The Return of Tarzan

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Chapter 20

  La

  For a moment Tarzan thought that by some strange freak of fate amiracle had saved him, but when he realized the ease with which thegirl had, single-handed, beaten off twenty gorilla-like males, and aninstant later, as he saw them again take up their dance about him whileshe addressed them in a singsong monotone, which bore every evidence ofrote, he came to the conclusion that it was all but a part of theceremony of which he was the central figure.

  After a moment or two the girl drew a knife from her girdle, and,leaning over Tarzan, cut the bonds from his legs. Then, as the menstopped their dance, and approached, she motioned to him to rise.Placing the rope that had been about his legs around his neck, she ledhim across the courtyard, the men following in twos.

  Through winding corridors she led, farther and farther into the remoterprecincts of the temple, until they came to a great chamber in thecenter of which stood an altar. Then it was that Tarzan translated thestrange ceremony that had preceded his introduction into this holy ofholies.

  He had fallen into the hands of descendants of the ancient sunworshippers. His seeming rescue by a votaress of the high priestess ofthe sun had been but a part of the mimicry of their heathenceremony--the sun looking down upon him through the opening at the topof the court had claimed him as his own, and the priestess had comefrom the inner temple to save him from the polluting hands ofworldlings--to save him as a human offering to their flaming deity.

  And had he needed further assurance as to the correctness of his theoryhe had only to cast his eyes upon the brownish-red stains that cakedthe stone altar and covered the floor in its immediate vicinity, or tothe human skulls which grinned from countless niches in the toweringwalls.

  The priestess led the victim to the altar steps. Again the galleriesabove filled with watchers, while from an arched doorway at the eastend of the chamber a procession of females filed slowly into the room.They wore, like the men, only skins of wild animals caught about theirwaists with rawhide belts or chains of gold; but the black masses oftheir hair were incrusted with golden headgear composed of manycircular and oval pieces of gold ingeniously held together to form ametal cap from which depended at each side of the head, long strings ofoval pieces falling to the waist.

  The females were more symmetrically proportioned than the males, theirfeatures were much more perfect, the shapes of their heads and theirlarge, soft, black eyes denoting far greater intelligence and humanitythan was possessed by their lords and masters.

  Each priestess bore two golden cups, and as they formed in line alongone side of the altar the men formed opposite them, advancing andtaking each a cup from the female opposite. Then the chant began oncemore, and presently from a dark passageway beyond the altar anotherfemale emerged from the cavernous depths beneath the chamber.

  The high priestess, thought Tarzan. She was a young woman with arather intelligent and shapely face. Her ornaments were similar tothose worn by her votaries, but much more elaborate, many being setwith diamonds. Her bare arms and legs were almost concealed by themassive, bejeweled ornaments which covered them, while her singleleopard skin was supported by a close-fitting girdle of golden ringsset in strange designs with innumerable small diamonds. In the girdleshe carried a long, jeweled knife, and in her hand a slender wand inlieu of a bludgeon.

  As she advanced to the opposite side of the altar she halted, and thechanting ceased. The priests and priestesses knelt before her, whilewith wand extended above them she recited a long and tiresome prayer.Her voice was soft and musical--Tarzan could scarce realize that itspossessor in a moment more would be transformed by the fanaticalecstasy of religious zeal into a wild-eyed and bloodthirstyexecutioner, who, with dripping knife, would be the first to drink hervictim's red, warm blood from the little golden cup that stood upon thealtar.

  As she finished her prayer she let her eyes rest for the first timeupon Tarzan. With every indication of considerable curiosity sheexamined him from head to foot. Then she addressed him, and when shehad finished stood waiting, as though she expected a reply.

  "I do not understand your language," said Tarzan. "Possibly we mayspeak together in another tongue?" But she could not understand him,though he tried French, English, Arab, Waziri, and, as a last resort,the mongrel tongue of the West Coast.

