyes, stared on with such fixity that
+I could have sworn her vision penetrated the woman, and the girl’s arms
+to reach at last the very center of her brain.
+
+Slowly the reptile’s head commenced to move to and fro, but the eyes
+never ceased to bore toward the frightened girl, and then the victim
+responded. She turned wide, fear-haunted eyes toward the Mahar queen,
+slowly she rose to her feet, and then as though dragged by some unseen
+power she moved as one in a trance straight toward the reptile, her
+glassy eyes fixed upon those of her captor. To the water’s edge she
+came, nor did she even pause, but stepped into the shallows beside the
+little island. On she moved toward the Mahar, who now slowly retreated
+as though leading her victim on. The water rose to the girl’s knees,
+and still she advanced, chained by that clammy eye. Now the water was
+at her waist; now her armpits. Her fellows upon the island looked on in
+horror, helpless to avert her doom in which they saw a forecast of
+their own.
+
+The Mahar sank now till only the long upper bill and eyes were exposed
+above the surface of the water, and the girl had advanced until the end
+of that repulsive beak was but an inch or two from her face, her
+horror-filled eyes riveted upon those of the reptile.
+
+Now the water passed above the girl’s mouth and nose—her eyes and
+forehead all that showed—yet still she walked on after the retreating
+Mahar. The queen’s head slowly disappeared beneath the surface and
+after it went the eyes of her victim—only a slow ripple widened toward
+the shores to mark where the two vanished.
+
+For a time all was silence within the temple. The slaves were
+motionless in terror. The Mahars watched the surface of the water for
+the reappearance of their queen, and presently at one end of the tank
+her head rose slowly into view. She was backing toward the surface, her
+eyes fixed before her as they had been when she dragged the helpless
+girl to her doom.
+
+And then to my utter amazement I saw the forehead and eyes of the
+maiden come slowly out of the depths, following the gaze of the reptile
+just as when she had disappeared beneath the surface. On and on came
+the girl until she stood in water that reached barely to her knees, and
+though she had been beneath the surface sufficient time to have drowned
+her thrice over there was no indication, other than her dripping hair
+and glistening body, that she had been submerged at all.
+
+Again and again the queen led the girl into the depths and out again,
+until the uncanny weirdness of the thing got on my nerves so that I
+could have leaped into the tank to the child’s rescue had I not taken a
+firm hold of myself.
+
+Once they were below much longer than usual, and when they came to the
+surface I was horrified to see that one of the girl’s arms was
+gone—gnawed completely off at the shoulder—but the poor thing gave no
+indication of realizing pain, only the horror in her set eyes seemed
+intensified.
+
+The next time they appeared the other arm was gone, and then the
+breasts, and then a part of the face—it was awful. The poor creatures
+on the islands awaiting their fate tried to cover their eyes with their
+hands to hide the fearful sight, but now I saw that they too were under
+the hypnotic spell of the reptiles, so that they could only crouch in
+terror with their eyes fixed upon the terrible thing that was
+transpiring before them.
+
+Finally the queen was under much longer than ever before, and when she
+rose she came alone and swam sleepily toward her bowlder. The moment
+she mounted it seemed to be the signal for the other Mahars to enter
+the tank, and then commenced, upon a larger scale, a repetition of the
+uncanny performance through which the queen had led her victim.
+
+Only the women and children fell prey to the Mahars—they being the
+weakest and most tender—and when they had satisfied their appetite for
+human flesh, some of them devouring two and three of the slaves, there
+were only a score of full-grown men left, and I thought that for some
+reason these were to be spared, but such was far from the case, for as
+the last Mahar crawled to her rock the queen’s thipdars darted into the
+air, circled the temple once and then, hissing like steam engines,
+swooped down upon the remaining slaves.
+
+There was no hypnotism here—just the plain, brutal ferocity of the
+beast of prey, tearing, rending, and gulping its meat, but at that it
+was less horrible than the uncanny method of the Mahars. By the time
+the thipdars had disposed of the last of the slaves the Mahars were all
+asleep upon their rocks, and a moment later the great pterodactyls
+swung back to their posts beside the queen, and themselves dropped into
+slumber.
+
+“I thought the Mahars seldom, if ever, slept,” I said to Ja.
+
+“They do many things in this temple which they do not do elsewhere,” he
+replied. “The Mahars of Phutra are not supposed to eat human flesh, yet
+slaves are brought here by thousands and almost always you will find
+Mahars on hand to consume them. I imagine that they do not bring their
+Sagoths here, because they are ashamed of the practice, which is
+supposed to obtain only among the least advanced of their race; but I
+would wager my canoe against a broken paddle that there is no Mahar but
+eats human flesh whenever she can get it.”
+
+“Why should they object to eating human flesh,” I asked, “if it is true
+that they look upon us as lower animals?”
+
+“It is not because they consider us their equals that they are supposed
+to look with abhorrence upon those who eat our flesh,” replied Ja; “it
+is merely that we are warm-blooded animals. They would not think of
+eating the meat of a thag, which we consider such a delicacy, any more
+than I would think of eating a snake. As a matter of fact it is
+difficult to explain just why this sentiment should exist among them.”
+
+“I wonder if they left a single victim,” I remarked, leaning far out of
+the opening in the rocky wall to inspect the temple better. Directly
+below me the water lapped the very side of the wall, there being a
+break in the bowlders at this point as there was at several other
+places about the side of the temple.
+
+My hands were resting upon a small piece of granite which formed a part
+of the wall, and all my weight upon it proved too much for it. It
+slipped and I lunged forward. There was nothing to save myself and I
+plunged headforemost into the water below.
+
+Fortunately the tank was deep at this point, and I suffered no injury
+from the fall, but as I was rising to the surface my mind filled with
+the horrors of my position as I thought of the terrible doom which
+awaited me the moment the eyes of the reptiles fell upon the creature
+that had disturbed their slumber.
+
+As long as I could I remained beneath the surface, swimming rapidly in
+the direction of the islands that I might prolong my life to the
+utmost. At last I was forced to rise for air, and as I cast a terrified
+glance in the direction of the Mahars and the thipdars I was almost
+stunned to see that not a single one remained upon the rocks where I
+had last seen them, nor as I searched the temple with my eyes could I
+discern any within it.
+
+For a moment I was puzzled to account for the thing, until I realized
+that the reptiles, being deaf, could not have been disturbed by the
+noise my body made when it hit the water, and that as there is no such
+thing as time within Pellucidar there was no telling how long I had
+been beneath the surface. It was a difficult thing to attempt to figure
+out by earthly standards—this matter of elapsed time—but when I set
+myself to it I began to realize that I might have been submerged a
+second or a month or not at all. You have no conception of the strange
+contradictions and impossibilities which arise when all methods of
+measuring time, as we know them upon earth, are non-existent.
+
+I was about to congratulate myself upon the miracle which had saved me
+for the moment, when the memory of the hypnotic powers of the Mahars
+filled me with apprehension lest they be practicing their uncanny art
+upon me to the end that I merely imagined that I was alone in the
+temple. At the thought cold sweat broke out upon me from every pore,
+and as I crawled from the water onto one of the tiny islands I was
+trembling like a leaf—you cannot imagine the awful horror which even
+the simple thought of the repulsive Mahars of Pellucidar induces in the
+human mind, and to feel that you are in their power—that they are
+crawling, slimy, and abhorrent, to drag you down beneath the waters and
+devour you! It is frightful.
+
+But they did not come, and at last I came to the conclusion that I was
+indeed alone within the temple. How long I should be alone was the next
+question to assail me as I swam frantically about once more in search
+of a means to escape.
+
+Several times I called to Ja, but he must have left after I tumbled
+into the tank, for I received no response to my cries. Doubtless he had
+felt as certain of my doom when he saw me topple from our hiding place
+as I had, and lest he too should be discovered, had hastened from the
+temple and back to his village.
+
+I knew that there must be some entrance to the building beside the
+doorways in the roof, for it did not seem reasonable to believe that
+the thousands of slaves which were brought here to feed the Mahars the
+human flesh they craved would all be carried through the air, and so I
+continued my search until at last it was rewarded by the discovery of
+several loose granite blocks in the masonry at one end of the temple.
+
+A little effort proved sufficient to dislodge enough of these stones to
+permit me to crawl through into the clearing, and a moment later I had
+scurried across the intervening space to the dense jungle beyond.
+
+Here I sank panting and trembling upon the matted grasses beneath the
+giant trees, for I felt that I had escaped from the grinning fangs of
+death out of the depths of my own grave. Whatever dangers lay hidden in
+this island jungle, there could be none so fearsome as those which I
+had just escaped. I knew that I could meet death bravely enough if it
+but came in the form of some familiar beast or man—anything other than
+the hideous and uncanny Mahars.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+THE FACE OF DEATH
+
+
+I must have fallen asleep from exhaustion. When I awoke I was very
+hungry, and after busying myself searching for fruit for a while, I set
+off through the jungle to find the beach. I knew that the island was
+not so large but that I could easily find the sea if I did but move in
+a straight line, but there came the difficulty as there was no way in
+which I could direct my course and hold it, the sun, of course, being
+always directly above my head, and the trees so thickly set that I
+could see no distant object which might serve to guide me in a straight
+line.
+
+As it was I must have walked for a great distance since I ate four
+times and slept twice before I reached the sea, but at last I did so,
+and my pleasure at the sight of it was greatly enhanced by the chance
+discovery of a hidden canoe among the bushes through which I had
+stumbled just prior to coming upon the beach.
+
+I can tell you that it did not take me long to pull that awkward craft
+down to the water and shove it far out from shore. My experience with
+Ja had taught me that if I were to steal another canoe I must be quick
+about it and get far beyond the owner’s reach as soon as possible.
+
+I must have come out upon the opposite side of the island from that at
+which Ja and I had entered it, for the mainland was nowhere in sight.
+For a long time I paddled around the shore, though well out, before I
+saw the mainland in the distance. At the sight of it I lost no time in
+directing my course toward it, for I had long since made up my mind to
+return to Phutra and give myself up that I might be once more with
+Perry and Ghak the Hairy One.
+
+I felt that I was a fool ever to have attempted to escape alone,
+especially in view of the fact that our plans were already well
+formulated to make a break for freedom together. Of course I realized
+that the chances of the success of our proposed venture were slim
+indeed, but I knew that I never could enjoy freedom without Perry so
+long as the old man lived, and I had learned that the probability that
+I might find him was less than slight.
+
+Had Perry been dead, I should gladly have pitted my strength and wit
+against the savage and primordial world in which I found myself. I
+could have lived in seclusion within some rocky cave until I had found
+the means to outfit myself with the crude weapons of the Stone Age, and
+then set out in search of her whose image had now become the constant
+companion of my waking hours, and the central and beloved figure of my
+dreams.
+
+But, to the best of my knowledge, Perry still lived and it was my duty
+and wish to be again with him, that we might share the dangers and
+vicissitudes of the strange world we had discovered. And Ghak, too; the
+great, shaggy man had found a place in the hearts of us both, for he
+was indeed every inch a man and king. Uncouth, perhaps, and brutal,
+too, if judged too harshly by the standards of effete twentieth-century
+civilization, but withal noble, dignified, chivalrous, and loveable.
+
+Chance carried me to the very beach upon which I had discovered Ja’s
+canoe, and a short time later I was scrambling up the steep bank to
+retrace my steps from the plain of Phutra. But my troubles came when I
+entered the canyon beyond the summit, for here I found that several of
+them centered at the point where I crossed the divide, and which one I
+had traversed to reach the pass I could not for the life of me
+remember.
+
+It was all a matter of chance and so I set off down that which seemed
+the easiest going, and in this I made the same mistake that many of us
+do in selecting the path along which we shall follow out the course of
+our lives, and again learned that it is not always best to follow the
+line of least resistance.
+
+By the time I had eaten eight meals and slept twice I was convinced
+that I was upon the wrong trail, for between Phutra and the inland sea
+I had not slept at all, and had eaten but once. To retrace my steps to
+the summit of the divide and explore another canyon seemed the only
+solution of my problem, but a sudden widening and levelness of the
+canyon just before me seemed to suggest that it was about to open into
+a level country, and with the lure of discovery strong upon me I
+decided to proceed but a short distance farther before I turned back.
+
+The next turn of the canyon brought me to its mouth, and before me I
+saw a narrow plain leading down to an ocean. At my right the side of
+the canyon continued to the water’s edge, the valley lying to my left,
+and the foot of it running gradually into the sea, where it formed a
+broad level beach.
+
+Clumps of strange trees dotted the landscape here and there almost to
+the water, and rank grass and ferns grew between. From the nature of
+the vegetation I was convinced that the land between the ocean and the
+foothills was swampy, though directly before me it seemed dry enough
+all the way to the sandy strip along which the restless waters advanced
+and retreated.
+
+Curiosity prompted me to walk down to the beach, for the scene was very
+beautiful. As I passed along beside the deep and tangled vegetation of
+the swamp I thought that I saw a movement of the ferns at my left, but
+though I stopped a moment to look it was not repeated, and if anything
+lay hid there my eyes could not penetrate the dense foliage to discern
+it.
+
+Presently I stood upon the beach looking out over the wide and lonely
+sea across whose forbidding bosom no human being had yet ventured, to
+discover what strange and mysterious lands lay beyond, or what its
+invisible islands held of riches, wonders, or adventure. What savage
+faces, what fierce and formidable beasts were this very instant
+watching the lapping of the waves upon its farther shore! How far did
+it extend? Perry had told me that the seas of Pellucidar were small in
+comparison with those of the outer crust, but even so this great ocean
+might stretch its broad expanse for thousands of miles. For countless
+ages it had rolled up and down its countless miles of shore, and yet
+today it remained all unknown beyond the tiny strip that was visible
+from its beaches.
+
+The fascination of speculation was strong upon me. It was as though I
+had been carried back to the birth time of our own outer world to look
+upon its lands and seas ages before man had traversed either. Here was
+a new world, all untouched. It called to me to explore it. I was
+dreaming of the excitement and adventure which lay before us could
+Perry and I but escape the Mahars, when something, a slight noise I
+imagine, drew my attention behind me.
+
+As I turned, romance, adventure, and discovery in the abstract took
+wing before the terrible embodiment of all three in concrete form that
+I beheld advancing upon me.
+
+A huge, slimy amphibian it was, with toad-like body and the mighty jaws
+of an alligator. Its immense carcass must have weighed tons, and yet it
+moved swiftly and silently toward me. Upon one hand was the bluff that
+ran from the canyon to the sea, on the other the fearsome swamp from
+which the creature had sneaked upon me, behind lay the mighty untracked
+sea, and before me in the center of the narrow way that led to safety
+stood this huge mountain of terrible and menacing flesh.
