CHAPTER VII

Pellicudar

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER VII, PELLICUDAR by Edgar R. Burroughs
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FROM PLIGHT TO PLIGHT

I have never been much of a runner; I hate running.
But if ever a sprinter broke into smithereens all world's
records it was I that day when I fled before those hide-
ous beasts along the narrow spit of rocky cliff between
two narrow fiords toward the Sojar Az. Just as I reached
the verge of the cliff the foremost of the brutes was upon
me. He leaped and closed his massive jaws upon my
shoulder.

The momentum of his flying body, added to that of
my own, carried the two of us over the cliff. It was a
hideous fall. The cliff was almost perpendicular. At its
foot broke the sea against a solid wall of rock.

We struck the cliff-face once in our descent and then
plunged into the salt sea. With the impact with the water
the hyaenodon released his hold upon my shoulder.

As I came sputtering to the surface I looked about for
some tiny foot- or hand-hold where I might cling for a
moment of rest and recuperation. The cliff itself offered
me nothing, so I swam toward the mouth of the fiord.

At the far end I could see that erosion from above had
washed down sufficient rubble to form a narrow ribbon
of beach. Toward this I swam with all my strength. Not
once did I look behind me, since every unnecessary
movement in swimming detracts so much from one's
endurance speed. Not until I had drawn myself safely
out upon the beach did I turn my eyes back toward the
sea for the hyaenodon. He was swimming slowly and
apparently painfully toward the beach upon where I
stood.

I watched him for a long time, wondering, why it was
that such a doglike animal was not a better swimmer.
As he neared me I realized that he was weakening
rapidly. I had gathered a handful of stones to be
ready for his assault when he landed, but in a moment
I let them fall from my hands. It was evident that the
brute either was no swimmer or else was severely in-
jured, for by now he was making practically no head-
way. Indeed, it was with quite apparent difficulty that
he kept his nose above the surface of the sea.

He was not more than fifty yards from shore when he
went under. I watched the spot where he had disap-
peared, and in a moment I saw his head reappear.
The look of dumb misery in his eyes struck a chord in
my breast, for I love dogs. I forgot that he was a vicious,
primordial wolf-thing--a man-eater, a scourge, and a
terror. I saw only the sad eyes that looked like the eyes
of Raja, my dead collie of the outer world.

I did not stop to weigh and consider. In other words,
I did not stop to think, which I believe must be the
way of men who do things--in contradistinction to
those who think much and do nothing. Instead, I leaped
back into the water and swam out toward the drowning
beast. At first he showed his teeth at my approach, but
just before I reached him he went under for the second
time, so that I had to dive to get him.

I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and though
he weighed as much as a Shetland pony, I managed to
drag him to shore and well up upon the beach. Here
I found that one of his forelegs was broken--the crash
against the cliff-face must have done it.

By this time all the fight was out of him, so that when
I had gathered a few tiny branches from some of the
stunted trees that grew in the crevices of the cliff, and
returned to him he permitted me to set his broken
leg and bind it in splints. I had to tear part of my shirt
into bits to obtain a bandage, but at last the job was
done. Then I sat stroking the savage head and talking to
the beast in the man-dog talk with which you are
familiar, if you ever owned and loved a dog.

When he is well, I thought, he probably will turn upon
me and attempt to devour me, and against that even-
tuality I gathered together a pile of rocks and set to
work to fashion a stone-knife. We were bottled up at the
head of the fiord as completely as if we had been behind
prison bars. Before us spread the Sojar Az, and else-
where about us rose unscalable cliffs.

Fortunately a little rivulet trickled down the side of
the rocky wall, giving us ample supply of fresh water--
some of which I kept constantly beside the hyaenodon
in a huge, bowl-shaped shell, of which there were count-
less numbers among the rubble of the beach.

For food we subsisted upon shellfish and an occa-
sional bird that I succeeded in knocking over with a
rock, for long practice as a pitcher on prep-school and
varsity nines had made me an excellent shot with a
hand-thrown missile.

It was not long before the hyaenodon's leg was suffi-
ciently mended to permit him to rise and hobble about
on three legs. I shall never forget with what intent in-
terest I watched his first attempt. Close at my hand lay
my pile of rocks. Slowly the beast came to his three good
feet. He stretched himself, lowered his head, and lapped
water from the drinking-shell at his side, turned and
looked at me, and then hobbled off toward the cliffs.

Thrice he traversed the entire extent of our prison,
seeking, I imagine, a loop-hole for escape, but finding
none he returned in my direction. Slowly he came quite
close to me, sniffed at my shoes, my puttees, my hands,
and then limped off a few feet and lay down again.

