At the Earth's Core

By

Edgar Rice Burroughs

CONTENTS

 PROLOGUE I TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES II A STRANGE WORLD III A CHANGE OF MASTERS IV DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL V SLAVES VI THE BEGINNING OF HORROR VII FREEDOM VIII THE MAHAR TEMPLE IX THE FACE OF DEATH X PHUTRA AGAIN XI FOUR DEAD MAHARS XII PURSUIT XIII THE SLY ONE XIV THE GARDEN OF EDEN XV BACK TO EARTH

PROLOGUE

IN THE FIRST PLACE PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT I do not expect you tobelieve this story. Nor could you wonder had you witnessed a recentexperience of mine when, in the armor of blissful and stupendousignorance, I gaily narrated the gist of it to a Fellow of the RoyalGeological Society on the occasion of my last trip to London. 

You would surely have thought that I had been detected in no less aheinous crime than the purloining of the Crown Jewels from the Tower, or putting poison in the coffee of His Majesty the King. 

The erudite gentleman in whom I confided congealed before I was halfthrough!--it is all that saved him from exploding--and my dreams of anHonorary Fellowship, gold medals, and a niche in the Hall of Fame fadedinto the thin, cold air of his arctic atmosphere. 

But I believe the story, and so would you, and so would the learnedFellow of the Royal Geological Society, had you and he heard it fromthe lips of the man who told it to me. Had you seen, as I did, thefire of truth in those gray eyes; had you felt the ring of sincerity inthat quiet voice; had you realized the pathos of it all--you, too, would believe. You would not have needed the final ocular proof that Ihad--the weird rhamphorhynchus-like creature which he had brought backwith him from the inner world. 

I came upon him quite suddenly, and no less unexpectedly, upon the rimof the great Sahara Desert. He was standing before a goat-skin tentamidst a clump of date palms within a tiny oasis. Close by was an Arabdouar of some eight or ten tents. 

I had come down from the north to hunt lion. My party consisted of adozen children of the desert--I was the only "white" man. As weapproached the little clump of verdure I saw the man come from his tentand with hand-shaded eyes peer intently at us. At sight of me headvanced rapidly to meet us. 

"A white man!" he cried. "May the good Lord be praised! I have beenwatching you for hours, hoping against hope that THIS time there wouldbe a white man. Tell me the date. What year is it?"

And when I had told him he staggered as though he had been struck fullin the face, so that he was compelled to grasp my stirrup leather forsupport. 

"It cannot be!" he cried after a moment. "It cannot be! Tell me thatyou are mistaken, or that you are but joking. "

"I am telling you the truth, my friend, " I replied. "Why should Ideceive a stranger, or attempt to, in so simple a matter as the date?"

For some time he stood in silence, with bowed head. 

"Ten years!" he murmured, at last. "Ten years, and I thought that atthe most it could be scarce more than one!" That night he told me hisstory--the story that I give you here as nearly in his own words as Ican recall them. 

I

TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES

I WAS BORN IN CONNECTICUT ABOUT THIRTY YEARS ago. My name is DavidInnes. My father was a wealthy mine owner. When I was nineteen hedied. All his property was to be mine when I had attained mymajority--provided that I had devoted the two years intervening inclose application to the great business I was to inherit. 

I did my best to fulfil the last wishes of my parent--not because ofthe inheritance, but because I loved and honored my father. For sixmonths I toiled in the mines and in the counting-rooms, for I wished toknow every minute detail of the business. 

Then Perry interested me in his invention. He was an old fellow whohad devoted the better part of a long life to the perfection of amechanical subterranean prospector. As relaxation he studiedpaleontology. I looked over his plans, listened to his arguments, inspected his working model--and then, convinced, I advanced the fundsnecessary to construct a full-sized, practical prospector. 

I shall not go into the details of its construction--it lies out therein the desert now--about two miles from here. Tomorrow you may care toride out and see it. Roughly, it is a steel cylinder a hundred feetlong, and jointed so that it may turn and twist through solid rock ifneed be. At one end is a mighty revolving drill operated by an enginewhich Perry said generated more power to the cubic inch than any otherengine did to the cubic foot. I remember that he used to claim thatthat invention alone would make us fabulously wealthy--we were going tomake the whole thing public after the successful issue of our firstsecret trial--but Perry never returned from that trial trip, and I onlyafter ten years. 

I recall as it were but yesterday the night of that momentous occasionupon which we were to test the practicality of that wondrous invention. It was near midnight when we repaired to the lofty tower in which Perryhad constructed his "iron mole" as he was wont to call the thing. Thegreat nose rested upon the bare earth of the floor. We passed throughthe doors into the outer jacket, secured them, and then passing on intothe cabin, which contained the controlling mechanism within the innertube, switched on the electric lights. 

Perry looked to his generator; to the great tanks that held thelife-giving chemicals with which he was to manufacture fresh air toreplace that which we consumed in breathing; to his instruments forrecording temperatures, speed, distance, and for examining thematerials through which we were to pass. 

He tested the steering device, and overlooked the mighty cogs whichtransmitted its marvelous velocity to the giant drill at the nose ofhis strange craft. 

Our seats, into which we strapped ourselves, were so arranged upontransverse bars that we would be upright whether the craft wereploughing her way downward into the bowels of the earth, or runninghorizontally along some great seam of coal, or rising vertically towardthe surface again. 

At length all was ready. Perry bowed his head in prayer. For a momentwe were silent, and then the old man's hand grasped the starting lever. There was a frightful roaring beneath us--the giant frame trembled andvibrated--there was a rush of sound as the loose earth passed upthrough the hollow space between the inner and outer jackets to bedeposited in our wake. We were off!

The noise was deafening. The sensation was frightful. For a fullminute neither of us could do aught but cling with the proverbialdesperation of the drowning man to the handrails of our swinging seats. Then Perry glanced at the thermometer. 

"Gad!" he cried, "it cannot be possible--quick! What does the distancemeter read?"

That and the speedometer were both on my side of the cabin, and as Iturned to take a reading from the former I could see Perry muttering. 

"Ten degrees rise--it cannot be possible!" and then I saw him tugfrantically upon the steering wheel. 

As I finally found the tiny needle in the dim light I translatedPerry's evident excitement, and my heart sank within me. But when Ispoke I hid the fear which haunted me. "It will be seven hundred feet, Perry, " I said, "by the time you can turn her into the horizontal. "

"You'd better lend me a hand then, my boy, " he replied, "for I cannotbudge her out of the vertical alone. God give that our combinedstrength may be equal to the task, for else we are lost. "

I wormed my way to the old man's side with never a doubt but that thegreat wheel would yield on the instant to the power of my young andvigorous muscles. Nor was my belief mere vanity, for always had myphysique been the envy and despair of my fellows. And for that veryreason it had waxed even greater than nature had intended, since mynatural pride in my great strength had led me to care for and developmy body and my muscles by every means within my power. What withboxing, football, and baseball, I had been in training since childhood. 

And so it was with the utmost confidence that I laid hold of the hugeiron rim; but though I threw every ounce of my strength into it, mybest effort was as unavailing as Perry's had been--the thing would notbudge--the grim, insensate, horrible thing that was holding us upon thestraight road to death!

At length I gave up the useless struggle, and without a word returnedto my seat. There was no need for words--at least none that I couldimagine, unless Perry desired to pray. And I was quite sure that hewould, for he never left an opportunity neglected where he mightsandwich in a prayer. He prayed when he arose in the morning, heprayed before he ate, he prayed when he had finished eating, and beforehe went to bed at night he prayed again. In between he often foundexcuses to pray even when the provocation seemed far-fetched to myworldly eyes--now that he was about to die I felt positive that Ishould witness a perfect orgy of prayer--if one may allude with such asimile to so solemn an act. 

But to my astonishment I discovered that with death staring him in theface Abner Perry was transformed into a new being. From his lips thereflowed--not prayer--but a clear and limpid stream of undilutedprofanity, and it was all directed at that quietly stubborn piece ofunyielding mechanism. 

"I should think, Perry, " I chided, "that a man of your professedreligiousness would rather be at his prayers than cursing in thepresence of imminent death. "

"Death!" he cried. "Death is it that appalls you? That is nothing bycomparison with the loss the world must suffer. Why, David within thisiron cylinder we have demonstrated possibilities that science hasscarce dreamed. We have harnessed a new principle, and with itanimated a piece of steel with the power of ten thousand men. That twolives will be snuffed out is nothing to the world calamity that entombsin the bowels of the earth the discoveries that I have made and provedin the successful construction of the thing that is now carrying usfarther and farther toward the eternal central fires. "

I am frank to admit that for myself I was much more concerned with ourown immediate future than with any problematic loss which the worldmight be about to suffer. The world was at least ignorant of itsbereavement, while to me it was a real and terrible actuality. 

"What can we do?" I asked, hiding my perturbation beneath the mask of alow and level voice. 

"We may stop here, and die of asphyxiation when our atmosphere tanksare empty, " replied Perry, "or we may continue on with the slight hopethat we may later sufficiently deflect the prospector from the verticalto carry us along the arc of a great circle which must eventuallyreturn us to the surface. If we succeed in so doing before we reachthe higher internal temperature we may even yet survive. There wouldseem to me to be about one chance in several million that we shallsucceed--otherwise we shall die more quickly but no more surely than asthough we sat supinely waiting for the torture of a slow and horribledeath. "

I glanced at the thermometer. It registered 110 degrees. While wewere talking the mighty iron mole had bored its way over a mile intothe rock of the earth's crust. 

"Let us continue on, then, " I replied. "It should soon be over at thisrate. You never intimated that the speed of this thing would be sohigh, Perry. Didn't you know it?"

"No, " he answered. "I could not figure the speed exactly, for I had noinstrument for measuring the mighty power of my generator. I reasoned, however, that we should make about five hundred yards an hour. "

"And we are making seven miles an hour, " I concluded for him, as I satwith my eyes upon the distance meter. "How thick is the Earth's crust, Perry?" I asked. 

"There are almost as many conjectures as to that as there aregeologists, " was his answer. "One estimates it thirty miles, becausethe internal heat, increasing at the rate of about one degree to eachsixty to seventy feet depth, would be sufficient to fuse the mostrefractory substances at that distance beneath the surface. Anotherfinds that the phenomena of precession and nutation require that theearth, if not entirely solid, must at least have a shell not less thaneight hundred to a thousand miles in thickness. So there you are. Youmay take your choice. "

"And if it should prove solid?" I asked. 

"It will be all the same to us in the end, David, " replied Perry. "Atthe best our fuel will suffice to carry us but three or four days, while our atmosphere cannot last to exceed three. Neither, then, issufficient to bear us in the safety through eight thousand miles ofrock to the antipodes. "

"If the crust is of sufficient thickness we shall come to a final stopbetween six and seven hundred miles beneath the earth's surface; butduring the last hundred and fifty miles of our journey we shall becorpses. Am I correct?" I asked. 

"Quite correct, David. Are you frightened?"

"I do not know. It all has come so suddenly that I scarce believe thateither of us realizes the real terrors of our position. I feel that Ishould be reduced to panic; but yet I am not. I imagine that the shockhas been so great as to partially stun our sensibilities. "

Again I turned to the thermometer. The mercury was rising with lessrapidity. It was now but 140 degrees, although we had penetrated to adepth of nearly four miles. I told Perry, and he smiled. 

"We have shattered one theory at least, " was his only comment, and thenhe returned to his self-assumed occupation of fluently cursing thesteering wheel. I once heard a pirate swear, but his best effortswould have seemed like those of a tyro alongside of Perry's masterfuland scientific imprecations. 

Once more I tried my hand at the wheel, but I might as well haveessayed to swing the earth itself. At my suggestion Perry stopped thegenerator, and as we came to rest I again threw all my strength into asupreme effort to move the thing even a hair's breadth--but the resultswere as barren as when we had been traveling at top speed. 

I shook my head sadly, and motioned to the starting lever. Perrypulled it toward him, and once again we were plunging downward towardeternity at the rate of seven miles an hour. I sat with my eyes gluedto the thermometer and the distance meter. The mercury was rising veryslowly now, though even at 145 degrees it was almost unbearable withinthe narrow confines of our metal prison. 

About noon, or twelve hours after our start upon this unfortunatejourney, we had bored to a depth of eighty-four miles, at which pointthe mercury registered 153 degrees F. 

Perry was becoming more hopeful, although upon what meager food hesustained his optimism I could not conjecture. From cursing he hadturned to singing--I felt that the strain had at last affected hismind. For several hours we had not spoken except as he asked me forthe readings of the instruments from time to time, and I announcedthem. My thoughts were filled with vain regrets. I recalled numerousacts of my past life which I should have been glad to have had a fewmore years to live down. There was the affair in the Latin Commons atAndover when Calhoun and I had put gunpowder in the stove--and nearlykilled one of the masters. And then--but what was the use, I was aboutto die and atone for all these things and several more. Already theheat was sufficient to give me a foretaste of the hereafter. A fewmore degrees and I felt that I should lose consciousness. 

"What are the readings now, David?" Perry's voice broke in upon mysomber reflections. 

"Ninety miles and 153 degrees, " I replied. 

"Gad, but we've knocked that thirty-mile-crust theory into a cockedhat!" he cried gleefully. 

"Precious lot of good it will do us, " I growled back. 

"But my boy, " he continued, "doesn't that temperature reading meananything to you? Why it hasn't gone up in six miles. Think of it, son!"

"Yes, I'm thinking of it, " I answered; "but what difference will itmake when our air supply is exhausted whether the temperature is 153degrees or 153, 000? We'll be just as dead, and no one will know thedifference, anyhow. " But I must admit that for some unaccountablereason the stationary temperature did renew my waning hope. What Ihoped for I could not have explained, nor did I try. The very fact, asPerry took pains to explain, of the blasting of several very exact andlearned scientific hypotheses made it apparent that we could not knowwhat lay before us within the bowels of the earth, and so we mightcontinue to hope for the best, at least until we were dead--when hopewould no longer be essential to our happiness. It was very good, andlogical reasoning, and so I embraced it. 

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

From then on until noon of the second day, it continued to drop untilit became as uncomfortably cold as it had been unbearably hot before. At the depth of two hundred and forty miles our nostrils were assailedby almost overpowering ammonia fumes, and the temperature had droppedto TEN BELOW ZERO! We suffered nearly two hours of this intense andbitter cold, until at about two hundred and forty-five miles from thesurface of the earth we entered a stratum of solid ice, when themercury quickly rose to 32 degrees. During the next three hours wepassed through ten miles of ice, eventually emerging into anotherseries of ammonia-impregnated strata, where the mercury again fell toten degrees below zero. 

Slowly it rose once more until we were convinced that at last we werenearing the molten interior of the earth. At four hundred miles thetemperature had reached 153 degrees. Feverishly I watched thethermometer. Slowly it rose. Perry had ceased singing and was at lastpraying. 

Our hopes had received such a deathblow that the gradually increasingheat seemed to our distorted imaginations much greater than it reallywas. For another hour I saw that pitiless column of mercury rise andrise until at four hundred and ten miles it stood at 153 degrees. Nowit was that we began to hang upon those readings in almost breathlessanxiety. 

One hundred and fifty-three degrees had been the maximum temperatureabove the ice stratum. Would it stop at this point again, or would itcontinue its merciless climb? We knew that there was no hope, and yetwith the persistence of life itself we continued to hope againstpractical certainty. 

Already the air tanks were at low ebb--there was barely enough of theprecious gases to sustain us for another twelve hours. But would we bealive to know or care? It seemed incredible. 

At four hundred and twenty miles I took another reading. 

"Perry!" I shouted. "Perry, man! She's going down! She's going down!She's 152 degrees again. "

"Gad!" he cried. "What can it mean? Can the earth be cold at thecenter?"

"I do not know, Perry, " I answered; "but thank God, if I am to die itshall not be by fire--that is all that I have feared. I can face thethought of any death but that. "

Down, down went the mercury until it stood as low as it had seven milesfrom the surface of the earth, and then of a sudden the realizationbroke upon us that death was very near. Perry was the first todiscover it. I saw him fussing with the valves that regulate the airsupply. And at the same time I experienced difficulty in breathing. My head felt dizzy--my limbs heavy. 

I saw Perry crumple in his seat. He gave himself a shake and sat erectagain. Then he turned toward me. 

"Good-bye, David, " he said. "I guess this is the end, " and then hesmiled and closed his eyes. 

"Good-bye, Perry, and good luck to you, " I answered, smiling back athim. But I fought off that awful lethargy. I was very young--I didnot want to die. 

For an hour I battled against the cruelly enveloping death thatsurrounded me upon all sides. At first I found that by climbing highinto the framework above me I could find more of the preciouslife-giving elements, and for a while these sustained me. It must havebeen an hour after Perry had succumbed that I at last came to therealization that I could no longer carry on this unequal struggleagainst the inevitable. 

With my last flickering ray of consciousness I turned mechanicallytoward the distance meter. It stood at exactly five hundred miles fromthe earth's surface--and then of a sudden the huge thing that bore uscame to a stop. The rattle of hurtling rock through the hollow jacketceased. The wild racing of the giant drill betokened that it wasrunning loose in AIR--and then another truth flashed upon me. Thepoint of the prospector was ABOVE us. Slowly it dawned on me thatsince passing through the ice strata it had been above. We had turnedin the ice and sped upward toward the earth's crust. Thank God! Wewere safe!

I put my nose to the intake pipe through which samples were to havebeen taken during the passage of the prospector through the earth, andmy fondest hopes were realized--a flood of fresh air was pouring intothe iron cabin. The reaction left me in a state of collapse, and Ilost consciousness. 

II

A STRANGE WORLD

I WAS UNCONSCIOUS LITTLE MORE THAN AN INSTANT, for as I lunged forwardfrom the crossbeam to which I had been clinging, and fell with a crashto the floor of the cabin, the shock brought me to myself. 

My first concern was with Perry. I was horrified at the thought thatupon the very threshold of salvation he might be dead. Tearing openhis shirt I placed my ear to his breast. I could have cried withrelief--his heart was beating quite regularly. 

At the water tank I wetted my handkerchief, slapping it smartly acrosshis forehead and face several times. In a moment I was rewarded by theraising of his lids. For a time he lay wide-eyed and quiteuncomprehending. Then his scattered wits slowly foregathered, and hesat up sniffing the air with an expression of wonderment upon his face. 

"Why, David, " he cried at last, "it's air, as sure as I live. Why--whywhat does it mean? Where in the world are we? What has happened?"

"It means that we're back at the surface all right, Perry, " I cried;"but where, I don't know. I haven't opened her up yet. Been too busyreviving you. Lord, man, but you had a close squeak!"

"You say we're back at the surface, David? How can that be? How longhave I been unconscious?"

"Not long. We turned in the ice stratum. Don't you recall the suddenwhirling of our seats? After that the drill was above you instead ofbelow. We didn't notice it at the time; but I recall it now. "

"You mean to say that we turned back in the ice stratum, David? Thatis not possible. The prospector cannot turn unless its nose isdeflected from the outside--by some external force or resistance--thesteering wheel within would have moved in response. The steering wheelhas not budged, David, since we started. You know that. "

I did know it; but here we were with our drill racing in pure air, andcopious volumes of it pouring into the cabin. 

"We couldn't have turned in the ice stratum, Perry, I know as well asyou, " I replied; "but the fact remains that we did, for here we arethis minute at the surface of the earth again, and I am going out tosee just where. "

"Better wait till morning, David--it must be midnight now. "

I glanced at the chronometer. 

"Half after twelve. We have been out seventy-two hours, so it must bemidnight. Nevertheless I am going to have a look at the blessed skythat I had given up all hope of ever seeing again, " and so saying Ilifted the bars from the inner door, and swung it open. There wasquite a quantity of loose material in the jacket, and this I had toremove with a shovel to get at the opposite door in the outer shell. 

In a short time I had removed enough of the earth and rock to the floorof the cabin to expose the door beyond. Perry was directly behind meas I threw it open. The upper half was above the surface of theground. With an expression of surprise I turned and looked atPerry--it was broad daylight without!

"Something seems to have gone wrong either with our calculations or thechronometer, " I said. Perry shook his head--there was a strangeexpression in his eyes. 

"Let's have a look beyond that door, David, " he cried. 

Together we stepped out to stand in silent contemplation of a landscapeat once weird and beautiful. Before us a low and level shore stretcheddown to a silent sea. As far as the eye could reach the surface of thewater was dotted with countless tiny isles--some of towering, barren, granitic rock--others resplendent in gorgeous trappings of tropicalvegetation, myriad starred with the magnificent splendor of vividblooms. 

Behind us rose a dark and forbidding wood of giant arborescent fernsintermingled with the commoner types of a primeval tropical forest. Huge creepers depended in great loops from tree to tree, denseunder-brush overgrew a tangled mass of fallen trunks and branches. Upon the outer verge we could see the same splendid coloring ofcountless blossoms that glorified the islands, but within the denseshadows all seemed dark and gloomy as the grave. 

And upon all the noonday sun poured its torrid rays out of a cloudlesssky. 

"Where on earth can we be?" I asked, turning to Perry. 

For some moments the old man did not reply. He stood with bowed head, buried in deep thought. But at last he spoke. 

"David, " he said, "I am not so sure that we are ON earth. "

"What do you mean Perry?" I cried. "Do you think that we are dead, andthis is heaven?" He smiled, and turning, pointing to the nose of theprospector protruding from the ground at our backs. 

"But for that, David, I might believe that we were indeed come to thecountry beyond the Styx. The prospector renders that theoryuntenable--it, certainly, could never have gone to heaven. However Iam willing to concede that we actually may be in another world fromthat which we have always known. If we are not ON earth, there isevery reason to believe that we may be IN it. "

"We may have quartered through the earth's crust and come out upon sometropical island of the West Indies, " I suggested. Again Perry shookhis head. 

"Let us wait and see, David, " he replied, "and in the meantime supposewe do a bit of exploring up and down the coast--we may find a nativewho can enlighten us. "

As we walked along the beach Perry gazed long and earnestly across thewater. Evidently he was wrestling with a mighty problem. 

"David, " he said abruptly, "do you perceive anything unusual about thehorizon?"

As I looked I began to appreciate the reason for the strangeness of thelandscape that had haunted me from the first with an illusivesuggestion of the bizarre and unnatural--THERE WAS NO HORIZON! As faras the eye could reach out the sea continued and upon its bosom floatedtiny islands, those in the distance reduced to mere specks; but everbeyond them was the sea, until the impression became quite real thatone was LOOKING UP at the most distant point that the eyes couldfathom--the distance was lost in the distance. That was all--there wasno clear-cut horizontal line marking the dip of the globe below theline of vision. 

"A great light is commencing to break on me, " continued Perry, takingout his watch. "I believe that I have partially solved the riddle. Itis now two o'clock. When we emerged from the prospector the sun wasdirectly above us. Where is it now?"

I glanced up to find the great orb still motionless in the center ofthe heaven. And such a sun! I had scarcely noticed it before. Fullythrice the size of the sun I had known throughout my life, andapparently so near that the sight of it carried the conviction that onemight almost reach up and touch it. 

"My God, Perry, where are we?" I exclaimed. "This thing is beginningto get on my nerves. "

"I think that I may state quite positively, David, " he commenced, "thatwe are--" but he got no further. From behind us in the vicinity of theprospector there came the most thunderous, awe-inspiring roar that everhad fallen upon my ears. With one accord we turned to discover theauthor of that fearsome noise. 

Had I still retained the suspicion that we were on earth the sight thatmet my eyes would quite entirely have banished it. Emerging from theforest was a colossal beast which closely resembled a bear. It wasfully as large as the largest elephant and with great forepaws armedwith huge claws. Its nose, or snout, depended nearly a foot below itslower jaw, much after the manner of a rudimentary trunk. The giantbody was covered by a coat of thick, shaggy hair. 

Roaring horribly it came toward us at a ponderous, shuffling trot. Iturned to Perry to suggest that it might be wise to seek othersurroundings--the idea had evidently occurred to Perry previously, forhe was already a hundred paces away, and with each second hisprodigious bounds increased the distance. I had never guessed whatlatent speed possibilities the old gentleman possessed. 

I saw that he was headed toward a little point of the forest which ranout toward the sea not far from where we had been standing, and as themighty creature, the sight of which had galvanized him into suchremarkable action, was forging steadily toward me. I set off afterPerry, though at a somewhat more decorous pace. It was evident thatthe massive beast pursuing us was not built for speed, so all that Iconsidered necessary was to gain the trees sufficiently ahead of it toenable me to climb to the safety of some great branch before it came up. 

Notwithstanding our danger I could not help but laugh at Perry'sfrantic capers as he essayed to gain the safety of the lower branchesof the trees he now had reached. The stems were bare for a distance ofsome fifteen feet--at least on those trees which Perry attempted toascend, for the suggestion of safety carried by the larger of theforest giants had evidently attracted him to them. A dozen times hescrambled up the trunks like a huge cat only to fall back to the groundonce more, and with each failure he cast a horrified glance over hisshoulder at the oncoming brute, simultaneously emitting terror-strickenshrieks that awoke the echoes of the grim forest. 

At length he spied a dangling creeper about the bigness of one's wrist, and when I reached the trees he was racing madly up it, hand over hand. He had almost reached the lowest branch of the tree from which thecreeper depended when the thing parted beneath his weight and he fellsprawling at my feet. 

The misfortune now was no longer amusing, for the beast was already tooclose to us for comfort. Seizing Perry by the shoulder I dragged himto his feet, and rushing to a smaller tree--one that he could easilyencircle 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 revealedthe awful beast almost upon me. 

It was the great size of the thing alone that saved me. Its enormousbulk rendered it too slow upon its feet to cope with the agility of myyoung muscles, and so I was enabled to dodge out of its way and runcompletely behind it before its slow wits could direct it in pursuit. 

The few seconds of grace that this gave me found me safely lodged inthe branches of a tree a few paces from that in which Perry had at lastfound a haven. 

Did I say safely lodged? At the time I thought we were quite safe, andso did Perry. He was praying--raising his voice in thanksgiving at ourdeliverance--and had just completed a sort of paeon of gratitude thatthe thing couldn't climb a tree when without warning it reared upbeneath him on its enormous tail and hind feet, and reached thosefearfully armed paws quite to the branch upon which he crouched. 

The accompanying roar was all but drowned in Perry's scream of fright, and he came near tumbling headlong into the gaping jaws beneath him, soprecipitate was his impetuous haste to vacate the dangerous limb. Itwas with a deep sigh of relief that I saw him gain a higher branch insafety. 

