XV
BACK TO EARTH
We crossed the river and passed through the mountains beyond, and finally we
came out upon a great level plain which stretched away as far as the eye could
reach. I cannot tell you in what direction it stretched even if you would care
to know, for all the while that I was within Pellucidar I never discovered any
but local methods of indicating direction--there is no north, no south, no east,
no west. UP is about the only direction which is well defined, and that, of
course, is DOWN to you of the outer crust. Since the sun neither rises nor sets
there is no method of indicating direction beyond visible objects such as high
mountains, forests, lakes, and seas.
The plain which lies beyond the white cliffs which flank the Darel Az upon
the shore nearest the Mountains of the Clouds is about as near to any direction
as any Pellucidarian can come. If you happen not to have heard of the Darel Az,
or the white cliffs, or the Mountains of the Clouds you feel that there is
something lacking, and long for the good old understandable northeast and
southwest of the outer world.
We had barely entered the great plain when we discovered two enormous animals
approaching us from a great distance. So far were they that we could not
distinguish what manner of beasts they might be, but as they came closer, I saw
that they were enormous quadrupeds, eighty or a hundred feet long, with tiny
heads perched at the top of very long necks. Their heads must have been quite
forty feet from the ground. The beasts moved very slowly--that is their action
was slow--but their strides covered such a great distance that in reality they
traveled considerably faster than a man walks.
As they drew still nearer we discovered that upon the back of each sat a
human being. Then Dian knew what they were, though she never before had seen
one.
"They are lidis from the land of the Thorians," she cried. "Thoria
lies at the outer verge of the Land of Awful Shadow. The Thorians alone of all
the races of Pellucidar ride the lidi, for nowhere else than 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;
"the Dead World which hangs forever between the sun and Pellucidar above
the Land of Awful Shadow. It is the Dead World which makes the great shadow 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 Dead World is visible;
but Perry says that it is the moon of Pellucidar--a tiny planet within a
planet--and that it revolves around the earth's axis coincidently with the
earth, and thus is always above the same spot within Pellucidar.
I remember that Perry was very much excited when I told him about this Dead
World, for he seemed to think that it explained the hitherto inexplicable
phenomena of nutation and the precession of the equinoxes.
When the two upon the lidis had come quite close to us we saw that one was 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, when he suddenly gave a
cry of astonishment and pleasure, and slipping from his enormous mount ran
forward toward Dian, throwing his arms about her.
In an instant I was white with jealousy, but only for an instant; since Dian
quickly drew the man toward me, telling him that I was David, her mate.
"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 his liking
among the Sari, nor farther on until he had come to the land of the Thoria, and
there he had found and fought for this very lovely Thorian maiden whom he was
bringing back to his own people.
When they had heard our story and our plans they decided to accompany us to
Sari, that Dacor and Ghak might come to an agreement relative to an alliance, as
Dacor was quite as enthusiastic about the proposed annihilation of the Mahars
and Sagoths as either Dian or I.
After a journey which was, for Pellucidar, quite uneventful, we came to the
first of the Sarian villages which consists of between one and two hundred
artificial caves cut into the face of a great cliff. Here to our immense
delight, we found both Perry and Ghak. The old man was quite 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 not have done
better.
Ghak and Dacor reached a very amicable arrangement, and it was at a council
of the head men of the various tribes of the Sari that the eventual form of
government was tentatively agreed upon. Roughly, the various kingdoms were to
remain virtually independent, but there was to be one great overlord, or
emperor. It was decided that I should be the first of the dynasty of the
emperors of Pellucidar.
We set about teaching the women how to make bows and arrows, and poison
pouches. The young men hunted the vipers which provided the virus, and it was
they who mined the iron ore, and fashioned the swords under Perry's direction.
Rapidly the fever spread from one tribe to another until representatives from
nations so far distant that the Sarians had never even heard of them came in to
take the oath of allegiance which we required, and to learn the art of making
the new weapons and using them.
We sent our young men out as instructors to every nation of the federation,
and the movement had reached colossal proportions before the Mahars discovered
it. The first intimation they had was when three of their great slave caravans
were annihilated in rapid succession. They could not comprehend that the lower
orders had suddenly developed a power which rendered them really formidable.
In one of the skirmishes with slave caravans some of our Sarians took a
number of Sagoth prisoners, and among them were two who had been members of the
guards within the building where we had been confined at Phutra. They told us
that the Mahars were frantic with rage when they discovered what had taken place
in the cellars of the buildings. The Sagoths knew that something very terrible
had befallen their masters, but the Mahars had been most careful to see that no
inkling of the true nature of their vital affliction reached beyond their own
race. How long it would take for the race to become extinct it was impossible
even to guess; but that this must eventually happen seemed inevitable.
