CHAPTER XV. BACK TO EARTH

PROLOG

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 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 daylight 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 hurled 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, not 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 daylight 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.