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04 - At The Earth's Core - Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure Books Library

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Chapter four, Die in the Beautiful. When our guards arose us from sleep,
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we were much refreshed. They gave us food, strips of dried meat.
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It was, but it put a new life and strength into us,
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so that now we too marched with high held heads and took noble strides.
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At least I did, for I was young and proud. But poor Perry
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hated walking on earth. I had often seen him call a cab to travel
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a square. He was paying for it now, and his old legs wobbled,
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so that I put my arm about him and half carried him through the
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balance of those frightful marches. The country began to change at last, and
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we wound up out of the level plain through mighty mountains of virgin granite.
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The tropical verdure of the lowlands was replaced by heartier vegetation. But even here
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the effects of constant heat and light were apparent in the immensity of the trees
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and the pro fusion of foliage and blooms. Crystal streams roared through the rocky
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channels, fed by the perpetual snows, which we could see far above us.
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Above the snow capped heights hung masses of heavy clouds. It was these,
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Perry explained, which evidently served the double purpose of replenishing the melting snows
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and protecting them from the direct rays of the sun. By this time we
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had picked up a smattering of the bastard language in which our guards addressed us,
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as well as making good headway in the rather charming tongue of our co
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captives. Directly ahead of me in the chain gang was a young woman.
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Three feet of chain linked us together in a forced companionship which I at least
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soon rejoiced in, for I found her a willing teacher, and from her
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I learned the language of her tribe and much of the life and customs of
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the inner world, at least that part of it which she was familiar.
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She told me that she was called Diane the Beautiful, and that she belonged
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to the tribe of Amos, which dwells in the cliffs above the darrel As
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or shallow Sea. How came you here, I asked her. I was
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running away from Juwbel the ugly one. She answered, as though that was
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explanation quite sufficient. Who is Jubal the ugly one? I asked, and
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why did you run away from him? She looked at me in surprise.
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Why does a woman run away from a man? She answered my question with
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another. They do not where I come from, I replied, sometimes they
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run after them. But she could not understand, nor could I get her
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to grasp the fact that I was of another world. She was quite as
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positive that creation was originated solely to produce her own kind and the world she
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lived in, as are many of the outer world. But jubilisted tell me
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about him, and why you ran away to be chained by the neck and
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scourged across the face of a world. Jubil the Ugly One placed his trophy
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before my father's house. It was the head of a mighty tandor it remained
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there, and no greater trophy was placed beside it. So I knew that
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Jubal the Ugly One would come and take me as his mate. None other
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so powerful wished me, or they would have slain a mightier beast and thus
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have won me from Jubil. My father is not a mighty hunter. Once
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he was, but a zedak tossed him, and never again had he the
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full use of his right arm. My brother, Decor, the strong One,
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had gone to the land of Sari to steal a mate for himself.
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Thus there was none father, brother or lover to save me from Jubil the
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ugly one. And I ran away and hid among the hills that skirt the
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land of Amos, And there these sagoths found me and made me captive.
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What will they do with you? I asked? Where are they taking us?
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Again? She looked her incredulity. I can almost believe that you are
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of another world, she said, for otherwise such ignorance were inexplicable. Do
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you really mean that you do not know that the sagoths are the creatures of
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the mayors, the mighty mayors, who think they own Pellucidar and all that
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walks or grows upon its surface, or creeps or burrows beneath, or swims
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within its lakes and oceans, or flies through its air. Next you will
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be telling me that you've never before heard of the Mayor's I was loath to
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do it and further incur her scorn, but there was no alternative if I
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were to absorb knowledge. So I made a clean breast of my pitiful ignorance
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as to the mighty mayors. She was shocked, but she did her very
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best to enlighten me, though much that she said was as Greek would have
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been to her. She described the mayors largely by comparison. In this way,
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they were like unto Thipdars, in that to the hairless liddy. About
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all I gleaned of them was that they were quite hideous, had wings and
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webbed feet, lived in cities built beneath the ground, could swim under water
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for great distances, and were very, very wise. The Sagoths were their
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weapons of offense and defense, and the races, like herself, were their
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hands and feet. They were the slaves and servants who did all the manual
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labor. The mayors were the heads, the brains of the inner world.
