The man listened to Thorne's explanation of their presence near Ashair; then he shrugged. "You may be telling the truth, or you may be lying," he said. "Probably you are lying, but it makes no difference. Ashair is a forbidden city. No stranger who enters Tuen-Baka may leave alive. What becomes of him here—whether he be destroyed immediately or permitted to live for what ever useful purpose he may serve—rests wholly with the discretion of the Queen. Your capture will be reported to her; when it suits her convenience, your fate will be decided."
"If I might have audience with her," said Thorne, "I am sure that I can convince her that my motives are honorable and that I can give Ashair valuable service. I have information of the greatest importance to her and to Ashair."
"You may tell me," said the official. "I will communicate the information to her."
"I must give it to the Queen in person," replied Atan Thome.
"The Queen of Ashair is not in the habit of granting audiences to prisoners," said the man, haughtily. "It will be well for you if you give this information to me—if you have any."
Atan Thome shrugged. "I have it," he said, "but I shall give it to no one but the Queen. If disaster befalls Ash-air, the responsiblity will rest with you. Don't say that I didn't warn you."
"Enough of this impudence!" exclaimed the official. "Take them away and lock them up—and don't overfeed them."
"Master, you should not have antagonized him," said Lal Taask, as the two men lay on cold stone, chained to the wall of a gloomy dungeon. "If you had information to impart to the Queen—and Allah alone knows what it might be—why did you not tell the man what it was? Thus it would have reached the Queen."
"You are a good servant, Lal Taask," said Thorne; "and you wield a knife with rare finesse. These are accomplishments worthy of highest encomiums, but you lack versatility. It is evident that Allah felt he had given you sufficient gifts when he gave you these powers; so he gave you nothing with which to think."
"My master is all-wise," replied Lal Taask. "I pray that he may think me out of this dungeon."
"That's what I am trying to do. Don't you realize that it would be useless to appeal to underlings? This Queen is all-powerful. If we can reach her, personally, we place our case directly before the highest tribunal; and I can plead our case much better than it could be pled second hand by one who had no interest in us."
"Again I bow to your superior wisdom," said Lal Taask, "but I am still wondering what important information you have to give the Queen of Ashair."
"Lal Taask, you are hopeless," sighed Thorne. "The information I have to give to the Queen should be as obvious to you as a fly on the end of your nose."
For days, Atan Thome and Lal Taask lay on the cold stone of their dungeon floor, receiving just enough food to keep them alive; and having all Atan Thome's pleas for an audience with the Queen ignored by the silent warrior who brought their food.
"They are starving us to death," wailed Lal Taask.
"On the contrary," observed Atan Thome, "they appear to have an uncanny sense of the calorific properties of food. They know just how much will keep us from starving to death. And look at my waist line, Lal Taask! I have often had it in mind to embark upon a rigid diet for the purpose of reducing. The kind Asharians have anticipated that ambition. Presently, I shall be almost sylph-like."
"For you, perhaps, that may be excellent, master; but for me, who never had an ounce of surplus fat beneath his hide, it spells disaster. Already, my backbone is chafing my navel."
"Ah," exclaimed Atan Thome, as footfalls announced the approach of some one along the corridor leading to their cell, "here comes Old Garrulity again."
"I did not know that you knew his name, master," remarked Taask; "but some one accompanies him this time—I hear voices."
"Perhaps he brings an extra calorie, and needs help," suggested Thorne. "If he does, it is yours. I hope it is celery."
"You like celery, master?"
"No. It shall be for you. Celery is reputed to be a brain food."
The door to the cell was unlocked, and three warriors entered. One of them removed the chains from the prisoners' ankles.
"What now?" asked Atan Thome.
"The Queen has sent for you," replied the warrior.
The two men were led through the palace to a great room, at the far end of which, upon a dais, a woman sat upon a throne hewn from a single block of lava. Warriors flanked her on either side, and slaves stood behind her throne ready to do her every bidding.
As the two men were led forward and halted before the dais, they saw a handsome woman, apparently in her early thirties. Her hair was so dressed that it stood out straight from her head in all directions to a length of eight or ten inches and had woven into it an ornate headdress of white plumes. Her mien was haughty and arrogant as she eyed the prisoners coldly, and Atan Thome read cruelty in the lines of her mouth and the latent fires of a quick temper in the glint of her eyes. Here was a women to be feared, a ruthless killer, a human tigress. The equanimity of the smug Eurasian faltered before a woman for the first time.
"Why came you to Ashair?" demanded the Queen.
"By accident, majesty; we were lost. When we found our way blocked, we turned back. We were leaving the country when your warriors took us prisoner."
"You have said that you have valuable information to give me. What is it? If you have imposed upon me and wasted my tune, it shall not be well for you."
"I have powerful enemies," said Atan Thome. "It was while trying to escape from them that I became lost. They are coming to Ashair to attempt to steal a great diamond which they believe you to possess. I only wished to befriend you and help you trap them."
"Are they coming in force?" asked Atka.
"That, I do not know," replied Thorne; "but I presume they are. They have ample means."
Queen Atka turned to one of her nobles. "If this man has spoken the truth, he shall not fare ill at our hands. Akamen, I place the prisoners in your charge. Permit them reasonable liberties. Take them away." Then she spoke to another. "See that the approaches to Ashair are watched."
Akamen, the noble, conducted Atan Thome and Lal Taask to pleasant quarters in a far wing of the palace. "You are free to go where you will inside the palace walls, except to the royal wing. Nor may you go beneath the palace. There lie the secrets of Ashair and death for strangers."
"The Queen has been most magnanimous," said Thorne. "We shall do nothing to forfeit her good will. Ashair is most interesting. I am only sorry that we may not go out into the city or upon the lake."