  She shook her head, and it seemed that there was a note of weariness inher voice as she motioned to the priests to continue with the rites.These now circled in a repetition of their idiotic dance, which wasterminated finally at a command from the priestess, who had stoodthroughout, still looking intently upon Tarzan.

  At her signal the priests rushed upon the ape-man, and, lifting himbodily, laid him upon his back across the altar, his head hanging overone edge, his legs over the opposite. Then they and the priestessesformed in two lines, with their little golden cups in readiness tocapture a share of the victim's lifeblood after the sacrificial knifehad accomplished its work.

  In the line of priests an altercation arose as to who should have firstplace. A burly brute with all the refined intelligence of a gorillastamped upon his bestial face was attempting to push a smaller man tosecond place, but the smaller one appealed to the high priestess, whoin a cold peremptory voice sent the larger to the extreme end of theline. Tarzan could hear him growling and rumbling as he went slowly tothe inferior station.

  Then the priestess, standing above him, began reciting what Tarzan tookto be an invocation, the while she slowly raised her thin, sharp knifealoft. It seemed ages to the ape-man before her arm ceased its upwardprogress and the knife halted high above his unprotected breast.

  Then it started downward, slowly at first, but as the incantationincreased in rapidity, with greater speed. At the end of the lineTarzan could still hear the grumbling of the disgruntled priest. Theman's voice rose louder and louder. A priestess near him spoke insharp tones of rebuke. The knife was quite near to Tarzan's breastnow, but it halted for an instant as the high priestess raised her eyesto shoot her swift displeasure at the instigator of this sacrilegiousinterruption.

  There was a sudden commotion in the direction of the disputants, andTarzan rolled his head in their direction in time to see the burlybrute of a priest leap upon the woman opposite him, dashing out herbrains with a single blow of his heavy cudgel. Then that happenedwhich Tarzan had witnessed a hundred times before among the wilddenizens of his own savage jungle. He had seen the thing fall uponKerchak, and Tublat, and Terkoz; upon a dozen of the other mighty bullapes of his tribe; and upon Tantor, the elephant; there was scarce anyof the males of the forest that did not at times fall prey to it. Thepriest went mad, and with his heavy bludgeon ran amuck among hisfellows.

  His screams of rage were frightful as he dashed hither and thither,dealing terrific blows with his giant weapon, or sinking his yellowfangs into the flesh of some luckless victim. And during it thepriestess stood with poised knife above Tarzan, her eyes fixed inhorror upon the maniacal thing that was dealing out death anddestruction to her votaries.

  Presently the room was emptied except for the dead and dying on thefloor, the victim upon the altar, the high priestess, and the madman.As the cunning eyes of the latter fell upon the woman they lighted witha new and sudden lust. Slowly he crept toward her, and now he spoke;but this time there fell upon Tarzan's surprised ears a language hecould understand; the last one that he would ever have thought ofemploying in attempting to converse with human beings--the low gutturalbarking of the tribe of great anthropoids--his own mother tongue. Andthe woman answered the man in the same language.

  He was threatening--she attempting to reason with him, for it was quiteevident that she saw that he was past her authority. The brute wasquite close now--creeping with clawlike hands extended toward heraround the end of the altar. Tarzan strained at the bonds which heldhis arms pinioned behind him. The woman did not see--she had forgottenher prey in the horror of the danger that threatened herself. As thebrute leaped past Tarzan to clutch his vict
im, the ape-man gave onesuperhuman wrench at the thongs that held him. The effort sent himrolling from the altar to the stone floor on the opposite side fromthat on which the priestess stood; but as he sprang to his feet thethongs dropped from his freed arms, and at the same time he realizedthat he was alone in the inner temple--the high priestess and the madpriest had disappeared.