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I longed to see this wondrous race of supermen. Perry learned the language with
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me when we halted, as we occasionally did, though sometimes the halts seemed
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ages apart. He would join in the conversation, as would Ghak, the
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hairy one. He who was chained just ahead of Dian the beautiful. Ahead
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of Ghak was Hooja, the sly one. He too, entered the conversation
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occasionally. Most of his remarks were directed towards Diane the beautiful. It didn't
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take half an eye to see that he had developed a bad case. But
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the girl appeared totally oblivious to his thinly veiled advances. Did I say,
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thinley Field. There is a race of men in New Zealand or Australia,
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I've forgotten which, who indicate their preference for the lady of their affections by
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banging her over the head with a bludgeon. By comparison with this method,
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Hooja's love making might be called thinley veild. At first it caused me to
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blush violently, although I have seen several old years out at Rector's and in
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other less fashionable places off Broadway, and in Vienna and Hamburg. But that
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girl, she was magnificent. It was easy to see that she considered herself
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as entirely above and apart from her present surroundings. In company. She talked
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with me and with Perry and with the taciturn Ghak, because we were respectful.
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But she couldn't even see Hooja the sly one, much less hear him,
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and that made him furious. He tried to get one of the Sagoths
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to move the girl up ahead of him in the slave gang, but the
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fellow only poked him with his spear and told him that he had selected the
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girl for his own property, that he would buy her from the mayors as
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soon as they reached Putra Poutra, it seemed was the city of our destination.
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After passing over the first chain of the mountains, we skirted a salt
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sea, upon whose bosom swam countless horrid things. Seal like creatures there were,
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with long necks stretching ten or more feet above their enormous bodies, and
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whose snake heads were split with gaping mouths bristling with countless fangs. There were
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huge tortoises, too, paddling about among these other reptiles, which Perry said
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were plesiosaurs of the Lias. I didn't question his veracity. They might have
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been most anything. Dian told me they were tandoraises or tandors of the sea,
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and that the other and more fearsome reptiles which occasionally rose from the deep
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to do battle with them, were as diaryths or sea dearyths. Perry called
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them ichtheosaurs. They resembled a whale with the head of an alligator. I
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had forgotten what little geology I had studied at school. About all that remained
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was an impression of horror that the illustrations of restored prehistoric monsters had made upon
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me, and a well defined belief that any man with a pig's shank and
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a vivid imagination could restore most any sort of paleolithic monster he saw fit and
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take rank as a first class paleontologist. But when I saw these sleek,
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shiny carcasses shimmering in the sunlight as they emerged from the ocean, shaking their
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giant heads, When I saw the waters roll from their sinuous bodies in miniature
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waterfalls, as they glided hither and thither, now upon the surface, now
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half submerged. As I saw them meat open mouthed, hissing and snorting in
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their titanic and interminable warring, I realized how futile is man's poor, weak
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imagination by comparison with nature's incredible genius. And Perry, he was absolutely flabbergasted.
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He said so himself. David, he remarked, after we had marched
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for a long time beside that awful sea. David, I used to teach
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geology, and I thought that I believed what I taught, But now I
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see that I did not believe it. That it is impossible for man to
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believe such things as these unless he sees them with his own eyes. We
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take things for granted, perhaps because we are told them over and over again
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and have no way of disproving them, like religions, for example, but
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we don't believe them. We only think we do. If you ever get
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back to the outer world, you will find that the geologists and paleontologists will
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be the first who set you down a liar, for they know that no
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such creatures as they restore ever existed. It is all right to imagine them
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as existing in an equally imaginary epoch. But now prove At the next halt
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Hooja, the sly One managed to find enough slack chain to permit him to
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worm himself back quite close to Diane. We were all standing, and as
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he edged near the girl, she turned her back upon him in such a
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truly earthly, feminine manner that I could scarce repress a smile. But it
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was a short lived smile, for on the instant the sly One's hand fell
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upon the girl's bare arm, jerking her roughly towards him. I was not
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then familiar with the customs or social ethics which prevailed within Pellucidar, But even
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so I did not need the appealing look to which the girl shot to me
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from her magnificent eyes to influence my subsequent act. What the sly one's intention
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was, I paused not to inquire, but instead, before he could lay
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hold of her with his other hand, I placed a right to the point
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of his jaw that felled him in his tracks. A roar of approval went
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up from those of the other prisoners and the Sagoths who had witnessed the brief
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drama, not as I later learned, because I had championed the girl,
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but for the knee and to them astounding method by which I had bested Hooja
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and the girl. At first she looked at me with wide, wondering eyes,
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and then she dropped her head, her face half averted, and a
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delicate flush suffused her cheeks. For a moment she stood thus in silence,
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and then her head went high, and she turned her back upon me as
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she had upon Hooja. Some of the prisoners laughed, and I saw the
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face of Ghak, the hairy one, go very black as he looked at
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me searchingly, and what I could see of Diane's cheek went suddenly from red
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to white. Immediately after we resumed the march, and though I realized that
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in some way I had offended Diane the Beautiful, I could not prevail upon
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her to talk with me that I might learn wherein I had erred. In
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fact, I might quite as well have been addressing a sphinx for all the
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attention I got. At last, my own foolish pride step in and prevented
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my making any further attempts, and thus a companionship that, without my realizing
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it had come to mean a great deal to me, was cut off.
