had she seen a creature of her own kind. 

 There could have been but a single deduction in the mind of the Mahar—there were other worlds than Pellucidar, and the gilak was a rational being. 

 Now the creature at my side was creeping slowly toward the near-by sea. At my hip hung a long-barreled six-shooter—somehow I had been unable to find the same sensation of security in the newfangled automatics that had been perfected since my first departure from the outer world—and in my hand was a heavy express rifle. 

 I could have shot the Mahar with ease, for I knew intuitively that she was escaping—but I did not. 

 I felt that if she could return to her own kind with the story of her adventures, the position of the human race within Pellucidar would be advanced immensely at a single stride, for at once man would take his proper place in the considerations of the reptilia. 

 At the edge of the sea the creature paused and looked back at me. Then she slid sinuously into the surf. 

 For several minutes I saw no more of her as she luxuriated in the cool depths. 

 Then a hundred yards from shore she rose and there for another short while she floated upon the surface. 

 Finally she spread her giant wings, flapped them vigorously a score of times and rose above the blue sea. A single time she circled far aloft—and then straight as an arrow she sped away. 

 I watched her until the distant haze enveloped her and she had disappeared. I was alone. 

 My first concern was to discover where within Pellucidar I might be—and in what direction lay the land of the Sarians where Ghak the Hairy One ruled. 

 But how was I to guess in which direction lay Sari? 

 And if I set out to search—what then? 

 Could I find my way back to the prospector with its priceless freight of books, firearms, ammunition, scientific instruments, and still more books—its great library of reference works upon every conceivable branch of applied sciences? 

 And if I could not, of what value was all this vast storehouse of potential civilization and progress to be to the world of my adoption? 

 Upon the other hand, if I remained 

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