summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
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*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
<br>
<p><br>
</p>

<br>
<br><br>
<h1>At the Earth's Core</h1>
<br><br>
<h2>by Edgar Rice Burroughs</h2>
<br><br><br>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_1">PROLOGUE</h1>

<br>
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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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?"
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"It cannot be!" he cried after a moment. "It cannot be! Tell me
that you are mistaken, or that you are but joking." <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

For some time he stood in silence, with bowed head. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_2">CHAPTER I</h1>

<br>
TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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!<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"Gad!" he cried, "it cannot be possible--quick! What does the
distance meter read?"<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"Ten degrees rise--it cannot be possible!" and then I saw him
tug frantically upon the steering wheel.<br>
</p>

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." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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!<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"What can we do?" I asked, hiding my perturbation beneath the
mask of a low and level voice.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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?" <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"And if it should prove solid?" I asked. <br>
<p>"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 the safety through
eight thousand miles of rock to the antipodes."<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"Quite correct, David. Are you frightened?"<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"What are the readings now, David?" Perry's voice broke in
upon my somber reflections.<br>
</p>

"Ninety miles and 153 degrees," I replied. <br>
<p>"Gad, but we've knocked that thirty-mile-crust theory into a
cocked hat!" he cried gleefully.<br>
</p>

"Precious lot of good it will do us," I growled back. <br>
<p>"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!"<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>At one hundred miles the temperature had DROPPED TO 152 1/2
DEGREES! When I announced it Perry reached over and hugged
me.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>At four hundred and twenty miles I took another reading.<br>
</p>

"Perry!" I shouted. "Perry, man! She's going down! She's going
down! She's 152 degrees again." <br>
<p>"Gad!" he cried. "What can it mean? Can the earth be cold at
the center?"<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

I saw Perry crumple in his seat. He gave himself a shake and sat
erect again. Then he turned toward me. <br>
<p>"Good-bye, David," he said. "I guess this is the end," and
then he smiled and closed his eyes.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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! <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_3">CHAPTER II</h1>

A STRANGE WORLD <br>
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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

"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!" <br>
<p>"You say we're back at the surface, David? How can that be?
How long have I been unconscious?"<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

I did know it; but here we were with our drill racing in pure
air, and copious volumes of it pouring into the cabin. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"Better wait till morning, David--it must be midnight now." <br>
<p>I glanced at the chronometer.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>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!<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"Let's have a look beyond that door, David," he cried.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

And upon all the noonday sun poured its torrid rays out of a
cloudless sky. <br>
<p>"Where on earth can we be?" I asked, turning to Perry.<br>
</p>

For some moments the old man did not reply. He stood with bowed
head, buried in deep thought. But at last he spoke. <br>
<p>"David," he said, "I am not so sure that we are ON earth."<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

As we walked along the beach Perry gazed long and earnestly
across the water. Evidently he was wrestling with a mighty
problem. <br>
<p>"David," he said abruptly, "do you perceive anything unusual
about the horizon?"<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"My God, Perry, where are we?" I exclaimed. "This thing is
beginning to get on my nerves."<br>
</p>

"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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p><br>
</p>

<h1 id="ref_4">CHAPTER III</h1>

A CHANGE OF MASTERS <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"Perry!" I cried. "Dear old Perry! Thank the Lord you are safe."
<br>
<p>"David! Can it be possible that you escaped?" And the old man
stumbled toward me and threw his arms about me.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"With a tail, David," remarked Perry, "you would make a very
handsome ape."<br>
</p>

"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?" <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"Perry, you are mad!" <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

"But the sun, Perry!" I urged. "How in the world can the sun
shine through five hundred miles of solid crust?" <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"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 burled 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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"But the grotesque inhabitants of this forest?" I urged. "Surely
they have no counterpart in the earth's history." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"Quite low in the scale of creation," commented Perry.<br>
</p>

"Quite high enough to play the deuce with us, though," I replied.
"Now what do you suppose they intend doing with us?" <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>We were placed in the center of the amphitheater--the thousand
creatures forming a great ring about us. Then a wolf-dog was
brought--hyaenadon 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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p><br>
</p>

<h1 id="ref_5">CHAPTER IV</h1>

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"How came you here?" I asked her.<br>
</p>

"I was running away from Jubal the Ugly One," she answered, as
though that was explanation quite sufficient. <br>
<p>"Who is Jubal the Ugly One?" I asked. "And why did you run
away from him?"<br>
</p>

She looked at me in surprise. <br>
<p>"Why DOES a woman run away from a man?" she answered my
question with another.<br>
</p>

"They do not, where I come from," I replied. "Sometimes they run
after them." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"What will they do with you?" I asked. "Where are they taking
us?" <br>
<p>Again she looked her incredulity.<br>
</p>

"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!" <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

