XV
BACK TO EARTH
We crossed the river and passed through the mountains beyond, andfinally we came out upon a great level plain which stretched away asfar as the eye could reach. I cannot tell you in what direction itstretched even if you would care to know, for all the while that I waswithin Pellucidar I never discovered any but local methods ofindicating direction--there is no north, no south, no east, no west.UP is about the only direction which is well defined, and that, ofcourse, is DOWN to you of the outer crust. Since the sun neither risesnor sets there is no method of indicating direction beyond visibleobjects such as high mountains, forests, lakes, and seas.
The plain which lies beyond the white cliffs which flank the Darel Azupon the shore nearest the Mountains of the Clouds is about as near toany direction as any Pellucidarian can come. If you happen not to haveheard of the Darel Az, or the white cliffs, or the Mountains of theClouds you feel that there is something lacking, and long for the goodold understandable northeast and southwest of the outer world.
We had barely entered the great plain when we discovered two enormousanimals approaching us from a great distance. So far were they that wecould not distinguish what manner of beasts they might be, but as theycame closer, I saw that they were enormous quadrupeds, eighty or ahundred feet long, with tiny heads perched at the top of very longnecks. Their heads must have been quite forty feet from the ground.The beasts moved very slowly--that is their action was slow--but theirstrides covered such a great distance that in reality they traveledconsiderably faster than a man walks.
As they drew still nearer we discovered that upon the back of each sata human being. Then Dian knew what they were, though she never beforehad seen one.
"They are lidis from the land of the Thorians," she cried. "Thorialies at the outer verge of the Land of Awful Shadow. The Thoriansalone of all the races of Pellucidar ride the lidi, for nowhere elsethan beside the dark country are they found."
"What is the Land of Awful Shadow?" I asked.
"It is the land which lies beneath the Dead World," replied Dian; "theDead World which hangs forever between the sun and Pellucidar above theLand of Awful Shadow. It is the Dead World which makes the greatshadow upon this portion of Pellucidar."
I did not fully understand what she meant, nor am I sure that I do yet,for I have never been to that part of Pellucidar from which the DeadWorld is visible; but Perry says that it is the moon of Pellucidar--atiny planet within a planet--and that it revolves around the earth'saxis coincidently with the earth, and thus is always above the samespot within Pellucidar.
I remember that Perry was very much excited when I told him about thisDead World, for he seemed to think that it explained the hithertoinexplicable phenomena of nutation and the precession of the equinoxes.
When the two upon the lidis had come quite close to us we saw that onewas a man and the other a woman. The former had held up his two hands,palms toward us, in sign of peace, and I had answered him in kind, whenhe suddenly gave a cry of astonishment and pleasure, and slipping fromhis enormous mount ran forward toward Dian, throwing his arms about her.
In an instant I was white with jealousy, but only for an instant; sinceDian quickly drew the man toward me, telling him that I was David, hermate.
"And this is my brother, Dacor the Strong One, David," she said to me.
It appeared that the woman was Dacor's mate. He had found none to hisliking among the Sari, nor farther on until he had come to the land ofthe Thoria, and there he had found and fought for this very lovelyThorian maiden whom he was bringing back to his own people.
When they had heard our story and our plans they decided to accompanyus to Sari, that Dacor and Ghak might come to an agreement relative toan alliance, as Dacor was quite as enthusiastic about the proposedannihilation of the Mahars and Sagoths as either Dian or I.
After a journey which was, for Pellucidar, quite uneventful, we came tothe first of the Sarian villages which consists of between one and twohundred artificial caves cut into the face of a great cliff. Here toour immense delight, we found both Perry and Ghak. The old man wasquite overcome at sight of me for he had long since given me up as dead.
When I introduced Dian as my wife, he didn't quite know what to say,but he afterward remarked that with the pick of two worlds I could nothave done better.
Ghak and Dacor reached a very amicable arrangement, and it was at acouncil of the head men of the various tribes of the Sari that theeventual form of government was tentatively agreed upon. Roughly, thevarious kingdoms were to remain virtually independent, but there was tobe one great overlord, or emperor. It was decided that I should be thefirst of the dynasty of the emperors of Pellucidar.
