across the bay of Carn, a hoarse shout of pleasure arose from the
throats of the Korsars, for there, at anchor in the bay, lay a Korsar
ship. Not knowing how soon the vessel might weigh anchor and depart, the
Korsars fairly tumbled down the precipitous trail to the beach, while in
their rear the puzzled villagers watched them over the top of the wall
of Carn until the last man had disappeared beyond the summit of the
cliff.
Rushing to the edge of the water the Korsars tried to discharge their
harquebuses to attract attention from the vessel. A few of the charges
had dried and the resulting explosion awakened signs of life upon the
anchored ship. The sailors on the shore tore off sashes and
handkerchiefs, which they waved frantically as signals of distress, and
presently they were rewarded by the sight of the lowering of a boat from
the vessel.
Within speaking distance of the shore the boat came to a stop and an
officer hailed the men on shore.
“Who are you,” he demanded, “and what do you want?”
“We are part of the crew of the ship of The Cid,” replied the sailors’
spokesman. “Our ship was wrecked in mid-ocean and we made our way to
Amiocap and then to Hime, but here we lost the boat that we built upon
Amiocap.”
Assured that the men were Korsars the officer commanded that the boat
move in closer to the shore and finally it was beached close to where
the party stood awaiting its coming.
The brief greetings and explanations over, the officer took them all
aboard and shortly afterward Tanar of Pellucidar found himself again
upon a Korsar ship of war.
The commander of the ship knew Stellara, and after questioning them
carefully he approved her plan and agreed to take Tanar and Gura back to
Korsar with them.
Following their interview with the officer, Tanar found himself
momentarily alone with Stellara.
“Stellara!” he said. “What change has come over you?”
She turned and looked at him coldly. “In Amiocap you were well enough,”
she said, “but in Korsar you would be only a naked barbarian,” and,
turning, she walked away from him without another word.
XIII
PRISONERS
The voyage to Korsar was uneventful and during its entire extent Tanar
saw nothing of either Stellara or Gura for, although he was not confined
in the dark hold, he was not permitted above the first deck, and
although he often looked up at the higher deck at the stern of the ship
he never caught a glimpse of either of the girls, from which he
concluded that Gura was confined in one of the cabins and that Stellara
deliberately avoided him or any sight of him.
As they approached the coast of Korsar Tanar saw a level country curving
upward into the mist of the distance. He thought that far away be
discerned the outlines of hills, but of that he could not be certain. He
saw cultivated fields and patches of forest land and a river running
down to the sea—a broad, winding river upon the shore of which a city
lay, inland a little from the ocean. There was no harbor at this point
upon the coast, but the ship made directly for the mouth of the river,
up which it sailed toward the city, which, as he approached it, he saw
far surpassed in size and the pretentiousness of its buildings any
habitation of man that he had ever seen upon the surface of Pellucidar,
not even excepting the new capital of the confederated kingdoms of
Pellucidar that the Emperor David was building.
Most of the buildings were white with red-tiled roofs, and there were
some with lofty minarets and domes of various colors—blue and red and
gold, the last shining in the sunlight like the jewels in the diadem of
Dian the Empress.
Where the river widened the town had been built and here there rode at
anchor a great fleet of ships of war and many lesser craft—fishing boats
and river boats and barges. The street along the riverfront was lined
with shops and alive with people.
As their ship approached cannon boomed from the deck of the anchored
warships, and the salute was returned by their own craft, which finally
came to anchor in midstream, opposite the city.
Small boats put out from the shore and were paddled rapidly toward the
warship, which also lowered some of her own boats, into one of which
Tanar was ordered under charge of an officer and a couple of sailors. As
he was taken to shore and marched along the street he excited
considerable attention among the crowds through which they passed, for
he was immediately recognized as a barbarian captive from some
uncivilized quarter of Pellucidar.
During the debarkation Tanar had seen nothing of either Stellara or Gura
and now he wondered if he was ever to see them again. His mind was
filled with the same sad thoughts that had been his companions during
the entire course of the long journey from Hime to Korsar and which had
finally convinced him that he had never known the true Stellara until
she had avowed herself upon the deck of the ship in the harbor of Carn.
