Savage Pellucidar p-7

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  "I'll sail her fer ye," continued Ah-gilak, "but as skipper."

  "Come!" said Hodon to Raj. "We will throw him overboard."

  As the two men seized him, Ah-gilak commenced to scream. "Don't do it," he cried. "I'll navigate her under Raj. I was only foolin'. Can't you take a joke?"

  So the work of training Raj and his Mezops commenced at once. They were quick to learn, and Ah-gilak did a good job of training them; because his vanity made it a pleasure to show off his superior knowledge. But he still nursed his plan for revenge. His idea was to cause dissension, turning the copper colored Mezops against the white Hodon and Dian. Of course Ah-gilak had never heard of Communists, but he was nonetheless familiar with one of their techniques. As he worked with the Mezops, he sought to work on what he considered their ignorance and superstition to implant the idea that a woman on shipboard would be certain to bring bad luck and that Dian was only there because of Hodon. He also suggested to them that the latter felt superior to the Mezops because of his color, that he looked down on them as inferior, and that it was not right that he should give orders to Raj. He nursed the idea that it would be well for them all should Dian and Hodon accidentally fall overboard.

  The Mezops were neither ignorant nor superstitious, nor had they ever heard of race consciousness or racial discrimination. They listened, but they were not impressed. They were only bored. Finally, one of them said to Ah-gilak, "Old man, you talk too much about matters which have nothing to do with sailing this ship. We will not throw Hodon the Fleet One overboard, neither will we throw Dian the Beautiful overboard. If we throw anyone overboard it will be you."

  Ah-gilak subsided.

  X

  AFTER O-AA HAD SLEPT, she came to the doorway of her house and looked around. The village seemed very quiet. There were only a few people in sight and they were at the far end of the village. She descended the ladder. Rahna, who had been lying at the foot of it, stood up and wagged his tail. O-aa scratched him between his ears.

  "I am hungry," she said; "so you must be, too. We will hunt."

  She had brought her weapons. Those of the Stone Age who would survive have their weapons always at hand.

  "Come, Rahna!" she said, and started up the valley away from the village.

  A man, standing in the doorway of a hut farther down the village street, saw them leave. It was Zurk, the son of Jalu the chief. When a turn in the little valley hid them from his sight, he started after them with his jalok. He was a heavy barreled man, short on his bowed legs; and he lurched from side to side a little as though one leg were shorter than the other. His face was coarse and brutal, with beetling brows overhanging close-set eyes.

  O-aa and Rahna moved silently up the valley, searching for game. There was a high wind blowing from the direction of the sea, and presently the sun was obscured by black clouds. There was a flash of lightning followed by the deep roar of thunder. The wind rose to violence and rain commenced to fall. But none of these things appeased O-aa's hunger; so she continued to hunt.

  The valley turned suddenly to the right, paralleling the coast; and it became narrower. Its walls were neither high nor steep at this point; so O-aa ascended the right hand wall and came out upon a tree dotted mesa. Here there were tall grasses in which the smaller game might hide.

  And Zurk followed with his jalok. O-aa's spoor in the light mud of the new fallen rain was easy to follow. When Zurk came out upon the mesa, O-aa, who had been advancing slowly, was not far ahead. So intent was she on her search for game that Zurk closed rapidly on her without attracting her attention or that of Rahna. The wind and the rain and the rumbling thunder were all on the side of Zurk.

  Zurk's plan was made. He would shoot the girl's jalok; then she would be at his mercy. He closed up the distance between them to make sure that he would not miss. He fitted an arrow to his bow. He made no sound, but something made O-aa look behind her at that very moment.

  Her own bow was ready for the kill, for any game that she or Rahna might flush. Recognizing Zurk, seeing his bow drawn, she wheeled and loosed an arrow. Zurk's bow string twanged simultaneously with hers, but the arrow was aimed at O-aa and not at Rahna.

  Zurk missed, but O-aa's arrow drove through the man's shoulder. Then O-aa turned and fled. Zurk knew that on his short bowed legs he could not overtake her. He spoke sharply to his jalok and pointed at the fleeing girl. "Rah!" he snapped. Rah means kill.

