CHAPTER II
TRAVELING WITH TERROR
We made camp there beside the peaceful river. There Perry told me
all that had befallen him since I had departed for the outer crust.
It seemed that Hooja had made it appear that I had intentionally
left Dian behind, and that I did not purpose ever returning to
Pellucidar. He told them that I was of another world and that I
had tired of this and of its inhabitants.
To Dian he had explained that I had a mate in the world to which I
was returning; that I had never intended taking Dian the Beautiful
back with me; and that she had seen the last of me.
Shortly afterward Dian had disappeared from the camp, nor had Perry
seen or heard aught of her since.
He had no conception of the time that had elapsed since I had
departed, but guessed that many years had dragged their slow way
into the past.
Hooja, too, had disappeared very soon after Dian had left. The
Sarians, under Ghak the Hairy One, and the Amozites under Dacor
the Strong One, Dian's brother, had fallen out over my supposed
defection, for Ghak would not believe that I had thus treacher-ously
deceived and deserted them.
The result had been that these two powerful tribes had fallen upon
one another with the new weapons that Perry and I had taught them
to make and to use. Other tribes of the new federation took sides
with the original disputants or set up petty revolutions of their
own.
The result was the total demolition of the work we had so well
started.
Taking advantage of the tribal war, the Mahars had gathered their
Sagoths in force and fallen upon one tribe after another in rapid
succession, wreaking awful havoc among them and reducing them for
the most part to as pitiable a state of terror as that from which
we had raised them.
Alone of all the once-mighty federation the Sarians and the Amozites
with a few other tribes continued to maintain their defiance of
the Mahars; but these tribes were still divided among themselves,
nor had it seemed at all probable to Perry when he had last been
among them that any attempt at re-amalgamation would be made.
"And thus, your majesty," he concluded, "has faded back into the
oblivion of the Stone Age our wondrous dream and with it has gone
the First Empire of Pel-lucidar."
We both had to smile at the use of my royal title, yet I was indeed
still "Emperor of Pellucidar," and some day I meant to rebuild what
the vile act of the treacherous Hooja had torn down.
But first I would find my empress. To me she was worth forty
empires.
"Have you no clue as to the whereabouts of Dian?" I asked.
"None whatever," replied Perry. "It was in search of her that I
came to the pretty pass in which you dis-covered me, and from which,
David, you saved me.
"I knew perfectly well that you had not intentionally deserted
either Dian or Pellucidar. I guessed that in some way Hooja the
Sly One was at the bottom of the matter, and I determined to go to
Amoz, where I guessed that Dian might come to the protection of her
brother, and do my utmost to convince her, and through her Dacor
the Strong One, that we had all been victims of a treacherous plot
to which you were no party.
"I came to Amoz after a most trying and terrible journey, only to
find that Dian was not among her brother's people and that they
knew naught of her whereabouts.
"Dacor, I am sure, wanted to be fair and just, but so great were
his grief and anger over the disap-pearance of his sister that he
could not listen to reason, but kept repeating time and again that
only your return to Pellucidar could prove the honesty of your
intentions.
"Then came a stranger from another tribe, sent I am sure at the
instigation of Hooja. He so turned the Amozites against me that
I was forced to flee their country to escape assassination.
"In attempting to return to Sari I became lost, and then the Sagoths
discovered me. For a long time I eluded them, hiding in caves and
wading in rivers to throw them off my trail.
"I lived on nuts and fruits and the edible roots that chance threw
in my way.
"I traveled on and on, in what directions I could not even guess;
and at last I could elude them no longer and the end came as I had
long foreseen that it would come, except that I had not foreseen
that you would be there to save me."
We rested in our camp until Perry had regained sufficient strength
to travel again. We planned much, rebuilding all our shattered
air-castles; but above all we planned most to find Dian.
I could not believe that she was dead, yet where she might be in
this savage world, and under what frightful conditions she might
be living, I could not guess.
When Perry was rested we returned to the prospector, where he fitted
himself out fully like a civilized human being--under-clothing, socks,
shoes, khaki jacket and breeches and good, substantial puttees.
When I had come upon him he was clothed in rough sadak sandals,
a gee-string and a tunic fashioned from the shaggy hide of a thag.