Now that he was able to get around, I was a little un-
certain as to the wisdom of my impulsive mercy.

How could I sleep with that ferocious thing prowling
about the narrow confines of our prison?

Should I close my eyes it might be to open them
again to the feel of those mighty jaws at my throat. To
say the least, I was uncomfortable.

I have had too much experience with dumb animals
to bank very strongly on any sense of gratitude which
may be attributed to them by inexperienced sentimen-
talists. I believe that some animals love their masters,
but I doubt very much if their affection is the outcome
of gratitude--a characteristic that is so rare as to be only
occasionally traceable in the seemingly unselfish acts of
man himself.

But finally I was forced to sleep. Tired nature would
be put off no longer. I simply fell asleep, willy nilly, as I
sat looking out to sea. I had been very uncomfortable
since my ducking in the ocean, for though I could see
the sunlight on the water half-way toward the island
and upon the island itself, no ray of it fell upon us. We
were well within the Land of Awful Shadow. A per-
petual half-warmth pervaded the atmosphere, but
clothing was slow in drying, and so from loss of sleep
and great physical discomfort, I at last gave way to
nature's demands and sank into profound slumber.

When I awoke it was with a start, for a heavy body
was upon me. My first thought was that the hyaenodon
had at last attacked me, but as my eyes opened and
I struggled to rise, I saw that a man was astride me and
three others bending close above him.

I am no weakling--and never have been. My experi-
ence in the hard life of the inner world has turned
my thews to steel. Even such giants as Ghak the Hairy
One have praised my strength; but to it is added
another quality which they lack--science.

The man upon me held me down awkwardly, leaving
me many openings--one of which I was not slow in
taking advantage of, so that almost before the fellow
knew that I was awake I was upon my feet with my
arms over his shoulders and about his waist and had
hurled him heavily over my head to the hard rubble of
the beach, where he lay quite still.

In the instant that I arose I had seen the hyaenodon
lying asleep beside a boulder a few yards away. So
nearly was he the color of the rock that he was scarcely
discernible. Evidently the newcomers had not seen
him.

I had not more than freed myself from one of my
antagonists before the other three were upon me. They
did not work silently now, but charged me with savage
cries--a mistake upon their part. The fact that they did
not draw their weapons against me convinced me that
they desired to take me alive; but I fought as desper-
ately as if death loomed immediate and sure.

The battle was short, for scarce had their first wild
whoop reverberated through the rocky fiord, and they
had closed upon me, than a hairy mass of demoniacal
rage hurtled among us.

It was the hyaenodon!

In an instant he had pulled down one of the men, and
with a single shake, terrier-like, had broken his neck.
Then he was upon another. In their efforts to vanquish
the wolf-dog the savages forgot all about me, thus giv-
ing me an instant in which to snatch a knife from the
loin-string of him who had first fallen and account for
another of them. Almost simultaneously the hyaenodon
pulled down the remaining enemy, crushing his skull
with a single bite of those fearsome jaws.

The battle was over--unless the beast considered me
fair prey, too. I waited, ready for him with knife and
bludgeon--also filched from a dead foeman; but he paid
no attention to me, falling to work instead to devour one
of the corpses.

The beast bad been handicapped but little by his
splinted leg; but having eaten he lay down and com-
menced to gnaw at the bandage. I was sitting some little
distance away devouring shellfish, of which, by the way,
I was becoming exceedingly tired.

Presently, the hyaenodon arose and came toward
me. I did not move. He stopped in front of me and
deliberately raised his bandaged leg and pawed my
knee. His act was as intelligible as words--he wished
the bandage removed.

I took the great paw in one hand and with the other
hand untied and unwound the bandage, removed the
splints and felt of the injured member. As far as I could
judge the bone was completely knit. The joint was stiff;
when I bent it a little the brute winced--but he neither
growled nor tried to pull away. Very slowly and gently
I rubbed the joint and applied pressure to it for a few
moments.

Then I set it down upon the ground. The hyaenodon
walked around me a few times, and then lay down at
my side, his body touching mine. I laid my hand upon
his head. He did not move. Slowly, I scratched about
his ears and neck and down beneath the fierce jaws.
The only sign he gave was to raise his chin a trifle that
I might better caress him.

That was enough! From that moment I have never
again felt suspicion of Raja, as I immediately named
him. Somehow all sense of loneliness vanished, too--I
had a dog! I had never guessed precisely what it was
that was lacking to life in Pellucidar, but now I knew it
was the total absence of domestic animals.

