The aborigine, apparently uninjured, climbed quickly into the skiff, and
seizing the spear with me helped to hold off the infuriated creature. Blood
from the wounded reptile was now crimsoning the waters about us and soon from
the weakening struggles it became evident that I had inflicted a death wound
upon it. Presently its efforts to reach us ceased entirely, and with a few
convulsive movements it turned upon its back quite dead.
And then there came to me a sudden realization of the predicament in which I
had placed myself. I was entirely within the power of the savage man whose
skiff I had stolen. Still clinging to the spear I looked into his face to find
him scrutinizing me intently, and there we stood for some several minutes, each
clinging tenaciously to the weapon the while we gazed in stupid wonderment at
each other.
What was in his mind I do not know, but in my own was merely the question as to
how soon the fellow would recommence hostilities.
Presently he spoke to me, but in a tongue which I was unable to translate. I
shook my head in an effort to indicate my ignorance of his language, at the
same time addressing him in the bastard tongue that the Sagoths use to converse
with the human slaves of the Mahars.
To my delight he understood and answered me in the same jargon.
“What do you want of my spear?” he asked.
“Only to keep you from running it through me,” I replied.
“I would not do that,” he said, “for you have just saved my life,” and with
that he released his hold upon it and squatted down in the bottom of the skiff.
“Who are you,” he continued, “and from what country do you come?”
I too sat down, laying the spear between us, and tried to explain how I came to
Pellucidar, and wherefrom, but it was as impossible for him to grasp or believe
the strange tale I told him as I fear it is for you upon the outer crust to
believe in the existence of the inner world. To him it seemed quite ridiculous
to imagine that there was another world far beneath his feet peopled by beings
similar to himself, and he laughed uproariously the more he thought upon it.
But it was ever thus. That which has never come within the scope of our really
pitifully meager world-experience cannot be—our finite minds cannot grasp that
which may not exist in accordance with the conditions which obtain about us
upon the outside of the insignificant grain of dust which wends its tiny way
among the bowlders of the universe—the speck of moist dirt we so proudly call
the World.
So I gave it up and asked him about himself. He said he was a Mezop, and that
his name was Ja.
“Who are the Mezops?” I asked. “Where do they live?”
He looked at me in surprise.
“I might indeed believe that you were from another world,” he said, “for who of
Pellucidar could be so ignorant! The Mezops live upon the islands of the seas.
In so far as I ever have heard no Mezop lives elsewhere, and no others than
Mezops dwell upon islands, but of course it may be different in other
far-distant lands. I do not know. At any rate in this sea and those near by it
is true that only people of my race inhabit the islands.
“We are fishermen, though we be great hunters as well, often going to the
mainland in search of the game that is scarce upon all but the larger islands.
And we are warriors also,” he added proudly. “Even the Sagoths of the Mahars
fear us. Once, when Pellucidar was young, the Sagoths were wont to capture us
for slaves as they do the other men of Pellucidar, it is handed down from
father to son among us that this is so; but we fought so desperately and slew
so many Sagoths, and those of us that were captured killed so many Mahars in
their own cities that at last they learned that it were better to leave us
alone, and later came the time that the Mahars became too indolent even to
catch their own fish, except for amusement, and then they needed us to supply
their wants, and so a truce was made between the races. Now they give us
certain things which we are unable to produce in return for the fish that we
catch, and the Mezops and the Mahars live in peace.
“The great ones even come to our islands. It is there, far from the prying eyes
of their own Sagoths, that they practice their religious rites in the temples
they have builded there with our assistance. If you live among us you will
doubtless see the manner of their worship, which is strange indeed, and most
unpleasant for the poor slaves they bring to take part in it.”
As Ja talked I had an excellent opportunity to inspect him more closely. He was
a huge fellow, standing I should say six feet six or seven inches, well
developed and of a coppery red not unlike that of our own North American
Indian, nor were his features dissimilar to theirs. He had the aquiline nose
found among many of the higher tribes, the prominent cheek bones, and black
hair and eyes, but his mouth and lips were better molded. All in all, Ja was an
impressive and handsome creature, and he talked well too, even in the miserable
makeshift language we were compelled to use.
