Books: Pellucidar

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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 con-struction. There was no gate. Ladders that could
be re-moved 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
bur-den 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 discov-ered us, and
I could tell from the way he carried him-self 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 fel-low 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!

CHAPTER VIII

CAPTIVE

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 proof 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 tug-ging 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 disheart-ened, 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 crash-ing 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 be 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 unevent-ful. 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 dis-piriting to me than absence of
sunshine.

I had paddled to the southwestern point, which Goork said he
believed to be the least frequented por-tion 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 man-aged,
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 main-land 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 be-came 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 re-sult 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 sub-jective 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 cal-loused 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 concep-tion 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 re-garded 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 ab-breviated tongue--you
would have even greater diffi-culty 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 far-ther 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 sur-prising 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 en-gaged 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 sim-ple 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 carniv-ora of the island, until my kind had come
under a crea-ture 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 al-lowed 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 sug-gestion. 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 sub-ject, 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.

CHAPTER IX

HOOJA'S CUTTHROATS APPEAR

I had built a little shelter of rocks and brush where I might crawl
in and sleep out of the perpetual light and heat of the noonday
sun. When I was tired or hungry I retired to my humble cot.

My masters never interposed the slightest objection. As a matter
of fact, they were very good to me, nor did I see aught while I
was among them to indicate that they are ever else than a simple,
kindly folk when left to themselves. Their awe-inspiring size,
terrific strength, mighty fighting-fangs, and hideous appearance
are but the attributes necessary to the successful waging of their
constant battle for survival, and well do they employ them when
the need arises. The only flesh they eat is that of herbivorous
animals and birds. When they hunt the mighty thag, the prehistoric
bos of the outer crust, a single male, with his fiber rope, will
catch and kill the greatest of the bulls.

Well, as I was about to say, I had this little shelter at the edge
of my melon-patch. Here I was resting from my labors on a certain
occasion when I heard a great hub-bub in the village, which lay
about a quarter of a mile away.

Presently a male came racing toward the field, shout-ing excitedly.
As he approached I came from my shelter to learn what all the
commotion might be about, for the monotony of my existence in the
melon-patch must have fostered that trait of my curiosity from
which it had always been my secret boast I am peculiarly free.

The other workers also ran forward to meet the mes-senger, who quickly
unburdened himself of his informa-tion, and as quickly turned and
scampered back toward the village. When running these beast-men
often go upon all fours. Thus they leap over obstacles that would
slow up a human being, and upon the level attain a speed that
would make a thoroughbred look to his laurels. The result in this
instance was that before I had more than assimilated the gist of
the word which had been brought to the fields, I was alone, watching
my co-workers speeding villageward.

I was alone! It was the first time since my capture that no beast-man
had been within sight of me. I was alone! And all my captors were
in the village at the op-posite edge of the mesa repelling an attack
of Hooja's horde!

It seemed from the messenger's tale that two of Gr-gr-gr's great
males had been set upon by a half-dozen of Hooja's cutthroats while
the former were peaceably returning from the thag hunt. The two
had returned to the village unscratched, while but a single one of
Hooja's half-dozen had escaped to report the outcome of the battle
to their leader. Now Hooja was coming to punish Gr-gr-gr's people.
With his large force, armed with the bows and arrows that Hooja
had learned from me to make, with long lances and sharp knives, I
feared that even the mighty strength of the beastmen could avail
them but little.

At last had come the opportunity for which I waited! I was free to
make for the far end of the mesa, find my way to the valley below,
and while the two forces were engaged in their struggle, continue
my search for Hooja's village, which I had learned from the beast-men
lay farther on down the river that I had been following when taken
prisoner.

As I turned to make for the mesa's rim the sounds of battle came
plainly to my ears--the hoarse shouts of men mingled with the
half-beastly roars and growls of the brute-folk.

Did I take advantage of my opportunity?

I did not. Instead, lured by the din of strife and by the desire
to deliver a stroke, however feeble, against hated Hooja, I wheeled
and ran directly toward the village.

When I reached the edge of the plateau such a scene met my astonished
gaze as never before had startled it, for the unique battle-methods
of the half-brutes were rather the most remarkable I had ever
witnessed. Along the very edge of the cliff-top stood a thin line
of mighty males--the best rope-throwers of the tribe. A few feet
behind these the rest of the males, with the exception of about
twenty, formed a second line. Still farther in the rear all the
women and young children were clus-tered into a single group under
the protection of the re-maining twenty fighting males and all the
old males.

But it was the work of the first two lines that in-terested me.
The forces of Hooja--a great horde of savage Sagoths and primeval
cave men--were work-ing their way up the steep cliff-face, their
agility but slightly less than that of my captors who had clambered
so nimbly aloft--even he who was burdened by my weight.

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