Cable me at once, at my expense, that there was no basis of fact for your story, At the Earth’s Core. 

 Very respectfully yours, 

 COGDON NESTOR, —— and —— Club, Algiers. June 1st, —. 

 Ten minutes after reading this letter I had cabled Mr. Nestor as follows: 

 Story true. Await me Algiers. 

 As fast as train and boat would carry me, I sped toward my destination. For all those dragging days my mind was a whirl of mad conjecture, of frantic hope, of numbing fear. 

 The finding of the telegraph-instrument practically assured me that David Innes had driven Perry’s iron mole back through the earth’s crust to the buried world of Pellucidar; but what adventures had befallen him since his return? 

 Had he found Dian the Beautiful, his half-savage mate, safe among his friends, or had Hooja the Sly One succeeded in his nefarious schemes to abduct her? 

 Did Abner Perry, the lovable old inventor and paleontologist, still live? 

 Had the federated tribes of Pellucidar succeeded in overthrowing the mighty Mahars, the dominant race of reptilian monsters, and their fierce, gorilla-like soldiery, the savage Sagoths? 

 I must admit that I was in a state bordering upon nervous prostration when I entered the —— and —— Club, in Algiers, and inquired for Mr. Nestor. A moment later I was ushered into his presence, to find myself clasping hands with the sort of chap that the world holds only too few of. 

 He was a tall, smooth-faced man of about thirty, clean-cut, straight, and strong, and weather-tanned to the hue of a desert Arab. I liked him immensely from the first, and I hope that after our three months together in the desert country—three months not entirely lacking in adventure—he found that a man may be a writer of “impossible trash” and yet have some redeeming qualities. 

 The day following my arrival at Algiers we left for the south, Nestor having made all arrangements in advance, guessing, as he naturally did, that I could be coming to Africa for but a single purpose—to hasten at once to the buried telegraph-instrument and wrest its 

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