could construct after a little experimentation--gunpowder, rifles,
cannon, and the like, and Dian would clap her hands, and throw her arms
about my neck, and tell me what a wonderful thing I was. She was
beginning to think that I was omnipotent although I really hadn't done
anything but talk--but that is the way with women when they love.
Perry used to say that if a fellow was one-tenth as remarkable as his
wife or mother thought him, he would have the world by the tail with a
down-hill drag.

The first time we started for Sari I stepped into a nest of poisonous
vipers before we reached the valley. A little fellow stung me on the
ankle, and Dian made me come back to the cave. She said that I mustn't
exercise, or it might prove fatal--if it had been a full-grown snake
that struck me she said, I wouldn't have moved a single pace from the
nest--I'd have died in my tracks, so virulent is the poison. As it was
I must have been laid up for quite a while, though Dian's poultices of
herbs and leaves finally reduced the swelling and drew out the poison.

The episode proved most fortunate, however, as it gave me an idea which
added a thousand-fold to the value of my arrows as missiles of offense
and defense. As soon as I was able to be about again, I sought out
some adult vipers of the species which had stung me, and having killed
them, I extracted their virus, smearing it upon the tips of several
arrows. Later I shot a hyaenodon with one of these, and though my
arrow inflicted but a superficial flesh wound the beast crumpled in
death almost immediately after he was hit.

We now set out once more for the land of the Sarians, and it was with
feelings of sincere regret that we bade good-bye to our beautiful
Garden of Eden, in the comparative peace and harmony of which we had
lived the happiest moments of our lives. How long we had been there I
did not know, for as I have told you, time had ceased to exist for me
beneath that eternal noonday sun--it may have been an hour, or a month
of earthly time; I do not know.

XV

BACK TO EARTH

WE CROSSED THE RIVER AND PASSED THROUGH THE mountains beyond, and
finally we came out upon a great level plain which stretched away as
far as the eye could reach. I cannot tell you in what direction it
stretched even if you would care to know, for all the while that I was
within Pellucidar I never discovered any but local methods of
indicating direction--there is no north, no south,