CHAPTER I
LOST ON PELLUCIDAR
The Arabs, of whom I wrote you at the end of my last letter (Innes began),
and whom I thought to be enemies intent only upon murdering me, proved to be
exceedingly friendly--they were searching for the very band of marauders that
had threatened my existence. The huge rhamphorhynchus-like reptile that I had
brought back with me from the inner world--the ugly Mahar that Hooja the Sly One
had substituted for my dear Dian at the moment of my departure--filled them with
wonder and with awe.
Nor less so did the mighty subterranean prospector which had carried me to
Pellucidar and back again, and which lay out in the desert about two miles from
my camp.
With their help I managed to get the unwieldy tons of its great bulk into a
vertical position--the nose deep in a hole we had dug in the sand and the rest
of it supported by the trunks of date-palms cut for the purpose.
It was a mighty engineering job with only wild Arabs and their wilder mounts
to do the work of an electric crane--but finally it was completed, and I was
ready for departure.
For some time I hesitated to take the Mahar back with me. She had been docile
and quiet ever since she had discovered herself virtually a prisoner aboard the
"iron mole." It had been, of course, impossible for me to communicate
with her since she had no auditory organs and I no knowledge of her
fourth-dimension, sixth-sense method of communication.
Naturally I am kind-hearted, and so I found it beyond me to leave even this
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 had pervaded
her, to an almost human expression of contentment and delight.
Our trip through the earth's crust was but a repetition of my two former
journeys between the inner and the outer worlds. This time, however, I imagine
that we must have maintained a more nearly perpendicular course, for we
accomplished the journey in a few min- utes' less time than upon the occasion of
my first journey through the five-hundred-mile crust. just a trifle less than
seventy-two hours after our departure into the sands of the Sahara, we broke
through the surface of Pellucidar.
Fortune once again favored me by the slightest of margins, for when I opened
the door in the prospector's outer jacket I saw that we had missed coming up
through the bottom of an ocean by but a few hundred yards.
The aspect of the surrounding country was entirely unfamiliar to me--I had no
conception of precisely where I was upon the one hundred and twenty-four million
square miles of Pellucidar's vast land surface.
The perpetual midday sun poured down its torrid rays from zenith, as it had
done since the beginning of Pellucidarian time--as it would continue to do to
the end of it. Before me, across the wide sea, the weird, horizonless seascape
folded gently upward to meet the sky until it lost itself to view in the azure
depths of distance far above the level of my eyes.
How strange it looked! How vastly different from the flat and puny area of
the circumscribed vision of the dweller upon the outer crust!
I was lost. Though I wandered ceaselessly throughout a lifetime, I might
never discover the whereabouts of my former friends of this strange and savage
world. Never again might I see dear old Perry, nor Ghak the Hairy One, nor Dacor
the Strong One, nor that other infinitely precious 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 of her
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 land areas
breathed unfettered free- dom.
Her untracked oceans, whispering of virgin wonders unsullied by the eye of
man, beckoned me out upon their restless bosoms.
Not for an instant did I regret the world of my nativity. I was in
Pellucidar. I was home. And I was content.
As I stood dreaming beside the giant thing that had brought me safely through
the earth's crust, my travel- ing companion, the hideous Mahar, emerged from the
interior of the prospector and stood beside me. For a long time she remained
motionless.
What thoughts were passing through the convolutions of her reptilian brain?
I do not know.
She was a member of the dominant race of Pellucidar. By a strange freak of
evolution her kind had first developed the power of reason in that world of
anomalies.
To her, creatures such as I were of a lower order. As Perry had discovered
among the writings of her kind in the buried city of Phutra, it was still an
open question among the Mahars as to whether man possessed means of intelligent
communication or the power of reason.
Her kind believed that in the center of all-pervading solidity there was a
single, vast, spherical cavity, which was Pellucidar. This cavity had been left
there for the sole purpose of providing a place for the creation and propagation
of the Mahar race. Everything within it had been put there for the uses of the
Mahar.
I wondered what this particular Mahar might think now. I found pleasure in
speculating upon just what the effect had been upon her of passing through the
earth's crust, and coming out into a world that one of even less intelligence
than the great Mahars could easily see was a different 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 the clear
African nights?
How had she explained them?
With what sensations of awe must she first have watched the sun moving slowly
across the heavens to disappear at last beneath the western horizon, leaving in
his wake that which the Mahar had never before witnessed--the darkness of night?
For upon Pellucidar there is no night. The stationary sun hangs forever in the
center of the Pellucidarian sky--directly overhead.
Then, too, she must have been impressed by the wondrous mechanism of the
prospector which had bored its way from world to world and back again. And that
it had been driven by a rational being must also have occurred to her.