Now he wore real clothing again for the first time since the
ape-folk had stripped us of our apparel that long-gone day that
had witnessed our advent within Pellucidar.
With a bandoleer of cartridges across his shoulder, two six-shooters
at his hips, and a rifle in his hand he was a much rejuvenated
Perry.
Indeed he was quite a different person altogether from the rather
shaky old man who had entered the prospector with me ten or
eleven years before, for the trial trip that had plunged us into
such wondrous ad-ventures and into such a strange and hitherto
un-dreamed-of-world.
Now he was straight and active. His muscles, almost atrophied from
disuse in his former life, had filled out.
He was still an old man of course, but instead of appearing ten
years older than he really was, as he had when we left the outer
world, he now appeared about ten years younger. The wild, free
life of Pel-lucidar had worked wonders for him.
Well, it must need have done so or killed him, for a man of Perry's
former physical condition could not long have survived the dangers
and rigors of the primi-tive life of the inner world.
Perry had been greatly interested in my map and in the "royal
observatory" at Greenwich. By use of the pedometers we had retraced
our way to the prospector with ease and accuracy.
Now that we were ready to set out again we decided to follow
a different route on the chance that it might lead us into more
familiar territory.
I shall not weary you with a repetition of the count-less adventures
of our long search. Encounters with wild beasts of gigantic size
were of almost daily occur-rence; but with our deadly express rifles
we ran com-paratively little risk when one recalls that previously
we had both traversed this world of frightful dangers inadequately
armed with crude, primitive weapons and all but naked.
We ate and slept many times--so many that we lost count--and so I
do not know how long we roamed, though our map shows the distances
and direc-tions quite accurately. We must have covered a great many
thousand square miles of territory, and yet we had seen nothing
in the way of a familiar landmark, when from the heights of
a mountain-range we were crossing I descried far in the distance
great masses of billowing clouds.
Now clouds are practically unknown in the skies of Pellucidar. The
moment that my eyes rested upon them my heart leaped. I seized
Perry's arm and, point-ing toward the horizonless distance, shouted:
"The Mountains of the Clouds!"
"They lie close to Phutra, and the country of our worst enemies,
the Mahars," Perry remonstrated.
"I know it," I replied, "but they give us a starting-point from
which to prosecute our search intelligently. They are at least a
familiar landmark.
"They tell us that we are upon the right trail and not wandering
far in the wrong direction.
"Furthermore, close to the Mountains of the Clouds dwells a good
friend, Ja the Mezop. You did not know him, but you know all that
he did for me and all that he will gladly do to aid me.
"At least he can direct us upon the right direction toward Sari."
"The Mountains of the Clouds constitute a mighty range," replied
Perry. "They must cover an enormous territory. How are you
to find your friend in all the great country that is visible from
their rugged flanks?"
"Easily," I answered him, "for Ja gave me minute di-rections. I
recall almost his exact words:
"'You need merely come to the foot of the highest peak of the
Mountains of the Clouds. There you will find a river that flows
into the Lural Az.
"'Directly opposite the mouth of the river you will see three large
islands far out--so far that they are barely discernible. The one
to the extreme left as you face them from the mouth of the river
is Anoroc, where I rule the tribe of Anoroc.'"
And so we hastened onward toward the great cloud-mass that was to
be our guide for several weary marches. At last we came close to
the towering crags, Alp-like in their grandeur.
Rising nobly among its noble fellows, one stupendous peak reared
its giant head thousands of feet above the others. It was he whom
we sought; but at its foot no river wound down toward any sea.
"It must rise from the opposite side," suggested Perry, casting
a rueful glance at the forbidding heights that barred our further
progress. "We cannot endure the arctic cold of those high flung
passes, and to traverse the endless miles about this interminable
range might re-quire a year or more. The land we seek must lie
upon the opposite side of the mountains."
"Then we must cross them," I insisted.
Perry shrugged.
"We can't do it, David," he repeated, "We are dressed for the
tropics. We should freeze to death among the snows and glaciers
long before we had discovered a pass to the opposite side."
"We must cross them," I reiterated. "We will cross them."
I had a plan, and that plan we carried out. It took some time.
