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05 - At The Earth's Core - Edgar Rice Burroughs · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five Slaves. As we descended the broad staircase which
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  Speaker 1: led to the main avenue of Phutra, I caught my
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  Speaker 1: first sight of the dominant race of the inner world. Involuntarily,
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  Speaker 1: I shrank back as one of the creatures approached to
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  Speaker 1: inspect us. A more hideous thing it would be impossible
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  Speaker 1: to imagine. The all powerful Mahars of Pellucidar are great reptiles,
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  Speaker 1: some six or eight feet in length, with long, narrow
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  Speaker 1: heads and great round eyes. Their beak like mouths are
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  Speaker 1: lined with sharp white fangs, and the backs of their
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  Speaker 1: huge lizard bodies are serrated into bony ridges from their
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  Speaker 1: necks to the end of their long tails. Their feet
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  Speaker 1: are equipped with three webbed toes, while from the four
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  Speaker 1: feet membranous wings, which are attached to their bodies just
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  Speaker 1: in front of the hind legs, protruded at an angle
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  Speaker 1: of forty five degrees toward the rear, ending in sharp
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  Speaker 1: points several feet above their bodies. I glanced at Perry
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  Speaker 1: as the thing passed me to inspect him. The old
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  Speaker 1: man was gazing at the hard creatures with wide, astonished eyes.
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  Speaker 1: When it passed on. He turned to me a Rampherhnkus
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  Speaker 1: of the middle Olitic David, He said, but gad, how enormous.
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  Speaker 1: The largest remains we've ever discovered have never indicated a
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  Speaker 1: size greater than that attained by an ordinary crow. As
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  Speaker 1: we continued on through the main avenue of Phutra, we
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  Speaker 1: saw many thousand of the creatures coming and going upon
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  Speaker 1: their daily duties. They paid but little attention to us.
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  Speaker 1: Phutra is laid out underground with a regularity that indicates
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  Speaker 1: remarkable engineering skill. It is hewn from solid limestone strata.
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  Speaker 1: The streets are broad and of a uniform height of
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  Speaker 1: twenty feet At intervals. Tubes pierced the roof of this
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  Speaker 1: underground city, and by means of lenses and reflectors transmit
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  Speaker 1: the sunlight softened and diffused to dispel what would otherwise
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  Speaker 1: be Simerian darkness. In like manner, air is introduced. Perry
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  Speaker 1: and I were taken with Ghak to a large public building,
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  Speaker 1: where one of the Sagoths who had formed our guard
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  Speaker 1: explained to Maharan official the circumstances surrounding our capture. The
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  Speaker 1: method of communication between these two was remarkable in that
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  Speaker 1: no spoken words were exchanged. They employed a species of
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  Speaker 1: sign language. As I was to learn later, the Mahars
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  Speaker 1: have no ears, not any spoken language among themselves. They
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  Speaker 1: communicate by means of what Perry says must be a
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  Speaker 1: sixth sense, which is cognizant of a fourth dimension. I
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  Speaker 1: never did quite grasp him, though he endeavored to explain
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  Speaker 1: it to me. Upon numerous occasions. I suggested telepathy, but
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  Speaker 1: he said no, that it was not telepathy, since they
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  Speaker 1: could only communicate when in each other's presence. Nor could
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  Speaker 1: they talk with the Sagoths or the other inhabitants of
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  Speaker 1: Pellucidar by the same method they used to converse with
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  Speaker 1: one another. What they do, said Perry, is to project
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  Speaker 1: their thoughts into the fourth dimension when they become appreciable
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  Speaker 1: to the sixth sense of their listener. Do I make
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  Speaker 1: myself quite clear, you do not, Perry, I replied. He
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  Speaker 1: shook his head in despair and returned to his work.