During our conversation Ja had taken the paddle and was propelling the skiff
with vigorous strokes toward a large island that lay some half-mile from the
mainland. The skill with which he handled his crude and awkward craft elicited
my deepest admiration, since it had been so short a time before that I had made
such pitiful work of it.
As we touched the pretty, level beach Ja leaped out and I followed him.
Together we dragged the skiff far up into the bushes that grew beyond the sand.
“We must hide our canoes,” explained Ja, “for the Mezops of Luana are always at
war with us and would steal them if they found them,” he nodded toward an
island farther out at sea, and at so great a distance that it seemed but a blur
hanging in the distant sky. The upward curve of the surface of Pellucidar was
constantly revealing the impossible to the surprised eyes of the outer-earthly.
To see land and water curving upward in the distance until it seemed to stand
on edge where it melted into the distant sky, and to feel that seas and
mountains hung suspended directly above one’s head required such a complete
reversal of the perceptive and reasoning faculties as almost to stupefy one.
No sooner had we hidden the canoe than Ja plunged into the jungle, presently
emerging into a narrow but well-defined trail which wound hither and thither
much after the manner of the highways of all primitive folk, but there was one
peculiarity about this Mezop trail which I was later to find distinguished them
from all other trails that I ever have seen within or without the earth.
It would run on, plain and clear and well defined to end suddenly in the midst
of a tangle of matted jungle, then Ja would turn directly back in his tracks
for a little distance, spring into a tree, climb through it to the other side,
drop onto a fallen log, leap over a low bush and alight once more upon a
distinct trail which he would follow back for a short distance only to turn
directly about and retrace his steps until after a mile or less this new
pathway ended as suddenly and mysteriously as the former section. Then he would
pass again across some media which would reveal no spoor, to take up the broken
thread of the trail beyond.
As the purpose of this remarkable avenue dawned upon me I could not but admire
the native shrewdness of the ancient progenitor of the Mezops who hit upon this
novel plan to throw his enemies from his track and delay or thwart them in
their attempts to follow him to his deep-buried cities.
To you of the outer earth it might seem a slow and tortuous method of traveling
through the jungle, but were you of Pellucidar you would realize that time is
no factor where time does not exist. So labyrinthine are the windings of these
trails, so varied the connecting links and the distances which one must retrace
one’s steps from the paths’ ends to find them that a Mezop often reaches man’s
estate before he is familiar even with those which lead from his own city to
the sea.
In fact three-fourths of the education of the young male Mezop consists in
familiarizing himself with these jungle avenues, and the status of an adult is
largely determined by the number of trails which he can follow upon his own
island. The females never learn them, since from birth to death they never
leave the clearing in which the village of their nativity is situated except
they be taken to mate by a male from another village, or captured in war by the
enemies of their tribe.
After proceeding through the jungle for what must have been upward of five
miles we emerged suddenly into a large clearing in the exact center of which
stood as strange an appearing village as one might well imagine.
Large trees had been chopped down fifteen or twenty feet above the ground, and
upon the tops of them spherical habitations of woven twigs, mud covered, had
been built. Each ball-like house was surmounted by some manner of carven image,
which Ja told me indicated the identity of the owner.
Horizontal slits, six inches high and two or three feet wide, served to admit
light and ventilation. The entrances to the house were through small apertures
in the bases of the trees and thence upward by rude ladders through the hollow
trunks to the rooms above. The houses varied in size from two to several rooms.
The largest that I entered was divided into two floors and eight apartments.
All about the village, between it and the jungle, lay beautifully cultivated
fields in which the Mezops raised such cereals, fruits, and vegetables as they
required. Women and children were working in these gardens as we crossed toward
the village. At sight of Ja they saluted deferentially, but to me they paid not
the slightest attention. Among them and about the outer verge of the cultivated
area were many warriors. These too saluted Ja, by touching the points of their
spears to the ground directly before them.
Ja conducted me to a large house in the center of the village—the house with
eight rooms—and taking me up into it gave me food and drink. There I met his
mate, a comely girl with a nursing baby in her arms. Ja told her of how I had
saved his life, and she was thereafter most kind and hospitable toward me, even
permitting me to hold and amuse the tiny bundle of humanity whom Ja told me
would one day rule the tribe, for Ja, it seemed, was the chief of the
community.