Yes, he was all right upon Amiocap, but in Korsar he was only a naked
savage, and this fact was borne in upon him now by the convincing
evidence of the haughty contempt with which the natives of Korsar stared
at him or exchanged rude jokes at his expense.
It hurt the Sarian’s pride to think that he had been so deceived by the
woman to whom he had given all his love. He would have staked his life
upon his belief that here was the sweetest and purest and most loyal of
characters, and to learn at last that she was shallow and insincere cut
him to the quick and his suffering was lightened by but a single
thought—his unquestioned belief in the sweet and enduring friendship of
Gura.
It was with such thoughts that his mind was occupied as he was led into
a building along the waterfront, which seemed to be in the nature of a
guardhouse.
Here he was turned over to an officer in charge, and, after a few brief
questions, two soldiers conducted him into another room, raised a heavy
trap door in the floor and bade him descend a rude ladder that led
downward into darkness below.
No sooner had his head descended below the floor joists than the door
was slammed down above him. He heard the grating of a heavy bolt as the
soldiers shut it and then the thud of their footsteps as they left the
room above.
Descending slowly for about ten feet Tanar came at last to the surface
of a stone floor. His eyes becoming accustomed to the change, he
realized that the apartment into which he had descended was not in total
darkness, but that daylight filtered into it from a small, barred window
near the ceiling. Looking about him he saw that he was the only occupant
of the room.
In the wall, opposite the window, he discerned a doorway and crossing to
it he saw that it opened into a narrow corridor, running parallel with
the length of the room. Looking up and down the corridor he discerned
faint patches of light, as though other open doorways lined one side of
the hallway.
He was about to enter upon a tour of investigation when the noise of
something scurrying along the floor of the corridor attracted his
attention, and looking back to his left he saw a dark form creeping
toward him. It stood about a foot in height and was, perhaps, three feet
long, but in the shadows of the corridor it loomed too indistinctly for
him to recognize its details. But presently he saw that it had two
shining eyes that seemed to be directed upon him.
As it came boldly forward Tanar stepped back into the room he was about
to quit, preferring to meet the thing in the lesser darkness of the
apartment rather than in the gloomy corridor, if it was the creature’s
intent to attack him.
On the thing came and turning into the doorway it stopped and surveyed
the Sarian. In his native country Tanar had been familiar with a species
of wood rat, which the Sarian considered large, but never in all his
life had he dreamed that a rat could grow to the enormous proportions of
the hideous thing that confronted him with its bold, gleaming, beady
eyes.
Tanar had been disarmed when he had been taken aboard the Korsar ship,
but even so he had no fear of a rodent, even if the thing should elect
to attack him, which he doubted. But the ferocious appearance of the rat
gave him pause as he thought what the result might be if a number of
them should attack a man simultaneously.
Presently the rat, still standing facing him, squealed. For a time there
was silence and then the thing squealed again and, as from a great
distance, Tanar heard an answering squeal, and then another and another,
and presently they grew louder and greater in volume, and he knew that
the rat of the Korsar dungeon was calling its fellows to the attack and
the feast.
He looked about him for some weapon of defense, but there was nothing
but the bare stone of the floor and the walls. He heard the rat pack
coming, and still the scout that had discovered him stood in the
doorway, waiting.
But why should he, the man, wait? If he must die, he would die fighting
and if he could take the rats as they came, one by one, he might make
them pay for their meal and pay dearly. And so, with the agility of a
tiger, the man leaped for the rodent, and so sudden and unexpected was
his spring that one hand fell upon the loathsome creature before it
could escape. With loud squeals it sought to fasten its fangs in his
flesh, but the Sarian was too quick and too powerful. His fingers closed
once upon the creature’s neck. He swung its body around a few times
until the neck broke and then he hurled the corpse toward the advancing
pack that he could already see in the distance through the dim light in
the corridor, in the center of which Tanar now stood awaiting his
inevitable doom, but he was prepared to fight until he was dragged down
by the creatures.
As he waited he heard a noise behind him and he thought that another
pack was taking him in the rear, but as he glanced over his shoulder he
saw the figure of a man, standing in front of a doorway further down the
corridor.
