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At the Earth's Core

by Edgar Rice Burroughs · English · Gutenberg #545 · 289,372 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: At the Earth's Core

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs


        
Release date: June 1, 1996 [eBook #545]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/545

Credits: Produced by Judith Boss.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE EARTH'S CORE ***




Produced by Judith Boss.









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 to
believe this story.  Nor could you wonder had you witnessed a recent
experience of mine when, in the armor of blissful and stupendous
ignorance, I gaily narrated the gist of it to a Fellow of the Royal
Geological Society on the occasion of my last trip to London.

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

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

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

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

I had come down from the north to hunt lion.  My party consisted of a
dozen children of the desert--I was the only "white" man.  As we
approached the little clump of verdure I saw the man come from his tent
and with hand-shaded eyes peer intently at us.  At sight of me he
advanced rapidly to meet us.

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

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

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

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

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

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




I

TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES


I was born in Connecticut about thirty years ago.  My name is David
Innes.  My father was a wealthy mine owner.  When I was nineteen he
died.  All his property was to be mine when I had attained my
majority--provided that I had devoted the two years intervening in
close application to the great business I was to inherit.

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

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

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

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

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

He tested the steering device, and overlooked the mighty cogs which
transmitted its marvelous velocity to the giant drill at the nose of
his strange craft.

Our seats, into which we strapped ourselves, were so arranged upon
transverse bars that we would be upright whether the craft were
ploughing her way downward into the bowels of the earth, or running
horizontally along some great seam of coal, or rising vertically toward
the surface again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You'd better lend me a hand then, my boy," he replied, "for I cannot
budge her out of the vertical alone.  God give that our combined
strength may be equal to the task, for else we are lost."

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

And so it was with the utmost confidence that I laid hold of the huge
iron rim; but though I threw every ounce of my strength into it, my
best effort was as unavailing as Perry's had been--the thing would not
budge--the grim, insensate, horrible thing that was holding us upon the
straight road to death!

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

But to my astonishment I discovered that with death staring him in the
face Abner Perry was transformed into a new being.  From his lips there
flowed--not prayer--but a clear and limpid stream of undiluted
profanity, and it was all directed at that quietly stubborn piece of
unyielding mechanism.

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

"Death!" he cried.  "Death is it that appalls you?  That is nothing by
comparison with the loss the world must suffer.  Why, David within this
iron cylinder we have demonstrated possibilities that science has
scarce dreamed.  We have harnessed a new principle, and with it
animated a piece of steel with the power of ten thousand men.  That two
lives will be snuffed out is nothing to the world calamity that entombs
in the bowels of the earth the discoveries that I have made and proved
in the successful construction of the thing that is now carrying us
farther and farther toward the eternal central fires."

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

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

"We may stop here, and die of asphyxiation when our atmosphere tanks
are empty," replied Perry, "or we may continue on with the slight hope
that we may later sufficiently deflect the prospector from the vertical
to carry us along the arc of a great circle which must eventually
return us to the surface.  If we succeed in so doing before we reach
the higher internal temperature we may even yet survive.  There would
seem to me to be about one chance in several million that we shall
succeed--otherwise we shall die more quickly but no more surely than as
though we sat supinely waiting for the torture of a slow and horrible
death."

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

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

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

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

"There are almost as many conjectures as to that as there are
geologists," was his answer.  "One estimates it thirty miles, because
the internal heat, increasing at the rate of about one degree to each
sixty to seventy feet depth, would be sufficient to fuse the most
refractory substances at that distance beneath the surface.  Another
finds that the phenomena of precession and nutation require that the
earth, if not entirely solid, must at least have a shell not less than
eight hundred to a thousand miles in thickness.  So there you are.  You
may take your choice."

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

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

"If the crust is of sufficient thickness we shall come to a final stop
between six and seven hundred miles beneath the earth's surface; but
during the last hundred and fifty miles of our journey we shall be
corpses.  Am I correct?" I asked.

"Quite correct, David.  Are you frightened?"

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

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

"We have shattered one theory at least," was his only comment, and then
he returned to his self-assumed occupation of fluently cursing the
steering wheel.  I once heard a pirate swear, but his best efforts
would have seemed like those of a tyro alongside of Perry's masterful
and scientific imprecations.

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

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

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

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

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

"Ninety miles and 153 degrees," I replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One hundred and fifty-three degrees had been the maximum temperature
above the ice stratum.  Would it stop at this point again, or would it
continue its merciless climb?  We knew that there was no hope, and yet
with the persistence of life itself we continued to hope against
practical certainty.

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

At four hundred and twenty miles I took another reading.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Good-bye, Perry, and good luck to you," I answered, smiling back at
him.  But I fought off that awful lethargy.  I was very young--I did
not want to die.

For an hour I battled against the cruelly enveloping death that
surrounded me upon all sides.  At first I found that by climbing high
into the framework above me I could find more of the precious
life-giving elements, and for a while these sustained me.  It must have
been an hour after Perry had succumbed that I at last came to the
realization that I could no longer carry on this unequal struggle
against the inevitable.

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

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




II

A STRANGE WORLD


I was unconscious little more than an instant, for as I lunged forward
from the crossbeam to which I had been clinging, and fell with a crash
to the floor of the cabin, the shock brought me to myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I glanced at the chronometer.

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

In a short time I had removed enough of the earth and rock to the floor
of the cabin to expose the door beyond.  Perry was directly behind me
as I threw it open.  The upper half was above the surface of the
ground.  With an expression of surprise I turned and looked at
Perry--it was broad day-light without!

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

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

Together we stepped out to stand in silent contemplation of a landscape
at once weird and beautiful.  Before us a low and level shore stretched
down to a silent sea.  As far as the eye could reach the surface of the
water was dotted with countless tiny isles--some of towering, barren,
granitic rock--others resplendent in gorgeous trappings of tropical
vegetation, myriad starred with the magnificent splendor of vivid
blooms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As I looked I began to appreciate the reason for the strangeness of the
landscape that had haunted me from the first with an illusive
suggestion of the bizarre and unnatural--THERE WAS NO HORIZON!  As far
as the eye could reach out the sea continued and upon its bosom floated
tiny islands, those in the distance reduced to mere specks; but ever
beyond them was the sea, until the impression became quite real that
one was LOOKING UP at the most distant point that the eyes could
fathom--the distance was lost in the distance.  That was all--there was
no clear-cut horizontal line marking the dip of the globe below the
line of vision.

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

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

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

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

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

Roaring horribly it came toward us at a ponderous, shuffling trot.  I
turned to Perry to suggest that it might be wise to seek other
surroundings--the idea had evidently occurred to Perry previously, for
he was already a hundred paces away, and with each second his
prodigious bounds increased the distance.  I had never guessed what
latent speed possibilities the old gentleman possessed.

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

Notwithstanding our danger I could not help but laugh at Perry's
frantic capers as he essayed to gain the safety of the lower branches
of the trees he now had reached.  The stems were bare for a distance of
some fifteen feet--at least on those trees which Perry attempted to
ascend, for the suggestion of safety carried by the larger of the
forest giants had evidently attracted him to them.  A dozen times he
scrambled up the trunks like a huge cat only to fall back to the ground
once more, and with each failure he cast a horrified glance over his
shoulder at the oncoming brute, simultaneously emitting terror-stricken
shrieks that awoke the echoes of the grim forest.

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

The misfortune now was no longer amusing, for the beast was already too
close to us for comfort.  Seizing Perry by the shoulder I dragged him
to his feet, and rushing to a smaller tree--one that he could easily
encircle with his arms and legs--I boosted him as far up as I could,
and then left him to his fate, for a glance over my shoulder revealed
the awful beast almost upon me.