First we made a permanent camp part way up the slopes where there
was good water. Then we set out in search of the great, shaggy
cave bear of the higher altitudes.
He is a mighty animal--a terrible animal. He is but little larger
than his cousin of the lesser, lower hills; but he makes up for it
in the awfulness of his ferocity and in the length and thickness
of his shaggy coat. It was his coat that we were after.
We came upon him quite unexpectedly. I was trudg-ing in advance
along a rocky trail worn smooth by the padded feet of countless
ages of wild beasts. At a shoul-der of the mountain around which
the path ran I came face to face with the Titan.
I was going up for a fur coat. He was coming down for breakfast.
Each realized that here was the very thing he sought.
With a horrid roar the beast charged me.
At my right the cliff rose straight upward for thou-sands of feet.
At my left it dropped into a dim, abysmal canon.
In front of me was the bear.
Behind me was Perry.
I shouted to him in warning, and then I raised my rifle and fired
into the broad breast of the creature. There was no time to take
aim; the thing was too close upon me.
But that my bullet took effect was evident from the howl of rage
and pain that broke from the frothing jowls. It didn't stop him,
though.
I fired again, and then he was upon me. Down I went beneath his
ton of maddened, clawing flesh and bone and sinew.
I thought my time had come. I remember feeling sorry for poor old
Perry, left all alone in this inhos-pitable, savage world.
And then of a sudden I realized that the bear was gone and that I
was quite unharmed. I leaped to my feet, my rifle still clutched
in my hand, and looked about for my antagonist.
I thought that I should find him farther down the trail, probably
finishing Perry, and so I leaped in the direction I supposed him
to be, to find Perry perched upon a pro-jecting rock several feet
above the trail. My cry of warn-ing had given him time to reach
this point of safety.
There he squatted, his eyes wide and his mouth ajar, the picture
of abject terror and consternation.
"Where is he?" he cried when he saw me. "Where is he?"
"Didn't he come this way?" I asked,
"Nothing came this way," replied the old man. "But I heard his
roars--he must have been as large as an elephant."
"He was," I admitted; "but where in the world do you suppose he
disappeared to?"
Then came a possible explanation to my mind. I re-turned to the
point at which the bear had hurled me down and peered over the edge
of the cliff into the abyss below.
Far, far down I saw a small brown blotch near the bottom of the
canon. It was the bear.
My second shot must have killed him, and so his dead body, after
hurling me to the path, had toppled over into the abyss. I shivered
at the thought of how close I, too, must have been to going over
with him.
It took us a long time to reach the carcass, and arduous labor to
remove the great pelt. But at last the thing was accomplished,
and we returned to camp dragging the heavy trophy behind us.
Here we devoted another considerable period to scraping and curing
it. When this was done to our satisfaction we made heavy boots,
trousers, and coats of the shaggy skin, turning the fur in.
From the scraps we fashioned caps that came down around our ears,
with flaps that fell about our shoulders and breasts. We were now
fairly well equipped for our search for a pass to the opposite side
of the Mountains of the Clouds.
Our first step now was to move our camp upward to the very edge
of the perpetual snows which cap this lofty range. Here we built
a snug, secure little hut, which we provisioned and stored with
fuel for its di-minutive fireplace.
With our hut as a base we sallied forth in search of a pass across
the range.
Our every move was carefully noted upon our maps which we now kept
in duplicate. By this means we were saved tedious and unnecessary
retracing of ways already explored.
Systematically we worked upward in both directions from our base,
and when we had at last discovered what seemed might prove a feasible
pass we moved our be-longings to a new hut farther up.
It was hard work--cold, bitter, cruel work. Not a step did we take
in advance but the grim reaper strode silently in our tracks.
There were the great cave bears in the timber, and gaunt, lean
wolves--huge creatures twice the size of our Canadian timber-wolves.
Farther up we were as-sailed by enormous white bears--hungry,
devilish fellows, who came roaring across the rough glacier tops
at the first glimpse of us, or stalked us stealthily by scent when
they had not yet seen us.
It is one of the peculiarities of life within Pellucidar that man
is more often the hunted than the hunter. Myriad are the huge-bellied
carnivora of this primitive world. Never, from birth to death,
are those great bellies sufficiently filled, so always are their
mighty owners prowling about in search of meat.
