V
SLAVES
AS WE DESCENDED THE BROAD STAIRCASE WHICH led to the main
avenue of Phutra I caught my first sight of the dominant
race of the inner world. Involuntarily I shrank back
as one of the creatures approached to inspect us.
A more hideous thing it would be impossible to imagine.
The all-powerful Mahars of Pellucidar are great reptiles,
some six or eight feet in length, with long narrow heads
and great round eyes. Their beak-like mouths are lined
with sharp, white fangs, and the backs of their huge,
lizard bodies are serrated into bony ridges from their
necks to the end of their long tails. Their feet are
equipped with three webbed toes, while from the fore feet
membranous wings, which are attached to their bodies just
in front of the hind legs, protrude at an angle of 45
degrees toward the rear, ending in sharp points several
feet above their bodies.
I glanced at Perry as the thing passed me to inspect him.
The old man was gazing at the horrid creature with wide
astonished eyes. When it passed on, he turned to me.
"A rhamphorhynchus of the Middle Olitic, David," he said,
"but, gad, how enormous! The largest remains we ever
have discovered have never indicated a size greater than
that attained by an ordinary crow."
As we continued on through the main avenue of Phutra we
saw many thousand of the creatures coming and going upon
their daily duties. They paid but little attention to us.
Phutra is laid out underground with a regularity that
indicates remarkable engineering skill. It is hewn from
solid limestone strata. The streets are broad and of a
uniform height of twenty feet. At intervals tubes pierce
the roof of this underground city, and by means of lenses
and reflectors transmit the sunlight, softened and diffused,
to dispel what would otherwise be Cimmerian darkness.
In like manner air is introduced.
Perry and I were taken, with Ghak, to a large public building,
where one of the Sagoths who had formed our guard explained
to a Maharan official the circumstances surrounding our capture.
The method of communication between these two was remarkable
in that no spoken words were exchanged. They employed
a species of sign language. As I was to learn later,
the Mahars have no ears, not any spoken language.
Among themselves they communicate by means of what Perry
says must be a sixth sense which is cognizant of a fourth
dimension.
I never did quite grasp him, though he endeavored to explain
it to me upon numerous occasions. I suggested telepathy,
but he said no, that it was not telepathy since they could
only communicate when in each others' presence, nor could
they talk with the Sagoths or the other inhabitants
of Pellucidar by the same method they used to converse
with one another.
"What they do," said Perry, "is to project their thoughts
into the fourth dimension, when they become appreciable
to the sixth sense of their listener. Do I make myself
quite clear?"
"You do not, Perry," I replied. He shook his head
in despair, and returned to his work. They had set us
to carrying a great accumulation of Maharan literature
from one apartment to another, and there arranging it
upon shelves. I suggested to Perry that we were in the
public library of Phutra, but later, as he commenced
to discover the key to their written language, he assured
me that we were handling the ancient archives of the race.
During this period my thoughts were continually upon
Dian the Beautiful. I was, of course, glad that she had
escaped the Mahars, and the fate that had been suggested
by the Sagoth who had threatened to purchase her upon our
arrival at Phutra. I often wondered if the little party
of fugitives had been overtaken by the guards who had returned
to search for them. Sometimes I was not so sure but that I
should have been more contented to know that Dian was here
in Phutra, than to think of her at the mercy of Hooja
the Sly One. Ghak, Perry, and I often talked together
of possible escape, but the Sarian was so steeped in his
lifelong belief that no one could escape from the Mahars
except by a miracle, that he was not much aid to us--his
attitude was of one who waits for the miracle to come to him.
At my suggestion Perry and I fashioned some swords of scraps
of iron which we discovered among some rubbish in the cells
where we slept, for we were permitted almost unrestrained
freedom of action within the limits of the building to which
we had been assigned. So great were the number of slaves
who waited upon the inhabitants of Phutra that none of us
was apt to be overburdened with work, nor were our masters
unkind to us.
We hid our new weapons beneath the skins which formed
our beds, and then Perry conceived the idea of making bows
and arrows--weapons apparently unknown within Pellucidar.
Next came shields; but these I found it easier to steal
from the walls of the outer guardroom of the building.
We had completed these arrangements for our protection
after leaving Phutra when the Sagoths who had been sent
to recapture the escaped prisoners returned with four
of them, of whom Hooja was one. Dian and two others
had eluded them. It so happened that Hooja was confined
in the same building with us. He told Ghak that he had
not seen Dian or the others after releasing them within
the dark grotto. What had become of them he had not
the faintest conception--they might be wandering yet,
lost within the labyrinthine tunnel, if not dead
from starvation.