+
+A single glance at the thing was sufficient to assure me that I was
+facing one of those long-extinct, prehistoric creatures whose
+fossilized remains are found within the outer crust as far back as the
+Triassic formation, a gigantic labyrinthodon. And there I was, unarmed,
+and, with the exception of a loin cloth, as naked as I had come into
+the world. I could imagine how my first ancestor felt that distant,
+prehistoric morn that he encountered for the first time the terrifying
+progenitor of the thing that had me cornered now beside the restless,
+mysterious sea.
+
+Unquestionably he had escaped, or I should not have been within
+Pellucidar or elsewhere, and I wished at that moment that he had handed
+down to me with the various attributes that I presumed I have inherited
+from him, the specific application of the instinct of self-preservation
+which saved him from the fate which loomed so close before me today.
+
+To seek escape in the swamp or in the ocean would have been similar to
+jumping into a den of lions to escape one upon the outside. The sea and
+swamp both were doubtless alive with these mighty, carnivorous
+amphibians, and if not, the individual that menaced me would pursue me
+into either the sea or the swamp with equal facility.
+
+There seemed nothing to do but stand supinely and await my end. I
+thought of Perry—how he would wonder what had become of me. I thought
+of my friends of the outer world, and of how they all would go on
+living their lives in total ignorance of the strange and terrible fate
+that had overtaken me, or unguessing the weird surroundings which had
+witnessed the last frightful agony of my extinction. And with these
+thoughts came a realization of how unimportant to the life and
+happiness of the world is the existence of any one of us. We may be
+snuffed out without an instant’s warning, and for a brief day our
+friends speak of us with subdued voices. The following morning, while
+the first worm is busily engaged in testing the construction of our
+coffin, they are teeing up for the first hole to suffer more acute
+sorrow over a sliced ball than they did over our, to us, untimely
+demise. The labyrinthodon was coming more slowly now. He seemed to
+realize that escape for me was impossible, and I could have sworn that
+his huge, fanged jaws grinned in pleasurable appreciation of my
+predicament, or was it in anticipation of the juicy morsel which would
+so soon be pulp between those formidable teeth?
+
+He was about fifty feet from me when I heard a voice calling to me from
+the direction of the bluff at my left. I looked and could have shouted
+in delight at the sight that met my eyes, for there stood Ja, waving
+frantically to me, and urging me to run for it to the cliff’s base.
+
+I had no idea that I should escape the monster that had marked me for
+his breakfast, but at least I should not die alone. Human eyes would
+watch me end. It was cold comfort I presume, but yet I derived some
+slight peace of mind from the contemplation of it.
+
+To run seemed ridiculous, especially toward that steep and unscalable
+cliff, and yet I did so, and as I ran I saw Ja, agile as a monkey,
+crawl down the precipitous face of the rocks, clinging to small
+projections, and the tough creepers that had found root-hold here and
+there.
+
+The labyrinthodon evidently thought that Ja was coming to double his
+portion of human flesh, so he was in no haste to pursue me to the cliff
+and frighten away this other tidbit. Instead he merely trotted along
+behind me.
+
+As I approached the foot of the cliff I saw what Ja intended doing, but
+I doubted if the thing would prove successful. He had come down to
+within twenty feet of the bottom, and there, clinging with one hand to
+a small ledge, and with his feet resting precariously upon tiny bushes
+that grew from the solid face of the rock, he lowered the point of his
+long spear until it hung some six feet above the ground.
+
+To clamber up that slim shaft without dragging Ja down and
+precipitating both to the same doom from which the copper-colored one
+was attempting to save me seemed utterly impossible, and as I came near
+the spear I told Ja so, and that I could not risk him to try to save
+myself.
+
+But he insisted that he knew what he was doing and was in no danger
+himself.
+
+“The danger is still yours,” he called, “for unless you move much more
+rapidly than you are now, the sithic will be upon you and drag you back
+before ever you are halfway up the spear—he can rear up and reach you
+with ease anywhere below where I stand.”
+
+Well, Ja should know his own business, I thought, and so I grasped the
+spear and clambered up toward the red man as rapidly as I could—being
+so far removed from my simian ancestors as I am. I imagine the
+slow-witted sithic, as Ja called him, suddenly realized our intentions
+and that he was quite likely to lose all his meal instead of having it
+doubled as he had hoped.
+
+When he saw me clambering up that spear he let out a hiss that fairly
+shook the ground, and came charging after me at a terrific rate. I had
+reached the top of the spear by this time, or almost; another six
+inches would give me a hold on Ja’s hand, when I felt a sudden wrench
+from below and glancing fearfully downward saw the mighty jaws of the
+monster close on the sharp point of the weapon.
+
+I made a frantic effort to reach Ja’s hand, the sithic gave a
+tremendous tug that came near to jerking Ja from his frail hold on the
+surface of the rock, the spear slipped from his fingers, and still
+clinging to it I plunged feet foremost toward my executioner.
+
+At the instant that he felt the spear come away from Ja’s hand the
+creature must have opened his huge jaws to catch me, for when I came
+down, still clinging to the butt end of the weapon, the point yet
+rested in his mouth and the result was that the sharpened end
+transfixed his lower jaw.
+
+With the pain he snapped his mouth closed. I fell upon his snout, lost
+my hold upon the spear, rolled the length of his face and head, across
+his short neck onto his broad back and from there to the ground.
+
+Scarce had I touched the earth than I was upon my feet, dashing madly
+for the path by which I had entered this horrible valley. A glance over
+my shoulder showed me the sithic engaged in pawing at the spear stuck
+through his lower jaw, and so busily engaged did he remain in this
+occupation that I had gained the safety of the cliff top before he was
+ready to take up the pursuit. When he did not discover me in sight
+within the valley he dashed, hissing, into the rank vegetation of the
+swamp and that was the last I saw of him.
+
+
+
+
+X
+PHUTRA AGAIN
+
+
+I hastened to the cliff edge above Ja and helped him to a secure
+footing. He would not listen to any thanks for his attempt to save me,
+which had come so near miscarrying.
+
+“I had given you up for lost when you tumbled into the Mahar temple,”
+he said, “for not even I could save you from their clutches, and you
+may imagine my surprise when on seeing a canoe dragged up upon the
+beach of the mainland I discovered your own footprints in the sand
+beside it.
+
+“I immediately set out in search of you, knowing as I did that you must
+be entirely unarmed and defenseless against the many dangers which lurk
+upon the mainland both in the form of savage beasts and reptiles, and
+men as well. I had no difficulty in tracking you to this point. It is
+well that I arrived when I did.”
+
+“But why did you do it?” I asked, puzzled at this show of friendship on
+the part of a man of another world and a different race and color.
+
+“You saved my life,” he replied; “from that moment it became my duty to
+protect and befriend you. I would have been no true Mezop had I evaded
+my plain duty; but it was a pleasure in this instance for I like you. I
+wish that you would come and live with me. You shall become a member of
+my tribe. Among us there is the best of hunting and fishing, and you
+shall have, to choose a mate from, the most beautiful girls of
+Pellucidar. Will you come?”
+
+I told him about Perry then, and Dian the Beautiful, and how my duty
+was to them first. Afterward I should return and visit him—if I could
+ever find his island.
+
+“Oh, that is easy, my friend,” he said. “You need merely to come to the
+foot of the highest peak of the Mountains of the Clouds. There you will
+find a river which flows into the Lural Az. Directly opposite the mouth
+of the river you will see three large islands far out, so far that they
+are barely discernible, the one to the extreme left as you face them
+from the mouth of the river is Anoroc, where I rule the tribe of
+Anoroc.”
+
+“But how am I to find the Mountains of the Clouds?” I asked. “Men say
+that they are visible from half Pellucidar,” he replied.
+
+“How large is Pellucidar?” I asked, wondering what sort of theory these
+primitive men had concerning the form and substance of their world.
+
+“The Mahars say it is round, like the inside of a tola shell,” he
+answered, “but that is ridiculous, since, were it true, we should fall
+back were we to travel far in any direction, and all the waters of
+Pellucidar would run to one spot and drown us. No, Pellucidar is quite
+flat and extends no man knows how far in all directions. At the edges,
+so my ancestors have reported and handed down to me, is a great wall
+that prevents the earth and waters from escaping over into the burning
+sea whereon Pellucidar floats; but I never have been so far from Anoroc
+as to have seen this wall with my own eyes. However, it is quite
+reasonable to believe that this is true, whereas there is no reason at
+all in the foolish belief of the Mahars. According to them
+Pellucidarians who live upon the opposite side walk always with their
+heads pointed downward!” and Ja laughed uproariously at the very
+thought.
+
+It was plain to see that the human folk of this inner world had not
+advanced far in learning, and the thought that the ugly Mahars had so
+outstripped them was a very pathetic one indeed. I wondered how many
+ages it would take to lift these people out of their ignorance even
+were it given to Perry and me to attempt it. Possibly we would be
+killed for our pains as were those men of the outer world who dared
+challenge the dense ignorance and superstitions of the earth’s younger
+days. But it was worth the effort if the opportunity ever presented
+itself.
+
+And then it occurred to me that here was an opportunity—that I might
+make a small beginning upon Ja, who was my friend, and thus note the
+effect of my teaching upon a Pellucidarian.
+
+“Ja,” I said, “what would you say were I to tell you that in so far as
+the Mahars’ theory of the shape of Pellucidar is concerned it is
+correct?”
+
+“I would say,” he replied, “that either you are a fool, or took me for
+one.”
+
+“But, Ja,” I insisted, “if their theory is incorrect how do you account
+for the fact that I was able to pass through the earth from the outer
+crust to Pellucidar. If your theory is correct all is a sea of flame
+beneath us, wherein no peoples could exist, and yet I come from a great
+world that is covered with human beings, and beasts, and birds, and
+fishes in mighty oceans.”
+
+“You live upon the under side of Pellucidar, and walk always with your
+head pointed downward?” he scoffed. “And were I to believe that, my
+friend, I should indeed be mad.”
+
+I attempted to explain the force of gravity to him, and by the means of
+the dropped fruit to illustrate how impossible it would be for a body
+to fall off the earth under any circumstances. He listened so intently
+that I thought I had made an impression, and started the train of
+thought that would lead him to a partial understanding of the truth.
+But I was mistaken.
+
+“Your own illustration,” he said finally, “proves the falsity of your
+theory.” He dropped a fruit from his hand to the ground. “See,” he
+said, “without support even this tiny fruit falls until it strikes
+something that stops it. If Pellucidar were not supported upon the
+flaming sea it too would fall as the fruit falls—you have proven it
+yourself!” He had me, that time—you could see it in his eye.
+
+It seemed a hopeless job and I gave it up, temporarily at least, for
+when I contemplated the necessity explanation of our solar system and
+the universe I realized how futile it would be to attempt to picture to
+Ja or any other Pellucidarian the sun, the moon, the planets, and the
+countless stars. Those born within the inner world could no more
+conceive of such things than can we of the outer crust reduce to
+factors appreciable to our finite minds such terms as space and
+eternity.
+
+“Well, Ja,” I laughed, “whether we be walking with our feet up or down,
+here we are, and the question of greatest importance is not so much
+where we came from as where we are going now. For my part I wish that
+you could guide me to Phutra where I may give myself up to the Mahars
+once more that my friends and I may work out the plan of escape which
+the Sagoths interrupted when they gathered us together and drove us to
+the arena to witness the punishment of the slaves who killed the
+guardsman. I wish now that I had not left the arena for by this time my
+friends and I might have made good our escape, whereas this delay may
+mean the wrecking of all our plans, which depended for their
+consummation upon the continued sleep of the three Mahars who lay in
+the pit beneath the building in which we were confined.”
+
+“You would return to captivity?” cried Ja.
+
+“My friends are there,” I replied, “the only friends I have in
+Pellucidar, except yourself. What else may I do under the
+circumstances?”
+
+He thought for a moment in silence. Then he shook his head sorrowfully.
+
+“It is what a brave man and a good friend should do,” he said; “yet it
+seems most foolish, for the Mahars will most certainly condemn you to
+death for running away, and so you will be accomplishing nothing for
+your friends by returning. Never in all my life have I heard of a
+prisoner returning to the Mahars of his own free will. There are but
+few who escape them, though some do, and these would rather die than be
+recaptured.”
+
+“I see no other way, Ja,” I said, “though I can assure you that I would
+rather go to Sheol after Perry than to Phutra. However, Perry is much
+too pious to make the probability at all great that I should ever be
+called upon to rescue him from the former locality.”
+
+Ja asked me what Sheol was, and when I explained, as best I could, he
+said, “You are speaking of Molop Az, the flaming sea upon which
+Pellucidar floats. All the dead who are buried in the ground go there.
+Piece by piece they are carried down to Molop Az by the little demons
+who dwell there. We know this because when graves are opened we find
+that the bodies have been partially or entirely borne off. That is why
+we of Anoroc place our dead in high trees where the birds may find them
+and bear them bit by bit to the Dead World above the Land of Awful
+Shadow. If we kill an enemy we place his body in the ground that it may
+go to Molop Az.”
+
+As we talked we had been walking up the canyon down which I had come to
+the great ocean and the sithic. Ja did his best to dissuade me from
+returning to Phutra, but when he saw that I was determined to do so, he
+consented to guide me to a point from which I could see the plain where
+lay the city. To my surprise the distance was but short from the beach
+where I had again met Ja. It was evident that I had spent much time
+following the windings of a tortuous canyon, while just beyond the
+ridge lay the city of Phutra near to which I must have come several
+times.
+
+As we topped the ridge and saw the granite gate towers dotting the
+flowered plain at our feet Ja made a final effort to persuade me to
+abandon my mad purpose and return with him to Anoroc, but I was firm in
+my resolve, and at last he bid me good-bye, assured in his own mind
+that he was looking upon me for the last time.
+
+I was sorry to part with Ja, for I had come to like him very much
+indeed. With his hidden city upon the island of Anoroc as a base, and
+his savage warriors as escort Perry and I could have accomplished much
+in the line of exploration, and I hoped that were we successful in our
+effort to escape we might return to Anoroc later.
+
+There was, however, one great thing to be accomplished first—at least
+it was the great thing to me—the finding of Dian the Beautiful. I
+wanted to make amends for the affront I had put upon her in my
+ignorance, and I wanted to—well, I wanted to see her again, and to be
+with her.
+
+Down the hillside I made my way into the gorgeous field of flowers, and
+then across the rolling land toward the shadowless columns that guard
+the ways to buried Phutra. At a quarter-mile from the nearest entrance
+I was discovered by the Sagoth guard, and in an instant four of the
+gorilla-men were dashing toward me.
+
+Though they brandished their long spears and yelled like wild Comanches
+I paid not the slightest attention to them, walking quietly toward them
+as though unaware of their existence. My manner had the effect upon
+them that I had hoped, and as we came quite near together they ceased
+their savage shouting. It was evident that they had expected me to turn
+and flee at sight of them, thus presenting that which they most
+enjoyed, a moving human target at which to cast their spears.