Too, she bad seen me conversing with other men upon the earth's surface. She
had seen the arrival of the caravan of books and arms, and ammunition, and the
balance of the heterogeneous collection which I had crammed into the cabin of
the iron mole for transportation to Pellucidar.
She had seen all these evidences of a civilization and brain-power
transcending in scientific achievement anything that her race had produced; nor
once had she seen a creature of her own kind.
There could have been but a single deduction in the mind of the Mahar--there
were other worlds than Pellucidar, and the gilak was a rational 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 unable to find the same
sensation of security in the newfangled automatics that had been perfected since
my first departure from the outer world--and in my hand was a heavy express
rifle.
I could have shot the Mahar with ease, for I knew intuitively that she was
escaping--but I did not.
I felt that if she could return to her own kind with the story of her
adventures, the position of the human race within Pellucidar would be advanced
immensely at a single stride, for at once man would take his proper place in the
considerations of the reptilia.
At the edge of the sea the creature paused and looked back at me. Then she
slid sinuously into the surf.
For several minutes I saw no more of her as she luxuriated in the cool
depths.
Then a hundred yards from shore she rose and there for another short while
she floated upon the surface.
Finally she spread her giant wings, flapped them vigorously a score of times
and rose above the blue sea. A single time she circled far aloft--and then
straight as an arrow she sped away.
I watched her until the distant haze enveloped her and she had disappeared. I
was alone.
My first concern was to discover where within Pellucidar I might be--and in
what direction lay the land of the Sarians where Ghak the Hairy 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 freight of
books, firearms, ammunition, scientific instruments, and still more books--its
great library of reference works upon every conceivable branch of applied
sciences?
And if I could not, of what value was all this vast storehouse of potential
civilization and progress to be to the world of my adoption?
Upon the other hand, if I remained here alone with it, what could I
accomplish single-handed?
Nothing.
But where there was no east, no west, no north, no south, no stars, no moon,
and only a stationary mid- day sun, how was I to find my way back to 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 me to try
out one of the compasses I had brought and ascertain if it remained steadily
fixed upon an unvarying pole. I reentered the prospector and fetched a compass
without.
Moving a considerable distance from the prospector that the needle might not
be influenced by its great bulk of iron and steel I turned the delicate
instrument about in every direction.
Always and steadily the needle remained rigidly fixed upon a point straight
out to sea, apparently pointing toward a large island some ten or twenty miles
distant. This then should be north.
I drew my note-book from my pocket and made a careful topographical sketch of
the locality within the range of my vision. Due north lay the island, far out
upon the shimmering sea.
The spot I had chosen for my observations was the top of a large, flat
boulder which rose six or eight feet above the turf. This spot I called
Greenwich. The boulder was the "Royal Observatory."
I had made a start! I cannot tell you what a sense of relief was imparted to
me by the simple fact that there was at least one spot within Pellucidar with a
familiar name and a place upon a map.
It was with almost childish joy that I made a little circle in my note-book
and traced the word Greenwich beside it.
Now I felt I might start out upon my search with some assurance of finding my
way back again to the prospector.
I decided that at first I would travel directly south in the hope that I
might in that direction find some familiar landmark. It was as good a 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 a number
of pedometers. I slipped three of these into my pockets with the idea that I
might arrive at a more or less accurate mean from the registrations of them all.
On my map I would register so many paces south, so many east, so many west,
and so on. When I was ready to return I would then do so by any route that I
might choose.
I also strapped a considerable quantity of ammunition across my shoulders,
pocketed some matches, and hooked an aluminum fry-pan and a small 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, I set
out upon my quest. Due south I traveled, across lovely valleys thick-dotted with
graz- ing herds.
Through dense primeval forests I forced my way and up the slopes of mighty
mountains searching for a pass to their farther sides.
Ibex and musk-sheep fell before my good old revolver, so that I lacked not
for food in the higher altitudes. The forests and the plains gave plentifully of
fruits and wild birds, antelope, aurochsen, and elk.
Occasionally, for the larger game animals and the gigantic beasts of prey, I
used my express rifle, but for the most part the revolver filled all my needs.
There were times, too, when faced by a mighty cave bear, a saber-toothed
tiger, or huge felis spelaea, black-maned and terrible, even my powerful rifle
seemed pitifully inadequate--but fortune favored me so that I passed unscathed
through adventures that even the recollection of causes the short hairs to
bristle at the nape of my neck.
How long I wandered toward the south I do not know, for shortly after I left
the prospector something went wrong with my watch, and I was again at the mercy
of the baffling timelessness of Pellucidar, forging steadily ahead beneath the
great, motionless sun which hangs eternally at noon.
I ate many times, however, so that days must have elapsed, possibly months
with no familiar landscape rewarding my eager eyes.
I saw no men nor signs of men. Nor is this strange, for Pellucidar, in its
land area, is immense, while the human race there is very young and consequently
far from numerous.