  And then a muffled scream came from the cavernous mouth of the darkhole beyond the sacrificial altar through which the priestess hadentered the temple. Without even a thought for his own safety, or thepossibility for escape which this rapid series of fortuitouscircumstances had thrust upon him, Tarzan of the Apes answered the callof the woman in danger. With a little bound he was at the gapingentrance to the subterranean chamber, and a moment later was runningdown a flight of age-old concrete steps that led he knew not where.

  The faint light that filtered in from above showed him a large,low-ceiled vault from which several doorways led off into inkydarkness, but there was no need to thread an unknown way, for therebefore him lay the objects of his search--the mad brute had the girlupon the floor, and gorilla-like fingers were clutching frantically ather throat as she struggled to escape the fury of the awful thing uponher.

  As Tarzan's heavy hand fell upon his shoulder the priest dropped hisvictim, and turned upon her would-be rescuer. With foam-flecked lipsand bared fangs the mad sun-worshiper battled with the tenfold power ofthe maniac. In the blood lust of his fury the creature had undergone asudden reversion to type, which left him a wild beast, forgetful of thedagger that projected from his belt--thinking only of nature's weaponswith which his brute prototype had battled.

  But if he could use his teeth and hands to advantage, he found one evenbetter versed in the school of savage warfare to which he had reverted,for Tarzan of the Apes closed with him, and they fell to the floortearing and rending at one another like two bull apes; while theprimitive priestess stood flattened against the wall, watching withwide, fear-fascinated eyes the growling, snapping beasts at her feet.

  At last she saw the stranger close one mighty hand upon the throat ofhis antagonist, and as he forced the bruteman's head far back rain blowafter blow upon the upturned face. A moment later he threw the stillthing from him, and, arising, shook himself like a lion. He placed afoot upon the carcass before him, and raised his head to give thevictory cry of his kind, but as his eyes fell upon the opening abovehim leading into the temple of human sacrifice he thought better of hisintended act.

  The girl, who had been half paralyzed by fear as the two men fought,had just commenced to give thought to her probable fate now that,though released from the clutches of a madman, she had fallen into thehands of one whom but a moment before she had been upon the point ofkilling. She looked about for some means of escape. The black mouthof a diverging corridor was near at hand, but as she turned to dartinto it the ape-man's eyes fell upon her, and with a quick leap he wasat her side, and a restraining hand was laid upon her arm.

  "Wait!" said Tarzan of the Apes, in the language of the tribe ofKerchak.

  The girl looked at him in astonishment.

  "Who are you," she whispered, "who speaks the language of the firstman?"

  "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he answered in the vernacular of theanthropoids.

  "What do you want of me?" she continued. "For what purpose did yousave me from Tha?"

  "I could not see a woman murdered?" It was a half question thatanswered her.

  "But what do you intend to do with me now?" she continued.

  "Nothing," he replied, "but you can do something for me--you can leadme out of this place to freedom." He made the suggestion without theslightest thought that she would accede. He felt quite sure that thesacrifice would go on from the point where it had been interrupted ifthe high priestess had her way, though he was equally positive thatthey would find Tarzan of the Apes unbound and with a long dagger inhis hand a much less tractable victim than Tarzan disarmed and bound.

  The girl stood looking at him for a long moment before she spoke.

  "You are a very wonderful man," she said. "You are such a man as Ihave seen in my daydreams ever since I was a little girl. You are sucha man as I imagine the forbears of my people must have been--the greatrace of people who built this mighty city in the heart of a savageworld that they might wrest from the bowels of the earth the fabulouswealth for which they had sacrificed their far-distant civilization.

  "I cannot understand why you came to my rescue in the first place, andnow I cannot understand why, having me within your power, you do notwish to be revenged upon me for having sentenced you to death--forhaving almost put you to death with my own hand."

  "I presume," replied the ape-man, "that you but followed the teachingsof your religion. I cannot blame YOU for that, no matter what I maythink of your creed. But who are you--what people have I fallen among?"