+
+“What do you here?” shouted one, and then as he recognized me, “Ho! It
+is the slave who claims to be from another world—he who escaped when
+the thag ran amuck within the amphitheater. But why do you return,
+having once made good your escape?”
+
+“I did not ‘escape’,” I replied. “I but ran away to avoid the thag, as
+did others, and coming into a long passage I became confused and lost
+my way in the foothills beyond Phutra. Only now have I found my way
+back.”
+
+“And you come of your free will back to Phutra!” exclaimed one of the
+guardsmen.
+
+“Where else might I go?” I asked. “I am a stranger within Pellucidar
+and know no other where than Phutra. Why should I not desire to be in
+Phutra? Am I not well fed and well treated? Am I not happy? What better
+lot could man desire?”
+
+The Sagoths scratched their heads. This was a new one on them, and so
+being stupid brutes they took me to their masters whom they felt would
+be better fitted to solve the riddle of my return, for riddle they
+still considered it.
+
+I had spoken to the Sagoths as I had for the purpose of throwing them
+off the scent of my purposed attempt at escape. If they thought that I
+was so satisfied with my lot within Phutra that I would voluntarily
+return when I had once had so excellent an opportunity to escape, they
+would never for an instant imagine that I could be occupied in
+arranging another escape immediately upon my return to the city.
+
+So they led me before a slimy Mahar who clung to a slimy rock within
+the large room that was the thing’s office. With cold, reptilian eyes
+the creature seemed to bore through the thin veneer of my deceit and
+read my inmost thoughts. It heeded the story which the Sagoths told of
+my return to Phutra, watching the gorilla-men’s lips and fingers during
+the recital. Then it questioned me through one of the Sagoths.
+
+“You say that you returned to Phutra of your own free will, because you
+think yourself better off here than elsewhere—do you not know that you
+may be the next chosen to give up your life in the interests of the
+wonderful scientific investigations that our learned ones are
+continually occupied with?”
+
+I hadn’t heard of anything of that nature, but I thought best not to
+admit it.
+
+“I could be in no more danger here,” I said, “than naked and unarmed in
+the savage jungles or upon the lonely plains of Pellucidar. I was
+fortunate, I think, to return to Phutra at all. As it was I barely
+escaped death within the jaws of a huge sithic. No, I am sure that I am
+safer in the hands of intelligent creatures such as rule Phutra. At
+least such would be the case in my own world, where human beings like
+myself rule supreme. There the higher races of man extend protection
+and hospitality to the stranger within their gates, and being a
+stranger here I naturally assumed that a like courtesy would be
+accorded me.”
+
+The Mahar looked at me in silence for some time after I ceased speaking
+and the Sagoth had translated my words to his master. The creature
+seemed deep in thought. Presently he communicated some message to the
+Sagoth. The latter turned, and motioning me to follow him, left the
+presence of the reptile. Behind and on either side of me marched the
+balance of the guard.
+
+“What are they going to do with me?” I asked the fellow at my right.
+
+“You are to appear before the learned ones who will question you
+regarding this strange world from which you say you come.”
+
+After a moment’s silence he turned to me again.
+
+“Do you happen to know,” he asked, “what the Mahars do to slaves who
+lie to them?”
+
+“No,” I replied, “nor does it interest me, as I have no intention of
+lying to the Mahars.”
+
+“Then be careful that you don’t repeat the impossible tale you told
+Sol-to-to just now—another world, indeed, where human beings rule!” he
+concluded in fine scorn.
+
+“But it is the truth,” I insisted. “From where else then did I come? I
+am not of Pellucidar. Anyone with half an eye could see that.”
+
+“It is your misfortune then,” he remarked dryly, “that you may not be
+judged by one with but half an eye.”
+
+“What will they do with me,” I asked, “if they do not have a mind to
+believe me?”
+
+“You may be sentenced to the arena, or go to the pits to be used in
+research work by the learned ones,” he replied.
+
+“And what will they do with me there?” I persisted.
+
+“No one knows except the Mahars and those who go to the pits with them,
+but as the latter never return, their knowledge does them but little
+good. It is said that the learned ones cut up their subjects while they
+are yet alive, thus learning many useful things. However I should not
+imagine that it would prove very useful to him who was being cut up;
+but of course this is all but conjecture. The chances are that ere long
+you will know much more about it than I,” and he grinned as he spoke.
+The Sagoths have a well-developed sense of humor.
+
+“And suppose it is the arena,” I continued; “what then?”
+
+“You saw the two who met the tarag and the thag the time that you
+escaped?” he said.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Your end in the arena would be similar to what was intended for them,”
+he explained, “though of course the same kinds of animals might not be
+employed.”
+
+“It is sure death in either event?” I asked.
+
+“What becomes of those who go below with the learned ones I do not
+know, nor does any other,” he replied; “but those who go to the arena
+may come out alive and thus regain their liberty, as did the two whom
+you saw.”
+
+“They gained their liberty? And how?”
+
+“It is the custom of the Mahars to liberate those who remain alive
+within the arena after the beasts depart or are killed. Thus it has
+happened that several mighty warriors from far distant lands, whom we
+have captured on our slave raids, have battled the brutes turned in
+upon them and slain them, thereby winning their freedom. In the
+instance which you witnessed the beasts killed each other, but the
+result was the same—the man and woman were liberated, furnished with
+weapons, and started on their homeward journey. Upon the left shoulder
+of each a mark was burned—the mark of the Mahars—which will forever
+protect these two from slaving parties.”
+
+“There is a slender chance for me then if I be sent to the arena, and
+none at all if the learned ones drag me to the pits?”
+
+“You are quite right,” he replied; “but do not felicitate yourself too
+quickly should you be sent to the arena, for there is scarce one in a
+thousand who comes out alive.”
+
+To my surprise they returned me to the same building in which I had
+been confined with Perry and Ghak before my escape. At the doorway I
+was turned over to the guards there.
+
+“He will doubtless be called before the investigators shortly,” said he
+who had brought me back, “so have him in readiness.”
+
+The guards in whose hands I now found myself, upon hearing that I had
+returned of my own volition to Phutra evidently felt that it would be
+safe to give me liberty within the building as had been the custom
+before I had escaped, and so I was told to return to whatever duty had
+been mine formerly.
+
+My first act was to hunt up Perry, whom I found poring as usual over
+the great tomes that he was supposed to be merely dusting and
+rearranging upon new shelves.
+
+As I entered the room he glanced up and nodded pleasantly to me, only
+to resume his work as though I had never been away at all. I was both
+astonished and hurt at his indifference. And to think that I was
+risking death to return to him purely from a sense of duty and
+affection!
+
+“Why, Perry!” I exclaimed, “haven’t you a word for me after my long
+absence?”
+
+“Long absence!” he repeated in evident astonishment. “What do you
+mean?”
+
+“Are you crazy, Perry? Do you mean to say that you have not missed me
+since that time we were separated by the charging thag within the
+arena?”
+
+“‘That time’,” he repeated. “Why man, I have but just returned from the
+arena! You reached here almost as soon as I. Had you been much later I
+should indeed have been worried, and as it is I had intended asking you
+about how you escaped the beast as soon as I had completed the
+translation of this most interesting passage.”
+
+“Perry, you ARE mad,” I exclaimed. “Why, the Lord only knows how long I
+have been away. I have been to other lands, discovered a new race of
+humans within Pellucidar, seen the Mahars at their worship in their
+hidden temple, and barely escaped with my life from them and from a
+great labyrinthodon that I met afterward, following my long and tedious
+wanderings across an unknown world. I must have been away for months,
+Perry, and now you barely look up from your work when I return and
+insist that we have been separated but a moment. Is that any way to
+treat a friend? I’m surprised at you, Perry, and if I’d thought for a
+moment that you cared no more for me than this I should not have
+returned to chance death at the hands of the Mahars for your sake.”
+
+The old man looked at me for a long time before he spoke. There was a
+puzzled expression upon his wrinkled face, and a look of hurt sorrow in
+his eyes.
+
+“David, my boy,” he said, “how could you for a moment doubt my love for
+you? There is something strange here that I cannot understand. I know
+that I am not mad, and I am equally sure that you are not; but how in
+the world are we to account for the strange hallucinations that each of
+us seems to harbor relative to the passage of time since last we saw
+each other. You are positive that months have gone by, while to me it
+seems equally certain that not more than an hour ago I sat beside you
+in the amphitheater. Can it be that both of us are right and at the
+same time both are wrong? First tell me what time is, and then maybe I
+can solve our problem. Do you catch my meaning?”
+
+I didn’t and said so.
+
+“Yes,” continued the old man, “we are both right. To me, bent over my
+book here, there has been no lapse of time. I have done little or
+nothing to waste my energies and so have required neither food nor
+sleep, but you, on the contrary, have walked and fought and wasted
+strength and tissue which must needs be rebuilt by nutriment and food,
+and so, having eaten and slept many times since last you saw me you
+naturally measure the lapse of time largely by these acts. As a matter
+of fact, David, I am rapidly coming to the conviction that there is no
+such thing as time—surely there can be no time here within Pellucidar,
+where there are no means for measuring or recording time. Why, the
+Mahars themselves take no account of such a thing as time. I find here
+in all their literary works but a single tense, the present. There
+seems to be neither past nor future with them. Of course it is
+impossible for our outer-earthly minds to grasp such a condition, but
+our recent experiences seem to demonstrate its existence.”
+
+It was too big a subject for me, and I said so, but Perry seemed to
+enjoy nothing better than speculating upon it, and after listening with
+interest to my account of the adventures through which I had passed he
+returned once more to the subject, which he was enlarging upon with
+considerable fluency when he was interrupted by the entrance of a
+Sagoth.
+
+“Come!” commanded the intruder, beckoning to me. “The investigators
+would speak with you.”
+
+“Good-bye, Perry!” I said, clasping the old man’s hand. “There may be
+nothing but the present and no such thing as time, but I feel that I am
+about to take a trip into the hereafter from which I shall never
+return. If you and Ghak should manage to escape I want you to promise
+me that you will find Dian the Beautiful and tell her that with my last
+words I asked her forgiveness for the unintentional affront I put upon
+her, and that my one wish was to be spared long enough to right the
+wrong that I had done her.”
+
+Tears came to Perry’s eyes.
+
+“I cannot believe but that you will return, David,” he said. “It would
+be awful to think of living out the balance of my life without you
+among these hateful and repulsive creatures. If you are taken away I
+shall never escape, for I feel that I am as well off here as I should
+be anywhere within this buried world. Good-bye, my boy, good-bye!” and
+then his old voice faltered and broke, and as he hid his face in his
+hands the Sagoth guardsman grasped me roughly by the shoulder and
+hustled me from the chamber.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+FOUR DEAD MAHARS
+
+
+A moment later I was standing before a dozen Mahars—the social
+investigators of Phutra. They asked me many questions, through a Sagoth
+interpreter. I answered them all truthfully. They seemed particularly
+interested in my account of the outer earth and the strange vehicle
+which had brought Perry and me to Pellucidar. I thought that I had
+convinced them, and after they had sat in silence for a long time
+following my examination, I expected to be ordered returned to my
+quarters.
+
+During this apparent silence they were debating through the medium of
+strange, unspoken language the merits of my tale. At last the head of
+the tribunal communicated the result of their conference to the officer
+in charge of the Sagoth guard.
+
+“Come,” he said to me, “you are sentenced to the experimental pits for
+having dared to insult the intelligence of the mighty ones with the
+ridiculous tale you have had the temerity to unfold to them.”
+
+“Do you mean that they do not believe me?” I asked, totally astonished.
+
+“Believe you!” he laughed. “Do you mean to say that you expected any
+one to believe so impossible a lie?”
+
+It was hopeless, and so I walked in silence beside my guard down
+through the dark corridors and runways toward my awful doom. At a low
+level we came upon a number of lighted chambers in which we saw many
+Mahars engaged in various occupations. To one of these chambers my
+guard escorted me, and before leaving they chained me to a side wall.
+There were other humans similarly chained. Upon a long table lay a
+victim even as I was ushered into the room. Several Mahars stood about
+the poor creature holding him down so that he could not move. Another,
+grasping a sharp knife with her three-toed fore foot, was laying open
+the victim’s chest and abdomen. No anesthetic had been administered and
+the shrieks and groans of the tortured man were terrible to hear. This,
+indeed, was vivisection with a vengeance. Cold sweat broke out upon me
+as I realized that soon my turn would come. And to think that where
+there was no such thing as time I might easily imagine that my
+suffering was enduring for months before death finally released me!
+
+The Mahars had paid not the slightest attention to me as I had been
+brought into the room. So deeply immersed were they in their work that
+I am sure they did not even know that the Sagoths had entered with me.
+The door was close by. Would that I could reach it! But those heavy
+chains precluded any such possibility. I looked about for some means of
+escape from my bonds. Upon the floor between me and the Mahars lay a
+tiny surgical instrument which one of them must have dropped. It looked
+not unlike a button-hook, but was much smaller, and its point was
+sharpened. A hundred times in my boyhood days had I picked locks with a
+buttonhook. Could I but reach that little bit of polished steel I might
+yet effect at least a temporary escape.
+
+Crawling to the limit of my chain, I found that by reaching one hand as
+far out as I could my fingers still fell an inch short of the coveted
+instrument. It was tantalizing! Stretch every fiber of my being as I
+would, I could not quite make it.
+
+At last I turned about and extended one foot toward the object. My
+heart came to my throat! I could just touch the thing! But suppose that
+in my effort to drag it toward me I should accidentally shove it still
+farther away and thus entirely out of reach! Cold sweat broke out upon
+me from every pore. Slowly and cautiously I made the effort. My toes
+dropped upon the cold metal. Gradually I worked it toward me until I
+felt that it was within reach of my hand and a moment later I had
+turned about and the precious thing was in my grasp.
+
+Assiduously I fell to work upon the Mahar lock that held my chain. It
+was pitifully simple. A child might have picked it, and a moment later
+I was free. The Mahars were now evidently completing their work at the
+table. One already turned away and was examining other victims,
+evidently with the intention of selecting the next subject.
+
+Those at the table had their backs toward me. But for the creature
+walking toward us I might have escaped that moment. Slowly the thing
+approached me, when its attention was attracted by a huge slave chained
+a few yards to my right. Here the reptile stopped and commenced to go
+over the poor devil carefully, and as it did so its back turned toward
+me for an instant, and in that instant I gave two mighty leaps that
+carried me out of the chamber into the corridor beyond, down which I
+raced with all the speed I could command.
+
+Where I was, or whither I was going, I knew not. My only thought was to
+place as much distance as possible between me and that frightful
+chamber of torture.
