Chapter 22 Tarzan and the Ant-men
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Chapter 22 Tarzan and the Ant-men by Edgar Rice Burroughs
A Waziri, returning from the village of Obebe the cannibal, saw a bone lying beside the trail. This, in itself, was nothing remarkable. Many bones lie along savage trails in Africa. But this bone caused him to pause. It was the bone of a child. Nor was that alone enough to give pause to a warrior hastening through an unfriendly country back toward his own a people.
But Usula had heard strange tales in the village of Obebe the cannibal where rumor had brought him in search of his beloved master. The Big Bwana. Obebe had not seen nor heard anything of Tarzan of the Apes. Not for years had he seen the giant white. He assured Usula of this fact many times; but from other members of the tribe the Waziri learned that a white man had been kept a prisoner by Obebe for a year or more and that some time since he had escaped. At first Usula thought this white man might have been Tarzan but when he verified the statement of the time that had elapsed since the man was captured he knew that it could not have been his master, and so he turned back along the trail toward home; but when he saw the child’s bone along the trail several days out he recalled the story of the missing Uhha and he paused, just for a moment, to look at the bone. And as he looked he saw something else—a small skin bag, lying among some more bones a few feet off the trail. Usula stooped and picked up the bag. He opened it and poured some of the contents into his palm. He know what the things were and he knew that they had belonged to his master, for Usula was a headman who knew much about his master’s affairs. These were the diamonds that had been stolen from The Big Bwana many moons before by the white men who had found Opar. He would take them back to The Big Bwana’s lady.
Three days later as he moved silently along the trail close to The Great Thorn Forest he came suddenly to a halt, the hand grasping his heavy spear tensing in readiness. In a little open place he saw a man, an almost naked man, lying upon the ground. The man was alive—he saw him move—but what was he doing? Usula crept closer, making no noise. He moved around until he could observe the man from another angle and then he saw a horrid sight. The man was white and he lay beside the carcass of a long-dead buffalo, greedily devouring the remnants of hide that clung to the bleaching bones.
The man raised his head a little and Usula, catching a better view of his face, gave a cry of horror. Then the man looked up and grinned. It was The Big Bwana!
Usula ran to him and raised him upon his knees, but the man only laughed and babbled like a child. At his side, caught over one of the horns of the buffalo, was The Big Bwana’s golden locket with the great diamonds set in it Usula replaced it about the man’s neck. He built a strong shelter for him nearby and hunted food, and for many days he remained until the man’s strength came back; but his mind did not come back. And thus, in this condition, the faithful Usula led home his master.
They found many wounds and bruises upon his body and his head, some old, some new, some trivial, some serious; and they sent to England for a great surgeon to come out to Africa and seek to mend the poor thing that once had been Tarzan of the Apes.
The dogs that had once loved Lord Greystoke slunk from this brainless creature. Jad-bal-ja, the Golden Lion, growled when the man was wheeled near his cage.
Korak The Killer paced the floor in dumb despair, for his mother was on her way from England, and what would be the effect upon her of this awful blow? He hesitated even to contemplate it.
Khamis, the witch doctor, had searched untiringly for Uhha, his daughter, since The River Devil had stolen her from the village of Obebe the cannibal. He had made pilgrimages to other villages, some of them remote from his own country, but he had found no trace of her or her abductor.
He was returning from another fruitless search that had extended far to the east of the village of Obebe, skirting the Great Thorn Forest a few miles north of the Ugogo. It was early morning. He had just broken his lonely camp and set out upon the last leg of his homeward journey when his keen old eyes discovered something lying at the edge of a small open space a hundred yards to his right. He had just a glimpse of something that was not of the surrounding vegetation. He did not know what it was; but instinct bade him investigate. Moving cautiously nearer he presently identified the thing as a human knee just showing above the low grass that covered the clearing. He crept closer and suddenly his eyes narrowed and his breath made a single, odd little sound as it sucked idly between his lips in mechanical reaction to surprise, for what he saw was the body of The River Devil lying upon its back, one knee flexed—the knee that he had seen above the grasses.
His spear advanced and ready he approached until he stood above the motionless body. Was The River Devil dead, or was he asleep? Placing the point of his spear against the brown breast Khamis prodded. The Devil did not awaken. He was not asleep, then! nor did he appear to be dead. Khamis knelt and placed an ear above the other’s heart He was not dead!
The witch doctor thought quickly. In his heart he did not believe in River Devils, yet there was a chance that there might be such things and perhaps this one was shamming unconsciousness, or temporarily absent from the flesh it assumed as a disguise that it might go among men without arousing suspicion. But, too, it was the abductor of his daughter. That thought filled him with rage and with courage. He must force the truth from those lips even though the creature were a Devil.
He unwound a bit of fiber rope from about his waist and, turning the body over upon its back, quickly bound the wrists behind it Then he sat down beside it to wait. It was an hour before signs of returning consciousness appeared, then The River Devil opened his eyes.
“Where is Uhha, my daughter?” demanded the witch doctor.
The River Devil tried to free his arms, but they were too tightly bound. He made no reply to Khamis’ question. It was as though he had not heard it. He ceased struggling and lay back again, resting. After a while he opened his eyes once more and lay looking at Khamis, but he did not speak.
“Get up!” commanded the witch doctor and prodded him with a spear.
The River Devil rolled over on his side, flexed his right knee, raised on one elbow and finally got to his feet. Khamis prodded hitn in the direction of the trail. Toward dusk they arrived at the village of Obebe.
When the warriors and the women and the children saw who it was that Khamis was bringing to the village they became very much excited, and had it not been for the witch doctor, of whom they were afraid, they would have knifed and stoned the prisoner to death before he was fairly inside the village gates; but Khamis did not want The River Devil killed—not yet. He wanted first to force from him the truth concerning Uhha. So far he had been unable to get a word out of his prisoner. Incessant questioning, emphasized by many prods of the spear point had elicited nothing.
Khamis threw his prisoner into the same hut from which The River Devil had escaped; but he bound him securely and placed two warriors on guard. He had no mind to lose him again. Obebe came to see him. He, too, questioned him; but The River Devil only looked blankly in the face of the chief.
“I will make him speak,” said Obebe. “After we have finished eating we will have him out and make him speak. I know many ways.”
“You must not kill him,” said the witch doctor. “He knows what became of Uhha, and until be tells me no one shall kill him.”
“He will speak before he dies,” said Obebe.
“He is a River Devil and will never die,” said Khamis, re-writing to the old controversy.
“He is Tarzan,” cried Obebe, and the two were still arguing after they had passed out of hearing of the prisoner lying in the filth of the hut.
After they had eaten he saw them heating irons in a fire near the hut of the witch doctor, who was squatting before the entrance working rapidly with numerous charms—bits of wood wrapped in leaves, pieces of stone, some pebbles, a zebra’s tail.
Villagers were congregating about Khamis until presently the prisoner could no longer see him. A little later a black boy came and spoke to his guards, and he was taken out and pushed roughly toward the hut of the witch doctor.
Obebe was there, as he saw after the guards had opened a way through the throng and he stood beside the fire in the center of the circle. It was only a small fire; just enough to keep a couple of irons hot.
“Where is Uhha, my daughter?” demanded Khamis.
The River Devil did not answer. Not once had he spoken since Khamis had captured him.
“Burn out one of his eyes,” said Obebe. “That will make him speak!”
“Cut out his tongue!” screamed a woman. “Cut out his tongue.”
“Then he cannot speak at all, you fool,” cried Khamis.
The witch doctor arose and put the question again, but received no reply. Then he struck The River Devil a heavy blow in the face. Khamis had lost his temper, so that be did not fear even a River Devil.
“You will answer me now!” he screamed, and stooping he seized a red-hot iron.
“The right eye first!” shrilled Obebe.
The doctor came to the bungalow of the ape-man—Lady Greystoke brought him with her. They were three tired and dusty travelers as they dismounted at last before the rose-embowered entrance—the famous London surgeon, Lady Greystoke, and Flora Hawkes, her maid. The surgeon and Lady Greystoke went immediately to the room where Tarzan sat in an improvised wheelchair. He looked up at them blankly as they entered.
“Don’t you know me, John?” asked the woman.
Her son took her by the shoulders and led her away, weeping.
“He does not know any of us,” he said. “Wait until after the operation, mother, before you see him again. You can do him no good and to see him this way is too hard upon you.”
The great surgeon made his examination. There was pressure on the brain from a recent fracture of the skull. An operation would relieve the pressure and might restore the patient’s mind and memory. It was worth attempting.
Nurses and two doctors from Nairobi, engaged the day they arrived there, followed Lady Greystoke and the London surgeon, reaching the bungalow the day after their arrival. The operation took place the following morning.
Lady Greystoke, Korak and Menem were awaiting, in an adjoining room, the verdict of the surgeon. Was the operation a failure or a success? They sat mutely staring at the door leading into the improvised operating room. At last it opened, after what seemed ages, but was only perhaps, an hour. The surgeon entered the room where they sat their eyes, dumbly pleading, asked him the question that their lips dared not voice.