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 withall the great weight of his huge bulk and all the irresistible force ofthose mighty muscles. Slowly, but surely, the stem began to bendtoward him. Inch by inch he worked his paws upward as the tree leanedmore and more from the perpendicular. Perry clung chattering in apanic of terror. Higher and higher into the bending and swaying treehe clambered. More and more rapidly was the tree top inclining towardthe ground. 

I saw now why the great brute was armed with such enormous paws. Theuse that he was putting them to was precisely that for which nature hadintended them. The sloth-like creature was herbivorous, and to feedthat mighty carcass entire trees must be stripped of their foliage. The reason for its attacking us might easily be accounted for on thesupposition of an ugly disposition such as that which the fierce andstupid rhinoceros of Africa possesses. But these were laterreflections. At the moment I was too frantic with apprehension onPerry's behalf to consider aught other than a means to save him fromthe death that loomed so close. 

Realizing that I could outdistance the clumsy brute in the open, Idropped from my leafy sanctuary intent only on distracting the thing'sattention from Perry long enough to enable the old man to gain thesafety of a larger tree. There were many close by which not even theterrific strength of that titanic monster could bend. 

As I touched the ground I snatched a broken limb from the tangled massthat matted the jungle-like floor of the forest and, leaping unnoticedbehind the shaggy back, dealt the brute a terrific blow. My planworked like magic. From the previous slowness of the beast I had beenled to look for no such marvelous agility as he now displayed. Releasing his hold upon the tree he dropped on all fours and at thesame time swung his great, wicked tail with a force that would havebroken every bone in my body had it struck me; but, fortunately, I hadturned to flee at the very instant that I felt my blow land upon thetowering back. 

As it started in pursuit of me I made the mistake of running along theedge of the forest rather than making for the open beach. In a momentI was knee-deep in rotting vegetation, and the awful thing behind mewas gaining rapidly as I floundered and fell in my efforts to extricatemyself. 

A fallen log gave me an instant's advantage, for climbing upon it Ileaped to another a few paces farther on, and in this way was able tokeep clear of the mush that carpeted the surrounding ground. But thezigzag course that this necessitated was placing such a heavy handicapupon me that my pursuer was steadily gaining upon me. 

Suddenly from behind I heard a tumult of howls, and sharp, piercingbarks--much the sound that a pack of wolves raises when in full cry. Involuntarily I glanced backward to discover the origin of this new andmenacing note with the result that I missed my footing and wentsprawling once more upon my face in the deep muck. 

My mammoth enemy was so close by this time that I knew I must feel theweight of one of his terrible paws before I could rise, but to mysurprise the blow did not fall upon me. The howling and snapping andbarking of the new element which had been infused into the melee nowseemed centered quite close behind me, and as I raised myself upon myhands and glanced around I saw what it was that had distracted theDYRYTH, as I afterward learned the thing is called, from my trail. 

It was surrounded by a pack of some hundred wolf-like creatures--wilddogs they seemed--that rushed growling and snapping in upon it from allsides, so that they sank their white fangs into the slow brute and wereaway again before it could reach them with its huge paws or sweepingtail. 

But these were not all that my startled eyes perceived. Chattering andgibbering through the lower branches of the trees came a company ofmanlike creatures evidently urging on the dog pack. They were to allappearances strikingly similar in aspect to the Negro of Africa. Theirskins were very black, and their features much like those of the morepronounced Negroid type except that the head receded more rapidly abovethe eyes, leaving little or no forehead. Their arms were rather longerand their legs shorter in proportion to the torso than in man, andlater I noticed that their great toes protruded at right angles fromtheir feet--because of their arboreal habits, I presume. Behind themtrailed long, slender tails which they used in climbing quite as muchas they did either their hands or feet. 

I had stumbled to my feet the moment that I discovered that thewolf-dogs were holding the dyryth at bay. At sight of me several ofthe savage creatures left off worrying the great brute to come slinkingwith bared fangs toward me, and as I turned to run toward the treesagain to seek safety among the lower branches, I saw a number of theman-apes leaping and chattering in the foliage of the nearest tree. 

Between them and the beasts behind me there was little choice, but atleast there was a doubt as to the reception these grotesque parodies onhumanity would accord me, while there was none as to the fate whichawaited me beneath the grinning fangs of my fierce pursuers. 

And so I raced on toward the trees intending to pass beneath that whichheld the man-things and take refuge in another farther on; but thewolf-dogs were very close behind me--so close that I had despaired ofescaping them, when one of the creatures in the tree above swung downheadforemost, his tail looped about a great limb, and grasping mebeneath my armpits swung me in safety up among his fellows. 

There they fell to examining me with the utmost excitement andcuriosity. They picked at my clothing, my hair, and my flesh. Theyturned me about to see if I had a tail, and when they discovered that Iwas not so equipped they fell into roars of laughter. Their teeth werevery large and white and even, except for the upper canines which werea trifle longer than the others--protruding just a bit when the mouthwas closed. 

When they had examined me for a few moments one of them discovered thatmy clothing was not a part of me, with the result that garment bygarment they tore it from me amidst peals of the wildest laughter. Apelike, they essayed to don the apparel themselves, but theiringenuity was not sufficient to the task and so they gave it up. 

In the meantime I had been straining my eyes to catch a glimpse ofPerry, but nowhere about could I see him, although the clump of treesin which he had first taken refuge was in full view. I was muchexercised by fear that something had befallen him, and though I calledhis name aloud several times there was no response. 

Tired at last of playing with my clothing the creatures threw it to theground, and catching me, one on either side, by an arm, started off ata most terrifying pace through the tree tops. Never have I experiencedsuch a journey before or since--even now I oftentimes awake from a deepsleep haunted by the horrid remembrance of that awful experience. 

From tree to tree the agile creatures sprang like flying squirrels, while the cold sweat stood upon my brow as I glimpsed the depthsbeneath, into which a single misstep on the part of either of mybearers would hurl me. As they bore me along, my mind was occupiedwith a thousand bewildering thoughts. What had become of Perry? WouldI ever see him again? What were the intentions of these half-humanthings into whose hands I had fallen? Were they inhabitants of thesame world into which I had been born? No! It could not be. But yetwhere else? I had not left that earth--of that I was sure. Stillneither could I reconcile the things which I had seen to a belief thatI was still in the world of my birth. With a sigh I gave it up. 

III

A CHANGE OF MASTERS

WE MUST HAVE TRAVELED SEVERAL MILES THROUGH the dark and dismal woodwhen we came suddenly upon a dense village built high among thebranches of the trees. As we approached it my escort broke into wildshouting which was immediately answered from within, and a moment latera swarm of creatures of the same strange race as those who had capturedme poured out to meet us. Again I was the center of a wildlychattering horde. I was pulled this way and that. Pinched, pounded, and thumped until I was black and blue, yet I do not think that theirtreatment was dictated by either cruelty or malice--I was a curiosity, a freak, a new plaything, and their childish minds required the addedevidence of all their senses to back up the testimony of their eyes. 

Presently they dragged me within the village, which consisted ofseveral hundred rude shelters of boughs and leaves supported upon thebranches of the trees. 

Between the huts, which sometimes formed crooked streets, were deadbranches and the trunks of small trees which connected the huts uponone tree to those within adjoining trees; the whole network of huts andpathways forming an almost solid flooring a good fifty feet above theground. 

I wondered why these agile creatures required connecting bridgesbetween the trees, but later when I saw the motley aggregation ofhalf-savage beasts which they kept within their village I realized thenecessity for the pathways. There were a number of the same viciouswolf-dogs which we had left worrying the dyryth, and many goatlikeanimals whose distended udders explained the reasons for their presence. 

My guard halted before one of the huts into which I was pushed; thentwo of the creatures squatted down before the entrance--to prevent myescape, doubtless. Though where I should have escaped to I certainlyhad not the remotest conception. I had no more than entered the darkshadows of the interior than there fell upon my ears the tones of afamiliar voice, in prayer. 

"Perry!" I cried. "Dear old Perry! Thank the Lord you are safe. "

"David! Can it be possible that you escaped?" And the old man stumbledtoward me and threw his arms about me. 

He had seen me fall before the dyryth, and then he had been seized by anumber of the ape-creatures and borne through the tree tops to theirvillage. His captors had been as inquisitive as to his strangeclothing as had mine, with the same result. As we looked at each otherwe could not help but laugh. 

"With a tail, David, " remarked Perry, "you would make a very handsomeape. "

"Maybe we can borrow a couple, " I rejoined. "They seem to be quite thething this season. I wonder what the creatures intend doing with us, Perry. They don't seem really savage. What do you suppose they canbe? You were about to tell me where we are when that great hairyfrigate bore down upon us--have you really any idea at all?"

"Yes, David, " he replied, "I know precisely where we are. We have madea magnificent discovery, my boy! We have proved that the earth ishollow. We have passed entirely through its crust to the inner world. "

"Perry, you are mad!"

"Not at all, David. For two hundred and fifty miles our prospectorbore us through the crust beneath our outer world. At that point itreached the center of gravity of the five-hundred-mile-thick crust. Upto that point we had been descending--direction is, of course, merelyrelative. Then at the moment that our seats revolved--the thing thatmade you believe that we had turned about and were speeding upward--wepassed the center of gravity and, though we did not alter the directionof our progress, yet we were in reality moving upward--toward thesurface of the inner world. Does not the strange fauna and flora whichwe 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 bothnoted unless we were indeed standing upon the inside surface of asphere?"

"But the sun, Perry!" I urged. "How in the world can the sun shinethrough five hundred miles of solid crust?"

"It is not the sun of the outer world that we see here. It is anothersun--an entirely different sun--that casts its eternal noondayeffulgence upon the face of the inner world. Look at it now, David--ifyou can see it from the doorway of this hut--and you will see that itis still in the exact center of the heavens. We have been here formany hours--yet it is still noon. 

"And withal it is very simple, David. The earth was once a nebulousmass. It cooled, and as it cooled it shrank. At length a thin crustof solid matter formed upon its outer surface--a sort of shell; butwithin it was partially molten matter and highly expanded gases. As itcontinued to cool, what happened? Centrifugal force hurled theparticles of the nebulous center toward the crust as rapidly as theyapproached a solid state. You have seen the same principle practicallyapplied in the modern cream separator. Presently there was only asmall super-heated core of gaseous matter remaining within a hugevacant interior left by the contraction of the cooling gases. Theequal attraction of the solid crust from all directions maintained thisluminous core in the exact center of the hollow globe. What remains ofit is the sun you saw today--a relatively tiny thing at the exactcenter of the earth. Equally to every part of this inner world itdiffuses its perpetual noonday light and torrid heat. 

"This inner world must have cooled sufficiently to support animal lifelong ages after life appeared upon the outer crust, but that the sameagencies were at work here is evident from the similar forms of bothanimal and vegetable creation which we have already seen. Take thegreat beast which attacked us, for example. Unquestionably acounterpart of the Megatherium of the post-Pliocene period of the outercrust, whose fossilized skeleton has been found in South America. "

"But the grotesque inhabitants of this forest?" I urged. "Surely theyhave no counterpart in the earth's history. "

"Who can tell?" he rejoined. "They may constitute the link between apeand man, all traces of which have been swallowed by the countlessconvulsions which have racked the outer crust, or they may be merelythe result of evolution along slightly different lines--either is quitepossible. "

Further speculation was interrupted by the appearance of several of ourcaptors before the entrance of the hut. Two of them entered anddragged us forth. The perilous pathways and the surrounding trees werefilled with the black ape-men, their females, and their young. Therewas not an ornament, a weapon, or a garment among the lot. 

"Quite low in the scale of creation, " commented Perry. 

"Quite high enough to play the deuce with us, though, " I replied. "Nowwhat do you suppose they intend doing with us?"

We were not long in learning. As on the occasion of our trip to thevillage we were seized by a couple of the powerful creatures andwhirled away through the tree tops, while about us and in our wakeraced a chattering, jabbering, grinning horde of sleek, blackape-things. 

Twice my bearers missed their footing, and my heart ceased beating aswe plunged toward instant death among the tangled deadwood beneath. But on both occasions those lithe, powerful tails reached out and foundsustaining branches, nor did either of the creatures loosen their graspupon me. In fact, it seemed that the incidents were of no greatermoment to them than would be the stubbing of one's toe at a streetcrossing in the outer world--they but laughed uproariously and sped onwith me. 

For some time they continued through the forest--how long I could notguess for I was learning, what was later borne very forcefully to mymind, that time ceases to be a factor the moment means for measuring itcease to exist. Our watches were gone, and we were living beneath astationary sun. Already I was puzzled to compute the period of timewhich 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 tellwhere it was always noon! By the sun, no time had elapsed--but myjudgment told me that we must have been several hours in this strangeworld. 

Presently the forest terminated, and we came out upon a level plain. Ashort distance before us rose a few low, rocky hills. Toward these ourcaptors urged us, and after a short time led us through a narrow passinto a tiny, circular valley. Here they got down to work, and we weresoon convinced that if we were not to die to make a Roman holiday, wewere to die for some other purpose. The attitude of our captorsaltered immediately as they entered the natural arena within the rockyhills. Their laughter ceased. Grim ferocity marked their bestialfaces--bared fangs menaced us. 

We were placed in the center of the amphitheater--the thousandcreatures forming a great ring about us. Then a wolf-dog wasbrought--hyaenadon Perry called it--and turned loose with us inside thecircle. 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 werequite white. As it slunk toward us it presented a most formidableaspect with its upcurled lips baring its mighty fangs. 

Perry was on his knees, praying. I stooped and picked up a smallstone. At my movement the beast veered off a bit and commencedcircling us. Evidently it had been a target for stones before. Theape-things were dancing up and down urging the brute on with savagecries, until at last, seeing that I did not throw, he charged us. 

At Andover, and later at Yale, I had pitched on winning ball teams. Myspeed and control must both have been above the ordinary, for I madesuch a record during my senior year at college that overtures were madeto me in behalf of one of the great major-league teams; but in thetightest pitch that ever had confronted me in the past I had never beenin such need for control as now. 

As I wound up for the delivery, I held my nerves and muscles underabsolute command, though the grinning jaws were hurtling toward me atterrific speed. And then I let go, with every ounce of my weight andmuscle and science in back of that throw. The stone caught thehyaenodon full upon the end of the nose, and sent him bowling over uponhis back. 

At the same instant a chorus of shrieks and howls arose from the circleof spectators, so that for a moment I thought that the upsetting oftheir champion was the cause; but in this I soon saw that I wasmistaken. As I looked, the ape-things broke in all directions towardthe surrounding hills, and then I distinguished the real cause of theirperturbation. Behind them, streaming through the pass which leads intothe valley, came a swarm of hairy men--gorilla-like creatures armedwith spears and hatchets, and bearing long, oval shields. Like demonsthey set upon the ape-things, and before them the hyaenodon, which hadnow regained its senses and its feet, fled howling with fright. Pastus swept the pursued and the pursuers, nor did the hairy ones accord usmore than a passing glance until the arena had been emptied of itsformer occupants. Then they returned to us, and one who seemed to haveauthority among them directed that we be brought with them. 

When we had passed out of the amphitheater onto the great plain we sawa caravan of men and women--human beings like ourselves--and for thefirst time hope and relief filled my heart, until I could have criedout in the exuberance of my happiness. It is true that they were ahalf-naked, wild-appearing aggregation; but they at least werefashioned along the same lines as ourselves--there was nothinggrotesque or horrible about them as about the other creatures in thisstrange, weird world. 

But as we came closer, our hearts sank once more, for we discoveredthat the poor wretches were chained neck to neck in a long line, andthat the gorilla-men were their guards. With little ceremony Perry andI were chained at the end of the line, and without further ado theinterrupted march was resumed. 

Up to this time the excitement had kept us both up; but now thetiresome monotony of the long march across the sun-baked plain broughton all the agonies consequent to a long-denied sleep. On and on westumbled beneath that hateful noonday sun. If we fell we were proddedwith a sharp point. Our companions in chains did not stumble. Theystrode along proudly erect. Occasionally they would exchange wordswith one another in a monosyllabic language. They were anoble-appearing race with well-formed heads and perfect physiques. Themen were heavily bearded, tall and muscular; the women, smaller andmore gracefully molded, with great masses of raven hair caught intoloose knots upon their heads. The features of both sexes were wellproportioned--there was not a face among them that would have beencalled even plain if judged by earthly standards. They wore noornaments; but this I later learned was due to the fact that theircaptors had stripped them of everything of value. As garmenture thewomen possessed a single robe of some light-colored, spotted hide, rather similar in appearance to a leopard's skin. This they woreeither supported entirely about the waist by a leathern thong, so thatit hung partially below the knee on one side, or possibly loopedgracefully across one shoulder. Their feet were shod with skinsandals. The men wore loin cloths of the hide of some shaggy beast, long ends of which depended before and behind nearly to the ground. Insome instances these ends were finished with the strong talons of thebeast from which the hides had been taken. 

Our guards, whom I already have described as gorilla-like men, wererather lighter in build than a gorilla, but even so they were indeedmighty creatures. Their arms and legs were proportioned more inconformity with human standards, but their entire bodies were coveredwith shaggy, brown hair, and their faces were quite as brutal as thoseof the few stuffed specimens of the gorilla which I had seen in themuseums at home. 

Their only redeeming feature lay in the development of the head aboveand back of the ears. In this respect they were not one whit lesshuman than we. They were clothed in a sort of tunic of light clothwhich reached to the knees. Beneath this they wore only a loin clothof the same material, while their feet were shod with thick hide ofsome mammoth creature of this inner world. 

Their arms and necks were encircled by many ornaments of metal--silverpredominating--and on their tunics were sewn the heads of tiny reptilesin odd and rather artistic designs. They talked among themselves asthey marched along on either side of us, but in a language which Iperceived differed from that employed by our fellow prisoners. Whenthey addressed the latter they used what appeared to be a thirdlanguage, and which I later learned is a mongrel tongue ratheranalogous to the Pidgin-English of the Chinese coolie. 

How far we marched I have no conception, nor has Perry. Both of uswere asleep much of the time for hours before a halt was called--thenwe dropped in our tracks. I say "for hours, " but how may one measuretime where time does not exist! When our march commenced the sun stoodat 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 tenyears that I spent in the inner world, or it may have been accomplishedin the fraction of a second--I cannot tell. But this I do know thatsince you have told me that ten years have elapsed since I departedfrom this earth I have lost all respect for time--I am commencing todoubt that such a thing exists other than in the weak, finite mind ofman. 

IV

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL

WHEN OUR GUARDS AROUSED US FROM SLEEP WE were much refreshed. Theygave us food. Strips of dried meat it was, but it put new life andstrength into us, so that now we too marched with high-held heads, andtook noble strides. At least I did, for I was young and proud; butpoor Perry hated walking. On earth I had often seen him call a cab totravel a square--he was paying for it now, and his old legs wobbled sothat I put my arm about him and half carried him through the balance ofthose frightful marches. 

The country began to change at last, and we wound up out of the levelplain through mighty mountains of virgin granite. The tropical verdureof the lowlands was replaced by hardier vegetation, but even here theeffects of constant heat and light were apparent in the immensity ofthe trees and the profusion of foliage and blooms. Crystal streamsroared through their rocky channels, fed by the perpetual snows whichwe could see far above us. Above the snowcapped heights hung masses ofheavy clouds. It was these, Perry explained, which evidently servedthe double purpose of replenishing the melting snows and protectingthem from the direct rays of the sun. 

By this time we had picked up a smattering of the bastard language inwhich our guards addressed us, as well as making good headway in therather charming tongue of our co-captives. Directly ahead of me in thechain gang was a young woman. Three feet of chain linked us togetherin a forced companionship which I, at least, soon rejoiced in. For Ifound her a willing teacher, and from her I learned the language of hertribe, and much of the life and customs of the inner world--at leastthat part of it with which she was familiar. 

She told me that she was called Dian the Beautiful, and that shebelonged to the tribe of Amoz, which dwells in the cliffs above theDarel Az, or shallow sea. 

"How came you here?" I asked her. 

"I was running away from Jubal the Ugly One, " she answered, as thoughthat was explanation quite sufficient. 

"Who is Jubal the Ugly One?" I asked. "And why did you run away fromhim?"

She looked at me in surprise. 

"Why DOES a woman run away from a man?" she answered my question withanother. 

"They do not, where I come from, " I replied. "Sometimes they run afterthem. "

But she could not understand. Nor could I get her to grasp the factthat I was of another world. She was quite as positive that creationwas originated solely to produce her own kind and the world she livedin as are many of the outer world. 

"But Jubal, " I insisted. "Tell me about him, and why you ran away tobe chained by the neck and scourged across the face of a world. "

"Jubal the Ugly One placed his trophy before my father's house. It wasthe head of a mighty tandor. It remained there and no greater trophywas placed beside it. So I knew that Jubal the Ugly One would come andtake me as his mate. None other so powerful wished me, or they wouldhave slain a mightier beast and thus have won me from Jubal. My fatheris not a mighty hunter. Once he was, but a sadok tossed him, and neveragain had he the full use of his right arm. My brother, Dacor theStrong 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 Jubalthe Ugly One, and I ran away and hid among the hills that skirt theland of Amoz. And there these Sagoths found me and made me captive. "

"What will they do with you?" I asked. "Where are they taking us?"

Again she looked her incredulity. 

"I can almost believe that you are of another world, " she said, "forotherwise such ignorance were inexplicable. Do you really mean thatyou do not know that the Sagoths are the creatures of the Mahars--themighty Mahars who think they own Pellucidar and all that walks or growsupon its surface, or creeps or burrows beneath, or swims within itslakes and oceans, or flies through its air? Next you will be tellingme that you never before heard of the Mahars!"

I was loath to do it, and further incur her scorn; but there was noalternative if I were to absorb knowledge, so I made a clean breast ofmy pitiful ignorance as to the mighty Mahars. She was shocked. Butshe did her very best to enlighten me, though much that she said was asGreek would have been to her. She described the Mahars largely bycomparisons. In this way they were like unto thipdars, in that to thehairless lidi. 

About all I gleaned of them was that they were quite hideous, hadwings, and webbed feet; lived in cities built beneath the ground; couldswim under water for great distances, and were very, very wise. TheSagoths were their weapons of offense and defense, and the races likeherself were their hands and feet--they were the slaves and servantswho did all the manual labor. The Mahars were the heads--thebrains--of the inner world. I longed to see this wondrous race ofsupermen. 

Perry learned the language with me. When we halted, as we occasionallydid, though sometimes the halts seemed ages apart, he would join in theconversation, as would Ghak the Hairy One, he who was chained justahead of Dian the Beautiful. Ahead of Ghak was Hooja the Sly One. Hetoo entered the conversation occasionally. Most of his remarks weredirected toward Dian the Beautiful. It didn't take half an eye to seethat he had developed a bad case; but the girl appeared totallyoblivious to his thinly veiled advances. Did I say thinly veiled?There is a race of men in New Zealand, or Australia, I have forgottenwhich, who indicate their preference for the lady of their affectionsby banging her over the head with a bludgeon. By comparison with thismethod Hooja's lovemaking might be called thinly veiled. At first itcaused me to blush violently although I have seen several Old Years outat Rectors, and in other less fashionable places off Broadway, and inVienna, and Hamburg. 

But the girl! She was magnificent. It was easy to see that sheconsidered herself as entirely above and apart from her presentsurroundings and company. She talked with me, and with Perry, and withthe taciturn Ghak because we were respectful; but she couldn't even seeHooja the Sly One, much less hear him, and that made him furious. Hetried to get one of the Sagoths to move the girl up ahead of him in theslave gang, but the fellow only poked him with his spear and told himthat he had selected the girl for his own property--that he would buyher from the Mahars as soon as they reached Phutra. Phutra, it seemed, was the city of our destination. 

After passing over the first chain of mountains we skirted a salt sea, upon whose bosom swam countless horrid things. Seal-like creaturesthere were with long necks stretching ten and more feet above theirenormous bodies and whose snake heads were split with gaping mouthsbristling with countless fangs. There were huge tortoises too, paddling about among these other reptiles, which Perry said werePlesiosaurs of the Lias. I didn't question his veracity--they mighthave been most anything. 

Dian told me they were tandorazes, or tandors of the sea, and that theother, and more fearsome reptiles, which occasionally rose from thedeep to do battle with them, were azdyryths, or sea-dyryths--Perrycalled them Ichthyosaurs. They resembled a whale with the head of analligator. 

I had forgotten what little geology I had studied at school--about allthat remained was an impression of horror that the illustrations ofrestored prehistoric monsters had made upon me, and a well-definedbelief that any man with a pig's shank and a vivid imagination could"restore" most any sort of paleolithic monster he saw fit, and takerank as a first class paleontologist. But when I saw these sleek, shiny carcasses shimmering in the sunlight as they emerged from theocean, shaking their giant heads; when I saw the waters roll from theirsinuous bodies in miniature waterfalls as they glided hither andthither, now upon the surface, now half submerged; as I saw them meet, open-mouthed, hissing and snorting, in their titanic and interminablewarring I realized how futile is man's poor, weak imagination bycomparison with Nature's incredible genius. 

And Perry! He was absolutely flabbergasted. He said so himself. 

"David, " he remarked, after we had marched for a long time beside thatawful sea. "David, I used to teach geology, and I thought that Ibelieved what I taught; but now I see that I did not believe it--thatit is impossible for man to believe such things as these unless he seesthem with his own eyes. We take things for granted, perhaps, becausewe are told them over and over again, and have no way of disprovingthem--like religions, for example; but we don't believe them, we onlythink we do. If you ever get back to the outer world you will findthat the geologists and paleontologists will be the first to set youdown a liar, for they know that no such creatures as they restore everexisted. It is all right to IMAGINE them as existing in an equallyimaginary epoch--but now? poof!"

At the next halt Hooja the Sly One managed to find enough slack chainto permit him to worm himself back quite close to Dian. We were allstanding, and as he edged near the girl she turned her back upon him insuch a truly earthly feminine manner that I could scarce repress asmile; but it was a short-lived smile for on the instant the Sly One'shand fell upon the girl's bare arm, jerking her roughly toward him. 

I was not then familiar with the customs or social ethics whichprevailed within Pellucidar; but even so I did not need the appealinglook which the girl shot to me from her magnificent eyes to influencemy subsequent act. What the Sly One's intention was I paused not toinquire; but instead, before he could lay hold of her with his otherhand, I placed a right to the point of his jaw that felled him in histracks. 