+
+Presently I reduced my speed to a brisk walk, and later realizing the
+danger of running into some new predicament, were I not careful, I
+moved still more slowly and cautiously. After a time I came to a
+passage that seemed in some mysterious way familiar to me, and
+presently, chancing to glance within a chamber which led from the
+corridor I saw three Mahars curled up in slumber upon a bed of skins. I
+could have shouted aloud in joy and relief. It was the same corridor
+and the same Mahars that I had intended to have lead so important a
+role in our escape from Phutra. Providence had indeed been kind to me,
+for the reptiles still slept.
+
+My one great danger now lay in returning to the upper levels in search
+of Perry and Ghak, but there was nothing else to be done, and so I
+hastened upward. When I came to the frequented portions of the
+building, I found a large burden of skins in a corner and these I
+lifted to my head, carrying them in such a way that ends and corners
+fell down about my shoulders completely hiding my face. Thus disguised
+I found Perry and Ghak together in the chamber where we had been wont
+to eat and sleep.
+
+Both were glad to see me, it was needless to say, though of course they
+had known nothing of the fate that had been meted out to me by my
+judges. It was decided that no time should now be lost before
+attempting to put our plan of escape to the test, as I could not hope
+to remain hidden from the Sagoths long, nor could I forever carry that
+bale of skins about upon my head without arousing suspicion. However it
+seemed likely that it would carry me once more safely through the
+crowded passages and chambers of the upper levels, and so I set out
+with Perry and Ghak—the stench of the illy cured pelts fairly choking
+me.
+
+Together we repaired to the first tier of corridors beneath the main
+floor of the buildings, and here Perry and Ghak halted to await me. The
+buildings are cut out of the solid limestone formation. There is
+nothing at all remarkable about their architecture. The rooms are
+sometimes rectangular, sometimes circular, and again oval in shape. The
+corridors which connect them are narrow and not always straight. The
+chambers are lighted by diffused sunlight reflected through tubes
+similar to those by which the avenues are lighted. The lower the tiers
+of chambers, the darker. Most of the corridors are entirely unlighted.
+The Mahars can see quite well in semidarkness.
+
+Down to the main floor we encountered many Mahars, Sagoths, and slaves;
+but no attention was paid to us as we had become a part of the domestic
+life of the building. There was but a single entrance leading from the
+place into the avenue and this was well guarded by Sagoths—this doorway
+alone were we forbidden to pass. It is true that we were not supposed
+to enter the deeper corridors and apartments except on special
+occasions when we were instructed to do so; but as we were considered a
+lower order without intelligence there was little reason to fear that
+we could accomplish any harm by so doing, and so we were not hindered
+as we entered the corridor which led below.
+
+Wrapped in a skin I carried three swords, and the two bows, and the
+arrows which Perry and I had fashioned. As many slaves bore
+skin-wrapped burdens to and fro my load attracted no comment. Where I
+left Ghak and Perry there were no other creatures in sight, and so I
+withdrew one sword from the package, and leaving the balance of the
+weapons with Perry, started on alone toward the lower levels.
+
+Having come to the apartment in which the three Mahars slept I entered
+silently on tiptoe, forgetting that the creatures were without the
+sense of hearing. With a quick thrust through the heart I disposed of
+the first but my second thrust was not so fortunate, so that before I
+could kill the next of my victims it had hurled itself against the
+third, who sprang quickly up, facing me with wide-distended jaws. But
+fighting is not the occupation which the race of Mahars loves, and when
+the thing saw that I already had dispatched two of its companions, and
+that my sword was red with their blood, it made a dash to escape me.
+But I was too quick for it, and so, half hopping, half flying, it
+scurried down another corridor with me close upon its heels.
+
+Its escape meant the utter ruin of our plan, and in all probability my
+instant death. This thought lent wings to my feet; but even at my best
+I could do no more than hold my own with the leaping thing before me.
+
+Of a sudden it turned into an apartment on the right of the corridor,
+and an instant later as I rushed in I found myself facing two of the
+Mahars. The one who had been there when we entered had been occupied
+with a number of metal vessels, into which had been put powders and
+liquids as I judged from the array of flasks standing about upon the
+bench where it had been working. In an instant I realized what I had
+stumbled upon. It was the very room for the finding of which Perry had
+given me minute directions. It was the buried chamber in which was
+hidden the Great Secret of the race of Mahars. And on the bench beside
+the flasks lay the skin-bound book which held the only copy of the
+thing I was to have sought, after dispatching the three Mahars in their
+sleep.
+
+There was no exit from the room other than the doorway in which I now
+stood facing the two frightful reptiles. Cornered, I knew that they
+would fight like demons, and they were well equipped to fight if fight
+they must. Together they launched themselves upon me, and though I ran
+one of them through the heart on the instant, the other fastened its
+gleaming fangs about my sword arm above the elbow, and then with her
+sharp talons commenced to rake me about the body, evidently intent upon
+disemboweling me. I saw that it was useless to hope that I might
+release my arm from that powerful, viselike grip which seemed to be
+severing my arm from my body. The pain I suffered was intense, but it
+only served to spur me to greater efforts to overcome my antagonist.
+
+Back and forth across the floor we struggled—the Mahar dealing me
+terrific, cutting blows with her fore feet, while I attempted to
+protect my body with my left hand, at the same time watching for an
+opportunity to transfer my blade from my now useless sword hand to its
+rapidly weakening mate. At last I was successful, and with what seemed
+to me my last ounce of strength I ran the blade through the ugly body
+of my foe.
+
+Soundless, as it had fought, it died, and though weak from pain and
+loss of blood, it was with an emotion of triumphant pride that I
+stepped across its convulsively stiffening corpse to snatch up the most
+potent secret of a world. A single glance assured me it was the very
+thing that Perry had described to me.
+
+And as I grasped it did I think of what it meant to the human race of
+Pellucidar—did there flash through my mind the thought that countless
+generations of my own kind yet unborn would have reason to worship me
+for the thing that I had accomplished for them? I did not. I thought of
+a beautiful oval face, gazing out of limpid eyes, through a waving mass
+of jet-black hair. I thought of red, red lips, God-made for kissing.
+And of a sudden, apropos of nothing, standing there alone in the secret
+chamber of the Mahars of Pellucidar, I realized that I loved Dian the
+Beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+PURSUIT
+
+
+For an instant I stood there thinking of her, and then, with a sigh, I
+tucked the book in the thong that supported my loin cloth, and turned
+to leave the apartment. At the bottom of the corridor which leads aloft
+from the lower chambers I whistled in accordance with the prearranged
+signal which was to announce to Perry and Ghak that I had been
+successful. A moment later they stood beside me, and to my surprise I
+saw that Hooja the Sly One accompanied them.
+
+“He joined us,” explained Perry, “and would not be denied. The fellow
+is a fox. He scents escape, and rather than be thwarted of our chance
+now I told him that I would bring him to you, and let you decide
+whether he might accompany us.”
+
+I had no love for Hooja, and no confidence in him. I was sure that if
+he thought it would profit him he would betray us; but I saw no way out
+of it now, and the fact that I had killed four Mahars instead of only
+the three I had expected to, made it possible to include the fellow in
+our scheme of escape.
+
+“Very well,” I said, “you may come with us, Hooja; but at the first
+intimation of treachery I shall run my sword through you. Do you
+understand?”
+
+He said that he did.
+
+Some time later we had removed the skins from the four Mahars, and so
+succeeded in crawling inside of them ourselves that there seemed an
+excellent chance for us to pass unnoticed from Phutra. It was not an
+easy thing to fasten the hides together where we had split them along
+the belly to remove them from their carcasses, but by remaining out
+until the others had all been sewed in with my help, and then leaving
+an aperture in the breast of Perry’s skin through which he could pass
+his hands to sew me up, we were enabled to accomplish our design to
+really much better purpose than I had hoped. We managed to keep the
+heads erect by passing our swords up through the necks, and by the same
+means were enabled to move them about in a life-like manner. We had our
+greatest difficulty with the webbed feet, but even that problem was
+finally solved, so that when we moved about we did so quite naturally.
+Tiny holes punctured in the baggy throats into which our heads were
+thrust permitted us to see well enough to guide our progress.
+
+Thus we started up toward the main floor of the building. Ghak headed
+the strange procession, then came Perry, followed by Hooja, while I
+brought up the rear, after admonishing Hooja that I had so arranged my
+sword that I could thrust it through the head of my disguise into his
+vitals were he to show any indication of faltering.
+
+As the noise of hurrying feet warned me that we were entering the busy
+corridors of the main level, my heart came up into my mouth. It is with
+no sense of shame that I admit that I was frightened—never before in my
+life, nor since, did I experience any such agony of soulsearing fear
+and suspense as enveloped me. If it be possible to sweat blood, I sweat
+it then.
+
+Slowly, after the manner of locomotion habitual to the Mahars, when
+they are not using their wings, we crept through throngs of busy
+slaves, Sagoths, and Mahars. After what seemed an eternity we reached
+the outer door which leads into the main avenue of Phutra. Many Sagoths
+loitered near the opening. They glanced at Ghak as he padded between
+them. Then Perry passed, and then Hooja. Now it was my turn, and then
+in a sudden fit of freezing terror I realized that the warm blood from
+my wounded arm was trickling down through the dead foot of the Mahar
+skin I wore and leaving its tell-tale mark upon the pavement, for I saw
+a Sagoth call a companion’s attention to it.
+
+The guard stepped before me and pointing to my bleeding foot spoke to
+me in the sign language which these two races employ as a means of
+communication. Even had I known what he was saying I could not have
+replied with the dead thing that covered me. I once had seen a great
+Mahar freeze a presumptuous Sagoth with a look. It seemed my only hope,
+and so I tried it. Stopping in my tracks I moved my sword so that it
+made the dead head appear to turn inquiring eyes upon the gorilla-man.
+For a long moment I stood perfectly still, eyeing the fellow with those
+dead eyes. Then I lowered the head and started slowly on. For a moment
+all hung in the balance, but before I touched him the guard stepped to
+one side, and I passed on out into the avenue.
+
+On we went up the broad street, but now we were safe for the very
+numbers of our enemies that surrounded us on all sides. Fortunately,
+there was a great concourse of Mahars repairing to the shallow lake
+which lies a mile or more from the city. They go there to indulge their
+amphibian proclivities in diving for small fish, and enjoying the cool
+depths of the water. It is a fresh-water lake, shallow, and free from
+the larger reptiles which make the use of the great seas of Pellucidar
+impossible for any but their own kind.
+
+In the thick of the crowd we passed up the steps and out onto the
+plain. For some distance Ghak remained with the stream that was
+traveling toward the lake, but finally, at the bottom of a little gully
+he halted, and there we remained until all had passed and we were
+alone. Then, still in our disguises, we set off directly away from
+Phutra.
+
+The heat of the vertical rays of the sun was fast making our horrible
+prisons unbearable, so that after passing a low divide, and entering a
+sheltering forest, we finally discarded the Mahar skins that had
+brought us thus far in safety.
+
+I shall not weary you with the details of that bitter and galling
+flight. How we traveled at a dogged run until we dropped in our tracks.
+How we were beset by strange and terrible beasts. How we barely escaped
+the cruel fangs of lions and tigers the size of which would dwarf into
+pitiful insignificance the greatest felines of the outer world.
+
+On and on we raced, our one thought to put as much distance between
+ourselves and Phutra as possible. Ghak was leading us to his own
+land—the land of Sari. No sign of pursuit had developed, and yet we
+were sure that somewhere behind us relentless Sagoths were dogging our
+tracks. Ghak said they never failed to hunt down their quarry until
+they had captured it or themselves been turned back by a superior
+force.
+
+Our only hope, he said, lay in reaching his tribe which was quite
+strong enough in their mountain fastness to beat off any number of
+Sagoths.
+
+At last, after what seemed months, and may, I now realize, have been
+years, we came in sight of the dun escarpment which buttressed the
+foothills of Sari. At almost the same instant, Hooja, who looked ever
+quite as much behind as before, announced that he could see a body of
+men far behind us topping a low ridge in our wake. It was the
+long-expected pursuit.
+
+I asked Ghak if we could make Sari in time to escape them.
+
+“We may,” he replied; “but you will find that the Sagoths can move with
+incredible swiftness, and as they are almost tireless they are
+doubtless much fresher than we. Then—” he paused, glancing at Perry.
+
+I knew what he meant. The old man was exhausted. For much of the period
+of our flight either Ghak or I had half supported him on the march.
+With such a handicap, less fleet pursuers than the Sagoths might easily
+overtake us before we could scale the rugged heights which confronted
+us.
+
+“You and Hooja go on ahead,” I said. “Perry and I will make it if we
+are able. We cannot travel as rapidly as you two, and there is no
+reason why all should be lost because of that. It can’t be helped—we
+have simply to face it.”
+
+“I will not desert a companion,” was Ghak’s simple reply. I hadn’t
+known that this great, hairy, primeval man had any such nobility of
+character stowed away inside him. I had always liked him, but now to my
+liking was added honor and respect. Yes, and love.
+
+But still I urged him to go on ahead, insisting that if he could reach
+his people he might be able to bring out a sufficient force to drive
+off the Sagoths and rescue Perry and myself.
+
+No, he wouldn’t leave us, and that was all there was to it, but he
+suggested that Hooja might hurry on and warn the Sarians of the king’s
+danger. It didn’t require much urging to start Hooja—the naked idea was
+enough to send him leaping on ahead of us into the foothills which we
+now had reached.
+
+Perry realized that he was jeopardizing Ghak’s life and mine and the
+old fellow fairly begged us to go on without him, although I knew that
+he was suffering a perfect anguish of terror at the thought of falling
+into the hands of the Sagoths. Ghak finally solved the problem, in
+part, by lifting Perry in his powerful arms and carrying him. While the
+act cut down Ghak’s speed he still could travel faster thus than when
+half supporting the stumbling old man.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+THE SLY ONE
+
+
+The Sagoths were gaining on us rapidly, for once they had sighted us
+they had greatly increased their speed. On and on we stumbled up the
+narrow canyon that Ghak had chosen to approach the heights of Sari. On
+either side rose precipitous cliffs of gorgeous, parti-colored rock,
+while beneath our feet a thick mountain grass formed a soft and
+noiseless carpet. Since we had entered the canyon we had had no glimpse
+of our pursuers, and I was commencing to hope that they had lost our
+trail and that we would reach the now rapidly nearing cliffs in time to
+scale them before we should be overtaken.
+
+Ahead we neither saw nor heard any sign which might betoken the success
+of Hooja’s mission. By now he should have reached the outposts of the
+Sarians, and we should at least hear the savage cries of the tribesmen
+as they swarmed to arms in answer to their king’s appeal for succor. In
+another moment the frowning cliffs ahead should be black with primeval
+warriors. But nothing of the kind happened—as a matter of fact the Sly
+One had betrayed us. At the moment that we expected to see Sarian
+spearmen charging to our relief at Hooja’s back, the craven traitor was
+sneaking around the outskirts of the nearest Sarian village, that he
+might come up from the other side when it was too late to save us,
+claiming that he had become lost among the mountains.
