IV

IV

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL

WHEN OUR GUARDS AROUSED US FROM SLEEP WE were much refreshed.

They gave us food. Strips of dried meat it was, but it

put new life and strength into us, so that now we too

marched with high-held heads, and took noble strides.

At least I did, for I was young and proud; but poor Perry

hated walking. On earth I had often seen him call a cab

to travel a square--he was paying for it now, and his old

legs wobbled so that I put my arm about him and half carried

him through the balance of those frightful marches.

The country began to change at last, and we wound up

out of the level plain through mighty mountains of

virgin granite. The tropical verdure of the lowlands was

replaced by hardier vegetation, but even here the effects

of constant heat and light were apparent in the immensity

of the trees and the profusion of foliage and blooms.

Crystal streams roared through their rocky channels,

fed by the perpetual snows which we could see far above us.

Above the snowcapped heights hung masses of heavy clouds.

It was these, Perry explained, which evidently served

the double purpose of replenishing the melting snows and

protecting them from the direct rays of the sun.

By this time we had picked up a smattering of the bastard

language in which our guards addressed us, as well

as making good headway in the rather charming tongue

of our co-captives. Directly ahead of me in the chain

gang was a young woman. Three feet of chain linked us

together in a forced companionship which I, at least,

soon rejoiced in. For I found her a willing teacher,

and from her I learned the language of her tribe,

and much of the life and customs of the inner world--at

least that part of it with which she was familiar.

She told me that she was called Dian the Beautiful,

and that she belonged to the tribe of Amoz, which dwells

in the cliffs above the Darel Az, or shallow sea.

"How came you here?" I asked her.

"I was running away from Jubal the Ugly One," she answered,

as though that was explanation quite sufficient.

"Who is Jubal the Ugly One?" I asked. "And why did you

run away from him?"

She looked at me in surprise.

"Why DOES a woman run away from a man?" she answered

my question with another.

"They do not, where I come from," I replied.

"Sometimes they run after them."

But she could not understand. Nor could I get her to grasp

the fact that I was of another world. She was quite as

positive that creation was originated solely to produce her

own kind and the world she lived in as are many of the outer

world.

"But Jubal," I insisted. "Tell me about him, and why you

ran away to be chained by the neck and scourged across

the face of a world."

"Jubal the Ugly One placed his trophy before my father's house.

It was the head of a mighty tandor. It remained there

and no greater trophy was placed beside it. So I knew

that Jubal the Ugly One would come and take me as his mate.

None other so powerful wished me, or they would have

slain a mightier beast and thus have won me from Jubal.

My father is not a mighty hunter. Once he was,

but a sadok tossed him, and never again had he the full

use of his right arm. My brother, Dacor the Strong One,

had gone to the land of Sari to steal a mate for himself.

Thus there was none, father, brother, or lover, to save

me from Jubal the Ugly One, and I ran away and hid among

the hills that skirt the land of Amoz. And there these

Sagoths found me and made me captive."

"What will they do with you?" I asked. "Where are they

taking us?"

Again she looked her incredulity.

"I can almost believe that you are of another world,"

she said, "for otherwise such ignorance were inexplicable.

Do you really mean that you do not know that the Sagoths

are the creatures of the Mahars--the mighty Mahars who

think they own Pellucidar and all that walks or grows

upon its surface, or creeps or burrows beneath, or swims

within its lakes and oceans, or flies through its air?

Next you will be telling me that you never before heard

of the Mahars!"

I was loath to do it, and further incur her scorn;

but there was no alternative if I were to absorb knowledge,

so I made a clean breast of my pitiful ignorance as to the

mighty Mahars. She was shocked. But she did her very best

to enlighten me, though much that she said was as Greek

would have been to her. She described the Mahars largely

by comparisons. In this way they were like unto thipdars,

in that to the hairless lidi.

About all I gleaned of them was that they were

quite hideous, had wings, and webbed feet; lived in

cities built beneath the ground; could swim under

water for great distances, and were very, very wise.

The Sagoths were their weapons of offense and defense,

and the races like herself were their hands and feet--they

were the slaves and servants who did all the manual labor.

The Mahars were the heads--the brains--of the inner world.