I was now still further apprehensive as to the fate
of Dian, and at this time, I imagine, came the first
realization that my affection for the girl might be
prompted by more than friendship. During my waking
hours she was constantly the subject of my thoughts,
and when I slept her dear face haunted my dreams.
More than ever was I determined to escape the Mahars.
"Perry, " I confided to the old man, "if I have to search
every inch of this diminutive world I am going to find
Dian the Beautiful and right the wrong I unintentionally
did her." That was the excuse I made for Perry's benefit.
"Diminutive world!" he scoffed. "You don't know what you
are talking about, my boy," and then he showed me a map
of Pellucidar which he had recently discovered among
the manuscript he was arranging.
"Look," he cried, pointing to it, "this is evidently water,
and all this land. Do you notice the general configuration
of the two areas? Where the oceans are upon the outer crust,
is land here. These relatively small areas of ocean follow
the general lines of the continents of the outer world.
"We know that the crust of the globe is 500 miles in thickness;
then the inside diameter of Pellucidar must be 7,000 miles,
and the superficial area 165,480,000 square miles.
Three-fourths of this is land. Think of it! A land area
of 124,110,000 square miles! Our own world contains
but 53,000,000 square miles of land, the balance of its
surface being covered by water. Just as we often compare
nations by their relative land areas, so if we compare
these two worlds in the same way we have the strange
anomaly of a larger world within a smaller one!
"Where within vast Pellucidar would you search for your
Dian? Without stars, or moon, or changing sun how could
you find her even though you knew where she might be found?"
The proposition was a corker. It quite took my breath away;
but I found that it left me all the more determined
to attempt it.
"If Ghak will accompany us we may be able to do it,"
I suggested.
Perry and I sought him out and put the question straight
to him.
"Ghak," I said, "we are determined to escape from
this bondage. Will you accompany us?"
"They will set the thipdars upon us," he said, "and then
we shall be killed; but--" he hesitated--"I would take
the chance if I thought that I might possibly escape
and return to my own people."
"Could you find your way back to your own land?" asked Perry.
"And could you aid David in his search for Dian?"
"Yes."
"But how," persisted Perry, "could you travel to strange
country without heavenly bodies or a compass to guide you?"
Ghak didn't know what Perry meant by heavenly bodies
or a compass, but he assured us that you might blindfold
any man of Pellucidar and carry him to the farthermost
corner of the world, yet he would be able to come directly
to his own home again by the shortest route. He seemed
surprised to think that we found anything wonderful in it.
Perry said it must be some sort of homing instinct such
as is possessed by certain breeds of earthly pigeons.
I didn't know, of course, but it gave me an idea.
"Then Dian could have found her way directly to her
own people?" I asked.
"Surely," replied Ghak, "unless some mighty beast of prey
killed her."
I was for making the attempted escape at once, but both Perry
and Ghak counseled waiting for some propitious accident
which would insure us some small degree of success.
I didn't see what accident could befall a whole community
in a land of perpetual daylight where the inhabitants had
no fixed habits of sleep. Why, I am sure that some of the
Mahars never sleep, while others may, at long intervals,
crawl into the dark recesses beneath their dwellings and
curl up in protracted slumber. Perry says that if a Mahar
stays awake for three years he will make up all his lost
sleep in a long year's snooze. That may be all true, but I
never saw but three of them asleep, and it was the sight
of these three that gave me a suggestion for our means of escape.
I had been searching about far below the levels that we
slaves were supposed to frequent--possibly fifty feet
beneath the main floor of the building--among a network
of corridors and apartments, when I came suddenly upon
three Mahars curled up upon a bed of skins. At first I
thought they were dead, but later their regular breathing
convinced me of my error. Like a flash the thought
came to me of the marvelous opportunity these sleeping
reptiles offered as a means of eluding the watchfulness
of our captors and the Sagoth guards.
Hastening back to Perry where he pored over a musty pile of,
to me, meaningless hieroglyphics, I explained my plan to him.
To my surprise he was horrified.
"It would be murder, David," he cried.
"Murder to kill a reptilian monster?" I asked in astonishment.
"Here they are not monsters, David," he replied.
"Here they are the dominant race--we are the 'monsters'--the
lower orders. In Pellucidar evolution has progressed
along different lines than upon the outer earth.
These terrible convulsions of nature time and time again
wiped out the existing species--but for this fact some
monster of the Saurozoic epoch might rule today upon
our own world. We see here what might well have occurred
in our own history had conditions been what they have been here.
