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Chapter six of At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. At the
Earth's Core, Chapter six, the beginning of horror within Pellucidar.
One time is as good as another. There were no
nights to mask our attempt at escape. All must be
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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
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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,
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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
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grotto with Hooja, the sly one, and that Dion must
be the woman. Ghak thought so too, as did Perry.
Is there naught that we may do to save her?
I asked Ghak, not, 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
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their fellow. The occasion was to serve as an object
lesson to all other slaves of the danger and futility
of attempted escape, and of fatal consequences of taking the
life of a superior being, And so I imagined that
Sagoths felt amply justified in making the entire proceeding as
uncomfortable and painful to us as possible. They jabbed us
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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 heard. It through a low entrance
into a huge building, the center of which was given
up to a good sized arena. Benches surrounding this open
space were upon three sides, and along the fourth were
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heaped huge boulders, which rose in receding tiers toward the roof.
At first I could 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,
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I discovered the purpose of the boulders. 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 boulders above.
These were the reserved seats, the boxes of the elect
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reptiles that they were the rough surface of a great
stone is to them as plush as upholstery is 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
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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 boulders, she was preceded
by a score of huge Sagoths, the largest I had
ever seen, and on either side of her waddled a
huge thipdar, while behind him another score of Sagoth guardsmen.
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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 boulder 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
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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
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a score or more of mahars. It filled 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. Nique 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
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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.
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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,
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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
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of the great mass of raven hair piled high upon
her head filled me with alarm. Presently, a door on
one side of the arena wall was opened to admit
a huge, shaggy bull like creature. A boss, whispered Parry. Excitedly.
His kind roamed the outer crust with the cave bear
and the mammoth ages and ages ago. We have been
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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
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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 boasts, they called 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
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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
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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 fear, some sound creeping stealthily into view. It was
a huge tiger, such as hunted the great Boasts through
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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,
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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
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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 made 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
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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
bulls 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
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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
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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 huge cat
touched the ground, he returned to the encounter with an
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apparently undiminished strength and seemingly increased ire. For a while,
the men and women busy 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,
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strong talons ripped the heavy hide into shreds and ribbons.
For a moment, the bulls stood bellowing and quivering with
pain and rage, its cloven hoofs wide spread, 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
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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
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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
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his adversary. And then the men leapt 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
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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 guerrilla
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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,
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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. End of Chapter
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six