Again we called to the remaining warriors to enter into a parley with
us; but the chief’s son was there and he would not, now that he had
seen his father killed. He was all for revenge. So we had to open up on
the brave fellows with all our guns; but it didn’t last long at that,
for there chanced to be wiser heads among the Luanians than their chief
or his son had possessed. Presently, an old warrior who commanded one
of the dugouts surrendered. After that they came in one by one until
all had laid their weapons upon our decks.
Then we called together upon the flag-ship all our captains, to give
the affair greater weight and dignity, and all the principal men of
Luana. We had conquered them, and they expected either death or
slavery; but they deserved neither, and I told them so. It is always my
habit here in Pellucidar to impress upon these savage people that mercy
is as noble a quality as physical bravery, and that next to the men who
fight shoulder to shoulder with one, we should honor the brave men who
fight against us, and if we are victorious, award them both the mercy
and honor that are their due.
By adhering to this policy I have won to the federation many great and
noble peoples, who under the ancient traditions of the inner world
would have been massacred or enslaved after we had conquered them; and
thus I won the Luanians. I gave them their freedom, and returned their
weapons to them after they had sworn loyalty to me and friendship and
peace with Ja, and I made the old fellow, who had had the good sense to
surrender, king of Luana, for both the old chief and his only son had
died in the battle.
When I sailed away from Luana she was included among the kingdoms of
the empire, whose boundaries were thus pushed eastward several hundred
miles.
We now returned to Anoroc and thence to the mainland, where I again
took up the campaign against the Mahars, marching from one great buried
city to another until we had passed far north of Amoz into a country
where I had never been. At each city we were victorious, killing or
capturing the Sagoths and driving the Mahars further away.
I noticed that they always fled toward the north. The Sagoth prisoners
we usually found quite ready to trans-fer their allegiance to us, for
they are little more than brutes, and when they found that we could
fill their stomachs and give them plenty of fighting, they were nothing
loath to march with us against the next Mahar city and battle with men
of their own race.
Thus we proceeded, swinging in a great half-circle north and west and
south again until we had come back to the edge of the Lidi Plains north
of Thuria. Here we overcame the Mahar city that had ravaged the Land of
Awful Shadow for so many ages. When we marched on to Thuria, Goork and
his people went mad with joy at the tidings we brought them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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