We had eaten and rested, and I had slept, much to Ja’s amusement, for it seemed
that he seldom if ever did so, and then the red man proposed that I accompany
him to the temple of the Mahars which lay not far from his village. “We are not
supposed to visit it,” he said; “but the great ones cannot hear and if we keep
well out of sight they need never know that we have been there. For my part I
hate them and always have, but the other chieftains of the island think it best
that we continue to maintain the amicable relations which exist between the two
races; otherwise I should like nothing better than to lead my warriors amongst
the hideous creatures and exterminate them—Pellucidar would be a better place
to live were there none of them.”
I wholly concurred in Ja’s belief, but it seemed that it might be a difficult
matter to exterminate the dominant race of Pellucidar. Thus conversing we
followed the intricate trail toward the temple, which we came upon in a small
clearing surrounded by enormous trees similar to those which must have
flourished upon the outer crust during the carboniferous age.
Here was a mighty temple of hewn rock built in the shape of a rough oval with
rounded roof in which were several large openings. No doors or windows were
visible in the sides of the structure, nor was there need of any, except one
entrance for the slaves, since, as Ja explained, the Mahars flew to and from
their place of ceremonial, entering and leaving the building by means of the
apertures in the roof.
“But,” added Ja, “there is an entrance near the base of which even the Mahars
know nothing. Come,” and he led me across the clearing and about the end to a
pile of loose rock which lay against the foot of the wall. Here he removed a
couple of large bowlders, revealing a small opening which led straight within
the building, or so it seemed, though as I entered after Ja I discovered myself
in a narrow place of extreme darkness.
“We are within the outer wall,” said Ja. “It is hollow. Follow me closely.”
The red man groped ahead a few paces and then began to ascend a primitive
ladder similar to that which leads from the ground to the upper stories of his
house. We ascended for some forty feet when the interior of the space between
the walls commenced to grow lighter and presently we came opposite an opening
in the inner wall which gave us an unobstructed view of the entire interior of
the temple.
The lower floor was an enormous tank of clear water in which numerous hideous
Mahars swam lazily up and down. Artificial islands of granite rock dotted this
artificial sea, and upon several of them I saw men and women like myself.
“What are the human beings doing here?” I asked.
“Wait and you shall see,” replied Ja. “They are to take a leading part in the
ceremonies which will follow the advent of the queen. You may be thankful that
you are not upon the same side of the wall as they.”
Scarcely had he spoken than we heard a great fluttering of wings above and a
moment later a long procession of the frightful reptiles of Pellucidar winged
slowly and majestically through the large central opening in the roof and
circled in stately manner about the temple.
There were several Mahars first, and then at least twenty awe-inspiring
pterodactyls—thipdars, they are called within Pellucidar. Behind these came the
queen, flanked by other thipdars as she had been when she entered the
amphitheater at Phutra.
Three times they wheeled about the interior of the oval chamber, to settle
finally upon the damp, cold bowlders that fringe the outer edge of the pool. In
the center of one side the largest rock was reserved for the queen, and here
she took her place surrounded by her terrible guard.
All lay quiet for several minutes after settling to their places. One might
have imagined them in silent prayer. The poor slaves upon the diminutive
islands watched the horrid creatures with wide eyes. The men, for the most
part, stood erect and stately with folded arms, awaiting their doom; but the
women and children clung to one another, hiding behind the males. They are a
noble-looking race, these cave men of Pellucidar, and if our progenitors were
as they, the human race of the outer crust has deteriorated rather than
improved with the march of the ages. All they lack is opportunity. We have
opportunity, and little else.
Now the queen moved. She raised her ugly head, looking about; then very slowly
she crawled to the edge of her throne and slid noiselessly into the water. Up
and down the long tank she swam, turning at the ends as you have seen captive
seals turn in their tiny tanks, turning upon their backs and diving below the
surface.
Nearer and nearer to the island she came until at last she remained at rest
before the largest, which was directly opposite her throne. Raising her hideous
head from the water she fixed her great, round eyes upon the slaves. They were
fat and sleek, for they had been brought from a distant Mahar city where human
beings are kept in droves, and bred and fattened, as we breed and fatten beef
cattle.