We set about teaching the women how to make bows and arrows, and poisonpouches. The young men hunted the vipers which provided the virus, andit was they who mined the iron ore, and fashioned the swords underPerry's direction. Rapidly the fever spread from one tribe to anotheruntil representatives from nations so far distant that the Sarians hadnever even heard of them came in to take the oath of allegiance whichwe required, and to learn the art of making the new weapons and usingthem.
We sent our young men out as instructors to every nation of thefederation, and the movement had reached colossal proportions beforethe Mahars discovered it. The first intimation they had was when threeof their great slave caravans were annihilated in rapid succession.They could not comprehend that the lower orders had suddenly developeda power which rendered them really formidable.
In one of the skirmishes with slave caravans some of our Sarians took anumber of Sagoth prisoners, and among them were two who had beenmembers of the guards within the building where we had been confined atPhutra. They told us that the Mahars were frantic with rage when theydiscovered what had taken place in the cellars of the buildings. TheSagoths knew that something very terrible had befallen their masters,but the Mahars had been most careful to see that no inkling of the truenature of their vital affliction reached beyond their own race. Howlong it would take for the race to become extinct it was impossibleeven to guess; but that this must eventually happen seemed inevitable.
The Mahars had offered fabulous rewards for the capture of any one ofus alive, and at the same time had threatened to inflict the direstpunishment upon whomever should harm us. The Sagoths could notunderstand these seemingly paradoxical instructions, though theirpurpose was quite evident to me. The Mahars wanted the Great Secret,and they knew that we alone could deliver it to them.
Perry's experiments in the manufacture of gunpowder and the fashioningof rifles had not progressed as rapidly as we had hoped--there was awhole lot about these two arts which Perry didn't know. We were bothassured that the solution of these problems would advance the cause ofcivilization within Pellucidar thousands of years at a single stroke.Then there were various other arts and sciences which we wished tointroduce, but our combined knowledge of them did not embrace themechanical details which alone could render them of commercial, orpractical value.
"David," said Perry, immediately after his latest failure to producegunpowder that would even burn, "one of us must return to the outerworld and bring back the information we lack. Here we have all thelabor and materials for reproducing anything that ever has beenproduced above--what we lack is knowledge. Let us go back and get thatknowledge in the shape of books--then this world will indeed be at ourfeet."
And so it was decided that I should return in the prospector, whichstill lay upon the edge of the forest at the point where we had firstpenetrated to the surface of the inner world. Dian would not listen toany arrangement for my going which did not include her, and I was notsorry that she wished to accompany me, for I wanted her to see myworld, and I wanted my world to see her.
With a large force of men we marched to the great iron mole, whichPerry soon had hoisted into position with its nose pointed back towardthe outer crust. He went over all the machinery carefully. Hereplenished the air tanks, and
manufactured oil for the engine. Atlast everything was ready, and we were about to set out when ourpickets, a long, thin line of which had surrounded our camp at alltimes, reported that a great body of what appeared to be Sagoths andMahars were approaching from the direction of Phutra.
Dian and I were ready to embark, but I was anxious to witness the firstclash between two fair-sized armies of the opposing races ofPellucidar. I realized that this was to mark the historic beginning ofa mighty struggle for possession of a world, and as the first emperorof Pellucidar I felt that it was not alone my duty, but my right, to bein the thick of that momentous struggle.
As the opposing army approached we saw that there were many Mahars withthe Sagoth troops--an indication of the vast importance which thedominant race placed upon the outcome of this campaign, for it was notcustomary with them to take active part in the sorties which theircreatures made for slaves--the only form of warfare which they wagedupon the lower orders.
Ghak and Dacor were both with us, having come primarily to view theprospector. I placed Ghak with some of his Sarians on the right of ourbattle line. Dacor took the left, while I commanded the center.Behind us I stationed a sufficient reserve under one of Ghak's headmen. The Sagoths advanced steadily with menacing spears, and I letthem come until they were within easy bowshot before I gave the word tofire.
