From Plight To Plight

: Pellucidar

I have never been much of a runner; I hate running. But if ever a

sprinter broke into smithereens all world's records it was I that day

when I fled before those hideous beasts along the narrow spit of rocky

cliff between two narrow fiords toward the Sojar Az. Just as I reached

the verge of the cliff the foremost of the brutes was upon me. He

leaped and closed his massive jaws upon my shoulder.



The momen um of his flying body, added to that of my own, carried the

two of us over the cliff. It was a hideous fall. The cliff was almost

perpendicular. At its foot broke the sea against a solid wall of rock.



We struck the cliff-face once in our descent and then plunged into the

salt sea. With the impact with the water the hyaenodon released his

hold upon my shoulder.



As I came sputtering to the surface I looked about for some tiny foot-

or hand-hold where I might cling for a moment of rest and recuperation.

The cliff itself offered me nothing, so I swam toward the mouth of the

fiord.



At the far end I could see that erosion from above had washed down

sufficient rubble to form a narrow ribbon of beach. Toward this I swam

with all my strength. Not once did I look behind me, since every

unnecessary movement in swimming detracts so much from one's endurance

speed. Not until I had drawn myself safely out upon the beach did I

turn my eyes back toward the sea for the hyaenodon. He was swimming

slowly and apparently painfully toward the beach upon where I stood.



I watched him for a long time, wondering, why it was that such a

doglike animal was not a better swimmer. As he neared me I realized

that he was weakening rapidly. I had gathered a handful of stones to

be ready for his assault when he landed, but in a moment I let them

fall from my hands. It was evident that the brute either was no

swimmer or else was severely injured, for by now he was making

practically no headway. Indeed, it was with quite apparent difficulty

that he kept his nose above the surface of the sea.



He was not more than fifty yards from shore when he went under. I

watched the spot where he had disappeared, and in a moment I saw his

head reappear. The look of dumb misery in his eyes struck a chord in

my breast, for I love dogs. I forgot that he was a vicious, primordial

wolf-thing--a man-eater, a scourge, and a terror. I saw only the sad

eyes that looked like the eyes of Raja, my dead collie of the outer

world.



I did not stop to weigh and consider. In other words, I did not stop

to think, which I believe must be the way of men who do things--in

contradistinction to those who think much and do nothing. Instead, I

leaped back into the water and swam out toward the drowning beast. At

first he showed his teeth at my approach, but just before I reached him

he went under for the second time, so that I had to dive to get him.



I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and though he weighed as much

as a Shetland pony, I managed to drag him to shore and well up upon the

beach. Here I found that one of his forelegs was broken--the crash

against the cliff-face must have done it.



By this time all the fight was out of him, so that when I had gathered

a few tiny branches from some of the stunted trees that grew in the

crevices of the cliff, and returned to him he permitted me to set his

broken leg and bind it in splints. I had to tear part of my shirt into

bits to obtain a bandage, but at last the job was done. Then I sat

stroking the savage head and talking to the beast in the man-dog talk

with which you are familiar, if you ever owned and loved a dog.



When he is well, I thought, he probably will turn upon me and attempt

to devour me, and against that eventuality I gathered together a pile

of rocks and set to work to fashion a stone-knife. We were bottled up

at the head of the fiord as completely as if we had been behind prison

bars. Before us spread the Sojar Az, and else-where about us rose

unscalable cliffs.



Fortunately a little rivulet trickled down the side of the rocky wall,

giving us ample supply of fresh water--some of which I kept constantly

beside the hyaenodon in a huge, bowl-shaped shell, of which there were

count-less numbers among the rubble of the beach.



For food we subsisted upon shellfish and an occasional bird that I

succeeded in knocking over with a rock, for long practice as a pitcher

on prep-school and varsity nines had made me an excellent shot with a

hand-thrown missile.



It was not long before the hyaenodon's leg was sufficiently mended to

permit him to rise and hobble about on three legs. I shall never

forget with what intent interest I watched his first attempt. Close at

my hand lay my pile of rocks. Slowly the beast came to his three good

feet. He stretched himself, lowered his head, and lapped water from

the drinking-shell at his side, turned and looked at me, and then

hobbled off toward the cliffs.



Thrice he traversed the entire extent of our prison, seeking, I

imagine, a loop-hole for escape, but finding none he returned in my

direction. Slowly he came quite close to me, sniffed at my shoes, my

puttees, my hands, and then limped off a few feet and lay down again.



