CHAPTER I
LOST ON PELLUCIDAR
The Arabs, of whom I wrote you at the end of my last letter (Innesbegan), and whom I thought to be enemies intent only upon murdering me,proved to be exceedingly friendly--they were searching for the veryband of marauders that had threatened my existence. The hugerhamphorhynchus-like reptile that I had brought back with me from theinner world--the ugly Mahar that Hooja the Sly One had substituted formy dear Dian at the moment of my departure--filled them with wonder andwith awe.
Nor less so did the mighty subterranean prospector which had carried meto Pellucidar and back again, and which lay out in the desert about twomiles from my camp.
With their help I managed to get the unwieldy tons of its great bulkinto a vertical position--the nose deep in a hole we had dug in thesand and the rest of it supported by the trunks of date-palms cut forthe purpose.
It was a mighty engineering job with only wild Arabs and their wildermounts to do the work of an electric crane--but finally it wascompleted, and I was ready for departure.
For some time I hesitated to take the Mahar back with me. She had beendocile and quiet ever since she had discovered herself virtually aprisoner aboard the "iron mole." It had been, of course, impossible forme to communicate with her since she had no auditory organs and I noknowledge of her fourth-dimension, sixth-sense method of communication.
Naturally I am kind-hearted, and so I found it beyond me to leave eventhis hateful and repulsive thing alone in a strange and hostile world.The result was that when I entered the iron mole I took her with me.
That she knew that we were about to return to Pellucidar was evident,for immediately her manner changed from that of habitual gloom that hadpervaded her, to an almost human expression of contentment and delight.
Our trip through the earth's crust was but a repetition of my twoformer journeys between the inner and the outer worlds. This time,however, I imagine that we must have maintained a more nearlyperpendicular course, for we accomplished the journey in a few minutes'less time than upon the occasion of my first journey through thefive-hundred-mile crust. Just a trifle less than seventy-two hoursafter our departure into the sands of the Sahara, we broke through thesurface of Pellucidar.
Fortune once again favored me by the slightest of margins, for when Iopened the door in the prospector's outer jacket I saw that we hadmissed coming up through the bottom of an ocean by but a few hundredyards.
The aspect of the surrounding country was entirely unfamiliar to me--Ihad no conception of precisely where I was upon the one hundred andtwenty-four million square miles of Pellucidar's vast land surface.
The perpetual midday sun poured down its torrid rays from zenith, as ithad done since the beginning of Pellucidarian time--as it wouldcontinue to do to the end of it. Before me, across the wide sea, theweird, horizonless seascape folded gently upward to meet the sky untilit lost itself to view in the azure depths of distance far above thelevel of my eyes.
How strange it looked! How vastly different from the flat and puny areaof the circumscribed vision of the dweller upon the outer crust!
I was lost. Though I wandered ceaselessly throughout a lifetime, Imight never discover the whereabouts of my former friends of thisstrange and savage world. Never again might I see dear old Perry, norGhak the Hairy One, nor Dacor the Strong One, nor that other infinitelyprecious one--my sweet and noble mate, Dian the Beautiful!
But even so I was glad to tread once more the surface of Pellucidar.Mysterious and terrible, grotesque and savage though she is in many ofher aspects, I can not but love her. Her very savagery appealed to me,for it is the savagery of unspoiled Nature.
The magnificence of her tropic beauties enthralled me. Her mighty landareas breathed unfettered freedom.
Her untracked oceans, whispering of virgin wonders unsullied by the eyeof man, beckoned me out upon their restless bosoms.
Not for an instant did I regret the world of my nativity. I was inPellucidar. I was home. And I was content.
As I stood dreaming beside the giant thing that had brought me safelythrough the earth's crust, my traveling companion, the hideous Mahar,emerged from the interior of the prospector and stood beside me. For along time she remained motionless.
What thoughts were passing through the convolutions of her reptilianbrain?
I do not know.
