ll and eat them."

I shuddered.

"What is there horrible about it, David?" the old man asked. "They
understand us no better than we understand the lower animals of our own
world. Why, I have come across here very learned discussions of the
question as to whether gilaks, that is men, have any means of
communication. One writer claims that we do not even reason--that our
every act is mechanical, or instinctive. The dominant race of
Pellucidar, David, have not yet learned that men converse among
themselves, or reason. Because we do not converse as they do it is
beyond them to imagine that we converse at all. It is thus that we
reason in relation to the brutes of our own world. They know that the
Sagoths have a spoken language, but they cannot comprehend it, or how
it manifests itself, since they have no auditory apparatus. They
believe that the motions of the lips alone convey the meaning. That
the Sagoths can communicate with us is incomprehensible to them.

"Yes, David," he concluded, "it would entail murder to carry out your
plan."

"Very well then, Perry." I replied. "I shall become a murderer."

He got me to go over the plan again most carefully, and for some reason
which was not at the time clear to me insisted upon a very careful
description of the apartments and corridors I had just explored.

"I wonder, David," he said at length, "as you are determined to carry
out your wild scheme, if we could not accomplish something of very real
and lasting benefit for the human race of Pellucidar at the same time.
Listen, I have learned much of a most surprising nature from these
archives of the Mahars. That you may not appreciate my plan I shall
briefly outline the history of the race.

"Once the males were all-powerful, but ages ago the females, little by
little, assumed the mastery. For other ages no noticeable change took
place in the race of Mahars. It continued to progress under the
intelligent and beneficent rule of the ladies. Science took vast
strides. This was especially true of the sciences which we know as
biology and eugenics. Finally a certain female scientist announced the
fact that she had discovered a method whereby eggs might be fertilized
by chemical means after they were laid--all true reptiles, you know,
are hatched from eggs.

"What happened? Immediately the necessity for males ceased to
exist--the race was no longer dependent upon them. More ages elapsed
until at the present t