The Mahars had offered fabulous rewards for the capture of any one of us
alive, and at the same time had threatened to inflict the direst punishment upon
whomever should harm us. The Sagoths could not understand these seemingly
paradoxical instructions, though their purpose 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 fashioning of
rifles had not progressed as rapidly as we had hoped--there was a whole lot
about these two arts which Perry didn't know. We were both assured that the
solution of these problems would advance the cause of civilization within
Pellucidar thousands of years at a single stroke. Then there were various other
arts and sciences which we wished to introduce, but our combined knowledge of
them did not embrace the mechanical details which alone could render them of
commercial, or practical value.
"David," said Perry, immediately after his latest failure to
produce gunpowder that would even burn, "one of us must return to the outer
world and bring back the information we lack. Here we have all the labor and
materials for reproducing anything that ever has been produced above--what we
lack is knowledge. Let us go back and get that knowledge in the shape of
books--then this world will indeed be at our feet."
And so it was decided that I should return in the prospector, which still lay
upon the edge of the forest at the point where we had first penetrated to the
surface of the inner world. Dian would not listen to any arrangement for my
going which did not include her, and I was not sorry that she wished to
accompany me, for I wanted her to see my world, and I wanted my world to see
her.
With a large force of men we marched to the great iron mole, which Perry soon
had hoisted into position with its nose pointed back toward the outer crust. He
went over all the machinery carefully. He replenished the air tanks, and
manufactured oil for the engine. At last everything was ready, and we were about
to set out when our pickets, a long, thin line of which had surrounded our camp
at all times, reported that a great body of what appeared to be Sagoths and
Mahars were approaching from the direction of Phutra.
Dian and I were ready to embark, but I was anxious to witness the first clash
between two fair-sized armies of the opposing races of Pellucidar. I realized
that this was to mark the historic beginning of a mighty struggle for possession
of a world, and as the first emperor of Pellucidar I felt that it was not alone
my duty, but my right, to be in the thick of that momentous struggle.
As the opposing army approached we saw that there were many Mahars with the
Sagoth troops--an indication of the vast importance which the dominant race
placed upon the outcome of this campaign, for it was not customary with them to
take active part in the sorties which their creatures made for slaves--the only
form of warfare which they waged upon the lower orders.
Ghak and Dacor were both with us, having come primarily to view the
prospector. I placed Ghak with some of his Sarians on the right of our battle
line. Dacor took the left, while I commanded the center. Behind us I stationed a
sufficient reserve under one of Ghak's head men. The Sagoths advanced steadily
with menacing spears, and I let them come until they were within easy bowshot
before I gave the word to fire.
At the first volley of poison-tipped arrows the front ranks of the
gorilla-men crumpled to the ground; but those behind charged over the prostrate
forms of their comrades in a wild, mad rush to be upon us with their spears. A
second volley stopped them for an instant, and then my reserve sprang through
the openings in the firing line to engage them with sword and shield. The clumsy
spears of the Sagoths were no match for the swords of the Sarian and Amozite,
who turned the spear thrusts aside with their shields and leaped to close
quarters with their lighter, handier weapons.
Ghak took his archers along the enemy's flank, and while the swordsmen
engaged them in front, he poured volley after volley into their unprotected
left. The Mahars did little real fighting, and were more in the way than
otherwise, though occasionally one of them would fasten its 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 men in
upon the Sagoth's right with naked swords they were already so demoralized that
they turned and fled before us. We pursued them for some time, taking many
prisoners and recovering nearly a hundred slaves, 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 Mahars would learn
the whereabouts of their Great Secret. Ghak and I were inclined to think that
the Sly One had been guiding this expedition to the land of Sari, where he
thought that the book might be found in Perry's possession; but we had no proof
of this and so we took him in and treated him as one of us, although none liked
him. And how he rewarded my generosity you will presently learn.
There were a number of Mahars among our prisoners, and so fearful were our
own people of them that they would not approach them unless completely covered
from the sight of the reptiles by a piece of skin. Even Dian shared the popular
superstition regarding the evil effects of exposure to the eyes of angry Mahars,
and though I laughed at her fears I was willing enough to humor them if it would
relieve her apprehension in any degree, and so she sat apart from the
prospector, near which the Mahars had been chained, while Perry and I again
inspected every portion of the mechanism.
