Pellucidar, Edgar Rice Burroughs [books for 5 year olds to read themselves TXT] 📗

of fifty feluccas and mining iron ore for the cannon and balls, to say nothing of manufacturing these guns and the crude muzzle-loading rifles with which every Mezop was armed, as well as the gunpowder and ammunition they had in such ample quantities.

“Time!” exclaimed Perry. “Well, how long were you gone from Anoroc before we picked you up in the Sojar Az?”

That was a puzzler, and I had to admit it. I didn’t know how much time had elapsed and neither did Perry, for time is nonexistent in Pellucidar.

“Then, you see, David,” he continued, “I had almost unbelievable resources at my disposal. The Mezops inhabiting the Anoroc Islands, which stretch far out to sea beyond the three principal isles with which you are familiar, number well into the millions, and by far the greater part of them are friendly to Ja. Men, women, and children turned to and worked the moment Ja explained the nature of our enterprise.

“And not only were they anxious to do all in their power to hasten the day when the Mahars should be overthrown, but⁠—and this counted for most of all⁠—they are simply ravenous for greater knowledge and for better ways of doing things.

“The contents of the prospector set their imaginations to working overtime, so that they craved to own, themselves, the knowledge which had made it possible for other men to create and build the things which you brought back from the outer world.

“And then,” continued the old man, “the element of time, or, rather, lack of time, operated to my advantage. There being no nights, there was no laying off from work⁠—they labored incessantly, stopping only to eat and, on rare occasions, to sleep. Once we had discovered iron ore we had enough mined in an incredibly short time to build a thousand cannon. I had only to show them once how a thing should be done, and they would fall to work by thousands to do it.

“Why, no sooner had we fashioned the first muzzle-loader and they had seen it work successfully, than fully three thousand Mezops fell to work to make rifles. Of course there was much confusion and lost motion at first, but eventually Ja got them in hand, detailing squads of them under competent chiefs to certain work.

“We now have a hundred expert gun-makers. On a little isolated isle we have a great powder-factory. Near the iron-mine, which is on the mainland, is a smelter, and on the eastern shore of Anoroc, a well equipped shipyard. All these industries are guarded by forts in which several cannon are mounted and where warriors are always on guard.

“You would be surprised now, David, at the aspect of Anoroc. I am surprised myself; it seems always to me as I compare it with the day that I first set foot upon it from the deck of the Sari that only a miracle could have worked the change that has taken place.”

“It is a miracle,” I said; “it is nothing short of a miracle to transplant all the wondrous possibilities of the twentieth century back to the Stone Age. It is a miracle to think that only five hundred miles of earth separate two epochs that are really ages and ages apart.”

“It is stupendous, Perry! But still more stupendous is the power that you and I wield in this great world. These people look upon us as little less than supermen. We must show them that we are all of that.

“We must give them the best that we have, Perry.”

“Yes,” he agreed; “we must. I have been thinking a great deal lately that some kind of shrapnel shell or explosive bomb would be a most splendid innovation in their warfare. Then there are breech-loading rifles and those with magazines that I must hasten to study out and learn to reproduce as soon as we get settled down again; and⁠—”

“Hold on, Perry!” I cried. “I didn’t mean these sorts of things at all. I said that we must give them the best we have. What we have given them so far has been the worst. We have given them war and the munitions of war. In a single day we have made their wars infinitely more terrible and bloody than in all their past ages they have been able to make them with their crude, primitive weapons.

“In a period that could scarcely have exceeded two outer earthly hours, our fleet practically annihilated the largest armada of native canoes that the Pellucidarians ever before had gathered together. We butchered some eight thousand warriors with the twentieth-century gifts we brought. Why, they wouldn’t have killed that many warriors in the entire duration of a dozen of their wars with their own weapons! No, Perry; we’ve got to give them something better than scientific methods of killing one another.”

The old man looked at me in amazement. There was reproach in his eyes, too.

“Why, David!” he said sorrowfully. “I thought that you would be pleased with what I had done. We planned these things together, and I am sure that it was you who suggested practically all of it. I have done only what I thought you wished done and I have done it the best that I know how.”

I laid my hand on the old man’s shoulder.

“Bless your heart, Perry!” I cried. “You’ve accomplished miracles. You have done precisely what I should have done, only you’ve done it better. I’m not finding fault; but I don’t wish to lose sight myself, or let you lose sight, of the greater work which must grow out of this preliminary and necessary carnage. First we must place the empire upon a secure footing, and we can do so only by putting the fear of us in the hearts of our enemies; but after that⁠—

“Ah, Perry! That is the day I look forward to! When you and I can build sewing-machines instead of battleships, harvesters of crops instead of harvesters of men, plowshares and telephones, schools and colleges, printing-presses and