“I cannot tell you anything as yet,” he said, “other than that the operation, as an operation, was successful. What the result of it will be only time will tell. I have given orders that no one is to enter his room, other than the nurses for ten days. They are instructed not to speak to him or allow him to speak for the same length of time; but he will not wish to speak, for I shall keep him in a semiconscious condition, by means of drugs, until the ten days have elapsed. Until then, Lady Greystoke, we may only hope for the best; but I can assure you that your husband has every chance for complete recovery. I think you may safely hope for the best.”
The witch doctor laid his left hand upon the shoulder of The River Devil; in his right hand was clutched a red-hot iron.
“The right eye first,” shrilled Obebe again.
Suddenly the muscles upon the back and shoulders of the prisoner leaped into action, rolling beneath his brown hide. For just an instant he appeared to exert terrific physical force, there was a snapping sound at his back as the strands about his wrists parted, and an instant later steel-thewed fingers fell upon the right wrist of the witch doctor. Blazing eyes burned into his. He dropped the red-hot rod, his fingers paralyzed by the pressure upon his wrist, and he screamed, for he saw death in the angry face of the god.
Obebe leaped to his feet. Warriors pressed forward, but not near enough to be within reach of The River Devil. They had never been certain of the safety of tempting Providence in any such manner as Khamis and Obebe had been about to do. Now here was the result! The wrath of The River Devil would fall upon them all. They fell back, some of them, and that was a cue for others to fall back. In the minds of all was the the thought—if I have no hand in this The River Devil will not be angry with me. Then they turned and fled to their huts, stumbling over their women and their children who were trying to outdistance their lords and masters.
Obebe turned now to flee also, and The River Devil picked Khamis up, and held him in two hands high above his head, and ran after Obebe the chief. The latter dodged into his own hut. He had scarce reached the center of it when there came a terrific crash upon the light, thatched roof, which gave way beneath a heavy weight A body descending upon the chief filled him with terror. The River Devil had leaped in through the roof of his hut to destroy him! The instinct of self-preservation rose momentarily above his fear of the supernatural, for now he was convinced that Khamis had been right and the creature they had so long held prisoner was indeed The River Devil. And Obebe drew the knife at his side and plunged it again and again into the body of the creature that had leaped upon him, and when he knew that life was extinct he rose and dragging the body after him stepped out of his hut into the light of the moon and the fires.
“Come, my people!” he cried. “You have nothing to fear, for I, Obebe, your chief, have slain The River Devil with my own hands,” and then he looked down at the thing trailing behind him, and gave a gasp, and sat down suddenly in the dirt of the village street, for the body at his heels was that of Kharnis, the witch doctor.
His people came and when they saw what had happened they said nothing, but looked terrified. Obebe examined his hut and the ground around it He took several warriors and searched the village. The stranger had departed. He went to the gates. They were closed; but in the dust before them was the imprint of naked feet—the naked feet of a white man. Then he came back to his hut, where his frightened people stood waiting him.
“Obebe was right,” he said. “The creature was not The River Devil—it was Tarzan of the Apes, for only he could hurl Khamis so high above his head that he would fall through the roof of a hut, and only he could pass unaided over our gates.”
The tenth day had come. The great surgeon was still at the Greystoke bungalow awaiting the outcome of the operation. The patient was slowly emerging from under the Influence of the last dose of drugs that had been given him during the preceding night, but he was regaining his consciousness more slowly than the surgeon had hoped. The long hours dragged by, morning ran into afternoon, and evening came, and still there was no word from the sickroom.
It was dark. The lamps were lighted. The family were congregated in the big living room. Suddenly the door opened and a nurse appeared. Behind her was the patient There was a puzzled look upon his face; but the face of the nurse was wreathed in smiles. The surgeon came behind, assisting the man, who was weak from long inactivity.
“I think Lord Greystoke will recover rapidly now,” he said. “There are many things that you may have to tell him. He did not know who he was, when he regained consciousness; but that is not unusual in such cases.”
The patient took a few steps into the room, looking wonderingly about
“There is your wife, Greystoke,” said the surgeon, kindly.
Lady Greystoke rose and crossed the room toward her husband, her arms outstretched. A smile crossed the face of the invalid, as he stepped forward to meet her and take her in his arms; but suddenly someone was between them, holding them apart. It was Flora Hawkes.
“My Gawd, Lady Greystoke!” she cried. “He ain’t your husband. It’s Miranda, Esteban Miranda! Don’t you suppose I’d know him in a million? I ain’t seen him since we came back, never havin’ been in the sick chamber, but I suspicioned something the minute he stepped into this room and when he smiled, I knew.”
“Flora!” cried the distracted wife. “Are you sure? No! no! you must be wrong! God has not given me back my husband only to steal him away again. John! tell me, is it you? You would not lie to me?”
For a moment the man before them was silent He swayed to and fro, as in weakness. The surgeon stepped forward and supported him.
“I have been very sick,” he said. “Possibly I have changed; But I am Lord Greystoke. I do not remember this woman,” and he indicated Flora Hawkes.
“He lies!” cried the girl.
“Yes, he lies,” said a quiet voice behind them, and they all turned to see the figure of a giant white standing in the open French windows leading to the veranda.
“John!” cried Lady Greystoke, running toward him, “how could I have been mistaken? I——” but the rest of the sentence was lost as Tarzan of the Apes sprang into the room and taking his mate in his arms covered her lips with kisses.
Chapter 21 Tarzan and the Ant-men
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Chapter 21 Tarzan and the Ant-men by Edgar Rice Burroughs
For three days the six traveled toward the east, and then, upon the fourth, they turned south. A great forest loomed upon the distant southern horizon, sweeping also wide upon the east. To the southwest lay Trohanadalmakus, a good two-days’ journey for their tired diadets. Tarzan often wondered what rest the little creatures obtained. At night they were turned loose to graze; but his knowledge of the habits of the carnivores assured him that the tiny antelope must spend the greater part of each night in terrified watching or in flight; yet every morning they were back at the camp awaiting the pleasure of their masters. That they did not escape, never to return, is doubtless due to two facts. One is that they have been for ages bred in the domes of the Minunians—they know no other life than with their masters, to whom they look for food and care—and the other is the extreme kindness and affection which the Minunians accord their beautiful beasts of burden, and which have won the love and confidence of the little animals to such an extent that the diadet is most contented when in the company of man.
It was during the afternoon of the fourth day of their flight that Talaskar suddenly called their attention to a small cloud of dust far to their rear. For a long time all six watched it intently as it increased in size and drew nearer.
“It may be the long-awaited pursuit,” said Zoanthrohago.
“Or some of my own people from Trohanadalmakus,” suggested Komodoflorensal.
“Whoever they are, they greatly outnumber us,” said Jan-zara, “and I think we should find shelter until we know their identity.”
“We can reach the forest before they overtake us,” said Oratharc, “and in the forest we may elude them if it is necessary.”
“I fear the forest,” said Janzara.
“We have no alternative,” said Zoanthrohago; “but even now I doubt that we can reach it ahead of them. Come! We must be quick!”
Never before had Tarzan of the Apes covered ground so rapidly upon the back of an animal. The diadets flew through the air in great bounds. Behind them the nucleus of the dust cloud had resolved itself into a dozen mounted warriors, against whom their four blades would be helpless. Their one hope, therefore, lay in reaching the forest ahead of their pursuers, and now it seemed that they would be successful and now it seemed that they would not.
The recently distant wood seemed rushing toward him as Tarzan watched ahead between the tiny horns of his graceful mount, and, behind, the enemy was gaining. They were Veltopismakusian—they were close enough now for the devices upon their helmets to be seen—and they had recognized their quarry, for they cried aloud upon them to stop, calling several of them by name.
One of the pursuers forged farther ahead than the others. He came now close behind Zoanthrohago, who rode neck and neck with Tarzan, in the rear of their party. A half-length ahead of Zoanthrohago, was Janzara. The fellow called aloud to her.
“Princess!” he cried. “The king’s pardon for you all if you return the slaves to us. Surrender and all will be forgiven.”
Tarzan of the Apes heard and he wondered what the Veltopismakusians would do. It must have been a great temptation and he knew it. Had it not been for Talaskar he would have advised them to fall back among their friends; but he would not see the slave girl sacrificed. He drew his sword then and dropped back beside Zoanthrohago, though the other never guessed his purpose.
“Surrender, and all will be forgiven!” shouted the pursuer again.
“Never!” cried Zoanthrohago.
“Never!” echoed Janzara.
“The consequences are yours,” cried the messenger, and on they rushed, pursuers and pursued, toward the dark forest, while from just within its rim savage eyes watched the mad race and red tongues licked hungry lips in anticipation.
