IV
DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL
When our guards aroused us from sleep we were much refreshed. They gave us
food. Strips of dried meat it was, but it put new life and strength into us, so
that now we too marched with high-held heads, and took noble strides. At least I
did, for I was young and proud; but poor Perry hated walking. On earth I had
often seen him call a cab to travel a square--he was paying for it now, and his
old legs wobbled so that I put my arm about him and half carried him through the
balance of those frightful marches.
The country began to change at last, and we wound up out of the level plain
through mighty mountains of virgin granite. The tropical verdure of the lowlands
was replaced by hardier vegetation, but even here the effects of constant heat
and light were apparent in the immensity of 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 served the double purpose of replenishing the melting snows and
protecting them from the direct rays of the sun.
By this time we had picked up a smattering of the bastard language in which
our guards addressed us, as well as making good headway in the rather charming
tongue of our co-captives. Directly ahead of me in the chain gang was a young
woman. Three feet of chain linked us together 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--at least 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 dwells in 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 you run
away from him?"
She looked at me in surprise.
"Why DOES a woman run away from a man?" she answered my 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 grasp the fact that I
was of another world. She was quite as positive that creation was originated
solely to produce her own kind and the world she lived in as are many of the
outer world.
"But Jubal," I insisted. "Tell me about him, and why you ran
away to be chained by the neck and scourged across the 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 there and no greater trophy was placed
beside it. So I knew that Jubal the Ugly One would come and take me as his mate.
None other so powerful wished me, or they would have slain 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 full use 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 save me from Jubal
the Ugly One, and I ran away and hid among the hills that skirt the land of Amoz.
And there these Sagoths found me and made me captive."
"What will they do with you?" I asked. "Where are they taking
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 Sagoths are the creatures of the Mahars--the mighty
Mahars who think they own Pellucidar and all that walks or grows upon its
surface, or creeps or burrows beneath, or swims within its lakes and oceans, or
flies through its air? Next you will be telling me that you never before heard
of 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 the mighty Mahars. She was shocked. But she did her very
best to enlighten me, though much that she said was as Greek would have been to
her. She described the Mahars largely by comparisons. In this way they were like
unto thipdars, in that to the hairless lidi.
About all I gleaned of them was that they were quite hideous, had wings, and
webbed feet; lived in cities built beneath the ground; could swim under water
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--they
were 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 seemed ages apart, he would join in the conversation,
as would Ghak the Hairy One, he who was chained just ahead of Dian the
Beautiful. Ahead of Ghak was Hooja the Sly One. He too entered the conversation
occasionally. Most of his remarks were directed toward Dian the Beautiful. It
didn't take half an eye to see that he had developed a bad case; but the girl
appeared totally oblivious to 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 preference for the lady of their affections by banging
her over the head with a bludgeon. By comparison with this method Hooja's
lovemaking might be called thinly veiled. At first it caused me to blush
violently although I have seen several Old Years out at Rectors, and in other
less fashionable places off Broadway, and in Vienna, and Hamburg.
But the girl! She was magnificent. It was easy to see that she considered
herself as entirely above and apart from her present surroundings and company.
She talked with me, and with Perry, and with the taciturn Ghak because we were
respectful; but she couldn't even see Hooja the Sly One, much less hear him, and
that made him furious. He tried to get one of the Sagoths to move the girl up
ahead of him in the slave gang, but the fellow only poked him with his spear and
told him that he had selected the girl for his own property--that he would buy
her from the Mahars as soon as they reached Phutra. Phutra, it seemed, was the
city of our destination.
