Lost On Pellucidar

: Pellucidar

The Arabs, of whom I wrote you at the end of my last letter (Innes

began), and whom I thought to be enemies intent only upon murdering me,

proved to be exceedingly friendly--they were searching for the very

band of marauders that had threatened my existence. The huge

rhamphorhynchus-like reptile that I had brought back with me from the

inner world--the ugly Mahar that Hooja the Sly One had substituted for

my dear Dian
at the moment of my departure--filled them with wonder and

with awe.



Nor less so did the mighty subterranean prospector which had carried me

to Pellucidar and back again, and which lay out in the desert about two

miles from my camp.



With their help I managed to get the unwieldy tons of its great bulk

into a vertical position--the nose deep in a hole we had dug in the

sand and the rest of it supported by the trunks of date-palms cut for

the purpose.



It was a mighty engineering job with only wild Arabs and their wilder

mounts to do the work of an electric crane--but finally it was

completed, and I was ready for departure.



For some time I hesitated to take the Mahar back with me. She had been

docile and quiet ever since she had discovered herself virtually a

prisoner aboard the "iron mole." It had been, of course, impossible for

me to communicate with her since she had no auditory organs and I no

knowledge of her fourth-dimension, sixth-sense method of communication.



Naturally I am kind-hearted, and so I found it beyond me to leave even

this hateful and repulsive thing alone in a strange and hostile world.

The result was that when I entered the iron mole I took her with me.



That she knew that we were about to return to Pellucidar was evident,

for immediately her manner changed from that of habitual gloom that had

pervaded her, to an almost human expression of contentment and delight.



Our trip through the earth's crust was but a repetition of my two

former journeys between the inner and the outer worlds. This time,

however, I imagine that we must have maintained a more nearly

perpendicular course, for we accomplished the journey in a few minutes'

less time than upon the occasion of my first journey through the

five-hundred-mile crust. Just a trifle less than seventy-two hours

after our departure into the sands of the Sahara, we broke through the

surface of Pellucidar.



Fortune once again favored me by the slightest of margins, for when I

opened the door in the prospector's outer jacket I saw that we had

missed coming up through the bottom of an ocean by but a few hundred

yards.



The aspect of the surrounding country was entirely unfamiliar to me--I

had no conception of precisely where I was upon the one hundred and

twenty-four million square miles of Pellucidar's vast land surface.



The perpetual midday sun poured down its torrid rays from zenith, as it

had done since the beginning of Pellucidarian time--as it would

continue to do to the end of it. Before me, across the wide sea, the

weird, horizonless seascape folded gently upward to meet the sky until

it lost itself to view in the azure depths of distance far above the

level of my eyes.



How strange it looked! How vastly different from the flat and puny area

of the circumscribed vision of the dweller upon the outer crust!



I was lost. Though I wandered ceaselessly throughout a lifetime, I

might never discover the whereabouts of my former friends of this

strange and savage world. Never again might I see dear old Perry, nor

Ghak the Hairy One, nor Dacor the Strong One, nor that other infinitely

precious one--my sweet and noble mate, Dian the Beautiful!



But even so I was glad to tread once more the surface of Pellucidar.

Mysterious and terrible, grotesque and savage though she is in many of

her aspects, I can not but love her. Her very savagery appealed to me,

for it is the savagery of unspoiled Nature.



The magnificence of her tropic beauties enthralled me. Her mighty land

areas breathed unfettered freedom.



Her untracked oceans, whispering of virgin wonders unsullied by the eye

of man, beckoned me out upon their restless bosoms.



Not for an instant did I regret the world of my nativity. I was in

Pellucidar. I was home. And I was content.



As I stood dreaming beside the giant thing that had brought me safely

through the earth's crust, my traveling companion, the hideous Mahar,

emerged from the interior of the prospector and stood beside me. For a

long time she remained motionless.



What thoughts were passing through the convolutions of her reptilian

brain?



I do not know.



