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