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

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

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

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

And then the brute did that which froze us both anew with horror.
Grasping the tree's stem with his powerful paws he dragged down with
all the great weight of his huge bulk and all the irresistible force of
those mighty muscles.  Slowly, but surely, the stem began to bend
toward him.  Inch by inch he worked his paws upward as the tree leaned
more and more from the perpendicular.  Perry clung chattering in a
panic of terror.  Higher and higher into the bending and swaying tree
he clambered.  More and more rapidly was the tree top inclining toward
the ground.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was surrounded by a pack of some hundred wolf-like creatures--wild
dogs they seemed--that rushed growling and snapping in upon it from all
sides, so that they sank their white fangs into the slow brute and were
away again before it could reach them with its huge paws or sweeping
tail.

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

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

Between them and the beasts behind me there was little choice, but at
least there was a doubt as to the reception these grotesque parodies on
humanity would accord me, while there was none as to the fate which
awaited me beneath the grinning fangs of my fierce pursuers.

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

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

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

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

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

From tree to tree the agile creatures sprang like flying squirrels,
while the cold sweat stood upon my brow as I glimpsed the depths
beneath, into which a single misstep on the part of either of my
bearers would hurl me.  As they bore me along, my mind was occupied
with a thousand bewildering thoughts.  What had become of Perry?  Would
I ever see him again?  What were the intentions of these half-human
things into whose hands I had fallen?  Were they inhabitants of the
same world into which I had been born?  No!  It could not be.  But yet
where else?  I had not left that earth--of that I was sure.  Still
neither could I reconcile the things which I had seen to a belief that
I was still in the world of my birth.  With a sigh I gave it up.




III

A CHANGE OF MASTERS


We must have traveled several miles through the dark and dismal wood
when we came suddenly upon a dense village built high among the
branches of the trees.  As we approached it my escort broke into wild
shouting which was immediately answered from within, and a moment later
a swarm of creatures of the same strange race as those who had captured
me poured out to meet us.  Again I was the center of a wildly
chattering horde.  I was pulled this way and that.  Pinched, pounded,
and thumped until I was black and blue, yet I do not think that their
treatment was dictated by either cruelty or malice--I was a curiosity,
a freak, a new plaything, and their childish minds required the added
evidence of all their senses to back up the testimony of their eyes.

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

Between the huts, which sometimes formed crooked streets, were dead
branches and the trunks of small trees which connected the huts upon
one tree to those within adjoining trees; the whole network of huts and
pathways forming an almost solid flooring a good fifty feet above the
ground.

I wondered why these agile creatures required connecting bridges
between the trees, but later when I saw the motley aggregation of
half-savage beasts which they kept within their village I realized the
necessity for the pathways.  There were a number of the same vicious
wolf-dogs which we had left worrying the dyryth, and many goatlike
animals whose distended udders explained the reasons for their presence.

My guard halted before one of the huts into which I was pushed; then
two of the creatures squatted down before the entrance--to prevent my
escape, doubtless.  Though where I should have escaped to I certainly
had not the remotest conception.  I had no more than entered the dark
shadows of the interior than there fell upon my ears the tones of a
familiar voice, in prayer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Perry, you are mad!"

"Not at all, David.  For two hundred and fifty miles our prospector
bore us through the crust beneath our outer world.  At that point it
reached the center of gravity of the five-hundred-mile-thick crust.  Up
to that point we had been descending--direction is, of course, merely
relative.  Then at the moment that our seats revolved--the thing that
made you believe that we had turned about and were speeding upward--we
passed the center of gravity and, though we did not alter the direction
of our progress, yet we were in reality moving upward--toward the
surface of the inner world.  Does not the strange fauna and flora which
we have seen convince you that you are not in the world of your birth?
And the horizon--could it present the strange aspects which we both
noted unless we were indeed standing upon the inside surface of a
sphere?"

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

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

"And withal it is very simple, David.  The earth was once a nebulous
mass.  It cooled, and as it cooled it shrank.  At length a thin crust
of solid matter formed upon its outer surface--a sort of shell; but
within it was partially molten matter and highly expanded gases.  As it
continued to cool, what happened?  Centrifugal force burled the
particles of the nebulous center toward the crust as rapidly as they
approached a solid state.  You have seen the same principle practically
applied in the modern cream separator.  Presently there was only a
small super-heated core of gaseous matter remaining within a huge
vacant interior left by the contraction of the cooling gases.  The
equal attraction of the solid crust from all directions maintained this
luminous core in the exact center of the hollow globe.  What remains of
it is the sun you saw today--a relatively tiny thing at the exact
center of the earth.  Equally to every part of this inner world it
diffuses its perpetual noonday light and torrid heat.

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

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

"Who can tell?" he rejoined.  "They may constitute the link between ape
and man, all traces of which have been swallowed by the countless
convulsions which have racked the outer crust, or they may be merely
the result of evolution along slightly different lines--either is quite
possible."

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

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

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

We were not long in learning.  As on the occasion of our trip to the
village we were seized by a couple of the powerful creatures and
whirled away through the tree tops, while about us and in our wake
raced a chattering, jabbering, grinning horde of sleek, black
ape-things.

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

For some time they continued through the forest--how long I could not
guess for I was learning, what was later borne very forcefully to my
mind, that time ceases to be a factor the moment means for measuring it
cease to exist.  Our watches were gone, and we were living beneath a
stationary sun.  Already I was puzzled to compute the period of time
which had elapsed since we broke through the crust of the inner world.
It might be hours, or it might be days--who in the world could tell
where it was always noon!  By the sun, no time had elapsed--but my
judgment told me that we must have been several hours in this strange
world.

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

We were placed in the center of the amphitheater--the thousand
creatures forming a great ring about us.  Then a wolf-dog was
brought--hyaenodon Perry called it--and turned loose with us inside the
circle.  The thing's body was as large as that of a full-grown mastiff,
its legs were short and powerful, and its jaws broad and strong.  Dark,
shaggy hair covered its back and sides, while its breast and belly were
quite white.  As it slunk toward us it presented a most formidable
aspect with its upcurled lips baring its mighty fangs.

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

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

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

At the same instant a chorus of shrieks and howls arose from the circle
of spectators, so that for a moment I thought that the upsetting of
their champion was the cause; but in this I soon saw that I was
mistaken.  As I looked, the ape-things broke in all directions toward
the surrounding hills, and then I distinguished the real cause of their
perturbation.  Behind them, streaming through the pass which leads into
the valley, came a swarm of hairy men--gorilla-like creatures armed
with spears and hatchets, and bearing long, oval shields.  Like demons
they set upon the ape-things, and before them the hyaenodon, which had
now regained its senses and its feet, fled howling with fright.  Past
us swept the pursued and the pursuers, nor did the hairy ones accord us
more than a passing glance until the arena had been emptied of its
former occupants.  Then they returned to us, and one who seemed to have
authority among them directed that we be brought with them.

When we had passed out of the amphitheater onto the great plain we saw
a caravan of men and women--human beings like ourselves--and for the
first time hope and relief filled my heart, until I could have cried
out in the exuberance of my happiness.  It is true that they were a
half-naked, wild-appearing aggregation; but they at least were
fashioned along the same lines as ourselves--there was nothing
grotesque or horrible about them as about the other creatures in this
strange, weird world.

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

Up to this time the excitement had kept us both up; but now the
tiresome monotony of the long march across the sun-baked plain brought
on all the agonies consequent to a long-denied sleep.  On and on we
stumbled beneath that hateful noonday sun.  If we fell we were prodded
with a sharp point.  Our companions in chains did not stumble.  They
strode along proudly erect.  Occasionally they would exchange words
with one another in a monosyllabic language.  They were a
noble-appearing race with well-formed heads and perfect physiques.  The
men were heavily bearded, tall and muscular; the women, smaller and
more gracefully molded, with great masses of raven hair caught into
loose knots upon their heads.  The features of both sexes were well
proportioned--there was not a face among them that would have been
called even plain if judged by earthly standards.  They wore no
ornaments; but this I later learned was due to the fact that their
captors had stripped them of everything of value.  As garmenture the
women possessed a single robe of some light-colored, spotted hide,
rather similar in appearance to a leopard's skin.  This they wore
either supported entirely about the waist by a leathern thong, so that
it hung partially below the knee on one side, or possibly looped
gracefully across one shoulder.  Their feet were shod with skin
sandals.  The men wore loin cloths of the hide of some shaggy beast,
long ends of which depended before and behind nearly to the ground.  In
some instances these ends were finished with the strong talons of the
beast from which the hides had been taken.