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  Speaker 1: They had set us to carrying a great accumulation of
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  Speaker 1: Maharan literature from one apartment to another, and there arranging
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  Speaker 1: it upon shelves. I suggested to Perry that we were
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  Speaker 1: in the public library of Phutra, but later, as he
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  Speaker 1: commenced to discover the key, to their written language. He
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  Speaker 1: assured me that we were handling the ancient archives of
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  Speaker 1: the race. During this period, my thoughts were continually upon
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  Speaker 1: Dian the Beautiful. I was, of course glad that she
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  Speaker 1: had escaped the Mahars, and the fate had been suggested
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  Speaker 1: by the Sagoth, who had threatened to purchase her. Upon
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  Speaker 1: our arrival at Phutra, I often wondered if the little
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  Speaker 1: party of fugitives had been overtaken by the guards who
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  Speaker 1: had returned to search for them. Sometimes I was not
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  Speaker 1: so sure, But I should have been more contented to
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  Speaker 1: know that Dian was here in Phutra than to think
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  Speaker 1: of her at the mercy of Hooja. The sly one Ghak,
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  Speaker 1: Perry and I often talked together of possible escape, But
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  Speaker 1: the Sarian was so steeped in his life long belief
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  Speaker 1: that no one could escape from the Mahars except by
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  Speaker 1: a miracle, that he was not much aid to us.
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  Speaker 1: His attitude was of one who waits for the miracle
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  Speaker 1: to come to him. At my suggestion, Perry and I
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  Speaker 1: fashioned some swords of scraps of iron, which we discovered
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  Speaker 1: among some rubbish in the cells where we slept, for
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  Speaker 1: we were permitted almost unrestrained freedom of action within the
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  Speaker 1: limits of the building to which we had been assigned.
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  Speaker 1: So great were the number of slaves who waited upon
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  Speaker 1: the inhabitants of Phutra, that none of us was apt
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  Speaker 1: to be overburdened with work, nor were our masters unkind
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  Speaker 1: to us. We hid our new weapons beneath the skins
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  Speaker 1: which formed our beds, and then Perry conceived the idea
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  Speaker 1: of making bows and arrows, weapons apparently unknown within Pellucidar.
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  Speaker 1: Next came shields, but these I found it easier to
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  Speaker 1: steal from the walls of the outer guard room of
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  Speaker 1: the building. We had completed these arrangements for our protection
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  Speaker 1: after leaving Phutra. When the Sagoths who had been sent
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  Speaker 1: to recapture the escaped prisoners, returned with four of them,
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  Speaker 1: of whom Hooja was One Diane and two others had
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  Speaker 1: eluded them. It so happened that Hooja was confined in
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  Speaker 1: the same building with us. He told Ghak that he
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  Speaker 1: had not seen Diane or the others after releasing them
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  Speaker 1: within the dark grotto. What had become of them. He
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  Speaker 1: had not the faintest conception they might be wandering yet
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  Speaker 1: lost within the labyrinthine tunnel, if not dead from starvation,
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  Speaker 1: I was now still further apprehensive as to the fate
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  Speaker 1: of Diane, And at this time, I imagine, came the
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  Speaker 1: first realization that my affection for the girl might be
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  Speaker 1: prompted by more than friendship. During my waking hours, she
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  Speaker 1: was constantly the subject of my thoughts, and when I slept,
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  Speaker 1: her dear face haunted my dreams more than ever. I
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  Speaker 1: was determined to escape the Mahars Parry, I confided to
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  Speaker 1: the old man, if I have to search every inch
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  Speaker 1: of this diminutive world, I am going to find Dian,
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  Speaker 1: the beautiful and right the wrong that I unintentionally did her.
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  Speaker 1: That was the use I made for Perry's benefit. Diminutive world.
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  Speaker 1: He scoffed, you don't know what you're talking about, my boy,
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  Speaker 1: and then he showed me a map of Pellucidar, which
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  Speaker 1: he had recently discovered among the manuscript he was arranging. Look,
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  Speaker 1: he cried, pointing to it. This is evidently water in
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  Speaker 1: all this land. Do you notice the general configuration of
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  Speaker 1: the two areas where the oceans are upon the outer
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  Speaker 1: crust is land. Here, these relatively small areas of ocean
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  Speaker 1: follow the general lines of the continents of the outer world.