Tarzan had been glad to hear the reply given by both Zoanthrohago and Janzara whom he had found likable companions and good comrades. Janzara’s whole attitude had changed since the very instant she had joined them in their attempted escape. No longer was she the spoiled daughter of a despot; but a woman seeking happiness through the new love that she had found, or the old love that she had just discovered, for she often told Zoanthrohago that she knew now that she always had loved him. And this new thing in her life made her more considerate and loving of others. She seemed now to be trying to make up to Talaskar for the cruelty of her attack upon her when she had first seen her. Her mad infatuation for Tarzan she now knew in its true light—because she had been refused him she wanted him, and she would have taken him as her prince to spite her father, whom she hated.
Komodoflorensal and Talaskar always rode together, but no words of love did the Trohanadalmakusian speak in the ear of the little slave girl. A great resolve was crystallizing in his mind, but it bad as yet taken on no definite form. And Talaskar, seemingly happy just to be near him, rode blissfully through the first days of the only freedom she had ever known; but now all was forgotten except the instant danger of capture and its alternative concomitants, death and slavery.
The six urged their straining mounts ahead. The forest was so near now. Ah, if they could but reach it! There one warrior might be as good as three and the odds against them would be reduced, for in the forest the whole twelve could not engage them at once and by careful maneuvering they doubtless could separate them.
They were going to succeed! A great shout rose to the lips of Oratharc as his diadet leaped into the shadows of the first trees, and the others took it up, for a brief instant, and then it died upon their lips as they saw a giant hand reach down and snatch Oratharc from his saddle. They tried to stop and wheel their mounts, but it was too late. Already they were in the forest and all about them was a horde of the hideous Zertalacolols. One by one they were snatched from their diadets, while their pursuers, who must have seen what was taking place just inside the forest, wheeled and galloped away.
Talaskar, writhing in the grip of a she Alali, turned toward Komodoflorensal.
“Good-bye!” she cried. “This, at last, is the end; but I can die near you and so I am happier dying than I have been living until you came to Veltopismakus.”
“Good-bye, Talaskar!” he replied. “Living, I dared not tell you; but dying, I can proclaim my love. Tell me that you loved me.”
“With all my heart, Komodoflorensal!” They seemed to have forgotten that another existed but themselves. In death they were alone with their love.
Tarzan found himself in the hand of a male and he also found himself wondering, even as he faced certain death, how it occurred that this great band of male and female Alali should be hunting together, and then he noticed the weapons of the male. They were not the crude bludgeon and the slinging-stones that they had formerly carried; but long, trim spears, and bows and arrows.
And now the creature that held him had lifted him even with his face and was scrutinizing him and Tarzan saw a look of recognition and amazement cross the bestial features, and he, in turn, recognized his captor. It was the son of The First Woman. Tarzan did not wait to learn the temper of his old acquaintance. Possibly their relations were altered now. Possibly they were not. He recalled the doglike devotion of the creature when last be had seen him and he put him to the test at once.
“Put me down!” he signed, peremptorily; “and tell your people to put down all of my people. Harm them not!”
Instantly the great creature set Tarzan gently upon the ground and immediately signaled his fellows to do the same with their captives. The men did immediately as they were bid, and all of the women but one. She hesitated. The son of The First Woman leaped toward her, his spear raised like a whip, and the female cowered and set Talaskar down upon the ground.
Very proud, the son of The First Woman explained to Tarzan as best he could the great change that had come upon the Alali since the ape-man had given the men weapons and the son of The First Woman had discovered what a proper use of them would mean to the males of his kind. Now each male had a woman cooking for him—at least one, and some of them—the stronger—had more than one.
To entertain Tarzan and to show him what great strides civilization had taken in the land of the Zertalacolols, the son of The First Woman seized a female by the hair and dragging her to him struck her heavily about the head and face with his clenched fist, and the woman fell upon her knees and fondled his legs, looking wistfully into his face, her own glowing with love and admiration.
That night the six slept in the open surrounded by the great Zertalacolols and the next day they started across the plain toward Trohanadalmakus where Tarzan had resolved to remain until he regained his normal size, when he would make a determined effort to cut his way through the thorn forest to his own country.
The Zertalacolols went a short distance out into the plain with them, and both men and women tried in their crude, savage way, to show Tarzan their gratitude for the change that he had wrought among them, and the new happiness he had given them.
Two days later the six fugitives approached the domes of Trohanadalmakus. They had been seen by sentries when they were still a long way off, and a body of warriors rode forth to meet them, for it is always well to learn the nature of a visitor’s business in Minimi before he gets too close to your home.
When the warriors discovered that Komodoflorensal and Tarzan had returned they shouted for joy and a number of them galloped swiftly back to the city to spread the news.
The fugitives were conducted at once to the throne room of Adendrohahkis and there that great ruler took his son in his arms and wept, so great was his happiness at having him returned safely to him. Nor did he forget Tarzan, though it was some time before he or the other Trohanadalmakusians could accustom themselves to the fact that this man, no bigger than they, was the great giant who had dwelt among them a few moons since.
Adendrohahkis called Tarzan to the foot of the throne and there, before the nobles and warriors of Trohanadalmakus, he made him a Zertol, or prince, and he gave him diadets and riches and allotted him quarters fitted to his rank, begging him to stay among them always.
Janzara, Zoanthrohago and Oratharc he gave their liberty and permission to remain in Trohanadalmakus, and then Komodoflorensal drew Talaskar to the foot of the throne.
“And now for myself I ask a boon, Adendrohahkis,” he said. “As Zertolosto I am bound by custom to wed a prisoner princess taken from another city; but in this slave girl have I found the one I love. Let me renounce my rights to the throne and have her instead.”
Talaskar raised her hand as though to demur, but Komodoflorensal would not let her speak, and then Adendrohahkis rose and descended the steps at the foot of which Talaskar stood and taking her by the hand led her to a place beside the throne.
“You are bound by custom only, Komodoflorensal,” he said, “to wed a princess; but custom is not law. A Trohanadalmakusian may wed whom he pleases.”
“And even though he were bound by law,” said Talaskar, “to wed a princess, still might he wed me, for I am the daughter of Talaskhago, king of Mandalamakus. My mother was captured by the Veltopismakusians but a few moons before my birth, which took place in the very chamber in which Komodoflorensal found me. She taught me to take my life before mating with anyone less than a prince; but I would have forgotten her teachings had Komodoflorensal been but the son of a slave. That he was the son of a king I did not dream until the night we left Veltopismakus, and I had already given him my heart long before, though he did not know it.”
Weeks passed and still no change came to Tarzan of the Apes. He was happy in his life with the Minunians, but he longed for his own people and the mate who would be grieving for him, and so he determined to set forth as he was, pass through the thorn forest and make his way toward home, trusting to chance that he might escape the countless dangers that would infest his way, and perhaps come to his normal size somewhere during the long journey.
His friends sought to dissuade him, but he was determined, and at last, brooking no further delay, he set out toward the southeast in the direction that he thought lay the point where he had entered the land of the Minimi. A kamak, a body consisting of one thousand mounted warriors, accompanied him to the great forest and there, after some days’ delay, the son of The First Woman found him. The Minunians bid him good-bye, and as he watched them ride away upon their graceful mounts, something rose in his throat that only came upon those few occasions in his life that Tarzan of the Apes knew the meaning of homesickness.
The son of The First Woman and his savage band escorted Tarzan to the edge of the thorn forest. Further than that they could not go. A moment later they saw him disappear among the thorns, with a wave of farewell to them. For two days Tarzan, no larger than a Minunian, made his way through the thorn forest. He met small animals that were now large enough to be dangerous to him, but he met nothing that he could not cope with. By night he slept in the burrows of the larger burrowing animals. Birds and eggs formed his food supply.
During the second night he awoke with a feeling of nausea suffusing him. A premonition of danger assailed him. It was dark as the grave in the burrow he had selected for the night Suddenly the thought smote him that he might be about to pass through the ordeal of regaining his normal stature. To have this thing happen while he lay buried in this tiny burrow would mean death, for he would be crushed, strangled, or suffocated before he regained consciousness.
Already he felt dizzy, as one might feel who was upon the verge of unconsciousness. He stumbled to his knees and clawed his way up the steep acclivity that led to the surface. Would he reach it in time? He stumbled on and then, suddenly, a burst of fresh night air smote his nostrils. He staggered to his feet He was out! He was free!
Behind him he heard a low growl. Grasping his sword, he lunged forward among the thorn trees. How far he went, or in what direction he did not know. It was still dark when he stumbled and fell unconscious to the ground.
Chapter 19 Tarzan and the Ant-men
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Chapter 19 Tarzan and the Ant-men by Edgar Rice Burroughs
As the days passed and Tarzan did not return to his home his son became more and more apprehensive. Runners were sent to nearby villages, but each returned with the same report. No one had seen The Big Bwana. Korak dispatched messages, then, to the nearest telegraph inquiring from all the principal points in Africa, where the ape-man might have made a landing, if aught had been seen or heard of him; but always again were the answers in the negative.
