WITHIN PELLUCIDAR ONE TIME IS AS GOOD AS ANOTHER. There were no
nights to mask our attempted escape. All must be done in broad
daylight--all but the work I had to do in the apartment beneath the
building. So we determined to put our plan to an immediate test
lest the Mahars who made it possible should awake before I reached
them; but we were doomed to disappointment, for no sooner had
we reached the main floor of the building on our way to the pits
beneath, than we encountered hurrying bands of slaves being hastened
under strong Sagoth guard out of the edifice to the avenue beyond.
Other Sagoths were darting hither and thither in search of other
slaves, and the moment that we appeared we were pounced upon and
hustled into the line of marching humans.
What the purpose or nature of the general exodus we did not know,
but presently through the line of captives ran the rumor that two
escaped slaves had been recaptured--a man and a woman--and that we
were marching to witness their punishment, for the man had killed
a Sagoth of the detachment that had pursued and overtaken them.
At the intelligence my heart sprang to my throat, for I was sure
that the two were of those who escaped in the dark grotto with
Hooja the Sly One, and that Dian must be the woman. Ghak thought
so too, as did Perry.
"Is there naught that we may do to save her?" I asked Ghak.
"Naught," he replied.
Along the crowded avenue we marched, the guards showing unusual
cruelty toward us, as though we, too, had been implicated in the
murder of their fellow. The occasion was to serve as an object-lesson
to all other slaves of the danger and futility of attempted escape,
and the fatal consequences of taking the life of a superior being,
and so I imagine that Sagoths felt amply justified in making the
entire proceeding as uncomfortable and painful to us as possible.
They jabbed us with their spears and struck at us with the hatchets
at the least provocation, and at no provocation at all. It was a
most uncomfortable half-hour that we spent before we were finally
herded through a low entrance into a huge building the center of
which was given up to a good-sized arena. Benches surrounded this
open space upon three sides, and along the fourth were heaped huge
bowlders which rose in receding tiers toward the roof.
At first I couldn't make out the purpose of this mighty pile of
rock, unless it were intended as a rough and picturesque background
for the scenes which were enacted in the arena before it, but
presently, after the wooden benches had been pretty well filled by
slaves and Sagoths, I discovered the purpose of the bowlders, for
then the Mahars began to file into the enclosure.
They marched directly across the arena toward the rocks upon the
opposite side, where, spreading their bat-like wings, they rose
above the high wall of the pit, settling down upon the bowlders
above. These were the reserved seats, the boxes of the elect.
Reptiles that they are, the rough surface of a great stone is
to them as plush as upholstery to us. Here they lolled, blinking
their hideous eyes, and doubtless conversing with one another in
their sixth-sense-fourth-dimension language.
For the first time I beheld their queen. She differed from the
others in no feature that was appreciable to my earthly eyes, in
fact all Mahars look alike to me: but when she crossed the arena
after the balance of her female subjects had found their bowlders,
she was preceded by a score of huge Sagoths, the largest I ever
had seen, and on either side of her waddled a huge thipdar, while
behind came another score of Sagoth guardsmen.
At the barrier the Sagoths clambered up the steep side with truly
apelike agility, while behind them the haughty queen rose upon her
wings with her two frightful dragons close beside her, and settled
down upon the largest bowlder of them all in the exact center of
that side of the amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant
race. Here she squatted, a most repulsive and uninteresting queen;
though doubtless quite as well assured of her beauty and divine
right to rule as the proudest monarch of the outer world.
And then the music started--music without sound! The Mahars cannot
hear, so the drums and fifes and horns of earthly bands are unknown
among them. The "band" consists of a score or more Mahars. It
filed out in the center of the arena where the creatures upon the
rocks might see it, and there it performed for fifteen or twenty
minutes.
Their technic consisted in waving their tails and moving their
heads in a regular succession of measured movements resulting in a
cadence which evidently pleased the eye of the Mahar as the cadence
of our own instrumental music pleases our ears. Sometimes the band
took measured steps in unison to one side or the other, or backward
and again forward--it all seemed very silly and meaningless to me,
but at the end of the first piece the Mahars upon the rocks showed
the first indications of enthusiasm that I had seen displayed by
the dominant race of Pellucidar. They beat their great wings up
and down, and smote their rocky perches with their mighty tails
until the ground shook. Then the band started another piece, and
all was again as silent as the grave. That was one great beauty
about Mahar music--if you didn't happen to like a piece that was
being played all you had to do was shut your eyes.
When the band had exhausted its repertory it took wing and settled
upon the rocks above and behind the queen. Then the business of
the day was on. A man and woman were pushed into the arena by a
couple of Sagoth guardsmen. I leaned forward in my seat to scrutinize
the female--hoping against hope that she might prove to be another
than Dian the Beautiful. Her back was toward me for a while, and
the sight of the great mass of raven hair piled high upon her head
filled me with alarm.
Presently a door in one side of the arena wall was opened to admit
a huge, shaggy, bull-like creature.
"A Bos," whispered Perry, excitedly. "His kind roamed the outer
crust with the cave bear and the mammoth ages and ages ago. We
have been carried back a million years, David, to the childhood of
a planet--is it not wondrous?"