A roar of approval went up from those of the other prisoners and theSagoths who had witnessed the brief drama; not, as I later learned, because I had championed the girl, but for the neat and, to them, astounding method by which I had bested Hooja. 

And the girl? At first she looked at me with wide, wondering eyes, andthen she dropped her head, her face half averted, and a delicate flushsuffused her cheek. For a moment she stood thus in silence, and thenher head went high, and she turned her back upon me as she had uponHooja. Some of the prisoners laughed, and I saw the face of Ghak theHairy One go very black as he looked at me searchingly. And what Icould see of Dian's cheek went suddenly from red to white. 

Immediately after we resumed the march, and though I realized that insome way I had offended Dian the Beautiful I could not prevail upon herto talk with me that I might learn wherein I had erred--in fact I mightquite as well have been addressing a sphinx for all the attention Igot. At last my own foolish pride stepped in and prevented my makingany further attempts, and thus a companionship that without myrealizing it had come to mean a great deal to me was cut off. Thereafter I confined my conversation to Perry. Hooja did not renewhis advances toward the girl, nor did he again venture near me. 

Again the weary and apparently interminable marching became a perfectnightmare of horrors to me. The more firmly fixed became therealization that the girl's friendship had meant so much to me, themore I came to miss it; and the more impregnable the barrier of sillypride. But I was very young and would not ask Ghak for the explanationwhich I was sure he could give, and that might have made everything allright again. 

On the march, or during halts, Dian refused consistently to noticeme--when her eyes wandered in my direction she looked either over myhead or directly through me. At last I became desperate, anddetermined to swallow my self-esteem, and again beg her to tell me howI had offended, and how I might make reparation. I made up my mindthat I should do this at the next halt. We were approaching anotherrange of mountains at the time, and when we reached them, instead ofwinding across them through some high-flung pass we entered a mightynatural tunnel--a series of labyrinthine grottoes, dark as Erebus. 

The guards had no torches or light of any description. In fact we hadseen no artificial light or sign of fire since we had enteredPellucidar. In a land of perpetual noon there is no need of lightabove ground, yet I marveled that they had no means of lighting theirway through these dark, subterranean passages. So we crept along at asnail's pace, with much stumbling and falling--the guards keeping up asingsong chant ahead of us, interspersed with certain high notes whichI found always indicated rough places and turns. 

Halts were now more frequent, but I did not wish to speak to Dian untilI could see from the expression of her face how she was receiving myapologies. At last a faint glow ahead forewarned us of the end of thetunnel, for which I for one was devoutly thankful. Then at a suddenturn we emerged into the full light of the noonday sun. 

But with it came a sudden realization of what meant to me a realcatastrophe--Dian was gone, and with her a half-dozen other prisoners. The guards saw it too, and the ferocity of their rage was terrible tobehold. Their awesome, bestial faces were contorted in the mostdiabolical expressions, as they accused each other of responsibilityfor the loss. Finally they fell upon us, beating us with their spearshafts, and hatchets. They had already killed two near the head of theline, and were like to have finished the balance of us when theirleader finally put a stop to the brutal slaughter. Never in all mylife had I witnessed a more horrible exhibition of bestial rage--Ithanked God that Dian had not been one of those left to endure it. 

Of the twelve prisoners who had been chained ahead of me each alternateone had been freed commencing with Dian. Hooja was gone. Ghakremained. What could it mean? How had it been accomplished? Thecommander of the guards was investigating. Soon he discovered that therude locks which had held the neckbands in place had been deftly picked. 

"Hooja the Sly One, " murmured Ghak, who was now next to me in line. "He has taken the girl that you would not have, " he continued, glancingat me. 

"That I would not have!" I cried. "What do you mean?"

He looked at me closely for a moment. 

"I have doubted your story that you are from another world, " he said atlast, "but yet upon no other grounds could your ignorance of the waysof Pellucidar be explained. Do you really mean that you do not knowthat you offended the Beautiful One, and how?"

"I do not know, Ghak, " I replied. 

"Then shall I tell you. When a man of Pellucidar intervenes betweenanother man and the woman the other man would have, the woman belongsto the victor. Dian the Beautiful belongs to you. You should haveclaimed her or released her. Had you taken her hand, it would haveindicated your desire to make her your mate, and had you raised herhand above her head and then dropped it, it would have meant that youdid not wish her for a mate and that you released her from allobligation to you. By doing neither you have put upon her the greatestaffront that a man may put upon a woman. Now she is your slave. Noman will take her as mate, or may take her honorably, until he shallhave overcome you in combat, and men do not choose slave women as theirmates--at least not the men of Pellucidar. "

"I did not know, Ghak, " I cried. "I did not know. Not for allPellucidar would I have harmed Dian the Beautiful by word, or look, oract of mine. I do not want her as my slave. I do not want her asmy--" but here I stopped. The vision of that sweet and innocent facefloated before me amidst the soft mists of imagination, and where I hadon the second believed that I clung only to the memory of a gentlefriendship I had lost, yet now it seemed that it would have beendisloyalty to her to have said that I did not want Dian the Beautifulas my mate. I had not thought of her except as a welcome friend in astrange, cruel world. Even now I did not think that I loved her. 

I believe Ghak must have read the truth more in my expression than inmy words, for presently he laid his hand upon my shoulder. 

"Man of another world, " he said, "I believe you. Lips may lie, butwhen the heart speaks through the eyes it tells only the truth. Yourheart has spoken to me. I know now that you meant no affront to Dianthe 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 camewith many others of the tribe of Amoz to battle with us for ourwomen--the most beautiful women of Pellucidar. Then was her fatherking of Amoz, and her mother was daughter of the king of Sari--to whosepower I, his son, have succeeded. Dian is the daughter of kings, though her father is no longer king since the sadok tossed him andJubal the Ugly One wrested his kingship from him. Because of herlineage the wrong you did her was greatly magnified in the eyes of allwho saw it. She will never forgive you. "

I asked Ghak if there was not some way in which I could release thegirl from the bondage and ignominy I had unwittingly placed upon her. 

"If ever you find her, yes, " he answered. "Merely to raise her handabove her head and drop it in the presence of others is sufficient torelease her; but how may you ever find her, you who are doomed to alife of slavery yourself in the buried city of Phutra?"

"Is there no escape?" I asked. 

"Hooja the Sly One escaped and took the others with him, " replied Ghak. "But there are no more dark places on the way to Phutra, and once thereit is not so easy--the Mahars are very wise. Even if one escaped fromPhutra there are the thipdars--they would find you, and then--" theHairy One shuddered. "No, you will never escape the Mahars. "

It was a cheerful prospect. I asked Perry what he thought about it;but he only shrugged his shoulders and continued a longwinded prayer hehad been at for some time. He was wont to say that the only redeemingfeature of our captivity was the ample time it gave him for theimprovisation of prayers--it was becoming an obsession with him. TheSagoths had begun to take notice of his habit of declaiming throughoutentire marches. One of them asked him what he was saying--to whom hewas talking. The question gave me an idea, so I answered quicklybefore Perry could say anything. 

"Do not interrupt him, " I said. "He is a very holy man in the worldfrom which we come. He is speaking to spirits which you cannot see--donot interrupt him or they will spring out of the air upon you and rendyou limb from limb--like that, " and I jumped toward the great brutewith a loud "Boo!" that sent him stumbling backward. 

I took a long chance, I realized, but if we could make any capital outof Perry's harmless mania I wanted to make it while the making wasprime. It worked splendidly. The Sagoths treated us both with markedrespect during the balance of the journey, and then passed the wordalong to their masters, the Mahars. 

Two marches after this episode we came to the city of Phutra. Theentrance to it was marked by two lofty towers of granite, which guardeda flight of steps leading to the buried city. Sagoths were on guardhere as well as at a hundred or more other towers scattered about overa large plain. 

V

SLAVES

AS WE DESCENDED THE BROAD STAIRCASE WHICH led to the main avenue ofPhutra I caught my first sight of the dominant race of the inner world. Involuntarily I shrank back as one of the creatures approached toinspect us. A more hideous thing it would be impossible to imagine. The all-powerful Mahars of Pellucidar are great reptiles, some six oreight feet in length, with long narrow heads and great round eyes. Their beak-like mouths are lined with sharp, white fangs, and the backsof their huge, lizard bodies are serrated into bony ridges from theirnecks to the end of their long tails. Their feet are equipped withthree webbed toes, while from the fore feet membranous wings, which areattached to their bodies just in front of the hind legs, protrude at anangle of 45 degrees toward the rear, ending in sharp points severalfeet above their bodies. 

I glanced at Perry as the thing passed me to inspect him. The old manwas gazing at the horrid creature with wide astonished eyes. When itpassed on, he turned to me. 

"A rhamphorhynchus of the Middle Olitic, David, " he said, "but, gad, how enormous! The largest remains we ever have discovered have neverindicated a size greater than that attained by an ordinary crow. "

As we continued on through the main avenue of Phutra we saw manythousand of the creatures coming and going upon their daily duties. They paid but little attention to us. Phutra is laid out undergroundwith a regularity that indicates remarkable engineering skill. It ishewn from solid limestone strata. The streets are broad and of auniform height of twenty feet. At intervals tubes pierce the roof ofthis underground city, and by means of lenses and reflectors transmitthe sunlight, softened and diffused, to dispel what would otherwise beCimmerian darkness. In like manner air is introduced. 

Perry and I were taken, with Ghak, to a large public building, whereone of the Sagoths who had formed our guard explained to a Maharanofficial the circumstances surrounding our capture. The method ofcommunication between these two was remarkable in that no spoken wordswere exchanged. They employed a species of sign language. As I was tolearn later, the Mahars have no ears, not any spoken language. Amongthemselves they communicate by means of what Perry says must be a sixthsense which is cognizant of a fourth dimension. 

I never did quite grasp him, though he endeavored to explain it to meupon numerous occasions. I suggested telepathy, but he said no, thatit was not telepathy since they could only communicate when in eachothers' presence, nor could they talk with the Sagoths or the otherinhabitants of Pellucidar by the same method they used to converse withone another. 

"What they do, " said Perry, "is to project their thoughts into thefourth dimension, when they become appreciable to the sixth sense oftheir listener. Do I make myself quite clear?"

"You do not, Perry, " I replied. He shook his head in despair, andreturned to his work. They had set us to carrying a great accumulationof Maharan literature from one apartment to another, and therearranging it upon shelves. I suggested to Perry that we were in thepublic library of Phutra, but later, as he commenced to discover thekey to their written language, he assured me that we were handling theancient archives of the race. 

During this period my thoughts were continually upon Dian theBeautiful. I was, of course, glad that she had escaped the Mahars, andthe fate that had been suggested by the Sagoth who had threatened topurchase her upon our arrival at Phutra. I often wondered if thelittle party of fugitives had been overtaken by the guards who hadreturned to search for them. Sometimes I was not so sure but that Ishould 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 sosteeped in his lifelong belief that no one could escape from the Maharsexcept by a miracle, that he was not much aid to us--his attitude wasof one who waits for the miracle to come to him. 

At my suggestion Perry and I fashioned some swords of scraps of ironwhich we discovered among some rubbish in the cells where we slept, forwe were permitted almost unrestrained freedom of action within thelimits of the building to which we had been assigned. So great werethe number of slaves who waited upon the inhabitants of Phutra thatnone of us was apt to be overburdened with work, nor were our mastersunkind to us. 

We hid our new weapons beneath the skins which formed our beds, andthen Perry conceived the idea of making bows and arrows--weaponsapparently unknown within Pellucidar. Next came shields; but these Ifound it easier to steal from the walls of the outer guardroom of thebuilding. 

We had completed these arrangements for our protection after leavingPhutra when the Sagoths who had been sent to recapture the escapedprisoners returned with four of them, of whom Hooja was one. Dian andtwo others had eluded them. It so happened that Hooja was confined inthe same building with us. He told Ghak that he had not seen Dian orthe others after releasing them within the dark grotto. What hadbecome of them he had not the faintest conception--they might bewandering yet, lost within the labyrinthine tunnel, if not dead fromstarvation. 

I was now still further apprehensive as to the fate of Dian, and atthis time, I imagine, came the first realization that my affection forthe girl might be prompted by more than friendship. During my wakinghours she was constantly the subject of my thoughts, and when I slepther dear face haunted my dreams. More than ever was I determined toescape the Mahars. 

"Perry, " I confided to the old man, "if I have to search every inch ofthis diminutive world I am going to find Dian the Beautiful and rightthe wrong I unintentionally did her. " That was the excuse I made forPerry's benefit. 

"Diminutive world!" he scoffed. "You don't know what you are talkingabout, my boy, " and then he showed me a map of Pellucidar which he hadrecently discovered among the manuscript he was arranging. 

"Look, " he cried, pointing to it, "this is evidently water, and allthis land. Do you notice the general configuration of the two areas?Where the oceans are upon the outer crust, is land here. Theserelatively small areas of ocean follow the general lines of thecontinents of the outer world. 

"We know that the crust of the globe is 500 miles in thickness; thenthe inside diameter of Pellucidar must be 7, 000 miles, and thesuperficial area 165, 480, 000 square miles. Three-fourths of this island. Think of it! A land area of 124, 110, 000 square miles! Our ownworld contains but 53, 000, 000 square miles of land, the balance of itssurface being covered by water. Just as we often compare nations bytheir relative land areas, so if we compare these two worlds in thesame way we have the strange anomaly of a larger world within a smallerone!

"Where within vast Pellucidar would you search for your Dian? Withoutstars, or moon, or changing sun how could you find her even though youknew where she might be found?"

The proposition was a corker. It quite took my breath away; but Ifound that it left me all the more determined to attempt it. 

"If Ghak will accompany us we may be able to do it, " I suggested. 

Perry and I sought him out and put the question straight to him. 

"Ghak, " I said, "we are determined to escape from this bondage. Willyou accompany us?"

"They will set the thipdars upon us, " he said, "and then we shall bekilled; but--" he hesitated--"I would take the chance if I thought thatI might possibly escape and return to my own people. "

"Could you find your way back to your own land?" asked Perry. "Andcould you aid David in his search for Dian?"

"Yes. "

"But how, " persisted Perry, "could you travel to strange countrywithout heavenly bodies or a compass to guide you?"

Ghak didn't know what Perry meant by heavenly bodies or a compass, buthe assured us that you might blindfold any man of Pellucidar and carryhim to the farthermost corner of the world, yet he would be able tocome directly to his own home again by the shortest route. He seemedsurprised to think that we found anything wonderful in it. Perry saidit must be some sort of homing instinct such as is possessed by certainbreeds of earthly pigeons. I didn't know, of course, but it gave me anidea. 

"Then Dian could have found her way directly to her own people?" Iasked. 

"Surely, " replied Ghak, "unless some mighty beast of prey killed her. "

I was for making the attempted escape at once, but both Perry and Ghakcounseled waiting for some propitious accident which would insure ussome small degree of success. I didn't see what accident could befalla whole community in a land of perpetual daylight where the inhabitantshad no fixed habits of sleep. Why, I am sure that some of the Maharsnever sleep, while others may, at long intervals, crawl into the darkrecesses beneath their dwellings and curl up in protracted slumber. Perry says that if a Mahar stays awake for three years he will make upall his lost sleep in a long year's snooze. That may be all true, butI never saw but three of them asleep, and it was the sight of thesethree that gave me a suggestion for our means of escape. 

I had been searching about far below the levels that we slaves weresupposed to frequent--possibly fifty feet beneath the main floor of thebuilding--among a network of corridors and apartments, when I camesuddenly upon three Mahars curled up upon a bed of skins. At first Ithought they were dead, but later their regular breathing convinced meof my error. Like a flash the thought came to me of the marvelousopportunity these sleeping reptiles offered as a means of eluding thewatchfulness of our captors and the Sagoth guards. 

Hastening back to Perry where he pored over a musty pile of, to me, meaningless hieroglyphics, I explained my plan to him. To my surprisehe was horrified. 

"It would be murder, David, " he cried. 

"Murder to kill a reptilian monster?" I asked in astonishment. 

"Here they are not monsters, David, " he replied. "Here they are thedominant race--we are the 'monsters'--the lower orders. In Pellucidarevolution has progressed along different lines than upon the outerearth. These terrible convulsions of nature time and time again wipedout the existing species--but for this fact some monster of theSaurozoic epoch might rule today upon our own world. We see here whatmight well have occurred in our own history had conditions been whatthey have been here. 

"Life within Pellucidar is far younger than upon the outer crust. Hereman has but reached a stage analogous to the Stone Age of our ownworld's history, but for countless millions of years these reptileshave been progressing. Possibly it is the sixth sense which I am surethey possess that has given them an advantage over the other and morefrightfully armed of their fellows; but this we may never know. Theylook upon us as we look upon the beasts of our fields, and I learn fromtheir written records that other races of Mahars feed upon men--theykeep them in great droves, as we keep cattle. They breed them mostcarefully, and when they are quite fat, they kill and eat them. "

I shuddered. 

"What is there horrible about it, David?" the old man asked. "Theyunderstand us no better than we understand the lower animals of our ownworld. Why, I have come across here very learned discussions of thequestion as to whether gilaks, that is men, have any means ofcommunication. One writer claims that we do not even reason--that ourevery act is mechanical, or instinctive. The dominant race ofPellucidar, David, have not yet learned that men converse amongthemselves, or reason. Because we do not converse as they do it isbeyond them to imagine that we converse at all. It is thus that wereason in relation to the brutes of our own world. They know that theSagoths have a spoken language, but they cannot comprehend it, or howit manifests itself, since they have no auditory apparatus. Theybelieve that the motions of the lips alone convey the meaning. Thatthe Sagoths can communicate with us is incomprehensible to them. 

"Yes, David, " he concluded, "it would entail murder to carry out yourplan. "

"Very well then, Perry. " I replied. "I shall become a murderer. "

He got me to go over the plan again most carefully, and for some reasonwhich was not at the time clear to me insisted upon a very carefuldescription of the apartments and corridors I had just explored. 

"I wonder, David, " he said at length, "as you are determined to carryout your wild scheme, if we could not accomplish something of very realand lasting benefit for the human race of Pellucidar at the same time. Listen, I have learned much of a most surprising nature from thesearchives of the Mahars. That you may not appreciate my plan I shallbriefly outline the history of the race. 

"Once the males were all-powerful, but ages ago the females, little bylittle, assumed the mastery. For other ages no noticeable change tookplace in the race of Mahars. It continued to progress under theintelligent and beneficent rule of the ladies. Science took vaststrides. This was especially true of the sciences which we know asbiology and eugenics. Finally a certain female scientist announced thefact that she had discovered a method whereby eggs might be fertilizedby chemical means after they were laid--all true reptiles, you know, are hatched from eggs. 

"What happened? Immediately the necessity for males ceased toexist--the race was no longer dependent upon them. More ages elapseduntil at the present time we find a race consisting exclusively offemales. But here is the point. The secret of this chemical formulais kept by a single race of Mahars. It is in the city of Phutra, andunless I am greatly in error I judge from your description of thevaults through which you passed today that it lies hidden in the cellarof this building. 

"For two reasons they hide it away and guard it jealously. First, because upon it depends the very life of the race of Mahars, andsecond, owing to the fact that when it was public property as at firstso many were experimenting with it that the danger of over-populationbecame very grave. 

"David, if we can escape, and at the same time take with us this greatsecret what will we not have accomplished for the human race withinPellucidar!" The very thought of it fairly overpowered me. Why, we twowould be the means of placing the men of the inner world in theirrightful place among created things. Only the Sagoths would then standbetween them and absolute supremacy, and I was not quite sure but thatthe Sagoths owed all their power to the greater intelligence of theMahars--I could not believe that these gorilla-like beasts were themental superiors of the human race of Pellucidar. 

"Why, Perry, " I exclaimed, "you and I may reclaim a whole world!Together we can lead the races of men out of the darkness of ignoranceinto the light of advancement and civilization. At one step we maycarry them from the Age of Stone to the twentieth century. It'smarvelous--absolutely marvelous just to think about it. "

"David, " said the old man, "I believe that God sent us here for justthat purpose--it shall be my life work to teach them His word--to leadthem into the light of His mercy while we are training their hearts andhands in the ways of culture and civilization. "

"You are right, Perry, " I said, "and while you are teaching them topray I'll be teaching them to fight, and between us we'll make a raceof men that will be an honor to us both. "

Ghak had entered the apartment some time before we concluded ourconversation, 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 onlyexplained 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 differentreason. The Hairy One only considered the horrible fate that would beours were we discovered; but at last I prevailed upon him to accept myplan as the only feasible one, and when I had assured him that I wouldtake all the responsibility for it were we captured, he accorded areluctant assent. 

VI

THE BEGINNING OF HORROR

WITHIN PELLUCIDAR ONE TIME IS AS GOOD AS ANOTHER. There were no nightsto mask our attempted escape. All must be done in broad daylight--allbut the work I had to do in the apartment beneath the building. So wedetermined to put our plan to an immediate test lest the Mahars whomade it possible should awake before I reached them; but we were doomedto disappointment, for no sooner had we reached the main floor of thebuilding on our way to the pits beneath, than we encountered hurryingbands of slaves being hastened under strong Sagoth guard out of theedifice to the avenue beyond. 

Other Sagoths were darting hither and thither in search of otherslaves, and the moment that we appeared we were pounced upon andhustled into the line of marching humans. 

What the purpose or nature of the general exodus we did not know, butpresently through the line of captives ran the rumor that two escapedslaves had been recaptured--a man and a woman--and that we weremarching to witness their punishment, for the man had killed a Sagothof the detachment that had pursued and overtaken them. 

At the intelligence my heart sprang to my throat, for I was sure thatthe two were of those who escaped in the dark grotto with Hooja the SlyOne, and that Dian must be the woman. Ghak thought so too, as didPerry. 

"Is there naught that we may do to save her?" I asked Ghak. 

"Naught, " he replied. 

Along the crowded avenue we marched, the guards showing unusual crueltytoward us, as though we, too, had been implicated in the murder oftheir fellow. The occasion was to serve as an object-lesson to allother slaves of the danger and futility of attempted escape, and thefatal consequences of taking the life of a superior being, and so Iimagine that Sagoths felt amply justified in making the entireproceeding as uncomfortable and painful to us as possible. 

They jabbed us with their spears and struck at us with the hatchets atthe least provocation, and at no provocation at all. It was a mostuncomfortable half-hour that we spent before we were finally herdedthrough a low entrance into a huge building the center of which wasgiven up to a good-sized arena. Benches surrounded this open spaceupon three sides, and along the fourth were heaped huge bowlders whichrose in receding tiers toward the roof. 

At first I couldn't make out the purpose of this mighty pile of rock, unless it were intended as a rough and picturesque background for thescenes which were enacted in the arena before it, but presently, afterthe wooden benches had been pretty well filled by slaves and Sagoths, Idiscovered the purpose of the bowlders, for then the Mahars began tofile into the enclosure. 

They marched directly across the arena toward the rocks upon theopposite side, where, spreading their bat-like wings, they rose abovethe high wall of the pit, settling down upon the bowlders above. Thesewere the reserved seats, the boxes of the elect. 

Reptiles that they are, the rough surface of a great stone is to themas plush as upholstery to us. Here they lolled, blinking their hideouseyes, and doubtless conversing with one another in theirsixth-sense-fourth-dimension language. 

For the first time I beheld their queen. She differed from the othersin no feature that was appreciable to my earthly eyes, in fact allMahars look alike to me: but when she crossed the arena after thebalance of her female subjects had found their bowlders, she waspreceded by a score of huge Sagoths, the largest I ever had seen, andon either side of her waddled a huge thipdar, while behind came anotherscore of Sagoth guardsmen. 

At the barrier the Sagoths clambered up the steep side with trulyapelike agility, while behind them the haughty queen rose upon herwings with her two frightful dragons close beside her, and settled downupon the largest bowlder of them all in the exact center of that sideof the amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant race. Here shesquatted, a most repulsive and uninteresting queen; though doubtlessquite as well assured of her beauty and divine right to rule as theproudest monarch of the outer world. 

And then the music started--music without sound! The Mahars cannothear, so the drums and fifes and horns of earthly bands are unknownamong them. The "band" consists of a score or more Mahars. It filedout in the center of the arena where the creatures upon the rocks mightsee it, and there it performed for fifteen or twenty minutes. 

Their technic consisted in waving their tails and moving their heads ina regular succession of measured movements resulting in a cadence whichevidently pleased the eye of the Mahar as the cadence of our owninstrumental music pleases our ears. Sometimes the band took measuredsteps in unison to one side or the other, or backward and againforward--it all seemed very silly and meaningless to me, but at the endof the first piece the Mahars upon the rocks showed the firstindications of enthusiasm that I had seen displayed by the dominantrace of Pellucidar. They beat their great wings up and down, and smotetheir rocky perches with their mighty tails until the ground shook. Then the band started another piece, and all was again as silent as thegrave. That was one great beauty about Mahar music--if you didn'thappen to like a piece that was being played all you had to do was shutyour eyes. 

When the band had exhausted its repertory it took wing and settled uponthe rocks above and behind the queen. Then the business of the day wason. A man and woman were pushed into the arena by a couple of Sagothguardsmen. I leaned forward in my seat to scrutinize thefemale--hoping against hope that she might prove to be another thanDian the Beautiful. Her back was toward me for a while, and the sightof the great mass of raven hair piled high upon her head filled me withalarm. 

Presently a door in one side of the arena wall was opened to admit ahuge, shaggy, bull-like creature. 

"A Bos, " whispered Perry, excitedly. "His kind roamed the outer crustwith the cave bear and the mammoth ages and ages ago. We have beencarried back a million years, David, to the childhood of a planet--isit not wondrous?"

But I saw only the raven hair of a half-naked girl, and my heart stoodstill in dumb misery at the sight of her, nor had I any eyes for thewonders of natural history. But for Perry and Ghak I should haveleaped to the floor of the arena and shared whatever fate lay in storefor this priceless treasure of the Stone Age. 

With the advent of the Bos--they call the thing a thag withinPellucidar--two spears were tossed into the arena at the feet of theprisoners. It seemed to me that a bean shooter would have been aseffective against the mighty monster as these pitiful weapons. 

As the animal approached the two, bellowing and pawing the ground withthe strength of many earthly bulls, another door directly beneath uswas opened, and from it issued the most terrific roar that ever hadfallen upon my outraged ears. I could not at first see the beast fromwhich emanated this fearsome challenge, but the sound had the effect ofbringing the two victims around with a sudden start, and then I saw thegirl's face--she was not Dian! I could have wept for relief. 