She was a member of the dominant race of Pellucidar. By a strangefreak of evolution her kind had first developed the power of reason inthat world of anomalies.
To her, creatures such as I were of a lower order. As Perry haddiscovered among the writings of her kind in the buried city of Phutra,it was still an open question among the Mahars as to whether manpossessed means of intelligent communication or the power of reason.
Her kind believed that in the center of all-pervading solidity therewas a single, vast, spherical cavity, which was Pellucidar. Thiscavity had been left there for the sole purpose of providing a placefor the creation and propagation of the Mahar race. Everything withinit had been put there for the uses of the Mahar.
I wondered what this particular Mahar might think now. I foundpleasure in speculating upon just what the effect had been upon her ofpassing through the earth's crust, and coming out into a world that oneof even less intelligence than the great Mahars could easily see was adifferent world from her own Pellucidar.
What had she thought of the outer world's tiny sun?
What had been the effect upon her of the moon and myriad stars of theclear African nights?
How had she explained them?
With what sensations of awe must she first have watched the sun movingslowly across the heavens to disappear at last beneath the westernhorizon, leaving in his wake that which the Mahar had never beforewitnessed--the darkness of night? For upon Pellucidar there is nonight. The stationary sun hangs forever in the center of thePellucidarian sky--directly overhead.
Then, too, she must have been impressed by the wondrous mechanism ofthe prospector which had bored its way from world to world and backagain. And that it had been driven by a rational being must also haveoccurred to her.
Too, she had seen me conversing with other men upon the earth'ssurface. She had seen the arrival of the caravan of books and arms,and ammunition, and the balance of the heterogeneous collection which Ihad crammed into the cabin of the iron mole for transportation toPellucidar.
She had seen all these evidences of a civilization and brain-powertranscending in scientific achievement anything that her race hadproduced; nor once had she seen a creature of her own kind.
There could have been but a single deduction in the mind of theMahar--there were other worlds than Pellucidar, and the gilak was arational being.
Now the creature at my side was creeping slowly toward the near-by sea.At my hip hung a long-barreled six-shooter--somehow I had been unableto find the same sensation of security in the newfangled automaticsthat had been perfected since my first departure from the outerworld--and in my hand was a heavy express rifle.
I could have shot the Mahar with ease, for I knew intuitively that shewas escaping--but I did not.
I felt that if she could return to her own kind with the story of heradventures, the position of the human race within Pellucidar would beadvanced immensely at a single stride, for at once man would take hisproper place in the considerations of the reptilia.
At the edge of the sea the creature paused and looked back at me. Thenshe slid sinuously into the surf.
For several minutes I saw no more of her as she luxuriated in the cooldepths.
Then a hundred yards from shore she rose and there for another shortwhile she floated upon the surface.
Finally she spread her giant wings, flapped them vigorously a score oftimes and rose above the blue sea. A single time she circled faraloft--and then straight as an arrow she sped away.
I watched her until the distant haze enveloped her and she haddisappeared. I was alone.
My first co
ncern was to discover where within Pellucidar I mightbe-and in what direction lay the land of the Sarians where Ghak theHairy One ruled.
But how was I to guess in which direction lay Sari?
And if I set out to search--what then?
Could I find my way back to the prospector with its priceless freightof books, firearms, ammunition, scientific instruments, and still morebooks--its great library of reference works upon every conceivablebranch of applied sciences?
And if I could not, of what value was all this vast storehouse ofpotential civilization and progress to be to the world of my adoption?
Upon the other hand, if I remained here alone with it, what could Iaccomplish single-handed?
Nothing.
But where there was no east, no west, no north, no south, no stars, nomoon, and only a stationary midday sun, how was I to find my way backto this spot should ever I get out of sight of it?
I didn't know.
For a long time I stood buried in deep thought, when it occurred to meto try out one of the compasses I had brought and ascertain if itremained steadily fixed upon an unvarying pole. I reentered theprospector and fetched a compass without.
