"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 Hamadalban'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 Komodoflorensal, 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 managed 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 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 directions 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 tunnel 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 not?"
"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, t
he 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 hand 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 Veltopismakusian," 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," concludedKomodoflorensal, "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.
Chapter Nineteen
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, Thagostogal 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.
TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN
"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 Komodoflorensal.
"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."
Tarzan and the Ant-men t-10 Page 20
