CHAPTER XIV

Pellicudar

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER XIV, PELLICUDAR by Edgar R. Burroughs
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GORE AND DREAMS

It was a two-masted felucca with lateen sails! The
craft was long and low. In it were more than fifty men,
twenty or thirty of whom were at oars with which the
craft was being propelled from the lee of the land.
I was dumbfounded.

Could it be that the savage, painted natives I had
seen on shore had so perfected the art of navigation
that they were masters of such advanced building and
rigging as this craft proclaimed? It seemed impossible!
And as I looked I saw another of the same type swing
into view and follow its sister through the narrow strait
out into the ocean.

Nor were these all. One after another, following
closely upon one another's heels, came fifty of the trim,
graceful vessels. They were cutting in between Hooja's
fleet and our little dugout,

When they came a bit closer my eyes fairly popped
from my head at what I saw, for in the eye of the leading
felucca stood a man with a sea-glass leveled upon us.
Who could they be? Was there a civilization within
Pellucidar of such wondrous advancement as this? Were
there far-distant lands of which none of my people
had ever heard, where a race had so greatly outstripped
all other races of this inner world?

The man with the glass had lowered it and was
shouting to us. I could not make out his words, but
presently I saw that he was pointing aloft. When I
looked I saw a pennant fluttering from the peak of
the forward lateen yard--a red, white, and blue pen-
nant, with a single great white star in a field of blue.

Then I knew. My eyes went even wider than they
had before. It was the navy! It was the navy of the
empire of Pellucidar which I had instructed Perry to
build in my absence. It was MY navy!

I dropped my paddle and stood up and shouted and
waved my hand. Juag and Dian looked at me as if
I had gone suddenly mad. When I could stop shouting
I told them, and they shared my joy and shouted with
me.

But still Hooja was coming nearer, nor could the
leading felucca overhaul him before he would be along-
side or at least within bow-shot.

Hooja must have been as much mystified as we were
as to the identity of the strange fleet; but when he
saw me waving to them he evidently guessed that they
were friendly to us, so he urged his men to redouble
their efforts to reach us before the felucca cut him off.

He shouted word back to others of his fleet--word
that was passed back until it had reached them all--
directing them to run alongside the strangers and board
them, for with his two hundred craft and his eight or
ten thousand warriors he evidently felt equal to over-
coming the fifty vessels of the enemy, which did not
seem to carry over three thousand men all told.

His own personal energies he bent to reaching Dian
and me first, leaving the rest of the work to his other
boats. I thought that there could be little doubt that
he would be successful in so far as we were concerned,
and I feared for the revenge that he might take upon
us should the battle go against his force, as I was sure
it would; for I knew that Perry and his Mezops must
have brought with them all the arms and ammunition
that had been contained in the prospector. But I was
not prepared for what happened next.

As Hooja's canoe reached a point some twenty yards
from us a great puff of smoke broke from the bow of
the leading felucca, followed almost simultaneously by
a terrific explosion, and a solid shot screamed close
over the heads of the men in Hooja's craft, raising
a great splash where it clove the water just beyond
them.

Perry had perfected gunpowder and built cannon!
It was marvelous! Dian and Juag, as much surprised
as Hooja, turned wondering eyes toward me. Again
the cannon spoke. I suppose that by comparison with
the great guns of modern naval vessels of the outer
world it was a pitifully small and inadequate thing;
but here in Pellucidar, where it was the first of its kind,
it was about as awe-inspiring as anything you might
imagine.

With the report an iron cannonball about five inches
in diameter struck Hooja's dugout just above the water-
line, tore a great splintering hole in its side, turned
it over, and dumped its occupants into the sea.

The four dugouts that had been abreast of Hooja
had turned to intercept the leading felucca. Even
now, in the face of what must have been a withering
catastrophe to them, they kept bravely on toward the
strange and terrible craft.

In them were fully two hundred men, while but
fifty lined the gunwale of the felucca to repel them.
The commander of the felucca, who proved to be Ja,
let them come quite close and then turned loose upon
them a volley of shots from small-arms.