+
+Hooja still harbored ill will against me because of the blow I had
+struck in Dian’s protection, and his malevolent spirit was equal to
+sacrificing us all that he might be revenged upon me.
+
+As we drew nearer the barrier cliffs and no sign of rescuing Sarians
+appeared Ghak became both angry and alarmed, and presently as the sound
+of rapidly approaching pursuit fell upon our ears, he called to me over
+his shoulder that we were lost.
+
+A backward glance gave me a glimpse of the first of the Sagoths at the
+far end of a considerable stretch of canyon through which we had just
+passed, and then a sudden turning shut the ugly creature from my view;
+but the loud howl of triumphant rage which rose behind us was evidence
+that the gorilla-man had sighted us.
+
+Again the canyon veered sharply to the left, but to the right another
+branch ran on at a lesser deviation from the general direction, so that
+appeared more like the main canyon than the lefthand branch. The
+Sagoths were now not over two hundred and fifty yards behind us, and I
+saw that it was hopeless for us to expect to escape other than by a
+ruse. There was a bare chance of saving Ghak and Perry, and as I
+reached the branching of the canyon I took the chance.
+
+Pausing there I waited until the foremost Sagoth hove into sight. Ghak
+and Perry had disappeared around a bend in the left-hand canyon, and as
+the Sagoth’s savage yell announced that he had seen me I turned and
+fled up the right-hand branch. My ruse was successful, and the entire
+party of man-hunters raced headlong after me up one canyon while Ghak
+bore Perry to safety up the other.
+
+Running has never been my particular athletic forte, and now when my
+very life depended upon fleetness of foot I cannot say that I ran any
+better than on the occasions when my pitiful base running had called
+down upon my head the rooter’s raucous and reproachful cries of “Ice
+Wagon,” and “Call a cab.”
+
+The Sagoths were gaining on me rapidly. There was one in particular,
+fleeter than his fellows, who was perilously close. The canyon had
+become a rocky slit, rising roughly at a steep angle toward what seemed
+a pass between two abutting peaks. What lay beyond I could not even
+guess—possibly a sheer drop of hundreds of feet into the corresponding
+valley upon the other side. Could it be that I had plunged into a
+cul-de-sac?
+
+Realizing that I could not hope to outdistance the Sagoths to the top
+of the canyon I had determined to risk all in an attempt to check them
+temporarily, and to this end had unslung my rudely made bow and plucked
+an arrow from the skin quiver which hung behind my shoulder. As I
+fitted the shaft with my right hand I stopped and wheeled toward the
+gorilla-man.
+
+In the world of my birth I never had drawn a shaft, but since our
+escape from Phutra I had kept the party supplied with small game by
+means of my arrows, and so, through necessity, had developed a fair
+degree of accuracy. During our flight from Phutra I had restrung my bow
+with a piece of heavy gut taken from a huge tiger which Ghak and I had
+worried and finally dispatched with arrows, spear, and sword. The hard
+wood of the bow was extremely tough and this, with the strength and
+elasticity of my new string, gave me unwonted confidence in my weapon.
+
+Never had I greater need of steady nerves than then—never were my
+nerves and muscles under better control. I sighted as carefully and
+deliberately as though at a straw target. The Sagoth had never before
+seen a bow and arrow, but of a sudden it must have swept over his dull
+intellect that the thing I held toward him was some sort of engine of
+destruction, for he too came to a halt, simultaneously swinging his
+hatchet for a throw. It is one of the many methods in which they employ
+this weapon, and the accuracy of aim which they achieve, even under the
+most unfavorable circumstances, is little short of miraculous.
+
+My shaft was drawn back its full length—my eye had centered its sharp
+point upon the left breast of my adversary; and then he launched his
+hatchet and I released my arrow. At the instant that our missiles flew
+I leaped to one side, but the Sagoth sprang forward to follow up his
+attack with a spear thrust. I felt the swish of the hatchet as it
+grazed my head, and at the same instant my shaft pierced the Sagoth’s
+savage heart, and with a single groan he lunged almost at my feet—stone
+dead. Close behind him were two more—fifty yards perhaps—but the
+distance gave me time to snatch up the dead guardsman’s shield, for the
+close call his hatchet had just given me had borne in upon me the
+urgent need I had for one. Those which I had purloined at Phutra we had
+not been able to bring along because their size precluded our
+concealing them within the skins of the Mahars which had brought us
+safely from the city.
+
+With the shield slipped well up on my left arm I let fly with another
+arrow, which brought down a second Sagoth, and then as his fellow’s
+hatchet sped toward me I caught it upon the shield, and fitted another
+shaft for him; but he did not wait to receive it. Instead, he turned
+and retreated toward the main body of gorilla-men. Evidently he had
+seen enough of me for the moment.
+
+Once more I took up my flight, nor were the Sagoths apparently
+overanxious to press their pursuit so closely as before. Unmolested I
+reached the top of the canyon where I found a sheer drop of two or
+three hundred feet to the bottom of a rocky chasm; but on the left a
+narrow ledge rounded the shoulder of the overhanging cliff. Along this
+I advanced, and at a sudden turning, a few yards beyond the canyon’s
+end, the path widened, and at my left I saw the opening to a large
+cave. Before, the ledge continued until it passed from sight about
+another projecting buttress of the mountain.
+
+Here, I felt, I could defy an army, for but a single foeman could
+advance upon me at a time, nor could he know that I was awaiting him
+until he came full upon me around the corner of the turn. About me lay
+scattered stones crumbled from the cliff above. They were of various
+sizes and shapes, but enough were of handy dimensions for use as
+ammunition in lieu of my precious arrows. Gathering a number of stones
+into a little pile beside the mouth of the cave I waited the advance of
+the Sagoths.
+
+As I stood there, tense and silent, listening for the first faint sound
+that should announce the approach of my enemies, a slight noise from
+within the cave’s black depths attracted my attention. It might have
+been produced by the moving of the great body of some huge beast rising
+from the rock floor of its lair. At almost the same instant I thought
+that I caught the scraping of hide sandals upon the ledge beyond the
+turn. For the next few seconds my attention was considerably divided.
+
+And then from the inky blackness at my right I saw two flaming eyes
+glaring into mine. They were on a level that was over two feet above my
+head. It is true that the beast who owned them might be standing upon a
+ledge within the cave, or that it might be rearing up upon its hind
+legs; but I had seen enough of the monsters of Pellucidar to know that
+I might be facing some new and frightful Titan whose dimensions and
+ferocity eclipsed those of any I had seen before.
+
+Whatever it was, it was coming slowly toward the entrance of the cave,
+and now, deep and forbidding, it uttered a low and ominous growl. I
+waited no longer to dispute possession of the ledge with the thing
+which owned that voice. The noise had not been loud—I doubt if the
+Sagoths heard it at all—but the suggestion of latent possibilities
+behind it was such that I knew it would only emanate from a gigantic
+and ferocious beast.
+
+As I backed along the ledge I soon was past the mouth of the cave,
+where I no longer could see those fearful flaming eyes, but an instant
+later I caught sight of the fiendish face of a Sagoth as it warily
+advanced beyond the cliff’s turn on the far side of the cave’s mouth.
+As the fellow saw me he leaped along the ledge in pursuit, and after
+him came as many of his companions as could crowd upon each other’s
+heels. At the same time the beast emerged from the cave, so that he and
+the Sagoths came face to face upon that narrow ledge.
+
+The thing was an enormous cave bear, rearing its colossal bulk fully
+eight feet at the shoulder, while from the tip of its nose to the end
+of its stubby tail it was fully twelve feet in length. As it sighted
+the Sagoths it emitted a most frightful roar, and with open mouth
+charged full upon them. With a cry of terror the foremost gorilla-man
+turned to escape, but behind him he ran full upon his on-rushing
+companions.
+
+The horror of the following seconds is indescribable. The Sagoth
+nearest the cave bear, finding his escape blocked, turned and leaped
+deliberately to an awful death upon the jagged rocks three hundred feet
+below. Then those giant jaws reached out and gathered in the next—there
+was a sickening sound of crushing bones, and the mangled corpse was
+dropped over the cliff’s edge. Nor did the mighty beast even pause in
+his steady advance along the ledge.
+
+Shrieking Sagoths were now leaping madly over the precipice to escape
+him, and the last I saw he rounded the turn still pursuing the
+demoralized remnant of the man hunters. For a long time I could hear
+the horrid roaring of the brute intermingled with the screams and
+shrieks of his victims, until finally the awful sounds dwindled and
+disappeared in the distance.
+
+Later I learned from Ghak, who had finally come to his tribesmen and
+returned with a party to rescue me, that the ryth, as it is called,
+pursued the Sagoths until it had exterminated the entire band. Ghak
+was, of course, positive that I had fallen prey to the terrible
+creature, which, within Pellucidar, is truly the king of beasts.
+
+Not caring to venture back into the canyon, where I might fall prey
+either to the cave bear or the Sagoths I continued on along the ledge,
+believing that by following around the mountain I could reach the land
+of Sari from another direction. But I evidently became confused by the
+twisting and turning of the canyons and gullies, for I did not come to
+the land of Sari then, nor for a long time thereafter.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+THE GARDEN OF EDEN
+
+
+With no heavenly guide, it is little wonder that I became confused and
+lost in the labyrinthine maze of those mighty hills. What, in reality,
+I did was to pass entirely through them and come out above the valley
+upon the farther side. I know that I wandered for a long time, until
+tired and hungry I came upon a small cave in the face of the limestone
+formation which had taken the place of the granite farther back.
+
+The cave which took my fancy lay halfway up the precipitous side of a
+lofty cliff. The way to it was such that I knew no extremely formidable
+beast could frequent it, nor was it large enough to make a comfortable
+habitat for any but the smaller mammals or reptiles. Yet it was with
+the utmost caution that I crawled within its dark interior.
+
+Here I found a rather large chamber, lighted by a narrow cleft in the
+rock above which let the sunlight filter in in sufficient quantities
+partially to dispel the utter darkness which I had expected. The cave
+was entirely empty, nor were there any signs of its having been
+recently occupied. The opening was comparatively small, so that after
+considerable effort I was able to lug up a bowlder from the valley
+below which entirely blocked it.
+
+Then I returned again to the valley for an armful of grasses and on
+this trip was fortunate enough to knock over an orthopi, the diminutive
+horse of Pellucidar, a little animal about the size of a fox terrier,
+which abounds in all parts of the inner world. Thus, with food and
+bedding I returned to my lair, where after a meal of raw meat, to which
+I had now become quite accustomed, I dragged the bowlder before the
+entrance and curled myself upon a bed of grasses—a naked, primeval,
+cave man, as savagely primitive as my prehistoric progenitors.
+
+I awoke rested but hungry, and pushing the bowlder aside crawled out
+upon the little rocky shelf which was my front porch. Before me spread
+a small but beautiful valley, through the center of which a clear and
+sparkling river wound its way down to an inland sea, the blue waters of
+which were just visible between the two mountain ranges which embraced
+this little paradise. The sides of the opposite hills were green with
+verdure, for a great forest clothed them to the foot of the red and
+yellow and copper green of the towering crags which formed their
+summit. The valley itself was carpeted with a luxuriant grass, while
+here and there patches of wild flowers made great splashes of vivid
+color against the prevailing green.
+
+Dotted over the face of the valley were little clusters of palmlike
+trees—three or four together as a rule. Beneath these stood antelope,
+while others grazed in the open, or wandered gracefully to a nearby
+ford to drink. There were several species of this beautiful animal, the
+most magnificent somewhat resembling the giant eland of Africa, except
+that their spiral horns form a complete curve backward over their ears
+and then forward again beneath them, ending in sharp and formidable
+points some two feet before the face and above the eyes. In size they
+remind one of a pure bred Hereford bull, yet they are very agile and
+fast. The broad yellow bands that stripe the dark roan of their coats
+made me take them for zebra when I first saw them. All in all they are
+handsome animals, and added the finishing touch to the strange and
+lovely landscape that spread before my new home.
+
+I had determined to make the cave my headquarters, and with it as a
+base make a systematic exploration of the surrounding country in search
+of the land of Sari. First I devoured the remainder of the carcass of
+the orthopi I had killed before my last sleep. Then I hid the Great
+Secret in a deep niche at the back of my cave, rolled the bowlder
+before my front door, and with bow, arrows, sword, and shield scrambled
+down into the peaceful valley.
+
+The grazing herds moved to one side as I passed through them, the
+little orthopi evincing the greatest wariness and galloping to safest
+distances. All the animals stopped feeding as I approached, and after
+moving to what they considered a safe distance stood contemplating me
+with serious eyes and up-cocked ears. Once one of the old bull
+antelopes of the striped species lowered his head and bellowed
+angrily—even taking a few steps in my direction, so that I thought he
+meant to charge; but after I had passed, he resumed feeding as though
+nothing had disturbed him.
+
+Near the lower end of the valley I passed a number of tapirs, and
+across the river saw a great sadok, the enormous double-horned
+progenitor of the modern rhinoceros. At the valley’s end the cliffs
+upon the left ran out into the sea, so that to pass around them as I
+desired to do it was necessary to scale them in search of a ledge along
+which I might continue my journey. Some fifty feet from the base I came
+upon a projection which formed a natural path along the face of the
+cliff, and this I followed out over the sea toward the cliff’s end.
+
+Here the ledge inclined rapidly upward toward the top of the cliffs—the
+stratum which formed it evidently having been forced up at this steep
+angle when the mountains behind it were born. As I climbed carefully up
+the ascent my attention suddenly was attracted aloft by the sound of
+strange hissing, and what resembled the flapping of wings.
+
+And at the first glance there broke upon my horrified vision the most
+frightful thing I had seen even within Pellucidar. It was a giant
+dragon such as is pictured in the legends and fairy tales of earth
+folk. Its huge body must have measured forty feet in length, while the
+batlike wings that supported it in midair had a spread of fully thirty.
+Its gaping jaws were armed with long, sharp teeth, and its claw
+equipped with horrible talons.
+
+The hissing noise which had first attracted my attention was issuing
+from its throat, and seemed to be directed at something beyond and
+below me which I could not see. The ledge upon which I stood terminated
+abruptly a few paces farther on, and as I reached the end I saw the
+cause of the reptile’s agitation.
+
+Some time in past ages an earthquake had produced a fault at this
+point, so that beyond the spot where I stood the strata had slipped
+down a matter of twenty feet. The result was that the continuation of
+my ledge lay twenty feet below me, where it ended as abruptly as did
+the end upon which I stood.