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

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

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

How far we marched I have no conception, nor has Perry.  Both of us
were asleep much of the time for hours before a halt was called--then
we dropped in our tracks.  I say "for hours," but how may one measure
time where time does not exist!  When our march commenced the sun stood
at zenith.  When we halted our shadows still pointed toward nadir.
Whether an instant or an eternity of earthly time elapsed who may say.
That march may have occupied nine years and eleven months of the ten
years that I spent in the inner world, or it may have been accomplished
in the fraction of a second--I cannot tell.  But this I do know that
since you have told me that ten years have elapsed since I departed
from this earth I have lost all respect for time--I am commencing to
doubt that such a thing exists other than in the weak, finite mind of
man.




IV

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL


When our guards aroused us from sleep we were much refreshed.  They
gave us food.  Strips of dried meat it was, but it put new life and
strength into us, so that now we too marched with high-held heads, and
took noble strides.  At least I did, for I was young and proud; but
poor Perry hated walking.  On earth I had often seen him call a cab to
travel a square--he was paying for it now, and his old legs wobbled so
that I put my arm about him and half carried him through the balance of
those frightful marches.

The country began to change at last, and we wound up out of the level
plain through mighty mountains of virgin granite.  The tropical verdure
of the lowlands was replaced by hardier vegetation, but even here the
effects of constant heat and light were apparent in the immensity of
the trees and the profusion of foliage and blooms.  Crystal streams
roared through their rocky channels, fed by the perpetual snows which
we could see far above us.  Above the snowcapped heights hung masses of
heavy clouds.  It was these, Perry explained, which evidently served
the double purpose of replenishing the melting snows and protecting
them from the direct rays of the sun.

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

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

"How came you here?" I asked her.

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

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

She looked at me in surprise.

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

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

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

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

"Jubal the Ugly One placed his trophy before my father's house.  It was
the head of a mighty tandor.  It remained there and no greater trophy
was placed beside it.  So I knew that Jubal the Ugly One would come and
take me as his mate.  None other so powerful wished me, or they would
have slain a mightier beast and thus have won me from Jubal.  My father
is not a mighty hunter.  Once he was, but a sadok tossed him, and never
again had he the full use of his right arm.  My brother, Dacor the
Strong One, had gone to the land of Sari to steal a mate for himself.
Thus there was none, father, brother, or lover, to save me from Jubal
the Ugly One, and I ran away and hid among the hills that skirt the
land of Amoz.  And there these Sagoths found me and made me captive."

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

Again she looked her incredulity.

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

I was loath to do it, and further incur her scorn; but there was no
alternative if I were to absorb knowledge, so I made a clean breast of
my pitiful ignorance as to the mighty Mahars.  She was shocked.  But
she did her very best to enlighten me, though much that she said was as
Greek would have been to her.  She described the Mahars largely by
comparisons.  In this way they were like unto thipdars, in that to the
hairless lidi.

About all I gleaned of them was that they were quite hideous, had
wings, and webbed feet; lived in cities built beneath the ground; could
swim under water for great distances, and were very, very wise.  The
Sagoths were their weapons of offense and defense, and the races like
herself were their hands and feet--they were the slaves and servants
who did all the manual labor.  The Mahars were the heads--the
brains--of the inner world.  I longed to see this wondrous race of
supermen.

Perry learned the language with me.  When we halted, as we occasionally
did, though sometimes the halts seemed ages apart, he would join in the
conversation, as would Ghak the Hairy One, he who was chained just
ahead of Dian the Beautiful.  Ahead of Ghak was Hooja the Sly One.  He
too entered the conversation occasionally.  Most of his remarks were
directed toward Dian the Beautiful.  It didn't take half an eye to see
that he had developed a bad case; but the girl appeared totally
oblivious to his thinly veiled advances.  Did I say thinly veiled?
There is a race of men in New Zealand, or Australia, I have forgotten
which, who indicate their preference for the lady of their affections
by banging her over the head with a bludgeon.  By comparison with this
method Hooja's lovemaking might be called thinly veiled.  At first it
caused me to blush violently although I have seen several Old Years out
at Rectors, and in other less fashionable places off Broadway, and in
Vienna, and Hamburg.

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

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

Dian told me they were tandorazes, or tandors of the sea, and that the
other, and more fearsome reptiles, which occasionally rose from the
deep to do battle with them, were azdyryths, or sea-dyryths--Perry
called them Ichthyosaurs.  They resembled a whale with the head of an
alligator.

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

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

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

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

I was not then familiar with the customs or social ethics which
prevailed within Pellucidar; but even so I did not need the appealing
look which the girl shot to me from her magnificent eyes to influence
my subsequent act.  What the Sly One's intention was I paused not to
inquire; but instead, before he could lay hold of her with his other
hand, I placed a right to the point of his jaw that felled him in his
tracks.

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

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

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

Again the weary and apparently interminable marching became a perfect
nightmare of horrors to me.  The more firmly fixed became the
realization that the girl's friendship had meant so much to me, the
more I came to miss it; and the more impregnable the barrier of silly
pride.  But I was very young and would not ask Ghak for the explanation
which I was sure he could give, and that might have made everything all
right again.

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

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

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

But with it came a sudden realization of what meant to me a real
catastrophe--Dian was gone, and with her a half-dozen other prisoners.
The guards saw it too, and the ferocity of their rage was terrible to
behold.  Their awesome, bestial faces were contorted in the most
diabolical expressions, as they accused each other of responsibility
for the loss.  Finally they fell upon us, beating us with their spear
shafts, and hatchets.  They had already killed two near the head of the
line, and were like to have finished the balance of us when their
leader finally put a stop to the brutal slaughter.  Never in all my
life had I witnessed a more horrible exhibition of bestial rage--I
thanked God that Dian had not been one of those left to endure it.

Of the twelve prisoners who had been chained ahead of me each alternate
one had been freed commencing with Dian.  Hooja was gone.  Ghak
remained.  What could it mean?  How had it been accomplished?  The
commander of the guards was investigating.  Soon he discovered that the
rude locks which had held the neckbands in place had been deftly picked.

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

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

He looked at me closely for a moment.

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

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

"Then shall I tell you.  When a man of Pellucidar intervenes between
another man and the woman the other man would have, the woman belongs
to the victor.  Dian the Beautiful belongs to you.  You should have
claimed her or released her.  Had you taken her hand, it would have
indicated your desire to make her your mate, and had you raised her
hand above her head and then dropped it, it would have meant that you
did not wish her for a mate and that you released her from all
obligation to you.  By doing neither you have put upon her the greatest
affront that a man may put upon a woman.  Now she is your slave.  No
man will take her as mate, or may take her honorably, until he shall
have overcome you in combat, and men do not choose slave women as their
mates--at least not the men of Pellucidar."

"I did not know, Ghak," I cried.  "I did not know.  Not for all
Pellucidar would I have harmed Dian the Beautiful by word, or look, or
act of mine.  I do not want her as my slave.  I do not want her as
my--" but here I stopped.  The vision of that sweet and innocent face
floated before me amidst the soft mists of imagination, and where I had
on the second believed that I clung only to the memory of a gentle
friendship I had lost, yet now it seemed that it would have been
disloyalty to her to have said that I did not want Dian the Beautiful
as my mate.  I had not thought of her except as a welcome friend in a
strange, cruel world.  Even now I did not think that I loved her.