At the first volley of poison-tipped arrows the front ranks of thegorilla-men crumpled to the ground; but those behind charged over theprostrate forms of their comrades in a wild, mad rush to be upon uswith their spears. A second volley stopped them for an instant, andthen my reserve sprang through the openings in the firing line toengage them with sword and shield. The clumsy spears of the Sagothswere no match for the swords of the Sarian and Amozite, who turned thespear thrusts aside with their shields and leaped to close quarterswith their lighter, handier weapons.
Ghak took his archers along the enemy's flank, and while the swordsmenengaged them in front, he poured volley after volley into theirunprotected left. The Mahars did little real fighting, and were morein the way than otherwise, though occasionally one of them would fastenits powerful jaw upon the arm or leg of a Sarian.
The battle did not last a great while, for when Dacor and I led our menin upon the Sagoth's right with naked swords they were already sodemoralized that they turned and fled before us. We pursued them forsome time, taking many prisoners and recovering nearly a hundredslaves, among whom was Hooja the Sly One.
He told me that he had been captured while on his way to his own land;but that his life had been spared in hope that through him the Maharswould learn the whereabouts of their Great Secret. Ghak and I wereinclined to think that the Sly One had been guiding this expedition tothe land of Sari, where he thought that the book might be found inPerry's possession; but we had no proof of this and so we took him inand treated him as one of us, although none liked him. And how herewarded my generosity you will presently learn.
There were a number of Mahars among our prisoners, and so fearful wereour own people of them that they would not approach them unlesscompletely covered from the sight of the reptiles by a piece of skin.Even Dian shared the popular superstition regarding the evil effects ofexposure to the eyes of angry Mahars, and though I laughed at her fearsI was willing enough to humor them if it would relieve her apprehensionin any degree, and so she sat apart from the prospector, near which theMahars had been chained, while Perry and I again inspected everyportion of the mechanism.
At last I took my place in the driving seat, and called to one of themen without to fetch Dian. It happened that Hooja stood quite close tothe doorway of the prospector, so that it was he who, without myknowledge, went to bring her; but how he succeeded in accomplishing thefiendish thing he did, I cannot guess, unless there were others in theplot to aid him. Nor can I believe that, since all my people wereloyal to me and would have made short work of Hooja had he suggestedthe heartless scheme, even had he had time to acquaint another with it.It was all done so quickly that I may only believe that it was theresult of sudden impulse, aided by a number of, to Hooja, fortuitouscircumstances occurring at precisely the right moment.
All I know is that it was Hooja who brought Dian to the prospector,still wrapped from head to toe in the skin of an enormous cave lionwhich covered her since the Mahar prisoners had been brought into camp.He deposited his burden in the seat beside me. I was all ready to getunder way. The good-byes had been said. Perry had grasped my hand inthe last, long farewell. I closed and barred the outer and innerdoors, took my seat again at the driving mechanism, and pulled thestarting lever.
As before on that far-gone night that had witnessed our first trial ofthe iron monster, there was a frightful roaring beneath us--the giantframe trembled and vibrated--there was a rush of sound as the looseearth passed up through the hollow space between the inner and outerjackets to be deposited in our wake. Once more the thing was off.
But on the instant of departure I was nearly thrown from my seat by thesudden lurching of the prospector. At first I did not realize what hadhappened, but presently it dawned upon me that just before entering thecrust the towering body had fallen through its supporting scaffolding,and that instead of entering the ground vertically we were plunginginto it at a different angle. Where it would bring us out upon theupper crust I could not even conjecture. And then I turned to note theeffect of this strange experience upon Dian. She still sat shrouded inthe great skin.
"Come, come," I cried, laughing, "come out of your shell. No Mahareyes can reach you here," and I leaned over and snatched the lion skinfrom her. And then I shrank back upon my seat in utter horror.
The thing beneath the skin was not Dian--it was a hideous Mahar.Instantly I realized the trick that Hooja had played upon me, and thepurpose of it. Rid of me, forever as he doubtless thought, Dian wouldbe at his mercy. Frantically I tore at the steering wheel in an effortto turn the prospector back toward Pellucidar; but, as on that otheroccasion, I could not budge the thing a hair.
It is needless to recount the horrors or the monotony of that journey.It varied but little from the former one which had brought us from theouter to the inner world. Because of the angle at which we had enteredthe ground the trip required nearly a day longer, and brought me outhere upon the sand of the Sahara instead of in the United States as Ihad hoped.
