WITHIN PELLUCIDAR ONE TIME IS AS GOOD AS ANOTHER.There were no nights to mask our attempted escape.All must be done in broad daylight--all but the workI had to do in the apartment beneath the building.So we determined to put our plan to an immediate testlest the Mahars who made it possible should awake beforeI reached them; but we were doomed to disappointment,for no sooner had we reached the main floor of the buildingon our way to the pits beneath, than we encountered hurryingbands of slaves being hastened under strong Sagoth guardout of the edifice to the avenue beyond.

Other Sagoths were darting hither and thither in searchof other slaves, and the moment that we appeared we werepounced upon and hustled into the line of marching humans.

What the purpose or nature of the general exodus we didnot know, but presently through the line of captives ranthe rumor that two escaped slaves had been recaptured--aman and a woman--and that we were marching to witnesstheir punishment, for the man had killed a Sagothof the detachment that had pursued and overtaken them.

At the intelligence my heart sprang to my throat,for I was sure that the two were of those who escapedin the dark grotto with Hooja the Sly One, and that Dianmust be the woman. Ghak thought so too, as did Perry.

"Is there naught that we may do to save her?" I asked Ghak.

"Naught," he replied.

Along the crowded avenue we marched, the guards showingunusual cruelty toward us, as though we, too, had beenimplicated in the murder of their fellow. The occasionwas to serve as an object-lesson to all other slaves ofthe danger and futility of attempted escape, and the fatalconsequences of taking the life of a superior being,and so I imagine that Sagoths felt amply justified in makingthe entire proceeding as uncomfortable and painful tous as possible.

They jabbed us with their spears and struck at us with thehatchets at the least provocation, and at no provocationat all. It was a most uncomfortable half-hour that wespent before we were finally herded through a low entranceinto a huge building the center of which was given upto a good-sized arena. Benches surrounded this openspace upon three sides, and along the fourth were heapedhuge bowlders which rose in receding tiers toward the roof.

At first I couldn't make out the purpose of this mightypile of rock, unless it were intended as a rough andpicturesque background for the scenes which were enactedin the arena before it, but presently, after the woodenbenches had been pretty well filled by slaves and Sagoths,I discovered the purpose of the bowlders, for thenthe Mahars began to file into the enclosure.

They marched directly across the arena toward the rocks uponthe opposite side, where, spreading their bat-like wings,they rose above the high wall of the pit, settling downupon the bowlders above. These were the reserved seats,the boxes of the elect.

Reptiles that they are, the rough surface of a great stoneis to them as plush as upholstery to us. Here they lolled,blinking their hideous eyes, and doubtless conversing withone another in their sixth-sense- fourth-dimension language.

For the first time I beheld their queen. She differedfrom the others in no feature that was appreciableto my earthly eyes, in fact all Mahars look alike to me:but when she crossed the arena after the balance of herfemale subjects had found their bowlders, she was precededby a score of huge Sagoths, the largest I ever had seen,and on either side of her waddled a huge thipdar,while behind came another score of Sagoth guardsmen.

At the barrier the Sagoths clambered up the steep sidewith truly apelike agility, while behind them the haughtyqueen rose upon her wings with her two frightful dragonsclose beside her, and settled down upon the largestbowlder of them all in the exact center of that side ofthe amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant race.Here she squatted, a most repulsive and uninteresting queen;though doubtless quite as well assured of her beautyand divine right to rule as the proudest monarch of theouter world.

And then the music started--music without sound! The Maharscannot hear, so the drums and fifes and horns of earthlybands are unknown among them. The "band" consists of ascore or more Mahars. It filed out in the center of thearena where the creatures upon the rocks might see it,and there it performed for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Their technic consisted in waving their tails and movingtheir heads in a regular succession of measured movementsresulting in a cadence which evidently pleased the eyeof the Mahar as the cadence of our own instrumental musicpleases our ears. Sometimes the band took measured stepsin unison to one side or the other, or backward and againforward--it all seemed very silly and meaningless to me,but at the end of the first piece the Mahars upon therocks showed the first indications of enthusiasm that Ihad seen displayed by the dominant race of Pellucidar.They beat their great wings up and down, and smote their rockyperches with their mighty tails until the ground shook.Then the band started another piece, and all was againas silent as the grave. That was one great beauty aboutMahar music--if you didn't happen to like a piece that wasbeing played all you had to do was shut your eyes.

When the band had exhausted its repertory it took wingand settled upon the rocks above and behind the queen.Then the business of the day was on. A man and woman werepushed into the arena by a couple of Sagoth guardsmen.I leaned forward in my seat to scrutinize the female--hopingagainst hope that she might prove to be another than Dianthe Beautiful. Her back was toward me for a while,and the sight of the great mass of raven hair piled highupon her head filled me with alarm.

Presently a door in one side of the arena wall was openedto admit a huge, shaggy, bull-like creature.

"A Bos," whispered Perry, excitedly. "His kind roamedthe outer crust with the cave bear and the mammoth agesand ages ago. We have been carried back a million years,David, to the childhood of a planet--is it not wondrous?"

