Pellucidar

y 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

ch had carried me to Pellucidar and back again, and wh

o a vertical position-the nose deep in a hole we had dug in the sand and

their wilder mounts to do the work of an electric crane-b

d herself virtually a prisoner aboard the "iron mole." It had been, of course, impossible for me to communicate with

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

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

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

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

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

me-as it would continue to do to the end of it. Before me, across the wide sea, the weird, horizonless seascape folded g

rom the flat and puny area of the circumscrib

former friends of this strange and savage world. Never again might I see dear old Perry, nor Ghak the Hairy On

terrible, grotesque and savage though she is in many of her aspects, I can not but l

ties enthralled me. Her mighty land

n wonders unsullied by the eye of man, be

world of my nativity. I was in Pellu

earth's crust, my traveling companion, the hideous Mahar, emerged from the inter

g through the convolution

not

By a strange freak of evolution her kind had first de

ings of her kind in the buried city of Phutra, it was still an open question among the Ma

which was Pellucidar. This cavity had been left there for the sole purpose of providing a place for the cre

effect had been upon her of passing through the earth's crust, and coming out into a world that one of e

ght of the outer

her of the moon and myriad sta

he explai

ath the western horizon, leaving in his wake that which the Mahar had never before witnessed-the darkness of night? For up

rospector which had bored its way from world to world and back again. And

ival of the caravan of books and arms, and ammunition, and the balance of the heterogeneous c

er transcending in scientific achievement anything that her race

the mind of the Mahar-there were other worlds th

-shooter-somehow I had been unable to find the same sensation of security in the newfangled automatics tha

ease, for I knew intuitively th

osition of the human race within Pellucidar would be advanced immensely at a single str

e paused and looked back at me. Th

no more of her as she luxu

e rose and there for another short

score of times and rose above the blue sea. A single time she

nt haze enveloped her and she

lucidar I might be-and in what direction lay the

guess in which di

out to sear

, firearms, ammunition, scientific instruments, and still more books-its great

s vast storehouse of potential civilization a

ned here alone with it, what co

th

ars, no moon, and only a stationary midday sun, how was I to fi

dn't

t one of the compasses I had brought and ascertain if it remained steadily fixed

eedle might not be influenced by its great bulk of iron and s

int straight out to sea, apparently pointing toward a large isl

aphical sketch of the locality within the range of my vision

, flat boulder which rose six or eight feet above the turf. This

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

made a little circle in my note-book

search with some assurance of finding

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

f pedometers. I slipped three of these into my pockets with the idea that I mi

east, so many west, and so on. When I was ready to ret

my shoulders, pocketed some matches, and hooked an aluminum

y to go forth an

0,000 square miles for my friends, my

prospector, I set out upon my quest. Due south I travel

way and up the slopes of mighty mountains s

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

igantic beasts of prey, I used my express rifle, bu

ed and terrible, even my powerful rifle seemed pitifully inadequate-but fortune favored me so that I passed unsc

thing went wrong with my watch, and I was again at the mercy of the baffling timelessness of Pel

st have elapsed, possibly months with no f

llucidar, in its land area, is immense, while the human ra

foot to touch the soil in many places-mine the first huma

onely way through this virgin world. Then, quite suddenly, one day I stepped ou

ppene

ew the lovely little valley that lay before me. At one side was tangled wood, while straight ahead a r

not looked upon similar landscapes countless times, a sound of shouting broke from the directio

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

and a moment later a score of half-naked savages would com

that I could anticipate to a nicety precisely what I was about to witness. I h

from the forest. But it was no terrified four-footed beas

ible fate, if one could judge from the horrified expressions he continua

-men who guard the mighty Mahars in their buried cities, faring forth from time to time upon slave-raiding or punitive expeditions against t

ull dozen raced, shouting after the terror-stricken ol

ling him, his back-thrown spear

expected blow, I realized a past familiarity

Y! That he was about to die before my very eyes with no hope that I could reach

s my bes

pon as more than friend. Sh

ers at my belt; one does not readily synchronize his thought

e stone age, and in my thoughts of the st

had gripped me. From behind my boulder I threw up the heavy express rifle-a mighty engine of destruction that

stopped stock-still. His s

ed forward u

ng of the loud report or explained its connection with the sudden collapse of the Sagoth. The other gori

my revolvers that I might conserve the more precious ammunition

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

antagonists. Then at last the remaining seven wavered. It was too much for th

he recognized me. I have no words wherewith to describe it. There was not time to talk then-scarce for a greeting. I thrust

probably as much by the noise of the guns as by their effects. They never re

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