She was a member of the dominant race of Pellucidar. By a strange

freak of evolution her kind had first developed the power of reason in

that world of anomalies.



To her, creatures such as I were of a lower order. As Perry had

discovered among the writings of her kind in the buried city of Phutra,

it was still an open question among the Mahars as to whether man

possessed means of intelligent communication or the power of reason.



Her kind believed that in the center of all-pervading solidity there

was a single, vast, spherical cavity, which was Pellucidar. This

cavity had been left there for the sole purpose of providing a place

for the creation and propagation of the Mahar race. Everything within

it had been put there for the uses of the Mahar.



I wondered what this particular Mahar might think now. I found

pleasure in speculating upon just what the effect had been upon her of

passing through the earth's crust, and coming out into a world that one

of even less intelligence than the great Mahars could easily see was a

different world from her own Pellucidar.



What had she thought of the outer world's tiny sun?



What had been the effect upon her of the moon and myriad stars of the

clear African nights?



How had she explained them?



With what sensations of awe must she first have watched the sun moving

slowly across the heavens to disappear at last beneath the western

horizon, leaving in his wake that which the Mahar had never before

witnessed--the darkness of night? For upon Pellucidar there is no

night. The stationary sun hangs forever in the center of the

Pellucidarian sky--directly overhead.



Then, too, she must have been impressed by the wondrous mechanism of

the prospector which had bored its way from world to world and back

again. And that it had been driven by a rational being must also have

occurred to her.



Too, she had seen me conversing with other men upon the earth's

surface. She had seen the arrival of the caravan of books and arms,

and ammunition, and the balance of the heterogeneous collection which I

had crammed into the cabin of the iron mole for transportation to

Pellucidar.



She had seen all these evidences of a civilization and brain-power

transcending in scientific achievement anything that her race had

produced; nor once had she seen a creature of her own kind.



There could have been but a single deduction in the mind of the

Mahar--there were other worlds than Pellucidar, and the gilak was a

rational being.



Now the creature at my side was creeping slowly toward the near-by sea.

At my hip hung a long-barreled six-shooter--somehow I had been unable

to find the same sensation of security in the newfangled automatics

that had been perfected since my first departure from the outer

world--and in my hand was a heavy express rifle.



I could have shot the Mahar with ease, for I knew intuitively that she

was escaping--but I did not.



I felt that if she could return to her own kind with the story of her

adventures, the position of the human race within Pellucidar would be

advanced immensely at a single stride, for at once man would take his

proper place in the considerations of the reptilia.



At the edge of the sea the creature paused and looked back at me. Then

she slid sinuously into the surf.



For several minutes I saw no more of her as she luxuriated in the cool

depths.



Then a hundred yards from shore she rose and there for another short

while she floated upon the surface.



Finally she spread her giant wings, flapped them vigorously a score of

times and rose above the blue sea. A single time she circled far

aloft--and then straight as an arrow she sped away.



I watched her until the distant haze enveloped her and she had

disappeared. I was alone.



My first concern was to discover where within Pellucidar I might

be--and in what direction lay the land of the Sarians where Ghak the

Hairy One ruled.



But how was I to guess in which direction lay Sari?



And if I set out to search--what then?



Could I find my way back to the prospector with its priceless freight

of books, firearms, ammunition, scientific instruments, and still more

books--its great library of reference works upon every conceivable

branch of applied sciences?



And if I could not, of what value was all this vast storehouse of

potential civilization and progress to be to the world of my adoption?



Upon the other hand, if I remained here alone with it, what could I

accomplish single-handed?



Nothing.



But where there was no east, no west, no north, no south, no stars, no

moon, and only a stationary mid-day sun, how was I to find my way back

to this spot should ever I get out of sight of it?



I didn't know.



For a long time I stood buried in deep thought, when it occurred to me

to try out one of the compasses I had brought and ascertain if it

remained steadily fixed upon an unvarying pole. I reentered the

prospector and fetched a compass without.