Moving a considerable distance from the prospector that the needlemight not be influenced by its great bulk of iron and steel I turnedthe delicate instrument about in every direction.
Always and steadily the needle remained rigidly fixed upon a pointstraight out to sea, apparently pointing toward a large island some tenor twenty miles distant. This then should be north.
I drew my note-book from my pocket and made a careful topographicalsketch of the locality within the range of my vision. Due north laythe island, far out upon the shimmering sea.
The spot I had chosen for my observations was the top of a large, flatboulder which rose six or eight feet above the turf. This spot Icalled Greenwich. The boulder was the "Royal Observatory."
I had made a start! I cannot tell you what a sense of relief wasimparted to me by the simple fact that there was at least one spotwithin Pellucidar with a familiar name and a place upon a map.
It was with almost childish joy that I made a little circle in mynote-book and traced the word Greenwich beside it.
Now I felt I might start out upon my search with some assurance offinding my way back again to the prospector.
I decided that at first I would travel directly south in the hope thatI might in that direction find some familiar landmark. It was as gooda direction as any. This much at least might be said of it.
Among the many other things I had brought from the outer world were anumber of pedometers. I slipped three of these into my pockets withthe idea that I might arrive at a more or less accurate mean from theregistrations of them all.
On my map I would register so many paces south, so many east, so manywest, and so on. When I was ready to return I would then do so by anyroute that I might choose.
I also strapped a considerable quantity of ammunition across myshoulders, pocketed some matches, and hooked an aluminum fry-pan and asmall stew-kettle of the same metal to my belt.
I was ready--ready to go forth and explore a world!
Ready to search a land area of 124,110,000 square miles for my friends,my incomparable mate, and good old Perry!
And so, after locking the door in the outer shell of the prospector, Iset out upon my quest. Due south I traveled, across lovely valleysthick-dotted with grazing herds.
Through dense primeval forests I forced my way and up the slopes ofmighty mountains searching for a pass to their farther sides.
Ibex and musk-sheep fell before my good old revolver, so that I lackednot for food in the higher altitudes. The forests and the plains gaveplentifully of fruits and wild birds, antelope, aurochsen, and elk.
Occasionally, for the larger game animals and the gigantic beasts ofprey, I used my express rifle, but for the most part the revolverfilled all my needs.
There were times, too, when faced by a mighty cave bear, asaber-toothed tiger, or huge felis spelaea, black-maned and terrible,even my powerful rifle seemed pitifully inadequate--but fortune favoredme so that I passed unscathed through adventures that even therecollection of causes the short hairs to bristle at the nape of myneck.
How long I wandered toward the south I do not know, for shortly after Ileft the prospector something went wrong with my watch, and I was againat the mercy of the baffling timelessness of Pellucidar, forgingsteadily ahead beneath the great, motionless sun which hangs eternallyat noon.
I ate many times, however, so that days must have elapsed, possiblymonths with no familiar landscape rewarding my eager eyes.
I saw no men nor signs of men. Nor is this strange, for Pellucidar, inits land area, is immense, while the human race there is very young andconsequently far from numerous.
Doubtless upon that long search mine was the first human foot to touchthe soil in many places--mine the first human eye to rest upon thegorgeous wonders of the landscape.
It was a staggering thought. I could not but dwell upon it often as Imade my lonely way through this virgin world. Then, quite suddenly,one day I stepped out of the peace of manless primality into thepresence of man--and peace was gone.
It happened thus:
I had been following a ravine downward out of a chain of lofty hillsand had paused at its mouth to view the lovely little valley that laybefore me. At one side was tangled wood, while straight ahead a riverwound peacefully along parallel to the cliffs in which the hillsterminated at the valley's edge.
Presently, as I stood enjoying the lovely scene, as insatiate forNature's wonders as if I had not looked upon similar landscapescountless times, a sound of shouting broke from the direction of thewoods. That the harsh, discordant notes rose from the throats of men Icould not doubt.