The cave men and Sagoths in the dugouts seemed
to wither before that blast of death like dry grass
before a prairie fire. Those who were not hit dropped
their bows and javelins and, seizing upon paddles,
attempted to escape. But the felucca pursued them
relentlessly, her crew firing at will.

At last I heard Ja shouting to the survivors in the
dugouts--they were all quite close to us now--offer-
ing them their lives if they would surrender. Perry
was standing close behind Ja, and I knew that this
merciful action was prompted, perhaps commanded,
by the old man; for no Pellucidarian would have thought
of showing leniency to a defeated foe.

As there was no alternative save death, the survivors
surrendered and a moment later were taken aboard
the Amoz, the name that I could now see printed in
large letters upon the felucca's bow, and which no
one in that whole world could read except Perry and I.

When the prisoners were aboard, Ja brought the
felucca alongside our dugout. Many were the willing
hands that reached down to lift us to her decks. The
bronze faces of the Mezops were broad with smiles,
and Perry was fairly beside himself with joy.

Dian went aboard first and then Juag, as I wished
to help Raja and Ranee aboard myself, well knowing
that it would fare ill with any Mezop who touched
them. We got them aboard at last, and a great com-
motion they caused among the crew, who had never
seen a wild beast thus handled by man before.

Perry and Dian and I were so full of questions that
we fairly burst, but we had to contain ourselves for
a while, since the battle with the rest of Hooja's fleet
had scarce commenced. From the small forward decks
of the feluccas Perry's crude cannon were belching
smoke, flame, thunder, and death. The air trembled
to the roar of them. Hooja's horde, intrepid, savage
fighters that they were, were closing in to grapple
in a last death-struggle with the Mezops who manned
our vessels.

The handling of our fleet by the red island warriors
of Ja's clan was far from perfect. I could see that Perry
had lost no time after the completion of the boats in
setting out upon this cruise. What little the captains
and crews had learned of handling feluccas they must
have learned principally since they embarked upon
this voyage, and while experience is an excellent
teacher and had done much for them, they still had
a great deal to learn. In maneuvering for position
they were continually fouling one another, and on
two occasions shots from our batteries came near to
striking our own ships.

No sooner, however, was I aboard the flagship than
I attempted to rectify this trouble to some extent. By
passing commands by word of mouth from one ship
to another I managed to get the fifty feluccas into
some sort of line, with the flag-ship in the lead. In
this formation we commenced slowly to circle the
position of the enemy. The dugouts came for us right
along in an attempt to board us, but by keeping on
the move in one direction and circling, we managed
to avoid getting in each other's way, and were enabled
to fire our cannon and our small arms with less danger
to our own comrades.

When I had a moment to look about me, I took in
the felucca on which I was. I am free to confess that
I marveled at the excellent construction and stanch
yet speedy lines of the little craft. That Perry had
chosen this type of vessel seemed rather remarkable,
for though I had warned him against turreted battle-
ships, armor, and like useless show, I had fully ex-
pected that when I beheld his navy I should find
considerable attempt at grim and terrible magnifi-
cence, for it was always Perry's idea to overawe these
ignorant cave men when we had to contend with
them in battle. But I had soon learned that while
one might easily astonish them with some new engine
of war, it was an utter impossibility to frighten them
into surrender.

I learned later that Ja had gone carefully over the
plans of various craft with Perry. The old man had
explained in detail all that the text told him of them.
The two had measured out dimensions upon the ground,
that Ja might see the sizes of different boats. Perry
had built models, and Ja had had him read carefully
and explain all that they could find relative to the
handling of sailing vessels. The result of this was
that Ja was the one who had chosen the felucca. It
was well that Perry had had so excellent a balance
wheel, for he had been wild to build a huge frigate
of the Nelsonian era--he told me so himself.

One thing that had inclined Ja particularly to the
felucca was the fact that it included oars in its equip-
ment. He realized the limitations of his people in the
matter of sails, and while they had never used oars,
the implement was so similar to a paddle that he
was sure they quickly could master the art--and they
did. As soon as one hull was completed Ja kept it
on the water constantly, first with one crew and then
with another, until two thousand red warriors had
learned to row. Then they stepped their masts and
a crew was told off for the first ship.