+
+And here, evidently halted in flight by this insurmountable break in
+the ledge, stood the object of the creature’s attack—a girl cowering
+upon the narrow platform, her face buried in her arms, as though to
+shut out the sight of the frightful death which hovered just above her.
+
+The dragon was circling lower, and seemed about to dart in upon its
+prey. There was no time to be lost, scarce an instant in which to weigh
+the possible chances that I had against the awfully armed creature; but
+the sight of that frightened girl below me called out to all that was
+best in me, and the instinct for protection of the other sex, which
+nearly must have equaled the instinct of self-preservation in primeval
+man, drew me to the girl’s side like an irresistible magnet.
+
+Almost thoughtless of the consequences, I leaped from the end of the
+ledge upon which I stood, for the tiny shelf twenty feet below. At the
+same instant the dragon darted in toward the girl, but my sudden advent
+upon the scene must have startled him for he veered to one side, and
+then rose above us once more.
+
+The noise I made as I landed beside her convinced the girl that the end
+had come, for she thought I was the dragon; but finally when no cruel
+fangs closed upon her she raised her eyes in astonishment. As they fell
+upon me the expression that came into them would be difficult to
+describe; but her feelings could scarcely have been one whit more
+complicated than my own—for the wide eyes that looked into mine were
+those of Dian the Beautiful.
+
+“Dian!” I cried. “Dian! Thank God that I came in time.”
+
+“You?” she whispered, and then she hid her face again; nor could I tell
+whether she were glad or angry that I had come.
+
+Once more the dragon was sweeping toward us, and so rapidly that I had
+no time to unsling my bow. All that I could do was to snatch up a rock,
+and hurl it at the thing’s hideous face. Again my aim was true, and
+with a hiss of pain and rage the reptile wheeled once more and soared
+away.
+
+Quickly I fitted an arrow now that I might be ready at the next attack,
+and as I did so I looked down at the girl, so that I surprised her in a
+surreptitious glance which she was stealing at me; but immediately, she
+again covered her face with her hands.
+
+“Look at me, Dian,” I pleaded. “Are you not glad to see me?”
+
+She looked straight into my eyes.
+
+“I hate you,” she said, and then, as I was about to beg for a fair
+hearing she pointed over my shoulder. “The thipdar comes,” she said,
+and I turned again to meet the reptile.
+
+So this was a thipdar. I might have known it. The cruel bloodhound of
+the Mahars. The long-extinct pterodactyl of the outer world. But this
+time I met it with a weapon it never had faced before. I had selected
+my longest arrow, and with all my strength had bent the bow until the
+very tip of the shaft rested upon the thumb of my left hand, and then
+as the great creature darted toward us I let drive straight for that
+tough breast.
+
+Hissing like the escape valve of a steam engine, the mighty creature
+fell turning and twisting into the sea below, my arrow buried
+completely in its carcass. I turned toward the girl. She was looking
+past me. It was evident that she had seen the thipdar die.
+
+“Dian,” I said, “won’t you tell me that you are not sorry that I have
+found you?”
+
+“I hate you,” was her only reply; but I imagined that there was less
+vehemence in it than before—yet it might have been but my imagination.
+
+“Why do you hate me, Dian?” I asked, but she did not answer me.
+
+“What are you doing here?” I asked, “and what has happened to you since
+Hooja freed you from the Sagoths?”
+
+At first I thought that she was going to ignore me entirely, but
+finally she thought better of it.
+
+“I was again running away from Jubal the Ugly One,” she said. “After I
+escaped from the Sagoths I made my way alone back to my own land; but
+on account of Jubal I did not dare enter the villages or let any of my
+friends know that I had returned for fear that Jubal might find out. By
+watching for a long time I found that my brother had not yet returned,
+and so I continued to live in a cave beside a valley which my race
+seldom frequents, awaiting the time that he should come back and free
+me from Jubal.
+
+“But at last one of Jubal’s hunters saw me as I was creeping toward my
+father’s cave to see if my brother had yet returned and he gave the
+alarm and Jubal set out after me. He has been pursuing me across many
+lands. He cannot be far behind me now. When he comes he will kill you
+and carry me back to his cave. He is a terrible man. I have gone as far
+as I can go, and there is no escape,” and she looked hopelessly up at
+the continuation of the ledge twenty feet above us.
+
+“But he shall not have me,” she suddenly cried, with great vehemence.
+“The sea is there”—she pointed over the edge of the cliff—“and the sea
+shall have me rather than Jubal.”
+
+“But I have you now Dian,” I cried; “nor shall Jubal, nor any other
+have you, for you are mine,” and I seized her hand, nor did I lift it
+above her head and let it fall in token of release.
+
+She had risen to her feet, and was looking straight into my eyes with
+level gaze.
+
+“I do not believe you,” she said, “for if you meant it you would have
+done this when the others were present to witness it—then I should
+truly have been your mate; now there is no one to see you do it, for
+you know that without witnesses your act does not bind you to me,” and
+she withdrew her hand from mine and turned away.
+
+I tried to convince her that I was sincere, but she simply couldn’t
+forget the humiliation that I had put upon her on that other occasion.
+
+“If you mean all that you say you will have ample chance to prove it,”
+she said, “if Jubal does not catch and kill you. I am in your power,
+and the treatment you accord me will be the best proof of your
+intentions toward me. I am not your mate, and again I tell you that I
+hate you, and that I should be glad if I never saw you again.”
+
+Dian certainly was candid. There was no gainsaying that. In fact I
+found candor and directness to be quite a marked characteristic of the
+cave men of Pellucidar. Finally I suggested that we make some attempt
+to gain my cave, where we might escape the searching Jubal, for I am
+free to admit that I had no considerable desire to meet the formidable
+and ferocious creature, of whose mighty prowess Dian had told me when I
+first met her. He it was who, armed with a puny knife, had met and
+killed a cave bear in a hand-to-hand struggle. It was Jubal who could
+cast his spear entirely through the armored carcass of the sadok at
+fifty paces. It was he who had crushed the skull of a charging dyryth
+with a single blow of his war club. No, I was not pining to meet the
+Ugly One—and it was quite certain that I should not go out and hunt for
+him; but the matter was taken out of my hands very quickly, as is often
+the way, and I did meet Jubal the Ugly One face to face.
+
+This is how it happened. I had led Dian back along the ledge the way
+she had come, searching for a path that would lead us to the top of the
+cliff, for I knew that we could then cross over to the edge of my own
+little valley, where I felt certain we should find a means of ingress
+from the cliff top. As we proceeded along the ledge I gave Dian minute
+directions for finding my cave against the chance of something
+happening to me. I knew that she would be quite safely hidden away from
+pursuit once she gained the shelter of my lair, and the valley would
+afford her ample means of sustenance.
+
+Also, I was very much piqued by her treatment of me. My heart was sad
+and heavy, and I wanted to make her feel badly by suggesting that
+something terrible might happen to me—that I might, in fact, be killed.
+But it didn’t work worth a cent, at least as far as I could perceive.
+Dian simply shrugged those magnificent shoulders of hers, and murmured
+something to the effect that one was not rid of trouble so easily as
+that.
+
+For a while I kept still. I was utterly squelched. And to think that I
+had twice protected her from attack—the last time risking my life to
+save hers. It was incredible that even a daughter of the Stone Age
+could be so ungrateful—so heartless; but maybe her heart partook of the
+qualities of her epoch.
+
+Presently we found a rift in the cliff which had been widened and
+extended by the action of the water draining through it from the
+plateau above. It gave us a rather rough climb to the summit, but
+finally we stood upon the level mesa which stretched back for several
+miles to the mountain range. Behind us lay the broad inland sea,
+curving upward in the horizonless distance to merge into the blue of
+the sky, so that for all the world it looked as though the sea lapped
+back to arch completely over us and disappear beyond the distant
+mountains at our backs—the weird and uncanny aspect of the seascapes of
+Pellucidar balk description.
+
+At our right lay a dense forest, but to the left the country was open
+and clear to the plateau’s farther verge. It was in this direction that
+our way led, and we had turned to resume our journey when Dian touched
+my arm. I turned to her, thinking that she was about to make peace
+overtures; but I was mistaken.
+
+“Jubal,” she said, and nodded toward the forest.
+
+I looked, and there, emerging from the dense wood, came a perfect whale
+of a man. He must have been seven feet tall, and proportioned
+accordingly. He still was too far off to distinguish his features.
+
+“Run,” I said to Dian. “I can engage him until you get a good start.
+Maybe I can hold him until you have gotten entirely away,” and then,
+without a backward glance, I advanced to meet the Ugly One. I had hoped
+that Dian would have a kind word to say to me before she went, for she
+must have known that I was going to my death for her sake; but she
+never even so much as bid me good-bye, and it was with a heavy heart
+that I strode through the flower-bespangled grass to my doom.
+
+When I had come close enough to Jubal to distinguish his features I
+understood how it was that he had earned the sobriquet of Ugly One.
+Apparently some fearful beast had ripped away one entire side of his
+face. The eye was gone, the nose, and all the flesh, so that his jaws
+and all his teeth were exposed and grinning through the horrible scar.
+
+Formerly he may have been as good to look upon as the others of his
+handsome race, and it may be that the terrible result of this encounter
+had tended to sour an already strong and brutal character. However this
+may be it is quite certain that he was not a pretty sight, and now that
+his features, or what remained of them, were distorted in rage at the
+sight of Dian with another male, he was indeed most terrible to see—and
+much more terrible to meet.
+
+He had broken into a run now, and as he advanced he raised his mighty
+spear, while I halted and fitting an arrow to my bow took as steady aim
+as I could. I was somewhat longer than usual, for I must confess that
+the sight of this awful man had wrought upon my nerves to such an
+extent that my knees were anything but steady. What chance had I
+against this mighty warrior for whom even the fiercest cave bear had no
+terrors! Could I hope to best one who slaughtered the sadok and dyryth
+singlehanded! I shuddered; but, in fairness to myself, my fear was more
+for Dian than for my own fate.
+
+And then the great brute launched his massive stone-tipped spear, and I
+raised my shield to break the force of its terrific velocity. The
+impact hurled me to my knees, but the shield had deflected the missile
+and I was unscathed. Jubal was rushing upon me now with the only
+remaining weapon that he carried—a murderous-looking knife. He was too
+close for a careful bowshot, but I let drive at him as he came, without
+taking aim. My arrow pierced the fleshy part of his thigh, inflicting a
+painful but not disabling wound. And then he was upon me.
+
+My agility saved me for the instant. I ducked beneath his raised arm,
+and when he wheeled to come at me again he found a sword’s point in his
+face. And a moment later he felt an inch or two of it in the muscles of
+his knife arm, so that thereafter he went more warily.
+
+It was a duel of strategy now—the great, hairy man maneuvering to get
+inside my guard where he could bring those giant thews to play, while
+my wits were directed to the task of keeping him at arm’s length.
+Thrice he rushed me, and thrice I caught his knife blow upon my shield.
+Each time my sword found his body—once penetrating to his lung. He was
+covered with blood by this time, and the internal hemorrhage induced
+paroxysms of coughing that brought the red stream through the hideous
+mouth and nose, covering his face and breast with bloody froth. He was
+a most unlovely spectacle, but he was far from dead.
+
+As the duel continued I began to gain confidence, for, to be perfectly
+candid, I had not expected to survive the first rush of that monstrous
+engine of ungoverned rage and hatred. And I think that Jubal, from
+utter contempt of me, began to change to a feeling of respect, and then
+in his primitive mind there evidently loomed the thought that perhaps
+at last he had met his master, and was facing his end.
+
+At any rate it is only upon this hypothesis that I can account for his
+next act, which was in the nature of a last resort—a sort of forlorn
+hope, which could only have been born of the belief that if he did not
+kill me quickly I should kill him. It happened on the occasion of his
+fourth charge, when, instead of striking at me with his knife, he
+dropped that weapon, and seizing my sword blade in both his hands
+wrenched the weapon from my grasp as easily as from a babe.
+
+Flinging it far to one side he stood motionless for just an instant
+glaring into my face with such a horrid leer of malignant triumph as to
+almost unnerve me—then he sprang for me with his bare hands. But it was
+Jubal’s day to learn new methods of warfare. For the first time he had
+seen a bow and arrows, never before that duel had he beheld a sword,
+and now he learned what a man who knows may do with his bare fists.
+
+As he came for me, like a great bear, I ducked again beneath his
+outstretched arm, and as I came up planted as clean a blow upon his jaw
+as ever you have seen. Down went that great mountain of flesh sprawling
+upon the ground. He was so surprised and dazed that he lay there for
+several seconds before he made any attempt to rise, and I stood over
+him with another dose ready when he should gain his knees.
+
+Up he came at last, almost roaring in his rage and mortification; but
+he didn’t stay up—I let him have a left fair on the point of the jaw
+that sent him tumbling over on his back. By this time I think Jubal had
+gone mad with hate, for no sane man would have come back for more as
+many times as he did. Time after time I bowled him over as fast as he
+could stagger up, until toward the last he lay longer on the ground
+between blows, and each time came up weaker than before.
+
+He was bleeding very profusely now from the wound in his lungs, and
+presently a terrific blow over the heart sent him reeling heavily to
+the ground, where he lay very still, and somehow I knew at once that
+Jubal the Ugly One would never get up again. But even as I looked upon
+that massive body lying there so grim and terrible in death, I could
+not believe that I, single-handed, had bested this slayer of fearful
+beasts—this gigantic ogre of the Stone Age.
+
+Picking up my sword I leaned upon it, looking down on the dead body of
+my foeman, and as I thought of the battle I had just fought and won a
+great idea was born in my brain—the outcome of this and the suggestion
+that Perry had made within the city of Phutra. If skill and science
+could render a comparative pygmy the master of this mighty brute, what
+could not the brute’s fellows accomplish with the same skill and
+science. Why all Pellucidar would be at their feet—and I would be their
+king and Dian their queen.
+
+Dian! A little wave of doubt swept over me. It was quite within the
+possibilities of Dian to look down upon me even were I king. She was
+quite the most superior person I ever had met—with the most convincing
+way of letting you know that she was superior. Well, I could go to the
+cave, and tell her that I had killed Jubal, and then she might feel
+more kindly toward me, since I had freed her of her tormentor. I hoped
+that she had found the cave easily—it would be terrible had I lost her
+again, and I turned to gather up my shield and bow to hurry after her,
+when to my astonishment I found her standing not ten paces behind me.
+
+“Girl!” I cried, “what are you doing here? I thought that you had gone
+to the cave, as I told you to do.”
+
+Up went her head, and the look that she gave me took all the majesty
+out of me, and left me feeling more like the palace janitor—if palaces
+have janitors.
+
+“As you told me to do!” she cried, stamping her little foot. “I do as I
+please. I am the daughter of a king, and furthermore, I hate you.”
