His voice rose and cracked in sudden excitement, and I could see that even the suggestion had angered him.

"Yes," said several of the others, "you are coming to our village." They, too, seemed to be on the verge of losing control of themselves.

"Oh, of course," I said, "if you wish us to come, we shall be glad to; but we didn't want to put you to so much trouble."

"That is better," said the leader. "Now we shall all go to the village, and eat and be happy."

"I guess we're in for it," said Zor, as the warriors gathered around us and conducted us farther into the forest.

"They may continue to be friendly," he went on; "but one can never tell when their mood will change. All I can suggest is that we humor them as much as possible, for you saw the effect that even the slight suggestion of crossing them had upon them."

"Well, we won't cross them then," I said.

We marched for some little distance until we came at last to a crudely palisaded village that stood in a small clearing. The warriors at the gate recognized our escort and we were immediately admitted.

The village inside the palisade presented a strange appearance. It was evidently laid out according to no plan whatever, the houses having been placed according to the caprice of each individual builder. The result was most confusing, for there was no such thing as a street in the sense in which we understand it, for the spaces between the buildings could not be called streets. Sometimes they were only a couple of feet wide, and sometimes as much as twenty feet, and scarcely ever were they straight for more than the length of a couple of houses. The design of the houses was as capricious as their location, apparently no two of them having been built according to the same plan. Some were built of small logs; some of wattle and mud; some of bark; and there were many entirely of grass over a light framework. They were round, or square, or oblong, or conical. I noted one in particular that was a tower fully twenty feet high; while next to it was a woven grass hut that rose no more than three feet above the ground. It had a single opening, just large enough for its occupants to crawl in and out on their hands and knees.

In the narrow alleyways between the buildings, wild-eyed children played, women cooked, and men loafed; so it was with the greatest difficulty our escort forced its way toward the center of the village. We were constantly stepping over or around men, women or children, most of whom paid no attention to us, while others flew into frightful rages if we touched them.

We saw some strange sights during that short journey through the village. One man, sitting before his doorway, struck himself a terrific blow on the head with a rock. "Stop," he screamed, "or I'll kill you." "Oh you will, will you?" he answered himself, and then hit himself again; whereupon he dropped the rock and commenced to choke himself.

I do not know how his altercation with himself turned out, for we turned the corner of his house and lost sight of him.

A little farther on, we came upon a woman who was holding down a screaming child while she attempted to cut its throat with a stone knife. It was more than I could stand; and though I knew the risk I took, I seized her arm and pulled the knife from the child's throat.

"Why are you doing that?" I demanded.

"This child has never been sick," she replied; "and so I know there must be something the matter with it. I am putting it out of its misery." Then, suddenly, her eyes ablaze, she leaped up and struck at me with her knife.

I warded off the blow, and simultaneously one of my escort knocked the woman down with the haft of his spear, while another pushed me roughly forward along the narrow alleyway. "Mind your own business," he screamed, "or you will get in trouble here."

"But you are not going to let the woman kill that child, are you?" I demanded.

"Why should I interfere with her? I might want to cut somebody's throat some day, myself; and I wouldn't want anyone to interfere with my fun. I might even want to cut yours."

"Not a bad idea," remarked another warrior.

We turned the corner of the house, and a moment later I heard the screams of the child again, but I was helpless to do anything about it, and now I had my own throat to think about.

Presently we came to a large open space below a low, rambling, crazy-looking structure. It was the palace of Meeza, the king. In the center of the plaza before the palace was a huge, grotesque, obscene figure representing a creature that was part man and part beast. Circling around it were a number of men turning "cartwheels." No one seemed to be paying any attention to them, although there were quite a number of people in the square.

As we passed the figure, each member of our escort said, "Greetings, Ogar!" and moved on toward the palace. They made Zor and me salute the hideous thing in the same manner.

"That is Ogar," said one of our escort. "You must always salute him when you pass. We are all the children of Ogar. We owe everything to him. He made us what we are. He gave us our great intelligence. He made us the most beautiful, the richest, the most powerful people in Pellucidar."

"Who are those men cavorting around him?" I asked.

"Those are the Priests of Ogar," replied the warrior.

"And what are they doing?" I asked.

"They are praying for the whole village," he replied. "They save us the trouble of praying.