And at last, stripped to a string and carrying naught but his primitive weapons, Korak the Killer took the trail with a score of the swiftest and bravest of the Waziri in search of his father. Long and diligently they searched the jungle and the forest, often enlisting the friendly services of the villages near which they chanced to be carrying on their quest, until they had covered as with a fine-toothed comb a vast area of country, covered it as could have no other body of men; but for all their care and all their diligence they uncovered no single clew as to the fate or whereabouts of Tarzan of the Apes, and so, disheartened yet indefatigable, they searched on and on through tangled miles of steaming jungle or across rocky uplands as inhospitable as the stunted thorns that dotted them.
And in the Royal Dome of Elkomoelhago, Thagosto of Veltopismakus, three people halted in a rock-walled, hidden chamber and listened to a human voice that appeared to come to them out of the very rock of the walls surrounding them. Upon the floor about them lay the bones of long-dead men. About them rose the impalpable dust of ages.
The girl pressed closer to Tarzan. “Who is it?” she whispered.
Tarzan shook his head.
“It is a woman’s voice,” said Komodoflorensal.
The ape-man raised his candle high above his head and took a step closer to the left-hand wall; then he stopped and pointed. The others looked in the direction indicated by Tarzan’s finger and saw an opening in the wall a hual or two above his head. Tarzan handed his candle to Komodoflorensal, removed his sword and laid it on the floor, and then sprang lightly for the opening. For a moment he clung to its edge, listening, and then he dropped back into the chamber.
“It is pitch-black beyond,” he said. “Whoever owns that voice is in another chamber beyond that into which I was just looking. There was no human being in the next apartment.”
“If it was absolutely dark, how could you know that?” demanded Komodoflorensal.
“Had there been anyone there I should have smelled him,” replied the ape-man.
The others looked at him in astonishment. “I am sure of it,” said Tarzan, “because I could plainly feel a draught sucking up from the chamber, through the aperture, and into this chamber. Had there been a human being there his effluvium would have been carried directly to my nostrils.”
“And you could have detected it?” demanded Komodoflorensal. “My friend, I can believe much of you, but not that!”
Tarzan smiled. “I at least have the courage of my convictions,” he said, “for I am going over there and investigate. From the clearness with which the voice comes to us I am certain that it comes through no solid wall. There must be an opening into the chamber where the woman is and as we should investigate every possible avenue of escape, I shall investigate this.” He stepped again toward the wall below the aperture.
“Oh, let us not separate,” cried the girl. “Where one goes, let us all go!”
“Two swords are better than one,” said Komodoflorensal, though his tone was only halfhearted.
“Very well,” replied Tarzan. “I will go first, and then you can pass Talaskar up to me.”
Komodoflorensal nodded. A minute or two later the three stood upon the opposite side of the wall. Their candle revealed a narrow passage that showed indications of much more recent use than those through which they had passed from the quarters of Kalfastoban. The wall they had passed through to reach it was of stone, but that upon the opposite side was of studding and rough boards.
“This is a passage built along the side of a paneled room,” whispered Komodoflorensal.
“The other side of these rough boards supports beautifully polished panels of brilliant woods or burnished metals.”
“Then there should be a door, you think, opening from this passage into the adjoining chamber?” asked Tarzan.
“A secret panel, more likely,” he replied.
They walked along the passage, listening intently. At first they had just been able to distinguish that the voice they heard was that of a woman; but now they heard the words.
“—had they let me have him,” were the first that they distinguished.
“Most glorious mistress, this would not have happened then,” replied another female voice.
“Zoanthrohago is a fool and deserves to die; but my illustrious father, the king, is a bigger fool,” spoke the first voice. “He will kill Zoanthrohago and with him the chance of discovering the secret of making our warriors giants. Had they let me buy this Zuanthrol he would not have escaped. They thought that I would have killed him, but that was farthest from my intentions.”
“What would you have done with him, wondrous Princess?”
“That is not for a slave to ask or know,” snapped the mistress.
For a time there was silence.
“That is the Princess Janzara speaking,” whispered Tarzan to Komodoflorensal. “It is the daughter of Elkomoelhago whom you would have captured and made your princess; but you would have had a handful.”
“Is she as beautiful as they say?” asked Komodoflorsensal.
“She is very beautiful, but she is a devil.”
“It would have been my duty to take her,” said Komodoflorensal.
Tarzan was silent. A plan was unfolding itself within his mind. The voice from beyond the partition spoke again.
“He was very wonderful,” it said. “Much more wonderful than our warriors,” and then, after a silence, “You may go, slave, and see to it that I am not disturbed before the sun stands midway between the Women’s Corridor and the King’s Corridor.”
“May your candles burn as deathlessly as your beauty, Princess,” said the slave, as she backed across the apartment.
An instant later the three behind the paneling heard a door close.
Tarzan crept stealthily along the passage, seeking the secret panel that connected the apartment where the Princess Janzara lay composed for the night; but it was Talaskar who found it.
“Here!” she whispered and together the three examined the fastening. It was simple and could evidently be opened from the opposite side by pressure upon a certain spot in the panel.
“Wait here!” said Tarzan to his companions. “I am going to fetch the Princess Janzara. If we cannot escape with her we should be able to buy our liberty with such a hostage.”
Without waiting to discuss the advisability of his action with the others, Tarzan gently slid back the catch that held the panel and pushed it slightly ajar. Before him was the apartment of Janzara—a creation of gorgeous barbarity in the center of which, upon a marble slab, the princess lay upon her back, a gigantic candle burning at her head and another at her feet.
Regardless of the luxuriousness of their surroundings, of their wealth, or their positions in life, the Minunians never sleep upon a substance softer than a single thickness of fabric, which they throw upon the ground, or upon wooden, stone, or marble sleeping slabs, depending upon their caste and their wealth.
Leaving the panel open the ape-man stepped quietly into the apartment and moved directly toward the princess, who lay with closed eyes, either already asleep, or assiduously wooing Morpheus. He had crossed halfway to her cold couch when a sudden draught closed the panel with a noise that might well have awakened the dead.
Instantly the princess was on her feet and facing him. For a moment she stood in silence gazing at him and then she moved slowly toward him, the sinuous undulations of her graceful carriage suggesting to the Lord of the Jungle a similarity to the savage majesty of Sabor, the lioness.
“It is you, Zuanthrol!” breathed the princess. “You have come for me?”
“I have come for you. Princess,” replied the ape-man. “Make no outcry and no harm will befall you.”
“I will make no outcry,” whispered Janzara as with half-closed lids she glided to him and threw her arms about his neck.
Tarzan drew back and gently disengaged himself. “You do not understand, Princess,” he told her. “You are my prisoner. You are coming with me.”
“Yes,” she breathed, “I am your prisoner, but it is you who do not understand. I love you. It is my right to choose whatever slave I will to be my prince. I have chosen you.”
Tarzan shook his head impatiently. “You do not love me,” he said. “I am sorry that you think you do, for I do not love you. I have no time to waste. Come!” and he stepped closer to take her by the wrist.
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you mad?” she demanded. “Or can it be that you do not know who I am?”
“You are Janzara, daughter of Elkomoelhago,” replied Tarzan. “I know well who you are.”
“And you dare to spurn my love!” She was breathing heavily, her breasts rising and falling to the tumultuous urge of her emotions.
“It is no question of love between us,” replied the ape-man. “To me it is only a question of liberty and life for myself and my companions.”
“You love another?” questioned Janzara.
“Yes,” Tarzan told her.
“Who is she?” demanded the princess.
“Will you come quietly, or shall I be compelled to carry you away by force?” asked the ape-man, ignoring her question.
For a moment the woman stood silently before him, her every muscle tensed, her dark eyes two blazing wells of fire, and then slowly her expression changed. Her face softened and she stretched one hand toward him.
“I will help you, Zuanthrol,” she said. “I will help you to escape. Because I love you I shall do this. Come! Follow me!” She turned and moved softly across the apartment.
“But my companions,” said the ape-man. “I cannot go without them.”
“Where are they?”
He did not tell her, for as yet he was none too sure of her motives.
“Show me the way,” he said, “and I can return for them.”
“Yes,” she replied, “I will show you and then perhaps you will love me better than you love the other.”
In the passage behind the paneling Talaskar and Komodoflorensal awaited the outcome of Tarzan’s venture. Distinctly to their ears came every word of the conversation between the ape-man and the princess.
“He loves you,” said Komodoflorensal. “You see, he loves you.”
“I see nothing of the kind,” returned Talaskar. “Because he does not love the Princess Janzara is no proof that he loves me.”
“But he does love you—and you love him! I have seen it since first he came. Would that he were not my friend, for then I might run him through.”
“Why would you run him through because he loves me—if he does?” demanded the girl. “Am I so low that you would rather see your friend dead than mated with me?”
“I—” he hesitated. “I cannot tell you what I mean.”
The girl laughed, and then suddenly sobered. “She is leading him from her apartment. We had better follow.”
As Talaskar laid her fingers upon the spring that actuated the lock holding the panel in place, Janzara led Tarzan across her chamber toward a doorway in one of the side walls—not the doorway through which her slave had departed.
