Captive

: Pellucidar

When Goork and his people saw that I had no token they commenced to

taunt me.



"You do not come from Kolk, but from the Sly One!" they cried. "He has

sent you from the island to spy upon us. Go away, or we will set upon

you and kill you."



I explained that all my belongings had been stolen from me, and that

the robber must have taken the token too; but they didn't believe me.

As
roof that I was one of Hooja's people, they pointed to my weapons,

which they said were ornamented like those of the is-land clan.

Further, they said that no good man went in company with a jalok--and

that by this line of reason-ing I certainly was a bad man.



I saw that they were not naturally a war-like tribe, for they preferred

that I leave in peace rather than force them to attack me, whereas the

Sarians would have killed a suspicious stranger first and inquired into

his purposes later.



I think Raja sensed their antagonism, for he kept tugging at his leash

and growling ominously. They were a bit in awe of him, and kept at a

safe distance. It was evident that they could not comprehend why it

was that this savage brute did not turn upon me and rend me.



I wasted a long time there trying to persuade Goork to accept me at my

own valuation, but he was too canny. The best he would do was to give

us food, which he did, and direct me as to the safest portion of the

is-land upon which to attempt a landing, though even as he told me I am

sure that he thought my request for information but a blind to deceive

him as to my true knowledge of the insular stronghold.



At last I turned away from them--rather disheartened, for I had hoped

to be able to enlist a considerable force of them in an attempt to rush

Hooja's horde and rescue Dian. Back along the beach toward the hidden

canoe we made our way.



By the time we came to the cairn I was dog-tired. Throwing myself upon

the sand I soon slept, and with Raja stretched out beside me I felt a

far greater security than I had enjoyed for a long time.



I awoke much refreshed to find Raja's eyes glued upon me. The moment I

opened mine he rose, stretched himself, and without a backward glance

plunged into the jungle. For several minutes I could hear him crashing

through the brush. Then all was silent.



I wondered if he had left me to return to his fierce pack. A feeling

of loneliness overwhelmed me. With a sigh I turned to the work of

dragging the canoe down to the sea. As I entered the jungle where the

dugout lay a hare darted from beneath the boat's side, and a well-aimed

cast of my javelin brought it down. I was hungry--I had not realized

it before--so I sat upon the edge of the canoe and devoured my repast.

The last remnants gone, I again busied myself with preparations for my

expedition to the island.



I did not know for certain that Dian was there; but I surmised as much.

Nor could I guess what obstacles might confront me in an effort to

rescue her. For a time I loitered about after I had the canoe at the

water's edge, hoping against hope that Raja would return; but he did

not, so I shoved the awkward craft through the surf and leaped into it.



I was still a little downcast by the desertion of my new-found friend,

though I tried to assure myself that it was nothing but what I might

have expected.



The savage brute had served me well in the short time that we had been

together, and had repaid his debt of gratitude to me, since he had

saved my life, or at least my liberty, no less certainly than I had

saved his life when he was injured and drowning.



The trip across the water to the island was uneventful. I was mighty

glad to be in the sunshine again when I passed out of the shadow of the

dead world about half-way between the mainland and the island. The hot

rays of the noonday sun did a great deal toward raising my spirits, and

dispelling the mental gloom in which I had been shrouded almost

continually since entering the Land of Awful Shadow. There is nothing

more dispiriting to me than absence of sunshine.



I had paddled to the southwestern point, which Goork said he believed

to be the least frequented portion of the island, as he had never seen

boats put off from there. I found a shallow reef running far out into

the sea and rather precipitous cliffs running almost to the surf. It

was a nasty place to land, and I realized now why it was not used by

the natives; but at last I managed, after a good wetting, to beach my

canoe and scale the cliffs.



The country beyond them appeared more open and park-like than I had

anticipated, since from the mainland the entire coast that is visible

seems densely clothed with tropical jungle. This jungle, as I could

see from the vantage-point of the cliff-top, formed but a relatively

narrow strip between the sea and the more open forest and meadow of the

interior. Farther back there was a range of low but apparently very

rocky hills, and here and there all about were visible flat-topped

masses of rock--small mountains, in fact--which reminded me of pictures

I had seen of landscapes in New Mexico. Altogether, the country was

very much broken and very beautiful. From where I stood I counted no

less than a dozen streams winding down from among the table-buttes and

emptying into a pretty river which flowed away in a northeasterly

direction toward the op-posite end of the island.



As I let my eyes roam over the scene I suddenly became aware of figures

moving upon the flat top of a far-distant butte. Whether they were

beast or human, though, I could not make out; but at least they were

alive, so I determined to prosecute my search for Hooja's stronghold in

the general direction of this butte.