While the others were building they learned to
handle theirs. As each succeeding boat was launched
its crew took it out and practiced with it under the
tutorage of those who had graduated from the first
ship, and so on until a full complement of men had
been trained for every boat.

Well, to get back to the battle: The Hoojans kept
on coming at us, and as fast as they came we mowed
them down. It was little else than slaughter. Time
and time again I cried to them to surrender, promising
them their lives if they would do so. At last there
were but ten boatloads left. These turned in flight.
They thought they could paddle away from us--
it was pitiful! I passed the word from boat to boat
to cease firing--not to kill another Hoojan unless they
fired on us. Then we set out after them. There was
a nice little breeze blowing and we bowled along after
our quarry as gracefully and as lightly as swans upon
a park lagoon. As we approached them I could see not
only wonder but admiration in their eyes. I hailed the
nearest dugout.

"Throw down your arms and come aboard us," I
cried, "and you shall not be harmed. We will feed you
and return you to the mainland. Then you shall go
free upon your promise never to bear arms against the
Emperor of Pellucidar again!"

I think it was the promise of food that interested
them most. They could scarce believe that we would
not kill them. But when I exhibited the prisoners we
already had taken, and showed them that they were
alive and unharmed, a great Sagoth in one of the boats
asked me what guarantee I could give that I would
keep my word.

"None other than my word," I replied. "That I do
not break."

The Pellucidarians themselves are rather punctilious
about this same matter, so the Sagoth could understand
that I might possibly be speaking the truth. But he
could not understand why we should not kill them
unless we meant to enslave them, which I had as
much as denied already when I had promised to set
them free. Ja couldn't exactly see the wisdom of my
plan, either. He thought that we ought to follow up
the ten remaining dugouts and sink them all; but I
insisted that we must free as many as possible of our
enemies upon the mainland.

"You see," I explained, "these men will return at
once to Hooja's Island, to the Mahar cities from which
they come, or to the countries from which they were
stolen by the Mahars. They are men of two races
and of many countries. They will spread the story of
our victory far and wide, and while they are with us,
we will let them see and hear many other wonderful
things which they may carry back to their friends and
their chiefs. It's the finest chance for free publicity,
Perry," I added to the old man, "that you or I have
seen in many a day."

Perry agreed with me. As a matter of fact, he would
have agreed to anything that would have restrained
us from killing the poor devils who fell into our hands.
He was a great fellow to invent gunpowder and fire-
arms and cannon; but when it came to using these
things to kill people, he was as tender-hearted as a
chicken.

The Sagoth who had spoken was talking to other
Sagoths in his boat. Evidently they were holding a
council over the question of the wisdom of surrender-
ing.

"What will become of you if you don't surrender to
us?" I asked. "If we do not open up our batteries on
you again and kill you all, you will simply drift about
the sea helplessly until you die of thirst and starvation.
You cannot return to the islands, for you have seen
as well as we that the natives there are very numerous
and warlike. They would kill you the moment you
landed."

The upshot of it was that the boat of which the
Sagoth speaker was in charge surrendered. The Sagoths
threw down their weapons, and we took them aboard
the ship next in line behind the Amoz. First Ja had
to impress upon the captain and crew of the ship
that the prisoners were not to be abused or killed.
After that the remaining dugouts paddled up and sur-
rendered. We distributed them among the entire fleet
lest there be too many upon any one vessel. Thus
ended the first real naval engagement that the Pel-
lucidarian seas had ever witnessed--though Perry still
insists that the action in which the Sari took part was
a battle of the first magnitude.

The battle over and the prisoners disposed of and
fed--and do not imagine that Dian, Juag, and I, as
well as the two hounds were not fed also--I turned
my attention to the fleet. We had the feluccas close
in about the flag-ship, and with all the ceremony of
a medieval potentate on parade I received the com-
manders of the forty-nine feluccas that accompanied
the flag-ship--Dian and I together--the empress and
the emperor of Pellucidar.