Now that he was able to get around, I was a little un-certain as to the

wisdom of my impulsive mercy.



How could I sleep with that ferocious thing prowling about the narrow

confines of our prison?



Should I close my eyes it might be to open them again to the feel of

those mighty jaws at my throat. To say the least, I was uncomfortable.



I have had too much experience with dumb animals to bank very strongly

on any sense of gratitude which may be attributed to them by

inexperienced sentimentalists. I believe that some animals love their

masters, but I doubt very much if their affection is the outcome of

gratitude--a characteristic that is so rare as to be only occasionally

traceable in the seemingly unselfish acts of man himself.



But finally I was forced to sleep. Tired nature would be put off no

longer. I simply fell asleep, willy nilly, as I sat looking out to

sea. I had been very uncomfortable since my ducking in the ocean, for

though I could see the sunlight on the water half-way toward the island

and upon the island itself, no ray of it fell upon us. We were well

within the Land of Awful Shadow. A perpetual half-warmth pervaded the

atmosphere, but clothing was slow in drying, and so from loss of sleep

and great physical discomfort, I at last gave way to nature's demands

and sank into profound slumber.



When I awoke it was with a start, for a heavy body was upon me. My

first thought was that the hyaenodon had at last attacked me, but as my

eyes opened and I struggled to rise, I saw that a man was astride me

and three others bending close above him.



I am no weakling--and never have been. My experience in the hard life

of the inner world has turned my thews to steel. Even such giants as

Ghak the Hairy One have praised my strength; but to it is added another

quality which they lack--science.



The man upon me held me down awkwardly, leaving me many openings--one

of which I was not slow in taking advantage of, so that almost before

the fellow knew that I was awake I was upon my feet with my arms over

his shoulders and about his waist and had hurled him heavily over my

head to the hard rubble of the beach, where he lay quite still.



In the instant that I arose I had seen the hyaenodon lying asleep

beside a boulder a few yards away. So nearly was he the color of the

rock that he was scarcely discernible. Evidently the newcomers had not

seen him.



I had not more than freed myself from one of my antagonists before the

other three were upon me. They did not work silently now, but charged

me with savage cries--a mistake upon their part. The fact that they

did not draw their weapons against me convinced me that they desired to

take me alive; but I fought as desperately as if death loomed immediate

and sure.



The battle was short, for scarce had their first wild whoop

reverberated through the rocky fiord, and they had closed upon me, than

a hairy mass of demoniacal rage hurtled among us.



It was the hyaenodon!



In an instant he had pulled down one of the men, and with a single

shake, terrier-like, had broken his neck. Then he was upon another.

In their efforts to vanquish the wolf-dog the savages forgot all about

me, thus giving me an instant in which to snatch a knife from the

loin-string of him who had first fallen and account for another of

them. Almost simultaneously the hyaenodon pulled down the remaining

enemy, crushing his skull with a single bite of those fearsome jaws.



The battle was over--unless the beast considered me fair prey, too. I

waited, ready for him with knife and bludgeon--also filched from a dead

foeman; but he paid no attention to me, falling to work instead to

devour one of the corpses.



The beast bad been handicapped but little by his splinted leg; but

having eaten he lay down and commenced to gnaw at the bandage. I was

sitting some little distance away devouring shellfish, of which, by the

way, I was becoming exceedingly tired.



Presently, the hyaenodon arose and came toward me. I did not move. He

stopped in front of me and deliberately raised his bandaged leg and

pawed my knee. His act was as intelligible as words--he wished the

bandage removed.



I took the great paw in one hand and with the other hand untied and

unwound the bandage, removed the splints and felt of the injured

member. As far as I could judge the bone was completely knit. The

joint was stiff; when I bent it a little the brute winced--but he

neither growled nor tried to pull away. Very slowly and gently I

rubbed the joint and applied pressure to it for a few moments.



Then I set it down upon the ground. The hyaenodon walked around me a

few times, and then lay down at my side, his body touching mine. I

laid my hand upon his head. He did not move. Slowly, I scratched

about his ears and neck and down beneath the fierce jaws. The only

sign he gave was to raise his chin a trifle that I might better caress

him.



That was enough! From that moment I have never again felt suspicion of

Raja, as I immediately named him. Somehow all sense of loneliness

vanished, too--I had a dog! I had never guessed precisely what it was

that was lacking to life in Pellucidar, but now I knew it was the total

absence of domestic animals.



