Pellucidar | Page 6

old inventor and pale-ontologist, still live?
Had the federated tribes of Pellucidar succeeded in overthrowing the mighty Mahars, the
dominant race of reptilian monsters, and their fierce, gorilla-like sol-diery, the savage
Sagoths?
I must admit that I was in a state bordering upon nervous prostration when I entered the
-and-Club, in Algiers, and inquired for Mr. Nestor. A moment later I was ushered into his
presence, to find myself clasping hands with the sort of chap that the world holds only
too few of.
He was a tall, smooth-faced man of about thirty, clean-cut, straight, and strong, and
weather-tanned to the hue of a desert Arab. I liked him immensely from the first, and I
hope that after our three months together in the desert country--three months not entirely
lack-ing in adventure--he found that a man may be a writer of "impossible trash" and yet
have some redeem-ing qualities.
The day following my arrival at Algiers we left for the south, Nestor having made all
arrangements in advance, guessing, as he naturally did, that I could be coming to Africa
for but a single purpose--to hasten at once to the buried telegraph-instrument and wrest its
secret from it.
In addition to our native servants, we took along an English telegraph-operator named
Frank Downes. Nothing of interest enlivened our journey by rail and caravan till we came
to the cluster of date-palms about the ancient well upon the rim of the Sahara.
It was the very spot at which I first had seen David Innes. If he had ever raised a cairn
above the telegraph instrument no sign of it remained now. Had it not been for the chance
that caused Cogdon Nestor to throw down his sleeping rug directly over the hidden
instru-ment, it might still be clicking there unheard--and this story still unwritten.

When we reached the spot and unearthed the little box the instrument was quiet, nor did
repeated attempts upon the part of our telegrapher succeed in winning a response from
the other end of the line. After several days of futile endeavor to raise Pellucidar, we had
be-gun to despair. I was as positive that the other end of that little cable protruded
through the surface of the inner world as I am that I sit here today in my study--when
about midnight of the fourth day I was awakened by the sound of the instrument.
Leaping to my feet I grasped Downes roughly by the neck and dragged him out of his
blankets. He didn't need to be told what caused my excitement, for the instant he was
awake he, too, heard the long-hoped for click, and with a whoop of delight pounced upon
the instrument.
Nestor was on his feet almost as soon as I. The three of us huddled about that little box as
if our lives depended upon the message it had for us.
Downes interrupted the clicking with his sending-key. The noise of the receiver stopped
instantly.
"Ask who it is, Downes," I directed.
He did so, and while we awaited the Englishman's translation of the reply, I doubt if
either Nestor or I breathed.
"He says he's David Innes," said Downes. "He wants to know who we are."
"Tell him," said I; "and that we want to know how he is--and all that has befallen him
since I last saw him."
For two months I talked with David Innes almost every day, and as Downes translated,
either Nestor or I took notes. From these, arranged in chronological order, I have set
down the following account of the further adventures of David Innes at the earth's core,
practically in his own words.


CHAPTER I
LOST ON PELLUCIDAR
The Arabs, of whom I wrote you at the end of my last letter (Innes began), and whom I
thought to be enemies intent only upon murdering me, proved to be exceed-ingly
friendly--they were searching for the very band of marauders that had threatened my
existence. The huge rhamphorhynchus-like reptile that I had brought back with me from
the inner world--the ugly Mahar that Hooja the Sly One had substituted for my dear Dian
at the moment of my departure--filled them with wonder and with awe.

Nor less so did the mighty subterranean prospector which had carried me to Pellucidar
and back again, and which lay out in the desert about two miles from my camp.
With their help I managed to get the unwieldy tons of its great bulk into a vertical
position--the nose deep in a hole we had dug in the sand and the rest of it supported by
the trunks of date-palms cut for the purpose.
It was a mighty engineering job with only wild Arabs and their wilder mounts to do the
work of an electric crane--but finally it