Even though the appearance of this village among the ice was striking, Zartan found that the reality far surpassed his expectation, for the humble domociles actually led to a labyrinth of tunnels and man-made caverns deep in the berg. Below the ice, it was warm and comfortable, and the pirates found plenty of food and rum to lift their spirits at a subterranean inn. They ate and drank their fill, then slept in heaps about the floor. Bo told him this was the only outpost between themselves and the portal to his world, which Zartan began to suppose was not imaginary after all. He was filled with dread, though, for if they were only halfway to this place, that meant they had yet to traverse many miles of snowy arctic terrain.
One this leg of the trip, he learned, they would be using sleds powered by giant wolf-dogs that Bo called Jaloks. Zartan loved every breed of dog, but thought twice about nearing any of these beasts, which were the size of bears and were so snarling and snappish he doubted they were truly domesticated. The men filled ten sleds, each of them carried by a team of six of these terrifying animals.
It was a time of perpetual sunshine in the arctic, as it is for half of every year, and Zartan was unsure if they left the next morning or three days later. Time had begun to become elastic, which Bo assured him would only prepare him for the land of Pellucidar, with it's unrelenting noontime. This made it equally impossible to measure the time their land journey took. They stopped at times for rest and food, but Zartan was unable to mark any of these. It may have been days or weeks, but as they pressed on, Zartan noted a dimming of the light.
"It's sunset," he remarked in surprise. "It is sunset, although we are in the land of the midnight sun."
"Ay, we've entered the tunnel," Bo explained. "We have reached the entrance to Pellucidar." It seemed to Zartan that they had merely began descending into a bit of a depression in the snow, but the dogs began to run on a curving path that seemed to take them in a loop around the rim of this depression, but as they did so, the twilight continued to settle around them, casting a hazy grayness where it was impossible to separate snow from sky. And yet the dogs ran on, long into the darkness. And with the darkness, and eerie quiet settled over all the men, and the only sound was the dogs hying forth and breathing heavily.
Bob, who did not want to leave the warmth of Zartan's coat, emitted muffled squawls to the effect that they were all doomed.