I didn’t and said so.

“Yes,” continued the old man, “we are both right.  To me, bent over my book here, there has been no lapse of time.  I have done little or nothing to waste my energies and so have required neither food nor sleep, but you, on the contrary, have walked and fought and wasted strength and tissue which must needs be rebuilt by nutriment and food, and so, having eaten and slept many times since last you saw me you naturally measure the lapse of time largely by these acts.  As a matter of fact, David, I am rapidly coming to the conviction that there is no such thing as time—­surely there can be no time here within Pellucidar, where there are no means for measuring or recording time.  Why, the Mahars themselves take no account of such a thing as time.  I find here in all their literary works but a single tense, the present.  There seems to be neither past nor future with them.  Of course it is impossible for our outer-earthly minds to grasp such a condition, but our recent experiences seem to demonstrate its existence.”

It was too big a subject for me, and I said so, but Perry seemed to enjoy nothing better than speculating upon it, and after listening with interest to my account of the adventures through which I had passed he returned once more to the subject, which he was enlarging upon with considerable fluency when he was interrupted by the entrance of a Sagoth.

“Come!” commanded the intruder, beckoning to me.  “The investigators would speak with you.”

“Good-bye, Perry!” I said, clasping the old man’s hand.  “There may be nothing but the present and no such thing as time, but I feel that I am about to take a trip into the hereafter from which I shall never return.  If you and Ghak should manage to escape I want you to promise me that you will find Dian the Beautiful and tell her that with my last words I asked her forgiveness for the unintentional affront I put upon her, and that my one wish was to be spared long enough to right the wrong that I had done her.”

Tears came to Perry’s eyes.

“I cannot believe but that you will return, David,” he said.  “It would be awful to think of living out the balance of my life without you among these hateful and repulsive creatures.  If you are taken away I shall never escape, for I feel that I am as well off here as I should be anywhere within this buried world.  Good-bye, my boy, good-bye!” and then his old voice faltered and broke, and as he hid his face in his hands the Sagoth guardsman grasped me roughly by the shoulder and hustled me from the chamber.

XI

FOUR DEAD MAHARS

A moment later I was standing before a dozen Mahars—­the social investigators of Phutra.  They asked me many questions, through a Sagoth interpreter.  I answered them all truthfully.  They seemed particularly interested in my account of the outer earth and the strange vehicle which had brought Perry and me to Pellucidar.  I thought that I had convinced them, and after they had sat in silence for a long time following my examination, I expected to be ordered returned to my quarters.