And Perry! He was absolutely flabbergasted. He said so himself.
<br>
<p>"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!"<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"That I would not have!" I cried. "What do you mean?" <br>
<p>He looked at me closely for a moment.<br>
</p>

"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?"
<br>
<p>"I do not know, Ghak," I replied.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

"Is there no escape?" I asked. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_6">CHAPTER V</h1>

SLAVES <br>
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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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?" <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"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! <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"If Ghak will accompany us we may be able to do it," I
suggested.<br>
</p>

Perry and I sought him out and put the question straight to him.
<br>
<p>"Ghak," I said, "we are determined to escape from this
bondage. Will you accompany us?"<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"Could you find your way back to your own land?" asked Perry.
"And could you aid David in his search for Dian?"<br>
</p>

"Yes." <br>
<p>"But how," persisted Perry, "could you travel to strange
country without heavenly bodies or a compass to guide you?"<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"Then Dian could have found her way directly to her own
people?" I asked.<br>
</p>

"Surely," replied Ghak, "unless some mighty beast of prey killed
her." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"It would be murder, David," he cried. <br>
<p>"Murder to kill a reptilian monster?" I asked in
astonishment.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

I shuddered. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"Yes, David," he concluded, "it would entail murder to carry out
your plan." <br>
<p>"Very well then, Perry." I replied. "I shall become a
murderer."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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 not appreciate my plan I shall briefly outline the
history of the race.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_7">CHAPTER VI</h1>

THE BEGINNING OF HORROR <br>
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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"Is there naught that we may do to save her?" I asked Ghak. <br>
<p>"Naught," he replied.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

Presently a door in one side of the arena wall was opened to
admit a huge, shaggy, bull-like creature. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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!<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p><br>
</p>

<h1 id="ref_8">CHAPTER VII</h1>

FREEDOM <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

I thought of Perry, 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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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
envelopes Pellucidar, and with a smile I stepped forth into the
day-light. <br>
<p>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, land-scape.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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? <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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 fouror 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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_9">CHAPTER VIII</h1>

THE MAHAR TEMPLE <br>
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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

To my delight he understood and answered me in the same jargon.
<br>
<p>"What do you want of my spear?" he asked.<br>
</p>

"Only to keep you from running it through me," I replied. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"Who are you," he continued, "and from what country do you come?"
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

So I gave it up and asked him about himself. He said he was a
Mezop, and that his name was Ja. <br>
<p>"Who are the Mezops?" I asked. "Where do they live?"<br>
</p>

He looked at me in surprise. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"We are within the outer wall," said Ja. "It is hollow. Follow me
closely." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"What are the human beings doing here?" I asked.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"I thought the Mahars seldom, if ever, slept," I said to
Ja.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"Why should they object to eating human flesh," I asked, "if
it is true that they look upon us as lower animals?"<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_10">CHAPTER IX</h1>

THE FACE OF DEATH <br>
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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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? <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>But he insisted that he knew what he was doing and was in no
danger himself.<br>
</p>

"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."
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p><br>
</p>

<h1 id="ref_11">CHAPTER X</h1>

PHUTRA AGAIN <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"But how am I to find the Mountains of the Clouds?" I asked. "Men
say that they are visible from half Pellucidar," he replied. <br>
<p>"How large is Pellucidar?" I asked, wondering what sort of
theory these primitive men had concerning the form and substance
of their world.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

"I would say," he replied, "that either you are a fool, or took
me for one." <br>
<p>"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, where in 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."<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"You would return to captivity?" cried Ja.<br>
</p>

"My friends are there," I replied, "the only friends I have in
Pellucidar, except yourself. What else may I do under the
circumstances?" <br>
<p>He thought for a moment in silence. Then he shook his head
sorrowfully.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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." <br>
<p>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 canon, while just beyond the ridge lay the
city of Phutra near to which I must have come several times.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"And you come of your free will back to Phutra!" exclaimed one
of the guardsmen.<br>
</p>

"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?" <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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?" <br>
<p>I hadn't heard of anything of that nature, but I thought best
not to admit it.<br>
</p>

"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."
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"What are they going to do with me?" I asked the fellow at my
right. <br>
<p>"You are to appear before the learned ones who will question
you regarding this strange world from which you say you
come."<br>
</p>

After a moment's silence he turned to me again. <br>
<p>"Do you happen to know," he asked, "what the Mahars do to
slaves who lie to them?"<br>
</p>

"No," I replied, "nor does it interest me, as I have no intention
of lying to the Mahars." <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"It is your misfortune then," he remarked dryly, "that you may
not be judged by one with but half an eye."<br>
</p>

"What will they do with me," I asked, "if they do not have a mind
to believe me?" <br>
<p>"You may be sentenced to the arena, or go to the pits to be
used in research work by the learned ones," he replied.<br>
</p>

