CHAPTER V
SURPRISES
But at last the allotted moment arrived--the moment for which I
had been trying to prepare myself, for how long I could not even
guess. A great Sagoth came and spoke some words of command to
those who watched over me. I was jerked roughly to my feet and
with little consideration hustled upward toward the higher levels.
Out into the broad avenue they conducted me, where, amid huge
throngs of Mahars, Sagoths, and heavily guarded slaves, I was led,
or, rather, pushed and shoved roughly, along in the same direction
that the mob moved. I had seen such a concourse of people once
be-fore in the buried city of Phutra; I guessed, and rightly, that
we were bound for the great arena where slaves who are condemned
to death meet their end.
Into the vast amphitheater they took me, stationing me at the
extreme end of the arena. The queen came, with her slimy, sickening
retinue. The seats were filled. The show was about to commence.
Then, from a little doorway in the opposite end of the structure,
a girl was led into the arena. She was at a considerable distance
from me. I could not see her features.
I wondered what fate awaited this other poor victim and myself,
and why they had chosen to have us die together. My own fate, or
rather, my thought of it, was submerged in the natural pity I felt
for this lone girl, doomed to die horribly beneath the cold, cruel
eyes of her awful captors. Of what crime could she be guilty that
she must expiate it in the dreaded arena?
As I stood thus thinking, another door, this time at one of the
long sides of the arena, was thrown open, and into the theater of
death slunk a mighty tarag, the huge cave tiger of the Stone Age.
At my sides were my re-volvers. My captors had not taken them from
me, be-cause they did not yet realize their nature. Doubtless they
thought them some strange manner of war-club, and as those who are
condemned to the arena are per-mitted weapons of defense, they let
me keep them.
The girl they had armed with a javelin. A brass pin would have been
almost as effective against the ferocious monster they had loosed
upon her.
The tarag stood for a moment looking about him--first up at the
vast audience and then about the arena. He did not seem to see me
at all, but his eyes fell presently upon the girl. A hideous roar
broke from his titanic lungs--a roar which ended in a long-drawn
scream that is more human than the death-cry of a tortured woman--more
human but more awesome. I could scarce restrain a shudder.
Slowly the beast turned and moved toward the girl. Then it was
that I came to myself and to a realization of my duty. Quickly and
as noiselessly as possible I ran down the arena in pursuit of the
grim creature. As I ran I drew one of my pitifully futile weapons.
Ah! Could I but have had my lost express-gun in my hands at that
moment! A single well-placed shot would have crumbled even this
great monster. The best I could hope to ac-complish was to divert
the thing from the girl to myself and then to place as many bullets
as possible in it before it reached and mauled me into insensibility
and death.
There is a certain unwritten law of the arena that vouchsafes freedom
and immunity to the victor, be he beast or human being--both of
whom, by the way, are all the same to the Mahar. That is, they
were accus-tomed to look upon man as a lower animal before Perry
and I broke through the Pellucidarian crust, but I imagine that
they were beginning to alter their views a trifle and to realize
that in the gilak--their word for human being--they had a highly
organized, reasoning being to contend with.
Be that as it may, the chances were that the tarag alone would
profit by the law of the arena. A few more of his long strides,
a prodigious leap, and he would be upon the girl. I raised
a revolver and fired. The bullet struck him in the left hind leg.
It couldn't have damaged him much; but the report of the shot
brought him around, facing me.
I think the snarling visage of a huge, enraged, saber-toothed tiger
is one of the most terrible sights in the world. Especially if
he be snarling at you and there be nothing between the two of you
but bare sand.
Even as he faced me a little cry from the girl carried my eyes
beyond the brute to her face. Hers was fastened upon me with an
expression of incredulity that baffles description. There was both
hope and horror in them, too.
"Dian!" I cried. "My Heavens, Dian!"
I saw her lips form the name David, as with raised javelin she
rushed forward upon the tarag. She was a tigress then--a primitive
savage female defending her loved one. Before she could reach the
beast with her puny weapon, I fired again at the point where the
tarag's neck met his left shoulder. If I could get a bullet through
there it might reach his heart. The bullet didn't reach his heart,
but it stopped him for an instant.