Man here had not yet reached the point where he
might take the time from slaughter and escaping slaugh-
ter to make friends with any of the brute creation. I
must qualify this statement a trifle and say that this
was true of those tribes with which I was most familiar.
The Thurians do domesticate the colossal lidi, traversing
the great Lidi Plains upon the backs of these gro-
tesque and stupendous monsters, and possibly there may
also be other, far-distant peoples within the great world,
who have tamed others of the wild things of jungle,
plain or mountain.

The Thurians practice agriculture in a crude sort of
way. It is my opinion that this is one of the earliest steps
from savagery to civilization. The taming of wild beasts
and their domestication follows.

Perry argues that wild dogs were first domesticated
for hunting purposes; but I do not agree with him. I
believe that if their domestication were not purely the
result of an accident, as, for example, my taming of the
hyaenodon, it came about through the desire of tribes
who had previously domesticated flocks and herds to
have some strong, ferocious beast to guard their roam-
ing property. However, I lean rather more strongly to
the theory of accident.

As I sat there upon the beach of the little fiord eating
my unpalatable shell-fish, I commenced to wonder how
it had been that the four savages had been able to reach
me, though I had been unable to escape from my natu-
ral prison. I glanced about in all directions, searching for
an explanation. At last my eyes fell upon the bow of a
small dugout protruding scarce a foot from behind a
large boulder lying half in the water at the edge of
the beach.

At my discovery I leaped to my feet so suddenly that
it brought Raja, growling and bristling, upon all fours in
an instant. For the moment I had forgotten him. But his
savage rumbling did not cause me any uneasiness. He
glanced quickly about in all directions as if searching
for the cause of my excitement. Then, as I walked
rapidly down toward the dugout, he slunk silently after
me.

The dugout was similar in many respects to those
which I had seen in use by the Mezops. In it were four
paddles. I was much delighted, as it promptly offered
me the escape I had been craving.

I pushed it out into water that would float it, stepped
in and called to Raja to enter. At first he did not seem
to understand what I wished of him, but after I had
paddled out a few yards he plunged through the surf
and swam after me. When he had come alongside I
grasped the scruff of his neck, and after a considerable
struggle, in which I several times came near to over-
turning the canoe, I managed to drag him aboard,
where he shook himself vigorously and squatted down
before me.

After emerging from the fiord, I paddled southward
along the coast, where presently the lofty cliffs gave
way to lower and more level country. It was here some-
where that I should come upon the principal village of
the Thurians. When, after a time, I saw in the distance
what I took to be huts in a clearing near the shore, I
drew quickly into land, for though I had been furnished
credentials by Kolk, I was not sufficiently familiar with
the tribal characteristics of these people to know
whether I should receive a friendly welcome or not; and
in case I should not, I wanted to be sure of having a
canoe hidden safely away so that I might undertake
the trip to the island, in any event--provided, of course,
that I escaped the Thurians should they prove bellig-
erent.

At the point where I landed the shore was quite
low. A forest of pale, scrubby ferns ran down almost to
the beach. Here I dragged up the dugout, hiding it well
within the vegetation, and with some loose rocks built a
cairn upon the beach to mark my cache. Then I turned
my steps toward the Thurian village.

As I proceeded I began to speculate upon the possible
actions of Raja when we should enter the presence of
other men than myself. The brute was padding softly at
my side, his sensitive nose constantly atwitch and his
fierce eyes moving restlessly from side to side--nothing
would ever take Raja unawares!

The more I thought upon the matter the greater be-
came my perturbation. I did not want Raja to attack
any of the people upon whose friendship I so greatly
depended, nor did I want him injured or slain by them.

I wondered if Raja would stand for a leash. His head
as he paced beside me was level with my hip. I laid
my hand upon it caressingly. As I did so he turned and
looked up into my face, his jaws parting and his red
tongue lolling as you have seen your own dog's beneath
a love pat.

"Just been waiting all your life to be tamed and loved,
haven't you, old man?" I asked. "You're nothing but a
good pup, and the man who put the hyaeno in your
name ought to be sued for libel."

Raja bared his mighty fangs with upcurled, snarling
lips and licked my hand.

"You're grinning, you old fraud, you!" I cried. "If
you're not, I'll eat you. I'll bet a doughnut you're nothing
but some kid's poor old Fido, masquerading around as
a real, live man-eater."