And now, as the two stood frozen in terror, I saw the author of thatfearsome sound creeping stealthily into view. It was a hugetiger--such as hunted the great Bos through the jungles primeval whenthe world was young. In contour and markings it was not unlike thenoblest of the Bengals of our own world, but as its dimensions wereexaggerated to colossal proportions so too were its coloringsexaggerated. Its vivid yellows fairly screamed aloud; its whites wereas eider down; its blacks glossy as the finest anthracite coal, and itscoat long and shaggy as a mountain goat. That it is a beautiful animalthere is no gainsaying, but if its size and colors are magnified herewithin Pellucidar, so is the ferocity of its disposition. It is notthe occasional member of its species that is a man hunter--all are manhunters; but they do not confine their foraging to man alone, for thereis no flesh or fish within Pellucidar that they will not eat withrelish in the constant efforts which they make to furnish their hugecarcasses with sufficient sustenance to maintain their mighty thews. 

Upon one side of the doomed pair the thag bellowed and advanced, andupon the other tarag, the frightful, crept toward them with gapingmouth and dripping fangs. 

The man seized the spears, handing one of them to the woman. At thesound of the roaring of the tiger the bull's bellowing became averitable frenzy of rageful noise. Never in my life had I heard suchan infernal din as the two brutes made, and to think it was all lostupon the hideous reptiles for whom the show was staged!

The thag was charging now from one side, and the tarag from the other. The two puny things standing between them seemed already lost, but atthe very moment that the beasts were upon them the man grasped hiscompanion by the arm and together they leaped to one side, while thefrenzied creatures came together like locomotives in collision. 

There ensued a battle royal which for sustained and frightful ferocitytranscends the power of imagination or description. Time and again thecolossal bull tossed the enormous tiger high into the air, but eachtime that the huge cat touched the ground he returned to the encounterwith apparently undiminished strength, and seemingly increased ire. 

For a while the man and woman busied themselves only with keeping outof the way of the two creatures, but finally I saw them separate andeach creep stealthily toward one of the combatants. The tiger was nowupon the bull's broad back, clinging to the huge neck with powerfulfangs while its long, strong talons ripped the heavy hide into shredsand ribbons. 

For a moment the bull stood bellowing and quivering with pain and rage, its cloven hoofs widespread, its tail lashing viciously from side toside, and then, in a mad orgy of bucking it went careening about thearena in frenzied attempt to unseat its rending rider. It was withdifficulty that the girl avoided the first mad rush of the woundedanimal. 

All its efforts to rid itself of the tiger seemed futile, until indesperation it threw itself upon the ground, rolling over and over. Alittle of this so disconcerted the tiger, knocking its breath from it Iimagine, that it lost its hold and then, quick as a cat, the great thagwas up again and had buried those mighty horns deep in the tarag'sabdomen, pinning him to the floor of the arena. 

The great cat clawed at the shaggy head until eyes and ears were gone, and naught but a few strips of ragged, bloody flesh remained upon theskull. Yet through all the agony of that fearful punishment the thagstill stood motionless pinning down his adversary, and then the manleaped in, seeing that the blind bull would be the least formidableenemy, and ran his spear through the tarag's heart. 

As the animal's fierce clawing ceased, the bull raised his gory, sightless head, and with a horrid roar ran headlong across the arena. With great leaps and bounds he came, straight toward the arena walldirectly beneath where we sat, and then accident carried him, in one ofhis mighty springs, completely over the barrier into the midst of theslaves and Sagoths just in front of us. Swinging his bloody horns fromside to side the beast cut a wide swath before him straight upwardtoward our seats. Before him slaves and gorilla-men fought in madstampede to escape the menace of the creature's death agonies, for suchonly could that frightful charge have been. 

Forgetful of us, our guards joined in the general rush for the exits, many of which pierced the wall of the amphitheater behind us. Perry, Ghak, and I became separated in the chaos which reigned for a fewmoments after the beast cleared the wall of the arena, each intent uponsaving his own hide. 

I ran to the right, passing several exits choked with the fear mad mobthat were battling to escape. One would have thought that an entireherd of thags was loose behind them, rather than a single blinded, dying beast; but such is the effect of panic upon a crowd. 

VII

FREEDOM

ONCE OUT OF THE DIRECT PATH OF THE ANIMAL, fear of it left me, butanother emotion as quickly gripped me--hope of escape that thedemoralized condition of the guards made possible for the instant. 

I thought of Perry, but for the hope that I might better encompass hisrelease if myself free I should have put the thought of freedom from meat once. As it was I hastened on toward the right searching for anexit toward which no Sagoths were fleeing, and at last I found it--alow, narrow aperture leading into a dark corridor. 

Without thought of the possible consequence, I darted into the shadowsof the tunnel, feeling my way along through the gloom for somedistance. The noises of the amphitheater had grown fainter and fainteruntil now all was as silent as the tomb about me. Faint light filteredfrom above through occasional ventilating and lighting tubes, but itwas scarce sufficient to enable my human eyes to cope with thedarkness, and so I was forced to move with extreme care, feeling my wayalong step by step with a hand upon the wall beside me. 

Presently the light increased and a moment later, to my delight, I cameupon a flight of steps leading upward, at the top of which thebrilliant light of the noonday sun shone through an opening in theground. 

Cautiously I crept up the stairway to the tunnel's end, and peering outsaw the broad plain of Phutra before me. The numerous lofty, granitetowers which mark the several entrances to the subterranean city wereall in front of me--behind, the plain stretched level and unbroken tothe nearby foothills. I had come to the surface, then, beyond thecity, and my chances for escape seemed much enhanced. 

My first impulse was to await darkness before attempting to cross theplain, so deeply implanted are habits of thought; but of a sudden Irecollected the perpetual noonday brilliance which envelopesPellucidar, and with a smile I stepped forth into the daylight. 

Rank grass, waist high, grows upon the plain of Phutra--the gorgeousflowering grass of the inner world, each particular blade of which istipped with a tiny, five-pointed blossom--brilliant little stars ofvarying colors that twinkle in the green foliage to add still anothercharm to the weird, yet lovely, landscape. 

But then the only aspect which attracted me was the distant hills inwhich I hoped to find sanctuary, and so I hastened on, trampling themyriad beauties beneath my hurrying feet. Perry says that the force ofgravity is less upon the surface of the inner world than upon that ofthe outer. He explained it all to me once, but I was neverparticularly brilliant in such matters and so most of it has escapedme. As I recall it the difference is due in some part to thecounter-attraction of that portion of the earth's crust directlyopposite the spot upon the face of Pellucidar at which one'scalculations are being made. Be that as it may, it always seemed to methat I moved with greater speed and agility within Pellucidar than uponthe outer surface--there was a certain airy lightness of step that wasmost pleasing, and a feeling of bodily detachment which I can onlycompare with that occasionally experienced in dreams. 

And as I crossed Phutra's flower-bespangled plain that time I seemedalmost to fly, though how much of the sensation was due to Perry'ssuggestion and how much to actuality I am sure I do not know. The moreI 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 manshared it with me, and only the hope that I might find some way toencompass his release kept me from turning back to Phutra. 

Just how I was to help Perry I could scarce imagine, but I hoped thatsome fortuitous circumstance might solve the problem for me. It wasquite evident however that little less than a miracle could aid me, forwhat could I accomplish in this strange world, naked and unarmed? Itwas even doubtful that I could retrace my steps to Phutra should I oncepass beyond view of the plain, and even were that possible, what aidcould I bring to Perry no matter how far I wandered?

The case looked more and more hopeless the longer I viewed it, yet witha stubborn persistency I forged ahead toward the foothills. Behind meno sign of pursuit developed, before me I saw no living thing. It wasas though I moved through a dead and forgotten world. 

I have no idea, of course, how long it took me to reach the limit ofthe plain, but at last I entered the foothills, following a prettylittle canyon upward toward the mountains. Beside me frolicked alaughing brooklet, hurrying upon its noisy way down to the silent sea. In its quieter pools I discovered many small fish, of four-orfive-pound weight I should imagine. In appearance, except as to sizeand color, they were not unlike the whale of our own seas. As Iwatched them playing about I discovered, not only that they suckledtheir young, but that at intervals they rose to the surface to breatheas well as to feed upon certain grasses and a strange, scarlet lichenwhich grew upon the rocks just above the water line. 

It was this last habit that gave me the opportunity I craved to captureone of these herbivorous cetaceans--that is what Perry calls them--andmake as good a meal as one can on raw, warm-blooded fish; but I hadbecome rather used, by this time, to the eating of food in its naturalstate, though I still balked on the eyes and entrails, much to theamusement of Ghak, to whom I always passed these delicacies. 

Crouching beside the brook, I waited until one of the diminutive purplewhales rose to nibble at the long grasses which overhung the water, andthen, like the beast of prey that man really is, I sprang upon myvictim, appeasing my hunger while he yet wriggled to escape. 

Then I drank from the clear pool, and after washing my hands and facecontinued my flight. Above the source of the brook I encountered arugged climb to the summit of a long ridge. Beyond was a steepdeclivity to the shore of a placid, inland sea, upon the quiet surfaceof which lay several beautiful islands. 

The view was charming in the extreme, and as no man or beast was to beseen that might threaten my new-found liberty, I slid over the edge ofthe bluff, and half sliding, half falling, dropped into the delightfulvalley, the very aspect of which seemed to offer a haven of peace andsecurity. 

The gently sloping beach along which I walked was thickly strewn withstrangely shaped, colored shells; some empty, others still housing asvaried a multitude of mollusks as ever might have drawn out theirsluggish lives along the silent shores of the antediluvian seas of theouter crust. As I walked I could not but compare myself with the firstman of that other world, so complete the solitude which surrounded me, so primal and untouched the virgin wonders and beauties of adolescentnature. I felt myself a second Adam wending my lonely way through thechildhood of a world, searching for my Eve, and at the thought thererose before my mind's eye the exquisite outlines of a perfect facesurmounted by a loose pile of wondrous, raven hair. 

As I walked, my eyes were bent upon the beach so that it was not untilI had come quite upon it that I discovered that which shattered all mybeautiful dream of solitude and safety and peace and primaloverlordship. The thing was a hollowed log drawn upon the sands, andin the bottom of it lay a crude paddle. 

The rude shock of awakening to what doubtless might prove some new formof danger was still upon me when I heard a rattling of loose stonesfrom the direction of the bluff, and turning my eyes in that directionI beheld the author of the disturbance, a great copper-colored man, running rapidly toward me. 

There was that in the haste with which he came which seemed quitesufficiently menacing, so that I did not need the added evidence ofbrandishing spear and scowling face to warn me that I was in no safeposition, but whither to flee was indeed a momentous question. 

The speed of the fellow seemed to preclude the possibility of escapinghim upon the open beach. There was but a single alternative--the rudeskiff--and with a celerity which equaled his, I pushed the thing intothe sea and as it floated gave a final shove and clambered in over theend. 

A cry of rage rose from the owner of the primitive craft, and aninstant later his heavy, stone-tipped spear grazed my shoulder andburied itself in the bow of the boat beyond. Then I grasped thepaddle, and with feverish haste urged the awkward, wobbly thing outupon the surface of the sea. 

A glance over my shoulder showed me that the copper-colored one hadplunged in after me and was swimming rapidly in pursuit. His mightystrokes 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 tofollow, so that fully half my energy was expended in turning its bluntprow back into the course. 

I had covered some hundred yards from shore when it became evident thatmy pursuer must grasp the stern of the skiff within the next half-dozenstrokes. In a frenzy of despair, I bent to the grandfather of allpaddles in a hopeless effort to escape, and still the copper giantbehind me gained and gained. 

His hand was reaching upward for the stern when I saw a sleek, sinuousbody shoot from the depths below. The man saw it too, and the look ofterror that overspread his face assured me that I need have no furtherconcern as to him, for the fear of certain death was in his look. 

And then about him coiled the great, slimy folds of a hideous monsterof that prehistoric deep--a mighty serpent of the sea, with fangedjaws, and darting forked tongue, with bulging eyes, and bonyprotuberances upon head and snout that formed short, stout horns. 

As I looked at that hopeless struggle my eyes met those of the doomedman, and I could have sworn that in his I saw an expression of hopelessappeal. But whether I did or not there swept through me a suddencompassion for the fellow. He was indeed a brother-man, and that hemight have killed me with pleasure had he caught me was forgotten inthe extremity of his danger. 

Unconsciously I had ceased paddling as the serpent rose to engage mypursuer, so now the skiff still drifted close beside the two. Themonster seemed to be but playing with his victim before he closed hisawful jaws upon him and dragged him down to his dark den beneath thesurface to devour him. The huge, snakelike body coiled and uncoiledabout its prey. The hideous, gaping jaws snapped in the victim's face. The forked tongue, lightning-like, ran in and out upon the copper skin. 

Nobly the giant battled for his life, beating with his stone hatchetagainst the bony armor that covered that frightful carcass; but for allthe damage he inflicted he might as well have struck with his open palm. 

At last I could endure no longer to sit supinely by while a fellowmanwas dragged down to a horrible death by that repulsive reptile. Embedded in the prow of the skiff lay the spear that had been castafter me by him whom I suddenly desired to save. With a wrench I toreit loose, and standing upright in the wobbly log drove it with all thestrength of my two arms straight into the gaping jaws of thehydrophidian. 

With a loud hiss the creature abandoned its prey to turn upon me, butthe spear, imbedded in its throat, prevented it from seizing me thoughit came near to overturning the skiff in its mad efforts to reach me. 

VIII

THE MAHAR TEMPLE

THE ABORIGINE, APPARENTLY UNINJURED, CLIMBED quickly into the skiff, and seizing the spear with me helped to hold off the infuriatedcreature. Blood from the wounded reptile was now crimsoning the watersabout us and soon from the weakening struggles it became evident that Ihad inflicted a death wound upon it. Presently its efforts to reach usceased entirely, and with a few convulsive movements it turned upon itsback quite dead. 

And then there came to me a sudden realization of the predicament inwhich I had placed myself. I was entirely within the power of thesavage man whose skiff I had stolen. Still clinging to the spear Ilooked into his face to find him scrutinizing me intently, and there westood for some several minutes, each clinging tenaciously to the weaponthe while we gazed in stupid wonderment at each other. 

What was in his mind I do not know, but in my own was merely thequestion as to how soon the fellow would recommence hostilities. 

Presently he spoke to me, but in a tongue which I was unable totranslate. I shook my head in an effort to indicate my ignorance ofhis language, at the same time addressing him in the bastard tonguethat the Sagoths use to converse with the human slaves of the Mahars. 

To my delight he understood and answered me in the same jargon. 

"What do you want of my spear?" he asked. 

"Only to keep you from running it through me, " I replied. 

"I would not do that, " he said, "for you have just saved my life, " andwith that he released his hold upon it and squatted down in the bottomof the skiff. 

"Who are you, " he continued, "and from what country do you come?"

I too sat down, laying the spear between us, and tried to explain how Icame to Pellucidar, and wherefrom, but it was as impossible for him tograsp or believe the strange tale I told him as I fear it is for youupon the outer crust to believe in the existence of the inner world. To him it seemed quite ridiculous to imagine that there was anotherworld far beneath his feet peopled by beings similar to himself, and helaughed uproariously the more he thought upon it. But it was everthus. That which has never come within the scope of our reallypitifully meager world-experience cannot be--our finite minds cannotgrasp that which may not exist in accordance with the conditions whichobtain about us upon the outside of the insignificant grain of dustwhich wends its tiny way among the bowlders of the universe--the speckof moist dirt we so proudly call the World. 

So I gave it up and asked him about himself. He said he was a Mezop, and that his name was Ja. 

"Who are the Mezops?" I asked. "Where do they live?"

He looked at me in surprise. 

"I might indeed believe that you were from another world, " he said, "for who of Pellucidar could be so ignorant! The Mezops live upon theislands of the seas. In so far as I ever have heard no Mezop liveselsewhere, and no others than Mezops dwell upon islands, but of courseit may be different in other far-distant lands. I do not know. At anyrate in this sea and those near by it is true that only people of myrace inhabit the islands. 

"We are fishermen, though we be great hunters as well, often going tothe mainland in search of the game that is scarce upon all but thelarger islands. And we are warriors also, " he added proudly. "Eventhe 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 menof Pellucidar, it is handed down from father to son among us that thisis so; but we fought so desperately and slew so many Sagoths, and thoseof us that were captured killed so many Mahars in their own cities thatat last they learned that it were better to leave us alone, and latercame the time that the Mahars became too indolent even to catch theirown fish, except for amusement, and then they needed us to supply theirwants, and so a truce was made between the races. Now they give uscertain things which we are unable to produce in return for the fishthat we catch, and the Mezops and the Mahars live in peace. 

"The great ones even come to our islands. It is there, far from theprying eyes of their own Sagoths, that they practice their religiousrites in the temples they have builded there with our assistance. Ifyou live among us you will doubtless see the manner of their worship, which is strange indeed, and most unpleasant for the poor slaves theybring to take part in it. "

As Ja talked I had an excellent opportunity to inspect him moreclosely. He was a huge fellow, standing I should say six feet six orseven inches, well developed and of a coppery red not unlike that ofour own North American Indian, nor were his features dissimilar totheirs. He had the aquiline nose found among many of the highertribes, the prominent cheek bones, and black hair and eyes, but hismouth and lips were better molded. All in all, Ja was an impressiveand handsome creature, and he talked well too, even in the miserablemakeshift language we were compelled to use. 

During our conversation Ja had taken the paddle and was propelling theskiff with vigorous strokes toward a large island that lay somehalf-mile from the mainland. The skill with which he handled his crudeand awkward craft elicited my deepest admiration, since it had been soshort a time before that I had made such pitiful work of it. 

As we touched the pretty, level beach Ja leaped out and I followed him. Together we dragged the skiff far up into the bushes that grew beyondthe sand. 

"We must hide our canoes, " explained Ja, "for the Mezops of Luana arealways at war with us and would steal them if they found them, " henodded toward an island farther out at sea, and at so great a distancethat it seemed but a blur hanging in the distant sky. The upward curveof the surface of Pellucidar was constantly revealing the impossible tothe surprised eyes of the outer-earthly. To see land and water curvingupward in the distance until it seemed to stand on edge where it meltedinto the distant sky, and to feel that seas and mountains hungsuspended directly above one's head required such a complete reversalof the perceptive and reasoning faculties as almost to stupefy one. 

No sooner had we hidden the canoe than Ja plunged into the jungle, presently emerging into a narrow but well-defined trail which woundhither and thither much after the manner of the highways of allprimitive folk, but there was one peculiarity about this Mezop trailwhich I was later to find distinguished them from all other trails thatI ever have seen within or without the earth. 

It would run on, plain and clear and well defined to end suddenly inthe midst of a tangle of matted jungle, then Ja would turn directlyback in his tracks for a little distance, spring into a tree, climbthrough it to the other side, drop onto a fallen log, leap over a lowbush and alight once more upon a distinct trail which he would followback for a short distance only to turn directly about and retrace hissteps until after a mile or less this new pathway ended as suddenly andmysteriously as the former section. Then he would pass again acrosssome media which would reveal no spoor, to take up the broken thread ofthe trail beyond. 

As the purpose of this remarkable avenue dawned upon me I could not butadmire the native shrewdness of the ancient progenitor of the Mezopswho hit upon this novel plan to throw his enemies from his track anddelay or thwart them in their attempts to follow him to his deep-buriedcities. 

To you of the outer earth it might seem a slow and tortuous method oftraveling through the jungle, but were you of Pellucidar you wouldrealize that time is no factor where time does not exist. Solabyrinthine are the windings of these trails, so varied the connectinglinks and the distances which one must retrace one's steps from thepaths' ends to find them that a Mezop often reaches man's estate beforehe is familiar even with those which lead from his own city to the sea. 

In fact three-fourths of the education of the young male Mezop consistsin familiarizing himself with these jungle avenues, and the status ofan adult is largely determined by the number of trails which he canfollow upon his own island. The females never learn them, since frombirth to death they never leave the clearing in which the village oftheir nativity is situated except they be taken to mate by a male fromanother village, or captured in war by the enemies of their tribe. 

After proceeding through the jungle for what must have been upward offive miles we emerged suddenly into a large clearing in the exactcenter of which stood as strange an appearing village as one might wellimagine. 

Large trees had been chopped down fifteen or twenty feet above theground, and upon the tops of them spherical habitations of woven twigs, mud covered, had been built. Each ball-like house was surmounted bysome manner of carven image, which Ja told me indicated the identity ofthe owner. 

Horizontal slits, six inches high and two or three feet wide, served toadmit light and ventilation. The entrances to the house were throughsmall apertures in the bases of the trees and thence upward by rudeladders through the hollow trunks to the rooms above. The housesvaried in size from two to several rooms. The largest that I enteredwas divided into two floors and eight apartments. 

All about the village, between it and the jungle, lay beautifullycultivated fields in which the Mezops raised such cereals, fruits, andvegetables as they required. Women and children were working in thesegardens as we crossed toward the village. At sight of Ja they saluteddeferentially, but to me they paid not the slightest attention. Amongthem and about the outer verge of the cultivated area were manywarriors. These too saluted Ja, by touching the points of their spearsto the ground directly before them. 

Ja conducted me to a large house in the center of the village--thehouse with eight rooms--and taking me up into it gave me food anddrink. There I met his mate, a comely girl with a nursing baby in herarms. Ja told her of how I had saved his life, and she was thereaftermost kind and hospitable toward me, even permitting me to hold andamuse the tiny bundle of humanity whom Ja told me would one day rulethe tribe, for Ja, it seemed, was the chief of the community. 

We had eaten and rested, and I had slept, much to Ja's amusement, forit seemed that he seldom if ever did so, and then the red man proposedthat I accompany him to the temple of the Mahars which lay not far fromhis village. "We are not supposed to visit it, " he said; "but thegreat ones cannot hear and if we keep well out of sight they need neverknow 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 continueto maintain the amicable relations which exist between the two races;otherwise I should like nothing better than to lead my warriors amongstthe hideous creatures and exterminate them--Pellucidar would be abetter place to live were there none of them. "

I wholly concurred in Ja's belief, but it seemed that it might be adifficult matter to exterminate the dominant race of Pellucidar. Thusconversing we followed the intricate trail toward the temple, which wecame upon in a small clearing surrounded by enormous trees similar tothose which must have flourished upon the outer crust during thecarboniferous age. 

Here was a mighty temple of hewn rock built in the shape of a roughoval with rounded roof in which were several large openings. No doorsor windows were visible in the sides of the structure, nor was thereneed of any, except one entrance for the slaves, since, as Jaexplained, the Mahars flew to and from their place of ceremonial, entering and leaving the building by means of the apertures in the roof. 

"But, " added Ja, "there is an entrance near the base of which even theMahars know nothing. Come, " and he led me across the clearing andabout the end to a pile of loose rock which lay against the foot of thewall. Here he removed a couple of large bowlders, revealing a smallopening which led straight within the building, or so it seemed, thoughas I entered after Ja I discovered myself in a narrow place of extremedarkness. 

"We are within the outer wall, " said Ja. "It is hollow. Follow meclosely. "

The red man groped ahead a few paces and then began to ascend aprimitive ladder similar to that which leads from the ground to theupper stories of his house. We ascended for some forty feet when theinterior of the space between the walls commenced to grow lighter andpresently we came opposite an opening in the inner wall which gave usan unobstructed view of the entire interior of the temple. 

The lower floor was an enormous tank of clear water in which numeroushideous Mahars swam lazily up and down. Artificial islands of graniterock dotted this artificial sea, and upon several of them I saw men andwomen like myself. 

"What are the human beings doing here?" I asked. 

"Wait and you shall see, " replied Ja. "They are to take a leading partin the ceremonies which will follow the advent of the queen. You maybe thankful that you are not upon the same side of the wall as they. "

Scarcely had he spoken than we heard a great fluttering of wings aboveand a moment later a long procession of the frightful reptiles ofPellucidar winged slowly and majestically through the large centralopening in the roof and circled in stately manner about the temple. 

There were several Mahars first, and then at least twenty awe-inspiringpterodactyls--thipdars, they are called within Pellucidar. Behindthese came the queen, flanked by other thipdars as she had been whenshe entered the amphitheater at Phutra. 

Three times they wheeled about the interior of the oval chamber, tosettle finally upon the damp, cold bowlders that fringe the outer edgeof the pool. In the center of one side the largest rock was reservedfor the queen, and here she took her place surrounded by her terribleguard. 

All lay quiet for several minutes after settling to their places. Onemight have imagined them in silent prayer. The poor slaves upon thediminutive islands watched the horrid creatures with wide eyes. Themen, 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 menof Pellucidar, and if our progenitors were as they, the human race ofthe outer crust has deteriorated rather than improved with the march ofthe ages. All they lack is opportunity. We have opportunity, andlittle else. 

Now the queen moved. She raised her ugly head, looking about; thenvery slowly she crawled to the edge of her throne and slid noiselesslyinto the water. Up and down the long tank she swam, turning at theends as you have seen captive seals turn in their tiny tanks, turningupon their backs and diving below the surface. 

Nearer and nearer to the island she came until at last she remained atrest before the largest, which was directly opposite her throne. Raising her hideous head from the water she fixed her great, round eyesupon the slaves. They were fat and sleek, for they had been broughtfrom a distant Mahar city where human beings are kept in droves, andbred and fattened, as we breed and fatten beef cattle. 

The queen fixed her gaze upon a plump young maiden. Her victim triedto turn away, hiding her face in her hands and kneeling behind a woman;but the reptile, with unblinking eyes, stared on with such fixity thatI could have sworn her vision penetrated the woman, and the girl's armsto reach at last the very center of her brain. 

Slowly the reptile's head commenced to move to and fro, but the eyesnever ceased to bore toward the frightened girl, and then the victimresponded. She turned wide, fear-haunted eyes toward the Mahar queen, slowly she rose to her feet, and then as though dragged by some unseenpower she moved as one in a trance straight toward the reptile, herglassy eyes fixed upon those of her captor. To the water's edge shecame, nor did she even pause, but stepped into the shallows beside thelittle island. On she moved toward the Mahar, who now slowly retreatedas 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 wasat her waist; now her armpits. Her fellows upon the island looked onin horror, helpless to avert her doom in which they saw a forecast oftheir own. 

The Mahar sank now till only the long upper bill and eyes were exposedabove the surface of the water, and the girl had advanced until the endof that repulsive beak was but an inch or two from her face, herhorror-filled eyes riveted upon those of the reptile. 