"And what will they do with me there?" I persisted. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"And suppose it is the arena," I continued; "what then?" <br>
<p>"You saw the two who met the tarag and the thag the time that
you escaped?" he said.<br>
</p>

"Yes. " <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"It is sure death in either event?" I asked. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"They gained their liberty? And how?" <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"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?" <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"He will doubtless be called before the investigators
shortly," said he who had brought me back," so have him in
readiness."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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! <br>
<p>"Why, Perry!" I exclaimed, "haven't you a word for me after my
long absence?"<br>
</p>

"Long absence!" he repeated in evident astonishment. "What do you
mean?" <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

"'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." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

I didn't and said so. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"Come!" commanded the intruder, beckoning to me. "The
investigators would speak with you."<br>
</p>

"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."
<br>
<p>Tears came to Perry's eyes.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p><br>
</p>

<h1 id="ref_12">CHAPTER XI</h1>

FOUR DEAD MAHARS <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"Do you mean that they do not believe me?" I asked, totally
astonished. <br>
<p>"Believe you!" he laughed. "Do you mean to say that you
expected any one to believe so impossible a lie?"<br>
</p>

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! <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_13">CHAPTER XII</h1>

PURSUIT <br>
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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

He said that he did. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>I asked Ghak if we could make Sari in time to escape them.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p><br>
</p>

<h1 id="ref_14">CHAPTER XIII</h1>

THE SLY ONE <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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." <br>
<p>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?<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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 at 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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

<br>
<h1 id="ref_15">CHAPTER XIV</h1>

THE GARDEN OF EDEN <br>
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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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 near-by 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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>"Dian!" I cried. "Dian! Thank God that I came in time."<br>
</p>

"You?" she whispered, and then she hid her face again; nor could
I tell whether she were glad or angry that I had come. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>"Look at me, Dian," I pleaded. "Are you not glad to see
me?"<br>
</p>

She looked straight into my eyes. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"Dian," I said, "won't you tell me that you are not sorry that I
have found you?" <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"Why do you hate me, Dian?" I asked, but she did not answer me.
<br>
<p>"What are you doing here?" I asked, "and what has happened to
you since Hooja freed you from the Sagoths?"<br>
</p>

At first I thought that she was going to ignore me entirely, but
finally she thought better of it. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"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.
<br>
<p>She had risen to her feet, and was looking straight into my
eyes with level gaze.<br>
</p>

"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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"Jubal," she said, and nodded toward the forest.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"Girl!" I cried, "what are you doing here? I thought that you had
gone to the cave, as I told you to do." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"Let us go to my cave," I said, "I am tired and hungry." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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! <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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?" <br>
<p>She was not quite sure as to what I meant.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>It began to look as though I had assumed a contract much too
large for me--about seven sizes, in fact.<br>
</p>

"Had Jubal any cousins?" I asked. It was just as well to know the
worst at once. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"But what had that to do with his brothers?" I asked. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>"I hate you!" she shouted, and her voice broke--in rage, I
thought.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"I hate you!" she cried. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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?"<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"Why didn't you do this at first, David? I have been waiting
so long."<br>
</p>

"What!" I cried. "You said that you hated me!" <br>
<p>"Did you expect me to run into your arms, and say that I loved
you before I knew that you loved me?" she asked.<br>
</p>

"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?" <br>
<p>"Then you haven't hated me at all, Dian?" I asked.<br>
</p>

"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." <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"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."
<br>
<p>"But Jubal's brothers--and cousins--" I reminded her, "how
about them?"<br>
</p>

She smiled, and hid her face on my shoulder. <br>
<p>"I had to tell you SOMETHING, David," she whispered. "I must
needs have SOME excuse for remaining near you."<br>
</p>

"You little sinner!" I exclaimed. "And you have caused me all
this anguish for nothing!" <br>
<p>"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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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 a Dahomey chief.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>Yes, I was mighty proud of Dian.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p><br>
</p>

<h1 id="ref_16">CHAPTER XV</h1>

BACK TO EARTH <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

"What is the Land of Awful Shadow?" I asked. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"And this is my brother, Dacor the Strong One, David," she said
to me. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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.
<br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>"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."<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

"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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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? <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

I spent a week with him, and then, abandoned 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, tool 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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

My Dear Friend: <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

However, maybe I will be as well off, for the nearer the hour
approaches, the slenderer my chances for success appear. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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 goodbye again. <br>
<p>Yours,<br>
</p>

David Innes. <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

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 ricky cairn beneath
which I was to find the wires leading to Pellucidar--but always
was I unsuccessful. <br>
<p>And always do these awful questions harass me when I think of
David Innes and his strange adventures.<br>
</p>

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? <br>
<p>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.<br>
</p>

[End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of At the Earth's Core] <br>
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