For months I have been waiting here for a white man to come. I darednot leave the prospector for fear I should never be able to find itagain--the shifting sands of the desert would soon cover it, and thenmy only hope of returning to my Dian and her Pellucidar would be goneforever.
That I ever shall see her again seems but remotely possible, for howmay I know upon what part of Pellucidar my return journey mayterminate--and how, without a north or south or an east or a west may Ihope ever to find my way across that vast world to the tiny spot wheremy lost love lies grieving for me?
That is the story as David Innes told it to me in the goat-skin tentupon the rim of the great Sahara Desert. The next day he took me outto see the prospector--it was precisely as he had described it. Sohuge was it that it could have been brought to this inaccessible partof the world by no means of transportation that existed there--it couldonly have come in the way that David Innes said it came--up through thecrust of the earth from the inner world of Pellucidar.
I spent a week with him, and then, abandoned my lion hunt, returneddirectly to the coast and hurried to London where I purchased a greatquantity of stuff which he wished to take back to Pellucidar with him.There were books, rifles, revolvers, ammunition, cameras, chemicals,telephones, telegraph instruments, wire, tool and more books--booksupon every subject under the sun. He said he wanted a library withwhich they could reproduce the wonders of the twentieth century in theStone Age and if quantity counts for anything I got it for him.
I took the things back to Algeria myself, and accompanied them to theend of the railroad; but from here I was recalled to America uponimportant business. However,
I was able to employ a very trustworthyman to take charge of the caravan--the same guide, in fact, who hadaccompanied me on the previous trip into the Sahara--and after writinga long letter to Innes in which I gave him my American address, I sawthe expedition head south.
Among the other things which I sent to Innes was over five hundredmiles of double, insulated wire of a very fine gauge. I had it packedon a special reel at his suggestion, as it was his idea that he couldfasten one end here before he left and by paying it out through the endof the prospector lay a telegraph line between the outer and innerworlds. In my letter I told him to be sure to mark the terminus of theline very plainly with a high cairn, in case I was not able to reachhim before he set out, so that I might easily find and communicate withhim should he be so fortunate as to reach Pellucidar.
I received several letters from him after I returned to America--infact he took advantage of every northward-passing caravan to drop meword of some sort. His last letter was written the day before heintended to depart. Here it is.
My Dear Friend:
Tomorrow I shall set out in quest of Pellucidar and Dian. That is if the Arabs don't get me. They have been very nasty of late. I don't know the cause, but on two occasions they have threatened my life. One, more friendly than the rest, told me today that they intended attacking me tonight. It would be unfortunate should anything of that sort happen now that I am so nearly ready to depart.
However, maybe I will be as well off, for the nearer the hour approaches, the slenderer my chances for success appear.
Here is the friendly Arab who is to take this letter north for me, so good-bye, and God bless you for your kindness to me.
The Arab tells me to hurry, for he sees a cloud of sand to the south--he thinks it is the party coming to murder me, and he doesn't want to be found with me. So good-bye again.
Yours, David Innes.
A year later found me at the end of the railroad once more, headed forthe spot where I had left Innes. My first disappointment was when Idiscovered that my old guide had died within a few weeks of my return,nor could I find any member of my former party who could lead me to thesame spot.
For months I searched that scorching land, interviewing countlessdesert sheiks in the hope that at last I might find one who had heardof Innes and his wonderful iron mole. Constantly my eyes scanned theblinding waste of sand for the ricky cairn beneath which I was to findthe wires leading to Pellucidar--but always was I unsuccessful.
And always do these awful questions harass me when I think of DavidInnes and his strange adventures.
Did the Arabs murder him, after all, just on the eve of his departure?Or, did he again turn the nose of his iron monster toward the innerworld? Did he reach it, or lies he somewhere buried in the heart ofthe great crust? And if he did come again to Pellucidar was it tobreak through into the bottom of one of her great island seas, or amongsome savage race far, far from the land of his heart's desire?
Does the answer lie somewhere upon the bosom of the broad Sahara, atthe end of two tiny wires, hidden beneath a lost cairn? I wonder.
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