+
+I was dumbfounded—this was my thanks for saving her from Jubal! I
+turned and looked at the corpse. “May be that I saved you from a worse
+fate, old man,” I said, but I guess it was lost on Dian, for she never
+seemed to notice it at all.
+
+“Let us go to my cave,” I said, “I am tired and hungry.”
+
+She followed along a pace behind me, neither of us speaking. I was too
+angry, and she evidently didn’t care to converse with the lower orders.
+I was mad all the way through, as I had certainly felt that at least a
+word of thanks should have rewarded me, for I knew that even by her own
+standards, I must have done a very wonderful thing to have killed the
+redoubtable Jubal in a hand-to-hand encounter.
+
+We had no difficulty in finding my lair, and then I went down into the
+valley and bowled over a small antelope, which I dragged up the steep
+ascent to the ledge before the door. Here we ate in silence.
+Occasionally I glanced at her, thinking that the sight of her tearing
+at raw flesh with her hands and teeth like some wild animal would cause
+a revulsion of my sentiments toward her; but to my surprise I found
+that she ate quite as daintily as the most civilized woman of my
+acquaintance, and finally I found myself gazing in foolish rapture at
+the beauties of her strong, white teeth. Such is love.
+
+After our repast we went down to the river together and bathed our
+hands and faces, and then after drinking our fill went back to the
+cave. Without a word I crawled into the farthest corner and, curling
+up, was soon asleep.
+
+When I awoke I found Dian sitting in the doorway looking out across the
+valley. As I came out she moved to one side to let me pass, but she had
+no word for me. I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t. Every time I
+looked at her something came up in my throat, so that I nearly choked.
+I had never been in love before, but I did not need any aid in
+diagnosing my case—I certainly had it and had it bad. God, how I loved
+that beautiful, disdainful, tantalizing, prehistoric girl!
+
+After we had eaten again I asked Dian if she intended returning to her
+tribe now that Jubal was dead, but she shook her head sadly, and said
+that she did not dare, for there was still Jubal’s brother to be
+considered—his oldest brother.
+
+“What has he to do with it?” I asked. “Does he too want you, or has the
+option on you become a family heirloom, to be passed on down from
+generation to generation?”
+
+She was not quite sure as to what I meant.
+
+“It is probable,” she said, “that they all will want revenge for the
+death of Jubal—there are seven of them—seven terrible men. Someone may
+have to kill them all, if I am to return to my people.”
+
+It began to look as though I had assumed a contract much too large for
+me—about seven sizes, in fact.
+
+“Had Jubal any cousins?” I asked. It was just as well to know the worst
+at once.
+
+“Yes,” replied Dian, “but they don’t count—they all have mates. Jubal’s
+brothers have no mates because Jubal could get none for himself. He was
+so ugly that women ran away from him—some have even thrown themselves
+from the cliffs of Amoz into the Darel Az rather than mate with the
+Ugly One.”
+
+“But what had that to do with his brothers?” I asked.
+
+“I forget that you are not of Pellucidar,” said Dian, with a look of
+pity mixed with contempt, and the contempt seemed to be laid on a
+little thicker than the circumstance warranted—as though to make quite
+certain that I shouldn’t overlook it. “You see,” she continued, “a
+younger brother may not take a mate until all his older brothers have
+done so, unless the older brother waives his prerogative, which Jubal
+would not do, knowing that as long as he kept them single they would be
+all the keener in aiding him to secure a mate.”
+
+Noticing that Dian was becoming more communicative I began to entertain
+hopes that she might be warming up toward me a bit, although upon what
+slender thread I hung my hopes I soon discovered.
+
+“As you dare not return to Amoz,” I ventured, “what is to become of you
+since you cannot be happy here with me, hating me as you do?”
+
+“I shall have to put up with you,” she replied coldly, “until you see
+fit to go elsewhere and leave me in peace, then I shall get along very
+well alone.”
+
+I looked at her in utter amazement. It seemed incredible that even a
+prehistoric woman could be so cold and heartless and ungrateful. Then I
+arose.
+
+“I shall leave you NOW,” I said haughtily, “I have had quite enough of
+your ingratitude and your insults,” and then I turned and strode
+majestically down toward the valley. I had taken a hundred steps in
+absolute silence, and then Dian spoke.
+
+“I hate you!” she shouted, and her voice broke—in rage, I thought.
+
+I was absolutely miserable, but I hadn’t gone too far when I began to
+realize that I couldn’t leave her alone there without protection, to
+hunt her own food amid the dangers of that savage world. She might hate
+me, and revile me, and heap indignity after indignity upon me, as she
+already had, until I should have hated her; but the pitiful fact
+remained that I loved her, and I couldn’t leave her there alone.
+
+The more I thought about it the madder I got, so that by the time I
+reached the valley I was furious, and the result of it was that I
+turned right around and went up that cliff again as fast as I had come
+down. I saw that Dian had left the ledge and gone within the cave, but
+I bolted right in after her. She was lying upon her face on the pile of
+grasses I had gathered for her bed. When she heard me enter she sprang
+to her feet like a tigress.
+
+“I hate you!” she cried.
+
+Coming from the brilliant light of the noonday sun into the
+semidarkness of the cave I could not see her features, and I was rather
+glad, for I disliked to think of the hate that I should have read
+there.
+
+I never said a word to her at first. I just strode across the cave and
+grasped her by the wrists, and when she struggled, I put my arm around
+her so as to pinion her hands to her sides. She fought like a tigress,
+but I took my free hand and pushed her head back—I imagine that I had
+suddenly turned brute, that I had gone back a thousand million years,
+and was again a veritable cave man taking my mate by force—and then I
+kissed that beautiful mouth again and again.
+
+“Dian,” I cried, shaking her roughly, “I love you. Can’t you understand
+that I love you? That I love you better than all else in this world or
+my own? That I am going to have you? That love like mine cannot be
+denied?”
+
+I noticed that she lay very still in my arms now, and as my eyes became
+accustomed to the light I saw that she was smiling—a very contented,
+happy smile. I was thunderstruck. Then I realized that, very gently,
+she was trying to disengage her arms, and I loosened my grip upon them
+so that she could do so. Slowly they came up and stole about my neck,
+and then she drew my lips down to hers once more and held them there
+for a long time. At last she spoke.
+
+“Why didn’t you do this at first, David? I have been waiting so long.”
+
+“What!” I cried. “You said that you hated me!”
+
+“Did you expect me to run into your arms, and say that I loved you
+before I knew that you loved me?” she asked.
+
+“But I have told you right along that I love you,” I said. “Love speaks
+in acts,” she replied. “You could have made your mouth say what you
+wished it to say, but just now when you came and took me in your arms
+your heart spoke to mine in the language that a woman’s heart
+understands. What a silly man you are, David.”
+
+“Then you haven’t hated me at all, Dian?” I asked.
+
+“I have loved you always,” she whispered, “from the first moment that I
+saw you, although I did not know it until that time you struck down
+Hooja the Sly One, and then spurned me.”
+
+“But I didn’t spurn you, dear,” I cried. “I didn’t know your ways—I
+doubt if I do now. It seems incredible that you could have reviled me
+so, and yet have cared for me all the time.”
+
+“You might have known,” she said, “when I did not run away from you
+that it was not hate which chained me to you. While you were battling
+with Jubal, I could have run to the edge of the forest, and when I
+learned the outcome of the combat it would have been a simple thing to
+have eluded you and returned to my own people.”
+
+“But Jubal’s brothers—and cousins—” I reminded her, “how about them?”
+
+She smiled, and hid her face on my shoulder.
+
+“I had to tell you SOMETHING, David,” she whispered. “I must needs have
+SOME excuse for remaining near you.”
+
+“You little sinner!” I exclaimed. “And you have caused me all this
+anguish for nothing!”
+
+“I have suffered even more,” she answered simply, “for I thought that
+you did not love me, and I was helpless. I couldn’t come to you and
+demand that my love be returned, as you have just come to me. Just now
+when you went away hope went with you. I was wretched, terrified,
+miserable, and my heart was breaking. I wept, and I have not done that
+before since my mother died,” and now I saw that there was the moisture
+of tears about her eyes. It was near to making me cry myself when I
+thought of all that poor child had been through. Motherless and
+unprotected; hunted across a savage, primeval world by that hideous
+brute of a man; exposed to the attacks of the countless fearsome
+denizens of its mountains, its plains, and its jungles—it was a miracle
+that she had survived it all.
+
+To me it was a revelation of the things my early forebears must have
+endured that the human race of the outer crust might survive. It made
+me very proud to think that I had won the love of such a woman. Of
+course she couldn’t read or write; there was nothing cultured or
+refined about her as you judge culture and refinement; but she was the
+essence of all that is best in woman, for she was good, and brave, and
+noble, and virtuous. And she was all these things in spite of the fact
+that their observance entailed suffering and danger and possible death.
+
+How much easier it would have been to have gone to Jubal in the first
+place! She would have been his lawful mate. She would have been queen
+in her own land—and it meant just as much to the cave woman to be a
+queen in the Stone Age as it does to the woman of today to be a queen
+now; it’s all comparative glory any way you look at it, and if there
+were only half-naked savages on the outer crust today, you’d find that
+it would be considerable glory to be the wife of a Dahomey chief.
+
+I couldn’t help but compare Dian’s action with that of a splendid young
+woman I had known in New York—I mean splendid to look at and to talk
+to. She had been head over heels in love with a chum of mine—a clean,
+manly chap—but she had married a broken-down, disreputable old
+debauchee because he was a count in some dinky little European
+principality that was not even accorded a distinctive color by Rand
+McNally.
+
+Yes, I was mighty proud of Dian.
+
+After a time we decided to set out for Sari, as I was anxious to see
+Perry, and to know that all was right with him. I had told Dian about
+our plan of emancipating the human race of Pellucidar, and she was
+fairly wild over it. She said that if Dacor, her brother, would only
+return he could easily be king of Amoz, and that then he and Ghak could
+form an alliance. That would give us a flying start, for the Sarians
+and the Amozites were both very powerful tribes. Once they had been
+armed with swords, and bows and arrows, and trained in their use we
+were confident that they could overcome any tribe that seemed
+disinclined to join the great army of federated states with which we
+were planning to march upon the Mahars.
+
+I explained the various destructive engines of war which Perry and I
+could construct after a little experimentation—gunpowder, rifles,
+cannon, and the like, and Dian would clap her hands, and throw her arms
+about my neck, and tell me what a wonderful thing I was. She was
+beginning to think that I was omnipotent although I really hadn’t done
+anything but talk—but that is the way with women when they love. Perry
+used to say that if a fellow was one-tenth as remarkable as his wife or
+mother thought him, he would have the world by the tail with a
+down-hill drag.
+
+The first time we started for Sari I stepped into a nest of poisonous
+vipers before we reached the valley. A little fellow stung me on the
+ankle, and Dian made me come back to the cave. She said that I mustn’t
+exercise, or it might prove fatal—if it had been a full-grown snake
+that struck me she said, I wouldn’t have moved a single pace from the
+nest—I’d have died in my tracks, so virulent is the poison. As it was I
+must have been laid up for quite a while, though Dian’s poultices of
+herbs and leaves finally reduced the swelling and drew out the poison.
+
+The episode proved most fortunate, however, as it gave me an idea which
+added a thousand-fold to the value of my arrows as missiles of offense
+and defense. As soon as I was able to be about again, I sought out some
+adult vipers of the species which had stung me, and having killed them,
+I extracted their virus, smearing it upon the tips of several arrows.
+Later I shot a hyaenodon with one of these, and though my arrow
+inflicted but a superficial flesh wound the beast crumpled in death
+almost immediately after he was hit.
+
+We now set out once more for the land of the Sarians, and it was with
+feelings of sincere regret that we bade good-bye to our beautiful
+Garden of Eden, in the comparative peace and harmony of which we had
+lived the happiest moments of our lives. How long we had been there I
+did not know, for as I have told you, time had ceased to exist for me
+beneath that eternal noonday sun—it may have been an hour, or a month
+of earthly time; I do not know.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+BACK TO EARTH
+
+
+We crossed the river and passed through the mountains beyond, and
+finally we came out upon a great level plain which stretched away as
+far as the eye could reach. I cannot tell you in what direction it
+stretched even if you would care to know, for all the while that I was
+within Pellucidar I never discovered any but local methods of
+indicating direction—there is no north, no south, no east, no west. UP
+is about the only direction which is well defined, and that, of course,
+is DOWN to you of the outer crust. Since the sun neither rises nor sets
+there is no method of indicating direction beyond visible objects such
+as high mountains, forests, lakes, and seas.
+
+The plain which lies beyond the white cliffs which flank the Darel Az
+upon the shore nearest the Mountains of the Clouds is about as near to
+any direction as any Pellucidarian can come. If you happen not to have
+heard of the Darel Az, or the white cliffs, or the Mountains of the
+Clouds you feel that there is something lacking, and long for the good
+old understandable northeast and southwest of the outer world.
+
+We had barely entered the great plain when we discovered two enormous
+animals approaching us from a great distance. So far were they that we
+could not distinguish what manner of beasts they might be, but as they
+came closer, I saw that they were enormous quadrupeds, eighty or a
+hundred feet long, with tiny heads perched at the top of very long
+necks. Their heads must have been quite forty feet from the ground. The
+beasts moved very slowly—that is their action was slow—but their
+strides covered such a great distance that in reality they traveled
+considerably faster than a man walks.
+
+As they drew still nearer we discovered that upon the back of each sat
+a human being. Then Dian knew what they were, though she never before
+had seen one.
+
+“They are lidis from the land of the Thorians,” she cried. “Thoria lies
+at the outer verge of the Land of Awful Shadow. The Thorians alone of
+all the races of Pellucidar ride the lidi, for nowhere else than beside
+the dark country are they found.”
+
+“What is the Land of Awful Shadow?” I asked.
+
+“It is the land which lies beneath the Dead World,” replied Dian; “the
+Dead World which hangs forever between the sun and Pellucidar above the
+Land of Awful Shadow. It is the Dead World which makes the great shadow
+upon this portion of Pellucidar.”
+
+I did not fully understand what she meant, nor am I sure that I do yet,
+for I have never been to that part of Pellucidar from which the Dead
+World is visible; but Perry says that it is the moon of Pellucidar—a
+tiny planet within a planet—and that it revolves around the earth’s
+axis coincidently with the earth, and thus is always above the same
+spot within Pellucidar.
+
+I remember that Perry was very much excited when I told him about this
+Dead World, for he seemed to think that it explained the hitherto
+inexplicable phenomena of nutation and the precession of the equinoxes.