The queen fixed her gaze upon a plump young maiden. Her victim tried to turn
away, hiding her face in her hands and kneeling behind a woman; but the
reptile, with unblinking eyes, stared on with such fixity that I could have
sworn her vision penetrated the woman, and the girl’s arms to reach at last the
very center of her brain.
Slowly the reptile’s head commenced to move to and fro, but the eyes never
ceased to bore toward the frightened girl, and then the victim responded. She
turned wide, fear-haunted eyes toward the Mahar queen, slowly she rose to her
feet, and then as though dragged by some unseen power she moved as one in a
trance straight toward the reptile, her glassy eyes fixed upon those of her
captor. To the water’s edge she came, nor did she even pause, but stepped into
the shallows beside the little island. On she moved toward the Mahar, who now
slowly retreated as though leading her victim on. The water rose to the girl’s
knees, and still she advanced, chained by that clammy eye. Now the water was at
her waist; now her armpits. Her fellows upon the island looked on in horror,
helpless to avert her doom in which they saw a forecast of their own.
The Mahar sank now till only the long upper bill and eyes were exposed above
the surface of the water, and the girl had advanced until the end of that
repulsive beak was but an inch or two from her face, her horror-filled eyes
riveted upon those of the reptile.
Now the water passed above the girl’s mouth and nose—her eyes and forehead all
that showed—yet still she walked on after the retreating Mahar. The queen’s
head slowly disappeared beneath the surface and after it went the eyes of her
victim—only a slow ripple widened toward the shores to mark where the two
vanished.
For a time all was silence within the temple. The slaves were motionless in
terror. The Mahars watched the surface of the water for the reappearance of
their queen, and presently at one end of the tank her head rose slowly into
view. She was backing toward the surface, her eyes fixed before her as they had
been when she dragged the helpless girl to her doom.
And then to my utter amazement I saw the forehead and eyes of the maiden come
slowly out of the depths, following the gaze of the reptile just as when she
had disappeared beneath the surface. On and on came the girl until she stood in
water that reached barely to her knees, and though she had been beneath the
surface sufficient time to have drowned her thrice over there was no
indication, other than her dripping hair and glistening body, that she had been
submerged at all.
Again and again the queen led the girl into the depths and out again, until the
uncanny weirdness of the thing got on my nerves so that I could have leaped
into the tank to the child’s rescue had I not taken a firm hold of myself.
Once they were below much longer than usual, and when they came to the surface
I was horrified to see that one of the girl’s arms was gone—gnawed completely
off at the shoulder—but the poor thing gave no indication of realizing pain,
only the horror in her set eyes seemed intensified.
The next time they appeared the other arm was gone, and then the breasts, and
then a part of the face—it was awful. The poor creatures on the islands
awaiting their fate tried to cover their eyes with their hands to hide the
fearful sight, but now I saw that they too were under the hypnotic spell of the
reptiles, so that they could only crouch in terror with their eyes fixed upon
the terrible thing that was transpiring before them.
Finally the queen was under much longer than ever before, and when she rose she
came alone and swam sleepily toward her bowlder. The moment she mounted it
seemed to be the signal for the other Mahars to enter the tank, and then
commenced, upon a larger scale, a repetition of the uncanny performance through
which the queen had led her victim.
Only the women and children fell prey to the Mahars—they being the weakest and
most tender—and when they had satisfied their appetite for human flesh, some of
them devouring two and three of the slaves, there were only a score of
full-grown men left, and I thought that for some reason these were to be
spared, but such was far from the case, for as the last Mahar crawled to her
rock the queen’s thipdars darted into the air, circled the temple once and
then, hissing like steam engines, swooped down upon the remaining slaves.
There was no hypnotism here—just the plain, brutal ferocity of the beast of
prey, tearing, rending, and gulping its meat, but at that it was less horrible
than the uncanny method of the Mahars. By the time the thipdars had disposed of
the last of the slaves the Mahars were all asleep upon their rocks, and a
moment later the great pterodactyls swung back to their posts beside the queen,
and themselves dropped into slumber.
“I thought the Mahars seldom, if ever, slept,” I said to Ja.