I longed to see this wondrous race of supermen.

Perry learned the language with me. When we halted,

as we occasionally did, though sometimes the halts seemed

ages apart, he would join in the conversation, as would

Ghak the Hairy One, he who was chained just ahead of Dian

the Beautiful. Ahead of Ghak was Hooja the Sly One.

He too entered the conversation occasionally. Most of

his remarks were directed toward Dian the Beautiful.

It didn't take half an eye to see that he had developed

a bad case; but the girl appeared totally oblivious

to his thinly veiled advances. Did I say thinly veiled?

There is a race of men in New Zealand, or Australia,

I have forgotten which, who indicate their preference

for the lady of their affections by banging her over

the head with a bludgeon. By comparison with this method

Hooja's lovemaking might be called thinly veiled.

At first it caused me to blush violently although I

have seen several Old Years out at Rectors, and in other

less fashionable places off Broadway, and in Vienna,

and Hamburg.

But the girl! She was magnificent. It was easy to see

that she considered herself as entirely above and apart from

her present surroundings and company. She talked with me,

and with Perry, and with the taciturn Ghak because we

were respectful; but she couldn't even see Hooja the

Sly One, much less hear him, and that made him furious.

He tried to get one of the Sagoths to move the girl up

ahead of him in the slave gang, but the fellow only poked

him with his spear and told him that he had selected the

girl for his own property--that he would buy her from the

Mahars as soon as they reached Phutra. Phutra, it seemed,

was the city of our destination.

After passing over the first chain of mountains we skirted

a salt sea, upon whose bosom swam countless horrid things.

Seal-like creatures there were with long necks stretching

ten and more feet above their enormous bodies and whose

snake heads were split with gaping mouths bristling

with countless fangs. There were huge tortoises too,

paddling about among these other reptiles, which Perry

said were Plesiosaurs of the Lias. I didn't question his

veracity--they might have been most anything.

Dian told me they were tandorazes, or tandors of the sea,

and that the other, and more fearsome reptiles, which

occasionally

rose from the deep to do battle with them, were azdyryths,

or sea-dyryths--Perry called them Ichthyosaurs.

They resembled a whale with the head of an alligator.

I had forgotten what little geology I had studied

at school--about all that remained was an impression

of horror that the illustrations of restored prehistoric

monsters had made upon me, and a well-defined belief

that any man with a pig's shank and a vivid imagination

could "restore" most any sort of paleolithic monster he

saw fit, and take rank as a first class paleontologist.

But when I saw these sleek, shiny carcasses shimmering in

the sunlight as they emerged from the ocean, shaking their

giant heads; when I saw the waters roll from their sinuous

bodies in miniature waterfalls as they glided hither

and thither, now upon the surface, now half submerged;

as I saw them meet, open-mouthed, hissing and snorting,

in their titanic and interminable warring I realized

how futile is man's poor, weak imagination by comparison

with Nature's incredible genius.

And Perry! He was absolutely flabbergasted. He said

so himself.

"David," he remarked, after we had marched for a long time

beside that awful sea. "David, I used to teach geology,

and I thought that I believed what I taught; but now I

see that I did not believe it--that it is impossible

for man to believe such things as these unless he sees

them with his own eyes. We take things for granted,

perhaps, because we are told them over and over again,

and have no way of disproving them--like religions,

for example; but we don't believe them, we only think

we do. If you ever get back to the outer world you

will find that the geologists and paleontologists will

be the first to set you down a liar, for they know

that no such creatures as they restore ever existed.

It is all right to IMAGINE them as existing in an equally

imaginary epoch--but now? poof!"

At the next halt Hooja the Sly One managed to find enough

slack chain to permit him to worm himself back quite close

to Dian. We were all standing, and as he edged near the

girl she turned her back upon him in such a truly earthly

feminine manner that I could scarce repress a smile; but it

was a short-lived smile for on the instant the Sly One's

hand fell upon the girl's bare arm, jerking her roughly

toward him.

I was not then familiar with the customs or social ethics

which prevailed within Pellucidar; but even so I did

not need the appealing look which the girl shot to me

from her magnificent eyes to influence my subsequent act.