“Come!” shouted the stranger. “You will find safety here.” Nor did Tanar
lose any time in racing down the corridor to where the man stood, the
rats close at his heels.
“Quick, in here,” cried his savior, and seizing Tanar by the arm he
dragged him through the doorway into a large room in which there were a
dozen or more men.
At the doorway the rat pack stopped, glaring in, but not one of them
crossed the threshold.
The room in which he found himself was lighted by two larger windows
than that in the room which he had just quitted and in the better light
he had an opportunity to examine the man who had rescued him. The fellow
was a copper-colored giant with fine features.
As the man turned his face a little more toward the light of the
windows, Tanar gave an exclamation of surprise and delight. “Ja!” he
cried, and before Ja could reply to the salutation, another man sprang
forward from the far end of the room.
“Tanar!” exclaimed the second man. “Tanar, the son of Ghak!” As the
Sarian wheeled he found himself standing face to face with David Innes,
Emperor of Pellucidar.
“Ja of Anoroc and the Emperor!” cried Tanar. “What has happened? What
brought you here?”
“It is well that we were here,” said Ja, “and that I heard the rat pack
squealing just when I did. These other fellows,” and he nodded toward
the remaining prisoners, “haven’t brains enough to try to save the
newcomers that are incarcerated here. David and I have been trying to
pound it into their stupid heads that the more of us there are the safer
we shall be from the attacks of the rats, but all they think of is that
they are safe now, and so they do not care what becomes of the other
poor devils that are shoved down here; nor have they brains enough to
look into the future and realize that when some of us are taken out or
die there may not be enough left to repel the attacks of the hungry
beasts. But tell us, Tanar, where you have been and how you came here at
last.”
“It is a long story,” replied the Sarian, “and first I would hear the
story of my Emperor.”
“There is little of interest in the adventures that befell us,” said
David, “but there may be points of great value to us in what I have
managed to learn from the Korsars concerning a number of problems that
have been puzzling me.
“When we saw the Korsars’ fleet sail away with you and others of our
people, prisoners aboard them, we were filled with dismay and as we
stood upon the shore of the great sea above The Land of Awful Shadow, we
were depressed by the hopelessness of ever effecting your rescue. It was
then that I determined to risk the venture which is responsible for our
being here in the dungeon of the capital of Korsar.
“From all those who volunteered to accompany me I selected Ja, and we
took with us to be our pilot a Korsar prisoner named Fitt. Our boat was
one of those abandoned by the Korsars in their flight and in it we
pursued our course toward Korsar without incident until we were
overwhelmed by the most terrific storm that I have ever witnessed.”
“Doubtless the same storm that wrecked the Korsars’ fleet that was
bearing us away,” said Tanar.
“Unquestionably,” said David, “as you will know in a moment. The storm
carried away all our rigging, snapping the mast short off at the deck,
and left us helpless except for two pairs of oars.
“As you may know, these great sweeps are so heavy that, as a rule, two
or three men handle a single oar, and as there were only three of us we
could do little more than paddle slowly along with one man paddling on
either side while the third relieved first one and then the other at
intervals, and even this could be accomplished only after we had cut the
great sweeps down to a size that one man might handle without undue
fatigue.
“Fitt had laid a course which my compass showed me to be almost due
north and this we followed with little or no deviation after the storm
had subsided.
“We slept and ate many times before Fitt announced that we were not far
from the island of Amiocap, which he says is half way between the point
at which we had embarked and the land of Korsar. We still had ample
water and provisions to last us the balance of our journey if we had
been equipped with a sail, but the slow progress of paddling threatened
to find us facing starvation, or death by thirst, long before we could
hope to reach Korsar. With this fate staring us in the face we decided
to land on Amiocap and refit our craft, but before we could do so we
were overtaken by a Korsar ship and being unable either to escape or
defend ourselves, we were taken prisoners.
“The vessel was one of those that had formed the armada of The Cid, and
was, as far as they knew, the only one that had survived the storm.