  The powerful, savage brute bounded in pursuit.

  XI

  THE SEAS FLED BEFORE the wind, mounting as the wind mounted. The John Tyler carried but a rag of sail. She handled well, she was seaworthy. Ah-gilak was proud of her. Even when the storm reached almost tornado proportions he did not fear for her.

  Gamba the king, cowering below, was terrified, reduced almost to gibbering idiocy by fear. Dian watched him with disgust. And this thing had dared to speak to her of love! Hodon was nervous below deck. Like all mountain men, he wanted to be out in the open. He wanted to face the storm and the danger where he could see them. Below, he was like a caged beast. The ship was pitching wildly, but Hodon managed to fight his way to a ladder and then to the deck above.

  Both the wind and the current had combined with malevolent fury in an attempt to hurl the John Tyler on, the all too near shore. Dead ahead loomed the green island upon which O-aa had been cast when she leaped overboard in the fog. Ah-gilak realized that he could make no offing there, that he would have to pass between the island and the shore, only a bare mile away. And through unchartered waters, below the tumbling surface of which might he reefs and rocks. Ah-gilak was not happy.

  Hodon saw the mountainous waves and wondered that any ship could live in such a sea. Being a landsman, he saw the high seas as the only menace. Ah-gilak feared for the things he could not see-the reefs and the rocks and the current that he and the ship fought. It was a titanic battle.

  Hodon, clinging to a stanchion to keep from falling, was quite unconscious of a real danger that confronted him on the deck of the John Tyler. The ship rose to meet the great seas and then drove deep into the troughs, but so far she had shipped but little green water.

  Ah-gilak saw the man, and his toothless mouth grimaced. The wind and the blinding rain beat about him. The tornado whipped his long white beard. There won't be no call to throw the dod-burned idjit overboard, he thought. Raj saw Hodon and called a warning to him, but the wind drove his voice down his throat.

  Just before the ship reached the shelter of the island's lee, a monstrous sea loomed above her. It broke, tons of it, over her, submerging her. The John Tyler staggered to the terrific impact, then slowly she rose, shaking the water from her.

  Ah-gilak looked and grinned. Hodon was no longer by the stanchion. In the shelter of the island, Ah-gilak hove to and dropped anchor. The John Tyler had weathered the storm and was safe.

  Raj's eyes searched the tumbling waters, but they were rewarded by no sight of Hodon. The Mezop shook his head sadly. He had liked the Sarian. Later, when Dian came on deck, he told her; and she, too, was sad. But death comes quickly and often in the Stone Age.

  "Perhaps it is just as well," said Dian. "They are both gone now, and neither is left to grieve." She was thinking of how often she had wished for death when she had thought David was dead.

  Ah-gilak shed crocodile tears, but he did not fool the Mezops. Had they not known that it would have been impossible, they would have thought that he had been instrumental in throwing Hodon overboard; and Ah-gilak would have gone over, too.

  A great comber threw Hodon far up the beach, and left him exhausted and half dead. The enormous sea had buffetted him. His head had been beneath the surface more often than it had been above. But the tide and the wind and the current had been with him. As had a kindly Providence , for no terrible creature of the deep had seized him. Perhaps the very turbulence of the water had saved him, keeping the great reptiles down in the relative quiet far below the surface.

  Hodon lay for a long time where the sea had spewe
d him. Occasionally a wave would roll up and surge around him, but none had the depth or volume to drag him back into the sea.

  At last he got slowly to his feet. He looked back and saw the John Tyler riding at anchor behind the island. Because of the torrential rain he could but barely discern her; so he knew that those on board could not see him at all. He thought of building a fire in the hope that its smoke might carry a message to them, but there was nothing with which to make fire.

  Before the storm struck them, Ah-gilak had said that he thought the ship was approaching the spot at which the Mezops had abandoned her. If that were the case, then the island was close to the place at which O-aa was supposed to have leaped overboard. If she had survived which he doubted, she would be making her way right now toward Kali, hundreds of miles away. Perhaps, somewhere in this unknown land of terrors, she was even now pursuing her hopeless journey.