To descend to the valley required no great effort. As I swung along

through the lush grass and the fragrant flowers, my cudgel swinging in

my hand and my javelin looped across my shoulders with its aurochs-hide

strap, I felt equal to any emergency, ready for any danger.



I had covered quite a little distance, and I was pass-ing through a

strip of wood which lay at the foot of one of the flat-topped hills,

when I became conscious of the sensation of being watched. My life

within Pellucidar has rather quickened my senses of sight, hearing, and

smell, and, too, certain primitive intuitive or instinctive qualities

that seem blunted in civilized man. But, though I was positive that

eyes were upon me, I could see no sign of any living thing within the

wood other than the many, gay-plumaged birds and little monkeys which

filled the trees with life, color, and action.



To you it may seem that my conviction was the result of an overwrought

imagination, or to the actual reality of the prying eyes of the little

monkeys or the curious ones of the birds; but there is a difference

which I cannot explain between the sensation of casual observation and

studied espionage. A sheep might gaze at you without transmitting a

warning through your subjective mind, because you are in no danger from

a sheep. But let a tiger gaze fixedly at you from ambush, and unless

your primitive instincts are completely calloused you will presently

commence to glance furtively about and be filled with vague,

unreasoning terror.



Thus was it with me then. I grasped my cudgel more firmly and unslung

my javelin, carrying it in my left hand. I peered to left and right,

but I saw nothing. Then, all quite suddenly, there fell about my neck

and shoulders, around my arms and body, a number of pliant fiber ropes.



In a jiffy I was trussed up as neatly as you might wish. One of the

nooses dropped to my ankles and was jerked up with a suddenness that

brought me to my face upon the ground. Then something heavy and hairy

sprang upon my back. I fought to draw my knife, but hairy hands

grasped my wrists and, dragging them be-hind my back, bound them

securely.



Next my feet were bound. Then I was turned over upon my back to look

up into the faces of my captors.



And what faces! Imagine if you can a cross between a sheep and a

gorilla, and you will have some conception of the physiognomy of the

creature that bent close above me, and of those of the half-dozen

others that clustered about. There was the facial length and great

eyes of the sheep, and the bull-neck and hideous fangs of the gorilla.

The bodies and limbs were both man and gorilla-like.



As they bent over me they conversed in a mono-syllabic tongue that was

perfectly intelligible to me. It was something of a simplified

language that had no need for aught but nouns and verbs, but such words

as it included were the same as those of the human beings of

Pellucidar. It was amplified by many gestures which filled in the

speech-gaps.



I asked them what they intended doing with me; but, like our own North

American Indians when questioned by a white man, they pretended not to

understand me. One of them swung me to his shoulder as lightly as if I

had been a shoat. He was a huge creature, as were his fellows,

standing fully seven feet upon his short legs and weighing considerably

more than a quarter of a ton.



Two went ahead of my bearer and three behind. In this order we cut to

the right through the forest to the foot of the hill where precipitous

cliffs appeared to bar our farther progress in this direction. But my

escort never paused. Like ants upon a wall, they scaled that seemingly

unscalable barrier, clinging, Heaven knows how, to its ragged

perpendicular face. During most of the short journey to the summit I

must admit that my hair stood on end. Presently, however, we topped

the thing and stood upon the level mesa which crowned it.



Immediately from all about, out of burrows and rough, rocky lairs,

poured a perfect torrent of beasts similar to my captors. They

clustered about, jabber-ing at my guards and attempting to get their

hands upon me, whether from curiosity or a desire to do me bodily harm

I did not know, since my escort with bared fangs and heavy blows kept

them off.



Across the mesa we went, to stop at last before a large pile of rocks

in which an opening appeared. Here my guards set me upon my feet and

called out a word which sounded like "Gr-gr-gr!" and which I later

learned was the name of their king.



Presently there emerged from the cavernous depths of the lair a

monstrous creature, scarred from a hundred battles, almost hairless and

with an empty socket where one eye had been. The other eye, sheeplike

in its mildness, gave the most startling appearance to the beast, which

but for that single timid orb was the most fearsome thing that one

could imagine.



I had encountered the black, hairless, long-tailed ape--things of the

mainland--the creatures which Perry thought might constitute the link

between the higher orders of apes and man--but these brute-men of

Gr-gr-gr seemed to set that theory back to zero, for there was less

similarity between the black ape-men and these creatures than there was

between the latter and man, while both had many human attributes, some

of which were better developed in one species and some in the other.



The black apes were hairless and built thatched huts in their arboreal

retreats; they kept domesticated dogs and ruminants, in which respect

they were farther advanced than the human beings of Pellucidar; but

they appeared to have only a meager language, and sported long, apelike

tails.