I slipped behind a large boulder near the mouth of the ravine andwaited. I could hear the crashing of underbrush in the forest, and Iguessed that whoever came came quickly--pursued and pursuers, doubtless.
In a short time some hunted animal would break into view, and a momentlater a score of half-naked savages would come leaping after withspears or club or great stone-knives.
I had seen the thing so many times during my life within Pellucidarthat I felt that I could anticipate to a nicety precisely what I wasabout to witness. I hoped that the hunters would prove friendly and beable to direct me toward Sari.
Even as I was thinking these thoughts the quarry emerged from theforest. But it was no terrified four-footed beast. Instead, what Isaw was an old man--a terrified old man!
Staggering feebly and hopelessly from what must have been some veryterrible fate, if one could judge from the horrified expressions hecontinually cast behind him toward the wood, he came stumbling on in mydirection.
He had covered but a short distance from the forest when I beheld thefirst of his pursuers--a Sagoth, one of those grim and terriblegorilla-men who guard the mighty Mahars in their buried cities, faringforth from time to time upon slave-raiding or punitive expeditionsagainst the human race of Pellucidar, of whom the dominant race of theinner world think as we think of the bison or the wild sheep of our ownworld.
Close behind the foremost Sagoth came others until a full dozen raced,shouting after the terror-stricken old man. They would be upon himshortly, that was plain.
One of them was rapidly overhauling him, his back-thrown spear-armtestifying to his purpose.
And then, quite with the suddenness of an unexpected blow, I realized apast familiarity with the gait and carriage of the fugitive.
Simultaneously there swept over me the staggering fact that the old manwas--PERRY! That he was about to die before my very eyes with no hopethat I could reach him in time to avert the awful catastrophe--for tome it meant a real catastrophe!
Perry was my best friend.
Dian, of course, I looked upon as more than friend. She was my mate--apart of me.
I had entirely forgotten the rifle in my hand and the revolvers at mybelt
; one does not readily synchronize his thoughts with the stone ageand the twentieth century simultaneously.
Now from past habit I still thought in the stone age, and in mythoughts of the stone age there were no thoughts of firearms.
The fellow was almost upon Perry when the feel of the gun in my handawoke me from the lethargy of terror that had gripped me. From behindmy boulder I threw up the heavy express rifle--a mighty engine ofdestruction that might bring down a cave bear or a mammoth at a singleshot--and let drive at the Sagoth's broad, hairy breast.
At the sound of the shot he stopped stock-still. His spear droppedfrom his hand.
Then he lunged forward upon his face.
The effect upon the others was little less remarkable. Perry alonecould have possibly guessed the meaning of the loud report or explainedits connection with the sudden collapse of the Sagoth. The othergorilla-men halted for but an instant. Then with renewed shrieks ofrage they sprang forward to finish Perry.
At the same time I stepped from behind my boulder, drawing one of myrevolvers that I might conserve the more precious ammunition of theexpress rifle. Quickly I fired again with the lesser weapon.
Then it was that all eyes were directed toward me. Another Sagoth fellto the bullet from the revolver; but it did not stop his companions.They were out for revenge as well as blood now, and they meant to haveboth.
As I ran forward toward Perry I fired four more shots, dropping threeof our antagonists. Then at last the remaining seven wavered. It wastoo much for them, this roaring death that leaped, invisible, upon themfrom a great distance.
As they hesitated I reached Perry's side. I have never seen such anexpression upon any man's face as that upon Perry's when he recognizedme. I have no words wherewith to describe it. There was not time totalk then--scarce for a greeting. I thrust the full, loaded revolverinto his hand, fired the last shot in my own, and reloaded. There werebut six Sagoths left then.
They started toward us once more, though I could see that they wereterrified probably as much by the noise of the guns as by theireffects. They never reached us. Half-way the three that remainedturned and fled, and we let them go.
The last we saw of them they were disappearing into the tangledundergrowth of the forest. And then Perry turned and threw his armsabout my neck and, burying his old face upon my shoulder, wept like achild.