It was a great occasion. The savage, bronze warriors
entered into the spirit of it, for as I learned later
dear old Perry had left no opportunity neglected for
impressing upon them that David was emperor of
Pellucidar, and that all that they were accomplishing
and all that he was accomplishing was due to the
power, and redounded to the glory of David. The old
man must have rubbed it in pretty strong, for those
fierce warriors nearly came to blows in their efforts
to be among the first of those to kneel before me
and kiss my hand. When it came to kissing Dian's I
think they enjoyed it more; I know I should have.

A happy thought occurred to me as I stood upon the
little deck of the Amoz with the first of Perry's primi-
tive cannon behind me. When Ja kneeled at my feet,
and first to do me homage, I drew from its scabbard
at his side the sword of hammered iron that Perry
had taught him to fashion. Striking him lightly on the
shoulder I created him king of Anoroc. Each captain of the
forty-nine other feluccas I made a duke. I left
it to Perry to enlighten them as to the value of the
honors I had bestowed upon them.

During these ceremonies Raja and Ranee had stood
beside Dian and me. Their bellies had been well filled,
but still they had difficulty in permitting so much
edible humanity to pass unchallenged. It was a good
education for them though, and never after did they
find it difficult to associate with the human race with-
out arousing their appetites.

After the ceremonies were over we had a chance
to talk with Perry and Ja. The former told me that
Ghak, king of Sari, had sent my letter and map to him
by a runner, and that he and Ja had at once decided
to set out on the completion of the fleet to ascertain
the correctness of my theory that the Lural Az, in
which the Anoroc Islands lay, was in reality the same
ocean as that which lapped the shores of Thuria under
the name of Sojar Az, or Great Sea.

Their destination had been the island retreat of
Hooja, and they had sent word to Ghak of their plans
that we might work in harmony with them. The tempest
that had blown us off the coast of the continent had
blown them far to the south also. Shortly before dis-
covering us they had come into a great group of islands,
from between the largest two of which they were sail-
ing when they saw Hooja's fleet pursuing our dugout.

I asked Perry if he had any idea as to where we
were, or in what direction lay Hooja's island or the
continent. He replied by producing his map, on which
he had carefully marked the newly discovered islands
--there described as the Unfriendly Isles--which
showed Hooja's island northwest of us about two points
West.

He then explained that with compass, chronometer,
log and reel, they had kept a fairly accurate record
of their course from the time they had set out. Four
of the feluccas were equipped with these instruments,
and all of the captains had been instructed in their
use.

I was very greatly surprised at the ease with which
these savages had mastered the rather intricate detail
of this unusual work, but Perry assured me that they
were a wonderfully intelligent race, and had been quick
to grasp all that he had tried to teach them.

Another thing that surprised me was the fact that
so much had been accomplished in so short a time,
for I could not believe that I had been gone from
Anoroc for a sufficient period to permit of building
a fleet of fifty feluccas and mining iron ore for the
cannon and balls, to say nothing of manufacturing these
guns and the crude muzzle-loading rifles with which
every Mezop was armed, as well as the gunpowder
and ammunition they had in such ample quantities.

"Time!" exclaimed Perry. "Well, how long were you
gone from Anoroc before we picked you up in the
Sojar Az?"

That was a puzzler, and I had to admit it. I didn't
know how much time had elapsed and neither did
Perry, for time is nonexistent in Pellucidar.

"Then, you see, David," he continued, "I had almost
unbelievable resources at my disposal. The Mezops in-
habiting the Anoroc Islands, which stretch far out to sea
beyond the three principal isles with which you are
familiar, number well into the millions, and by far the
greater part of them are friendly to Ja. Men, women,
and children turned to and worked the moment Ja ex-
plained the nature of our enterprise.

"And not only were they anxious to do all in their
power to hasten the day when the Mahars should be
overthrown, but--and this counted for most of all--they
are simply ravenous for greater knowledge and for better
ways of doing things.