  "I am La, high priestess of the Temple of the Sun, in the city of Opar.We are descendants of a people who came to this savage world more thanten thousand years ago in search of gold. Their cities stretched froma great sea under the rising sun to a great sea into which the sundescends at night to cool his flaming brow. They were very rich andvery powerful, but they lived only a few months of the year in theirmagnificent palaces here; the rest of the time they spent in theirnative land, far, far to the north.

  "Many ships went back and forth between this new world and the old.During the rainy season there were but few of the inhabitants remainedhere, only those who superintended the working of the mines by theblack slaves, and the merchants who had to stay to supply their wants,and the soldiers who guarded the cities and the mines.

  "It was at one of these times that the great calamity occurred. Whenthe time came for the teeming thousands to return none came. For weeksthe people waited. Then they sent out a great galley to learn why noone came from the mother country, but though they sailed about for manymonths, they were unable to find any trace of the mighty land that hadfor countless ages borne their ancient civilization--it had sunk intothe sea.

  "From that day dated the downfall of my people. Disheartened andunhappy, they soon became a prey to the black hordes of the north andthe black hordes of the south. One by one the cities were deserted orovercome. The last remnant was finally forced to take shelter withinthis mighty mountain fortress. Slowly we have dwindled in power, incivilization, in intellect, in numbers, until now we are no more than asmall tribe of savage apes.

  "In fact, the apes live with us, and have for many ages. We call themthe first men--we speak their language quite as much as we do our own;only in the rituals of the temple do we make any attempt to retain ourmother tongue. In time it will be forgotten, and we will speak onlythe language of the apes; in time we will no longer banish those of ourpeople who mate with apes, and so in time we shall descend to the verybeasts from which ages ago our progenitors may have sprung."

  "But why are you more human than the others?" asked the man.

  "For some reason the women have not reverted to savagery so rapidly asthe men. It may be because only the lower types of men remained hereat the time of the great catastrophe, while the temples were filledwith the noblest daughters of the race. My strain has remained clearerthan the rest because for countless ages my foremothers were highpriestesses--the sacred office descends from mother to daughter. Ourhusbands are chosen for us from the noblest in the land. The mostperfect man, mentally and physically, is selected to be the husband ofthe high priestess."

  "From what I saw of the gentlemen above," said Tarzan, with a grin,"there should be little trouble in choosing from among them."

  The girl looked at him quizzically for a moment.

  "Do not be sacrilegious," she said. "They are very holy men--they arepriests."

  "Then there are others who are better to look upon?" he asked.

  "The others are all more ugly than the priests," she replied.

  Tarzan shuddered at her fate, for even in the dim light of the vault
hewas impressed by her beauty.

  "But how about myself?" he asked suddenly. "Are you going to lead meto liberty?"

  "You have been chosen by The Flaming God as his own," she answeredsolemnly. "Not even I have the power to save you--should they find youagain. But I do not intend that they shall find you. You risked yourlife to save mine. I may do no less for you. It will be no easymatter--it may require days; but in the end I think that I can lead youbeyond the walls. Come, they will look here for me presently, and ifthey find us together we shall both be lost--they would kill me didthey think that I had proved false to my god."

  "You must not take the risk, then," he said quickly. "I will return tothe temple, and if I can fight my way to freedom there will be nosuspicion thrown upon you."

  But she would not have it so, and finally persuaded him to follow her,saying that they had already remained in the vault too long to preventsuspicion from falling upon her even if they returned to the temple.

  "I will hide you, and then return alone," she said, "telling them thatI was long unconscious after you killed Tha, and that I do not knowwhither you escaped."

  And so she led him through winding corridors of gloom, until finallythey came to a small chamber into which a little light filtered througha stone grating in the ceiling.

  "This is the Chamber of the Dead," she said. "None will think ofsearching here for you--they would not dare. I will return after it isdark. By that time I may have found a plan to effect your escape."

  She was gone, and Tarzan of the Apes was left alone in the Chamber ofthe Dead, beneath the long-dead city of Opar.