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

"Man of another world," he said, "I believe you.  Lips may lie, but
when the heart speaks through the eyes it tells only the truth.  Your
heart has spoken to me.  I know now that you meant no affront to Dian
the Beautiful.  She is not of my tribe; but her mother is my sister.
She does not know it--her mother was stolen by Dian's father who came
with many others of the tribe of Amoz to battle with us for our
women--the most beautiful women of Pellucidar.  Then was her father
king of Amoz, and her mother was daughter of the king of Sari--to whose
power I, his son, have succeeded.  Dian is the daughter of kings,
though her father is no longer king since the sadok tossed him and
Jubal the Ugly One wrested his kingship from him.  Because of her
lineage the wrong you did her was greatly magnified in the eyes of all
who saw it.  She will never forgive you."

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

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

"Is there no escape?" I asked.

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

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

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

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

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




V

SLAVES


As we descended the broad staircase which led to the main avenue of
Phutra I caught my first sight of the dominant race of the inner world.
Involuntarily I shrank back as one of the creatures approached to
inspect us.  A more hideous thing it would be impossible to imagine.
The all-powerful Mahars of Pellucidar are great reptiles, some six or
eight feet in length, with long narrow heads and great round eyes.
Their beak-like mouths are lined with sharp, white fangs, and the backs
of their huge, lizard bodies are serrated into bony ridges from their
necks to the end of their long tails.  Their feet are equipped with
three webbed toes, while from the fore feet membranous wings, which are
attached to their bodies just in front of the hind legs, protrude at an
angle of 45 degrees toward the rear, ending in sharp points several
feet above their bodies.

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

"A rhamphorhynchus of the Middle Olitic, David," he said, "but, gad,
how enormous!  The largest remains we ever have discovered have never
indicated a size greater than that attained by an ordinary crow."

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

Perry and I were taken, with Ghak, to a large public building, where
one of the Sagoths who had formed our guard explained to a Maharan
official the circumstances surrounding our capture.  The method of
communication between these two was remarkable in that no spoken words
were exchanged.  They employed a species of sign language.  As I was to
learn later, the Mahars have no ears, nor any spoken language.  Among
themselves they communicate by means of what Perry says must be a sixth
sense which is cognizant of a fourth dimension.

I never did quite grasp him, though he endeavored to explain it to me
upon numerous occasions.  I suggested telepathy, but he said no, that
it was not telepathy since they could only communicate when in each
others' presence, nor could they talk with the Sagoths or the other
inhabitants of Pellucidar by the same method they used to converse with
one another.

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

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

During this period my thoughts were continually upon Dian the
Beautiful.  I was, of course, glad that she had escaped the Mahars, and
the fate that had been suggested by the Sagoth who had threatened to
purchase her upon our arrival at Phutra.  I often wondered if the
little party of fugitives had been overtaken by the guards who had
returned to search for them.  Sometimes I was not so sure but that I
should have been more contented to know that Dian was here in Phutra,
than to think of her at the mercy of Hooja the Sly One.  Ghak, Perry,
and I often talked together of possible escape, but the Sarian was so
steeped in his lifelong belief that no one could escape from the Mahars
except by a miracle, that he was not much aid to us--his attitude was
of one who waits for the miracle to come to him.

At my suggestion Perry and I fashioned some swords of scraps of iron
which we discovered among some rubbish in the cells where we slept, for
we were permitted almost unrestrained freedom of action within the
limits of the building to which we had been assigned.  So great were
the number of slaves who waited upon the inhabitants of Phutra that
none of us was apt to be overburdened with work, nor were our masters
unkind to us.

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

We had completed these arrangements for our protection after leaving
Phutra when the Sagoths who had been sent to recapture the escaped
prisoners returned with four of them, of whom Hooja was one.  Dian and
two others had eluded them.  It so happened that Hooja was confined in
the same building with us.  He told Ghak that he had not seen Dian or
the others after releasing them within the dark grotto.  What had
become of them he had not the faintest conception--they might be
wandering yet, lost within the labyrinthine tunnel, if not dead from
starvation.

I was now still further apprehensive as to the fate of Dian, and at
this time, I imagine, came the first realization that my affection for
the girl might be prompted by more than friendship.  During my waking
hours she was constantly the subject of my thoughts, and when I slept
her dear face haunted my dreams.  More than ever was I determined to
escape the Mahars.

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

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

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

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

"Where within vast Pellucidar would you search for your Dian?  Without
stars, or moon, or changing sun how could you find her even though you
knew where she might be found?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

"But how," persisted Perry, "could you travel to strange country
without heavenly bodies or a compass to guide you?"

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

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

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

I was for making the attempted escape at once, but both Perry and Ghak
counseled waiting for some propitious accident which would insure us
some small degree of success.  I didn't see what accident could befall
a whole community in a land of perpetual day-light where the
inhabitants had no fixed habits of sleep.  Why, I am sure that some of
the Mahars never sleep, while others may, at long intervals, crawl into
the dark recesses beneath their dwellings and curl up in protracted
slumber.  Perry says that if a Mahar stays awake for three years he
will make up all his lost sleep in a long year's snooze.  That may be
all true, but I never saw but three of them asleep, and it was the
sight of these three that gave me a suggestion for our means of escape.

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

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

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

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

"Here they are not monsters, David," he replied.  "Here they are the
dominant race--we are the 'monsters'--the lower orders.  In Pellucidar
evolution has progressed along different lines than upon the outer
earth.  These terrible convulsions of nature time and time again wiped
out the existing species--but for this fact some monster of the
Saurozoic epoch might rule today upon our own world.  We see here what
might well have occurred in our own history had conditions been what
they have been here.

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

I shuddered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What happened?  Immediately the necessity for males ceased to
exist--the race was no longer dependent upon them.  More ages elapsed
until at the present time we find a race consisting exclusively of
females.  But here is the point.  The secret of this chemical formula
is kept by a single race of Mahars.  It is in the city of Phutra, and
unless I am greatly in error I judge from your description of the
vaults through which you passed today that it lies hidden in the cellar
of this building.

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

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

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

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

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

Ghak had entered the apartment some time before we concluded our
conversation, and now he wanted to know what we were so excited about.
Perry thought we had best not tell him too much, and so I only
explained that I had a plan for escape.  When I had outlined it to him,
he seemed about as horror-struck as Perry had been; but for a different
reason.  The Hairy One only considered the horrible fate that would be
ours were we discovered; but at last I prevailed upon him to accept my
plan as the only feasible one, and when I had assured him that I would
take all the responsibility for it were we captured, he accorded a
reluctant assent.




VI

THE BEGINNING OF HORROR


Within Pellucidar one time is as good as another.  There were no nights
to mask our attempted escape.  All must be done in broad day-light--all
but the work I had to do in the apartment beneath the building.  So we
determined to put our plan to an immediate test lest the Mahars who
made it possible should awake before I reached them; but we were doomed
to disappointment, for no sooner had we reached the main floor of the
building on our way to the pits beneath, than we encountered hurrying
bands of slaves being hastened under strong Sagoth guard out of the
edifice to the avenue beyond.

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

What the purpose or nature of the general exodus we did not know, but
presently through the line of captives ran the rumor that two escaped
slaves had been recaptured--a man and a woman--and that we were
marching to witness their punishment, for the man had killed a Sagoth
of the detachment that had pursued and overtaken them.

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

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

"Naught," he replied.

Along the crowded avenue we marched, the guards showing unusual cruelty
toward us, as though we, too, had been implicated in the murder of
their fellow.  The occasion was to serve as an object-lesson to all
other slaves of the danger and futility of attempted escape, and the
fatal consequences of taking the life of a superior being, and so I
imagine that Sagoths felt amply justified in making the entire
proceeding as uncomfortable and painful to us as possible.