After passing over the first chain of mountains we skirted a salt sea, upon
whose bosom swam countless horrid things. Seal-like creatures there were with
long necks stretching ten and more feet above their enormous bodies and whose
snake heads were split with gaping mouths bristling with countless fangs. There
were huge tortoises too, paddling about among these other reptiles, which Perry
said were Plesiosaurs of the Lias. I didn't question his veracity--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, which occasionally rose 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 studied at school--about all that
remained was an impression of horror that the illustrations of restored
prehistoric monsters had made upon me, and a well-defined belief that any man
with a pig's shank and a vivid imagination could "restore" most any
sort of paleolithic monster he saw fit, and take rank as a first class
paleontologist. But when I saw these sleek, shiny carcasses shimmering in the
sunlight as they emerged from the ocean, shaking their giant heads; when I saw
the waters roll from their sinuous bodies in miniature waterfalls as they glided
hither and 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 realized how futile is man's poor, weak imagination by comparison with
Nature's incredible genius.
And Perry! He was absolutely flabbergasted. He said so himself.
"David," he remarked, after we had marched for a long time beside
that awful sea. "David, I used to teach geology, and I thought that I
believed what I taught; but now I see that I did not believe it--that it is
impossible for man to believe such things as these unless he sees them 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 think we do. If you ever get back to the outer
world you will find that the geologists and paleontologists will be the first to
set you down a liar, for they know that no such creatures as they restore ever
existed. It is all right to IMAGINE them as existing in an equally imaginary
epoch--but now? poof!"
At the next halt Hooja the Sly One managed to find enough slack chain to
permit him to worm himself back quite close to Dian. We were all standing, and
as he edged near the girl she turned her back upon him in such a truly earthly
feminine manner that I could scarce repress a smile; but it was a short-lived
smile for on the instant the Sly One's hand fell upon the girl's bare arm,
jerking her roughly toward him.
I was not then familiar with the customs or social ethics which prevailed
within Pellucidar; but even so I did not need the appealing look which the girl
shot to me from 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 his other hand, I placed a right to the point of his jaw
that felled him in his tracks.
A roar of approval went up from those of the other prisoners and the Sagoths
who had witnessed the brief drama; not, as I later learned, because I had
championed the girl, but for the neat and, to them, astounding method by which I
had bested Hooja.
And the girl? At first she looked at me with wide, wondering eyes, and then
she dropped her head, her face half averted, and a delicate flush suffused her
cheek. For a moment she 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 Ghak the Hairy One go very black as he looked at
me searchingly. And what I could see of Dian's cheek went suddenly from red to
white.
Immediately after we resumed the march, and though I realized that in some
way I had offended Dian the Beautiful I could not prevail upon her to talk with
me that I might learn wherein I had erred--in fact I might quite as well have
been addressing a sphinx for all the attention I got. At last my own foolish
pride stepped in and prevented my making any further attempts, and thus a
companionship that without my realizing it had come to mean a great deal to me
was cut off. Thereafter I confined my conversation to Perry. Hooja did not renew
his advances toward the girl, nor did he again venture near me.
Again the weary and apparently interminable marching became a perfect
nightmare of horrors to me. The more firmly fixed became the realization that
the girl's friendship had 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 the explanation which I was sure he could give, and that might
have made everything all right again.
On the march, or during halts, Dian refused consistently to notice me--when
her eyes wandered in my direction she looked either over my head or directly
through me. At last I became desperate, and determined to swallow my
self-esteem, and again beg her to tell me how I had offended, and how I might
make reparation. I made up 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 across them through some high-flung pass we entered a
mighty natural 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 of fire since we had entered Pellucidar. In a land of
perpetual noon there is no need of light above ground, yet I marveled that they
had no means of lighting their way through these dark, subterranean passages. So
we crept along at a snail's pace, with much stumbling and falling--the guards
keeping up a singsong chant ahead of us, interspersed with certain high notes
which I found always indicated rough places and turns.
Halts were now more frequent, but I did not wish to speak to Dian until I
could see from the expression of her face how she was receiving my apologies. At
last a faint glow ahead forewarned us of the end of the tunnel, for which I for
one was devoutly thankful. Then at a sudden turn we emerged into the full light
of the noonday sun.