“Follow me,” whispered the princess, “and you will see what the love of Janzara means.”
Tarzan, not entirely assured of her intentions, followed her warily.
“You are afraid,” she said. “You do not trust me! Well, come here then and look, yourself, into this chamber before you enter.”
Komodoflorensal and Talaskar had but just stepped into the apartment when Tarzan approached the door to one side of which Janzara stood. They saw the floor give suddenly beneath his feet and an instant later Zuanthrol had disappeared. As he shot down a polished chute he heard a wild laugh from Janzara following him into the darkness of the unknown.
Komodoflorensal and Talaskar leaped quickly across the chamber, but too late. The floor that had given beneath Tarzan’s feet had slipped quietly back into place. Janzara stood above the spot trembling with anger and staring down at the place where the ape-man had disappeared. She shook as an aspen shakes in the breeze-shook in the mad tempest of her own passions.
“If you will not come to me you shall never go to another!” she screamed, and then she turned and saw Komodoflorensal and Talaskar running toward her. What followed occurred so quickly that it would be impossible to record the facts in the brief time that they actually consumed. It was over almost before Tarzan reached the bottom of the chute and picked himself from the earthen floor upon which he had been deposited.
The room in which he found himself was lighted by several candles burning in iron-barred niches. Opposite him was a heavy gate of iron bars through which he could see another lighted apartment in which a man, his chin sagging dejectedly upon his breast, was seated upon a low bench. At the sound of Tarzan’s precipitate entrance into the adjoining chamber the man looked up and at sight of Zuanthrol, leaped to his feet.
“Quick! To your left!” he cried, and Tarzan, turning, saw two huge, green-eyed beasts crouching to spring.
His first impulse was to rub his eyes as one might to erase the phantom figures of a disquieting dream, for what he saw were two ordinary African wildcats-ordinary in contour and markings, but in size gigantic. For an instant the ape-man forgot that he was but one-fourth his normal size, and that the cats, that appeared to him as large as full-grown lions, were in reality but average specimens of their kind.
As they came toward him he whipped out his sword, prepared to battle for his life with these great felines as he had so often before with their mighty cousins of his own jungle.
“If you can hold them off until you reach this gate,” cried the man in the next chamber, “I can let you through. The bolt is upon this side,” but even as he spoke one of the cats charged.
Komodoflorensal, brushing past Janzara, leaped for the spot upon the floor at which Tarzan had disappeared and as it gave beneath him he heard a savage cry break from the lips of the Princess of Veltopismakus.
“So it is you he loves?” she screamed. “But he shall not have you—no! not even in death!” and that was all that Komodoflorensal heard as the black chute swallowed him.
Talaskar, confronted by the infuriated Janzara, halted, and then stepped back, for the princess was rushing upon her with drawn dagger.
“Die, slave!” she screamed, as she lunged for the white breast of Talaskar, but the slave girl caught the other’s wrist and a moment later they went down, locked in one another’s embrace. Together they rolled about the floor, the daughter of Elkomoelhago seeking to drive her slim blade into the breast of the slave girl, while Talaskar fought to hold off the menacing steel and to close with her fingers upon the throat—her antagonist.
As the first cat charged the other followed, not to be robbed of its share of the flesh of the kill, for both were half-starved and ravenous, and as the ape-man met the charge of the first, sidestepping its rush and springing in again to thrust at its side, Komodoflorensal, who had drawn his sword as he entered the apartment of Janzara, shot into the subterranean den almost into the teeth of the second beast, which was so disconcerted by the sudden appearance of this second human that it wheeled and sprang to the far end of the den before it could gather its courage for another attack.
In the chamber above, Talaskar and Janzara fought savagely, two she-tigers in human form. They rolled to and fro about the room, straining and striking; Janzara screaming: “Die, slave! You shall not have him!” But Talaskar held her peace and saved her breath, so that slowly she was overcoming the other when they chanced to roll upon the very spot that had let Tarzan and Komodoflorensal to the pit beneath.
As Janzara realized what had happened she uttered a scream of terror. “The cats! The cats!” she cried, and then the two disappeared into the black shaft.
Komodoflorensal did not follow the cat that had retreated to the far end of the pit; but sprang at once to Tarzan’s aid, and together they drove off the first beast as they backed toward the gate where the man in the adjoining chamber stood ready to admit them to the safety of his own apartment.
The two cats charged and then retreated, springing in quickly and away again as quickly, for they had learned the taste of the sharp steel with which the humans were defending themselves. The two men were almost at the gate, another instant and they could spring through. The cats charged again and again were driven to the far corner of the pit. The man in the next chamber swung open the gate.
“Quick!” he cried, and at the same instant two figures shot from the mouth of the shaft and, locked tightly in one another’s embrace, rolled to the floor of the pit directly in the path of the charging carnivores.
Chapter 20 Tarzan and the Ant-men
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Chapter 20 Tarzan and the Ant-men by Edgar Rice Burroughs
As Tarzan and Komodoflorensal realized that Talaskar and Janzara lay exposed to the savage assault of the hungry beasts they both sprang quickly toward the two girls. As had been the case when Komodoflorensal had shot into the pit, the cats were startled by the sudden appearance of these two new humans, and in the first instant of their surprise had leaped again to the far end of the chamber.
Janzara had lost her dagger as the two girls had fallen into the shaft and now Talaskar saw it lying on the floor beside her. Releasing her hold upon the princess she seized the weapon and leaped to her feet. Already Tarzan and Komodoflorensal were at her side and the cats were returning to the attack.
Janzara arose slowly and half-bewildered. She looked about, terror disfiguring her marvelous beauty, and as she did so the man in the adjoining chamber saw her.
“Janzara!” he cried. “My Princess, I come!” and seizing the bench upon which he had been sitting, and the only thing within the chamber that might be converted into a weapon, he swung wide the gate and leaped into the chamber where the four were now facing the thoroughly infuriated beasts.
Both animals, bleeding from many wounds, were mad with pain, rage and hunger. Screaming and growling they threw themselves upon the swords of the two men, who had pushed the girls behind them and were backing slowly toward the gate, and then the man with the bench joined Tarzan and Komodoflorensal and the three fought back the charges of the infuriated carnivores.
The bench proved fully as good a weapon of defense as the swords and so together the five drew slowly back, until, quite suddenly and without the slightest warning both cats leaped quickly to one side and darted behind the party as though sensing that the women would prove easier prey. One of them came near to closing upon Janzara had not the man with the bench, imbued apparently with demoniacal fury, leaped upon it with his strange weapon and beaten it back so desperately that it was forced to abandon the princess.
Even then the man did not cease to follow it but, brandishing the bench, pursued it and its fellow with such terrifying cries and prodigious blows that, to escape him, both cats suddenly dodged into the chamber that the man had occupied, and before they could return to the attack he with the bench had slammed the gate and fastened them upon its opposite side. Then he wheeled and faced the four.
“Zoanthrohago!” cried the princess.
“You’re alive!” replied the noble, dropping to one knee and leaning far back, with outstretched arms.
“You have saved my life, Zoanthrohago,” said Janzara, “and after all the indignities that I have heaped upon you! How can I reward you?”
“I love you, Princess, as you have long known,” replied the man; “but now it is too late, for tomorrow I die by the kings will. Elkomoelhago has spoken, and, even though you be his daughter, I do not hesitate to say his very ignorance prevents him ever changing a decision once reached.”
“I know,” said Janzara. “He is my sire but I love him not. He killed my mother in a fit of unreasoning jealousy. He is a fool—the fool of fools.”
Suddenly she turned upon the others. “These slaves would escape, Zoanthrohago,” she cried. “With my aid they might accomplish it. With their company we might succeed in escaping, too, and in finding an asylum in their own land.”
“If any one of them is of sufficient power in his native city,” replied Zoanthrohago.
“This one,” said Tarzan, seeing a miraculous opportunity for freedom, “is the son of Adendrohahkis, King of Trohana—the oldest son, and Zertolosto.”
Janzara looked at Tarzan a moment after he had done speaking. “I was wicked, Zuanthrol,” she said; “but I thought that I wanted you and being the daughter of a king I have seldom been denied aught that I craved,” and then to Talaskar: “Take your man, my girl, and may you be happy with him,” and she pushed Talaskar gently toward the ape-man; but Talaskar drew back.
“You are mistaken, Janzara,” she said, “I do not love Zuanthrol, nor does he love me.”
Komodoflorensa looked quickly at Tarzan as though expecting that he would quickly deny the truth of Talaskar’s tement, but the ape-man only nodded his head in assent.
“Do you mean,” demanded Komodoflorensal, “that you do not love Talaskar?” and he looked straight into the eyes of his friend.
“On the contrary, I love her very much,” replied Tarzan; “but not in the way that you have believed, or should I say feared? I love her because she is a good girl and a kind girl and a loyal friend, and also because she was in trouble and needed the love and protection which you and I alone could give her; but as a man loves his mate, I do not love her, for I have a mate of my own in my country beyond the thorns.”