  That he might ever find her in all this vast expanse of plain and hill and mountain he knew to be wholly unlikely, even were she there. But there was the chance. And there was his great love for her. Without a backward glance, Hodon the Fleet One turned his face and his steps northeast toward Kali.

  XII

  O-AA RAN LIKE the wind. She did not know that Zurk had set his jalok on her. She thought only of escaping the man, and she knew that on his bowed legs he could never overtake her.

  Zurk pulled upon the arrow embedded in his shoulder. It had just missed his heart. The rough stone tip tore at the tender wound. Blood ran down the man's body. His features were contorted with pain. He swore. He was very careful as he withdrew the shaft lest the point should be deflected and touch his heart. The girl and the jalok were out of sight, having passed through bushes into a slight depression.

  Rahna had followed his mistress, loping easily along a few yards behind her. Suddenly another jalok flashed past him, straight for the fleeing girl.

  HODON THE FLEET ONE turned his face and his steps northeast toward Kali. Hodon knew nothing about the points of the compass, but his homing instinct told him the direction to Sari; and, knowing where Kali lay in relation, to Sari, his homeland, he knew the direction he must take.

  He had been walking for some time, when, emerging from a clump of bushes, he came upon a man sitting with his back against the bole of a tree. Hodon was armed only with a knife, which was not well in a world where the usual greeting between strangers is, "I kill."

  He was very close to the man before he saw him, and in the instant that he saw him, he saw that his body was smeared with blood and a little stream of blood ran down his chest from a wound in his breast close to his left shoulder.

  Now the Sarians, because of the influence of David Innes and Abner Perry, are less savage and brutal than the majority of Pellucidarians. Although Perry had taught them how to slaughter their fellow men scientifically with muskets, cannon, and gunpowder, he had also preached to them the doctrine of the brotherhood of man; so that their policy now was based on the admonition of a man they had never heard of who had lived in a world they would never see, to "speak softly and carry a big stick," for Abner Perry had been a worshipper of Teddy Roosevelt.

  The man's head was bowed, his chin lay upon his breast. He was barely breathing. But when he realized that some one had approached him he looked up and snarled. He expected to be killed, but he could do nothing about it.

  Hodon turned back to the bushes through which he had just passed and gathered some leaves. He made a little ball of the most tender of them and came back to the man. He knelt beside him and plugged the hole in his chest with a little ball of leaves, stopping the flow of blood.

  There was questioning in Zurk's dull eyes as he looked into those of the stranger. "Aren't you going to kill me?" he whispered.

  Hodon ignored the question. "Where is your village?" he asked. "Is it far?"

  "Not far," said Zurk.

  "I will help you back to it," said Hodon, "if you promise me that the warriors will not kill me."

  "They will not kill you," said Zurk. "I am the chief's son. But why do you do this for a stranger?"

  "Because I am a Sarian," said Hodon proudly.

  Hodon helped Zurk to his feet, but the man, could scarcely stand. Hodon realized that he could not walk; so he carried him pickaback, Zurk directing him toward the village.

  The wind blew and rain fell, but the storm was abating as Hodon carried the chief's son into the village. Warriors came from their houses, with ready weapons, for Hodon was a stranger to be killed on sight. Then they saw Zurk, who was unconscious now, and hesitated.

  Hodon faced them. "Instead of standing there scowling at me," he said, "come and take your chief's son and carry him to his house where the women can care for him."

  When they had lifted Zurk from his back, Hodon saw that the man was unconscious and that he might be killed after all. "Where is the chief?" he asked.

  Jalu was coming toward them from his house. "I am the chief," he said. "You are either a very brave man or a fool to have wounded my son and then brought him to me."

  "I did not wound him," said Hodon. "I found him wounded and brought him here, else he would have died. He told me that if I did this the warriors would not kill me."

  "If you have spoken the truth the warriors will not kill you," said Jalu.

  "If the man dies before he regains consciousness, how will you know that I have spoken the truth?" asked Hodon.

  "We will not know," said Jalu. He turned to one of his warriors. "Have him treated well, but see that he does not escape."