But with it came a sudden realization of what meant to me a real
catastrophe--Dian was gone, and with her a 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 most diabolical expressions, as
they accused each other of responsibility 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
when their leader finally put a stop to the brutal slaughter. Never in all my
life had I witnessed a more horrible exhibition of bestial rage--I thanked God
that Dian had not been one of those left to endure it.
Of the twelve prisoners who had been chained ahead of me each alternate one
had been freed commencing with Dian. Hooja was gone. Ghak remained. What could
it mean? How had it been accomplished? The commander of the guards was
investigating. Soon he discovered that the rude locks which had held the
neckbands in place had been deftly picked.
"Hooja the Sly One," murmured Ghak, who was now next to me in 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 could your ignorance of the
ways of Pellucidar be explained. Do you really mean that you do not know that
you offended the Beautiful One, and how?"
"I do not know, Ghak," I replied.
"Then shall I tell you. When a man of Pellucidar intervenes between
another man and the woman the other man would have, the woman belongs to the
victor. Dian the Beautiful belongs to you. You should have claimed her or
released her. Had you taken her hand, it would have indicated your desire to
make her your mate, and had you raised her hand above her head and then dropped
it, it would have meant that you did not wish her for a mate and that you
released her from all obligation to you. By doing neither you have put upon her
the greatest affront that 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 not choose slave women as their mates--at
least not the men of Pellucidar."
"I did not know, Ghak," I cried. "I did not know. Not for all
Pellucidar would I have harmed Dian the Beautiful by word, or look, or act of
mine. I do not want her as my slave. I do not want her as my--" but here I
stopped. The vision of that sweet and innocent face floated before me amidst the
soft mists of imagination, and where I had on the second believed that I clung
only to the memory of a gentle friendship I had lost, yet now it seemed that it
would have been disloyalty to her to have said that I did not want Dian the
Beautiful as my mate. I had not thought of her except as a welcome friend in a
strange, cruel world. Even now I did not think that I loved her.
I believe Ghak must have read the truth more in my expression than in my
words, for presently he laid his hand upon my shoulder.
"Man of another world," he said, "I believe you. Lips may lie,
but when the heart speaks through the eyes it 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's father who came with many others of the tribe of
Amoz to battle with us for our women--the most beautiful women of Pellucidar.
Then was her father king of Amoz, and her mother 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 tossed him and Jubal the
Ugly One wrested his kingship from him. Because of her lineage the wrong you did
her was greatly magnified in the eyes of all who saw it. She will never forgive
you."
I asked Ghak if there was not some way in which I could release the girl from
the bondage and ignominy I had unwittingly placed upon her.
"If ever you find her, yes," he answered. "Merely to raise her
hand above her head and drop it in the presence of others is sufficient to
release her; but how may you ever find her, you who are doomed to a life of
slavery yourself 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 on the way to Phutra, and once
there it is not so easy--the Mahars are very wise. Even if one escaped from
Phutra there are the thipdars--they would find you, and then--" the Hairy
One shuddered. "No, you will never escape the Mahars."
It was a cheerful prospect. I asked Perry what he thought about it; but he
only shrugged his shoulders and continued a longwinded prayer he had been at for
some time. He was wont to say that the only redeeming feature of our captivity
was the ample time it gave him for the improvisation of prayers--it was becoming
an obsession with him. The Sagoths had begun to take notice of his habit of
declaiming throughout entire marches. One of them asked him what he was
saying--to whom he was talking. The question gave me an idea, so I answered
quickly before Perry could say anything.
"Do not interrupt him," I said. "He is a very holy man in the
world from which we come. He is speaking to spirits which you cannot see--do not
interrupt him or they will spring out of the air upon you and rend you limb from
limb--like that," and I jumped toward the great brute with a loud
"Boo!" that sent him stumbling backward.
I took a long chance, I realized, but if we could make any capital out of
Perry's harmless mania I wanted to make it while the making was prime. It worked
splendidly. The Sagoths treated us both with marked respect during the balance
of the journey, and then passed the word along to 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 more other towers scattered about over a large plain.
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