But I saw only the raven hair of a half-naked girl,and my heart stood still in dumb misery at the sight of her,nor had I any eyes for the wonders of natural history.But for Perry and Ghak I should have leaped to the floorof the arena and shared whatever fate lay in store for thispriceless treasure of the Stone Age.

With the advent of the Bos--they call the thing a thagwithin Pellucidar--two spears were tossed into the arenaat the feet of the prisoners. It seemed to me that a beanshooter would have been as effective against the mightymonster as these pitiful weapons.

As the animal approached the two, bellowing and pawingthe ground with the strength of many earthly bulls,another door directly beneath us was opened, and fromit issued the most terrific roar that ever had fallenupon my outraged ears. I could not at first seethe beast from which emanated this fearsome challenge,but the sound had the effect of bringing the two victimsaround with a sudden start, and then I saw the girl'sface--she was not Dian! I could have wept for relief.

And now, as the two stood frozen in terror, I saw the authorof that fearsome sound creeping stealthily into view.It was a huge tiger--such as hunted the great Bosthrough the jungles primeval when the world was young.In contour and markings it was not unlike the noblestof the Bengals of our own world, but as its dimensionswere exaggerated to colossal proportions so too wereits colorings exaggerated. Its vivid yellows fairlyscreamed aloud; its whites were as eider down; its blacksglossy as the finest anthracite coal, and its coat longand shaggy as a mountain goat. That it is a beautifulanimal there is no gainsaying, but if its size and colorsare magnified here within Pellucidar, so is the ferocityof its disposition. It is not the occasional memberof its species that is a man hunter--all are man hunters;but they do not confine their foraging to man alone,for there is no flesh or fish within Pellucidar that theywill not eat with relish in the constant efforts which theymake to furnish their huge carcasses with sufficientsustenance to maintain their mighty thews.

Upon one side of the doomed pair the thag bellowedand advanced, and upon the other tarag, the frightful,crept toward them with gaping mouth and dripping fangs.

The man seized the spears, handing one of them to the woman.At the sound of the roaring of the tiger the bull'sbellowing became a veritable frenzy of rageful noise.Never in my life had I heard such an infernal din asthe two brutes made, and to think it was all lost uponthe hideous reptiles for whom the show was staged!

The thag was charging now from one side, and the taragfrom the other. The two puny things standing between themseemed already lost, but at the very moment that the beastswere upon them the man grasped his companion by the armand together they leaped to one side, while the frenziedcreatures came together like locomotives in collision.

There ensued a battle royal which for sustained and frightfulferocity transcends the power of imagination or description.Time and again the colossal bull tossed the enormous tigerhigh into the air, but each time that the huge cat touchedthe ground he returned to the encounter with apparentlyundiminished strength, and seemingly increased ire.

For a while the man and woman busied themselves only withkeeping out of the way of the two creatures, but finally Isaw them separate and each creep stealthily toward one ofthe combatants. The tiger was now upon the bull's broad back,clinging to the huge neck with powerful fangs while its long,strong talons ripped the heavy hide into shreds and ribbons.

For a moment the bull stood bellowing and quiveringwith pain and rage, its cloven hoofs widespread,its tail lashing viciously from side to side, and then,in a mad orgy of bucking it went careening about thearena in frenzied attempt to unseat its rending rider.It was with difficulty that the girl avoided the first madrush of the wounded animal.

All its efforts to rid itself of the tiger seemed futile,until in desperation it threw itself upon the ground,rolling over and over. A little of this so disconcertedthe tiger, knocking its breath from it I imagine,that it lost its hold and then, quick as a cat, the greatthag was up again and had buried those mighty hornsdeep in the tarag's abdomen, pinning him to the floorof the arena.

The great cat clawed at the shaggy head until eyes andears were gone, and naught but a few strips of ragged,bloody flesh remained upon the skull. Yet through allthe agony of that fearful punishment the thag still stoodmotionless pinning down his adversary, and then the manleaped in, seeing that the blind bull would be the leastformidable enemy, and ran his spear through the tarag's heart.

As the animal's fierce clawing ceased, the bull raisedhis gory, sightless head, and with a horrid roar ranheadlong across the arena. With great leaps and boundshe came, straight toward the arena wall directly beneathwhere we sat, and then accident carried him, in oneof his mighty springs, completely over the barrier intothe midst of the slaves and Sagoths just in front of us.Swinging his bloody horns from side to side the beast cuta wide swath before him straight upward toward our seats.Before him slaves and gorilla-men fought in mad stampedeto escape the menace of the creature's death agonies,for such only could that frightful charge have been.

Forgetful of us, our guards joined in the generalrush for the exits, many of which pierced the wallof the amphitheater behind us. Perry, Ghak, and Ibecame separated in the chaos which reigned for a fewmoments after the beast cleared the wall of the arena,each intent upon saving his own hide.

I ran to the right, passing several exits choked with thefear mad mob that were battling to escape. One wouldhave thought that an entire herd of thags was loosebehind them, rather than a single blinded, dying beast;but such is the effect of panic upon a crowd.