Komodoflorensal said no more, but he thought a great deal. He thought of what it would mean to return to his own city where he was the Zertolosto, and where, by all the customs of ages, he would be supposed to marry a princess from another city. But he did not want a princess—he wanted Talaskar, the little slave girl of Veltopimakus, who scarcely knew her own mother and most probably had never heard that of her father, if her mother knew it.
He wanted Talaskar, but he could only have her in Trohanadalmakus as a slave. His love for her was real and so he would not insult her by thinking such a thing as that. If he could not make her his princess he would not have her at all, and so Komodoflorensal, the son of Adendrohahkis, was sad.
But he had none too much time to dwell upon his sorrow now, for the others were planning the best means for escape.
“The keepers come down to feed the cats upon this side,” said Zoanthrohago, indicating a small door in the wall of the pit opposite that which led into the chamber in which he had been incarcerated.
“Doubtless it is not locked, either,” said Janzara, “for a prisoner could not reach it without crossing through this chamber where the cats were kept.”
“We will see,” said Tarzan, and crossed to the door.
A moment sufficed to force it open, revealing a narrow corridor beyond. One after another the five crawled through the small aperture and following the corridor ascended an acclivity, lighting their way with candles taken from the den of the carnivores. At the top a door opened into a wide corridor, a short distance down which stood a warrior, evidently on guard before a door.
Janzara looked through the tiny crack that Tarzan had opened the door and saw the corridor and the man. “Good!” she exclaimed. “It is my own corridor and the warrior is on guard before my door. I know him well. Through me he has escaped payment of his taxes for the past thirty moons. He would die for me. Come! We have nothing to fear,” and stepping boldly into the corridor she approached the sentry, the others following behind her.
Until he recognized her there was danger that the fellow would raise an alarm, but the moment he saw who it was he was as wax in her hands.
“You are blind,” she told him.
“If the Princess Janzara wishes it,” he replied.
She told him what she wished—five diadets and some heavy, warriors’ wraps. He eyed those who were with her, and evidently recognized Zoanthrohago and guessed who the two other men were.
“Not only shall I be blind for my princess,” he said; “but tomorrow I shall be dead for her.”
“Fetch six diadets, then,” said the princess.
Then she turned to Komodoflorensal “You are Prince Royal of Trohanadalmakus?” she asked.
“I am,” he replied.
“And if we show you the way to liberty you will not enslave us?”
“I shall take you to the city as my own slaves and then liberate you,” he replied.
“It is something that has seldom if ever been done,” she mused; “not in the memory of living man in Veltopismakus. I wonder if your sire will permit it.”
“The thing is not without precedent,” replied Komodoflorensal “It has been done but rarely, yet it has been done. I think you may feel assured of a friendly welcome at the court of Adendrohahkis, where the wisdom of Zoanthrohago will not go unappreciated or unrewarded.”
It was a long time before the warrior returned with the diadets. His face was covered with perspiration and his hands with blood.
“I had to fight for them,” he said, “and we shall have to fight to use them if we do not hurry. Here, Prince, I brought you weapons,” and he handed a sword and dagger to Zoanthrohago.
They mounted quickly. It was Tarzan’s first experience upon one of the wiry, active, little mounts of the Minunians; but he found the saddle well designed and the diadet easily controlled.
“They will be following me from the King’s Corridor,” explained Oratharc, the warrior who had fetched the diadets. “It would be best, then, to leave by one of the others.”
“Trohanadalmakus is east of Veltopismakus,” said Zoanthrohago, “and if we leave by the Women’s Corridor with two slaves from Trohanadalmakus they will assume that we are going there; but if we leave by another corridor they will not be sure and if they lose even a little time in starting the pursuit it will give us just that much of an advantage. If we go straight toward Trohanadalmakus we shall almost certainly be overtaken as the swiftest of diadets will be used in our pursuit. Our only hope lies in deceiving them as to our route or destination, and to accomplish this I believe that we should leave either by the Warriors’ Corridor or the Slaves’ Corridor, cross the hills north of the city, circle far out to the north and east, not turning south until we are well past Trohanadalmakus. In this way we can approach that city from the east while our pursuers are patrolling the country west of Trohanadalmakus to Vetlopismakus.”
“Let us leave by the Warriors’ Corridor then,” suggested Janzara.
“The trees and shrubbery will conceal us while we pass around to the north of the city,” said Komodoflorensal.
“We should leave at once,” urged Oratharc.
“Go first then, with the princess,” said Zoanthrohago, “for there is a possibility that the guard at the entrance will let her pass with her party. We will muffle ourselves well with our warriors’ cloaks. Come, lead the way!”
With Janzara and Oratharc ahead and the others following closely they moved at a steady trot along the circular corridor toward the Warriors’ Corridor, and it was not until they had turned into the latter that any sign of pursuit developed. Even then, though they heard the voices of men behind them, they hesitated to break into a faster gait lest they arouse the suspicions of the warriors in the guard room which they must pass near the mouth of the corridor.
Never had the Warriors’ Corridor seemed so long to any of the Veltopismakusians in the party as it did this night; never had they so wished to race their diadets as now; but they held their mounts to an even pace that would never have suggested to the most suspicious that here were six people seeking escape, most of them from death.
They had come almost to the exit when they were aware that the pursuit had turned into the Warriors’ Corridor behind them and that their pursuers were advancing at a rapid gait.
Janzara and Oratharc drew up beside the sentry at the mouth of the corridor as he stepped out to bar their progress.
“The Princess Janzara!” announced Oratharc. “Aside for the Princess Janzara!”
The princess threw back the hood of the warrior’s cloak she wore, revealing her features, well known to every warrior in the Royal Dome—and well feared. The fellow hesitated.
“Aside, man!” cried the princess, “or I ride you down.”
A great shout arose behind them. Warriors on swiftly galloping diadets leaped along the corridor toward them. The warriors were shouting something, the sense of which was hidden by the noise; but the sentry was suspicious.
“Wait until I call the Novand of the guard, Princess,” he cried. “Something is amiss and I dare let no one pass without authority; but wait! Here he is,” and the party turned in their saddles to see a Novand emerging from the door of the guard room, followed by a number of warriors.
“Ride!” cried Janzara and spurred her diadet straight for the single sentry in their path.
The others lifted their mounts quickly in pursuit. The sentry went down, striking valiantly with his rapier at the legs and bellies of flying diadets. The Novand and his men rushed from the guard room just in time to collide with the pursuers, whom they immediately assumed were belated members of the fleeing party. The brief minutes that these fought, before explanations could be made and understood, gave the fugitives time to pass among the trees to the west side of the city, and, turning north, make for the hills that were dimly visible in the light of a clear, but moonless night.
Oratharc, who said that he knew the hill trails perfectly, led the way, the others following as closely as they could; Knmodoflorensal and Tarzan bringing up the rear. Thus they moved on in silence through the night, winding along precipitous mountain trails, leaping now and again from rock to rock where the trail itself had been able to find no footing; sliding into dank ravines, clambering through heavy brush and timber along tunnel-like trails that followed their windings, or crept up their opposite sides to narrow ridge or broad plateau; and all night long no sign of pursuit developed.
Came the morning at last and with it, from the summit of a lofty ridge, a panorama of broad plain stretching to the north, of distant hills, of forests and of streams. They decided then to descend to one of the numerous park-like glades that they could see nestling in the hills below them, and there rest their mounts and permit them to feed, for the work of the night had been hard upon them.
They knew that in the hills they might hide almost indefinitely, so wild and so little traveled were they and so they went into camp an hour after sunrise in a tiny cuplike valley surrounded by great trees, and watered and fed their mounts with a sense of security greater than they had felt since they left Veltopismakus.
Oratharc went out on foot and killed a number of quail and Tarzan speared a couple of fish in the stream. These they prepared and ate, and then, the men taking turns on guard, they slept until afternoon, for none had had sleep the night before.
Taking up their flight again in mid-afternoon they were well out upon the plain when darkness overtook them. Komodoflorensal and Zoanthrohago were riding far out upon the flanks and all were searching for a suitable camping place. It was Zoanthrohago who found it and when they all gathered about him. Tarzan saw nothing in the waning light of day that appeared any more like a good camping place than any other spot on the open plain. There was a little clump of trees, but they had passed many such clumps, and there was nothing about this one that seemed to offer any greater security than another. As a matter of fact, to Tarzan it appeared anything but a desirable camp-site. There was no water, there was little shelter from the wind and none from an enemy; but perhaps they were going into the trees. That would be better. He looked up at the lofty branches lovingly. How enormous these trees seemed! He knew them for what they were and that they were trees of but average size, yet to him now they reared their heads aloft like veritable giants.
“I will go in first,” he heard Komodoflorensal say, and turned to learn what he referred to.
