WHEN OUR GUARDS AROUSED US FROM SLEEP WE were much refreshed.They gave us food. Strips of dried meat it was, but itput new life and strength into us, so that now we toomarched with high-held heads, and took noble strides.At least I did, for I was young and proud; but poor Perryhated walking. On earth I had often seen him call a cabto travel a square--he was paying for it now, and his oldlegs wobbled so that I put my arm about him and half carriedhim through the balance of those frightful marches.

The country began to change at last, and we wound upout of the level plain through mighty mountains ofvirgin granite. The tropical verdure of the lowlands wasreplaced by hardier vegetation, but even here the effectsof constant heat and light were apparent in the immensityof the trees and the profusion of foliage and blooms.Crystal streams roared through their rocky channels,fed by the perpetual snows which we could see far above us.Above the snowcapped heights hung masses of heavy clouds.It was these, Perry explained, which evidently servedthe double purpose of replenishing the melting snows andprotecting them from the direct rays of the sun.

By this time we had picked up a smattering of the bastardlanguage in which our guards addressed us, as wellas making good headway in the rather charming tongueof our co-captives. Directly ahead of me in the chaingang was a young woman. Three feet of chain linked ustogether in a forced companionship which I, at least,soon rejoiced in. For I found her a willing teacher,and from her I learned the language of her tribe,and much of the life and customs of the inner world--atleast that part of it with which she was familiar.

She told me that she was called Dian the Beautiful,and that she belonged to the tribe of Amoz, which dwellsin the cliffs above the Darel Az, or shallow sea.

"How came you here?" I asked her.

"I was running away from Jubal the Ugly One," she answered,as though that was explanation quite sufficient.

"Who is Jubal the Ugly One?" I asked. "And why did yourun away from him?"

She looked at me in surprise.

"Why DOES a woman run away from a man?" she answeredmy question with another.

"They do not, where I come from," I replied."Sometimes they run after them."

But she could not understand. Nor could I get her to graspthe fact that I was of another world. She was quite aspositive that creation was originated solely to produce herown kind and the world she lived in as are many of the outerworld.

"But Jubal," I insisted. "Tell me about him, and why youran away to be chained by the neck and scourged acrossthe face of a world."

"Jubal the Ugly One placed his trophy before my father's house.It was the head of a mighty tandor. It remained thereand no greater trophy was placed beside it. So I knewthat Jubal the Ugly One would come and take me as his mate.None other so powerful wished me, or they would haveslain a mightier beast and thus have won me from Jubal.My father is not a mighty hunter. Once he was,but a sadok tossed him, and never again had he the fulluse of his right arm. My brother, Dacor the Strong One,had gone to the land of Sari to steal a mate for himself.Thus there was none, father, brother, or lover, to saveme from Jubal the Ugly One, and I ran away and hid amongthe hills that skirt the land of Amoz. And there theseSagoths found me and made me captive."

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

Again she looked her incredulity.

"I can almost believe that you are of another world,"she said, "for otherwise such ignorance were inexplicable.Do you really mean that you do not know that the Sagothsare the creatures of the Mahars--the mighty Mahars whothink they own Pellucidar and all that walks or growsupon its surface, or creeps or burrows beneath, or swimswithin its lakes and oceans, or flies through its air?Next you will be telling me that you never before heardof the Mahars!"

I was loath to do it, and further incur her scorn;but there was no alternative if I were to absorb knowledge,so I made a clean breast of my pitiful ignorance as to themighty Mahars. She was shocked. But she did her very bestto enlighten me, though much that she said was as Greekwould have been to her. She described the Mahars largelyby comparisons. In this way they were like unto thipdars,in that to the hairless lidi.

About all I gleaned of them was that they werequite hideous, had wings, and webbed feet; lived incities built beneath the ground; could swim underwater for great distances, and were very, very wise.The Sagoths were their weapons of offense and defense,and the races like herself were their hands and feet--theywere the slaves and servants who did all the manual labor.The Mahars were the heads--the brains--of the inner world.I longed to see this wondrous race of supermen.

