'It looks hopeless,' he said. 'If we had time to make the search we might find a safer landing place, but within sight of us one place seems to be as good as another.'
'Or as bad,' said Stellara.
'It cannot be helped,' said the Sarian. 'To beat back now around that promontory in an attempt to gain the open sea again, would so delay us that we should be overtaken and captured. We must take our chances in the surf, or turn about and give up.'
Behind them their pursuers had come about and were waiting, rising and falling upon the great billows.
'They think that they have us,' said Stellara. 'They believe that we shall tack here and make a run for the open sea around the end of that promontory, and they are ready to head us off.'
Tanar held the boat's nose straight for the shore-line. Beyond the angry surf he could see a sandy beach, but between lay a barrier of rock upon which the waves broke, hurling their spume far into the air.
'Look!' exclaimed Stellara, as the boat raced toward the smother of boiling water. 'Look! There! Right ahead! There may be a way yet!'
'I have been watching that place,' said Tanar. 'I have been holding her straight for it, and if it is a break in the rocky wall we shall soon know it, and if it is not—'
The Sarian glanced back in the direction of the Korsars' boats and saw that they were again in pursuit, for by this time it must have become evident to them that their quarry was throwing itself upon the rocky shore-line in desperation rather than to risk capture by turning again toward the open sea.
Every inch of sail was spread upon the little craft and the taut, bellowing canvas strained upon the cordage until it hummed, as the boat sped straight for the rocks dead ahead.
Tanar and Stellara crouched in the stern, the man's left arm pressing the girl protectingly to his side. With grim fascination they watched the bowsprit rise and fall as it rushed straight toward what seemed must be inevitable disaster.
They were there! The sea lifted them high in the air and launched them forward upon the rocks. To the right a jagged finger of granite broke through the smother of spume. To the left the sleek, water-worn side of a huge boulder revealed itself for an instant as they sped past. The boat grated and rasped upon a sunken rock, slid over and raced toward the sandy beach.
Tanar whipped out his dirk and slashed the halyards, bringing the sail down as the boat's keel touched the sand. Then, seizing Stellara in his arms, he leaped into the shallow water and hastened up the shore.
Pausing, they looked back toward the pursuing Korsars and to their astonishment saw that all three boats were making swiftly toward the rocky shore.
'They dare not go back without us,' said Stellara, 'or they would never risk that surf.'
'The Cid must have guessed our identity, then, when a search failed to reveal you,' said Tanar.
'It may also be that they discovered your absence from the dungeon, and coupling this with the fact that I, too, was missing, someone guessed the identity of the two sailors who sought to pass through the gate and who paid gold for a small boat at the river,' suggested Stellara.
'There goes one of them on the rocks,' cried Tanar, as the leading boat disappeared in a smother of water.
The second boat shared the same fate as its predecessor, but the third rode through the same opening that had carried Tanar and Stellara to the safety of the beach and as it did the two fugitives turned and ran toward the forest.
Behind them raced a dozen Korsars and amidst the crack of pistols and harquebuses Tanar and Stellara disappeared within the dark shadows of the primeval forest.
The story of their long and arduous journey through unknown lands to the kingdom of Sari would be replete with interest, excitement and adventure, but it is no part of this story.
It is enough to say that they arrived at Sari shortly before Ja and Gura made their appearance, the latter having been delayed by adventures that had almost cost them their lives.
The people of Sari welcomed the Amiocapian mate that the son of Ghak had brought back to his own country. And Gura they accepted, too, because she had befriended Tanar, though the young men accepted her for herself and many were the trophies that were laid before the hut of the beautiful Himean maiden. But she repulsed them all for in her heart she held a secret love that she had never divulged, but which, perhaps, Stellara had guessed and which may have accounted for the tender solicitude which the Amiocapian maid revealed for her Himean sister.
CONCLUSION
As Perry neared the end of the story of Tanar of Pellucidar, the sending became weaker and weaker until it died out entirely, and Jason Gridley could hear no more. He turned to me. 'I think Perry had something more to say,' he said. 'He was trying to tell us something. He was trying to ask something.'
'Jason,' I said, reproachfully, 'didn't you tell me that the story of the inner world is perfectly ridiculous; that there could be no such place peopled by strange reptiles and men of the stone age? Didn't you insist that there is no Emperor of Pellucidar?'
'Tut-tut,' he said. 'I apologize. I am sorry. But that is past. The question now is what can we do.'
'About what?' I asked.
'Do you not realize that David Innes lies a prisoner in a dark dungeon beneath the palace of The Cid of Korsar?' he demanded with more excitement than I have ever known Jason Gridley to exhibit.
'Well, what of it?' I demanded. 'I am sorry, of course; but what in the world can we do to help him?'
'We can do a lot,' said Jason Gridley, determinedly. I must confess that as I looked at him I felt considerable solicitude for the state of his mind for he was evidently laboring under great excitement.
'Think of it!' he cried. 'Think of that poor devil buried there in utter darkness, silence, solitude—and with those snakes! God!' he shuddered. 'Snakes crawling all over him, winding about his arms and his legs and his body, creeping across his face as he sleeps, and nothing else to break the monotony—no human voice, the song of no bird, no ray of sunlight. Something must be done. He must be saved.'
'But who is going to do it?' I asked.
'I am!' replied Jason Gridley.
THE END