At last I took my place in the driving seat, and called to one of the men
without to fetch Dian. It happened that Hooja stood quite close to the doorway
of the prospector, so that it was he who, without my knowledge, went to bring
her; but how he succeeded in accomplishing the fiendish thing he did, I cannot
guess, unless there were others in the plot to aid him. Nor can I believe that,
since all my people were loyal to me and would have made short work of Hooja had
he suggested the 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 the result of
sudden impulse, aided by a number of, to Hooja, fortuitous circumstances
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 lion which 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 get under way. The good-byes had been
said. Perry had grasped my hand in the last, long farewell. I closed and barred
the outer and inner doors, took my seat again at the driving mechanism, and
pulled the starting lever.
As before on that far-gone night that had witnessed our first trial of the
iron monster, 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. Once more the thing was off.
But on the instant of departure I was nearly thrown from my seat by the
sudden lurching of the prospector. At first I did not realize what had happened,
but presently it dawned upon me that just before entering the crust the towering
body had fallen through its supporting scaffolding, and that instead of entering
the ground vertically we were plunging into it at a different angle. Where it
would bring us out upon the upper crust I could not even conjecture. And then I
turned to note the effect of this strange experience upon Dian. She still sat
shrouded in the great skin.
"Come, come," I cried, laughing, "come out of your shell. No
Mahar eyes can reach you here," and I leaned over and snatched the lion
skin from 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 the purpose of it. Rid of
me, forever as he doubtless thought, Dian would be at his mercy. Frantically I
tore at the steering wheel in an effort to turn the prospector back toward
Pellucidar; but, as on that other occasion, 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 the outer to the
inner world. Because of the angle at which we had entered the ground the trip
required nearly a day longer, and brought me out here upon the sand of the
Sahara instead of in the United States as I had hoped.
For months I have been waiting here for a white man to come. I dared not
leave the prospector for fear I should never be able to find it again--the
shifting sands of the desert would soon cover it, and then my only hope of
returning to my Dian and her Pellucidar would be gone forever.
That I ever shall see her again seems but remotely possible, for how may I
know upon what part of Pellucidar my return journey may terminate--and how,
without a north or south or an east or a west may I hope ever to find my way
across that vast world to the tiny spot where my lost love lies grieving for me?
That is the story as David Innes told it to me in the goat-skin tent upon the
rim of the great Sahara Desert. The next day he took me out to see the
prospector--it was precisely as he had described it. So huge was it that it
could have been brought to this inaccessible part of the world by no means of
transportation that existed there--it could only have come in the way that David
Innes said it came--up through the crust of the earth from the inner world of
Pellucidar.
I spent a week with him, and then, abandoned my lion hunt, returned directly
to the coast and hurried to London where I purchased a great quantity 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--books upon every subject under the sun. He said he
wanted a library with which they could reproduce the wonders of the twentieth
century in the Stone Age and if quantity counts for anything I got it for him.
I took the things back to Algeria myself, and accompanied them to the end of
the railroad; but from here I was recalled to America upon important business.
However, I was able to employ a very trustworthy man to take charge of the
caravan--the same guide, in fact, who had accompanied me on the previous trip
into the Sahara--and after writing a long letter to Innes in which I gave him my
American address, I saw the expedition head south.
Among the other things which I sent to Innes was over five hundred miles of
double, insulated wire of a very fine gauge. I had it packed on a special reel
at his suggestion, as it was his idea that he could fasten one end here before
he left and by paying it out through the end of the prospector lay a telegraph
line between the outer and inner worlds. In my letter I told him to be sure to
mark the terminus of the line very plainly with a high cairn, in case I was not
able to reach him before he set out, so that I might easily find and communicate
with him should he be so fortunate as to reach Pellucidar.
I received several letters from him after I returned to America--in fact he
took advantage of every northward-passing caravan to drop me word of some sort.
His last letter was written the day before he intended 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 goodbye again.
Yours,
David Innes.
A year later found me at the end of the railroad once more, headed for the
spot where I had left Innes. My first disappointment was when I discovered 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 the same spot.
For months I searched that scorching land, interviewing countless desert
sheiks in the hope that at last I might find one who had heard of Innes and his
wonderful iron mole. Constantly my eyes scanned the blinding waste of sand for
the ricky cairn beneath which I was to find the wires leading to Pellucidar--but
always was I unsuccessful.
And always do these awful questions harass me when I think of David Innes 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 inner world? Did he
reach it, or lies he somewhere buried in the heart of the great crust? And if he
did come again to Pellucidar was it to break through into the bottom of one of
her great island seas, or among some savage race far, far from the land of his
heart's desire?
Does the answer lie somewhere upon the bosom of the broad Sahara, at the end
of two tiny wires, hidden beneath a lost cairn? I wonder.
THE END
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