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Hooja did not renew his advances toward the girl, nor did he again venture
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near me again. The weary and apparently interminable marching became a perfect nightmare of
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horrors to me. The more firmly fixed became the realization that the girl's friendship
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had meant so much to me, the more I came to miss it,
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and the more impregnable the barrier of silly pride. But I was very young
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and would not ask Ghak for the explanation which I was sure he could give,
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and that might have made everything all right again. On the march or
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during halts, Diane refused consistently to notice me. When her eyes wandered in
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my direction, she looked either over my head or directly through me. At
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last, I became desperate and determined to swallow my self esteem and again beg
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her to tell me how I had offended and how I might make reparation.
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I made up my mind that I should do this. At the next halt.
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We were approaching another range of mountains at the time, and when we
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reached them, instead of winding across them through some high flung pass we entered
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a mighty natural tunnel, a series of labyrinthian grottos, dark as erebus.
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The guards had no torches or lights of any description. In fact, we
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had seen no artificial light or sign of fire since we had entered Pellucidar.
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In a land of perpetual noon, there is no need of light above ground.
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Yet I marveled that they had no means of lighting their way through these
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dark, subterranean passages. So we crept along at a snail's pace, with
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much stumbling and falling, the guards keeping up a singing song chant ahead of
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us, interspersed with certain high notes which I found always indicated rough places and
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turns Aults were now more frequent. But I did not wish to speak to
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Diane until I could see from the expression of her face how she was receiving
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my apologies. At last, a faint glow ahead forewarned us of the end
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of the tunnel, for which I, for one was devoutly thankful. Then
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at a sudden turn, we emerged into the full light of the noonday sun.
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But with it came a sudden realization of what meant to me a real
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catastrophe. Diane was gone, and with her a half dozen other prisoners.
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The guard saw it too, and the ferocity of their rage was terrible to
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behold. Their awesome, beastial faces were contorted in the most diabolical expressions as
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they accused each other of responsibility for the loss. Finally they fell upon us,
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beating us with their spear shafts and hatchets. They had already killed two
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near the head of the line, and were like to have finished the balance
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of us when their leader finally put a stop to the brutal slaughter. Never
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in all my life had I witnessed a more horrible exhibition of beastial rage.
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I thanked God that Diane had not been one of those left to endure it.
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Of the twelve prisoners who had been chained ahead of me, each alternate
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one had been freed. Commencing with Diane, Hooja was gone. Ghak remained,
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what could it mean? How had it been accomplished? The commander of
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the guards was investigating. Soon he discovered that the rude locks which had held
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the neck bands in place had been deftly picked. Hooja, the sly one,
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murmured, Ghak, who is now next to me in line? He
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has taken the girl that you would not have, he continued, glancing at
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me, that I would not have. I cried, what do you mean?
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He looked at me closely for a moment. I have doubted your story,
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that you are from another world, he said at last, But yet
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upon no other ground could your ignorance of the ways of Pellucidar be explained.