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  Speaker 1: We know that the crust of the globe is five
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  Speaker 1: hundred miles in thickness, then the inside diameter of Pellucidar
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  Speaker 1: must be seven thousand miles, and the superficial area one
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  Speaker 1: hundred sixty five million, four hundred and eighty thousand square
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  Speaker 1: miles three fourths of this is land. Think of it
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  Speaker 1: a land area of one hundred and twenty four million,
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and ten thousand square miles. Our own world
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  Speaker 1: contains but fifty three million square miles of land, the
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  Speaker 1: balance of its surface being covered by water. Just as
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  Speaker 1: we often compare nations by their relative land areas, so
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  Speaker 1: if we compare these two worlds in the same way,
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  Speaker 1: we have the strange anomaly of a larger world within
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  Speaker 1: a smaller one. Where with invest Pellucidar, would you search
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  Speaker 1: for your Diane without stars or moon or changing sun,
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  Speaker 1: How could you find her even though you knew where
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  Speaker 1: she might be found? The proposition was a corker. It
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  Speaker 1: quite took my breath away, but I found that it
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  Speaker 1: left me all the more determined to attempt it. If
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  Speaker 1: Ghak will accompany us, we may be able to do it.
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  Speaker 1: I suggested Perry, and I sought him out and put
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  Speaker 1: the question straight to him. Ghak, I said, we are
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  Speaker 1: determined to escape from this bondage. Will you accompany us?
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  Speaker 1: They will set the thipdars upon us, he said, and
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  Speaker 1: then we shall be killed. But he hesitated. I would
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  Speaker 1: take the chance if I thought that I might possibly
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  Speaker 1: escape and return to my own people. Could you find
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  Speaker 1: your way back to your own land, asked Perry. And
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  Speaker 1: could you aid David in his search for Diane? Yes?
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  Speaker 1: But how persisted Perry. Could you travel to strange country
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  Speaker 1: without heavenly bodies or a compass to guide you? Ghak
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  Speaker 1: didn't know what Perry meant by heavenly bodies or a
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  Speaker 1: company us, but he assured us that you might blindfold
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  Speaker 1: any man of Pellucidar and carry him to the farthest
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  Speaker 1: corner of the world. Yet he would be able to
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  Speaker 1: come directly to his own home again by the shortest route.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed a surprised to think that we found anything
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  Speaker 1: wonderful in it. Perry said, it must be some sort
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  Speaker 1: of homing instinct, such as is possessed by certain breeds
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  Speaker 1: of earthly pigeons. I didn't know, of course, but it
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  Speaker 1: gave me an idea. Then Diane could have found her
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  Speaker 1: way directly to her own people, I asked, surely, replied Ghak,
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  Speaker 1: unless some mighty beast of prey killed her. I was
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  Speaker 1: for making the attempted escape at once, but both Perry
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  Speaker 1: and Ghak counseled waiting for some propitious accident which would
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  Speaker 1: insure us some small degree of success. I didn't see
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  Speaker 1: what accident could befall a whole community in a land
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  Speaker 1: of perpetual daylight, where the inhabitants had no fixed habits
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  Speaker 1: of sleep. Why, I am sure that some of the
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  Speaker 1: Mahars never sleep, while others may, at long intervals crawl
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  Speaker 1: into the dark recesses beneath their dwellings and curl up
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  Speaker 1: in protracted slumber. Perry says that if a Mahar stays
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  Speaker 1: awake for three years, he will make up all his
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  Speaker 1: lost sleep in a long year's snooze. That may all
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  Speaker 1: be true, But I never saw but three of them asleep.
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  Speaker 1: It was the sight of these three that gave me
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  Speaker 1: a suggestion for our means of escape. I had been
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  Speaker 1: searching out far below the levels that we slaves were
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  Speaker 1: supposed to frequent, possibly fifty feet beneath the main floor
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  Speaker 1: of the building, among a network of corridors and apartments,
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  Speaker 1: when I came suddenly upon three mahars curled up upon
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  Speaker 1: a bed of skins. At first I thought they were dead,
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  Speaker 1: but later their regular breathing convinced me of my error.