Moving a considerable distance from the prospector that the needle

might not be influenced by its great bulk of iron and steel I turned

the delicate instrument about in every direction.



Always and steadily the needle remained rigidly fixed upon a point

straight out to sea, apparently pointing toward a large island some ten

or twenty miles distant. This then should be north.



I drew my note-book from my pocket and made a careful topographical

sketch of the locality within the range of my vision. Due north lay

the island, far out upon the shimmering sea.



The spot I had chosen for my observations was the top of a large, flat

boulder which rose six or eight feet above the turf. This spot I

called Greenwich. The boulder was the "Royal Observatory."



I had made a start! I cannot tell you what a sense of relief was

imparted to me by the simple fact that there was at least one spot

within Pellucidar with a familiar name and a place upon a map.



It was with almost childish joy that I made a little circle in my

note-book and traced the word Greenwich beside it.



Now I felt I might start out upon my search with some assurance of

finding my way back again to the prospector.



I decided that at first I would travel directly south in the hope that

I might in that direction find some familiar landmark. It was as good

a direction as any. This much at least might be said of it.



Among the many other things I had brought from the outer world were a

number of pedometers. I slipped three of these into my pockets with

the idea that I might arrive at a more or less accurate mean from the

registrations of them all.



On my map I would register so many paces south, so many east, so many

west, and so on. When I was ready to return I would then do so by any

route that I might choose.



I also strapped a considerable quantity of ammunition across my

shoulders, pocketed some matches, and hooked an aluminum fry-pan and a

small stew-kettle of the same metal to my belt.



I was ready--ready to go forth and explore a world!



Ready to search a land area of 124,110,000 square miles for my friends,

my incomparable mate, and good old Perry!



And so, after locking the door in the outer shell of the prospector, I

set out upon my quest. Due south I traveled, across lovely valleys

thick-dotted with grazing herds.



Through dense primeval forests I forced my way and up the slopes of

mighty mountains searching for a pass to their farther sides.



Ibex and musk-sheep fell before my good old revolver, so that I lacked

not for food in the higher altitudes. The forests and the plains gave

plentifully of fruits and wild birds, antelope, aurochsen, and elk.



Occasionally, for the larger game animals and the gigantic beasts of

prey, I used my express rifle, but for the most part the revolver

filled all my needs.



There were times, too, when faced by a mighty cave bear, a

saber-toothed tiger, or huge felis spelaea, black-maned and terrible,

even my powerful rifle seemed pitifully inadequate--but fortune favored

me so that I passed unscathed through adventures that even the

recollection of causes the short hairs to bristle at the nape of my

neck.



How long I wandered toward the south I do not know, for shortly after I

left the prospector something went wrong with my watch, and I was again

at the mercy of the baffling timelessness of Pellucidar, forging

steadily ahead beneath the great, motionless sun which hangs eternally

at noon.



I ate many times, however, so that days must have elapsed, possibly

months with no familiar landscape rewarding my eager eyes.



I saw no men nor signs of men. Nor is this strange, for Pellucidar, in

its land area, is immense, while the human race there is very young and

consequently far from numerous.



Doubtless upon that long search mine was the first human foot to touch

the soil in many places--mine the first human eye to rest upon the

gorgeous wonders of the landscape.



It was a staggering thought. I could not but dwell upon it often as I

made my lonely way through this virgin world. Then, quite suddenly,

one day I stepped out of the peace of manless primality into the

presence of man--and peace was gone.



It happened thus:



I had been following a ravine downward out of a chain of lofty hills

and had paused at its mouth to view the lovely little valley that lay

before me. At one side was tangled wood, while straight ahead a river

wound peacefully along parallel to the cliffs in which the hills

terminated at the valley's edge.



Presently, as I stood enjoying the lovely scene, as insatiate for

Nature's wonders as if I had not looked upon similar landscapes

countless times, a sound of shouting broke from the direction of the

woods. That the harsh, discordant notes rose from the throats of men I

could not doubt.