Perry learned the language with me. When we halted,as we occasionally did, though sometimes the halts seemedages apart, he would join in the conversation, as wouldGhak the Hairy One, he who was chained just ahead of Dianthe Beautiful. Ahead of Ghak was Hooja the Sly One.He too entered the conversation occasionally. Most ofhis remarks were directed toward Dian the Beautiful.It didn't take half an eye to see that he had developeda bad case; but the girl appeared totally obliviousto his thinly veiled advances. Did I say thinly veiled?There is a race of men in New Zealand, or Australia,I have forgotten which, who indicate their preferencefor the lady of their affections by banging her overthe head with a bludgeon. By comparison with this methodHooja's lovemaking might be called thinly veiled.At first it caused me to blush violently although Ihave seen several Old Years out at Rectors, and in otherless fashionable places off Broadway, and in Vienna,and Hamburg.

But the girl! She was magnificent. It was easy to seethat she considered herself as entirely above and apart fromher present surroundings and company. She talked with me,and with Perry, and with the taciturn Ghak because wewere respectful; but she couldn't even see Hooja theSly One, much less hear him, and that made him furious.He tried to get one of the Sagoths to move the girl upahead of him in the slave gang, but the fellow only pokedhim with his spear and told him that he had selected thegirl for his own property--that he would buy her from theMahars as soon as they reached Phutra. Phutra, it seemed,was the city of our destination.

After passing over the first chain of mountains we skirteda salt sea, upon whose bosom swam countless horrid things.Seal-like creatures there were with long necks stretchingten and more feet above their enormous bodies and whosesnake heads were split with gaping mouths bristlingwith countless fangs. There were huge tortoises too,paddling about among these other reptiles, which Perrysaid were Plesiosaurs of the Lias. I didn't question hisveracity--they might have been most anything.

Dian told me they were tandorazes, or tandors of the sea,and that the other, and more fearsome reptiles, whichoccasionallyrose from the deep to do battle with them, were azdyryths,or sea-dyryths--Perry called them Ichthyosaurs.They resembled a whale with the head of an alligator.

I had forgotten what little geology I had studiedat school--about all that remained was an impressionof horror that the illustrations of restored prehistoricmonsters had made upon me, and a well-defined beliefthat any man with a pig's shank and a vivid imaginationcould "restore" most any sort of paleolithic monster hesaw fit, and take rank as a first class paleontologist.But when I saw these sleek, shiny carcasses shimmering inthe sunlight as they emerged from the ocean, shaking theirgiant heads; when I saw the waters roll from their sinuousbodies in miniature waterfalls as they glided hitherand thither, now upon the surface, now half submerged;as I saw them meet, open-mouthed, hissing and snorting,in their titanic and interminable warring I realizedhow futile is man's poor, weak imagination by comparisonwith Nature's incredible genius.

And Perry! He was absolutely flabbergasted. He saidso himself.

"David," he remarked, after we had marched for a long timebeside that awful sea. "David, I used to teach geology,and I thought that I believed what I taught; but now Isee that I did not believe it--that it is impossiblefor man to believe such things as these unless he seesthem with his own eyes. We take things for granted,perhaps, because we are told them over and over again,and have no way of disproving them--like religions,for example; but we don't believe them, we only thinkwe do. If you ever get back to the outer world youwill find that the geologists and paleontologists willbe the first to set you down a liar, for they knowthat no such creatures as they restore ever existed.It is all right to IMAGINE them as existing in an equallyimaginary epoch--but now? poof!"

At the next halt Hooja the Sly One managed to find enoughslack chain to permit him to worm himself back quite closeto Dian. We were all standing, and as he edged near thegirl she turned her back upon him in such a truly earthlyfeminine manner that I could scarce repress a smile; but itwas a short-lived smile for on the instant the Sly One'shand fell upon the girl's bare arm, jerking her roughlytoward him.

I was not then familiar with the customs or social ethicswhich prevailed within Pellucidar; but even so I didnot need the appealing look which the girl shot to mefrom her magnificent eyes to influence my subsequent act.What the Sly One's intention was I paused not to inquire;but instead, before he could lay hold of her with hisother hand, I placed a right to the point of his jaw thatfelled him in his tracks.