Man here had not yet reached the point where he might take the time

from slaughter and escaping slaughter to make friends with any of the

brute creation. I must qualify this statement a trifle and say that

this was true of those tribes with which I was most familiar. The

Thurians do domesticate the colossal lidi, traversing the great Lidi

Plains upon the backs of these grotesque and stupendous monsters, and

possibly there may also be other, far-distant peoples within the great

world, who have tamed others of the wild things of jungle, plain or

mountain.



The Thurians practice agriculture in a crude sort of way. It is my

opinion that this is one of the earliest steps from savagery to

civilization. The taming of wild beasts and their domestication

follows.



Perry argues that wild dogs were first domesticated for hunting

purposes; but I do not agree with him. I believe that if their

domestication were not purely the result of an accident, as, for

example, my taming of the hyaenodon, it came about through the desire

of tribes who had previously domesticated flocks and herds to have some

strong, ferocious beast to guard their roaming property. However, I

lean rather more strongly to the theory of accident.



As I sat there upon the beach of the little fiord eating my unpalatable

shell-fish, I commenced to wonder how it had been that the four savages

had been able to reach me, though I had been unable to escape from my

natural prison. I glanced about in all directions, searching for an

explanation. At last my eyes fell upon the bow of a small dugout

protruding scarce a foot from behind a large boulder lying half in the

water at the edge of the beach.



At my discovery I leaped to my feet so suddenly that it brought Raja,

growling and bristling, upon all fours in an instant. For the moment I

had forgotten him. But his savage rumbling did not cause me any

uneasiness. He glanced quickly about in all directions as if searching

for the cause of my excitement. Then, as I walked rapidly down toward

the dugout, he slunk silently after me.



The dugout was similar in many respects to those which I had seen in

use by the Mezops. In it were four paddles. I was much delighted, as

it promptly offered me the escape I had been craving.



I pushed it out into water that would float it, stepped in and called

to Raja to enter. At first he did not seem to understand what I wished

of him, but after I had paddled out a few yards he plunged through the

surf and swam after me. When he had come alongside I grasped the

scruff of his neck, and after a considerable struggle, in which I

several times came near to over-turning the canoe, I managed to drag

him aboard, where he shook himself vigorously and squatted down before

me.



After emerging from the fiord, I paddled southward along the coast,

where presently the lofty cliffs gave way to lower and more level

country. It was here some-where that I should come upon the principal

village of the Thurians. When, after a time, I saw in the distance

what I took to be huts in a clearing near the shore, I drew quickly

into land, for though I had been furnished credentials by Kolk, I was

not sufficiently familiar with the tribal characteristics of these

people to know whether I should receive a friendly welcome or not; and

in case I should not, I wanted to be sure of having a canoe hidden

safely away so that I might undertake the trip to the island, in any

event--provided, of course, that I escaped the Thurians should they

prove belligerent.



At the point where I landed the shore was quite low. A forest of pale,

scrubby ferns ran down almost to the beach. Here I dragged up the

dugout, hiding it well within the vegetation, and with some loose rocks

built a cairn upon the beach to mark my cache. Then I turned my steps

toward the Thurian village.



As I proceeded I began to speculate upon the possible actions of Raja

when we should enter the presence of other men than myself. The brute

was padding softly at my side, his sensitive nose constantly atwitch

and his fierce eyes moving restlessly from side to side--nothing would

ever take Raja unawares!



The more I thought upon the matter the greater be-came my perturbation.

I did not want Raja to attack any of the people upon whose friendship I

so greatly depended, nor did I want him injured or slain by them.



I wondered if Raja would stand for a leash. His head as he paced

beside me was level with my hip. I laid my hand upon it caressingly.

As I did so he turned and looked up into my face, his jaws parting and

his red tongue lolling as you have seen your own dog's beneath a love

pat.



"Just been waiting all your life to be tamed and loved, haven't you,

old man?" I asked. "You're nothing but a good pup, and the man who put

the hyaeno in your name ought to be sued for libel."



Raja bared his mighty fangs with upcurled, snarling lips and licked my

hand.



"You're grinning, you old fraud, you!" I cried. "If you're not, I'll

eat you. I'll bet a doughnut you're nothing but some kid's poor old

Fido, masquerading around as a real, live man-eater."