The other three men were standing at the mouth of a large hole, into which they were looking. Tarzan knew that the opening was the mouth of the burrow of a ratel, the African member of the badger family, and he wondered why any of them wished to enter it. Tarzan had never cared for the flesh of the ratel. He stepped over and joined the others, and as he did so he saw Komodoflorensal crawl into the opening, his drawn sword in his hand.
“Why is he doing that?” he asked Zoanthrohago.
“To drive out, or kill the cambon, if he is there,” replied the prince, giving the ratel its Minunian name.
“And why?” asked Tarzan. “Surely, you do not eat its flesh!”
“No, but we want his home for the night,” replied Zoanthrohago. “I had forgotten that you are not a Minunian. We will spend the night in the underground chambers of the cambon, safe from the attacks of the cat or the lion. It would be better were we there now—this is a bad hour of the night for Minuoians to be abroad on the plain or in the forest, for it is at this hour that the lion hunts.”
A few minutes later Komodoflorensal emerged from the hole. “The cambon is not there,” he said. “The burrow is deserted. I found only a snake, which I killed. Go in, Oratharc, and Janzara and Talaskar will follow you. You have candles?”
They had, and one by one they disappeared into the mouth of the hole, until Tarzan, who had asked to remain until last, stood alone in the gathering night gazing at the mouth of the ratel’s burrow, a smile upon his lips. It seemed ridiculous to him that Tarzan of the Apes should ever be contemplating hiding from Numa in the hole of a ratel, or, worse still, hiding from little Skree, the wildcat, and as he stood there smiling a bulk loomed dimly among the trees; the diadets, standing near, it tethered, snorted and leaped away; and Tarzan wheeled to face the largest lion he ever had seen—a lion that towered over twice the ape-man’s height above him.
How tremendous, how awe-inspiring Numa appeared to one the size of a Minunian!
The lion crouched, its tail extended, the tip moving ever so gently; but the ape-man was not deceived. He guessed what was coming and even as the great cat sprang he turned and dove headforemost down the hole of the ratel and behind him rattled the loose earth pushed into the burrow’s mouth by Numa as he alighted upon the spot where Tarzan had stood.
Chapter 18 Tarzan and the Ant-men
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Chapter 18 Tarzan and the Ant-men by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Kalfastoban turned immediately to a search of the various chambers of his quarters, but Caraftap laid a restraining hand upon his arm.
“Wait, Vental,” he begged. “If they be here would it not be best to insure their capture by fastening the doors leading from your quarters?”
“A good thought, Caraftap,” replied Kalfastoban, “and then we may take our time searching for them. Out of here, all you women!” he cried, waving the females back into Hamadalban’s quarters. A moment later the two doors leading from the chamber to Hamadalban’s quarters and the gallery were closed and locked.
“And now, master,” suggested Caraftap, “as there be two of them would it not be well to supply me with a weapon.”
Kalfastoban smote his chest. “A dozen such could Kalfastoban overcome alone,” he cried; “but for your own protection get you a sword from yonder room while I lock this proud she-cat in her cell again.”
As Kalfastoban followed Talaskar to the room in which she had been confined, Caraftap crossed to the door of the storeroom where the Vental had told him he would find a weapon.
The Vental reached the door of the room just behind the girl and reaching out caught her by the arm.
“Not so fast, my pretty!” he cried. “A kiss before you leave me; but fret not! The moment we are sure that those villainous slaves are not within these rooms I shall join you, so do not pine for your Kalfastoban.”
Talaskar wheeled and struck the Vental in the face. “Lay not your filthy hands upon me, beast!” she cried, and struggled to free herself from his grasp.
“So—hot a cat, indeed!” exclaimed the man, but he did not release her, and so they struggled until they disappeared from sight within the cell, and at the same moment Caraftap, the slave, laid his hand upon the latch of the storeroom door, and opening it stepped within.
As he did so steel fingers reached forth out of the darkness and closed upon his throat. He would have screamed in terror, but no sound could he force through his tight-closed throat. He struggled and struck at the thing that held him—a thing so powerful that he knew it could not be human, and then a low voice, cold and terrifying, whispered in his ear.
“Die, Caraftap!” it said. “Meet the fate that you deserve and that you well knew you deserved when you said that you dared not return to the quarters of the slaves of Zoanthrohago after betraying two of your number. Die, Caraftap! and know before you die that he whom you would have betrayed is your slayer. You searched for Zuanthrol and you have found him!” With the last word the terrible fingers closed upon the man’s neck. Spasmodically the slave struggled, fighting for air. Then the two hands that gripped him turned slowly in opposite directions and the head of the traitor was twisted from his body.
Throwing the corpse aside Tarzan sprang into the main chamber of the Vental’s quarters and ran quickly toward the door of Talaskar’s cell, Komodoflorensal but half a pace behind him. The door of the little room had been pushed to by the struggles of the couple within, and as Tarzan pushed it open he saw the girl in the clutches of the huge Vental, who, evidently maddened by her resistance, had lost his temper completely and was attempting to rain blows upon her face, which she sought to ward off, clutching at his arms and hands.
A heavy hand fell upon the shoulder of the Vental. “You seek us!” a low voice whispered in his ear. “Here we are!”
Kalfastoban released the girl and swung around, at the same time reaching for his sword. Facing him were the two slaves and both were armed, though only Aoponato had drawn his weapon. Zuanthrol, who held him, had not yet drawn.
“’A dozen such could Kalfastoban overcome alone,’” quoted Tarzan. “Here we are, braggart, and we are only two; but we cannot wait while you show us how mighty you be. We are sorry. Had you not molested this girl I should merely have locked you in your quarters, from which you would soon have been released; but your brutality deserves but one punishment—death.”
“Caraftap!” screamed Kalfastoban. No longer was he a blusterer, deep-toned and swaggering. His voice was shrill with terror and he shook in the hands of the ape-man. “Caraftap! Help!” he cried.
“Caraftap is dead,” said Tarzan. “He died because he betrayed his fellows. You shall die because you were brutal to a defenseless slave girl. Run him through, Komodoflorensall. We have not time to waste here.”
As the Trohanadalmakusian withdrew his sword from the heart of Kalfastoban Vental and the corpse slid to the floor of the cell Talaskar ran forward and fell at the feet of the ape-man.
“Zuanthrol and Aopontato!” she cried. “Never did I think to see you again. What has happened? Why are you here? You have saved me, but now you will be lost. Fly—I know not where to you may fly—but go from here! Do not let them find you here. I cannot understand why you are here, anyway.”
“We are trying to escape,” explained Komodoflorensal, “and Zuanthrol would not go without you. He searched the quarry for you and now the Royal Dome. He has performed the impossible, but he has found you.”
“Why did you do this for me?” asked Talaskar, looking wonderingly at Tarzan.
“Because you were kind to me when I was brought to the chamber of Zoanthrohago’s slaves,” replied the ape-man, “and because I promised that when the time for escape came we three should be together.”
He had lifted her to her feet and led her into the main chamber. Komodoflorensal stood a little aside, his eyes upon the floor. Tarzan glanced at him and an expression of puzzlement came into the eyes of the ape-man, but whatever thought had caused it he must have put quickly aside for the consideration of more pressing matters.
“Komodoflorensal, you know best what avenues of escape should be the least beset by the dangers of discovery. Whether to go by way of Haraadalban’s quarters or through the gallery they mentioned? These are questions I cannot answer to my own satisfaction; and look!” his eyes had been roving about the chamber, “there is an opening in the ceiling. Where might that lead?”
“It might lead almost anywhere, or nowhere at all!” replied the Trohanadalmakusian. “Many chambers have such openings. Sometimes they lead into small lofts that are not connected with any other chamber; again they lead into secret chambers, or even into corridors upon another level.”
There came a pounding upon the door leading into Hama-dalban’s quarters and a woman’s voice called aloud: “Kalfastoban, open!” she cried. “There has come an ental from the quarry guard in search of Caraftap. The sentry at the entrance to the quarters of the slaves of Zoanthrohago has been found slain and they wish to question Caraftap, believing that there is a conspiracy among the slaves.”
“We must go by the gallery,” whispered Komodofiorensal, stepping quickly to the door leading thereto.
As he reached it someone laid a hand upon the latch from the opposite side and attempted to open the door, which was locked.
“Kalfastoban!” cried a voice from the gallery beyond. “Let us in! The slaves went not this way. Come, open quickly!”
Tarzan of the Apes glanced quickly about. Upon his face was a half-snarl, for once again was he the cornered beast. He measured the distance from the floor to the trap in the ceiling, and then with a little run he sprang lightly upward. He had forgotten to what extent the reduction of his weight affected his agility. He had hoped to reach a handhold upon the upper edge of the opening, but instead he shot entirely through it, alighting upon his feet in a dark chamber. Turning he looked down at his friends below. Consternation was writ large upon the countenance of each; but at that he could not wonder. He was almost as much surprised himself.
“Is it too far for you to jump?” he asked.
“Too far!” they replied.