Shortly before they had found us they had picked up a boat-load of the
survivors of The Cid’s ship, including The Cid himself, and from The Cid
we learned that you and the other prisoners had doubtless been lost with
his vessel, which he said was in a sinking condition at the time that he
abandoned it. To my surprise I learned that The Cid had also abandoned
his own daughter to her fate and I believe that this cowardly act
weighed heavily upon his mind, for he was always taciturn and moody,
avoiding the companionship of even his own officers.”
“She did not die,” said Tanar. “We escaped together, the sole survivors,
as far as we knew, of The Cid’s ship, though later we were captured by
the members of another boat crew that had also made the island of
Amiocap and with them we were brought to Korsar.”
“In my conversation with The Cid and also with the officers and men of
the Korsar ship I sought to sound them on their knowledge of the extent
of this sea, which is known as the Korsar Az. Among other things I
learned that they possess compasses and are conversant with their use
and they told me that to the west they had never sailed to the extreme
limits of the Korsar Az, which they state reaches on, a vast body of
water, for countless leagues beyond the knowledge of man. But to the
east they have followed the shore-line from Korsar southward almost to
the shore upon which they landed to attack the empire of Pellucidar.
“Now this suggests, in fact almost proves, that Korsar lies upon the
same great continent as the empire of Pellucidar and if we can escape
from prison, we may be able to make our way by land back to our own
country.”
“But there is that ‘if,’” said Ja. “We have eaten and slept many times
since they threw us into this dark hole, yet we are no nearer escape now
than we were at the moment that they put us here; nor do we even know
what fate lies in store for us.”
“These other prisoners tell us,” resumed David, “that the fact that we
were not immediately killed, which is the customary fate of prisoners of
war among the Korsars, indicates that they are saving us for some
purpose; but what that purpose is I cannot conceive.”
“I can,” said Tanar. “In fact I am quite sure that I know.”
“And what is it?” demanded Ja.
“They wish us to teach them how to make firearms and powder such as
ours,” replied the Sarian. “But where do you suppose they ever got
firearms and powder in the first place?”
“Or the great ships they sail,” added Ja; “ships that are even larger
than those which we build? These things were unknown in Pellucidar
before David and Perry came to us, yet the Korsars appear to have known
of them and used them always.”
“I have an idea,” said David; “yet it is such a mad idea that I have
almost hesitated to entertain it, much less to express it.”
“What is it?” asked Tanar.
“It was suggested to me in my conversations with the Korsars
themselves,” replied the Emperor. “Without exception they have all
assured me that their ancestors came from another world—a world above
which the sun did not stand perpetually at zenith, but crossed the
heavens regularly, leaving the world in darkness half the time. They say
that a part of this world is very cold and that their ancestors, who
were seafaring men, became caught with their ships in the frozen waters;
that their compasses turned in all directions and became useless to them
and that when finally they broke through the ice and sailed away in the
direction that they thought was south, they came into Pellucidar, which
they found inhabited only by naked savages and wild beasts. And here
they set up their city and built new ships, their numbers being
augmented from time to time by other seafaring men from this world from
which they say they originally came.
“They intermarried with the natives, which in this part of Pellucidar
seemed to have been of a very low order.” David paused.
“Well,” asked Tanar, “what does it all mean?”
“It means,” said David, “that if their legend is true, or based upon
fact, that their ancestors came from the same outer world from which
Perry and I came, but by what avenue?—that is the astounding enigma.”
Many times during their incarceration the three men discussed this
subject, but never were they able to arrive at any definite solution of
the mystery. Food was brought them many times and several times they
slept before Korsar soldiers came and took them from the dungeon.
They were led to the palace of The Cid, the architecture of which but
tended to increase the mystery of the origin of this strange race in the
mind of David Innes, for the building seemed to show indisputable proof
of Moorish influence.
Within the palace they were conducted to a large room, comfortably
filled with bewhiskered Korsars decked out in their gaudiest raiment,
which far surpassed in brilliancy of coloring and ornamentation the
comparatively mean clothes they had worn aboard ship. Upon a dais, at
one end of the room, a man was seated upon a large, ornately carved
chair. It was The Cid, and as David’s eyes fell upon him his mind
suddenly grasped, for the first time, a significant suggestion in the
title of the ruler of the Korsars.