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

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

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

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

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

At the barrier the Sagoths clambered up the steep side with truly
apelike agility, while behind them the haughty queen rose upon her
wings with her two frightful dragons close beside her, and settled down
upon the largest bowlder of them all in the exact center of that side
of the amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant race.  Here she
squatted, a most repulsive and uninteresting queen; though doubtless
quite as well assured of her beauty and divine right to rule as the
proudest monarch of the outer world.

And then the music started--music without sound!  The Mahars cannot
hear, so the drums and fifes and horns of earthly bands are unknown
among them.  The "band" consists of a score or more Mahars.  It filed
out in the center of the arena where the creatures upon the rocks might
see it, and there it performed for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Their technic consisted in waving their tails and moving their heads in
a regular succession of measured movements resulting in a cadence which
evidently pleased the eye of the Mahar as the cadence of our own
instrumental music pleases our ears.  Sometimes the band took measured
steps in unison to one side or the other, or backward and again
forward--it all seemed very silly and meaningless to me, but at the end
of the first piece the Mahars upon the rocks showed the first
indications of enthusiasm that I had seen displayed by the dominant
race of Pellucidar.  They beat their great wings up and down, and smote
their rocky perches with their mighty tails until the ground shook.
Then the band started another piece, and all was again as silent as the
grave.  That was one great beauty about Mahar music--if you didn't
happen to like a piece that was being played all you had to do was shut
your eyes.

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

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

"A Bos," whispered Perry, excitedly.  "His kind roamed the outer crust
with the cave bear and the mammoth ages and ages ago.  We have been
carried back a million years, David, to the childhood of a planet--is
it not wondrous?"

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

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

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

And now, as the two stood frozen in terror, I saw the author of that
fearsome sound creeping stealthily into view.  It was a huge
tiger--such as hunted the great Bos through the jungles primeval when
the world was young.  In contour and markings it was not unlike the
noblest of the Bengals of our own world, but as its dimensions were
exaggerated to colossal proportions so too were its colorings
exaggerated.  Its vivid yellows fairly screamed aloud; its whites were
as eider down; its blacks glossy as the finest anthracite coal, and its
coat long and shaggy as a mountain goat.  That it is a beautiful animal
there is no gainsaying, but if its size and colors are magnified here
within Pellucidar, so is the ferocity of its disposition.  It is not
the occasional member of its species that is a man hunter--all are man
hunters; but they do not confine their foraging to man alone, for there
is no flesh or fish within Pellucidar that they will not eat with
relish in the constant efforts which they make to furnish their huge
carcasses with sufficient sustenance to maintain their mighty thews.

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

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

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

There ensued a battle royal which for sustained and frightful ferocity
transcends the power of imagination or description.  Time and again the
colossal bull tossed the enormous tiger high into the air, but each
time that the huge cat touched the ground he returned to the encounter
with apparently undiminished strength, and seemingly increased ire.

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

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

All its efforts to rid itself of the tiger seemed futile, until in
desperation it threw itself upon the ground, rolling over and over.  A
little of this so disconcerted the tiger, knocking its breath from it I
imagine, that it lost its hold and then, quick as a cat, the great thag
was up again and had buried those mighty horns deep in the tarag's
abdomen, pinning him to the floor of the arena.

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

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

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

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




VII

FREEDOM


Once out of the direct path of the animal, fear of it left me, but
another emotion as quickly gripped me--hope of escape that the
demoralized condition of the guards made possible for the instant.

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

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

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

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

My first impulse was to await darkness before attempting to cross the
plain, so deeply implanted are habits of thought; but of a sudden I
recollected the perpetual noonday brilliance which envelopes
Pellucidar, and with a smile I stepped forth into the day-light.

Rank grass, waist high, grows upon the plain of Phutra--the gorgeous
flowering grass of the inner world, each particular blade of which is
tipped with a tiny, five-pointed blossom--brilliant little stars of
varying colors that twinkle in the green foliage to add still another
charm to the weird, yet lovely, landscape.

But then the only aspect which attracted me was the distant hills in
which I hoped to find sanctuary, and so I hastened on, trampling the
myriad beauties beneath my hurrying feet.  Perry says that the force of
gravity is less upon the surface of the inner world than upon that of
the outer.  He explained it all to me once, but I was never
particularly brilliant in such matters and so most of it has escaped
me.  As I recall it the difference is due in some part to the
counter-attraction of that portion of the earth's crust directly
opposite the spot upon the face of Pellucidar at which one's
calculations are being made.  Be that as it may, it always seemed to me
that I moved with greater speed and agility within Pellucidar than upon
the outer surface--there was a certain airy lightness of step that was
most pleasing, and a feeling of bodily detachment which I can only
compare with that occasionally experienced in dreams.

And as I crossed Phutra's flower-bespangled plain that time I seemed
almost to fly, though how much of the sensation was due to Perry's
suggestion and how much to actuality I am sure I do not know.  The more
I thought of Perry the less pleasure I took in my new-found freedom.
There could be no liberty for me within Pellucidar unless the old man
shared it with me, and only the hope that I might find some way to
encompass his release kept me from turning back to Phutra.

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

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

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

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

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

Then I drank from the clear pool, and after washing my hands and face
continued my flight.  Above the source of the brook I encountered a
rugged climb to the summit of a long ridge.  Beyond was a steep
declivity to the shore of a placid, inland sea, upon the quiet surface
of which lay several beautiful islands.

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

The gently sloping beach along which I walked was thickly strewn with
strangely shaped, colored shells; some empty, others still housing as
varied a multitude of mollusks as ever might have drawn out their
sluggish lives along the silent shores of the antediluvian seas of the
outer crust.  As I walked I could not but compare myself with the first
man of that other world, so complete the solitude which surrounded me,
so primal and untouched the virgin wonders and beauties of adolescent
nature.  I felt myself a second Adam wending my lonely way through the
childhood of a world, searching for my Eve, and at the thought there
rose before my mind's eye the exquisite outlines of a perfect face
surmounted by a loose pile of wondrous, raven hair.

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

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

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

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

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

A glance over my shoulder showed me that the copper-colored one had
plunged in after me and was swimming rapidly in pursuit.  His mighty
strokes bade fair to close up the distance between us in short order,
for at best I could make but slow progress with my unfamiliar craft,
which nosed stubbornly in every direction but that which I desired to
follow, so that fully half my energy was expended in turning its blunt
prow back into the course.

I had covered some hundred yards from shore when it became evident that
my pursuer must grasp the stern of the skiff within the next half-dozen
strokes.  In a frenzy of despair, I bent to the grandfather of all
paddles in a hopeless effort to escape, and still the copper giant
behind me gained and gained.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




VIII

THE MAHAR TEMPLE


The aborigine, apparently uninjured, climbed quickly into the skiff,
and seizing the spear with me helped to hold off the infuriated
creature.  Blood from the wounded reptile was now crimsoning the waters
about us and soon from the weakening struggles it became evident that I
had inflicted a death wound upon it.  Presently its efforts to reach us
ceased entirely, and with a few convulsive movements it turned upon its
back quite dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked at me in surprise.

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

"We are fishermen, though we be great hunters as well, often going to
the mainland in search of the game that is scarce upon all but the
larger islands.  And we are warriors also," he added proudly.  "Even
the Sagoths of the Mahars fear us.  Once, when Pellucidar was young,
the Sagoths were wont to capture us for slaves as they do the other men
of Pellucidar, it is handed down from father to son among us that this
is so; but we fought so desperately and slew so many Sagoths, and those
of us that were captured killed so many Mahars in their own cities that
at last they learned that it were better to leave us alone, and later
came the time that the Mahars became too indolent even to catch their
own fish, except for amusement, and then they needed us to supply their
wants, and so a truce was made between the races.  Now they give us
certain things which we are unable to produce in return for the fish
that we catch, and the Mezops and the Mahars live in peace.

