Pellucidar - Edgar Rice Burroughs (children's books read aloud .txt) 📗
- Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
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We had built her upon a low bank of the river close to where it emptied into the sea, and just above high tide. Her keel we had laid upon several rollers cut from small trees, the ends of the rollers in turn resting upon parallel tracks of long saplings. Her stern was toward the water.
A few hours before we were ready to launch her she made quite an imposing picture, for Perry had insisted upon setting every shred of “canvas.” I told him that I didn’t know much about it, but I was sure that at launching the hull only should have been completed, everything else being completed after she had floated safely.
At the last minute there was some delay while we sought a name for her. I wanted her christened the Perry in honor both of her designer and that other great naval genius of another world, Captain Oliver Hazard Perry, of the United States Navy. But Perry was too modest; he wouldn’t hear of it.
We finally decided to establish a system in the naming of the fleet. Battleships of the first-class should bear the names of kingdoms of the federation; armored cruisers the names of kings; cruisers the names of cities, and so on down the line. Therefore, we decided to name the first battleship Sari, after the first of the federated kingdoms.
The launching of the Sari proved easier than I contemplated. Perry wanted me to get in and break something over the bow as she floated out upon the bosom of the river, but I told him that I should feel safer on dry land until I saw which side up the Sari would float.
I could see by the expression of the old man’s face that my words had hurt him; but I noticed that he didn’t offer to get in himself, and so I felt less contrition than I might otherwise.
When we cut the ropes and removed the blocks that held the Sari in place she started for the water with a lunge. Before she hit it she was going at a reckless speed, for we had laid our tracks quite down to the water, greased them, and at intervals placed rollers all ready to receive the ship as she moved forward with stately dignity. But there was no dignity in the Sari.
When she touched the surface of the river she must have been going twenty or thirty miles an hour. Her momentum carried her well out into the stream, until she came to a sudden halt at the end of the long line which we had had the foresight to attach to her bow and fasten to a large tree upon the bank.
The moment her progress was checked she promptly capsized. Perry was overwhelmed. I didn’t upbraid him, nor remind him that I had “told him so.”
His grief was so genuine and so apparent that I didn’t have the heart to reproach him, even were I inclined to that particular sort of meanness.
“Come, come, old man!” I cried. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Give me a hand with this rope, and we’ll drag her up as far as we can; and then when the tide goes out we’ll try another scheme. I think we can make a go of her yet.”
Well, we managed to get her up into shallow water. When the tide receded she lay there on her side in the mud, quite a pitiable object for the premier battleship of a world—“the terror of the seas” was the way Perry had occasionally described her.
We had to work fast; but before the tide came in again we had stripped her of her sails and masts, righted her, and filled her about a quarter full of rock ballast. If she didn’t stick too fast in the mud I was sure that she would float this time right side up.
I can tell you that it was with palpitating hearts that we sat upon the river-bank and watched that tide come slowly in. The tides of Pellucidar don’t amount to much by comparison with our higher tides of the outer world, but I knew that it ought to prove ample to float the Sari.
Nor was I mistaken. Finally we had the satisfaction of seeing the vessel rise out of the mud and float slowly upstream with the tide. As the water rose we pulled her in quite close to the bank and clambered aboard.
She rested safely now upon an even keel; nor did she leak, for she was well calked with fiber and tarry pitch. We rigged up a single short mast and light sail, fastened planking down over the ballast to form a deck, worked her out into midstream with a couple of sweeps, and dropped our primitive stone anchor to await the turn of the tide that would bear us out to sea.
While we waited we devoted the time to the construction of an upper deck, since the one immediately above the ballast was some seven feet from the gunwale. The second deck was four feet above this. In it was a large, commodious hatch, leading to the lower deck. The sides of the ship rose three feet above the upper deck, forming an excellent breastwork, which we loopholed at intervals that we might lie prone and fire upon an enemy.
Though we were sailing out upon a peaceful mission in search of my friend Ja, we knew that we might meet with people of some other island who would prove unfriendly.
At last the tide turned. We weighed anchor. Slowly we drifted down the great river toward the sea.
About us swarmed the mighty denizens of the primeval deep—plesiosauri and ichthyosauria with all their horrid, slimy cousins whose names were as the names of aunts and uncles to Perry, but which I have never been able to recall an hour after having heard them.