  "The brotherhood of man is all right," said Hodon, "if the other fellow knows about it." They did not know what he was talking about. "I was a fool not to let him die," he added.

  "I think you were," agreed Jalu.

  Hodon was taken to a house and a woman was sent to take him food. Two warriors stood guard at the foot of the ladder. The woman came with food. It was Hala. She looked at the handsome prisoner with questioning eyes. He did not look stupid, but then one could not always tell just by looks.

  "Why did you bring Zurk back when you know that you might be killed? What was he to you?" she asked.

  "He was a fellow man, and I am a Sarian," was Hodon's simple explanation.

  "You, a Sarian?" demanded Hala.

  "Yes. Why?"

  "There is a Sarian with us, or there was. She went away, I think to hunt; and she has not returned."

  Hodon paled. "What was her name?" he asked.

  "Oh, I was wrong," said Hala. "She is not a Sarian. It is her mate that is a Sarian. She comes from another country where the men are nine feet tall. She has eleven brothers and her father is a king."

  "And her name is O-aa," said Hodon.

  "How do you know?" demanded Hala.

  "There is only one O-aa," said Hodon, enigmatically. "Which way did she go?"

  "Up the valley," said Hala. "Zurk followed her. Zurk is a bad man. It must have been O-aa who wounded him."

  "And I have saved him!" exclaimed Hodon. "Hereafter I shall leave the brotherhood of man to others."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "It is meaningless," said Hodon. "I must get out of here and follow her."

  "You cannot get out," said Hala. Suddenly her eyes went wide in understanding. "You are Hodon the Fleet One," she said.

  "How did you know that?"

  "That is the name of O-aa's mate. She said so, and that he is a Sarian."

  "I must get out," said Hodon.

  "I would help you if I could," said Hala. "I liked O-aa and I like you, but you will only get out of this village alive if Zurk regains consciousness and says that he promised that you would not be killed."

  "Will you go then and find out if he has regained consciousness?" he asked her.

  O-AA HEARD A SAVAGE growl close behind her. She turned to see a strange jalok reared on its hind feet to seize her and drag her down. As she leaped, quick as a chamois, to one side, she saw something else. She saw Rahna spring upon the strange jalok and hur
l it to the ground. The fight that ensued was bloody and terrifying. The two savage beasts fought almost in silence. There were only snarls of rage. As they tore at one another, O-aa circled them, spear in hand, seeking an opportunity to impale Rahna's antagonist. But they moved so quickly that she dared not thrust for fear of wounding Rahna instead of the other.

  Rahna needed no help. At last he got the hold for which he had been fighting-a full hold of the other jalok's throat. The mighty jaws closed, and Rahna shook the other as a terrier shakes a rat. It was soon over. Rahna dropped the carcass and looked up into O-aa's eyes. He wagged his tail, and O-aa went down on her knees and hugged him, all bloody as he was.

  She found the leaves she needed, and a little stream, and there she washed Rahna's wounds and rubbed the juices of the leaves into them. After that, she flushed a couple of hares and some strange birds that have not been on earth for a million years. She fed Rahna and she ate her own meat raw, for there was nothing dry with which to make fire.

  She did not dare go back to the village, both because she feared that she might have killed Zurk and feared that she hadn't. In one event, Jalu would kill her if her deed were discovered; in the other, Zurk would kill her. She would go on toward Kali, but first she would sleep. Beneath a great tree she lay down, and the fierce hyaenodon lay down beside her.

  XIII

  THE GREAT STORM passed on. Again the sun shone. The seas subsided. Saddened, Dian suggested that they turn back toward Sari. "What is the use of going on?" she demanded. "They are all dead."

  "Perhaps not," said Raj. "Perhaps not all. David, Abner, Ghak, and over two hundred warriors can make their way anywhere in Pellucidar. They may be waiting for us in Sari when we return."

  "Then let's return as soon as possible," said Dian.

  "And even for O-aa and Hodon there may be hope."

  Dian shook her head. "Had they been together, possibly; but alone, no. And then, even if Hodon reached shore, he was armed with only a knife."