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

As Ja talked I had an excellent opportunity to inspect him more
closely.  He was a huge fellow, standing I should say six feet six or
seven inches, well developed and of a coppery red not unlike that of
our own North American Indian, nor were his features dissimilar to
theirs.  He had the aquiline nose found among many of the higher
tribes, the prominent cheek bones, and black hair and eyes, but his
mouth and lips were better molded.  All in all, Ja was an impressive
and handsome creature, and he talked well too, even in the miserable
makeshift language we were compelled to use.

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

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

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

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

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

As the purpose of this remarkable avenue dawned upon me I could not but
admire the native shrewdness of the ancient progenitor of the Mezops
who hit upon this novel plan to throw his enemies from his track and
delay or thwart them in their attempts to follow him to his deep-buried
cities.

To you of the outer earth it might seem a slow and tortuous method of
traveling through the jungle, but were you of Pellucidar you would
realize that time is no factor where time does not exist.  So
labyrinthine are the windings of these trails, so varied the connecting
links and the distances which one must retrace one's steps from the
paths' ends to find them that a Mezop often reaches man's estate before
he is familiar even with those which lead from his own city to the sea.

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

After proceeding through the jungle for what must have been upward of
five miles we emerged suddenly into a large clearing in the exact
center of which stood as strange an appearing village as one might well
imagine.

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

Horizontal slits, six inches high and two or three feet wide, served to
admit light and ventilation.  The entrances to the house were through
small apertures in the bases of the trees and thence upward by rude
ladders through the hollow trunks to the rooms above.  The houses
varied in size from two to several rooms.  The largest that I entered
was divided into two floors and eight apartments.

All about the village, between it and the jungle, lay beautifully
cultivated fields in which the Mezops raised such cereals, fruits, and
vegetables as they required.  Women and children were working in these
gardens as we crossed toward the village.  At sight of Ja they saluted
deferentially, but to me they paid not the slightest attention.  Among
them and about the outer verge of the cultivated area were many
warriors.  These too saluted Ja, by touching the points of their spears
to the ground directly before them.

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

We had eaten and rested, and I had slept, much to Ja's amusement, for
it seemed that he seldom if ever did so, and then the red man proposed
that I accompany him to the temple of the Mahars which lay not far from
his village.  "We are not supposed to visit it," he said; "but the
great ones cannot hear and if we keep well out of sight they need never
know that we have been there.  For my part I hate them and always have,
but the other chieftains of the island think it best that we continue
to maintain the amicable relations which exist between the two races;
otherwise I should like nothing better than to lead my warriors amongst
the hideous creatures and exterminate them--Pellucidar would be a
better place to live were there none of them."

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

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

"But," added Ja, "there is an entrance near the base of which even the
Mahars know nothing.  Come," and he led me across the clearing and
about the end to a pile of loose rock which lay against the foot of the
wall.  Here he removed a couple of large bowlders, revealing a small
opening which led straight within the building, or so it seemed, though
as I entered after Ja I discovered myself in a narrow place of extreme
darkness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three times they wheeled about the interior of the oval chamber, to
settle finally upon the damp, cold bowlders that fringe the outer edge
of the pool.  In the center of one side the largest rock was reserved
for the queen, and here she took her place surrounded by her terrible
guard.

All lay quiet for several minutes after settling to their places.  One
might have imagined them in silent prayer.  The poor slaves upon the
diminutive islands watched the horrid creatures with wide eyes.  The
men, for the most part, stood erect and stately with folded arms,
awaiting their doom; but the women and children clung to one another,
hiding behind the males.  They are a noble-looking race, these cave men
of Pellucidar, and if our progenitors were as they, the human race of
the outer crust has deteriorated rather than improved with the march of
the ages.  All they lack is opportunity.  We have opportunity, and
little else.

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

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

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

Slowly the reptile's head commenced to move to and fro, but the eyes
never ceased to bore toward the frightened girl, and then the victim
responded.  She turned wide, fear-haunted eyes toward the Mahar queen,
slowly she rose to her feet, and then as though dragged by some unseen
power she moved as one in a trance straight toward the reptile, her
glassy eyes fixed upon those of her captor.  To the water's edge she
came, nor did she even pause, but stepped into the shallows beside the
little island.  On she moved toward the Mahar, who now slowly retreated
as though leading her victim on.  The water rose to the girl's knees,
and still she advanced, chained by that clammy eye.  Now the water was
at her waist; now her armpits.  Her fellows upon the island looked on
in horror, helpless to avert her doom in which they saw a forecast of
their own.

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

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

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

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

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

Once they were below much longer than usual, and when they came to the
surface I was horrified to see that one of the girl's arms was
gone--gnawed completely off at the shoulder--but the poor thing gave no
indication of realizing pain, only the horror in her set eyes seemed
intensified.

The next time they appeared the other arm was gone, and then the
breasts, and then a part of the face--it was awful.  The poor creatures
on the islands awaiting their fate tried to cover their eyes with their
hands to hide the fearful sight, but now I saw that they too were under
the hypnotic spell of the reptiles, so that they could only crouch in
terror with their eyes fixed upon the terrible thing that was
transpiring before them.

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

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

There was no hypnotism here--just the plain, brutal ferocity of the
beast of prey, tearing, rending, and gulping its meat, but at that it
was less horrible than the uncanny method of the Mahars.  By the time
the thipdars had disposed of the last of the slaves the Mahars were all
asleep upon their rocks, and a moment later the great pterodactyls
swung back to their posts beside the queen, and themselves dropped into
slumber.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fortunately the tank was deep at this point, and I suffered no injury
from the fall, but as I was rising to the surface my mind filled with
the horrors of my position as I thought of the terrible doom which
awaited me the moment the eyes of the reptiles fell upon the creature
that had disturbed their slumber.

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

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

I was about to congratulate myself upon the miracle which had saved me
for the moment, when the memory of the hypnotic powers of the Mahars
filled me with apprehension lest they be practicing their uncanny art
upon me to the end that I merely imagined that I was alone in the
temple.  At the thought cold sweat broke out upon me from every pore,
and as I crawled from the water onto one of the tiny islands I was
trembling like a leaf--you cannot imagine the awful horror which even
the simple thought of the repulsive Mahars of Pellucidar induces in the
human mind, and to feel that you are in their power--that they are
crawling, slimy, and abhorrent, to drag you down beneath the waters and
devour you!  It is frightful.

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

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

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

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

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




IX

THE FACE OF DEATH


I must have fallen asleep from exhaustion.  When I awoke I was very
hungry, and after busying myself searching for fruit for a while, I set
off through the jungle to find the beach.  I knew that the island was
not so large but that I could easily find the sea if I did but move in
a straight line, but there came the difficulty as there was no way in
which I could direct my course and hold it, the sun, of course, being
always directly above my head, and the trees so thickly set that I
could see no distant object which might serve to guide me in a straight
line.

As it was I must have walked for a great distance since I ate four
times and slept twice before I reached the sea, but at last I did so,
and my pleasure at the sight of it was greatly enhanced by the chance
discovery of a hidden canoe among the bushes through which I had
stumbled just prior to coming upon the beach.

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

I must have come out upon the opposite side of the island from that at
which Ja and I had entered it, for the mainland was nowhere in sight.
For a long time I paddled around the shore, though well out, before I
saw the mainland in the distance.  At the sight of it I lost no time in
directing my course toward it, for I had long since made up my mind to
return to Phutra and give myself up that I might be once more with
Perry and Ghak the Hairy One.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next turn of the canyon brought me to its mouth, and before me I
saw a narrow plain leading down to an ocean.  At my right the side of
the canyon continued to the water's edge, the valley lying to my left,
and the foot of it running gradually into the sea, where it formed a
broad level beach.