But I saw only the raven hair of a half-naked girl, and my heart
stood still in dumb misery at the sight of her, nor had I any eyes
for the wonders of natural history. But for Perry and Ghak I should
have leaped to the floor of the arena and shared whatever fate lay
in store for this priceless treasure of the Stone Age.
With the advent of the Bos--they call the thing a thag within
Pellucidar--two spears were tossed into the arena at the feet of
the prisoners. It seemed to me that a bean shooter would have been
as effective against the mighty monster as these pitiful weapons.
As the animal approached the two, bellowing and pawing the ground
with the strength of many earthly bulls, another door directly
beneath us was opened, and from it issued the most terrific roar
that ever had fallen upon my outraged ears. I could not at first
see the beast from which emanated this fearsome challenge, but
the sound had the effect of bringing the two victims around with
a sudden start, and then I saw the girl's face--she was not Dian!
I could have wept for relief.
And now, as the two stood frozen in terror, I saw the author of
that fearsome sound creeping stealthily into view. It was a huge
tiger--such as hunted the great Bos through the jungles primeval
when the world was young. In contour and markings it was not unlike
the noblest of the Bengals of our own world, but as its dimensions
were exaggerated to colossal proportions so too were its colorings
exaggerated. Its vivid yellows fairly screamed aloud; its whites
were as eider down; its blacks glossy as the finest anthracite
coal, and its coat long and shaggy as a mountain goat. That it
is a beautiful animal there is no gainsaying, but if its size and
colors are magnified here within Pellucidar, so is the ferocity of
its disposition. It is not the occasional member of its species
that is a man hunter--all are man hunters; but they do not confine
their foraging to man alone, for there is no flesh or fish within
Pellucidar that they will not eat with relish in the constant efforts
which they make to furnish their huge carcasses with sufficient
sustenance to maintain their mighty thews.
Upon one side of the doomed pair the thag bellowed and advanced,
and upon the other tarag, the frightful, crept toward them with
gaping mouth and dripping fangs.
The man seized the spears, handing one of them to the woman. At
the sound of the roaring of the tiger the bull's bellowing became
a veritable frenzy of rageful noise. Never in my life had I heard
such an infernal din as the two brutes made, and to think it was
all lost upon the hideous reptiles for whom the show was staged!
The thag was charging now from one side, and the tarag from the
other. The two puny things standing between them seemed already
lost, but at the very moment that the beasts were upon them the man
grasped his companion by the arm and together they leaped to one
side, while the frenzied creatures came together like locomotives
in collision.
There ensued a battle royal which for sustained and frightful
ferocity transcends the power of imagination or description. Time
and again the colossal bull tossed the enormous tiger high into the
air, but each time that the huge cat touched the ground he returned
to the encounter with apparently undiminished strength, and seemingly
increased ire.
For a while the man and woman busied themselves only with keeping
out of the way of the two creatures, but finally I saw them separate
and each creep stealthily toward one of the combatants. The tiger
was now upon the bull's broad back, clinging to the huge neck with
powerful fangs while its long, strong talons ripped the heavy hide
into shreds and ribbons.
For a moment the bull stood bellowing and quivering with pain and
rage, its cloven hoofs widespread, its tail lashing viciously from
side to side, and then, in a mad orgy of bucking it went careening
about the arena in frenzied attempt to unseat its rending rider.
It was with difficulty that the girl avoided the first mad rush of
the wounded animal.
All its efforts to rid itself of the tiger seemed futile, until
in desperation it threw itself upon the ground, rolling over and
over. A little of this so disconcerted the tiger, knocking its
breath from it I imagine, that it lost its hold and then, quick
as a cat, the great thag was up again and had buried those mighty
horns deep in the tarag's abdomen, pinning him to the floor of the
arena.
The great cat clawed at the shaggy head until eyes and ears were
gone, and naught but a few strips of ragged, bloody flesh remained
upon the skull. Yet through all the agony of that fearful punishment
the thag still stood motionless pinning down his adversary, and
then the man leaped in, seeing that the blind bull would be the
least formidable enemy, and ran his spear through the tarag's heart.
As the animal's fierce clawing ceased, the bull raised his gory,
sightless head, and with a horrid roar ran headlong across the
arena. With great leaps and bounds he came, straight toward the
arena wall directly beneath where we sat, and then accident carried
him, in one of his mighty springs, completely over the barrier into
the midst of the slaves and Sagoths just in front of us. Swinging
his bloody horns from side to side the beast cut a wide swath
before him straight upward toward our seats. Before him slaves
and gorilla-men fought in mad stampede to escape the menace of the
creature's death agonies, for such only could that frightful charge
have been.
Forgetful of us, our guards joined in the general rush for the
exits, many of which pierced the wall of the amphitheater behind
us. Perry, Ghak, and I became separated in the chaos which reigned
for a few moments after the beast cleared the wall of the arena,
each intent upon saving his own hide.
I ran to the right, passing several exits choked with the fear mad
mob that were battling to escape. One would have thought that an
entire herd of thags was loose behind them, rather than a single
blinded, dying beast; but such is the effect of panic upon a crowd.
Read next: CHAPTER VII - FREEDOM
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