He swung, then, head downward through the opening, catching the edge of the trap in the hollow of his knees. At the gallery door the knocking was becoming insistent and now at that leading into the quarters of Hamadalban a man’s voice had supplanted that of the woman. The fellow was demanding entrance, angrily.
“Open!” he shouted. “In the name of the king, open!”
“Open yourself!” shouted the fellow who had been hammering at the opposite door, thinking that the demand to open came from the interior of the chamber to which he sought admission.
“How can I open?” screamed back the other. “The door is locked upon your side!”
“It is not locked upon my side. It is locked upon yours,” cried the other, angrily.
“You lie!” shouted he who sought entrance from Hamadal-ban’s quarters, “and you will pay well when this is reported to the king.”
Tarzan swung, head downward, into the chamber, his hands extended toward his companions. “Lift Talaskar to me,” he directed Komodolflorensal, and as the other did so he grasped the girl’s wrists and raised her as far as he could until she could seize upon a part of his leather harness and support herself alone without falling. Then he took another hold upon her, lower down, and lifted still higher, and in this way she mananged to clamber into the chamber above.
The angry warriors at the two doors were now evidently engaged in an attempt to batter their way into the chamber. Heavy blows were falling upon the substantial panels that threatened to splinter them at any moment.
“Fill your pouch with candles, Komodoflorensal,” said Tarzan, “and then jump for my hands.”
“I took all the candles I could carry while we were in the storeroom,” replied the other. “Brace yourself I I am going to jump.”
A panel splintered and bits of wood flew to the center of the floor from the door at the gallery just as Tarzan seized the outstretched hands of Komodoflorensal and an instant later, as both men kneeled in the darkness of the loft and looked down into the chamber below the opposite door flew open and the ten warriors who composed the ental burst in at the heels of their Vental.
For an instant they looked about in blank surprise and then their attention was attracted by the pounding upon the other door. A smile crossed the face of the Vental as he stepped quickly to the gallery door and unlocked it. Angry warriors rushed in upon him, but when he had explained the misapprehension under which both parties had been striving for entrance to the chamber they all joined in the laughter, albeit a trifle shamefacedly.
“But who was in here?” demanded the Vental who had brought the soldiers from the quarry.
“Kalfastoban and the green slave Caraftap,” proffered a woman belonging to Hamadalban.
“They must be hiding!” said a warrior.
“Search the quarters!” commanded the Vental.
“It will not take long to find one,” said another warrior, pointing at the floor just inside the storeroom doorway.
The others looked and there they saw a human hand resting upon the floor. The fingers seemed frozen into the semblance of clutching claws. Mutely they proclaimed death. One of the warriors stepped quickly to the storeroom, opened the door and dragged forth the body of Caraftap, to which the head was clinging by a shred of flesh. Even the warriors stepped back, aghast. They looked quickly around the chamber.
“Both doors were barred upon the inside,” said the Vental. “Whatever did this must still be here.”
“It could have been nothing human,” whispered a woman who had followed them from the adjoining quarters.
“Search carefully,” said the Vental, and as he was a brave man, he went first into one chamber and then another. In the first one they found Kalfastoban, run through the heart.
“It is time we got out of here if there is any way out,” whispered Tarzan to Komodoflorensal. “One of them will espy this hole directly.”
Very cautiously the two men felt their way in opposite direction around the walls of the dark, stuffy loft. Deep dust the dust of ages, rose about them, chokingly, evidencing the fact that the room had not been used for years, perhaps for ages. Presently Komodoflorensal heard a “H-s-s-t!” from the ape-man who called them to him. “Come here, both of you. I have found something.”
“What have you found?” asked Talaskar, coming close.
“An opening near the bottom of the wall,” replied Tarzan. “It is large enough for a man to crawl through. Think you, Komodoflorensal, that it would be safe to light a candle?”
“No, not now,” replied the prince.
“I will go without it then,” announced the ape-man, “for we must see where this runnel leads, if anywhere.”
He dropped upon his hands and knees, then, and Talaskar, who had been standing next him, felt him move away. She could not see him—it was too dark in the gloomy loft.
The two waited, but Zuanthrol did not return. They heard voices in the room below. They wondered if the searchers would soon investigate the loft but really there was no need for apprehension. The searchers had determined to invest the place—it would be safer than crawling into that dark hole after an unknown thing that could tear the head from a man’s body. When it came down, as come down it would have to, they would be prepared to destroy or capture it; but in the meantime they were content to wait.
“What has become of him?” whispered Talaskar, anxiously.
“You care very much for him, do you not?” asked Komodoflorensal.
“Why should I not?” asked the girl. “You do, too, do you no!”
“Yes,” replied Komodoflorensal.
“He is very wonderful,” said the girl.
“Yes,” said Komodoflorensal.
As though in answer to their wish they heard a low whistle from the depths of the tunnel into which Tarzan had crawled. “Come!” whispered the ape-man.
Talaskar first, they followed him, crawling upon hands and knees through a winding tunnel, feeling their way through the darkness, until at last a light flared before them and they saw Zuanthrol lighting a candle in a small chamber, that was only just high enough to permit a tall man to sit erect within it.
“I got this far,” he said to them, “and as it offered a fair hiding place where we might have light without fear of discovery I came back after you. Here we can stop a while in comparative comfort and safety until I can explore the tunnel further. From what I have been able to judge it has never been used during the lifetime of any living Veltopismakusian, so there is little likelihood that anyone will think of looking here for us.”
“Do you think they will follow us?” asked Talaskar.
“I think they will,” replied Komodoflorensal, “and as we cannot go back it will be better if we push on at once, as it is reasonable to assume that the opposite end of this tunnel opens into another chamber. Possibly there we shall find an avenue of escape.”
“You are right, Komodoflorensal,” agreed Tarzan. “Nothing can be gained by remaining here. I will go ahead. Let Talaskar follow me, and you bring up the rear. If the place proves a blind alley we shall be no worse off for having investigated it.”
Lighting their way this time with candles the three crawled laboriously and painfully over the uneven, rock floor of the tunnel, which turned often, this way and that, as though passing around chambers, until, to their relief, the passageway abruptly enlarged, both in width and height, so that now they could proceed in an erect position. The tunnel now dropped in a steep declivity to a lower level and a moment later the three emerged into a small chamber, where Talaskar suddenly placed a hand upon Tarzan’s arm, with a little intaking of her breath in a half gasp.
“What is that, Zuanthrol!” she whispered, pointing into the darkness ahead.
Upon the floor at one side of the room a crouching figure was barely discernible close to the wall.
“And that!” exclaimed the girl, pointing to another portion of the room.
The ape-man shook her band from his arm and stepped quickly forward, his candle held high in his left hand, his right upon his sword. He came close to the crouching figure and bent to examine it He laid his hand upon it and it fell into a heap of dust.
“What is it?” demanded the girl.
“It was a man,” replied Tarzan; “but it has been dead many years. It was chained to this wall. Even the chain has rusted away.”
“And the other, too?” asked Talaskar.
“There are several of them,” said Komodoflorensal. “See? There and there.”
“At least they cannot detain us,” said Tarzan, and moved on again across the chamber toward a doorway on the opposite side.
“But they tell us something, possibly,” ventured Komodoflorensal.
“What do they say?” asked the ape-man.
“That this corridor connected with the quarters of a very powerful Vetlopismakusian,” replied the prince. “So powerful was he that he might dispose of his enemies thus, without question; and it also tells us that all this happened long years ago.”
“The condition of the bodies told us that,” said Tarzan.
“Not entirely,” replied KomodoflorensaL “The ants would have reduced them to that state in a short time. In past ages the dead were left within the domes, and the ants, who were then our scavengers, soon disposed of them, but the ants sometimes attacked the living. They grew from a nuisance to a menace, and then every precaution had to be taken to keep from attracting them. Also we fought them. There were great battles waged in Trohanadalmakus between the Minunians and the ants and thousands of our warriors were devoured alive, and though we slew billions of ants their queens could propagate faster than we could kill the sexless workers who attacked us with their soldiers. But at last we turned our attention to their nests. Here the carnage was terrific, but we succeeded in slaying their queens and since then no ants have come into our domes. They live about us, but they fear us. However, we do not risk attracting them again by leaving our dead within the domes.”
“Then you believe that this corridor leads to the quarters of some great noble?” inquired Tarzan.
“I believe that it once did. The ages bring change. Its end may now be walled up. The chamber to which it leads may have housed a king’s son when these bones were quick; today it may be a barrack-room for soldiers, or a stable for diadets. About all that we know definitely about it,” concluded Komo-doflorensal, “is that it has not been used by man for a long time, and probably, therefore, is unknown to present-day Veltopismakusians.”
Beyond the chamber of death the tunnel dropped rapidly to lower levels, entering, at last, a third chamber larger than either of the others. Upon the floor lay the bodies of many men.
“These were not chained to the walls,” remarked Tarzan.
“No, they died fighting, as one may see by their naked swords and the position of their bones.”
As the three paused a moment to look about the chamber there fell upon their ears the sound of a human voice.