On the other hand, Gr-gr-gr's people were, for the most part, quite

hairy, but they were tailless and had a language similar to that of the

human race of Pellucidar; nor were they arboreal. Their skins, where

skin showed, were white.



From the foregoing facts and others that I have noted during my long

life within Pellucidar, which is now passing through an age analogous

to some pre-glacial age of the outer crust, I am constrained to the

belief that evolution is not so much a gradual transition from one form

to another as it is an accident of breeding, either by crossing or the

hazards of birth. In other words, it is my belief that the first man

was a freak of nature--nor would one have to draw over-strongly upon

his credulity to be convinced that Gr-gr-gr and his tribe were also

freaks.



The great man-brute seated himself upon a flat rock--his throne, I

imagine--just before the entrance to his lair. With elbows on knees

and chin in palms he regarded me intently through his lone sheep-eye

while one of my captors told of my taking.



When all had been related Gr-gr-gr questioned me. I shall not attempt

to quote these people in their own abbreviated tongue--you would have

even greater difficulty in interpreting them than did I. Instead, I

shall put the words into their mouths which will carry to you the ideas

which they intended to convey.



"You are an enemy," was Gr-gr-gr's initial declaration. "You belong to

the tribe of Hooja."



Ah! So they knew Hooja and he was their enemy! Good!



"I am an enemy of Hooja," I replied. "He has stolen my mate and I have

come here to take her away from him and punish Hooja."



"How could you do that alone?"



"I do not know," I answered, "but I should have tried had you not

captured me. What do you intend to do with me?"



"You shall work for us."



"You will not kill me?" I asked.



"We do not kill except in self-defense," he replied; "self-defense and

punishment. Those who would kill us and those who do wrong we kill.

If we knew you were one of Hooja's people we might kill you, for all

Hooja's people are bad people; but you say you are an enemy of Hooja.

You may not speak the truth, but until we learn that you have lied we

shall not kill you. You shall work."



"If you hate Hooja," I suggested, "why not let me, who hate him, too,

go and punish him?"



For some time Gr-gr-gr sat in thought. Then he raised his head and

addressed my guard.



"Take him to his work," he ordered.



His tone was final. As if to emphasize it he turned and entered his

burrow. My guard conducted me farther into the mesa, where we came

presently to a tiny depression or valley, at one end of which gushed a

warm spring.



The view that opened before me was the most surprising that I have ever

seen. In the hollow, which must have covered several hundred acres,

were numerous fields of growing things, and working all about with

crude implements or with no implements at all other than their bare

hands were many of the brute-men engaged in the first agriculture that

I had seen within Pellucidar.



They put me to work cultivating in a patch of melons.



I never was a farmer nor particularly keen for this sort of work, and I

am free to confess that time never had dragged so heavily as it did

during the hour or the year I spent there at that work. How long it

really was I do not know, of course; but it was all too long.



The creatures that worked about me were quite simple and friendly. One

of them proved to be a son of Gr-gr-gr. He had broken some minor

tribal law, and was working out his sentence in the fields. He told me

that his tribe had lived upon this hilltop always, and that there were

other tribes like them dwelling upon other hilltops. They had no wars

and had always lived in peace and harmony, menaced only by the larger

carnivora of the island, until my kind had come under a creature called

Hooja, and attacked and killed them when they chanced to descend from

their natural fortresses to visit their fellows upon other lofty mesas.



Now they were afraid; but some day they would go in a body and fall

upon Hooja and his people and slay them all. I explained to him that I

was Hooja's enemy, and asked, when they were ready to go, that I be

allowed to go with them, or, better still, that they let me go ahead

and learn all that I could about the village where Hooja dwelt so that

they might attack it with the best chance of success.



Gr-gr-gr's son seemed much impressed by my suggestion. He said that

when he was through in the fields he would speak to his father about

the matter.



Some time after this Gr-gr-gr came through the fields where we were,

and his son spoke to him upon the subject, but the old gentleman was

evidently in anything but a good humor, for he cuffed the youngster

and, turning upon me, informed me that he was convinced that I had lied

to him, and that I was one of Hooja's peo-ple.



"Wherefore," he concluded, "we shall slay you as soon as the melons are

cultivated. Hasten, therefore."



And hasten I did. I hastened to cultivate the weeds which grew among

the melon-vines. Where there had been one sickly weed before, I

nourished two healthy ones. When I found a particularly promising

variety of weed growing elsewhere than among my melons, I forthwith dug

it up and transplanted it among my charges.



My masters did not seem to realize my perfidy. They saw me always

laboring diligently in the melon-patch, and as time enters not into the

reckoning of Pellucidar-ians--even of human beings and much less of

brutes and half brutes--I might have lived on indefinitely through this

subterfuge had not that occurred which took me out of the melon-patch

for good and all.



More

;