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 revolvers. 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 permitted 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 accomplish 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 accustomed 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 abandoned 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 gratitude 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 fulfillment 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 considered 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 eventually 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
civilization; 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 occupation which did not elicit
from the Sagoths even a shadow of interest. I felt that the human race of
Pellucidar 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
distance was too great for me to recognize the features of any of the human
beings.
Finally the parley was concluded and the men continued 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 Sagoths 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 document--the manuscript was gone!
Frantically I searched the whole interior of the cave several times over, but
without other result than a complete 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 discovered. 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
discovered 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
chieftain, 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 communicating 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 interrupted 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."
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