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

Curiosity prompted me to walk down to the beach, for the scene was very
beautiful.  As I passed along beside the deep and tangled vegetation of
the swamp I thought that I saw a movement of the ferns at my left, but
though I stopped a moment to look it was not repeated, and if anything
lay hid there my eyes could not penetrate the dense foliage to discern
it.

Presently I stood upon the beach looking out over the wide and lonely
sea across whose forbidding bosom no human being had yet ventured, to
discover what strange and mysterious lands lay beyond, or what its
invisible islands held of riches, wonders, or adventure.  What savage
faces, what fierce and formidable beasts were this very instant
watching the lapping of the waves upon its farther shore!  How far did
it extend?  Perry had told me that the seas of Pellucidar were small in
comparison with those of the outer crust, but even so this great ocean
might stretch its broad expanse for thousands of miles.  For countless
ages it had rolled up and down its countless miles of shore, and yet
today it remained all unknown beyond the tiny strip that was visible
from its beaches.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There seemed nothing to do but stand supinely and await my end.  I
thought of Perry--how he would wonder what had become of me.  I thought
of my friends of the outer world, and of how they all would go on
living their lives in total ignorance of the strange and terrible fate
that had overtaken me, or unguessing the weird surroundings which had
witnessed the last frightful agony of my extinction.  And with these
thoughts came a realization of how unimportant to the life and
happiness of the world is the existence of any one of us.  We may be
snuffed out without an instant's warning, and for a brief day our
friends speak of us with subdued voices.  The following morning, while
the first worm is busily engaged in testing the construction of our
coffin, they are teeing up for the first hole to suffer more acute
sorrow over a sliced ball than they did over our, to us, untimely
demise.  The labyrinthodon was coming more slowly now.  He seemed to
realize that escape for me was impossible, and I could have sworn that
his huge, fanged jaws grinned in pleasurable appreciation of my
predicament, or was it in anticipation of the juicy morsel which would
so soon be pulp between those formidable teeth?

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

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

To run seemed ridiculous, especially toward that steep and unscalable
cliff, and yet I did so, and as I ran I saw Ja, agile as a monkey,
crawl down the precipitous face of the rocks, clinging to small
projections, and the tough creepers that had found root-hold here and
there.

The labyrinthodon evidently thought that Ja was coming to double his
portion of human flesh, so he was in no haste to pursue me to the cliff
and frighten away this other tidbit.  Instead he merely trotted along
behind me.

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

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

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

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

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

When he saw me clambering up that spear he let out a hiss that fairly
shook the ground, and came charging after me at a terrific rate.  I had
reached the top of the spear by this time, or almost; another six
inches would give me a hold on Ja's hand, when I felt a sudden wrench
from below and glancing fearfully downward saw the mighty jaws of the
monster close on the sharp point of the weapon.

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

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

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

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




X

PHUTRA AGAIN


I hastened to the cliff edge above Ja and helped him to a secure
footing.  He would not listen to any thanks for his attempt to save me,
which had come so near miscarrying.

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

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

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

"You saved my life," he replied; "from that moment it became my duty to
protect and befriend you.  I would have been no true Mezop had I evaded
my plain duty; but it was a pleasure in this instance for I like you.
I wish that you would come and live with me.  You shall become a member
of my tribe.  Among us there is the best of hunting and fishing, and
you shall have, to choose a mate from, the most beautiful girls of
Pellucidar.  Will you come?"

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

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

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

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

"The Mahars say it is round, like the inside of a tola shell," he
answered, "but that is ridiculous, since, were it true, we should fall
back were we to travel far in any direction, and all the waters of
Pellucidar would run to one spot and drown us.  No, Pellucidar is quite
flat and extends no man knows how far in all directions.  At the edges,
so my ancestors have reported and handed down to me, is a great wall
that prevents the earth and waters from escaping over into the burning
sea whereon Pellucidar floats; but I never have been so far from Anoroc
as to have seen this wall with my own eyes.  However, it is quite
reasonable to believe that this is true, whereas there is no reason at
all in the foolish belief of the Mahars.  According to them
Pellucidarians who live upon the opposite side walk always with their
heads pointed downward!" and Ja laughed uproariously at the very
thought.

It was plain to see that the human folk of this inner world had not
advanced far in learning, and the thought that the ugly Mahars had so
outstripped them was a very pathetic one indeed.  I wondered how many
ages it would take to lift these people out of their ignorance even
were it given to Perry and me to attempt it.  Possibly we would be
killed for our pains as were those men of the outer world who dared
challenge the dense ignorance and superstitions of the earth's younger
days.  But it was worth the effort if the opportunity ever presented
itself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, Ja," I laughed, "whether we be walking with our feet up or down,
here we are, and the question of greatest importance is not so much
where we came from as where we are going now.  For my part I wish that
you could guide me to Phutra where I may give myself up to the Mahars
once more that my friends and I may work out the plan of escape which
the Sagoths interrupted when they gathered us together and drove us to
the arena to witness the punishment of the slaves who killed the
guardsman.  I wish now that I had not left the arena for by this time
my friends and I might have made good our escape, whereas this delay
may mean the wrecking of all our plans, which depended for their
consummation upon the continued sleep of the three Mahars who lay in
the pit beneath the building in which we were confined."

"You would return to captivity?" cried Ja.

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

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

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

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

Ja asked me what Sheol was, and when I explained, as best I could, he
said, "You are speaking of Molop Az, the flaming sea upon which
Pellucidar floats.  All the dead who are buried in the ground go there.
Piece by piece they are carried down to Molop Az by the little demons
who dwell there.  We know this because when graves are opened we find
that the bodies have been partially or entirely borne off.  That is why
we of Anoroc place our dead in high trees where the birds may find them
and bear them bit by bit to the Dead World above the Land of Awful
Shadow.  If we kill an enemy we place his body in the ground that it
may go to Molop Az."

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

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

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

There was, however, one great thing to be accomplished first--at least
it was the great thing to me--the finding of Dian the Beautiful.  I
wanted to make amends for the affront I had put upon her in my
ignorance, and I wanted to--well, I wanted to see her again, and to be
with her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No one knows except the Mahars and those who go to the pits with them,
but as the latter never return, their knowledge does them but little
good.  It is said that the learned ones cut up their subjects while
they are yet alive, thus learning many useful things.  However I should
not imagine that it would prove very useful to him who was being cut
up; but of course this is all but conjecture.  The chances are that ere
long you will know much more about it than I," and he grinned as he
spoke.  The Sagoths have a well-developed sense of humor.

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

"What becomes of those who go below with the learned ones I do not
know, nor does any other," he replied; "but those who go to the arena
may come out alive and thus regain their liberty, as did the two whom
you saw."

"They gained their liberty?  And how?"

"It is the custom of the Mahars to liberate those who remain alive
within the arena after the beasts depart or are killed.  Thus it has
happened that several mighty warriors from far distant lands, whom we
have captured on our slave raids, have battled the brutes turned in
upon them and slain them, thereby winning their freedom.  In the
instance which you witnessed the beasts killed each other, but the
result was the same--the man and woman were liberated, furnished with
weapons, and started on their homeward journey.  Upon the left shoulder
of each a mark was burned--the mark of the Mahars--which will forever
protect these two from slaving parties."

"There is a slender chance for me then if I be sent to the arena, and
none at all if the learned ones drag me to the pits?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I didn't and said so.

"Yes," continued the old man, "we are both right.  To me, bent over my
book here, there has been no lapse of time.  I have done little or
nothing to waste my energies and so have required neither food nor
sleep, but you, on the contrary, have walked and fought and wasted
strength and tissue which must needs be rebuilt by nutriment and food,
and so, having eaten and slept many times since last you saw me you
naturally measure the lapse of time largely by these acts.  As a matter
of fact, David, I am rapidly coming to the conviction that there is no
such thing as time--surely there can be no time here within Pellucidar,
where there are no means for measuring or recording time.  Why, the
Mahars themselves take no account of such a thing as time.  I find here
in all their literary works but a single tense, the present.  There
seems to be neither past nor future with them.  Of course it is
impossible for our outer-earthly minds to grasp such a condition, but
our recent experiences seem to demonstrate its existence."