Doubtless upon that long search mine was the first human foot to touch the
soil in many places--mine the first human eye to rest upon the gorgeous wonders
of the landscape.
It was a staggering thought. I could not but dwell upon it often as I made my
lonely way through this virgin world. Then, quite suddenly, one day I stepped
out of the peace of manless primality into the presence of man--and peace was
gone.
It happened thus:
I had been following a ravine downward out of a chain of lofty hills and had
paused at its mouth to view the lovely little valley that lay before me. At one
side was tangled wood, while straight ahead a river wound peacefully along
parallel to the cliffs in which the hills terminated at the valley's edge.
Presently, as I stood enjoying the lovely scene, as insatiate for Nature's
wonders as if I had not looked upon similar landscapes countless times, a sound
of shouting broke from the direction of the woods. That the harsh, discordant
notes rose from the throats of men I could not doubt.
I slipped behind a large boulder near the mouth of the ravine and waited. I
could hear the crashing of underbrush in the forest, and I guessed that whoever
came came quickly--pursued and pursuers, doubtless.
In a short time some hunted animal would break into view, and a moment later
a score of half-naked savages would come leaping after with spears or club or
great stone-knives.
I had seen the thing so many times during my life within Pellucidar that I
felt that I could anticipate to a nicety precisely what I was about to witness.
I hoped that the hunters would prove friendly and be able to direct me toward
Sari.
Even as I was thinking these thoughts the quarry emerged from the forest. But
it was no terrified four- footed beast. Instead, what I saw was an old man-- a
terrified old man!
Staggering feebly and hopelessly from what must have been some very terrible
fate, if one could judge from the horrified expressions he continually cast
behind him toward the wood, he came stumbling on in my direction.
He had covered but a short distance from the forest when I beheld the first
of his pursuers--a Sagoth, one of those grim and terrible gorilla-men who guard
the mighty Mahars in their buried cities, faring forth from time to time upon
slave-raiding or punitive expeditions against the human race of Pellucidar, of
whom the dominant race of the inner world think as we think of the bison or the
wild sheep of our own world.
Close behind the foremost Sagoth came others until a full dozen raced,
shouting after the terror-stricken old man. They would be upon him shortly, that
was plain.
One of them was rapidly overhauling him, his back- thrown spear-arm
testifying to his purpose.
And then, quite with the suddenness of an unexpected blow, I realized a past
familiarity with the gait and carriage of the fugitive.
Simultaneously there swept over me the staggering fact that the old man
was--PERRY! That he was about to die before my very eyes with no hope that I
could reach him in time to avert the awful catastrophe-- for to me it meant a
real catastrophe!
Perry was my best friend.
Dian, of course, I looked upon as more than friend. She was my mate--a part
of me.
I had entirely forgotten the rifle in my hand and the revolvers at my belt;
one does not readily synchronize his thoughts with the stone age and the
twentieth century simultaneously.
Now from past habit I still thought in the stone age, and in my thoughts of
the stone age there were no thoughts of firearms.
The fellow was almost upon Perry when the feel of the gun in my hand awoke me
from the lethargy of terror that had gripped me. From behind my boulder I threw
up the heavy express rifle--a mighty engine of destruction that might bring down
a cave bear or a mammoth at a single shot--and let drive at the Sagoth's broad,
hairy breast.
At the sound of the shot he stopped stock-still. His spear dropped from his
hand.
Then he lunged forward upon his face.
The effect upon the others was little less remarkable. Perry alone could have
possibly guessed the meaning of the loud report or explained its connection with
the sudden collapse of the Sagoth. The other gorilla-men halted for but an
instant. Then with renewed shrieks of rage they sprang forward to finish Perry.
At the same time I stepped from behind my boulder, drawing one of my
revolvers that I might conserve the more precious ammunition of the express
rifle. Quickly I fired again with the lesser weapon.
Then it was that all eyes were directed toward me. Another Sagoth fell to 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 have both.
As I ran forward toward Perry I fired four more shots, dropping three of our
antagonists. Then at last the remaining seven wavered. It was too much for them,
this roaring death that leaped, invisible, upon them from a great distance.
As they hesitated I reached Perry's side. I have never seen such an
expression upon any man's face as that upon Perry's when he recognized me. I
have no words wherewith to describe it. There was not time to talk then--scarce
for a greeting. I thrust the full, loaded revolver into his hand, fired the last
shot in my own, and reloaded. There were but six Sagoths left then.
They started toward us once more, though I could see that they were terrified
probably as much by the noise of the guns as by their effects. They never
reached us. Half-way the three that remained turned and fled, and we let them
go.
The last we saw of them they were disappearing into the tangled undergrowth
of the forest. And then Perry turned and threw his arms about my neck and,
burying his old face upon my shoulder, wept like a child.
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