I slipped behind a large boulder near the mouth of the ravine and

waited. I could hear the crashing of underbrush in the forest, and I

guessed that whoever came came quickly--pursued and pursuers, doubtless.



In a short time some hunted animal would break into view, and a moment

later a score of half-naked savages would come leaping after with

spears or club or great stone-knives.



I had seen the thing so many times during my life within Pellucidar

that I felt that I could anticipate to a nicety precisely what I was

about to witness. I hoped that the hunters would prove friendly and be

able to direct me toward Sari.



Even as I was thinking these thoughts the quarry emerged from the

forest. But it was no terrified four-footed beast. Instead, what I

saw was an old man--a terrified old man!



Staggering feebly and hopelessly from what must have been some very

terrible fate, if one could judge from the horrified expressions he

continually cast behind him toward the wood, he came stumbling on in my

direction.



He had covered but a short distance from the forest when I beheld the

first of his pursuers--a Sagoth, one of those grim and terrible

gorilla-men who guard the mighty Mahars in their buried cities, faring

forth from time to time upon slave-raiding or punitive expeditions

against the human race of Pellucidar, of whom the dominant race of the

inner world think as we think of the bison or the wild sheep of our own

world.



Close behind the foremost Sagoth came others until a full dozen raced,

shouting after the terror-stricken old man. They would be upon him

shortly, that was plain.



One of them was rapidly overhauling him, his back-thrown spear-arm

testifying to his purpose.



And then, quite with the suddenness of an unexpected blow, I realized a

past familiarity with the gait and carriage of the fugitive.



Simultaneously there swept over me the staggering fact that the old man

was--PERRY! That he was about to die before my very eyes with no hope

that I could reach him in time to avert the awful catastrophe--for to

me it meant a real catastrophe!



Perry was my best friend.



Dian, of course, I looked upon as more than friend. She was my mate--a

part of me.



I had entirely forgotten the rifle in my hand and the revolvers at my

belt; one does not readily synchronize his thoughts with the stone age

and the twentieth century simultaneously.



Now from past habit I still thought in the stone age, and in my

thoughts of the stone age there were no thoughts of firearms.



The fellow was almost upon Perry when the feel of the gun in my hand

awoke me from the lethargy of terror that had gripped me. From behind

my boulder I threw up the heavy express rifle--a mighty engine of

destruction that might bring down a cave bear or a mammoth at a single

shot--and let drive at the Sagoth's broad, hairy breast.



At the sound of the shot he stopped stock-still. His spear dropped

from his hand.



Then he lunged forward upon his face.



The effect upon the others was little less remarkable. Perry alone

could have possibly guessed the meaning of the loud report or explained

its connection with the sudden collapse of the Sagoth. The other

gorilla-men halted for but an instant. Then with renewed shrieks of

rage they sprang forward to finish Perry.



At the same time I stepped from behind my boulder, drawing one of my

revolvers that I might conserve the more precious ammunition of the

express rifle. Quickly I fired again with the lesser weapon.



Then it was that all eyes were directed toward me. Another Sagoth fell

to the bullet from the revolver; but it did not stop his companions.

They were out for revenge as well as blood now, and they meant to have

both.



As I ran forward toward Perry I fired four more shots, dropping three

of our antagonists. Then at last the remaining seven wavered. It was

too much for them, this roaring death that leaped, invisible, upon them

from a great distance.



As they hesitated I reached Perry's side. I have never seen such an

expression upon any man's face as that upon Perry's when he recognized

me. I have no words wherewith to describe it. There was not time to

talk then--scarce for a greeting. I thrust the full, loaded revolver

into his hand, fired the last shot in my own, and reloaded. There were

but six Sagoths left then.



They started toward us once more, though I could see that they were

terrified probably as much by the noise of the guns as by their

effects. They never reached us. Half-way the three that remained

turned and fled, and we let them go.



The last we saw of them they were disappearing into the tangled

undergrowth of the forest. And then Perry turned and threw his arms

about my neck and, burying his old face upon my shoulder, wept like a

child.



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