Now the water passed above the girl's mouth and nose--her eyes andforehead all that showed--yet still she walked on after the retreatingMahar. The queen's head slowly disappeared beneath the surface andafter it went the eyes of her victim--only a slow ripple widened towardthe shores to mark where the two vanished. 

For a time all was silence within the temple. The slaves weremotionless in terror. The Mahars watched the surface of the water forthe reappearance of their queen, and presently at one end of the tankher head rose slowly into view. She was backing toward the surface, her eyes fixed before her as they had been when she dragged thehelpless girl to her doom. 

And then to my utter amazement I saw the forehead and eyes of themaiden come slowly out of the depths, following the gaze of the reptilejust as when she had disappeared beneath the surface. On and on camethe girl until she stood in water that reached barely to her knees, andthough she had been beneath the surface sufficient time to have drownedher thrice over there was no indication, other than her dripping hairand glistening body, that she had been submerged at all. 

Again and again the queen led the girl into the depths and out again, until the uncanny weirdness of the thing got on my nerves so that Icould have leaped into the tank to the child's rescue had I not taken afirm hold of myself. 

Once they were below much longer than usual, and when they came to thesurface I was horrified to see that one of the girl's arms wasgone--gnawed completely off at the shoulder--but the poor thing gave noindication of realizing pain, only the horror in her set eyes seemedintensified. 

The next time they appeared the other arm was gone, and then thebreasts, and then a part of the face--it was awful. The poor creatureson the islands awaiting their fate tried to cover their eyes with theirhands to hide the fearful sight, but now I saw that they too were underthe hypnotic spell of the reptiles, so that they could only crouch interror with their eyes fixed upon the terrible thing that wastranspiring before them. 

Finally the queen was under much longer than ever before, and when sherose she came alone and swam sleepily toward her bowlder. The momentshe mounted it seemed to be the signal for the other Mahars to enterthe tank, and then commenced, upon a larger scale, a repetition of theuncanny performance through which the queen had led her victim. 

Only the women and children fell prey to the Mahars--they being theweakest and most tender--and when they had satisfied their appetite forhuman flesh, some of them devouring two and three of the slaves, therewere only a score of full-grown men left, and I thought that for somereason these were to be spared, but such was far from the case, for asthe last Mahar crawled to her rock the queen's thipdars darted into theair, circled the temple once and then, hissing like steam engines, swooped down upon the remaining slaves. 

There was no hypnotism here--just the plain, brutal ferocity of thebeast of prey, tearing, rending, and gulping its meat, but at that itwas less horrible than the uncanny method of the Mahars. By the timethe thipdars had disposed of the last of the slaves the Mahars were allasleep upon their rocks, and a moment later the great pterodactylsswung back to their posts beside the queen, and themselves dropped intoslumber. 

"I thought the Mahars seldom, if ever, slept, " I said to Ja. 

"They do many things in this temple which they do not do elsewhere, " hereplied. "The Mahars of Phutra are not supposed to eat human flesh, yet slaves are brought here by thousands and almost always you willfind Mahars on hand to consume them. I imagine that they do not bringtheir Sagoths here, because they are ashamed of the practice, which issupposed to obtain only among the least advanced of their race; but Iwould wager my canoe against a broken paddle that there is no Mahar buteats human flesh whenever she can get it. "

"Why should they object to eating human flesh, " I asked, "if it is truethat they look upon us as lower animals?"

"It is not because they consider us their equals that they are supposedto look with abhorrence upon those who eat our flesh, " replied Ja; "itis merely that we are warm-blooded animals. They would not think ofeating the meat of a thag, which we consider such a delicacy, any morethan I would think of eating a snake. As a matter of fact it isdifficult to explain just why this sentiment should exist among them. "

"I wonder if they left a single victim, " I remarked, leaning far out ofthe opening in the rocky wall to inspect the temple better. Directlybelow me the water lapped the very side of the wall, there being abreak in the bowlders at this point as there was at several otherplaces about the side of the temple. 

My hands were resting upon a small piece of granite which formed a partof the wall, and all my weight upon it proved too much for it. Itslipped and I lunged forward. There was nothing to save myself and Iplunged headforemost into the water below. 

Fortunately the tank was deep at this point, and I suffered no injuryfrom the fall, but as I was rising to the surface my mind filled withthe horrors of my position as I thought of the terrible doom whichawaited me the moment the eyes of the reptiles fell upon the creaturethat had disturbed their slumber. 

As long as I could I remained beneath the surface, swimming rapidly inthe direction of the islands that I might prolong my life to theutmost. At last I was forced to rise for air, and as I cast aterrified glance in the direction of the Mahars and the thipdars I wasalmost stunned to see that not a single one remained upon the rockswhere I had last seen them, nor as I searched the temple with my eyescould I discern any within it. 

For a moment I was puzzled to account for the thing, until I realizedthat the reptiles, being deaf, could not have been disturbed by thenoise my body made when it hit the water, and that as there is no suchthing as time within Pellucidar there was no telling how long I hadbeen beneath the surface. It was a difficult thing to attempt tofigure out by earthly standards--this matter of elapsed time--but whenI set myself to it I began to realize that I might have been submergeda second or a month or not at all. You have no conception of thestrange contradictions and impossibilities which arise when all methodsof measuring time, as we know them upon earth, are non-existent. 

I was about to congratulate myself upon the miracle which had saved mefor the moment, when the memory of the hypnotic powers of the Maharsfilled me with apprehension lest they be practicing their uncanny artupon me to the end that I merely imagined that I was alone in thetemple. 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 wastrembling like a leaf--you cannot imagine the awful horror which eventhe simple thought of the repulsive Mahars of Pellucidar induces in thehuman mind, and to feel that you are in their power--that they arecrawling, slimy, and abhorrent, to drag you down beneath the waters anddevour you! It is frightful. 

But they did not come, and at last I came to the conclusion that I wasindeed alone within the temple. How long I should be alone was thenext question to assail me as I swam frantically about once more insearch of a means to escape. 

Several times I called to Ja, but he must have left after I tumbledinto the tank, for I received no response to my cries. Doubtless hehad felt as certain of my doom when he saw me topple from our hidingplace as I had, and lest he too should be discovered, had hastened fromthe temple and back to his village. 

I knew that there must be some entrance to the building beside thedoorways in the roof, for it did not seem reasonable to believe thatthe thousands of slaves which were brought here to feed the Mahars thehuman flesh they craved would all be carried through the air, and so Icontinued my search until at last it was rewarded by the discovery ofseveral loose granite blocks in the masonry at one end of the temple. 

A little effort proved sufficient to dislodge enough of these stones topermit me to crawl through into the clearing, and a moment later I hadscurried across the intervening space to the dense jungle beyond. 

Here I sank panting and trembling upon the matted grasses beneath thegiant trees, for I felt that I had escaped from the grinning fangs ofdeath out of the depths of my own grave. Whatever dangers lay hiddenin this island jungle, there could be none so fearsome as those which Ihad just escaped. I knew that I could meet death bravely enough if itbut came in the form of some familiar beast or man--anything other thanthe hideous and uncanny Mahars. 

IX

THE FACE OF DEATH

I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP FROM EXHAUSTION. When I awoke I was veryhungry, and after busying myself searching for fruit for a while, I setoff through the jungle to find the beach. I knew that the island wasnot so large but that I could easily find the sea if I did but move ina straight line, but there came the difficulty as there was no way inwhich I could direct my course and hold it, the sun, of course, beingalways directly above my head, and the trees so thickly set that Icould see no distant object which might serve to guide me in a straightline. 

As it was I must have walked for a great distance since I ate fourtimes 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 chancediscovery of a hidden canoe among the bushes through which I hadstumbled just prior to coming upon the beach. 

I can tell you that it did not take me long to pull that awkward craftdown to the water and shove it far out from shore. My experience withJa had taught me that if I were to steal another canoe I must be quickabout it and get far beyond the owner's reach as soon as possible. 

I must have come out upon the opposite side of the island from that atwhich 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 Isaw the mainland in the distance. At the sight of it I lost no time indirecting my course toward it, for I had long since made up my mind toreturn to Phutra and give myself up that I might be once more withPerry and Ghak the Hairy One. 

I felt that I was a fool ever to have attempted to escape alone, especially in view of the fact that our plans were already wellformulated to make a break for freedom together. Of course I realizedthat the chances of the success of our proposed venture were slimindeed, but I knew that I never could enjoy freedom without Perry solong as the old man lived, and I had learned that the probability thatI might find him was less than slight. 

Had Perry been dead, I should gladly have pitted my strength and witagainst the savage and primordial world in which I found myself. Icould have lived in seclusion within some rocky cave until I had foundthe means to outfit myself with the crude weapons of the Stone Age, andthen set out in search of her whose image had now become the constantcompanion of my waking hours, and the central and beloved figure of mydreams. 

But, to the best of my knowledge, Perry still lived and it was my dutyand wish to be again with him, that we might share the dangers andvicissitudes of the strange world we had discovered. And Ghak, too;the great, shaggy man had found a place in the hearts of us both, forhe was indeed every inch a man and king. Uncouth, perhaps, and brutal, too, if judged too harshly by the standards of effete twentieth-centurycivilization, but withal noble, dignified, chivalrous, and loveable. 

Chance carried me to the very beach upon which I had discovered Ja'scanoe, and a short time later I was scrambling up the steep bank toretrace my steps from the plain of Phutra. But my troubles came when Ientered the canyon beyond the summit, for here I found that several ofthem centered at the point where I crossed the divide, and which one Ihad traversed to reach the pass I could not for the life of me remember. 

It was all a matter of chance and so I set off down that which seemedthe easiest going, and in this I made the same mistake that many of usdo in selecting the path along which we shall follow out the course ofour lives, and again learned that it is not always best to follow theline of least resistance. 

By the time I had eaten eight meals and slept twice I was convincedthat I was upon the wrong trail, for between Phutra and the inland seaI had not slept at all, and had eaten but once. To retrace my steps tothe summit of the divide and explore another canyon seemed the onlysolution of my problem, but a sudden widening and levelness of thecanyon just before me seemed to suggest that it was about to open intoa level country, and with the lure of discovery strong upon me Idecided to proceed but a short distance farther before I turned back. 

The next turn of the canyon brought me to its mouth, and before me Isaw a narrow plain leading down to an ocean. At my right the side ofthe 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 abroad level beach. 

Clumps of strange trees dotted the landscape here and there almost tothe water, and rank grass and ferns grew between. From the nature ofthe vegetation I was convinced that the land between the ocean and thefoothills was swampy, though directly before me it seemed dry enoughall the way to the sandy strip along which the restless waters advancedand retreated. 

Curiosity prompted me to walk down to the beach, for the scene was verybeautiful. As I passed along beside the deep and tangled vegetation ofthe swamp I thought that I saw a movement of the ferns at my left, butthough I stopped a moment to look it was not repeated, and if anythinglay hid there my eyes could not penetrate the dense foliage to discernit. 

Presently I stood upon the beach looking out over the wide and lonelysea across whose forbidding bosom no human being had yet ventured, todiscover what strange and mysterious lands lay beyond, or what itsinvisible islands held of riches, wonders, or adventure. What savagefaces, what fierce and formidable beasts were this very instantwatching the lapping of the waves upon its farther shore! How far didit extend? Perry had told me that the seas of Pellucidar were small incomparison with those of the outer crust, but even so this great oceanmight stretch its broad expanse for thousands of miles. For countlessages it had rolled up and down its countless miles of shore, and yettoday it remained all unknown beyond the tiny strip that was visiblefrom its beaches. 

The fascination of speculation was strong upon me. It was as though Ihad been carried back to the birth time of our own outer world to lookupon its lands and seas ages before man had traversed either. Here wasa new world, all untouched. It called to me to explore it. I wasdreaming of the excitement and adventure which lay before us couldPerry and I but escape the Mahars, when something, a slight noise Iimagine, drew my attention behind me. 

As I turned, romance, adventure, and discovery in the abstract tookwing before the terrible embodiment of all three in concrete form thatI beheld advancing upon me. 

A huge, slimy amphibian it was, with toad-like body and the mighty jawsof an alligator. Its immense carcass must have weighed tons, and yetit moved swiftly and silently toward me. Upon one hand was the bluffthat ran from the canyon to the sea, on the other the fearsome swampfrom which the creature had sneaked upon me, behind lay the mightyuntracked sea, and before me in the center of the narrow way that ledto safety stood this huge mountain of terrible and menacing flesh. 

A single glance at the thing was sufficient to assure me that I wasfacing one of those long-extinct, prehistoric creatures whosefossilized remains are found within the outer crust as far back as theTriassic formation, a gigantic labyrinthodon. And there I was, unarmed, and, with the exception of a loin cloth, as naked as I hadcome into the world. I could imagine how my first ancestor felt thatdistant, prehistoric morn that he encountered for the first time theterrifying progenitor of the thing that had me cornered now beside therestless, mysterious sea. 

Unquestionably he had escaped, or I should not have been withinPellucidar or elsewhere, and I wished at that moment that he had handeddown to me with the various attributes that I presumed I have inheritedfrom him, the specific application of the instinct of self-preservationwhich saved him from the fate which loomed so close before me today. 

To seek escape in the swamp or in the ocean would have been similar tojumping into a den of lions to escape one upon the outside. The seaand swamp both were doubtless alive with these mighty, carnivorousamphibians, and if not, the individual that menaced me would pursue meinto either the sea or the swamp with equal facility. 

There seemed nothing to do but stand supinely and await my end. Ithought of Perry--how he would wonder what had become of me. I thoughtof my friends of the outer world, and of how they all would go onliving their lives in total ignorance of the strange and terrible fatethat had overtaken me, or unguessing the weird surroundings which hadwitnessed the last frightful agony of my extinction. And with thesethoughts came a realization of how unimportant to the life andhappiness of the world is the existence of any one of us. We may besnuffed out without an instant's warning, and for a brief day ourfriends speak of us with subdued voices. The following morning, whilethe first worm is busily engaged in testing the construction of ourcoffin, they are teeing up for the first hole to suffer more acutesorrow over a sliced ball than they did over our, to us, untimelydemise. The labyrinthodon was coming more slowly now. He seemed torealize that escape for me was impossible, and I could have sworn thathis huge, fanged jaws grinned in pleasurable appreciation of mypredicament, or was it in anticipation of the juicy morsel which wouldso soon be pulp between those formidable teeth?

He was about fifty feet from me when I heard a voice calling to me fromthe direction of the bluff at my left. I looked and could have shoutedin delight at the sight that met my eyes, for there stood Ja, wavingfrantically to me, and urging me to run for it to the cliff's base. 

I had no idea that I should escape the monster that had marked me forhis breakfast, but at least I should not die alone. Human eyes wouldwatch me end. It was cold comfort I presume, but yet I derived someslight peace of mind from the contemplation of it. 

To run seemed ridiculous, especially toward that steep and unscalablecliff, 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 smallprojections, and the tough creepers that had found root-hold here andthere. 

The labyrinthodon evidently thought that Ja was coming to double hisportion of human flesh, so he was in no haste to pursue me to the cliffand frighten away this other tidbit. Instead he merely trotted alongbehind me. 

As I approached the foot of the cliff I saw what Ja intended doing, butI doubted if the thing would prove successful. He had come down towithin twenty feet of the bottom, and there, clinging with one hand toa small ledge, and with his feet resting, precariously upon tiny bushesthat grew from the solid face of the rock, he lowered the point of hislong spear until it hung some six feet above the ground. 

To clamber up that slim shaft without dragging Ja down andprecipitating both to the same doom from which the copper-colored onewas attempting to save me seemed utterly impossible, and as I came nearthe spear I told Ja so, and that I could not risk him to try to savemyself. 

But he insisted that he knew what he was doing and was in no dangerhimself. 

"The danger is still yours, " he called, "for unless you move much morerapidly than you are now, the sithic will be upon you and drag you backbefore ever you are halfway up the spear--he can rear up and reach youwith ease anywhere below where I stand. "

Well, Ja should know his own business, I thought, and so I grasped thespear and clambered up toward the red man as rapidly as I could--beingso far removed from my simian ancestors as I am. I imagine theslow-witted sithic, as Ja called him, suddenly realized our intentionsand that he was quite likely to lose all his meal instead of having itdoubled as he had hoped. 

When he saw me clambering up that spear he let out a hiss that fairlyshook the ground, and came charging after me at a terrific rate. I hadreached the top of the spear by this time, or almost; another sixinches would give me a hold on Ja's hand, when I felt a sudden wrenchfrom below and glancing fearfully downward saw the mighty jaws of themonster close on the sharp point of the weapon. 

I made a frantic effort to reach Ja's hand, the sithic gave atremendous tug that came near to jerking Ja from his frail hold on thesurface of the rock, the spear slipped from his fingers, and stillclinging to it I plunged feet foremost toward my executioner. 

At the instant that he felt the spear come away from Ja's hand thecreature must have opened his huge jaws to catch me, for when I camedown, still clinging to the butt end of the weapon, the point yetrested in his mouth and the result was that the sharpened endtransfixed his lower jaw. 

With the pain he snapped his mouth closed. I fell upon his snout, lostmy hold upon the spear, rolled the length of his face and head, acrosshis short neck onto his broad back and from there to the ground. 

Scarce had I touched the earth than I was upon my feet, dashing madlyfor the path by which I had entered this horrible valley. A glanceover my shoulder showed me the sithic engaged in pawing at the spearstuck through his lower jaw, and so busily engaged did he remain inthis occupation that I had gained the safety of the cliff top before hewas ready to take up the pursuit. When he did not discover me in sightwithin the valley he dashed, hissing into the rank vegetation of theswamp and that was the last I saw of him. 

X

PHUTRA AGAIN

I HASTENED TO THE CLIFF EDGE ABOVE JA AND helped him to a securefooting. He would not listen to any thanks for his attempt to save me, which had come so near miscarrying. 

"I had given you up for lost when you tumbled into the Mahar temple, "he said, "for not even I could save you from their clutches, and youmay imagine my surprise when on seeing a canoe dragged up upon thebeach of the mainland I discovered your own footprints in the sandbeside it. 

"I immediately set out in search of you, knowing as I did that you mustbe entirely unarmed and defenseless against the many dangers which lurkupon the mainland both in the form of savage beasts and reptiles, andmen as well. I had no difficulty in tracking you to this point. It iswell that I arrived when I did. "

"But why did you do it?" I asked, puzzled at this show of friendship onthe part of a man of another world and a different race and color. 

"You saved my life, " he replied; "from that moment it became my duty toprotect and befriend you. I would have been no true Mezop had I evadedmy 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 memberof my tribe. Among us there is the best of hunting and fishing, andyou shall have, to choose a mate from, the most beautiful girls ofPellucidar. Will you come?"

I told him about Perry then, and Dian the Beautiful, and how my dutywas to them first. Afterward I should return and visit him--if I couldever find his island. 

"Oh, that is easy, my friend, " he said. "You need merely to come tothe foot of the highest peak of the Mountains of the Clouds. There youwill find a river which flows into the Lural Az. Directly opposite themouth of the river you will see three large islands far out, so farthat they are barely discernible, the one to the extreme left as youface them from the mouth of the river is Anoroc, where I rule the tribeof Anoroc. "

"But how am I to find the Mountains of the Clouds?" I asked. "Men saythat they are visible from half Pellucidar, " he replied. 

"How large is Pellucidar?" I asked, wondering what sort of theory theseprimitive men had concerning the form and substance of their world. 

"The Mahars say it is round, like the inside of a tola shell, " heanswered, "but that is ridiculous, since, were it true, we should fallback were we to travel far in any direction, and all the waters ofPellucidar would run to one spot and drown us. No, Pellucidar is quiteflat 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 wallthat prevents the earth and waters from escaping over into the burningsea whereon Pellucidar floats; but I never have been so far from Anorocas to have seen this wall with my own eyes. However, it is quitereasonable to believe that this is true, whereas there is no reason atall in the foolish belief of the Mahars. According to themPellucidarians who live upon the opposite side walk always with theirheads pointed downward!" and Ja laughed uproariously at the verythought. 

It was plain to see that the human folk of this inner world had notadvanced far in learning, and the thought that the ugly Mahars had sooutstripped them was a very pathetic one indeed. I wondered how manyages it would take to lift these people out of their ignorance evenwere it given to Perry and me to attempt it. Possibly we would bekilled for our pains as were those men of the outer world who daredchallenge the dense ignorance and superstitions of the earth's youngerdays. But it was worth the effort if the opportunity ever presenteditself. 

And then it occurred to me that here was an opportunity--that I mightmake a small beginning upon Ja, who was my friend, and thus note theeffect of my teaching upon a Pellucidarian. 

"Ja, " I said, "what would you say were I to tell you that in so far asthe Mahars' theory of the shape of Pellucidar is concerned it iscorrect?"

"I would say, " he replied, "that either you are a fool, or took me forone. "

"But, Ja, " I insisted, "if their theory is incorrect how do you accountfor the fact that I was able to pass through the earth from the outercrust to Pellucidar. If your theory is correct all is a sea of flamebeneath us, where in no peoples could exist, and yet I come from agreat world that is covered with human beings, and beasts, and birds, and fishes in mighty oceans. "

"You live upon the under side of Pellucidar, and walk always with yourhead pointed downward?" he scoffed. "And were I to believe that, myfriend, I should indeed be mad. "

I attempted to explain the force of gravity to him, and by the means ofthe dropped fruit to illustrate how impossible it would be for a bodyto fall off the earth under any circumstances. He listened so intentlythat I thought I had made an impression, and started the train ofthought that would lead him to a partial understanding of the truth. But I was mistaken. 

"Your own illustration, " he said finally, "proves the falsity of yourtheory. " He dropped a fruit from his hand to the ground. "See, " hesaid, "without support even this tiny fruit falls until it strikessomething that stops it. If Pellucidar were not supported upon theflaming sea it too would fall as the fruit falls--you have proven ityourself!" He had me, that time--you could see it in his eye. 

It seemed a hopeless job and I gave it up, temporarily at least, forwhen I contemplated the necessity explanation of our solar system andthe universe I realized how futile it would be to attempt to picture toJa or any other Pellucidarian the sun, the moon, the planets, and thecountless stars. Those born within the inner world could no moreconceive of such things than can we of the outer crust reduce tofactors appreciable to our finite minds such terms as space andeternity. 

"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 muchwhere we came from as where we are going now. For my part I wish thatyou could guide me to Phutra where I may give myself up to the Maharsonce more that my friends and I may work out the plan of escape whichthe Sagoths interrupted when they gathered us together and drove us tothe arena to witness the punishment of the slaves who killed theguardsman. I wish now that I had not left the arena for by this timemy friends and I might have made good our escape, whereas this delaymay mean the wrecking of all our plans, which depended for theirconsummation upon the continued sleep of the three Mahars who lay inthe pit beneath the building in which we were confined. "

"You would return to captivity?" cried Ja. 

"My friends are there, " I replied, "the only friends I have inPellucidar, except yourself. What else may I do under thecircumstances?"

He thought for a moment in silence. Then he shook his head sorrowfully. 

"It is what a brave man and a good friend should do, " he said; "yet itseems most foolish, for the Mahars will most certainly condemn you todeath for running away, and so you will be accomplishing nothing foryour friends by returning. Never in all my life have I heard of aprisoner returning to the Mahars of his own free will. There are butfew who escape them, though some do, and these would rather die than berecaptured. "

"I see no other way, Ja, " I said, "though I can assure you that I wouldrather go to Sheol after Perry than to Phutra. However, Perry is muchtoo pious to make the probability at all great that I should ever becalled upon to rescue him from the former locality. "

Ja asked me what Sheol was, and when I explained, as best I could, hesaid, "You are speaking of Molop Az, the flaming sea upon whichPellucidar 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 demonswho dwell there. We know this because when graves are opened we findthat the bodies have been partially or entirely borne off. That is whywe of Anoroc place our dead in high trees where the birds may find themand bear them bit by bit to the Dead World above the Land of AwfulShadow. If we kill an enemy we place his body in the ground that itmay go to Molop Az. "

As we talked we had been walking up the canyon down which I had come tothe great ocean and the sithic. Ja did his best to dissuade me fromreturning to Phutra, but when he saw that I was determined to do so, heconsented to guide me to a point from which I could see the plain wherelay the city. To my surprise the distance was but short from the beachwhere I had again met Ja. It was evident that I had spent much timefollowing the windings of a tortuous canon, while just beyond the ridgelay the city of Phutra near to which I must have come several times. 

As we topped the ridge and saw the granite gate towers dotting theflowered plain at our feet Ja made a final effort to persuade me toabandon my mad purpose and return with him to Anoroc, but I was firm inmy resolve, and at last he bid me good-bye, assured in his own mindthat he was looking upon me for the last time. 

I was sorry to part with Ja, for I had come to like him very muchindeed. With his hidden city upon the island of Anoroc as a base, andhis savage warriors as escort Perry and I could have accomplished muchin the line of exploration, and I hoped that were we successful in oureffort to escape we might return to Anoroc later. 

There was, however, one great thing to be accomplished first--at leastit was the great thing to me--the finding of Dian the Beautiful. Iwanted to make amends for the affront I had put upon her in myignorance, and I wanted to--well, I wanted to see her again, and to bewith her. 

Down the hillside I made my way into the gorgeous field of flowers, andthen across the rolling land toward the shadowless columns that guardthe ways to buried Phutra. At a quarter-mile from the nearest entranceI was discovered by the Sagoth guard, and in an instant four of thegorilla-men were dashing toward me. 

Though they brandished their long spears and yelled like wild ComanchesI paid not the slightest attention to them, walking quietly toward themas though unaware of their existence. My manner had the effect uponthem that I had hoped, and as we came quite near together they ceasedtheir savage shouting. It was evident that they had expected me toturn and flee at sight of them, thus presenting that which they mostenjoyed, a moving human target at which to cast their spears. 

"What do you here?" shouted one, and then as he recognized me, "Ho! Itis the slave who claims to be from another world--he who escaped whenthe thag ran amuck within the amphitheater. But why do you return, having once made good your escape?"

"I did not 'escape', " I replied. "I but ran away to avoid the thag, asdid others, and coming into a long passage I became confused and lostmy way in the foothills beyond Phutra. Only now have I found my wayback. "

"And you come of your free will back to Phutra!" exclaimed one of theguardsmen. 

"Where else might I go?" I asked. "I am a stranger within Pellucidarand know no other where than Phutra. Why should I not desire to be inPhutra? Am I not well fed and well treated? Am I not happy? Whatbetter lot could man desire?"