At last we were safely launched upon the journey to which we had looked forward for so long, and the results of which meant so much to me.
The Sari proved a most erratic craft. She might have done well enough upon a park lagoon if safely anchored, but upon the bosom of a mighty ocean she left much to be desired.
Sailing with the wind she did her best; but in quarter-ing or when close-hauled she drifted terribly, as a nautical man might have guessed she would. We couldn’t keep within miles of our course, and our progress was pitifully slow.
Instead of making for the island of Anoroc, we bore far to the right, until it became evident that we should have to pass between the two right-hand islands and attempt to return toward Anoroc from the opposite side.
As we neared the islands Perry was quite overcome by their beauty. When we were directly between two of them he fairly went into raptures; nor could I blame him.
The tropical luxuriance of the foliage that dripped almost to the water’s edge and the vivid colors of the blooms that shot the green made a most gorgeous spectacle.
Perry was right in the midst of a flowery panegyric on the wonders of the peaceful beauty of the scene when a canoe shot out from the nearest island. There were a dozen warriors in it; it was quickly followed by a second and third.
Of course we couldn’t know the intentions of the strangers, but we could pretty well guess them.
Perry wanted to man the sweeps and try to get away from them, but I soon convinced him that any speed of which the Sari was capable would be far too slow to outdistance the swift, though awkward, dugouts of the Mezops.
I waited until they were quite close enough to hear me, and then I hailed them. I told them that we were friends of the Mezops, and that we were upon a visit to Ja of Anoroc, to which they replied that they were at war with Ja, and that if we would wait a minute they’d board us and throw our corpses to the azdyryths.
I warned them that they would get the worst of it if they didn’t leave us alone, but they only shouted in derision and paddled swiftly toward us. It was evident that they were considerably impressed by the appearance and dimensions of our craft, but as these fellows know no fear they were not at all awed.
Seeing that they were determined to give battle, I leaned over the rail of the Sari and brought the imperial battle-squadron of the Emperor of Pellucidar into action for the first time in the history of a world. In other and simpler words, I fired my revolver at the nearest canoe.
The effect was magical. A warrior rose from his knees, threw his paddle aloft, stiffened into rigidity for an instant, and then toppled overboard.
The others ceased paddling, and, with wide eyes, looked first at me and then at the battling sea-things which fought for the corpse of their comrade. To them it must have seemed a miracle that I should be able to stand at thrice the range of the most powerful javelin-thrower and with a loud noise and a smudge of smoke slay one of their number with an invisible missile.
But only for an instant were they paralyzed with wonder. Then, with savage shouts, they fell once more to their paddles and forged rapidly toward us.
Again and again I fired. At each shot a warrior sank to the bottom of the canoe or tumbled overboard.
When the prow of the first craft touched the side of the Sari it contained only dead and dying men. The other two dugouts were approaching rapidly, so I turned my attention toward them.
I think that they must have been commencing to have some doubts—those wild, naked, red warriors—for when the first man fell in the second boat, the others stopped paddling and commenced to jabber among themselves.
The third boat pulled up alongside the second and its crews joined in the conference. Taking advantage of the lull in the battle, I called out to the survivors to return to their shore.
“I have no fight with you,” I cried, and then I told them who I was and added that if they would live in peace they must sooner or later join forces with me.
“Go back now to your people,” I counseled them, “and tell them that you have seen David I, Emperor of the Federated Kingdoms of Pellucidar, and that single-handed he has overcome you, just as be intends overcoming the Mahars and the Sagoths and any other peoples of Pellucidar who threaten the peace and welfare of his empire.”
Slowly they turned the noses of their canoes toward land. It was evident that they were impressed; yet that they were loath to give up without further con-testing my claim to naval supremacy was also apparent, for some of their number seemed to be exhorting the others to a renewal of the conflict.
However, at last they drew slowly away, and the Sari, which had not decreased her snail-like speed during this, her first engagement, continued upon her slow, uneven way.
Presently Perry stuck his head up through the hatch and hailed me.
“Have the scoundrels departed?” he asked. “Have you killed them all?”
“Those whom I failed to kill have departed, Perry,” I replied.
He came out on deck and, peering over the side, descried the lone canoe floating a short distance astern with its grim and grisly freight. Farther his eyes wandered to the retreating boats.
“David,” said
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