Raja whined. And so we walked on together toward Thuria--I talking to

the beast at my side, and he seeming to enjoy my company no less than I

enjoyed his. If you don't think it's lonesome wandering all by

yourself through savage, unknown Pellucidar, why, just try it, and you

will not wonder that I was glad of the company of this first dog--this

living replica of the fierce and now extinct hyaenodon of the outer

crust that hunted in savage packs the great elk across the snows of

southern France, in the days when the mastodon roamed at will over the

broad continent of which the British Isles were then a part, and

perchance left his footprints and his bones in the sands of Atlantis as

well.



Thus I dreamed as we moved on toward Thuria. My dreaming was rudely

shattered by a savage growl from Raja. I looked down at him. He had

stopped in his tracks as one turned to stone. A thin ridge of stiff

hair bristled along the entire length of his spine. His yellow green

eyes were fastened upon the scrubby jungle at our right.



I fastened my fingers in the bristles at his neck and turned my eyes in

the direction that his pointed. At first I saw nothing. Then a slight

movement of the bushes riveted my attention. I thought it must be some

wild beast, and was glad of the primitive weapons I had taken from the

bodies of the warriors who had attacked me.



Presently I distinguished two eyes peering at us from the vegetation.

I took a step in their direction, and as I did so a youth arose and

fled precipitately in the direction we had been going. Raja struggled

to be after him, but I held tightly to his neck, an act which he did

not seem to relish, for he turned on me with bared fangs.



I determined that now was as good a time as any to discover just how

deep was Raja's affection for me. One of us could be master, and

logically I was the one. He growled at me. I cuffed him sharply

across the nose. He looked it me for a moment in surprised

bewilderment, and then he growled again. I made another feint at him,

expecting that it would bring him at my throat; but instead he winced

and crouched down.



Raja was subdued!



I stooped and patted him. Then I took a piece of the rope that

constituted a part of my equipment and made a leash for him.



Thus we resumed our journey toward Thuria. The youth who had seen us

was evidently of the Thurians. That he had lost no time in racing

homeward and spreading the word of my coming was evidenced when we had

come within sight of the clearing, and the village--the first real

village, by the way, that I had ever seen constructed by human

Pellucidarians. There was a rude rectangle walled with logs and

boulders, in which were a hundred or more thatched huts of similar

construction. There was no gate. Ladders that could be removed by

night led over the palisade.



Before the village were assembled a great concourse of warriors.

Inside I could see the heads of women and children peering over the top

of the wall; and also, farther back, the long necks of lidi, topped by

their tiny heads. Lidi, by the way, is both the singular and plural

form of the noun that describes the huge beasts of burden of the

Thurians. They are enormous quadrupeds, eighty or a hundred feet long,

with very small heads perched at the top of very long, slender necks.

Their heads are quite forty feet from the ground. Their gait is slow

and deliberate, but so enormous are their strides that, as a matter of

fact, they cover the ground quite rapidly.



Perry has told me that they are almost identical with the fossilized

remains of the diplodocus of the outer crust's Jurassic age. I have to

take his word for it--and I guess you will, unless you know more of

such matters than I.



As we came in sight of the warriors the men set up a great jabbering.

Their eyes were wide in astonishment--only, I presume, because of my

strange garmenture, but as well from the fact that I came in company

with a jalok, which is the Pellucidarian name of the hyaenodon.



Raja tugged at his leash, growling and showing his long white fangs.

He would have liked nothing better than to be at the throats of the

whole aggregation; but I held him in with the leash, though it took all

my strength to do it. My free hand I held above my head, palm out, in

token of the peacefulness of my mission.



In the foreground I saw the youth who had discovered us, and I could

tell from the way he carried himself that he was quite overcome by his

own importance. The warriors about him were all fine looking fellows,

though shorter and squatter than the Sarians or the Amozites. Their

color, too, was a bit lighter, owing, no doubt, to the fact that much

of their lives is spent within the shadow of the world that hangs

forever above their country.



A little in advance of the others was a bearded fellow tricked out in

many ornaments. I didn't need to ask to know that he was the

chieftain--doubtless Goork, father of Kolk. Now to him I addressed

myself.



"I am David," I said, "Emperor of the Federated Kingdoms of Pellucidar.

Doubtless you have heard of me?"



He nodded his head affirmatively.



"I come from Sari," I continued, "where I just met Kolk, the son of

Goork. I bear a token from Kolk to his father, which will prove that I

am a friend."



Again the warrior nodded. "I am Goork," he said. "Where is the token?"



"Here," I replied, and fished into the game-bag where I had placed it.



Goork and his people waited in silence. My hand searched the inside of

the bag.



It was empty!



The token had been stolen with my arms!