"The contents of the prospector set their imagina-
tions to working overtime, so that they craved to own,
themselves, the knowledge which had made it possible
for other men to create and build the things which you
brought back from the outer world.

"And then," continued the old man, "the element of
time, or, rather, lack of time, operated to my advantage.
There being no nights, there was no laying off from
work--they labored incessantly stopping only to eat and,
on rare occasions, to sleep. Once we had discovered iron
ore we had enough mined in an incredibly short time to
build a thousand cannon. I had only to show them once
how a thing should be done, and they would fall to work
by thousands to do it.

"Why, no sooner had we fashioned the first muzzle-
loader and they had seen it work successfully, than fully
three thousand Mezops fell to work to make rifles. Of
course there was much confusion and lost motion at first,
but eventually Ja got them in hand, detailing squads of
them under competent chiefs to certain work.

"We now have a hundred expert gun-makers. On a
little isolated isle we have a great powder-factory. Near
the iron-mine, which is on the mainland, is a smelter, and
on the eastern shore of Anoroc, a well equipped ship-
yard. All these industries are guarded by forts in which
several cannon are mounted and where warriors are
always on guard.

"You would be surprised now, David, at the aspect of
Anoroc. I am surprised myself; it seems always to me as
I compare it with the day that I first set foot upon it
from the deck of the Sari that only a miracle could have
worked the change that has taken place."

"It is a miracle," I said; it is nothing short of a miracle
to transplant all the wondrous possibilities of the twen-
tieth century back to the Stone Age. It is a miracle to
think that only five hundred miles of earth separate two
epochs that are really ages and ages apart.

"It is stupendous, Perry! But still more stupendous
is the power that you and I wield in this great world.
These people look upon us as little less than supermen.
We must show them that we are all of that.

"We must give them the best that we have, Perry."

"Yes," he agreed; "we must. I have been thinking a
great deal lately that some kind of shrapnel shell or ex-
plosive bomb would be a most splendid innovation in
their warfare. Then there are breech-loading rifles and
those with magazines that I must hasten to study out
and learn to reproduce as soon as we get settled down
again; and--"

"Hold on, Perry!" I cried. "I didn't mean these sorts of
things at all. I said that we must give them the best we
have. What we have given them so far has been the
worst. We have given them war and the munitions of
war. In a single day we have made their wars infinitely
more terrible and bloody than in all their past ages
they have been able to make them with their crude,
primitive weapons.

"In a period that could scarcely have exceeded two
outer earthly hours, our fleet practically annihilated the
largest armada of native canoes that the Pellucidarians
ever before had gathered together. We butchered some
eight thousand warriors with the twentieth-century gifts
we brought. Why, they wouldn't have killed that many
warriors in the entire duration of a dozen of their wars
with their own weapons! No, Perry; we've got to give
them something better than scientific methods of killing
one another."

The old man looked at me in amazement. There was
reproach in his eyes, too.

"Why, David!" he said sorrowfully. "I thought that you
would be pleased with what I had done. We planned
these things together, and I am sure that it was you
who suggested practically all of it. I have done only
what I thought you wished done and I have done it the
best that I know how."

I laid my hand on the old man's shoulder.

"Bless your heart, Perry!" I cried. "You've accom-
plished miracles. You have done precisely what I should
have done, only you've done it better. I'm not finding
fault; but I don't wish to lose sight myself, or let you
lose sight, of the greater work which must grow out of
this preliminary and necessary carnage. First we must
place the empire upon a secure footing, and we can do
so only by putting the fear of us in the hearts of our
enemies; but after that--

"Ah, Perry! That is the day I look forward to! When
you and I can build sewing-machines instead of battle-
ships, harvesters of crops instead of harvesters of men,
plow-shares and telephones, schools and colleges,
printing-presses and paper! When our merchant marine
shall ply the great Pellucidarian seas, and cargoes of
silks and typewriters and books shall forge their ways
where only hideous saurians have held sway since time
began!"

"Amen!" said Perry.

And Dian, who was standing at my side, pressed my
hand.