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

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

"Good-bye, Perry!" I said, clasping the old man's hand.  "There may be
nothing but the present and no such thing as time, but I feel that I am
about to take a trip into the hereafter from which I shall never
return.  If you and Ghak should manage to escape I want you to promise
me that you will find Dian the Beautiful and tell her that with my last
words I asked her forgiveness for the unintentional affront I put upon
her, and that my one wish was to be spared long enough to right the
wrong that I had done her."

Tears came to Perry's eyes.

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




XI

FOUR DEAD MAHARS


A moment later I was standing before a dozen Mahars--the social
investigators of Phutra.  They asked me many questions, through a
Sagoth interpreter.  I answered them all truthfully.  They seemed
particularly interested in my account of the outer earth and the
strange vehicle which had brought Perry and me to Pellucidar.  I
thought that I had convinced them, and after they had sat in silence
for a long time following my examination, I expected to be ordered
returned to my quarters.

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

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

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

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

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

The Mahars had paid not the slightest attention to me as I had been
brought into the room.  So deeply immersed were they in their work that
I am sure they did not even know that the Sagoths had entered with me.
The door was close by.  Would that I could reach it!  But those heavy
chains precluded any such possibility.  I looked about for some means
of escape from my bonds.  Upon the floor between me and the Mahars lay
a tiny surgical instrument which one of them must have dropped.  It
looked not unlike a button-hook, but was much smaller, and its point
was sharpened.  A hundred times in my boyhood days had I picked locks
with a button-hook.  Could I but reach that little bit of polished
steel I might yet effect at least a temporary escape.

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

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

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

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

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

Presently I reduced my speed to a brisk walk, and later realizing the
danger of running into some new predicament, were I not careful, I
moved still more slowly and cautiously.  After a time I came to a
passage that seemed in some mysterious way familiar to me, and
presently, chancing to glance within a chamber which led from the
corridor I saw three Mahars curled up in slumber upon a bed of skins.
I could have shouted aloud in joy and relief.  It was the same corridor
and the same Mahars that I had intended to have lead so important a
role in our escape from Phutra.  Providence had indeed been kind to me,
for the reptiles still slept.

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

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

Together we repaired to the first tier of corridors beneath the main
floor of the buildings, and here Perry and Ghak halted to await me.
The buildings are cut out of the solid limestone formation.  There is
nothing at all remarkable about their architecture.  The rooms are
sometimes rectangular, sometimes circular, and again oval in shape.
The corridors which connect them are narrow and not always straight.
The chambers are lighted by diffused sunlight reflected through tubes
similar to those by which the avenues are lighted.  The lower the tiers
of chambers, the darker.  Most of the corridors are entirely unlighted.
The Mahars can see quite well in semidarkness.

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

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

Having come to the apartment in which the three Mahars slept I entered
silently on tiptoe, forgetting that the creatures were without the
sense of hearing.  With a quick thrust through the heart I disposed of
the first but my second thrust was not so fortunate, so that before I
could kill the next of my victims it had hurled itself against the
third, who sprang quickly up, facing me with wide-distended jaws.  But
fighting is not the occupation which the race of Mahars loves, and when
the thing saw that I already had dispatched two of its companions, and
that my sword was red with their blood, it made a dash to escape me.
But I was too quick for it, and so, half hopping, half flying, it
scurried down another corridor with me close upon its heels.

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

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

There was no exit from the room other than the doorway in which I now
stood facing the two frightful reptiles.  Cornered, I knew that they
would fight like demons, and they were well equipped to fight if fight
they must.  Together they launched themselves upon me, and though I ran
one of them through the heart on the instant, the other fastened its
gleaming fangs about my sword arm above the elbow, and then with her
sharp talons commenced to rake me about the body, evidently intent upon
disemboweling me.  I saw that it was useless to hope that I might
release my arm from that powerful, viselike grip which seemed to be
severing my arm from my body.  The pain I suffered was intense, but it
only served to spur me to greater efforts to overcome my antagonist.

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

Soundless, as it had fought, it died, and though weak from pain and
loss of blood, it was with an emotion of triumphant pride that I
stepped across its convulsively stiffening corpse to snatch up the most
potent secret of a world.  A single glance assured me it was the very
thing that Perry had described to me.

And as I grasped it did I think of what it meant to the human race of
Pellucidar--did there flash through my mind the thought that countless
generations of my own kind yet unborn would have reason to worship me
for the thing that I had accomplished for them?  I did not.  I thought
of a beautiful oval face, gazing out of limpid eyes, through a waving
mass of jet-black hair.  I thought of red, red lips, God-made for
kissing.  And of a sudden, apropos of nothing, standing there alone in
the secret chamber of the Mahars of Pellucidar, I realized that I loved
Dian the Beautiful.




XII

PURSUIT


For an instant I stood there thinking of her, and then, with a sigh, I
tucked the book in the thong that supported my loin cloth, and turned
to leave the apartment.  At the bottom of the corridor which leads
aloft from the lower chambers I whistled in accordance with the
prearranged signal which was to announce to Perry and Ghak that I had
been successful.  A moment later they stood beside me, and to my
surprise I saw that Hooja the Sly One accompanied them.

"He joined us," explained Perry, "and would not be denied.  The fellow
is a fox.  He scents escape, and rather than be thwarted of our chance
now I told him that I would bring him to you, and let you decide
whether he might accompany us."

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

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

He said that he did.

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

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

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

Slowly, after the manner of locomotion habitual to the Mahars, when
they are not using their wings, we crept through throngs of busy
slaves, Sagoths, and Mahars.  After what seemed an eternity we reached
the outer door which leads into the main avenue of Phutra.  Many
Sagoths loitered near the opening.  They glanced at Ghak as he padded
between them.  Then Perry passed, and then Hooja.  Now it was my turn,
and then in a sudden fit of freezing terror I realized that the warm
blood from my wounded arm was trickling down through the dead foot of
the Mahar skin I wore and leaving its tell-tale mark upon the pavement,
for I saw a Sagoth call a companion's attention to it.

The guard stepped before me and pointing to my bleeding foot spoke to
me in the sign language which these two races employ as a means of
communication.  Even had I known what he was saying I could not have
replied with the dead thing that covered me.  I once had seen a great
Mahar freeze a presumptuous Sagoth with a look.  It seemed my only
hope, and so I tried it.  Stopping in my tracks I moved my sword so
that it made the dead head appear to turn inquiring eyes upon the
gorilla-man. For a long moment I stood perfectly still, eyeing the
fellow with those dead eyes.  Then I lowered the head and started
slowly on.  For a moment all hung in the balance, but before I touched
him the guard stepped to one side, and I passed on out into the avenue.

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

In the thick of the crowd we passed up the steps and out onto the
plain.  For some distance Ghak remained with the stream that was
traveling toward the lake, but finally, at the bottom of a little gully
he halted, and there we remained until all had passed and we were
alone.  Then, still in our disguises, we set off directly away from
Phutra.

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

I shall not weary you with the details of that bitter and galling
flight.  How we traveled at a dogged run until we dropped in our
tracks.  How we were beset by strange and terrible beasts.  How we
barely escaped the cruel fangs of lions and tigers the size of which
would dwarf into pitiful insignificance the greatest felines of the
outer world.

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

Our only hope, he said, lay in reaching his tribe which was quite
strong enough in their mountain fastness to beat off any number of
Sagoths.

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

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

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

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

"You and Hooja go on ahead," I said.  "Perry and I will make it if we
are able.  We cannot tr

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