Previously the name had been only a name to David. He had not considered
it as a title; nor had it by association awakened any particular train
of thought, but now, coupled with the Moorish palace and the carved
throne, it did.
The Cid! Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar—El Campeandor—a national hero of eleventh
century Spain. What did it mean? His thoughts reverted to the ships of
the Korsars—their motley crews with harquebuses and cutlasses—and he
recalled the thrilling stories he had read as a boy of the pirates of
the Spanish Main. Could it be merely coincidence? Could a nation of
people have grown up within the inner world, who so closely resembled
the buccaneers of the seventeenth century, or had their forebears in
truth found their way hither from the outer crust? David Innes did not
know. He was frankly puzzled. But now he was being led to the foot of
The Cid’s throne and there was no further opportunity for the delightful
speculation that had absorbed his mind momentarily.
The cruel, cunning eyes of The Cid looked down upon the three prisoners
from out his brutal face. “The Emperor of Pellucidar!” he sneered. “The
King of Anoroc! The son of the King of Sari!” and then he laughed
uproariously. He extended his hand, his fingers parted and curled in a
clutching gesture. “Emperor! King! Prince!” he sneered again, “and yet
here you all are in the clutches of The Cid. Emperor—bah! I, The Cid, am
the Emperor of all Pellucidar! You and your naked savages!” He turned on
David. “Who are you to take the title of Emperor? I could crush you
all,” and he closed his fingers in a gesture of rough cruelty. “But I
shall not. The Cid is generous and he is grateful, too. You shall have
your freedom for a small price that you may easily pay.” He paused as
though he expected them to question him, but no one of the three spoke.
Suddenly he turned upon David. “Where did you get your firearms and your
powder? Who made them for you?”
“We made them ourselves,” replied David.
“Who taught you to make them?” insisted The Cid. “But never mind; it is
enough that you know and we would know. You may win your liberty by
teaching us.”
David could make gunpowder, but whether he could make any better
gunpowder than the Korsars he did not know. He had left that to Perry
and his apprentices in The Empire, and he knew perfectly well that he
could not reconstruct a modern rifle such as was being turned out in the
arsenals at Sari, for he had neither the drawings to make the rifles,
nor the machinery, nor the drawings to make the machinery, nor the shops
in which to make steel. But nevertheless here was one opportunity for
possible freedom that might pave the way to escape and he could not
throw it away, either for himself or his companions, by admitting their
inability to manufacture modern firearms or improve the powder of the
Korsars.
“Well,” demanded The Cid, impatiently, “what is your answer?”
“We cannot make powder and rifles while a man eats,” replied David; “nor
can we make them from the air or from conversation. We must have
materials; we must have factories; we must have trained men. You will
sleep many times before we are able to accomplish all this. Are you
willing to wait?”
“How many times shall we sleep before you have taught our people to make
these things?” demanded The Cid.
David shrugged. “I do not know,” he said. “In the first place I must
find the proper materials.”
“We have all the materials,” said The Cid. “We have iron and we have the
ingredients for making powder. All that you have to do is to put them
together in a better way than we have been able to.”
“You may have the materials, but it is possible that they are not of
sufficiently good quality to make the things that will alone satisfy the
subjects of the Emperor of Pellucidar. Perhaps your niter is low grade;
there may be impurities in your sulphur; or even the charcoal may not be
properly prepared; and there are even more important matters to consider
in the selection of material and its manufacture into steel suitable for
making the firearms of the Pellucidarians.”
“You shall not be hurried,” said The Cid. He turned to a man standing
near him. “See that an officer accompanies these men always,” he said.
“Let them go where they please and do what they please in the
prosecution of my orders. Furnish them with laborers if they desire
them, but do not let them delay and do not let them escape, upon pain of
death.” And thus ended their interview with The Cid of Korsar.
As it chanced, the man to be detailed to watch them was Fitt, the fellow
whom David had chosen to accompany him and Ja in their pursuit of the
Korsar fleet, and Fitt, having become well acquainted with David and Ja
and having experienced nothing but considerate treatment from them, was
far from unfriendly, though, like the majority of all other Korsars, he
was inclined to be savage and cruel.