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  Speaker 1: Like a flash, the thought came to me of the
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  Speaker 1: marvelous opportunity these sleeping reptiles offered as a means of
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  Speaker 1: eluding the watchfulness of our captors and the Sagoth guards.
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  Speaker 1: Hastening back to Perry, where he pored over a musty
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  Speaker 1: pile of to me meaningless hieroglyphics, I explained my plan
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  Speaker 1: to him. To my surprise, he was horrified. It would
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  Speaker 1: be murder. David, he cried, to kill a reptilian monster,
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  Speaker 1: I asked, in astonishment. Here they are not monsters, David,
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  Speaker 1: he replied, Here they are the dominant race. We are
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  Speaker 1: the monsters. The lower orders. In Pellucidar, evolution has progressed
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  Speaker 1: along different lines that upon the outer Earth. These terrible
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  Speaker 1: convulsions of nature time and time again wiped out the
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  Speaker 1: existing species. But for this fact, some monster of the
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  Speaker 1: Saurozoic epoch might rule today. Upon our own world. We
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  Speaker 1: see here what might well have occurred in our own history,
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  Speaker 1: had conditions been what they have been. Here. Life within
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  Speaker 1: Pellucidar is far younger than upon the outer crust. Here
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  Speaker 1: man has but reached a stage analogous to the stone
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  Speaker 1: age of our own world's history. But for countless millions
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  Speaker 1: of years these reptiles have been progressing. Possibly it is
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  Speaker 1: the sixth sense, which I am sure they possess, that
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  Speaker 1: has given an advantage over the other and more frightfully
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  Speaker 1: armed of their fellows. But this we may never know.
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  Speaker 1: They look upon us as we look upon the beasts
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  Speaker 1: of our fields. From their written records that other races
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  Speaker 1: of Mahars feed upon men. They keep them in great droves,
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  Speaker 1: as we keep cattle. They breed them most carefully, and
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  Speaker 1: when they are quite fat, they kill and eat them.
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  Speaker 1: I shuddered, What is there horrible about it? David the
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  Speaker 1: old man asked, They understand us no better than we
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  Speaker 1: understand the lower animals of our own world. Why I
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  Speaker 1: have come across here? Varied learned discussions of the questions
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  Speaker 1: as to whether gilaks, that is, men have any means
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  Speaker 1: of communication. One writer claims that we do not even
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  Speaker 1: reason that our every act is mechanical or instinctive. The
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  Speaker 1: dominant race of Pellucidar David have not yet learned that
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  Speaker 1: men converse among themselves or reason. Because we do not
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  Speaker 1: converse as they do. Is beyond them to imagine that
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  Speaker 1: we converse at all. It is thus that we reason
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  Speaker 1: in relation to the brutes of our own world. They
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  Speaker 1: know that the Sagoths have a spoken language, but they
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  Speaker 1: cannot comprehend it or how it manifests itself, since they
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  Speaker 1: have no auditory apparatus. They believe that the motion of
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  Speaker 1: the lips alone convey the meeting. That the Sagoths can
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  Speaker 1: communicate with us is incomprehensible to them. Yes, David, he concluded,
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  Speaker 1: it would entail murder to carry out your plan very well, then, Perry,
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  Speaker 1: I replied, I shall become a murderer. He got me
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  Speaker 1: to go over the plan again most carefully, and for
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  Speaker 1: some reason which was not the time clear to me,
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  Speaker 1: insisted upon a very careful description of the apartments and quarters.
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  Speaker 1: I just explored. I wonder, David, he said, at length,
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  Speaker 1: as you are determined to carry out your wild scheme,
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  Speaker 1: if we could not accomplish something of very real and
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  Speaker 1: lasting benefit for the human race of Pellucidar. At the
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  Speaker 1: same time, listen, I have learned much of a most
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  Speaker 1: surprising nature from these archives of the Mahars, that you
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  Speaker 1: may not appreciate my plan. I shall briefly outline the
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  Speaker 1: history of the race. Once the males were all powerful,
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  Speaker 1: but ages ago, the females, little by little assumed the mastery.
