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

was completed, and I was ready for departure.

For some time I hesitated to take the Mahar back with me. She

had been docile and quiet ever since she had discovered herself

virtually a prisoner aboard the "iron mole." It had been, of course,

impossible for me to communicate with her since she had no auditory

organs and I no knowledge of her fourth-dimension, sixth-sense

method of communication.

Naturally I am kind-hearted, and so I found it beyond me to leave

even this hateful and repulsive thing alone in a strange and hostile

world. The result was that when I entered the iron mole I took

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