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       Edgar Rice Burroughs

      Pellucidar

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664117144

       PROLOGUE

       CHAPTER I

       LOST ON PELLUCIDAR

       CHAPTER II

       TRAVELING WITH TERROR

       CHAPTER III

       SHOOTING THE CHUTES—AND AFTER

       CHAPTER IV

       FRIENDSHIP AND TREACHERY

       CHAPTER V

       SURPRISES

       CHAPTER VI

       A PENDENT WORLD

       CHAPTER VII

       FROM PLIGHT TO PLIGHT

       CHAPTER VIII

       CAPTIVE

       CHAPTER IX

       HOOJA'S CUTTHROATS APPEAR

       CHAPTER X

       THE RAID ON THE CAVE-PRISON

       CHAPTER XI

       ESCAPE

       CHAPTER XII

       KIDNAPED!

       CHAPTER XIII

       RACING FOR LIFE

       CHAPTER XIV

       GORE AND DREAMS

       CHAPTER XV

       CONQUEST AND PEACE

       Table of Contents

      Several years had elapsed since I had found the opportunity to do any big-game hunting; for at last I had my plans almost perfected for a return to my old stamping-grounds in northern Africa, where in other days I had had excellent sport in pursuit of the king of beasts.

      The date of my departure had been set; I was to leave in two weeks. No schoolboy counting the lagging hours that must pass before the beginning of "long vacation" released him to the delirious joys of the summer camp could have been filled with greater impatience or keener anticipation.

      And then came a letter that started me for Africa twelve days ahead of my schedule.

      Often am I in receipt of letters from strangers who have found something in a story of mine to commend or to condemn. My interest in this department of my correspondence is ever fresh. I opened this particular letter with all the zest of pleasurable anticipation with which I had opened so many others. The post-mark (Algiers) had aroused my interest and curiosity, especially at this time, since it was Algiers that was presently to witness the termination of my coming sea voyage in search of sport and adventure.

      Before the reading of that letter was completed lions and lion-hunting had fled my thoughts, and I was in a state of excitement bordering upon frenzy.

      It—well, read it yourself, and see if you, too, do not find food for frantic conjecture, for tantalizing doubts, and for a great hope.

      Here it is:

      DEAR SIR: I think that I have run across one of the most remarkable coincidences in modern literature. But let me start at the beginning:

      I am, by profession, a wanderer upon the face of the earth. I have no trade—nor any other occupation.

      My father bequeathed me a competency; some remoter ancestors lust to roam. I have combined the two and invested them carefully and without extravagance.

      I became interested in your story, At the Earth's Core, not so much because of the probability of the tale as of a great and abiding wonder that people should be paid real money for writing such impossible trash. You will pardon my candor, but it is necessary that you understand my mental attitude toward this particular story—that you may credit that which follows.

      Shortly thereafter I started for the Sahara in search of a rather rare species of antelope that is to be found only occasionally within a limited area at a certain season of the year. My chase led me far from the haunts of man.

      It was a fruitless search, however, in so far as antelope is concerned; but one night as I lay courting sleep at the edge of a little cluster of date-palms that surround an ancient well in the midst of the arid, shifting sands, I suddenly became conscious of a strange sound coming apparently from the earth beneath my head.

      It was an intermittent ticking!

      No reptile or insect with which I am familiar reproduces any such notes. I lay for an hour—listening intently.

      At last my curiosity got the better of me. I arose, lighted my lamp and commenced to investigate.

      My

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