"Life within Pellucidar is far younger than upon the outer crust.
Here man has but reached a stage analogous to the Stone
Age of our own world's history, but for countless millions
of years these reptiles have been progressing. Possibly it
is the sixth sense which I am sure they possess that has
given them an advantage over the other and more frightfully
armed of their fellows; but this we may never know.
They look upon us as we look upon the beasts of our fields,
and I learn from their written records that other races
of Mahars feed upon men--they keep them in great droves,
as we keep cattle. They breed them most carefully,
and when they are quite fat, they kill and eat them."
I shuddered.
"What is there horrible about it, David?" the old man asked.
"They understand us no better than we understand
the lower animals of our own world. Why, I have come
across here very learned discussions of the question
as to whether gilaks, that is men, have any means
of communication. One writer claims that we do not even
reason--that our every act is mechanical, or instinctive.
The dominant race of Pellucidar, David, have not yet
learned that men converse among themselves, or reason.
Because we do not converse as they do it is beyond them
to imagine that we converse at all. It is thus that we
reason in relation to the brutes of our own world.
They know that the Sagoths have a spoken language,
but they cannot comprehend it, or how it manifests itself,
since they have no auditory apparatus. They believe
that the motions of the lips alone convey the meaning.
That the Sagoths can communicate with us is incomprehensible
to them.
"Yes, David," he concluded, "it would entail murder
to carry out your plan."
"Very well then, Perry." I replied. "I shall become
a murderer."
He got me to go over the plan again most carefully,
and for some reason which was not at the time clear to me
insisted upon a very careful description of the apartments
and corridors I had just explored.
"I wonder, David," he said at length, "as you are determined
to carry out your wild scheme, if we could not accomplish
something of very real and lasting benefit for the human
race of Pellucidar at the same time. Listen, I have
learned much of a most surprising nature from these
archives of the Mahars. That you may not appreciate
my plan I shall briefly outline the history of the race.
"Once the males were all-powerful, but ages ago the females,
little by little, assumed the mastery. For other ages
no noticeable change took place in the race of Mahars.
It continued to progress under the intelligent and
beneficent rule of the ladies. Science took vast strides.
This was especially true of the sciences which we know
as biology and eugenics. Finally a certain female
scientist announced the fact that she had discovered
a method whereby eggs might be fertilized by chemical
means after they were laid--all true reptiles, you know,
are hatched from eggs.
"What happened? Immediately the necessity for males ceased
to exist--the race was no longer dependent upon them.
More ages elapsed until at the present time we find a race
consisting exclusively of females. But here is the point.
The secret of this chemical formula is kept by a single
race of Mahars. It is in the city of Phutra, and unless I
am greatly in error I judge from your description of the
vaults through which you passed today that it lies hidden
in the cellar of this building.
"For two reasons they hide it away and guard it jealously.
First, because upon it depends the very life of the race
of Mahars, and second, owing to the fact that when it
was public property as at first so many were experimenting
with it that the danger of over-population became very grave.
"David, if we can escape, and at the same time take with
us this great secret what will we not have accomplished
for the human race within Pellucidar!" The very thought
of it fairly overpowered me. Why, we two would be the
means of placing the men of the inner world in their
rightful place among created things. Only the Sagoths
would then stand between them and absolute supremacy,
and I was not quite sure but that the Sagoths owed all
their power to the greater intelligence of the Mahars--I
could not believe that these gorilla-like beasts
were the mental superiors of the human race of Pellucidar.
"Why, Perry," I exclaimed, "you and I may reclaim
a whole world! Together we can lead the races of men
out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of
advancement and civilization. At one step we may carry
them from the Age of Stone to the twentieth century.
It's marvelous--absolutely marvelous just to think about it."
"David," said the old man, "I believe that God sent us
here for just that purpose--it shall be my life work
to teach them His word--to lead them into the light
of His mercy while we are training their hearts and hands
in the ways of culture and civilization."
"You are right, Perry," I said, "and while you are teaching
them to pray I'll be teaching them to fight, and between
us we'll make a race of men that will be an honor to us both."
Ghak had entered the apartment some time before we
concluded our conversation, and now he wanted to know
what we were so excited about. Perry thought we had best
not tell him too much, and so I only explained that I
had a plan for escape. When I had outlined it to him,
he seemed about as horror-struck as Perry had been;
but for a different reason. The Hairy One only considered
the horrible fate that would be ours were we discovered;
but at last I prevailed upon him to accept my plan as
the only feasible one, and when I had assured him that I
would take all the responsibility for it were we captured,
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