A roar of approval went up from those of the other prisonersand the Sagoths who had witnessed the brief drama; not, as Ilater learned, because I had championed the girl, but forthe neat and, to them, astounding method by which I had bestedHooja.

And the girl? At first she looked at me with wide, wonderingeyes,and then she dropped her head, her face half averted,and a delicate flush suffused her cheek. For a momentshe stood thus in silence, and then her head went high,and she turned her back upon me as she had upon Hooja.Some of the prisoners laughed, and I saw the face of Ghakthe Hairy One go very black as he looked at me searchingly.And what I could see of Dian's cheek went suddenly from redto white.

Immediately after we resumed the march, and though I realizedthat in some way I had offended Dian the Beautiful I couldnot prevail upon her to talk with me that I might learnwherein I had erred--in fact I might quite as well havebeen addressing a sphinx for all the attention I got.At last my own foolish pride stepped in and preventedmy making any further attempts, and thus a companionshipthat without my realizing it had come to mean a great dealto me was cut off. Thereafter I confined my conversationto Perry. Hooja did not renew his advances toward the girl,nor did he again venture near me.

Again the weary and apparently interminable marching becamea perfect nightmare of horrors to me. The more firmlyfixed became the realization that the girl's friendshiphad meant so much to me, the more I came to miss it;and the more impregnable the barrier of silly pride.But I was very young and would not ask Ghak for theexplanation which I was sure he could give, and that mighthave made everything all right again.

On the march, or during halts, Dian refused consistentlyto notice me--when her eyes wandered in my directionshe looked either over my head or directly through me.At last I became desperate, and determined to swallowmy self-esteem, and again beg her to tell me how Ihad offended, and how I might make reparation. I madeup my mind that I should do this at the next halt.We were approaching another range of mountains at the time,and when we reached them, instead of winding acrossthem through some high-flung pass we entered a mightynatural tunnel--a series of labyrinthine grottoes,dark as Erebus.

The guards had no torches or light of any description.In fact we had seen no artificial light or sign offire since we had entered Pellucidar. In a land ofperpetual noon there is no need of light above ground,yet I marveled that they had no means of lightingtheir way through these dark, subterranean passages.So we crept along at a snail's pace, with much stumblingand falling--the guards keeping up a singsong chant aheadof us, interspersed with certain high notes which I foundalways indicated rough places and turns.

Halts were now more frequent, but I did not wish to speakto Dian until I could see from the expression of her facehow she was receiving my apologies. At last a faintglow ahead forewarned us of the end of the tunnel,for which I for one was devoutly thankful. Then at a suddenturn we emerged into the full light of the noonday sun.

But with it came a sudden realization of what meantto me a real catastrophe--Dian was gone, and with hera half-dozen other prisoners. The guards saw it too,and the ferocity of their rage was terrible to behold.Their awesome, bestial faces were contorted in the mostdiabolical expressions, as they accused each other ofresponsibility for the loss. Finally they fell upon us,beating us with their spear shafts, and hatchets.They had already killed two near the head of the line,and were like to have finished the balance of us whentheir leader finally put a stop to the brutal slaughter.Never in all my life had I witnessed a more horribleexhibition of bestial rage--I thanked God that Dian had notbeen one of those left to endure it.

Of the twelve prisoners who had been chained ahead of meeach alternate one had been freed commencing with Dian.Hooja was gone. Ghak remained. What could it mean? Howhad it been accomplished? The commander of the guardswas investigating. Soon he discovered that the rudelocks which had held the neckbands in place had beendeftly picked.

"Hooja the Sly One," murmured Ghak, who was now next to mein line. "He has taken the girl that you would not have,"he continued, glancing at me.

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

He looked at me closely for a moment.

"I have doubted your story that you are from another world,"he said at last, "but yet upon no other grounds couldyour ignorance of the ways of Pellucidar be explained.Do you really mean that you do not know that you offendedthe Beautiful One, and how?"