+
+When the two upon the lidis had come quite close to us we saw that one
+was a man and the other a woman. The former had held up his two hands,
+palms toward us, in sign of peace, and I had answered him in kind, when
+he suddenly gave a cry of astonishment and pleasure, and slipping from
+his enormous mount ran forward toward Dian, throwing his arms about
+her.
+
+In an instant I was white with jealousy, but only for an instant; since
+Dian quickly drew the man toward me, telling him that I was David, her
+mate.
+
+“And this is my brother, Dacor the Strong One, David,” she said to me.
+
+It appeared that the woman was Dacor’s mate. He had found none to his
+liking among the Sari, nor farther on until he had come to the land of
+the Thoria, and there he had found and fought for this very lovely
+Thorian maiden whom he was bringing back to his own people.
+
+When they had heard our story and our plans they decided to accompany
+us to Sari, that Dacor and Ghak might come to an agreement relative to
+an alliance, as Dacor was quite as enthusiastic about the proposed
+annihilation of the Mahars and Sagoths as either Dian or I.
+
+After a journey which was, for Pellucidar, quite uneventful, we came to
+the first of the Sarian villages which consists of between one and two
+hundred artificial caves cut into the face of a great cliff. Here to
+our immense delight, we found both Perry and Ghak. The old man was
+quite overcome at sight of me for he had long since given me up as
+dead.
+
+When I introduced Dian as my wife, he didn’t quite know what to say,
+but he afterward remarked that with the pick of two worlds I could not
+have done better.
+
+Ghak and Dacor reached a very amicable arrangement, and it was at a
+council of the head men of the various tribes of the Sari that the
+eventual form of government was tentatively agreed upon. Roughly, the
+various kingdoms were to remain virtually independent, but there was to
+be one great overlord, or emperor. It was decided that I should be the
+first of the dynasty of the emperors of Pellucidar.
+
+We set about teaching the women how to make bows and arrows, and poison
+pouches. The young men hunted the vipers which provided the virus, and
+it was they who mined the iron ore, and fashioned the swords under
+Perry’s direction. Rapidly the fever spread from one tribe to another
+until representatives from nations so far distant that the Sarians had
+never even heard of them came in to take the oath of allegiance which
+we required, and to learn the art of making the new weapons and using
+them.
+
+We sent our young men out as instructors to every nation of the
+federation, and the movement had reached colossal proportions before
+the Mahars discovered it. The first intimation they had was when three
+of their great slave caravans were annihilated in rapid succession.
+They could not comprehend that the lower orders had suddenly developed
+a power which rendered them really formidable.
+
+In one of the skirmishes with slave caravans some of our Sarians took a
+number of Sagoth prisoners, and among them were two who had been
+members of the guards within the building where we had been confined at
+Phutra. They told us that the Mahars were frantic with rage when they
+discovered what had taken place in the cellars of the buildings. The
+Sagoths knew that something very terrible had befallen their masters,
+but the Mahars had been most careful to see that no inkling of the true
+nature of their vital affliction reached beyond their own race. How
+long it would take for the race to become extinct it was impossible
+even to guess; but that this must eventually happen seemed inevitable.
+
+The Mahars had offered fabulous rewards for the capture of any one of
+us alive, and at the same time had threatened to inflict the direst
+punishment upon whomever should harm us. The Sagoths could not
+understand these seemingly paradoxical instructions, though their
+purpose was quite evident to me. The Mahars wanted the Great Secret,
+and they knew that we alone could deliver it to them.
+
+Perry’s experiments in the manufacture of gunpowder and the fashioning
+of rifles had not progressed as rapidly as we had hoped—there was a
+whole lot about these two arts which Perry didn’t know. We were both
+assured that the solution of these problems would advance the cause of
+civilization within Pellucidar thousands of years at a single stroke.
+Then there were various other arts and sciences which we wished to
+introduce, but our combined knowledge of them did not embrace the
+mechanical details which alone could render them of commercial, or
+practical value.
+
+“David,” said Perry, immediately after his latest failure to produce
+gunpowder that would even burn, “one of us must return to the outer
+world and bring back the information we lack. Here we have all the
+labor and materials for reproducing anything that ever has been
+produced above—what we lack is knowledge. Let us go back and get that
+knowledge in the shape of books—then this world will indeed be at our
+feet.”
+
+And so it was decided that I should return in the prospector, which
+still lay upon the edge of the forest at the point where we had first
+penetrated to the surface of the inner world. Dian would not listen to
+any arrangement for my going which did not include her, and I was not
+sorry that she wished to accompany me, for I wanted her to see my
+world, and I wanted my world to see her.
+
+With a large force of men we marched to the great iron mole, which
+Perry soon had hoisted into position with its nose pointed back toward
+the outer crust. He went over all the machinery carefully. He
+replenished the air tanks, and manufactured oil for the engine. At last
+everything was ready, and we were about to set out when our pickets, a
+long, thin line of which had surrounded our camp at all times, reported
+that a great body of what appeared to be Sagoths and Mahars were
+approaching from the direction of Phutra.
+
+Dian and I were ready to embark, but I was anxious to witness the first
+clash between two fair-sized armies of the opposing races of
+Pellucidar. I realized that this was to mark the historic beginning of
+a mighty struggle for possession of a world, and as the first emperor
+of Pellucidar I felt that it was not alone my duty, but my right, to be
+in the thick of that momentous struggle.
+
+As the opposing army approached we saw that there were many Mahars with
+the Sagoth troops—an indication of the vast importance which the
+dominant race placed upon the outcome of this campaign, for it was not
+customary with them to take active part in the sorties which their
+creatures made for slaves—the only form of warfare which they waged
+upon the lower orders.
+
+Ghak and Dacor were both with us, having come primarily to view the
+prospector. I placed Ghak with some of his Sarians on the right of our
+battle line. Dacor took the left, while I commanded the center. Behind
+us I stationed a sufficient reserve under one of Ghak’s head men. The
+Sagoths advanced steadily with menacing spears, and I let them come
+until they were within easy bowshot before I gave the word to fire.
+
+At the first volley of poison-tipped arrows the front ranks of the
+gorilla-men crumpled to the ground; but those behind charged over the
+prostrate forms of their comrades in a wild, mad rush to be upon us
+with their spears. A second volley stopped them for an instant, and
+then my reserve sprang through the openings in the firing line to
+engage them with sword and shield. The clumsy spears of the Sagoths
+were no match for the swords of the Sarian and Amozite, who turned the
+spear thrusts aside with their shields and leaped to close quarters
+with their lighter, handier weapons.
+
+Ghak took his archers along the enemy’s flank, and while the swordsmen
+engaged them in front, he poured volley after volley into their
+unprotected left. The Mahars did little real fighting, and were more in
+the way than otherwise, though occasionally one of them would fasten
+its powerful jaw upon the arm or leg of a Sarian.
+
+The battle did not last a great while, for when Dacor and I led our men
+in upon the Sagoth’s right with naked swords they were already so
+demoralized that they turned and fled before us. We pursued them for
+some time, taking many prisoners and recovering nearly a hundred
+slaves, among whom was Hooja the Sly One.
+
+He told me that he had been captured while on his way to his own land;
+but that his life had been spared in hope that through him the Mahars
+would learn the whereabouts of their Great Secret. Ghak and I were
+inclined to think that the Sly One had been guiding this expedition to
+the land of Sari, where he thought that the book might be found in
+Perry’s possession; but we had no proof of this and so we took him in
+and treated him as one of us, although none liked him. And how he
+rewarded my generosity you will presently learn.
+
+There were a number of Mahars among our prisoners, and so fearful were
+our own people of them that they would not approach them unless
+completely covered from the sight of the reptiles by a piece of skin.
+Even Dian shared the popular superstition regarding the evil effects of
+exposure to the eyes of angry Mahars, and though I laughed at her fears
+I was willing enough to humor them if it would relieve her apprehension
+in any degree, and so she sat apart from the prospector, near which the
+Mahars had been chained, while Perry and I again inspected every
+portion of the mechanism.
+
+At last I took my place in the driving seat, and called to one of the
+men without to fetch Dian. It happened that Hooja stood quite close to
+the doorway of the prospector, so that it was he who, without my
+knowledge, went to bring her; but how he succeeded in accomplishing the
+fiendish thing he did, I cannot guess, unless there were others in the
+plot to aid him. Nor can I believe that, since all my people were loyal
+to me and would have made short work of Hooja had he suggested the
+heartless scheme, even had he had time to acquaint another with it. It
+was all done so quickly that I may only believe that it was the result
+of sudden impulse, aided by a number of, to Hooja, fortuitous
+circumstances occurring at precisely the right moment.
+
+All I know is that it was Hooja who brought Dian to the prospector,
+still wrapped from head to toe in the skin of an enormous cave lion
+which covered her since the Mahar prisoners had been brought into camp.
+He deposited his burden in the seat beside me. I was all ready to get
+under way. The good-byes had been said. Perry had grasped my hand in
+the last, long farewell. I closed and barred the outer and inner doors,
+took my seat again at the driving mechanism, and pulled the starting
+lever.
+
+As before on that far-gone night that had witnessed our first trial of
+the iron monster, there was a frightful roaring beneath us—the giant
+frame trembled and vibrated—there was a rush of sound as the loose
+earth passed up through the hollow space between the inner and outer
+jackets to be deposited in our wake. Once more the thing was off.
+
+But on the instant of departure I was nearly thrown from my seat by the
+sudden lurching of the prospector. At first I did not realize what had
+happened, but presently it dawned upon me that just before entering the
+crust the towering body had fallen through its supporting scaffolding,
+and that instead of entering the ground vertically we were plunging
+into it at a different angle. Where it would bring us out upon the
+upper crust I could not even conjecture. And then I turned to note the
+effect of this strange experience upon Dian. She still sat shrouded in
+the great skin.
+
+“Come, come,” I cried, laughing, “come out of your shell. No Mahar eyes
+can reach you here,” and I leaned over and snatched the lion skin from
+her. And then I shrank back upon my seat in utter horror.
+
+The thing beneath the skin was not Dian—it was a hideous Mahar.
+Instantly I realized the trick that Hooja had played upon me, and the
+purpose of it. Rid of me, forever as he doubtless thought, Dian would
+be at his mercy. Frantically I tore at the steering wheel in an effort
+to turn the prospector back toward Pellucidar; but, as on that other
+occasion, I could not budge the thing a hair.
+
+It is needless to recount the horrors or the monotony of that journey.
+It varied but little from the former one which had brought us from the
+outer to the inner world. Because of the angle at which we had entered
+the ground the trip required nearly a day longer, and brought me out
+here upon the sand of the Sahara instead of in the United States as I
+had hoped.
+
+For months I have been waiting here for a white man to come. I dared
+not leave the prospector for fear I should never be able to find it
+again—the shifting sands of the desert would soon cover it, and then my
+only hope of returning to my Dian and her Pellucidar would be gone
+forever.
+
+That I ever shall see her again seems but remotely possible, for how
+may I know upon what part of Pellucidar my return journey may
+terminate—and how, without a north or south or an east or a west may I
+hope ever to find my way across that vast world to the tiny spot where
+my lost love lies grieving for me?
+
+That is the story as David Innes told it to me in the goat-skin tent
+upon the rim of the great Sahara Desert. The next day he took me out to
+see the prospector—it was precisely as he had described it. So huge was
+it that it could have been brought to this inaccessible part of the
+world by no means of transportation that existed there—it could only
+have come in the way that David Innes said it came—up through the crust
+of the earth from the inner world of Pellucidar.
+
+I spent a week with him, and then, abandoning my lion hunt, returned
+directly to the coast and hurried to London where I purchased a great
+quantity of stuff which he wished to take back to Pellucidar with him.
+There were books, rifles, revolvers, ammunition, cameras, chemicals,
+telephones, telegraph instruments, wire, tools and more books—books
+upon every subject under the sun. He said he wanted a library with
+which they could reproduce the wonders of the twentieth century in the
+Stone Age and if quantity counts for anything I got it for him.
+
+I took the things back to Algeria myself, and accompanied them to the
+end of the railroad; but from here I was recalled to America upon
+important business. However, I was able to employ a very trustworthy
+man to take charge of the caravan—the same guide, in fact, who had
+accompanied me on the previous trip into the Sahara—and after writing a
+long letter to Innes in which I gave him my American address, I saw the
+expedition head south.
+
+Among the other things which I sent to Innes was over five hundred
+miles of double, insulated wire of a very fine gauge. I had it packed
+on a special reel at his suggestion, as it was his idea that he could
+fasten one end here before he left and by paying it out through the end
+of the prospector lay a telegraph line between the outer and inner
+worlds. In my letter I told him to be sure to mark the terminus of the
+line very plainly with a high cairn, in case I was not able to reach
+him before he set out, so that I might easily find and communicate with
+him should he be so fortunate as to reach Pellucidar.
+
+I received several letters from him after I returned to America—in fact
+he took advantage of every northward-passing caravan to drop me word of
+some sort. His last letter was written the day before he intended to
+depart. Here it is.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:
+
+
+Tomorrow I shall set out in quest of Pellucidar and Dian. That is if
+the Arabs don’t get me. They have been very nasty of late. I don’t know
+the cause, but on two occasions they have threatened my life. One, more
+friendly than the rest, told me today that they intended attacking me
+tonight. It would be unfortunate should anything of that sort happen
+now that I am so nearly ready to depart.
+
+However, maybe I will be as well off, for the nearer the hour
+approaches, the slenderer my chances for success appear.
+
+Here is the friendly Arab who is to take this letter north for me, so
+good-bye, and God bless you for your kindness to me.
+
+The Arab tells me to hurry, for he sees a cloud of sand to the south—he
+thinks it is the party coming to murder me, and he doesn’t want to be
+found with me. So good-bye again.
+
+Yours,
+DAVID INNES.
+
+
+A year later found me at the end of the railroad once more, headed for
+the spot where I had left Innes. My first disappointment was when I
+discovered that my old guide had died within a few weeks of my return,
+nor could I find any member of my former party who could lead me to the
+same spot.
+
+For months I searched that scorching land, interviewing countless
+desert sheiks in the hope that at last I might find one who had heard
+of Innes and his wonderful iron mole. Constantly my eyes scanned the
+blinding waste of sand for the rocky cairn beneath which I was to find
+the wires leading to Pellucidar—but always was I unsuccessful.
+
+And always do these awful questions harass me when I think of David
+Innes and his strange adventures.
+
+Did the Arabs murder him, after all, just on the eve of his departure?
+Or, did he again turn the nose of his iron monster toward the inner
+world? Did he reach it, or lies he somewhere buried in the heart of the
+great crust? And if he did come again to Pellucidar was it to break
+through into the bottom of one of her great island seas, or among some
+savage race far, far from the land of his heart’s desire?
+
+Does the answer lie somewhere upon the bosom of the broad Sahara, at
+the end of two tiny wires, hidden beneath a lost cairn? I wonder.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 123 ***