The Sagoths scratched their heads. This was a new one on them, and sobeing stupid brutes they took me to their masters whom they felt wouldbe better fitted to solve the riddle of my return, for riddle theystill considered it. 

I had spoken to the Sagoths as I had for the purpose of throwing themoff the scent of my purposed attempt at escape. If they thought that Iwas so satisfied with my lot within Phutra that I would voluntarilyreturn when I had once had so excellent an opportunity to escape, theywould never for an instant imagine that I could be occupied inarranging another escape immediately upon my return to the city. 

So they led me before a slimy Mahar who clung to a slimy rock withinthe large room that was the thing's office. With cold, reptilian eyesthe creature seemed to bore through the thin veneer of my deceit andread my inmost thoughts. It heeded the story which the Sagoths told ofmy return to Phutra, watching the gorilla-men's lips and fingers duringthe recital. Then it questioned me through one of the Sagoths. 

"You say that you returned to Phutra of your own free will, because youthink yourself better off here than elsewhere--do you not know that youmay be the next chosen to give up your life in the interests of thewonderful scientific investigations that our learned ones arecontinually occupied with?"

I hadn't heard of anything of that nature, but I thought best not toadmit it. 

"I could be in no more danger here, " I said, "than naked and unarmed inthe savage jungles or upon the lonely plains of Pellucidar. I wasfortunate, I think, to return to Phutra at all. As it was I barelyescaped death within the jaws of a huge sithic. No, I am sure that Iam safer in the hands of intelligent creatures such as rule Phutra. Atleast such would be the case in my own world, where human beings likemyself rule supreme. There the higher races of man extend protectionand hospitality to the stranger within their gates, and being astranger here I naturally assumed that a like courtesy would beaccorded me. "

The Mahar looked at me in silence for some time after I ceased speakingand the Sagoth had translated my words to his master. The creatureseemed deep in thought. Presently he communicated some message to theSagoth. The latter turned, and motioning me to follow him, left thepresence of the reptile. Behind and on either side of me marched thebalance of the guard. 

"What are they going to do with me?" I asked the fellow at my right. 

"You are to appear before the learned ones who will question youregarding this strange world from which you say you come. "

After a moment's silence he turned to me again. 

"Do you happen to know, " he asked, "what the Mahars do to slaves wholie to them?"

"No, " I replied, "nor does it interest me, as I have no intention oflying to the Mahars. "

"Then be careful that you don't repeat the impossible tale you toldSol-to-to just now--another world, indeed, where human beings rule!" heconcluded in fine scorn. 

"But it is the truth, " I insisted. "From where else then did I come?I am not of Pellucidar. Anyone with half an eye could see that. "

"It is your misfortune then, " he remarked dryly, "that you may not bejudged by one with but half an eye. "

"What will they do with me, " I asked, "if they do not have a mind tobelieve me?"

"You may be sentenced to the arena, or go to the pits to be used inresearch work by the learned ones, " he replied. 

"And what will they do with me there?" I persisted. 

"No one knows except the Mahars and those who go to the pits with them, but as the latter never return, their knowledge does them but littlegood. It is said that the learned ones cut up their subjects whilethey are yet alive, thus learning many useful things. However I shouldnot imagine that it would prove very useful to him who was being cutup; but of course this is all but conjecture. The chances are that erelong you will know much more about it than I, " and he grinned as hespoke. The Sagoths have a well-developed sense of humor. 

"And suppose it is the arena, " I continued; "what then?"

"You saw the two who met the tarag and the thag the time that youescaped?" he said. 

"Yes. "

"Your end in the arena would be similar to what was intended for them, "he explained, "though of course the same kinds of animals might not beemployed. "

"It is sure death in either event?" I asked. 

"What becomes of those who go below with the learned ones I do notknow, nor does any other, " he replied; "but those who go to the arenamay come out alive and thus regain their liberty, as did the two whomyou saw. "

"They gained their liberty? And how?"

"It is the custom of the Mahars to liberate those who remain alivewithin the arena after the beasts depart or are killed. Thus it hashappened that several mighty warriors from far distant lands, whom wehave captured on our slave raids, have battled the brutes turned inupon them and slain them, thereby winning their freedom. In theinstance which you witnessed the beasts killed each other, but theresult was the same--the man and woman were liberated, furnished withweapons, and started on their homeward journey. Upon the left shoulderof each a mark was burned--the mark of the Mahars--which will foreverprotect these two from slaving parties. "

"There is a slender chance for me then if I be sent to the arena, andnone at all if the learned ones drag me to the pits?"

"You are quite right, " he replied; "but do not felicitate yourself tooquickly should you be sent to the arena, for there is scarce one in athousand who comes out alive. "

To my surprise they returned me to the same building in which I hadbeen confined with Perry and Ghak before my escape. At the doorway Iwas turned over to the guards there. 

"He will doubtless be called before the investigators shortly, " said hewho had brought me back, "so have him in readiness. "

The guards in whose hands I now found myself, upon hearing that I hadreturned of my own volition to Phutra evidently felt that it would besafe to give me liberty within the building as had been the custombefore I had escaped, and so I was told to return to whatever duty hadbeen mine formerly. 

My first act was to hunt up Perry; whom I found poring as usual overthe great tomes that he was supposed to be merely dusting andrearranging upon new shelves. 

As I entered the room he glanced up and nodded pleasantly to me, onlyto resume his work as though I had never been away at all. I was bothastonished and hurt at his indifference. And to think that I wasrisking death to return to him purely from a sense of duty andaffection!

"Why, Perry!" I exclaimed, "haven't you a word for me after my longabsence?"

"Long absence!" he repeated in evident astonishment. "What do youmean?"

"Are you crazy, Perry? Do you mean to say that you have not missed mesince that time we were separated by the charging thag within thearena?"

"'That time', " he repeated. "Why man, I have but just returned fromthe arena! You reached here almost as soon as I. Had you been muchlater I should indeed have been worried, and as it is I had intendedasking you about how you escaped the beast as soon as I had completedthe translation of this most interesting passage. "

"Perry, you ARE mad, " I exclaimed. "Why, the Lord only knows how longI have been away. I have been to other lands, discovered a new race ofhumans within Pellucidar, seen the Mahars at their worship in theirhidden temple, and barely escaped with my life from them and from agreat labyrinthodon that I met afterward, following my long and tediouswanderings across an unknown world. I must have been away for months, Perry, and now you barely look up from your work when I return andinsist that we have been separated but a moment. Is that any way totreat a friend? I'm surprised at you, Perry, and if I'd thought for amoment that you cared no more for me than this I should not havereturned to chance death at the hands of the Mahars for your sake. "

The old man looked at me for a long time before he spoke. There was apuzzled expression upon his wrinkled face, and a look of hurt sorrow inhis eyes. 

"David, my boy, " he said, "how could you for a moment doubt my love foryou? There is something strange here that I cannot understand. I knowthat I am not mad, and I am equally sure that you are not; but how inthe world are we to account for the strange hallucinations that each ofus seems to harbor relative to the passage of time since last we saweach other. You are positive that months have gone by, while to me itseems equally certain that not more than an hour ago I sat beside youin the amphitheater. Can it be that both of us are right and at thesame time both are wrong? First tell me what time is, and then maybe Ican solve our problem. Do you catch my meaning?"

I didn't and said so. 

"Yes, " continued the old man, "we are both right. To me, bent over mybook here, there has been no lapse of time. I have done little ornothing to waste my energies and so have required neither food norsleep, but you, on the contrary, have walked and fought and wastedstrength and tissue which must needs be rebuilt by nutriment and food, and so, having eaten and slept many times since last you saw me younaturally measure the lapse of time largely by these acts. As a matterof fact, David, I am rapidly coming to the conviction that there is nosuch thing as time--surely there can be no time here within Pellucidar, where there are no means for measuring or recording time. Why, theMahars themselves take no account of such a thing as time. I find herein all their literary works but a single tense, the present. Thereseems to be neither past nor future with them. Of course it isimpossible for our outer-earthly minds to grasp such a condition, butour recent experiences seem to demonstrate its existence. "

It was too big a subject for me, and I said so, but Perry seemed toenjoy nothing better than speculating upon it, and after listening withinterest to my account of the adventures through which I had passed hereturned once more to the subject, which he was enlarging upon withconsiderable fluency when he was interrupted by the entrance of aSagoth. 

"Come!" commanded the intruder, beckoning to me. "The investigatorswould speak with you. "

"Good-bye, Perry!" I said, clasping the old man's hand. "There may benothing but the present and no such thing as time, but I feel that I amabout to take a trip into the hereafter from which I shall neverreturn. If you and Ghak should manage to escape I want you to promiseme that you will find Dian the Beautiful and tell her that with my lastwords I asked her forgiveness for the unintentional affront I put uponher, and that my one wish was to be spared long enough to right thewrong that I had done her. "

Tears came to Perry's eyes. 

"I cannot believe but that you will return, David, " he said. "It wouldbe awful to think of living out the balance of my life without youamong these hateful and repulsive creatures. If you are taken away Ishall never escape, for I feel that I am as well off here as I shouldbe anywhere within this buried world. Good-bye, my boy, good-bye!" andthen his old voice faltered and broke, and as he hid his face in hishands the Sagoth guardsman grasped me roughly by the shoulder andhustled me from the chamber. 

XI

FOUR DEAD MAHARS

A MOMENT LATER I WAS STANDING BEFORE A DOZEN Mahars--the socialinvestigators of Phutra. They asked me many questions, through aSagoth interpreter. I answered them all truthfully. They seemedparticularly interested in my account of the outer earth and thestrange vehicle which had brought Perry and me to Pellucidar. Ithought that I had convinced them, and after they had sat in silencefor a long time following my examination, I expected to be orderedreturned to my quarters. 

During this apparent silence they were debating through the medium ofstrange, unspoken language the merits of my tale. At last the head ofthe tribunal communicated the result of their conference to the officerin charge of the Sagoth guard. 

"Come, " he said to me, "you are sentenced to the experimental pits forhaving dared to insult the intelligence of the mighty ones with theridiculous tale you have had the temerity to unfold to them. "

"Do you mean that they do not believe me?" I asked, totally astonished. 

"Believe you!" he laughed. "Do you mean to say that you expected anyone to believe so impossible a lie?"

It was hopeless, and so I walked in silence beside my guard downthrough the dark corridors and runways toward my awful doom. At a lowlevel we came upon a number of lighted chambers in which we saw manyMahars engaged in various occupations. To one of these chambers myguard escorted me, and before leaving they chained me to a side wall. There were other humans similarly chained. Upon a long table lay avictim even as I was ushered into the room. Several Mahars stood aboutthe poor creature holding him down so that he could not move. Another, grasping a sharp knife with her three-toed fore foot, was laying openthe victim's chest and abdomen. No anesthetic had been administeredand the shrieks and groans of the tortured man were terrible to hear. This, indeed, was vivisection with a vengeance. Cold sweat broke outupon me as I realized that soon my turn would come. And to think thatwhere there was no such thing as time I might easily imagine that mysuffering was enduring for months before death finally released me!

The Mahars had paid not the slightest attention to me as I had beenbrought into the room. So deeply immersed were they in their work thatI 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 heavychains precluded any such possibility. I looked about for some meansof escape from my bonds. Upon the floor between me and the Mahars laya tiny surgical instrument which one of them must have dropped. Itlooked not unlike a button-hook, but was much smaller, and its pointwas sharpened. A hundred times in my boyhood days had I picked lockswith a buttonhook. Could I but reach that little bit of polished steelI might yet effect at least a temporary escape. 

Crawling to the limit of my chain, I found that by reaching one hand asfar out as I could my fingers still fell an inch short of the covetedinstrument. It was tantalizing! Stretch every fiber of my being as Iwould, I could not quite make it. 

At last I turned about and extended one foot toward the object. Myheart came to my throat! I could just touch the thing! But supposethat in my effort to drag it toward me I should accidentally shove itstill farther away and thus entirely out of reach! Cold sweat brokeout upon me from every pore. Slowly and cautiously I made the effort. My toes dropped upon the cold metal. Gradually I worked it toward meuntil I felt that it was within reach of my hand and a moment later Ihad turned about and the precious thing was in my grasp. 

Assiduously I fell to work upon the Mahar lock that held my chain. Itwas pitifully simple. A child might have picked it, and a moment laterI was free. The Mahars were now evidently completing their work at thetable. One already turned away and was examining other victims, evidently with the intention of selecting the next subject. 

Those at the table had their backs toward me. But for the creaturewalking toward us I might have escaped that moment. Slowly the thingapproached me, when its attention was attracted by a huge slave chaineda few yards to my right. Here the reptile stopped and commenced to goover the poor devil carefully, and as it did so its back turned towardme for an instant, and in that instant I gave two mighty leaps thatcarried me out of the chamber into the corridor beyond, down which Iraced with all the speed I could command. 

Where I was, or whither I was going, I knew not. My only thought wasto place as much distance as possible between me and that frightfulchamber of torture. 

Presently I reduced my speed to a brisk walk, and later realizing thedanger of running into some new predicament, were I not careful, Imoved still more slowly and cautiously. After a time I came to apassage that seemed in some mysterious way familiar to me, andpresently, chancing to glance within a chamber which led from thecorridor 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 corridorand the same Mahars that I had intended to have lead so important arole in our escape from Phutra. Providence had indeed been kind to me, for the reptiles still slept. 

My one great danger now lay in returning to the upper levels in searchof Perry and Ghak, but there was nothing else to be done, and so Ihastened upward. When I came to the frequented portions of thebuilding, I found a large burden of skins in a corner and these Ilifted to my head, carrying them in such a way that ends and cornersfell down about my shoulders completely hiding my face. Thus disguisedI found Perry and Ghak together in the chamber where we had been wontto eat and sleep. 

Both were glad to see me, it was needless to say, though of course theyhad known nothing of the fate that had been meted out to me by myjudges. It was decided that no time should now be lost beforeattempting to put our plan of escape to the test, as I could not hopeto remain hidden from the Sagoths long, nor could I forever carry thatbale of skins about upon my head without arousing suspicion. Howeverit seemed likely that it would carry me once more safely through thecrowded passages and chambers of the upper levels, and so I set outwith Perry and Ghak--the stench of the illy cured pelts fairly chokingme. 

Together we repaired to the first tier of corridors beneath the mainfloor of the buildings, and here Perry and Ghak halted to await me. The buildings are cut out of the solid limestone formation. There isnothing at all remarkable about their architecture. The rooms aresometimes 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 tubessimilar to those by which the avenues are lighted. The lower the tiersof chambers, the darker. Most of the corridors are entirely unlighted. The Mahars can see quite well in semidarkness. 

Down to the main floor we encountered many Mahars, Sagoths, and slaves;but no attention was paid to us as we had become a part of the domesticlife of the building. There was but a single entrance leading from theplace into the avenue and this was well guarded by Sagoths--thisdoorway alone were we forbidden to pass. It is true that we were notsupposed to enter the deeper corridors and apartments except on specialoccasions when we were instructed to do so; but as we were considered alower order without intelligence there was little reason to fear thatwe could accomplish any harm by so doing, and so we were not hinderedas we entered the corridor which led below. 

Wrapped in a skin I carried three swords, and the two bows, and thearrows which Perry and I had fashioned. As many slaves boreskin-wrapped burdens to and fro my load attracted no comment. Where Ileft Ghak and Perry there were no other creatures in sight, and so Iwithdrew one sword from the package, and leaving the balance of theweapons with Perry, started on alone toward the lower levels. 

Having come to the apartment in which the three Mahars slept I enteredsilently on tiptoe, forgetting that the creatures were without thesense of hearing. With a quick thrust through the heart I disposed ofthe first but my second thrust was not so fortunate, so that before Icould kill the next of my victims it had hurled itself against thethird, who sprang quickly up, facing me with wide-distended jaws. Butfighting is not the occupation which the race of Mahars loves, and whenthe thing saw that I already had dispatched two of its companions, andthat 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, itscurried down another corridor with me close upon its heels. 

Its escape meant the utter ruin of our plan, and in all probability myinstant death. This thought lent wings to my feet; but even at my bestI could do no more than hold my own with the leaping thing before me. 

Of a sudden it turned into an apartment on the right of the corridor, and an instant later as I rushed in I found myself facing two of theMahars. The one who had been there when we entered had been occupiedwith a number of metal vessels, into which had been put powders andliquids as I judged from the array of flasks standing about upon thebench where it had been working. In an instant I realized what I hadstumbled upon. It was the very room for the finding of which Perry hadgiven me minute directions. It was the buried chamber in which washidden the Great Secret of the race of Mahars. And on the bench besidethe flasks lay the skin-bound book which held the only copy of thething I was to have sought, after dispatching the three Mahars in theirsleep. 

There was no exit from the room other than the doorway in which I nowstood facing the two frightful reptiles. Cornered, I knew that theywould fight like demons, and they were well equipped to fight if fightthey must. Together they launched themselves upon me, and though I ranone of them through the heart on the instant, the other fastened itsgleaming fangs about my sword arm above the elbow, and then with hersharp talons commenced to rake me about the body, evidently intent upondisemboweling me. I saw that it was useless to hope that I mightrelease my arm from that powerful, viselike grip which seemed to besevering my arm from my body. The pain I suffered was intense, but itonly served to spur me to greater efforts to overcome my antagonist. 

Back and forth across the floor we struggled--the Mahar dealing meterrific, cutting blows with her fore feet, while I attempted toprotect my body with my left hand, at the same time watching for anopportunity to transfer my blade from my now useless sword hand to itsrapidly weakening mate. At last I was successful, and with what seemedto me my last ounce of strength I ran the blade through the ugly bodyof my foe. 

Soundless, as it had fought, it died, and though weak from pain andloss of blood, it was with an emotion of triumphant pride that Istepped across its convulsively stiffening corpse to snatch up the mostpotent secret of a world. A single glance assured me it was the verything that Perry had described to me. 

And as I grasped it did I think of what it meant to the human race ofPellucidar--did there flash through my mind the thought that countlessgenerations of my own kind yet unborn would have reason to worship mefor the thing that I had accomplished for them? I did not. I thoughtof a beautiful oval face, gazing out of limpid eyes, through a wavingmass of jet-black hair. I thought of red, red lips, God-made forkissing. And of a sudden, apropos of nothing, standing there alone inthe secret chamber of the Mahars of Pellucidar, I realized that I lovedDian the Beautiful. 

XII

PURSUIT

FOR AN INSTANT I STOOD THERE THINKING OF HER, and then, with a sigh, Itucked the book in the thong that supported my loin cloth, and turnedto leave the apartment. At the bottom of the corridor which leadsaloft from the lower chambers I whistled in accordance with theprearranged signal which was to announce to Perry and Ghak that I hadbeen successful. A moment later they stood beside me, and to mysurprise I saw that Hooja the Sly One accompanied them. 

"He joined us, " explained Perry, "and would not be denied. The fellowis a fox. He scents escape, and rather than be thwarted of our chancenow I told him that I would bring him to you, and let you decidewhether he might accompany us. "

I had no love for Hooja, and no confidence in him. I was sure that ifhe thought it would profit him he would betray us; but I saw no way outof it now, and the fact that I had killed four Mahars instead of onlythe three I had expected to, made it possible to include the fellow inour scheme of escape. 

"Very well, " I said, "you may come with us, Hooja; but at the firstintimation of treachery I shall run my sword through you. Do youunderstand?"

He said that he did. 

Some time later we had removed the skins from the four Mahars, and sosucceeded in crawling inside of them ourselves that there seemed anexcellent chance for us to pass unnoticed from Phutra. It was not aneasy thing to fasten the hides together where we had split them alongthe belly to remove them from their carcasses, but by remaining outuntil the others had all been sewed in with my help, and then leavingan aperture in the breast of Perry's skin through which he could passhis hands to sew me up, we were enabled to accomplish our design toreally much better purpose than I had hoped. We managed to keep theheads erect by passing our swords up through the necks, and by the samemeans were enabled to move them about in a life-like manner. We hadour greatest difficulty with the webbed feet, but even that problem wasfinally solved, so that when we moved about we did so quite naturally. Tiny holes punctured in the baggy throats into which our heads werethrust permitted us to see well enough to guide our progress. 

Thus we started up toward the main floor of the building. Ghak headedthe strange procession, then came Perry, followed by Hooja, while Ibrought up the rear, after admonishing Hooja that I had so arranged mysword that I could thrust it through the head of my disguise into hisvitals were he to show any indication of faltering. 

As the noise of hurrying feet warned me that we were entering the busycorridors of the main level, my heart came up into my mouth. It iswith no sense of shame that I admit that I was frightened--never beforein my life, nor since, did I experience any such agony of soulsearingfear and suspense as enveloped me. If it be possible to sweat blood, Isweat it then. 

Slowly, after the manner of locomotion habitual to the Mahars, whenthey are not using their wings, we crept through throngs of busyslaves, Sagoths, and Mahars. After what seemed an eternity we reachedthe outer door which leads into the main avenue of Phutra. ManySagoths loitered near the opening. They glanced at Ghak as he paddedbetween 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 warmblood from my wounded arm was trickling down through the dead foot ofthe Mahar skin I wore and leaving its tell-tale mark upon the pavement, for I saw a Sagoth call a companion's attention to it. 

The guard stepped before me and pointing to my bleeding foot spoke tome in the sign language which these two races employ as a means ofcommunication. Even had I known what he was saying I could not havereplied with the dead thing that covered me. I once had seen a greatMahar freeze a presumptuous Sagoth with a look. It seemed my onlyhope, and so I tried it. Stopping in my tracks I moved my sword sothat it made the dead head appear to turn inquiring eyes upon thegorilla-man. For a long moment I stood perfectly still, eyeing thefellow with those dead eyes. Then I lowered the head and startedslowly on. For a moment all hung in the balance, but before I touchedhim the guard stepped to one side, and I passed on out into the avenue. 

On we went up the broad street, but now we were safe for the verynumbers of our enemies that surrounded us on all sides. Fortunately, there was a great concourse of Mahars repairing to the shallow lakewhich lies a mile or more from the city. They go there to indulgetheir amphibian proclivities in diving for small fish, and enjoying thecool depths of the water. It is a fresh-water lake, shallow, and freefrom the larger reptiles which make the use of the great seas ofPellucidar impossible for any but their own kind. 

In the thick of the crowd we passed up the steps and out onto theplain. For some distance Ghak remained with the stream that wastraveling toward the lake, but finally, at the bottom of a little gullyhe halted, and there we remained until all had passed and we werealone. Then, still in our disguises, we set off directly away fromPhutra. 

The heat of the vertical rays of the sun was fast making our horribleprisons unbearable, so that after passing a low divide, and entering asheltering forest, we finally discarded the Mahar skins that hadbrought us thus far in safety. 

I shall not weary you with the details of that bitter and gallingflight. How we traveled at a dogged run until we dropped in ourtracks. How we were beset by strange and terrible beasts. How webarely escaped the cruel fangs of lions and tigers the size of whichwould dwarf into pitiful insignificance the greatest felines of theouter world. 

On and on we raced, our one thought to put as much distance betweenourselves and Phutra as possible. Ghak was leading us to his ownland--the land of Sari. No sign of pursuit had developed, and yet wewere sure that somewhere behind us relentless Sagoths were dogging ourtracks. Ghak said they never failed to hunt down their quarry untilthey had captured it or themselves been turned back by a superior force. 

Our only hope, he said, lay in reaching his tribe which was quitestrong enough in their mountain fastness to beat off any number ofSagoths. 

At last, after what seemed months, and may, I now realize, have beenyears, we came in sight of the dun escarpment which buttressed thefoothills of Sari. At almost the same instant, Hooja, who looked everquite as much behind as before, announced that he could see a body ofmen far behind us topping a low ridge in our wake. It was thelong-expected pursuit. 

I asked Ghak if we could make Sari in time to escape them. 

"We may, " he replied; "but you will find that the Sagoths can move withincredible swiftness, and as they are almost tireless they aredoubtless much fresher than we. Then--" he paused, glancing at Perry. 

I knew what he meant. The old man was exhausted. For much of theperiod of our flight either Ghak or I had half supported him on themarch. With such a handicap, less fleet pursuers than the Sagothsmight easily overtake us before we could scale the rugged heights whichconfronted us. 

"You and Hooja go on ahead, " I said. "Perry and I will make it if weare able. We cannot travel as rapidly as you two, and there is noreason why all should be lost because of that. It can't be helped--wehave simply to face it. "

"I will not desert a companion, " was Ghak's simple reply. I hadn'tknown that this great, hairy, primeval man had any such nobility ofcharacter stowed away inside him. I had always liked him, but now tomy liking was added honor and respect. Yes, and love. 

But still I urged him to go on ahead, insisting that if he could reachhis people he might be able to bring out a sufficient force to driveoff the Sagoths and rescue Perry and myself. 

No, he wouldn't leave us, and that was all there was to it, but hesuggested that Hooja might hurry on and warn the Sarians of the king'sdanger. It didn't require much urging to start Hooja--the naked ideawas enough to send him leaping on ahead of us into the foothills whichwe now had reached. 

Perry realized that he was jeopardizing Ghak's life and mine and theold fellow fairly begged us to go on without him, although I knew thathe was suffering a perfect anguish of terror at the thought of fallinginto the hands of the Sagoths. Ghak finally solved the problem, inpart, by lifting Perry in his powerful arms and carrying him. Whilethe act cut down Ghak's speed he still could travel faster thus thanwhen half supporting the stumbling old man. 

XIII

THE SLY ONE

THE SAGOTHS WERE GAINING ON US RAPIDLY, FOR once they had sighted usthey had greatly increased their speed. On and on we stumbled up thenarrow canyon that Ghak had chosen to approach the heights of Sari. Oneither side rose precipitous cliffs of gorgeous, parti-colored rock, while beneath our feet a thick mountain grass formed a soft andnoiseless carpet. Since we had entered the canyon we had had noglimpse of our pursuers, and I was commencing to hope that they hadlost our trail and that we would reach the now rapidly nearing cliffsin time to scale them before we should be overtaken. 

Ahead we neither saw nor heard any sign which might betoken the successof Hooja's mission. By now he should have reached the outposts of theSarians, and we should at least hear the savage cries of the tribesmenas they swarmed to arms in answer to their king's appeal for succor. In another moment the frowning cliffs ahead should be black withprimeval warriors. But nothing of the kind happened--as a matter offact the Sly One had betrayed us. At the moment that we expected tosee Sarian spearmen charging to our relief at Hooja's back, the craventraitor was sneaking around the outskirts of the nearest Sarianvillage, that he might come up from the other side when it was too lateto save us, claiming that he had become lost among the mountains. 