What the Sly One's intention was I paused not to inquire;

but instead, before he could lay hold of her with his

other hand, I placed a right to the point of his jaw that

felled him in his tracks.

A roar of approval went up from those of the other prisoners

and the Sagoths who had witnessed the brief drama; not, as I

later learned, because I had championed the girl, but for

the neat and, to them, astounding method by which I had bested

Hooja.

And the girl? At first she looked at me with wide, wondering

eyes,

and then she dropped her head, her face half averted,

and a delicate flush suffused her cheek. For a moment

she stood thus in silence, and then her head went high,

and she turned her back upon me as she had upon Hooja.

Some of the prisoners laughed, and I saw the face of Ghak

the Hairy One go very black as he looked at me searchingly.

And what I could see of Dian's cheek went suddenly from red

to white.

Immediately after we resumed the march, and though I realized

that in some way I had offended Dian the Beautiful I could

not prevail upon her to talk with me that I might learn

wherein I had erred--in fact I might quite as well have

been addressing a sphinx for all the attention I got.

At last my own foolish pride stepped in and prevented

my making any further attempts, and thus a companionship

that without my realizing it had come to mean a great deal

to me was cut off. Thereafter I confined my conversation

to Perry. Hooja did not renew his advances toward the girl,

nor did he again venture near me.

Again the weary and apparently interminable marching became

a perfect nightmare of horrors to me. The more firmly

fixed became the realization that the girl's friendship

had meant so much to me, the more I came to miss it;

and the more impregnable the barrier of silly pride.

But I was very young and would not ask Ghak for the

explanation which I was sure he could give, and that might

have made everything all right again.

On the march, or during halts, Dian refused consistently

to notice me--when her eyes wandered in my direction

she looked either over my head or directly through me.

At last I became desperate, and determined to swallow

my self-esteem, and again beg her to tell me how I

had offended, and how I might make reparation. I made

up my mind that I should do this at the next halt.

We were approaching another range of mountains at the time,

and when we reached them, instead of winding across

them through some high-flung pass we entered a mighty

natural tunnel--a series of labyrinthine grottoes,

dark as Erebus.

The guards had no torches or light of any description.

In fact we had seen no artificial light or sign of

fire since we had entered Pellucidar. In a land of

perpetual noon there is no need of light above ground,

yet I marveled that they had no means of lighting

their way through these dark, subterranean passages.

So we crept along at a snail's pace, with much stumbling

and falling--the guards keeping up a singsong chant ahead

of us, interspersed with certain high notes which I found

always indicated rough places and turns.

Halts were now more frequent, but I did not wish to speak

to Dian until I could see from the expression of her face

how she was receiving my apologies. At last a faint

glow ahead forewarned us of the end of the tunnel,

for which I for one was devoutly thankful. Then at a sudden

turn we emerged into the full light of the noonday sun.

But with it came a sudden realization of what meant

to me a real catastrophe--Dian was gone, and with her

a half-dozen other prisoners. The guards saw it too,

and the ferocity of their rage was terrible to behold.

Their awesome, bestial faces were contorted in the most

diabolical expressions, as they accused each other of

responsibility for the loss. Finally they fell upon us,

beating us with their spear shafts, and hatchets.

They had already killed two near the head of the line,

and were like to have finished the balance of us when

their leader finally put a stop to the brutal slaughter.

Never in all my life had I witnessed a more horrible

exhibition of bestial rage--I thanked God that Dian had not

been one of those left to endure it.

Of the twelve prisoners who had been chained ahead of me

each alternate one had been freed commencing with Dian.

Hooja was gone. Ghak remained. What could it mean? How

had it been accomplished? The commander of the guards

was investigating. Soon he discovered that the rude

locks which had held the neckbands in place had been

deftly picked.

"Hooja the Sly One," murmured Ghak, who was now next to me

in line. "He has taken the girl that you would not have,"

he continued, glancing at me.

"That I would not have!" I cried. "What do you mean?"

He looked at me closely for a moment.

"I have doubted your story that you are from another world,"

he said at last, "but yet upon no other grounds could

your ignorance of the ways of Pellucidar be explained.