Raja whined. And so we walked on together toward
Thuria--I talking to the beast at my side, and he seem-
ing to enjoy my company no less than I enjoyed his. If
you don't think it's lonesome wandering all by yourself
through savage, unknown Pellucidar, why, just try it,
and you will not wonder that I was glad of the company
of this first dog--this living replica of the fierce and now
extinct hyaenodon of the outer crust that hunted in
savage packs the great elk across the snows of southern
France, in the days when the mastodon roamed at will
over the broad continent of which the British Isles were
then a part, and perchance left his footprints and his
bones in the sands of Atlantis as well.

Thus I dreamed as we moved on toward Thuria.
My dreaming was rudely shattered by a savage growl
from Raja. I looked down at him. He had stopped in his
tracks as one turned to stone. A thin ridge of stiff hair
bristled along the entire length of his spine. His yel-
low green eyes were fastened upon the scrubby jungle
at our right.

I fastened my fingers in the bristles at his neck and
turned my eyes in the direction that his pointed. At first
I saw nothing. Then a slight movement of the bushes
riveted my attention. I thought it must be some wild
beast, and was glad of the primitive weapons I had
taken from the bodies of the warriors who had attacked
me.

Presently I distinguished two eyes peering at us from
the vegetation. I took a step in their direction, and as
I did so a youth arose and fled precipitately in the
direction we had been going. Raja struggled to be after
him, but I held tightly to his neck, an act which he did
not seem to relish, for he turned on me with bared
fangs.

I determined that now was as good a time as any to
discover just how deep was Raja's affection for me. One
of us could be master, and logically I was the one. He
growled at me. I cuffed him sharply across the nose. He
looked it me for a moment in surprised bewilderment,
and then he growled again. I made another feint at him,
expecting that it would bring him at my throat; but in-
stead he winced and crouched down.

Raja was subdued!

I stooped and patted him. Then I took a piece of
the rope that constituted a part of my equipment and
made a leash for him.

Thus we resumed our journey toward Thuria. The
youth who had seen us was evidently of the Thurians.
That he had lost no time in racing homeward and
spreading the word of my coming was evidenced when
we had come within sight of the clearing, and the village
--the first real village, by the way, that I had ever seen
constructed by human Pellucidarians. There was a rude
rectangle walled with logs and boulders, in which
were a hundred or more thatched huts of similar con-
struction. There was no gate. Ladders that could be re-
moved by night led over the palisade.

Before the village were assembled a great concourse
of warriors. Inside I could see the heads of women and
children peering over the top of the wall; and also,
farther back, the long necks of lidi, topped by their tiny
heads. Lidi, by the way, is both the singular and plural
form of the noun that describes the huge beasts of bur-
den of the Thurians. They are enormous quadrupeds,
eighty or a hundred feet long, with very small heads
perched at the top of very long, slender necks. Their
heads are quite forty feet from the ground. Their gait is
slow and deliberate, but so enormous are their strides
that, as a matter of fact, they cover the ground quite
rapidly.

Perry has told me that they are almost identical with
the fossilized remains of the diplodocus of the outer
crust's Jurassic age. I have to take his word for it--and I
guess you will, unless you know more of such matters
than I.

As we came in sight of the warriors the men set up a
great jabbering. Their eyes were wide in astonishment
--only, I presume, because of my strange garmenture,
but as well from the fact that I came in company with a
jalok, which is the Pellucidarian name of the hyaenodon.

Raja tugged at his leash, growling and showing his
long white fangs. He would have liked nothing better
than to be at the throats of the whole aggregation; but I
held him in with the leash, though it took all my
strength to do it. My free hand I held above my
head, palm out, in token of the peacefulness of my
mission.

In the foreground I saw the youth who had discov-
ered us, and I could tell from the way he carried him-
self that he was quite overcome by his own importance.
The warriors about him were all fine looking fellows,
though shorter and squatter than the Sarians or the
Amozites. Their color, too, was a bit lighter, owing, no
doubt, to the fact that much of their lives is spent within
the shadow of the world that hangs forever above their
country.

A little in advance of the others was a bearded fel-
low tricked out in many ornaments. I didn't need to
ask to know that he was the chieftain--doubtless Goork,
father of Kolk. Now to him I addressed myself.

"I am David," I said, "Emperor of the Federated
Kingdoms of Pellucidar. Doubtless you have heard of
me?"

He nodded his head affirmatively.

"I come from Sari," I continued, 'where I just met
Kolk, the son of Goork. I bear a token from Kolk to his
father, which will prove that I am a friend."

Again the warrior nodded. "I am Goork," he said.
"Where is the token?"

"Here," I replied, and fished into the game-bag
where I had placed it.

Goork and his people waited in silence. My hand
searched the inside of the bag.

It was empty!

The token had been stolen with my arms!