Hooja still harbored ill will against me because of the blow I hadstruck in Dian's protection, and his malevolent spirit was equal tosacrificing us all that he might be revenged upon me. 

As we drew nearer the barrier cliffs and no sign of rescuing Sariansappeared Ghak became both angry and alarmed, and presently as the soundof rapidly approaching pursuit fell upon our ears, he called to me overhis shoulder that we were lost. 

A backward glance gave me a glimpse of the first of the Sagoths at thefar end of a considerable stretch of canyon through which we had justpassed, and then a sudden turning shut the ugly creature from my view;but the loud howl of triumphant rage which rose behind us was evidencethat the gorilla-man had sighted us. 

Again the canyon veered sharply to the left, but to the right anotherbranch ran on at a lesser deviation from the general direction, so thatappeared more like the main canyon than the lefthand branch. TheSagoths were now not over two hundred and fifty yards behind us, and Isaw that it was hopeless for us to expect to escape other than by aruse. There was a bare chance of saving Ghak and Perry, and as Ireached the branching of the canyon I took the chance. 

Pausing there I waited until the foremost Sagoth hove into sight. Ghakand Perry had disappeared around a bend in the left-hand canyon, and asthe Sagoth's savage yell announced that he had seen me I turned andfled up the right-hand branch. My ruse was successful, and the entireparty of man-hunters raced headlong after me up one canyon while Ghakbore Perry to safety up the other. 

Running has never been my particular athletic forte, and now when myvery life depended upon fleetness of foot I cannot say that I ran anybetter than on the occasions when my pitiful base running had calleddown upon my head the rooter's raucous and reproachful cries of "IceWagon, " and "Call a cab. "

The Sagoths were gaining on me rapidly. There was one in particular, fleeter than his fellows, who was perilously close. The canyon hadbecome a rocky slit, rising roughly at a steep angle toward what seemeda pass between two abutting peaks. What lay beyond I could not evenguess--possibly a sheer drop of hundreds of feet into the correspondingvalley upon the other side. Could it be that I had plunged into acul-de-sac?

Realizing that I could not hope to outdistance the Sagoths to the topof the canyon I had determined to risk all in an attempt to check themtemporarily, and to this end had unslung my rudely made bow and pluckedan arrow from the skin quiver which hung behind my shoulder. As Ifitted the shaft with my right hand I stopped and wheeled toward thegorilla-man. 

In the world of my birth I never had drawn a shaft, but since ourescape from Phutra I had kept the party supplied with small game bymeans of my arrows, and so, through necessity, had developed a fairdegree of accuracy. During our flight from Phutra I had restrung mybow with a piece of heavy gut taken from a huge tiger which Ghak and Ihad worried and finally dispatched with arrows, spear, and sword. Thehard wood of the bow was extremely tough and this, with the strengthand elasticity of my new string, gave me unwonted confidence in myweapon. 

Never had I greater need of steady nerves than then--never were mynerves and muscles under better control. I sighted as carefully anddeliberately as though at a straw target. The Sagoth had never beforeseen a bow and arrow, but of a sudden it must have swept over his dullintellect that the thing I held toward him was some sort of engine ofdestruction, for he too came to a halt, simultaneously swinging hishatchet for a throw. It is one of the many methods in which theyemploy this weapon, and the accuracy of aim which they achieve, evenunder the most unfavorable circumstances, is little short of miraculous. 

My shaft was drawn back its full length--my eye had centered its sharppoint upon the left breast of my adversary; and then he launched hishatchet and I released my arrow. At the instant that our missiles flewI leaped to one side, but the Sagoth sprang forward to follow up hisattack with a spear thrust. I felt the swish of the hatchet at itgrazed my head, and at the same instant my shaft pierced the Sagoth'ssavage heart, and with a single groan he lunged almost at myfeet--stone dead. Close behind him were two more--fifty yardsperhaps--but the distance gave me time to snatch up the deadguardsman's shield, for the close call his hatchet had just given mehad borne in upon me the urgent need I had for one. Those which I hadpurloined at Phutra we had not been able to bring along because theirsize precluded our concealing them within the skins of the Mahars whichhad brought us safely from the city. 

With the shield slipped well up on my left arm I let fly with anotherarrow, which brought down a second Sagoth, and then as his fellow'shatchet sped toward me I caught it upon the shield, and fitted anothershaft for him; but he did not wait to receive it. Instead, he turnedand retreated toward the main body of gorilla-men. Evidently he hadseen enough of me for the moment. 

Once more I took up my flight, nor were the Sagoths apparentlyoveranxious to press their pursuit so closely as before. Unmolested Ireached the top of the canyon where I found a sheer drop of two orthree hundred feet to the bottom of a rocky chasm; but on the left anarrow ledge rounded the shoulder of the overhanging cliff. Along thisI advanced, and at a sudden turning, a few yards beyond the canyon'send, the path widened, and at my left I saw the opening to a largecave. Before, the ledge continued until it passed from sight aboutanother projecting buttress of the mountain. 

Here, I felt, I could defy an army, for but a single foeman couldadvance upon me at a time, nor could he know that I was awaiting himuntil he came full upon me around the corner of the turn. About me layscattered stones crumbled from the cliff above. They were of varioussizes and shapes, but enough were of handy dimensions for use asammunition in lieu of my precious arrows. Gathering a number of stonesinto a little pile beside the mouth of the cave I waited the advance ofthe Sagoths. 

As I stood there, tense and silent, listening for the first faint soundthat should announce the approach of my enemies, a slight noise fromwithin the cave's black depths attracted my attention. It might havebeen produced by the moving of the great body of some huge beast risingfrom the rock floor of its lair. At almost the same instant I thoughtthat I caught the scraping of hide sandals upon the ledge beyond theturn. For the next few seconds my attention was considerably divided. 

And then from the inky blackness at my right I saw two flaming eyesglaring into mine. They were on a level that was over two feet abovemy head. It is true that the beast who owned them might be standingupon a ledge within the cave, or that it might be rearing up upon itshind legs; but I had seen enough of the monsters of Pellucidar to knowthat I might be facing some new and frightful Titan whose dimensionsand ferocity eclipsed those of any I had seen before. 

Whatever it was, it was coming slowly toward the entrance of the cave, and now, deep and forbidding, it uttered a low and ominous growl. Iwaited no longer to dispute possession of the ledge with the thingwhich owned that voice. The noise had not been loud--I doubt if theSagoths heard it at all--but the suggestion of latent possibilitiesbehind it was such that I knew it would only emanate from a giganticand ferocious beast. 

As I backed along the ledge I soon was past the mouth of the cave, where I no longer could see those fearful flaming eyes, but an instantlater I caught sight of the fiendish face of a Sagoth as it warilyadvanced 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 afterhim came as many of his companions as could crowd upon each other'sheels. At the same time the beast emerged from the cave, so that heand the Sagoths came face to face upon that narrow ledge. 

The thing was an enormous cave bear, rearing its colossal bulk fullyeight feet at the shoulder, while from the tip of its nose to the endof its stubby tail it was fully twelve feet in length. As it sightedthe Sagoths it emitted a most frightful roar, and with open mouthcharged full upon them. With a cry of terror the foremost gorilla-manturned to escape, but behind him he ran full upon his on-rushingcompanions. 

The horror of the following seconds is indescribable. The Sagothnearest the cave bear, finding his escape blocked, turned and leapeddeliberately to an awful death upon the jagged rocks three hundred feetbelow. Then those giant jaws reached out and gathered in thenext--there was a sickening sound of crushing bones, and the mangledcorpse was dropped over the cliff's edge. Nor did the mighty beasteven pause in his steady advance along the ledge. 

Shrieking Sagoths were now leaping madly over the precipice to escapehim, and the last I saw he rounded the turn still pursuing thedemoralized remnant of the man hunters. For a long time I could hearthe horrid roaring of the brute intermingled with the screams andshrieks of his victims, until finally the awful sounds dwindled anddisappeared in the distance. 

Later I learned from Ghak, who had finally come to his tribesmen andreturned with a party to rescue me, that the ryth, as it is called, pursued the Sagoths until it had exterminated the entire band. Ghakwas, of course, positive that I had fallen prey to the terriblecreature, which, within Pellucidar, is truly the king of beasts. 

Not caring to venture back into the canyon, where I might fall preyeither to the cave bear or the Sagoths I continued on along the ledge, believing that by following around the mountain I could reach the landof Sari from another direction. But I evidently became confused by thetwisting and turning of the canyons and gullies, for I did not come tothe land of Sari then, nor for a long time thereafter. 

XIV

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

WITH NO HEAVENLY GUIDE, IT IS LITTLE WONDER that I became confused andlost in the labyrinthine maze of those mighty hills. What, in reality, I did was to pass entirely through them and come out above the valleyupon the farther side. I know that I wandered for a long time, untiltired and hungry I came upon a small cave in the face of the limestoneformation which had taken the place of the granite farther back. 

The cave which took my fancy lay halfway up the precipitous side of alofty cliff. The way to it was such that I knew no extremelyformidable beast could frequent it, nor was it large enough to make acomfortable habitat for any but the smaller mammals or reptiles. Yetit was with the utmost caution that I crawled within its dark interior. 

Here I found a rather large chamber, lighted by a narrow cleft in therock above which let the sunlight filter in in sufficient quantitiespartially to dispel the utter darkness which I had expected. The cavewas entirely empty, nor were there any signs of its having beenrecently occupied. The opening was comparatively small, so that afterconsiderable effort I was able to lug up a bowlder from the valleybelow which entirely blocked it. 

Then I returned again to the valley for an armful of grasses and onthis trip was fortunate enough to knock over an orthopi, the diminutivehorse of Pellucidar, a little animal about the size of a fox terrier, which abounds in all parts of the inner world. Thus, with food andbedding I returned to my lair, where after a meal of raw meat, to whichI had now become quite accustomed, I dragged the bowlder before theentrance and curled myself upon a bed of grasses--a naked, primeval, cave man, as savagely primitive as my prehistoric progenitors. 

I awoke rested but hungry, and pushing the bowlder aside crawled outupon the little rocky shelf which was my front porch. Before me spreada small but beautiful valley, through the center of which a clear andsparkling river wound its way down to an inland sea, the blue waters ofwhich were just visible between the two mountain ranges which embracedthis little paradise. The sides of the opposite hills were green withverdure, for a great forest clothed them to the foot of the red andyellow and copper green of the towering crags which formed theirsummit. The valley itself was carpeted with a luxuriant grass, whilehere and there patches of wild flowers made great splashes of vividcolor against the prevailing green. 

Dotted over the face of the valley were little clusters of palmliketrees--three or four together as a rule. Beneath these stood antelope, while others grazed in the open, or wandered gracefully to a nearbyford 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 overtheir ears and then forward again beneath them, ending in sharp andformidable points some two feet before the face and above the eyes. Insize they remind one of a pure bred Hereford bull, yet they are veryagile and fast. The broad yellow bands that stripe the dark roan oftheir coats made me take them for zebra when I first saw them. All inall they are handsome animals, and added the finishing touch to thestrange and lovely landscape that spread before my new home. 

I had determined to make the cave my headquarters, and with it as abase make a systematic exploration of the surrounding country in searchof the land of Sari. First I devoured the remainder of the carcass ofthe orthopi I had killed before my last sleep. Then I hid the GreatSecret in a deep niche at the back of my cave, rolled the bowlderbefore my front door, and with bow, arrows, sword, and shield scrambleddown into the peaceful valley. 

The grazing herds moved to one side as I passed through them, thelittle orthopi evincing the greatest wariness and galloping to safestdistances. All the animals stopped feeding as I approached, and aftermoving to what they considered a safe distance stood contemplating mewith serious eyes and up-cocked ears. Once one of the old bullantelopes of the striped species lowered his head and bellowedangrily--even taking a few steps in my direction, so that I thought hemeant to charge; but after I had passed, he resumed feeding as thoughnothing had disturbed him. 

Near the lower end of the valley I passed a number of tapirs, andacross the river saw a great sadok, the enormous double-hornedprogenitor of the modern rhinoceros. At the valley's end the cliffsupon the left ran out into the sea, so that to pass around them as Idesired to do it was necessary to scale them in search of a ledge alongwhich I might continue my journey. Some fifty feet from the base Icame upon a projection which formed a natural path along the face ofthe cliff, and this I followed out over the sea toward the cliff's end. 

Here the ledge inclined rapidly upward toward the top of thecliffs--the stratum which formed it evidently having been forced up atthis steep angle when the mountains behind it were born. As I climbedcarefully up the ascent my attention suddenly was attracted aloft bythe sound of strange hissing, and what resembled the flapping of wings. 

And at the first glance there broke upon my horrified vision the mostfrightful thing I had seen even within Pellucidar. It was a giantdragon such as is pictured in the legends and fairy tales of earthfolk. Its huge body must have measured forty feet in length, while thebatlike wings that supported it in midair had a spread of fully thirty. Its gaping jaws were armed with long, sharp teeth, and its clawequipped with horrible talons. 

The hissing noise which had first attracted my attention was issuingfrom its throat, and seemed to be directed at something beyond andbelow me which I could not see. The ledge upon which I stoodterminated abruptly a few paces farther on, and as I reached the end Isaw the cause of the reptile's agitation. 

Some time in past ages an earthquake had produced a fault at thispoint, so that beyond the spot where I stood the strata had slippeddown a matter of twenty feet. The result was that the continuation ofmy ledge lay twenty feet below me, where it ended as abruptly as didthe end upon which I stood. 

And here, evidently halted in flight by this insurmountable break inthe ledge, stood the object of the creature's attack--a girl coweringupon the narrow platform, her face buried in her arms, as though toshut out the sight of the frightful death which hovered just above her. 

The dragon was circling lower, and seemed about to dart in upon itsprey. There was no time to be lost, scarce an instant in which toweigh the possible chances that I had against the awfully armedcreature; but the sight of that frightened girl below me called out toall that was best in me, and the instinct for protection of the othersex, which nearly must have equaled the instinct of self-preservationin primeval man, drew me to the girl's side like an irresistible magnet. 

Almost thoughtless of the consequences, I leaped from the end of theledge upon which I stood, for the tiny shelf twenty feet below. At thesame instant the dragon darted in toward the girl, but my sudden adventupon the scene must have startled him for he veered to one side, andthen rose above us once more. 

The noise I made as I landed beside her convinced the girl that the endhad come, for she thought I was the dragon; but finally when no cruelfangs closed upon her she raised her eyes in astonishment. As theyfell upon me the expression that came into them would be difficult todescribe; but her feelings could scarcely have been one whit morecomplicated than my own--for the wide eyes that looked into mine werethose of Dian the Beautiful. 

"Dian!" I cried. "Dian! Thank God that I came in time. "

"You?" she whispered, and then she hid her face again; nor could I tellwhether she were glad or angry that I had come. 

Once more the dragon was sweeping toward us, and so rapidly that I hadno time to unsling my bow. All that I could do was to snatch up arock, 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 andsoared away. 

Quickly I fitted an arrow now that I might be ready at the next attack, and as I did so I looked down at the girl, so that I surprised her in asurreptitious glance which she was stealing at me; but immediately, sheagain covered her face with her hands. 

"Look at me, Dian, " I pleaded. "Are you not glad to see me?"

She looked straight into my eyes. 

"I hate you, " she said, and then, as I was about to beg for a fairhearing she pointed over my shoulder. "The thipdar comes, " she said, and I turned again to meet the reptile. 

So this was a thipdar. I might have known it. The cruel bloodhound ofthe Mahars. The long-extinct pterodactyl of the outer world. But thistime I met it with a weapon it never had faced before. I had selectedmy longest arrow, and with all my strength had bent the bow until thevery tip of the shaft rested upon the thumb of my left hand, and thenas the great creature darted toward us I let drive straight for thattough breast. 

Hissing like the escape valve of a steam engine, the mighty creaturefell turning and twisting into the sea below, my arrow buriedcompletely in its carcass. I turned toward the girl. She was lookingpast me. It was evident that she had seen the thipdar die. 

"Dian, " I said, "won't you tell me that you are not sorry that I havefound you?"

"I hate you, " was her only reply; but I imagined that there was lessvehemence in it than before--yet it might have been but my imagination. 

"Why do you hate me, Dian?" I asked, but she did not answer me. 

"What are you doing here?" I asked, "and what has happened to you sinceHooja freed you from the Sagoths?"

At first I thought that she was going to ignore me entirely, butfinally she thought better of it. 

"I was again running away from Jubal the Ugly One, " she said. "After Iescaped from the Sagoths I made my way alone back to my own land; buton account of Jubal I did not dare enter the villages or let any of myfriends 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 yetreturned, and so I continued to live in a cave beside a valley which myrace seldom frequents, awaiting the time that he should come back andfree me from Jubal. 

"But at last one of Jubal's hunters saw me as I was creeping toward myfather's cave to see if my brother had yet returned and he gave thealarm and Jubal set out after me. He has been pursuing me across manylands. He cannot be far behind me now. When he comes he will kill youand carry me back to his cave. He is a terrible man. I have gone asfar as I can go, and there is no escape, " and she looked hopelessly upat the continuation of the ledge twenty feet above us. 

"But he shall not have me, " she suddenly cried, with great vehemence. "The sea is there"--she pointed over the edge of the cliff--"and thesea shall have me rather than Jubal. "

"But I have you now Dian, " I cried; "nor shall Jubal, nor any otherhave you, for you are mine, " and I seized her hand, nor did I lift itabove her head and let it fall in token of release. 

She had risen to her feet, and was looking straight into my eyes withlevel gaze. 

"I do not believe you, " she said, "for if you meant it you would havedone this when the others were present to witness it--then I shouldtruly have been your mate; now there is no one to see you do it, foryou know that without witnesses your act does not bind you to me, " andshe withdrew her hand from mine and turned away. 

I tried to convince her that I was sincere, but she simply couldn'tforget the humiliation that I had put upon her on that other occasion. 

"If you mean all that you say you will have ample chance to prove it, "she said, "if Jubal does not catch and kill you. I am in your power, and the treatment you accord me will be the best proof of yourintentions toward me. I am not your mate, and again I tell you that Ihate you, and that I should be glad if I never saw you again. "

Dian certainly was candid. There was no gainsaying that. In fact Ifound candor and directness to be quite a marked characteristic of thecave men of Pellucidar. Finally I suggested that we make some attemptto gain my cave, where we might escape the searching Jubal, for I amfree to admit that I had no considerable desire to meet the formidableand ferocious creature, of whose mighty prowess Dian had told me when Ifirst met her. He it was who, armed with a puny knife, had met andkilled a cave bear in a hand-to-hand struggle. It was Jubal who couldcast his spear entirely through the armored carcass of the sadok atfifty paces. It was he who had crushed the skull of a charging dyrythwith a single blow of his war club. No, I was not pining to meet theUgly One-and it was quite certain that I should not go out and hunt forhim; but the matter was taken out of my hands very quickly, as is oftenthe way, and I did meet Jubal the Ugly One face to face. 

This is how it happened. I had led Dian back along the ledge the wayshe had come, searching for a path that would lead us to the top of thecliff, for I knew that we could then cross over to the edge of my ownlittle valley, where I felt certain we should find a means of ingressfrom the cliff top. As we proceeded along the ledge I gave Dian minutedirections for finding my cave against the chance of somethinghappening to me. I knew that she would be quite safely hidden awayfrom pursuit once she gained the shelter of my lair, and the valleywould afford her ample means of sustenance. 

Also, I was very much piqued by her treatment of me. My heart was sadand heavy, and I wanted to make her feel badly by suggesting thatsomething terrible might happen to me--that I might, in fact, bekilled. But it didn't work worth a cent, at least as far as I couldperceive. Dian simply shrugged those magnificent shoulders of hers, and murmured something to the effect that one was not rid of trouble soeasily as that. 

For a while I kept still. I was utterly squelched. And to think thatI had twice protected her from attack--the last time risking my life tosave hers. It was incredible that even a daughter of the Stone Agecould be so ungrateful--so heartless; but maybe her heart partook ofthe qualities of her epoch. 

Presently we found a rift in the cliff which had been widened andextended by the action of the water draining through it from theplateau above. It gave us a rather rough climb to the summit, butfinally we stood upon the level mesa which stretched back for severalmiles to the mountain range. Behind us lay the broad inland sea, curving upward in the horizonless distance to merge into the blue ofthe sky, so that for all the world it looked as though the sea lappedback to arch completely over us and disappear beyond the distantmountains at our backs--the weird and uncanny aspect of the seascapesof Pellucidar balk description. 

At our right lay a dense forest, but to the left the country was openand clear to the plateau's farther verge. It was in this directionthat our way led, and we had turned to resume our journey when Diantouched my arm. I turned to her, thinking that she was about to makepeace overtures; but I was mistaken. 

"Jubal, " she said, and nodded toward the forest. 

I looked, and there, emerging from the dense wood, came a perfect whaleof a man. He must have been seven feet tall, and proportionedaccordingly. He still was too far off to distinguish his features. 

"Run, " I said to Dian. "I can engage him until you get a good start. Maybe I can hold him until you have gotten entirely away, " and then, without a backward glance, I advanced to meet the Ugly One. I hadhoped 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; butshe never even so much as bid me good-bye, and it was with a heavyheart that I strode through the flower-bespangled grass to my doom. 

When I had come close enough to Jubal to distinguish his features Iunderstood how it was that he had earned the sobriquet of Ugly One. Apparently some fearful beast had ripped away one entire side of hisface. The eye was gone, the nose, and all the flesh, so that his jawsand all his teeth were exposed and grinning through the horrible scar. 

Formerly he may have been as good to look upon as the others of hishandsome race, and it may be that the terrible result of this encounterhad tended to sour an already strong and brutal character. Howeverthis may be it is quite certain that he was not a pretty sight, and nowthat his features, or what remained of them, were distorted in rage atthe sight of Dian with another male, he was indeed most terrible tosee--and much more terrible to meet. 

He had broken into a run now, and as he advanced he raised his mightyspear, while I halted and fitting an arrow to my bow took as steady aimas I could. I was somewhat longer than usual, for I must confess thatthe sight of this awful man had wrought upon my nerves to such anextent that my knees were anything but steady. What chance had Iagainst this mighty warrior for whom even the fiercest cave bear had noterrors! Could I hope to best one who slaughtered the sadok and dyrythsinglehanded! I shuddered; but, in fairness to myself, my fear wasmore for Dian than for my own fate. 

And then the great brute launched his massive stone-tipped spear, and Iraised my shield to break the force of its terrific velocity. Theimpact hurled me to my knees, but the shield had deflected the missileand I was unscathed. Jubal was rushing upon me now with the onlyremaining weapon that he carried--a murderous-looking knife. He wastoo close for a careful bowshot, but I let drive at him as he came, without taking aim. My arrow pierced the fleshy part of his thigh, inflicting a painful but not disabling wound. And then he was upon me. 

My agility saved me for the instant. I ducked beneath his raised arm, and when he wheeled to come at me again he found a sword's point in hisface. And a moment later he felt an inch or two of it in the musclesof his knife arm, so that thereafter he went more warily. 

It was a duel of strategy now--the great, hairy man maneuvering to getinside my guard where he could bring those giant thews to play, whilemy 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. Hewas covered with blood by this time, and the internal hemorrhageinduced paroxysms of coughing that brought the red stream through thehideous mouth and nose, covering his face and breast with bloody froth. He was a most unlovely spectacle, but he was far from dead. 

As the duel continued I began to gain confidence, for, to be perfectlycandid, I had not expected to survive the first rush of that monstrousengine of ungoverned rage and hatred. And I think that Jubal, fromutter contempt of me, began to change to a feeling of respect, and thenin his primitive mind there evidently loomed the thought that perhapsat last he had met his master, and was facing his end. 

At any rate it is only upon this hypothesis that I can account for hisnext act, which was in the nature of a last resort--a sort of forlornhope, which could only have been born of the belief that if he did notkill me quickly I should kill him. It happened on the occasion of hisfourth charge, when, instead of striking at me with his knife, hedropped that weapon, and seizing my sword blade in both his handswrenched the weapon from my grasp as easily as from a babe. 

Flinging it far to one side he stood motionless for just an instantglaring into my face with such a horrid leer of malignant triumph as toalmost unnerve me--then he sprang for me with his bare hands. But itwas Jubal's day to learn new methods of warfare. For the first time hehad seen a bow and arrows, never before that duel had he beheld asword, and now he learned what a man who knows may do with his barefists. 

As he came for me, like a great bear, I ducked again beneath hisoutstretched arm, and as I came up planted as clean a blow upon his jawas ever you have seen. Down went that great mountain of fleshsprawling upon the ground. He was so surprised and dazed that he laythere for several seconds before he made any attempt to rise, and Istood over him with another dose ready when he should gain his knees. 

Up he came at last, almost roaring in his rage and mortification; buthe didn't stay up--I let him have a left fair on the point of the jawthat sent him tumbling over on his back. By this time I think Jubalhad gone mad with hate, for no sane man would have come back for moreas many times as he did. Time after time I bowled him over as fast ashe could stagger up, until toward the last he lay longer on the groundbetween blows, and each time came up weaker than before. 

He was bleeding very profusely now from the wound in his lungs, andpresently a terrific blow over the heart sent him reeling heavily tothe ground, where he lay very still, and somehow I knew at once thatJubal the Ugly One would never get up again. But even as I looked uponthat massive body lying there so grim and terrible in death, I couldnot believe that I, single-handed, had bested this slayer of fearfulbeasts--this gigantic ogre of the Stone Age. 

Picking up my sword I leaned upon it, looking down on the dead body ofmy foeman, and as I thought of the battle I had just fought and won agreat idea was born in my brain--the outcome of this and the suggestionthat Perry had made within the city of Phutra. If skill and sciencecould render a comparative pygmy the master of this mighty brute, whatcould not the brute's fellows accomplish with the same skill andscience. Why all Pellucidar would be at their feet--and I would betheir king and Dian their queen. 

Dian! A little wave of doubt swept over me. It was quite within thepossibilities of Dian to look down upon me even were I king. She wasquite the most superior person I ever had met--with the most convincingway of letting you know that she was superior. Well, I could go to thecave, and tell her that I had killed Jubal, and then she might feelmore kindly toward me, since I had freed her of her tormentor. I hopedthat she had found the cave easily--it would be terrible had I lost heragain, and I turned to gather up my shield and bow to hurry after her, when to my astonishment I found her standing not ten paces behind me. 