It was then that a strange thing happened. I heard a great hissing
from the stands occupied by the Mahars, and as I glanced toward
them I saw three mighty thipdars--the winged dragons that guard the
queen, or, as Perry calls them, pterodactyls--rise swiftly from
their rocks and dart lightning-like, toward the center of the arena.
They are huge, powerful reptiles. One of them, with the advantage
which his wings might give him, would easily be a match for a cave
bear or a tarag.
These three, to my consternation, swooped down upon the tarag as
he was gathering himself for a final charge upon me. They buried
their talons in his back and lifted him bodily from the arena as
if he had been a chicken in the clutches of a hawk.
What could it mean?
I was baffled for an explanation; but with the tarag gone I lost
no time in hastening to Dian's side. With a little cry of delight
she threw herself into my arms. So lost were we in the ecstasy of
reunion that neither of us--to this day--can tell what became of
the tarag.
The first thing we were aware of was the presence of a body of
Sagoths about us. Gruffly they commanded us to follow them. They
led us from the arena and back through the streets of Phutra to the
audience chamber in which I had been tried and sentenced. Here we
found ourselves facing the same cold, cruel tribunal.
Again a Sagoth acted as interpreter. He explained that our lives
bad been spared because at the last moment Tu-al-sa had returned
to Phutra, and seeing me in the arena had prevailed upon the queen
to spare my life.
"Who is Tu-al-sa?" I asked.
"A Mahar whose last male ancestor was--ages ago--the last of the
male rulers among the Mahars," he replied.
"Why should she wish to have my life spared?"
He shrugged his shoulders and then repeated my question to the
Mahar spokesman. When the latter had explained in the strange
sign-language that passes for speech between the Mahars and their
fighting men the Sagoth turned again to me:
"For a long time you had Tu-al-sa in your power," he explained.
"You might easily have killed her or aban-doned her in a strange
world--but you did neither. You did not harm her, and you brought
her back with you to Pellucidar and set her free to return to
Phutra. This is your reward."
Now I understood. The Mahar who had been my in-voluntary companion
upon my return to the outer world was Tu-al-sa. This was the first
time that I had learned the lady's name. I thanked fate that I
had not left her upon the sands of the Sahara--or put a bullet in
her, as I had been tempted to do. I was surprised to discover that
gratitude was a characteristic of the dominant race of Pellucidar.
I could never think of them as aught but cold-blooded, brainless
reptiles, though Perry had de-voted much time in explaining to me
that owing to a strange freak of evolution among all the genera
of the inner world, this species of the reptilia had advanced to
a position quite analogous to that which man holds upon the outer
crust.
He had often told me that there was every reason to believe from their
writings, which he had learned to read while we were incarcerated
in Phutra, that they were a just race, and that in certain branches
of science and arts they were quite well advanced, especially in
genetics and metaphysics, engineering and architecture.
While it had always been difficult for me to look upon these things
as other than slimy, winged crocodiles--which, by the way, they do
not at all resemble--I was now forced to a realization of the fact
that I was in the hands of enlightened creatures--for justice and
grati-tude are certain hallmarks of rationality and culture.
But what they purposed for us further was of most imminent interest
to me. They might save us from the tarag and yet not free us.
They looked upon us yet, to some extent, I knew, as creatures of
a lower order, and so as we are unable to place ourselves in the
position of the brutes we enslave--thinking that they are happier
in bondage than in the free fulfilment of the purposes for which
nature intended them--the Mahars, too, might consider our welfare
better conserved in captivity than among the dangers of the savage
freedom we craved. Naturally, I was next impelled to inquire their
further intent.
To my question, put through the Sagoth interpreter, I received the
reply that having spared my life they con-sidered that Tu-al-sa's
debt of gratitude was canceled. They still had against me, however,
the crime of which I had been guilty--the unforgivable crime of
stealing the great secret. They, therefore, intended holding Dian
and me prisoners until the manuscript was returned to them.
They would, they said, send an escort of Sagoths with me to fetch
the precious document from its hiding-place, keeping Dian at Phutra
as a hostage and releasing us both the moment that the document
was safely restored to their queen.