Terribly armed for battle as they are, man presents to them
in his primal state an easy prey, slow of foot, puny of strength,
ill-equipped by nature with natural weapons of defense.
The bears looked upon us as easy meat. Only our heavy rifles saved
us from prompt extinction. Poor Perry never was a raging lion at
heart, and I am convinced that the terrors of that awful period
must have caused him poignant mental anguish.
When we were abroad pushing our trail farther and farther toward
the distant break which, we assumed, marked a feasible way across
the range, we never knew at what second some great engine of
clawed and fanged destruction might rush upon us from behind, or
lie in wait for us beyond an ice-hummock or a jutting shoulder of
the craggy steeps.
The roar of our rifles was constantly shattering the world-old
silence of stupendous canons upon which the eye of man had never
before gazed. And when in the comparative safety of our hut we
lay down to sleep the great beasts roared and fought without the
walls, clawed and battered at the door, or rushed their colossal
frames headlong against the hut's sides until it rocked and trembled
to the impact.
Yes, it was a gay life.
Perry had got to taking stock of our ammunition each time we returned
to the hut. It became something of an obsession with him.
He'd count our cartridges one by one and then try to figure how
long it would be before the last was ex-pended and we must either
remain in the hut until we starved to death or venture forth, empty,
to fill the belly of some hungry bear.
I must admit that I, too, felt worried, for our progress was
indeed snail-like, and our ammunition could not last forever. In
discussing the problem, finally we came to the decision to burn
our bridges behind us and make one last supreme effort to cross
the divide.
It would mean that we must go without sleep for a long period, and
with the further chance that when the time came that sleep could
no longer be denied we might still be high in the frozen regions
of perpetual snow and ice, where sleep would mean certain death,
exposed as we would be to the attacks of wild beasts and without
shelter from the hideous cold.
But we decided that we must take these chances and so at last we
set forth from our hut for the last time, carrying such necessities
as we felt we could least afford to do without. The bears seemed
unusually troublesome and determined that time, and as we clambered
slowly upward beyond the highest point to which we had previously
attained, the cold became infinitely more intense.
Presently, with two great bears dogging our footsteps we entered
a dense fog,
We had reached the heights that are so often cloud-wrapped for long
periods. We could see nothing a few paces beyond our noses.
We dared not turn back into the teeth of the bears which we could
hear grunting behind us. To meet them in this bewildering fog
would have been to court instant death.
Perry was almost overcome by the hopelessness of our situation.
He flopped down on his knees and began to pray.
It was the first time I had heard him at his old habit since my
return to Pellucidar, and I had thought that he had given up his
little idiosyncrasy; but he hadn't. Far from it.
I let him pray for a short time undisturbed, and then as I was about
to suggest that we had better be pushing along one of the bears in
our rear let out a roar that made the earth fairly tremble beneath
our feet.
It brought Perry to his feet as if he had been stung by a wasp,
and sent him racing ahead through the blind-ing fog at a gait that
I knew must soon end in disaster were it not checked.
Crevasses in the glacier-ice were far too frequent to permit
of reckless speed even in a clear atmosphere, and then there were
hideous precipices along the edges of which our way often led us.
I shivered as I thought of the poor old fellow's peril.
At the top of my lungs I called to him to stop, but he did not
answer me. And then I hurried on in the di-rection he had gone,
faster by far than safety dictated.
For a while I thought I heard him ahead of me, but at last, though
I paused often to listen and to call to him, I heard nothing more,
not even the grunting of the bears that had been behind us. All
was deathly silence--the silence of the tomb. About me lay the
thick, impenetrable fog.
I was alone. Perry was gone--gone forever, I had not the slightest
doubt.
Somewhere near by lay the mouth of a treacherous fissure, and far
down at its icy bottom lay all that was mortal of my old friend,
Abner Perry. There would his body he preserved in its icy sepulcher
for countless ages, until on some far distant day the slow-moving
river of ice had wound its snail-like way down to the warmer level,
there to disgorge its grisly evidence of grim tragedy, and what in
that far future age, might mean baffling mystery.
