"But he shall not have me," she suddenly cried, with great vehemence. "The sea is there"--she pointed over the edge of the cliff--"and the sea shall have me rather than Jubal.""But I have you now Dian," I cried; "nor shall Jubal, nor any other have you, for you are mine," and I seized her hand, nor did I lift it above her head and let it fall in token of release.
She had risen to her feet, and was looking straight into my eyes with level gaze.
"I do not believe you," she said, "for if you meant it you would have done this when the others were present to witness it--then I should truly have been your mate;now there is no one to see you do it, for you know that without witnesses your act does not bind you to me,"and she withdrew her hand from mine and turned away.
I tried to convince her that I was sincere, but she simply couldn't forget the humiliation that I had put upon her on that other occasion.
"If you mean all that you say you will have ample chance to prove it," she said, "if Jubal does not catch and kill you.
I am in your power, and the treatment you accord me will be the best proof of your intentions toward me.
I am not your mate, and again I tell you that I hate you, and that I should be glad if I never saw you again."Dian certainly was candid. There was no gainsaying that.
In fact I found candor and directness to be quite a marked characteristic of the cave men of Pellucidar.
Finally I suggested that we make some attempt to gain my cave, where we might escape the searching Jubal, for I am free to admit that I had no considerable desire to meet the formidable and ferocious creature, of whose mighty prowess Dian had told me when I first met her.
He it was who, armed with a puny knife, had met and killed a cave bear in a hand-to-hand struggle. It was Jubal who could cast his spear entirely through the armored carcass of the sadok at fifty paces. It was he who had crushed the skull of a charging dyryth with a single blow of his war club. No, I was not pining to meet the Ugly One-and it was quite certain that I should not go out and hunt for him;but the matter was taken out of my hands very quickly, as is often the way, and I did meet Jubal the Ugly One face to face.
This is how it happened. I had led Dian back along the ledge the way she had come, searching for a path that would lead us to the top of the cliff, for I knew that we could then cross over to the edge of my own little valley, where I felt certain we should find a means of ingress from the cliff top. As we proceeded along the ledge I gave Dian minute directions for finding my cave against the chance of something happening to me.
I knew that she would be quite safely hidden away from pursuit once she gained the shelter of my lair, and the valley would afford her ample means of sustenance.
Also, I was very much piqued by her treatment of me.
My heart was sad and heavy, and I wanted to make her feel badly by suggesting that something terrible might happen to me--that I might, in fact, be killed. But it didn't work worth a cent, at least as far as I could perceive.
Dian simply shrugged those magnificent shoulders of hers, and murmured something to the effect that one was not rid of trouble so easily as that.
For a while I kept still. I was utterly squelched.
And to think that I had twice protected her from attack--the last time risking my life to save hers.
It was incredible that even a daughter of the Stone Age could be so ungrateful--so heartless; but maybe her heart partook of the qualities of her epoch.
Presently we found a rift in the cliff which had been widened and extended by the action of the water draining through it from the plateau above. It gave us a rather rough climb to the summit, but finally we stood upon the level mesa which stretched back for several miles to the mountain range.
Behind us lay the broad inland sea, curving upward in the horizonless distance to merge into the blue of the sky, so that for all the world it looked as though the sea lapped back to arch completely over us and disappear beyond the distant mountains at our backs--the weird and uncanny aspect of the seascapes of Pellucidar balk description.
At our right lay a dense forest, but to the left the country was open and clear to the plateau's farther verge.
It was in this direction that our way led, and we had turned to resume our journey when Dian touched my arm.
I turned to her, thinking that she was about to make peace overtures; but I was mistaken.
"Jubal," she said, and nodded toward the forest.
I looked, and there, emerging from the dense wood, came a perfect whale of a man. He must have been seven feet tall, and proportioned accordingly. He still was too far off to distinguish his features.
"Run," I said to Dian. "I can engage him until you get a good start. Maybe I can hold him until you have gotten entirely away," and then, without a backward glance, I advanced to meet the Ugly One. I had hoped that Dian would have a kind word to say to me before she went, for she must have known that I was going to my death for her sake; but she never even so much as bid me good-bye, and it was with a heavy heart that I strode through the flower-bespangled grass to my doom.
When I had come close enough to Jubal to distinguish his features I understood how it was that he had earned the sobriquet of Ugly One. Apparently some fearful beast had ripped away one entire side of his face.
The eye was gone, the nose, and all the flesh, so that his jaws and all his teeth were exposed and grinning through the horrible scar.
Formerly he may have been as good to look upon as the others of his handsome race, and it may be that the terrible result of this encounter had tended to sour an already strong and brutal character. However this may be it is quite certain that he was not a pretty sight, and now that his features, or what remained of them, were distorted in rage at the sight of Dian with another male, he was indeed most terrible to see--and much more terrible to meet.
He had broken into a run now, and as he advanced he raised his mighty spear, while I halted and fitting an arrow to my bow took as steady aim as I could.