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

"Then shall I tell you. When a man of Pellucidarintervenes between another man and the woman the otherman would have, the woman belongs to the victor.Dian the Beautiful belongs to you. You should have claimedher or released her. Had you taken her hand, it wouldhave indicated your desire to make her your mate, and hadyou raised her hand above her head and then dropped it,it would have meant that you did not wish her for a mateand that you released her from all obligation to you.By doing neither you have put upon her the greatest affrontthat a man may put upon a woman. Now she is your slave.No man will take her as mate, or may take her honorably,until he shall have overcome you in combat, and men do notchoose slave women as their mates--at least not the menof Pellucidar."

"I did not know, Ghak," I cried. "I did not know.Not for all Pellucidar would I have harmed Dian the Beautifulby word, or look, or act of mine. I do not want her asmy slave. I do not want her as my--" but here I stopped.The vision of that sweet and innocent face floated beforeme amidst the soft mists of imagination, and where I hadon the second believed that I clung only to the memoryof a gentle friendship I had lost, yet now it seemedthat it would have been disloyalty to her to have saidthat I did not want Dian the Beautiful as my mate.I had not thought of her except as a welcome friendin a strange, cruel world. Even now I did not thinkthat I loved her.

I believe Ghak must have read the truth more in myexpression than in my words, for presently he laidhis hand upon my shoulder.

"Man of another world," he said, "I believe you.Lips may lie, but when the heart speaks through the eyesit tells only the truth. Your heart has spoken to me.I know now that you meant no affront to Dian the Beautiful.She is not of my tribe; but her mother is my sister.She does not know it--her mother was stolen by Dian'sfather who came with many others of the tribe of Amozto battle with us for our women--the most beautiful womenof Pellucidar. Then was her father king of Amoz, and hermother was daughter of the king of Sari--to whose power I,his son, have succeeded. Dian is the daughter of kings,though her father is no longer king since the sadok tossedhim and Jubal the Ugly One wrested his kingship from him.Because of her lineage the wrong you did her was greatlymagnified in the eyes of all who saw it. She will neverforgive you."

I asked Ghak if there was not some way in which Icould release the girl from the bondage and ignominyI had unwittingly placed upon her.

"If ever you find her, yes," he answered. "Merely toraise her hand above her head and drop it in the presenceof others is sufficient to release her; but how may youever find her, you who are doomed to a life of slaveryyourself in the buried city of Phutra?"

"Is there no escape?" I asked.

"Hooja the Sly One escaped and took the others with him,"replied Ghak. "But there are no more dark places onthe way to Phutra, and once there it is not so easy--theMahars are very wise. Even if one escaped from Phutrathere are the thipdars--they would find you, and then--"the Hairy One shuddered. "No, you will never escapethe Mahars."

It was a cheerful prospect. I asked Perry what he thoughtabout it; but he only shrugged his shoulders and continueda longwinded prayer he had been at for some time.He was wont to say that the only redeeming feature of ourcaptivity was the ample time it gave him for the improvisationof prayers--it was becoming an obsession with him.The Sagoths had begun to take notice of his habitof declaiming throughout entire marches. One of themasked him what he was saying--to whom he was talking.The question gave me an idea, so I answered quicklybefore Perry could say anything.

"Do not interrupt him," I said. "He is a very holyman in the world from which we come. He is speakingto spirits which you cannot see--do not interrupt himor they will spring out of the air upon you and rend youlimb from limb--like that," and I jumped toward the greatbrute with a loud "Boo!" that sent him stumbling backward.

I took a long chance, I realized, but if we could makeany capital out of Perry's harmless mania I wanted to makeit while the making was prime. It worked splendidly.The Sagoths treated us both with marked respect duringthe balance of the journey, and then passed the word alongto their masters, the Mahars.

Two marches after this episode we came to the city of Phutra.The entrance to it was marked by two lofty towers of granite,which guarded a flight of steps leading to the buried city.Sagoths were on guard here as well as at a hundred or moreother towers scattered about over a large plain.