kened by the sound of the instrument.

Leaping to my feet I grasped Downes roughly by the neck and dragged him
out of his blankets. He didn't need to be told what caused my
excitement, for the instant he was awake he, too, heard the long-hoped
for click, and with a whoop of delight pounced upon the instrument.

Nestor was on his feet almost as soon as I. The three of us huddled
about that little box as if our lives depended upon the message it had
for us.

Downes interrupted the clicking with his sending-key. The noise of the
receiver stopped instantly.

"Ask who it is, Downes," I directed.

He did so, and while we awaited the Englishman's translation of the
reply, I doubt if either Nestor or I breathed.

"He says he's David Innes," said Downes. "He wants to know who we are."

"Tell him," said I; "and that we want to know how he is--and all that
has befallen him since I last saw him."

For two months I talked with David Innes almost every day, and as
Downes translated, either Nestor or I took notes. From these, arranged
in chronological order, I have set down the following account of the
further adventures of David Innes at the earth's core, practically in
his own words.

CHAPTER I

LOST ON PELLUCIDAR

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 exceedingly 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 th