There was no doubt but that they had the upper hand. However,
there was so much more at stake than the liberty or even the lives
of Dian and myself, that I did not deem it expedient to accept
their offer without giving the matter careful thought.
Without the great secret this maleless race must even-tually become
extinct. For ages they had fertilized their eggs by an artificial
process, the secret of which lay hidden in the little cave of
a far-off valley where Dian and I had spent our honeymoon. I was
none too sure that I could find the valley again, nor that I cared
to. So long as the powerful reptilian race of Pellucidar continued
to propagate, just so long would the position of man within the
inner world be jeopardized. There could not be two dominant races.
I said as much to Dian.
"You used to tell me," she replied, "of the wonderful things you
could accomplish with the inventions of your own world. Now you
have returned with all that is necessary to place this great power
in the hands of the men of Pellucidar.
"You told me of great engines of destruction which would cast a
bursting ball of metal among our enemies, killing hundreds of them
at one time.
"You told me of mighty fortresses of stone which a thousand men
armed with big and little engines such as these could hold forever
against a million Sagoths.
"You told me of great canoes which moved across the water without
paddles, and which spat death from holes in their sides.
"All these may now belong to the men of Pellucidar. Why should we
fear the Mahars?
"Let them breed! Let their numbers increase by thou-sands. They
will be helpless before the power of the Emperor of Pellucidar.
"But if you remain a prisoner in Phutra, what may we accomplish?
"What could the men of Pellucidar do without you to lead them?
"They would fight among themselves, and while they fought the
Mahars would fall upon them, and even though the Mahar race should
die out, of what value would the emancipation of the human race be
to them without the knowledge, which you alone may wield, to guide
them toward the wonderful civilization of which you have told me
so much that I long for its comforts and luxuries as I never before
longed for anything.
"No, David; the Mahars cannot harm us if you are at liberty. Let
them have their secret that you and I may return to our people,
and lead them to the conquest of all Pellucidar."
It was plain that Dian was ambitious, and that her ambition had not
dulled her reasoning faculties. She was right. Nothing could be
gained by remaining bottled up in Phutra for the rest of our lives.
It was true that Perry might do much with the con-tents of the
prospector, or iron mole, in which I had brought down the implements
of outer-world civiliza-tion; but Perry was a man of peace. He
could never weld the warring factions of the disrupted federation.
He could never win new tribes to the empire. He would fiddle around
manufacturing gun-powder and trying to improve upon it until some
one blew him up with his own invention. He wasn't practical. He
never would get anywhere without a balance-wheel--without some one
to direct his energies.
Perry needed me and I needed him. If we were going to do anything
for Pellucidar we must be free to do it together.
The outcome of it all was that I agreed to the Mahars' proposition.
They promised that Dian would be well treated and protected from
every indignity during my absence. So I set out with a hundred
Sagoths in search of the little valley which I had stumbled upon
by acci-dent, and which I might and might not find again.
We traveled directly toward Sari. Stopping at the camp where I had
been captured I recovered my express rifle, for which I was very
thankful. I found it lying where I had left it when I had been
overpowered in my sleep by the Sagoths who bad captured me and
slain my Mezop companions.
On the way I added materially to my map, an occu-pation which did
not elicit from the Sagoths even a shadow of interest. I felt
that the human race of Pelluci-dar had little to fear from these
gorilla-men. They were fighters--that was all. We might even use
them later ourselves in this same capacity. They had not sufficient
brain power to constitute a menace to the advancement of the human
race.
As we neared the spot where I hoped to find the little valley
I became more and more confident of success. Every landmark was
familiar to me, and I was sure now that I knew the exact location
of the cave.
It was at about this time that I sighted a number of the half-naked
warriors of the human race of Pellucidar. They were marching across
our front. At sight of us they halted; that there would be a fight
I could not doubt. These Sagoths would never permit an opportunity
for the capture of slaves for their Mahar masters to escape them.
I saw that the men were armed with bows and arrows, long lances
and swords, so I guessed that they must have been members of the
federation, for only my people had been thus equipped. Before
Perry and I came the men of Pellucidar had only the crudest weapons
wherewith to slay one another.
The Sagoths, too, were evidently expecting battle. With savage
shouts they rushed forward toward the human warriors.