“They do many things in this temple which they do not do elsewhere,” he
replied. “The Mahars of Phutra are not supposed to eat human flesh, yet slaves
are brought here by thousands and almost always you will find Mahars on hand to
consume them. I imagine that they do not bring their Sagoths here, because they
are ashamed of the practice, which is supposed to obtain only among the least
advanced of their race; but I would wager my canoe against a broken paddle that
there is no Mahar but eats human flesh whenever she can get it.”
“Why should they object to eating human flesh,” I asked, “if it is true that
they look upon us as lower animals?”
“It is not because they consider us their equals that they are supposed to look
with abhorrence upon those who eat our flesh,” replied Ja; “it is merely that
we are warm-blooded animals. They would not think of eating the meat of a thag,
which we consider such a delicacy, any more than I would think of eating a
snake. As a matter of fact it is difficult to explain just why this sentiment
should exist among them.”
“I wonder if they left a single victim,” I remarked, leaning far out of the
opening in the rocky wall to inspect the temple better. Directly below me the
water lapped the very side of the wall, there being a break in the bowlders at
this point as there was at several other places about the side of the temple.
My hands were resting upon a small piece of granite which formed a part of the
wall, and all my weight upon it proved too much for it. It slipped and I lunged
forward. There was nothing to save myself and I plunged headforemost into the
water below.
Fortunately the tank was deep at this point, and I suffered no injury from the
fall, but as I was rising to the surface my mind filled with the horrors of my
position as I thought of the terrible doom which awaited me the moment the eyes
of the reptiles fell upon the creature that had disturbed their slumber.
As long as I could I remained beneath the surface, swimming rapidly in the
direction of the islands that I might prolong my life to the utmost. At last I
was forced to rise for air, and as I cast a terrified glance in the direction
of the Mahars and the thipdars I was almost stunned to see that not a single
one remained upon the rocks where I had last seen them, nor as I searched the
temple with my eyes could I discern any within it.
For a moment I was puzzled to account for the thing, until I realized that the
reptiles, being deaf, could not have been disturbed by the noise my body made
when it hit the water, and that as there is no such thing as time within
Pellucidar there was no telling how long I had been beneath the surface. It was
a difficult thing to attempt to figure out by earthly standards—this matter of
elapsed time—but when I set myself to it I began to realize that I might have
been submerged a second or a month or not at all. You have no conception of the
strange contradictions and impossibilities which arise when all methods of
measuring time, as we know them upon earth, are non-existent.
I was about to congratulate myself upon the miracle which had saved me for the
moment, when the memory of the hypnotic powers of the Mahars filled me with
apprehension lest they be practicing their uncanny art upon me to the end that
I merely imagined that I was alone in the temple. At the thought cold sweat
broke out upon me from every pore, and as I crawled from the water onto one of
the tiny islands I was trembling like a leaf—you cannot imagine the awful
horror which even the simple thought of the repulsive Mahars of Pellucidar
induces in the human mind, and to feel that you are in their power—that they
are crawling, slimy, and abhorrent, to drag you down beneath the waters and
devour you! It is frightful.
But they did not come, and at last I came to the conclusion that I was indeed
alone within the temple. How long I should be alone was the next question to
assail me as I swam frantically about once more in search of a means to escape.
Several times I called to Ja, but he must have left after I tumbled into the
tank, for I received no response to my cries. Doubtless he had felt as certain
of my doom when he saw me topple from our hiding place as I had, and lest he
too should be discovered, had hastened from the temple and back to his village.
I knew that there must be some entrance to the building beside the doorways in
the roof, for it did not seem reasonable to believe that the thousands of
slaves which were brought here to feed the Mahars the human flesh they craved
would all be carried through the air, and so I continued my search until at
last it was rewarded by the discovery of several loose granite blocks in the
masonry at one end of the temple.
A little effort proved sufficient to dislodge enough of these stones to permit
me to crawl through into the clearing, and a moment later I had scurried across
the intervening space to the dense jungle beyond.
Here I sank panting and trembling upon the matted grasses beneath the giant
trees, for I felt that I had escaped from the grinning fangs of death out of
the depths of my own grave. Whatever dangers lay hidden in this island jungle,
there could be none so fearsome as those which I had just escaped. I knew that
I could meet death bravely enough if it but came in the form of some familiar
beast or man—anything other than the hideous and uncanny Mahars.