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  Speaker 1: For other ages, no noticeable change took place in the
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  Speaker 1: race of Mahars. It continued to progress of the intelligent
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  Speaker 1: and beneficent rule of the ladies. Science took vast strides.
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  Speaker 1: This was especially true of the sciences which we know
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  Speaker 1: as biology and eugenics. Finally, a certain female scientist announced
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  Speaker 1: the fact that she had discovered a method whereby eggs
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  Speaker 1: might be fertilized by chemical means after they were laid.
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  Speaker 1: All true reptiles, you know, are hatched from eggs. What
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  Speaker 1: happened immediately the necessity for males ceased to exist. The
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  Speaker 1: race was no longer dependent upon them. More ages elapsed,
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  Speaker 1: until at the present time we find a race consisting
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  Speaker 1: exclusively of females. But here is the point. The secret
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  Speaker 1: of this chemical formula is kept by a single race
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  Speaker 1: of Mahars. It is in the city of Phutra, And
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  Speaker 1: unless I am greatly in error, I judge from your
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  Speaker 1: description of the vaults through which she passed to day
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  Speaker 1: that it lies hidden in the cellar of this building.
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  Speaker 1: For two reasons, they hide it away and guard it jealously.
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  Speaker 1: First because upon it depends the very life of the
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  Speaker 1: race of the Mahars, and second, owing to the fact that,
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  Speaker 1: when it was public property, as at first, so many
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  Speaker 1: were experimenting with it that the danger of over population
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  Speaker 1: became very grave. David, if we can escape and at
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  Speaker 1: the same time take with us this great secret, what
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  Speaker 1: will we not have accomplished for the human race within Pellucidar.
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  Speaker 1: The very thought of it fairly overpowered me. Why we
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  Speaker 1: two would be the means of placing the men of
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  Speaker 1: the inner world in their rightful place among created things.
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  Speaker 1: Only the Sagoths would then stand between them and absolute supremacy.
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  Speaker 1: And I was not quite sure, but that the Sagoths
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  Speaker 1: owed all their power to the greater intelligence of the Mahars.
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  Speaker 1: I could not believe that these gorilla like beasts were
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  Speaker 1: the mental superiors of the human race of Pellucidar. Why, Perry,
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  Speaker 1: I exclaimed, you and I may reclaim a whole world. Together,
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  Speaker 1: we can lead the races of men out of the
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  Speaker 1: darkness of ignorance into the light of advancement and civilization.
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  Speaker 1: At one step, we may carry them from the age
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  Speaker 1: of stuf Own to the twentieth century. It's marvelous, absolutely marvelous,
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  Speaker 1: just to think about it, David said the old man.
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  Speaker 1: I believe that God sent us here for just that purpose.
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  Speaker 1: It shall be my life work to teach them his word,
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  Speaker 1: to lead them into the light of His mercy. While
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  Speaker 1: we are training their hearts and hands in the ways
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  Speaker 1: of culture and civilization. You are right, Perry, I said,
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  Speaker 1: And while you are teaching them to pray, I'll be
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  Speaker 1: teaching them to fight. And between us we'll make a
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  Speaker 1: race of men that will be an honor to us both.
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  Speaker 1: Ghak had entered the apartment some time before we concluded
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  Speaker 1: our conversation, and now he wanted to know what we
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  Speaker 1: were so excited about. Parry thought we had best not
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  Speaker 1: tell him too much, and so I only explained that
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I had a plan for escape. When I had outlined
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  Speaker 1: it to him. He seemed about as horror struck as
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Perry had been, but for a different reason. The Hairy
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  Speaker 1: One only considered the horrible fate that would be ours
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  Speaker 1: were we discovered. But at last I prevailed upon him
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  Speaker 1: to accept my plan as the only feasible one, And
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  Speaker 1: when I had assured him that I would take all
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  Speaker 1: the responsibility for it were we captured, he accorded a
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  Speaker 1: reluctant assent end of Chapter five.