a man; exposed to the attacks of the countless fearsome
denizens of its mountains, its plains, and its jungles--it was a
miracle that she had survived it all.

To me it was a revelation of the things my early forebears must have
endured that the human race of the outer crust might survive. It made
me very proud to think that I had won the love of such a woman. Of
course she couldn't read or write; there was nothing cultured or
refined about her as you judge culture and refinement; but she was the
essence of all that is best in woman, for she was good, and brave, and
noble, and virtuous. And she was all these things in spite of the fact
that their observance entailed suffering and danger and possible death.

How much easier it would have been to have gone to Jubal in the first
place! She would have been his lawful mate. She would have been queen
in her own land--and it meant just as much to the cave woman to be a
queen in the Stone Age as it does to the woman of today to be a queen
now; it's all comparative glory any way you look at it, and if there
were only half-naked savages on the outer crust today, you'd find that
it would be considerable glory to be the wife a Dahomey chief.

I couldn't help but compare Dian's action with that of a splendid young
woman I had known in New York--I mean splendid to look at and to talk
to. She had been head over heels in love with a chum of mine--a clean,
manly chap--but she had married a broken-down, disreputable old
debauchee because he was a count in some dinky little European
principality that was not even accorded a distinctive color by Rand
McNally.

Yes, I was mighty proud of Dian.

After a time we decided to set out for Sari, as I was anxious to see
Perry, and to know that all was right with him. I had told Dian about
our plan of emancipating the human race of Pellucidar, and she was
fairly wild over it. She said that if Dacor, her brother, would only
return he could easily be king of Amoz, and that then he and Ghak could
form an alliance. That would give us a flying start, for the Sarians
and the Amozites were both very powerful tribes. Once they had been
armed with swords, and bows and arrows, and trained in their use we
were confident that they could overcome any tribe that seemed
disinclined to join the great army of federated states with which we
were planning to march upon the Mahars.

I explained the various destructive engines of war which Perry and I