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Do you really mean that you do not know that you have offended the beautiful
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one? And how I do not know? Ghak? I replied, Then
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I shall tell you when a man of Pellucidar intervenes between another man and the
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woman, the other man would have the woman belongs to the victor. Dian
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the Beautiful belongs to you. You should have claimed her or released her.
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Had you taken her hand, it would have indicated your desire to make her
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your mate. And had you raised her hand above her head and then dropped
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it, it would have meant that you did not wish her for your mate,
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and that you released her from all obligations to you. By doing neither,
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you have put upon her the greatest affront that any man may put upon
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a woman. Now she is your slave. No man will take her as
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a mate, or may take her honorably, until he shall have overcome you
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in con and men do not choose slave women as their mates, at least
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not the men of Pellucidar. I did not know, ghak, I cried,
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I did not know. Not for all Pellucidar, would I have harmed
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Dian the Beautiful by word or look or act of mine. I do not
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want her as my slave. I do not want her as my But here
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I stopped the vision of that sweet, innocent face floated before me amidst the
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soft mists of imagination, and where I had, on the second, believed
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that I clung only to the memory of a gentle friendship I had lost.
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Yet now it seemed that it would have been disloyalty to her to have said
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that I did not want Diane the Beautiful as my mate. I have not
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thought of her except as a welcome friend in a strange, cruel world.
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Even now I did not think that I loved her. I believe Ghak must
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have read the truth more in my expression than in my words, For presently
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he laid his hand upon my shoulder. Men of another world, he said,
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I believe you lips may lie, but when the heart speaks through the
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eyes, it tells only the truth. Your heart has spoken to me.
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I know now that you meant no affront to Dian the Beautiful. She is
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not of my tribe, but her mother is my sister. She does not
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know it. Her mother was stolen by Dian's father, who came with others
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from the tribe of Amos to battle with us for our women, the most
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beautiful women of Pellucidar. Then was her father the king of Amos, and
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her mother was daughter of the king of Sari, to whose power I his
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son, have succeeded. Diane is the daughter of kings, though her father
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is no longer king, since this Sadok tossed him and Jubile the ugly One
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wrested his kingship from him. Because of her lineage, the wrong you did
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her was greatly magnified in the eyes of all who saw it. She will
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never forgive you, I am asked Ghak, if there was not some way
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in which I could release the girl from the bondage and ignominy I had unwittingly
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placed upon her. If ever you find her, yes, he answered,
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Merely to raise her hand above her head and drop it in the presence of
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others is sufficient to release her. But how may you ever find her,
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You, who are doomed to a life of slavery yourself in the buried city
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of Putra. Is there no escape? I asked Hooja. The sly One
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escaped and took the others with him, replied Ghak. But there are no
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more dark places on the way to Putra, and once there it is not
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so easy. The mayors are very wise. Even if one escaped from Putra,
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there are the thipdars. They would find you, and then the hairy
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one shuddered, No, you will never escape the mayors. It was a
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cheerful prospect. I asked Perry what he thought about it, but he only
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shrugged his shoulders and continued a long window prayer he had been at for some
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time. He was wont to say that the only redeeming feature of our captivity
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was the ample time it gave him for the improvisation of prayers. It was
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becoming an obsession with him. The Sagoths had begun to take notice of his
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habit of declaiming throughout entire marches. One of them asked him what he was
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saying to whom he was talking. The question gave me an idea, so
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I answered quickly before Perry could say anything. Do not interrupt him. I
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said, he is a very holy man in the world from which we come.
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He is speaking to spirits which you cannot see. Do not interrupt him,
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or they will spring out of the air upon you and rind you limb
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from limb. Like that, and I jumped towards the great brute with a
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loud boo that sent him stumbling backward. I took a long chance, I
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realized, but if we could make any capital out of Perry's harmless Mania.
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I wanted to make it. While the making was it worked splendidly. The
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Sagoths treated us both with marked respect during the balance of our journey, and
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then passed the word along to their masters, the mayors. Two marches after
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this episode, we came to the city of Putra. The entrance to it
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was marked by two lofty towers of granite, which guarded a flight of steps
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leading to the buried city. Sagoths were on guard here, as well as
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at a hundred or more other towers scattered about over a large plain. End
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of Chapter four