"Girl!" I cried, "what are you doing here? I thought that you had goneto the cave, as I told you to do. "

Up went her head, and the look that she gave me took all the majestyout of me, and left me feeling more like the palace janitor--if palaceshave janitors. 

"As you told me to do!" she cried, stamping her little foot. "I do asI please. I am the daughter of a king, and furthermore, I hate you. "

I was dumbfounded--this was my thanks for saving her from Jubal! Iturned and looked at the corpse. "May be that I saved you from a worsefate, old man, " I said, but I guess it was lost on Dian, for she neverseemed to notice it at all. 

"Let us go to my cave, " I said, "I am tired and hungry. "

She followed along a pace behind me, neither of us speaking. I was tooangry, 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 aword of thanks should have rewarded me, for I knew that even by her ownstandards, I must have done a very wonderful thing to have killed theredoubtable Jubal in a hand-to-hand encounter. 

We had no difficulty in finding my lair, and then I went down into thevalley and bowled over a small antelope, which I dragged up the steepascent to the ledge before the door. Here we ate in silence. Occasionally I glanced at her, thinking that the sight of her tearingat raw flesh with her hands and teeth like some wild animal would causea revulsion of my sentiments toward her; but to my surprise I foundthat she ate quite as daintily as the most civilized woman of myacquaintance, and finally I found myself gazing in foolish rapture atthe beauties of her strong, white teeth. Such is love. 

After our repast we went down to the river together and bathed ourhands and faces, and then after drinking our fill went back to thecave. Without a word I crawled into the farthest corner and, curlingup, was soon asleep. 

When I awoke I found Dian sitting in the doorway looking out across thevalley. As I came out she moved to one side to let me pass, but shehad no word for me. I wanted to hate her, but I couldn't. Every timeI looked at her something came up in my throat, so that I nearlychoked. I had never been in love before, but I did not need any aid indiagnosing my case--I certainly had it and had it bad. God, how Iloved that beautiful, disdainful, tantalizing, prehistoric girl!

After we had eaten again I asked Dian if she intended returning to hertribe now that Jubal was dead, but she shook her head sadly, and saidthat she did not dare, for there was still Jubal's brother to beconsidered--his oldest brother. 

"What has he to do with it?" I asked. "Does he too want you, or hasthe option on you become a family heirloom, to be passed on down fromgeneration to generation?"

She was not quite sure as to what I meant. 

"It is probable, " she said, "that they all will want revenge for thedeath of Jubal--there are seven of them--seven terrible men. Someonemay have to kill them all, if I am to return to my people. "

It began to look as though I had assumed a contract much too large forme--about seven sizes, in fact. 

"Had Jubal any cousins?" I asked. It was just as well to know theworst at once. 

"Yes, " replied Dian, "but they don't count--they all have mates. Jubal's brothers have no mates because Jubal could get none forhimself. He was so ugly that women ran away from him--some have eventhrown themselves from the cliffs of Amoz into the Darel Az rather thanmate with the Ugly One. "

"But what had that to do with his brothers?" I asked. 

"I forget that you are not of Pellucidar, " said Dian, with a look ofpity mixed with contempt, and the contempt seemed to be laid on alittle thicker than the circumstance warranted--as though to make quitecertain that I shouldn't overlook it. "You see, " she continued, "ayounger brother may not take a mate until all his older brothers havedone so, unless the older brother waives his prerogative, which Jubalwould not do, knowing that as long as he kept them single they would beall the keener in aiding him to secure a mate. "

Noticing that Dian was becoming more communicative I began to entertainhopes that she might be warming up toward me a bit, although upon whatslender thread I hung my hopes I soon discovered. 

"As you dare not return to Amoz, " I ventured, "what is to become of yousince you cannot be happy here with me, hating me as you do?"

"I shall have to put up with you, " she replied coldly, "until you seefit to go elsewhere and leave me in peace, then I shall get along verywell alone. "

I looked at her in utter amazement. It seemed incredible that even aprehistoric woman could be so cold and heartless and ungrateful. ThenI arose. 

"I shall leave you NOW, " I said haughtily, "I have had quite enough ofyour ingratitude and your insults, " and then I turned and strodemajestically down toward the valley. I had taken a hundred steps inabsolute silence, and then Dian spoke. 

"I hate you!" she shouted, and her voice broke--in rage, I thought. 

I was absolutely miserable, but I hadn't gone too far when I began torealize that I couldn't leave her alone there without protection, tohunt her own food amid the dangers of that savage world. She mighthate me, and revile me, and heap indignity after indignity upon me, asshe already had, until I should have hated her; but the pitiful factremained that I loved her, and I couldn't leave her there alone. 

The more I thought about it the madder I got, so that by the time Ireached the valley I was furious, and the result of it was that Iturned right around and went up that cliff again as fast as I had comedown. I saw that Dian had left the ledge and gone within the cave, butI bolted right in after her. She was lying upon her face on the pileof grasses I had gathered for her bed. When she heard me enter shesprang to her feet like a tigress. 

"I hate you!" she cried. 

Coming from the brilliant light of the noonday sun into thesemidarkness of the cave I could not see her features, and I was ratherglad, for I disliked to think of the hate that I should have read there. 

I never said a word to her at first. I just strode across the cave andgrasped her by the wrists, and when she struggled, I put my arm aroundher 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 hadsuddenly 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 Ikissed that beautiful mouth again and again. 

"Dian, " I cried, shaking her roughly, "I love you. Can't youunderstand that I love you? That I love you better than all else inthis world or my own? That I am going to have you? That love likemine cannot be denied?"

I noticed that she lay very still in my arms now, and as my eyes becameaccustomed 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 themso 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 therefor a long time. At last she spoke. 

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

"What!" I cried. "You said that you hated me!"

"Did you expect me to run into your arms, and say that I loved youbefore I knew that you loved me?" she asked. 

"But I have told you right along that I love you, " I said. "Lovespeaks in acts, " she replied. "You could have made your mouth say whatyou wished it to say, but just now when you came and took me in yourarms your heart spoke to mine in the language that a woman's heartunderstands. What a silly man you are, David?"

"Then you haven't hated me at all, Dian?" I asked. 

"I have loved you always, " she whispered, "from the first moment that Isaw you, although I did not know it until that time you struck downHooja the Sly One, and then spurned me. "

"But I didn't spurn you, dear, " I cried. "I didn't know your ways--Idoubt if I do now. It seems incredible that you could have reviled meso, and yet have cared for me all the time. "

"You might have known, " she said, "when I did not run away from youthat it was not hate which chained me to you. While you were battlingwith Jubal, I could have run to the edge of the forest, and when Ilearned the outcome of the combat it would have been a simple thing tohave eluded you and returned to my own people. "

"But Jubal's brothers--and cousins--" I reminded her, "how about them?"

She smiled, and hid her face on my shoulder. 

"I had to tell you SOMETHING, David, " she whispered. "I must needshave SOME excuse for remaining near you. "

"You little sinner!" I exclaimed. "And you have caused me all thisanguish for nothing!"

"I have suffered even more, " she answered simply, "for I thought thatyou did not love me, and I was helpless. I couldn't come to you anddemand that my love be returned, as you have just come to me. Just nowwhen you went away hope went with you. I was wretched, terrified, miserable, and my heart was breaking. I wept, and I have not done thatbefore since my mother died, " and now I saw that there was the moistureof tears about her eyes. It was near to making me cry myself when Ithought of all that poor child had been through. Motherless andunprotected; hunted across a savage, primeval world by that hideousbrute of a man; exposed to the attacks of the countless fearsomedenizens of its mountains, its plains, and its jungles--it was amiracle that she had survived it all. 

To me it was a revelation of the things my early forebears must haveendured that the human race of the outer crust might survive. It mademe very proud to think that I had won the love of such a woman. Ofcourse she couldn't read or write; there was nothing cultured orrefined about her as you judge culture and refinement; but she was theessence of all that is best in woman, for she was good, and brave, andnoble, and virtuous. And she was all these things in spite of the factthat their observance entailed suffering and danger and possible death. 

How much easier it would have been to have gone to Jubal in the firstplace! She would have been his lawful mate. She would have been queenin her own land--and it meant just as much to the cave woman to be aqueen in the Stone Age as it does to the woman of today to be a queennow; it's all comparative glory any way you look at it, and if therewere only half-naked savages on the outer crust today, you'd find thatit would be considerable glory to be the wife a Dahomey chief. 

I couldn't help but compare Dian's action with that of a splendid youngwoman I had known in New York--I mean splendid to look at and to talkto. 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 olddebauchee because he was a count in some dinky little Europeanprincipality that was not even accorded a distinctive color by RandMcNally. 

Yes, I was mighty proud of Dian. 

After a time we decided to set out for Sari, as I was anxious to seePerry, and to know that all was right with him. I had told Dian aboutour plan of emancipating the human race of Pellucidar, and she wasfairly wild over it. She said that if Dacor, her brother, would onlyreturn he could easily be king of Amoz, and that then he and Ghak couldform an alliance. That would give us a flying start, for the Sariansand the Amozites were both very powerful tribes. Once they had beenarmed with swords, and bows and arrows, and trained in their use wewere confident that they could overcome any tribe that seemeddisinclined to join the great army of federated states with which wewere planning to march upon the Mahars. 

I explained the various destructive engines of war which Perry and Icould construct after a little experimentation--gunpowder, rifles, cannon, and the like, and Dian would clap her hands, and throw her armsabout my neck, and tell me what a wonderful thing I was. She wasbeginning to think that I was omnipotent although I really hadn't doneanything 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 hiswife or mother thought him, he would have the world by the tail with adown-hill drag. 

The first time we started for Sari I stepped into a nest of poisonousvipers before we reached the valley. A little fellow stung me on theankle, and Dian made me come back to the cave. She said that I mustn'texercise, or it might prove fatal--if it had been a full-grown snakethat struck me she said, I wouldn't have moved a single pace from thenest--I'd have died in my tracks, so virulent is the poison. As it wasI must have been laid up for quite a while, though Dian's poultices ofherbs and leaves finally reduced the swelling and drew out the poison. 

The episode proved most fortunate, however, as it gave me an idea whichadded a thousand-fold to the value of my arrows as missiles of offenseand defense. As soon as I was able to be about again, I sought outsome adult vipers of the species which had stung me, and having killedthem, I extracted their virus, smearing it upon the tips of severalarrows. Later I shot a hyaenodon with one of these, and though myarrow inflicted but a superficial flesh wound the beast crumpled indeath almost immediately after he was hit. 

We now set out once more for the land of the Sarians, and it was withfeelings of sincere regret that we bade good-bye to our beautifulGarden of Eden, in the comparative peace and harmony of which we hadlived the happiest moments of our lives. How long we had been there Idid not know, for as I have told you, time had ceased to exist for mebeneath that eternal noonday sun--it may have been an hour, or a monthof earthly time; I do not know. 

XV

BACK TO EARTH

WE CROSSED THE RIVER AND PASSED THROUGH THE mountains beyond, andfinally we came out upon a great level plain which stretched away asfar as the eye could reach. I cannot tell you in what direction itstretched even if you would care to know, for all the while that I waswithin Pellucidar I never discovered any but local methods ofindicating direction--there is no north, no south, no east, no west. UP is about the only direction which is well defined, and that, ofcourse, is DOWN to you of the outer crust. Since the sun neither risesnor sets there is no method of indicating direction beyond visibleobjects such as high mountains, forests, lakes, and seas. 

The plain which lies beyond the white cliffs which flank the Darel Azupon the shore nearest the Mountains of the Clouds is about as near toany direction as any Pellucidarian can come. If you happen not to haveheard of the Darel Az, or the white cliffs, or the Mountains of theClouds you feel that there is something lacking, and long for the goodold understandable northeast and southwest of the outer world. 

We had barely entered the great plain when we discovered two enormousanimals approaching us from a great distance. So far were they that wecould not distinguish what manner of beasts they might be, but as theycame closer, I saw that they were enormous quadrupeds, eighty or ahundred feet long, with tiny heads perched at the top of very longnecks. Their heads must have been quite forty feet from the ground. The beasts moved very slowly--that is their action was slow--but theirstrides covered such a great distance that in reality they traveledconsiderably faster than a man walks. 

As they drew still nearer we discovered that upon the back of each sata human being. Then Dian knew what they were, though she never beforehad seen one. 

"They are lidis from the land of the Thorians, " she cried. "Thorialies at the outer verge of the Land of Awful Shadow. The Thoriansalone of all the races of Pellucidar ride the lidi, for nowhere elsethan beside the dark country are they found. "

"What is the Land of Awful Shadow?" I asked. 

"It is the land which lies beneath the Dead World, " replied Dian; "theDead World which hangs forever between the sun and Pellucidar above theLand of Awful Shadow. It is the Dead World which makes the greatshadow upon this portion of Pellucidar. "

I did not fully understand what she meant, nor am I sure that I do yet, for I have never been to that part of Pellucidar from which the DeadWorld is visible; but Perry says that it is the moon of Pellucidar--atiny planet within a planet--and that it revolves around the earth'saxis coincidently with the earth, and thus is always above the samespot within Pellucidar. 

I remember that Perry was very much excited when I told him about thisDead World, for he seemed to think that it explained the hithertoinexplicable phenomena of nutation and the precession of the equinoxes. 

When the two upon the lidis had come quite close to us we saw that onewas 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, whenhe suddenly gave a cry of astonishment and pleasure, and slipping fromhis enormous mount ran forward toward Dian, throwing his arms about her. 

In an instant I was white with jealousy, but only for an instant; sinceDian quickly drew the man toward me, telling him that I was David, hermate. 

"And this is my brother, Dacor the Strong One, David, " she said to me. 

It appeared that the woman was Dacor's mate. He had found none to hisliking among the Sari, nor farther on until he had come to the land ofthe Thoria, and there he had found and fought for this very lovelyThorian maiden whom he was bringing back to his own people. 

When they had heard our story and our plans they decided to accompanyus to Sari, that Dacor and Ghak might come to an agreement relative toan alliance, as Dacor was quite as enthusiastic about the proposedannihilation of the Mahars and Sagoths as either Dian or I. 

After a journey which was, for Pellucidar, quite uneventful, we came tothe first of the Sarian villages which consists of between one and twohundred artificial caves cut into the face of a great cliff. Here toour immense delight, we found both Perry and Ghak. The old man wasquite overcome at sight of me for he had long since given me up as dead. 

When I introduced Dian as my wife, he didn't quite know what to say, but he afterward remarked that with the pick of two worlds I could nothave done better. 

Ghak and Dacor reached a very amicable arrangement, and it was at acouncil of the head men of the various tribes of the Sari that theeventual form of government was tentatively agreed upon. Roughly, thevarious kingdoms were to remain virtually independent, but there was tobe one great overlord, or emperor. It was decided that I should be thefirst of the dynasty of the emperors of Pellucidar. 

We set about teaching the women how to make bows and arrows, and poisonpouches. The young men hunted the vipers which provided the virus, andit was they who mined the iron ore, and fashioned the swords underPerry's direction. Rapidly the fever spread from one tribe to anotheruntil representatives from nations so far distant that the Sarians hadnever even heard of them came in to take the oath of allegiance whichwe required, and to learn the art of making the new weapons and usingthem. 

We sent our young men out as instructors to every nation of thefederation, and the movement had reached colossal proportions beforethe Mahars discovered it. The first intimation they had was when threeof their great slave caravans were annihilated in rapid succession. They could not comprehend that the lower orders had suddenly developeda power which rendered them really formidable. 

In one of the skirmishes with slave caravans some of our Sarians took anumber of Sagoth prisoners, and among them were two who had beenmembers of the guards within the building where we had been confined atPhutra. They told us that the Mahars were frantic with rage when theydiscovered what had taken place in the cellars of the buildings. TheSagoths knew that something very terrible had befallen their masters, but the Mahars had been most careful to see that no inkling of the truenature of their vital affliction reached beyond their own race. Howlong it would take for the race to become extinct it was impossibleeven to guess; but that this must eventually happen seemed inevitable. 

The Mahars had offered fabulous rewards for the capture of any one ofus alive, and at the same time had threatened to inflict the direstpunishment upon whomever should harm us. The Sagoths could notunderstand these seemingly paradoxical instructions, though theirpurpose was quite evident to me. The Mahars wanted the Great Secret, and they knew that we alone could deliver it to them. 

Perry's experiments in the manufacture of gunpowder and the fashioningof rifles had not progressed as rapidly as we had hoped--there was awhole lot about these two arts which Perry didn't know. We were bothassured that the solution of these problems would advance the cause ofcivilization within Pellucidar thousands of years at a single stroke. Then there were various other arts and sciences which we wished tointroduce, but our combined knowledge of them did not embrace themechanical details which alone could render them of commercial, orpractical value. 

"David, " said Perry, immediately after his latest failure to producegunpowder that would even burn, "one of us must return to the outerworld and bring back the information we lack. Here we have all thelabor and materials for reproducing anything that ever has beenproduced above--what we lack is knowledge. Let us go back and get thatknowledge in the shape of books--then this world will indeed be at ourfeet. "

And so it was decided that I should return in the prospector, whichstill lay upon the edge of the forest at the point where we had firstpenetrated to the surface of the inner world. Dian would not listen toany arrangement for my going which did not include her, and I was notsorry that she wished to accompany me, for I wanted her to see myworld, and I wanted my world to see her. 

With a large force of men we marched to the great iron mole, whichPerry soon had hoisted into position with its nose pointed back towardthe outer crust. He went over all the machinery carefully. Hereplenished the air tanks, and manufactured oil for the engine. Atlast everything was ready, and we were about to set out when ourpickets, a long, thin line of which had surrounded our camp at alltimes, reported that a great body of what appeared to be Sagoths andMahars were approaching from the direction of Phutra. 

Dian and I were ready to embark, but I was anxious to witness the firstclash between two fair-sized armies of the opposing races ofPellucidar. I realized that this was to mark the historic beginning ofa mighty struggle for possession of a world, and as the first emperorof Pellucidar I felt that it was not alone my duty, but my right, to bein the thick of that momentous struggle. 

As the opposing army approached we saw that there were many Mahars withthe Sagoth troops--an indication of the vast importance which thedominant race placed upon the outcome of this campaign, for it was notcustomary with them to take active part in the sorties which theircreatures made for slaves--the only form of warfare which they wagedupon the lower orders. 

Ghak and Dacor were both with us, having come primarily to view theprospector. I placed Ghak with some of his Sarians on the right of ourbattle line. Dacor took the left, while I commanded the center. Behind us I stationed a sufficient reserve under one of Ghak's headmen. The Sagoths advanced steadily with menacing spears, and I letthem come until they were within easy bowshot before I gave the word tofire. 

At the first volley of poison-tipped arrows the front ranks of thegorilla-men crumpled to the ground; but those behind charged over theprostrate forms of their comrades in a wild, mad rush to be upon uswith their spears. A second volley stopped them for an instant, andthen my reserve sprang through the openings in the firing line toengage them with sword and shield. The clumsy spears of the Sagothswere no match for the swords of the Sarian and Amozite, who turned thespear thrusts aside with their shields and leaped to close quarterswith their lighter, handier weapons. 

Ghak took his archers along the enemy's flank, and while the swordsmenengaged them in front, he poured volley after volley into theirunprotected left. The Mahars did little real fighting, and were morein the way than otherwise, though occasionally one of them would fastenits powerful jaw upon the arm or leg of a Sarian. 

The battle did not last a great while, for when Dacor and I led our menin upon the Sagoth's right with naked swords they were already sodemoralized that they turned and fled before us. We pursued them forsome time, taking many prisoners and recovering nearly a hundredslaves, among whom was Hooja the Sly One. 

He told me that he had been captured while on his way to his own land;but that his life had been spared in hope that through him the Maharswould learn the whereabouts of their Great Secret. Ghak and I wereinclined to think that the Sly One had been guiding this expedition tothe land of Sari, where he thought that the book might be found inPerry's possession; but we had no proof of this and so we took him inand treated him as one of us, although none liked him. And how herewarded my generosity you will presently learn. 

There were a number of Mahars among our prisoners, and so fearful wereour own people of them that they would not approach them unlesscompletely covered from the sight of the reptiles by a piece of skin. Even Dian shared the popular superstition regarding the evil effects ofexposure to the eyes of angry Mahars, and though I laughed at her fearsI was willing enough to humor them if it would relieve her apprehensionin any degree, and so she sat apart from the prospector, near which theMahars had been chained, while Perry and I again inspected everyportion of the mechanism. 

At last I took my place in the driving seat, and called to one of themen without to fetch Dian. It happened that Hooja stood quite close tothe doorway of the prospector, so that it was he who, without myknowledge, went to bring her; but how he succeeded in accomplishing thefiendish thing he did, I cannot guess, unless there were others in theplot to aid him. Nor can I believe that, since all my people wereloyal to me and would have made short work of Hooja had he suggestedthe 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 theresult of sudden impulse, aided by a number of, to Hooja, fortuitouscircumstances occurring at precisely the right moment. 

All I know is that it was Hooja who brought Dian to the prospector, still wrapped from head to toe in the skin of an enormous cave lionwhich 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 getunder way. The good-byes had been said. Perry had grasped my hand inthe last, long farewell. I closed and barred the outer and innerdoors, took my seat again at the driving mechanism, and pulled thestarting lever. 

As before on that far-gone night that had witnessed our first trial ofthe iron monster, there was a frightful roaring beneath us--the giantframe trembled and vibrated--there was a rush of sound as the looseearth passed up through the hollow space between the inner and outerjackets to be deposited in our wake. Once more the thing was off. 

But on the instant of departure I was nearly thrown from my seat by thesudden lurching of the prospector. At first I did not realize what hadhappened, but presently it dawned upon me that just before entering thecrust the towering body had fallen through its supporting scaffolding, and that instead of entering the ground vertically we were plunginginto it at a different angle. Where it would bring us out upon theupper crust I could not even conjecture. And then I turned to note theeffect of this strange experience upon Dian. She still sat shrouded inthe great skin. 

"Come, come, " I cried, laughing, "come out of your shell. No Mahareyes can reach you here, " and I leaned over and snatched the lion skinfrom her. And then I shrank back upon my seat in utter horror. 

The thing beneath the skin was not Dian--it was a hideous Mahar. Instantly I realized the trick that Hooja had played upon me, and thepurpose of it. Rid of me, forever as he doubtless thought, Dian wouldbe at his mercy. Frantically I tore at the steering wheel in an effortto turn the prospector back toward Pellucidar; but, as on that otheroccasion, I could not budge the thing a hair. 

It is needless to recount the horrors or the monotony of that journey. It varied but little from the former one which had brought us from theouter to the inner world. Because of the angle at which we had enteredthe ground the trip required nearly a day longer, and brought me outhere upon the sand of the Sahara instead of in the United States as Ihad hoped. 

For months I have been waiting here for a white man to come. I darednot leave the prospector for fear I should never be able to find itagain--the shifting sands of the desert would soon cover it, and thenmy only hope of returning to my Dian and her Pellucidar would be goneforever. 

That I ever shall see her again seems but remotely possible, for howmay I know upon what part of Pellucidar my return journey mayterminate--and how, without a north or south or an east or a west may Ihope ever to find my way across that vast world to the tiny spot wheremy lost love lies grieving for me?

That is the story as David Innes told it to me in the goat-skin tentupon the rim of the great Sahara Desert. The next day he took me outto see the prospector--it was precisely as he had described it. Sohuge was it that it could have been brought to this inaccessible partof the world by no means of transportation that existed there--it couldonly have come in the way that David Innes said it came--up through thecrust of the earth from the inner world of Pellucidar. 

I spent a week with him, and then, abandoned my lion hunt, returneddirectly to the coast and hurried to London where I purchased a greatquantity 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--booksupon every subject under the sun. He said he wanted a library withwhich they could reproduce the wonders of the twentieth century in theStone Age and if quantity counts for anything I got it for him. 

I took the things back to Algeria myself, and accompanied them to theend of the railroad; but from here I was recalled to America uponimportant business. However, I was able to employ a very trustworthyman to take charge of the caravan--the same guide, in fact, who hadaccompanied me on the previous trip into the Sahara--and after writinga long letter to Innes in which I gave him my American address, I sawthe expedition head south. 

Among the other things which I sent to Innes was over five hundredmiles of double, insulated wire of a very fine gauge. I had it packedon a special reel at his suggestion, as it was his idea that he couldfasten one end here before he left and by paying it out through the endof the prospector lay a telegraph line between the outer and innerworlds. In my letter I told him to be sure to mark the terminus of theline very plainly with a high cairn, in case I was not able to reachhim before he set out, so that I might easily find and communicate withhim should he be so fortunate as to reach Pellucidar. 

I received several letters from him after I returned to America--infact he took advantage of every northward-passing caravan to drop meword of some sort. His last letter was written the day before heintended to depart. Here it is. 

MY DEAR FRIEND:

Tomorrow I shall set out in quest of Pellucidar and Dian. That is ifthe Arabs don't get me. They have been very nasty of late. I don'tknow the cause, but on two occasions they have threatened my life. One, more friendly than the rest, told me today that they intendedattacking me tonight. It would be unfortunate should anything of thatsort happen now that I am so nearly ready to depart. 

However, maybe I will be as well off, for the nearer the hourapproaches, the slenderer my chances for success appear. 

Here is the friendly Arab who is to take this letter north for me, sogood-bye, and God bless you for your kindness to me. 

The Arab tells me to hurry, for he sees a cloud of sand to thesouth--he thinks it is the party coming to murder me, and he doesn'twant to be found with me. So good-bye again. 

Yours, DAVID INNES. 

A year later found me at the end of the railroad once more, headed forthe spot where I had left Innes. My first disappointment was when Idiscovered 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 thesame spot. 

For months I searched that scorching land, interviewing countlessdesert sheiks in the hope that at last I might find one who had heardof Innes and his wonderful iron mole. Constantly my eyes scanned theblinding waste of sand for the ricky cairn beneath which I was to findthe wires leading to Pellucidar--but always was I unsuccessful. 

And always do these awful questions harass me when I think of DavidInnes and his strange adventures. 

Did the Arabs murder him, after all, just on the eve of his departure?Or, did he again turn the nose of his iron monster toward the innerworld? Did he reach it, or lies he somewhere buried in the heart ofthe great crust? And if he did come again to Pellucidar was it tobreak through into the bottom of one of her great island seas, or amongsome savage race far, far from the land of his heart's desire?

Does the answer lie somewhere upon the bosom of the broad Sahara, atthe end of two tiny wires, hidden beneath a lost cairn? I wonder.