Then a strange thing happened. The leader of the human beings
stepped forward with upraised hands. The Sagoths ceased their
war-cries and advanced slowly to meet him. There was a long parley
during which I could see that I was often the subject of their
discourse. The Sagoths' leader pointed in the direction in which
I had told him the valley lay. Evidently he was explaining the
nature of our expedition to the leader of the warriors. It was
all a puzzle to me.
What human being could be upon such excellent terms with the
gorilla-men?
I couldn't imagine. I tried to get a good look at the fellow,
but the Sagoths had left me in the rear with a guard when they
had advanced to battle, and the dis-tance was too great for me to
recognize the features of any of the human beings.
Finally the parley was concluded and the men con-tinued on their
way while the Sagoths returned to where I stood with my guard. It
was time for eating, so we stopped where we were and made our meal.
The Sa-goths didn't tell me who it was they had met, and I did not
ask, though I must confess that I was quite curious.
They permitted me to sleep at this halt. Afterward we took up the
last leg of our journey. I found the valley without difficulty
and led my guard directly to the cave. At its mouth the Sagoths
halted and I entered alone.
I noticed as I felt about the floor in the dim light that there
was a pile of fresh-turned rubble there. Presently my hands came
to the spot where the great secret had been buried. There was a
cavity where I had carefully smoothed the earth over the hiding-place
of the docu-ment--the manuscript was gone!
Frantically I searched the whole interior of the cave several times
over, but without other result than a com-plete confirmation of
my worst fears. Someone had been here ahead of me and stolen the
great secret.
The one thing within Pellucidar which might free Dian and me was
gone, nor was it likely that I should ever learn its whereabouts.
If a Mahar had found it, which was quite improbable, the chances
were that the dominant race would never divulge the fact that they
had recovered the precious document. If a cave man had happened
upon it he would have no conception of its meaning or value, and
as a consequence it would be lost or destroyed in short order.
With bowed head and broken hopes I came out of the cave and told
the Sagoth chieftain what I had dis-covered. It didn't mean much
to the fellow, who doubt-less had but little better idea of the
contents of the document I had been sent to fetch to his masters
than would the cave man who in all probability had dis-covered it.
The Sagoth knew only that I had failed in my mission, so he took
advantage of the fact to make the return journey to Phutra as
disagreeable as possible. I did not rebel, though I had with me
the means to destroy them all. I did not dare rebel because of
the consequences to Dian. I intended demanding her release on the
grounds that she was in no way guilty of the theft, and that my
failure to recover the document had not lessened the value of the
good faith I had had in offering to do so. The Mahars might keep
me in slavery if they chose, but Dian should be returned safely to
her people.
I was full of my scheme when we entered Phutra and I was conducted
directly to the great audience-chamber. The Mahars listened to the
report of the Sagoth chief-tain, and so difficult is it to judge
their emotions from their almost expressionless countenance, that
I was at a loss to know how terrible might be their wrath as they
learned that their great secret, upon which rested the fate of
their race, might now be irretrievably lost.
Presently I could see that she who presided was com-municating
something to the Sagoth interpreter--doubt-less something to be
transmitted to me which might give me a forewarning of the fate
which lay in store for me. One thing I had decided definitely: If
they would not free Dian I should turn loose upon Phutra with my
little arsenal. Alone I might even win to freedom, and if I could
learn where Dian was imprisoned it would be worth the attempt to
free her. My thoughts were inter-rupted by the interpreter.
"The mighty Mahars," he said, "are unable to reconcile your statement
that the document is lost with your action in sending it to them
by a special messenger. They wish to know if you have so soon
forgotten the truth or if you are merely ignoring it."
"I sent them no document," I cried. "Ask them what they mean."
"They say," he went on after conversing with the Mahar for a moment,
"that just before your return to Phutra, Hooja the Sly One came,
bringing the great secret with him. He said that you had sent him
ahead with it, asking him to deliver it and return to Sari where
you would await him, bringing the girl with him."
"Dian?" I gasped. "The Mahars have given over Dian into the keeping
of Hooja."
"Surely," he replied. "What of it? She is only a gilak," as you
or I would say, "She is only a cow."