Do you really mean that you do not know that you offended

the Beautiful One, and how?"

"I do not know, Ghak," I replied.

"Then shall I tell you. When a man of Pellucidar

intervenes between another man and the woman the other

man would have, the woman belongs to the victor.

Dian the Beautiful belongs to you. You should have claimed

her or released her. Had you taken her hand, it would

have indicated your desire to make her your mate, and had

you raised her hand above her head and then dropped it,

it would have meant that you did not wish her for a mate

and that you released her from all obligation to you.

By doing neither you have put upon her the greatest affront

that a man may put upon a woman. Now she is your slave.

No man will take her as mate, or may take her honorably,

until he shall have overcome you in combat, and men do not

choose slave women as their mates--at least not the men

of Pellucidar."

"I did not know, Ghak," I cried. "I did not know.

Not for all Pellucidar would I have harmed Dian the Beautiful

by word, or look, or act of mine. I do not want her as

my slave. I do not want her as my--" but here I stopped.

The vision of that sweet and innocent face floated before

me amidst the soft mists of imagination, and where I had

on the second believed that I clung only to the memory

of a gentle friendship I had lost, yet now it seemed

that it would have been disloyalty to her to have said

that I did not want Dian the Beautiful as my mate.

I had not thought of her except as a welcome friend

in a strange, cruel world. Even now I did not think

that I loved her.

I believe Ghak must have read the truth more in my

expression than in my words, for presently he laid

his hand upon my shoulder.

"Man of another world," he said, "I believe you.

Lips may lie, but when the heart speaks through the eyes

it tells only the truth. Your heart has spoken to me.

I know now that you meant no affront to Dian the Beautiful.

She is not of my tribe; but her mother is my sister.

She does not know it--her mother was stolen by Dian's

father who came with many others of the tribe of Amoz

to battle with us for our women--the most beautiful women

of Pellucidar. Then was her father king of Amoz, and her

mother was daughter of the king of Sari--to whose power I,

his son, have succeeded. Dian is the daughter of kings,

though her father is no longer king since the sadok tossed

him and Jubal the Ugly One wrested his kingship from him.

Because of her lineage the wrong you did her was greatly

magnified in the eyes of all who saw it. She will never

forgive you."

I asked Ghak if there was not some way in which I

could release the girl from the bondage and ignominy

I had unwittingly placed upon her.

"If ever you find her, yes," he answered. "Merely to

raise her hand above her head and drop it in the presence

of others is sufficient to release her; but how may you

ever find her, you who are doomed to a life of slavery

yourself in the buried city of Phutra?"

"Is there no escape?" I asked.

"Hooja the Sly One escaped and took the others with him,"

replied Ghak. "But there are no more dark places on

the way to Phutra, and once there it is not so easy--the

Mahars are very wise. Even if one escaped from Phutra

there are the thipdars--they would find you, and then--"

the Hairy One shuddered. "No, you will never escape

the Mahars."

It was a cheerful prospect. I asked Perry what he thought

about it; but he only shrugged his shoulders and continued

a longwinded prayer he had been at for some time.

He was wont to say that the only redeeming feature of our

captivity was the ample time it gave him for the improvisation

of prayers--it was becoming an obsession with him.

The Sagoths had begun to take notice of his habit

of declaiming throughout entire marches. One of them

asked him what he was saying--to whom he was talking.

The question gave me an idea, so I answered quickly

before Perry could say anything.

"Do not interrupt him," I said. "He is a very holy

man in the world from which we come. He is speaking

to spirits which you cannot see--do not interrupt him

or they will spring out of the air upon you and rend you

limb from limb--like that," and I jumped toward the great

brute with a loud "Boo!" that sent him stumbling backward.

I took a long chance, I realized, but if we could make

any capital out of Perry's harmless mania I wanted to make

it while the making was prime. It worked splendidly.

The Sagoths treated us both with marked respect during

the balance of the journey, and then passed the word along

to their masters, the Mahars.

Two marches after this episode we came to the city of Phutra.

The entrance to it was marked by two lofty towers of granite,

which guarded a flight of steps leading to the buried city.

Sagoths were on guard here as well as at a hundred or more

other towers scattered about over a large plain.