"It would not be safe," said Akamen. "You might be captured by a galley from Thobos. They would not treat you as well as Atka has."
"I should like to look down again at the beautiful building at the bottom of the lake," said Thorne. "That was my reason for wishing to go upon the lake. What is the building? and what the strange creature I saw coming from it?"
"Curiosity is often a fatal poison," said Akamen.
Chapter 14
THE TRAIL OF Atan Thome's safari was not difficult to follow, and the Gregory party made good time along it without encountering any obstacles to delay them. The general mistrust of Wolff, the doubts concerning Mag-ra's position among them, and the moody jealousy of Lavac added to the nervous strain of their dangerous existence; and the hardships they had undergone had told upon their nerves; so that it was not always a happy company that trudged the day's trails. Only Tarzan remained serene and unruffled.
It was midday, and they had halted for a brief rest, when Tarzan suddenly became alert. "Natives are coming," he said. "There are a number of them, and they are very close. The wind just changed and brought their scent to me."
"There they are now," said Gregory. "Why, it's another safari. There are porters with packs, but I see no white men."
"It is your safari, bwana," said Ogabi. "It is the safari that was to have met you at Bonga."
"Then is must be the one that Thorne stole," said d'Ar-not, "but
I don't see Thorne."
"Another mystery of darkest Africa , perhaps," suggested Helen.
Mbuli, leading his people back toward Bonga, halted in surprise as he saw the little party of whites, then, seeing that his men greatly outnumbered them, he came forward, swaggering a little.
"Who are you?" demanded Tarzan.
"I am Mbuli," replied the chief.
"Where are your bwanas? You have deserted them."
"Who are you, white man, to question Mbuli?" demanded the native, arrogantly, the advantage of numbers giving him courage.
"I am Tarzan," replied the ape-man.
Mbuli wilted. All the arrogance went out of him. "Forgive, bwana," he begged. "I did not know you, for I have never seen you before."
"You know the law of the safari," said Tarzan. "Those who desert their white masters are punished."
"But my people would not go on," explained Mbuli. "When we came to Tuen-Baka, they would go no farther. They were afraid, for Tuen-Baka is taboo."
"You took all their equipment," continued the ape-man, glancing over the loads that the porters had thrown to the ground. "Why, you even took their food."
"Yes, bwana; but they needed no food—they were about to die—Tuen-Baka is taboo. Also, Bwana Thorne lied to us. We had agreed to serve Bwana Gregory, but he told us Bwana Gregory wished us to accompany him instead."
"Nevertheless, you did wrong to abandon him. To escape punishment, you will accompany us to Tuen-Baka—we need porters and askaris."
"But my people are afraid," remonstrated Mbuli.
"Where Tarzan goes, your people may go," replied the ape-man. "I shall not lead them into danger needlessly."
"But, bwana—"
"But nothing," snapped Tarzan; then he turned to the porters. "Up packs! You are going back to Tuen-Baka."
The porters grumbled; but they picked up their packs and turned back along the trail they had just travelled, for the will of the white man was supreme; and, too, the word had spread among them that this was the fabulous Tarzan who was half man and half demon.
For three days they trekked back along the trail toward Ashair, and at noon on the seventh day the safari broke from the forest beside a quiet river. The terrain ahead was rocky and barren. Above low hills rose the truncated cone of an extinct volcano, a black, forbidding mass.
"So that is Tuen-Baka," said d'Arnot. "It is just an old volcano, after all."
"Nevertheless, the boys are afraid," said Tarzan. "We shall have to watch them at night or they'll desert again. I'm going on now to see what lies ahead."
"Be careful," cautioned d'Arnot. "The place has a bad reputation, you know."
"I am always careful," replied Tarzan.
D'Arnot grinned. "Sometimes you are about as careful of yourself as a Paris taxi driver is of pedestrians."
Tarzan followed a dim trail that roughly paralleled the river, the same trail that Lal Taask and Atan Thome had followed. As was his custom, he moved silently with every sense alert. He saw signs of strange animals and realized that he was in a country that might hold dangers beyond his experience. In a small patch of earth among the boulders and rough lava rocks, he saw the imprint of a great foot and caught faintly the odor of a reptile that had passed that way recently. He knew, from the size of the footprint, that the creature was large; and when he heard ahead of him an ominous hissing and roaring, he guessed that the maker of the footprint was not far off. Increasing his speed, but not lessening his caution, he moved forward in the direction of the sound; and coming to the edge of a gully, looked down to see a strangely garbed white warrior facing such a creature as Tarzan had never seen on earth. Perhaps he did not know it, but he was looking at a small edition of the terrible Tyrannosaurus Rex, that mighty king of carnivorous reptiles which ruled the earth eons ago. Perhaps the one below him was tiny compared with his gigantic progenitor; but he was still a formidable creature, as large as a full grown bull.
Tarzan saw in the warrior either a hostage or a means of securing information concerning this strange country and its inhabitants. If the dinosaur killed the man, he would be quite valueless; so, acting as quickly as he thought, he leaped from the cliff just as the brute charged. Only a man who did not know the meaning of fear would have taken such a risk.
The warrior facing the great reptile with his puny spear was stunned to momentary inaction when he saw an almost naked bronzed giant drop, apparently from the blue, onto the back of the monster he had been facing without hope. He saw the stranger's knife striking futilely at the armored back, as the man clung with one arm about the creature's neck. He could have escaped; but he did not, and as Tarzan found a vulnerable spot in the dinosaur's throat and drove his knife home again and again, he rushed in to the ape-man's aid.
The huge reptile, seriously hurt, screamed and hissed as it threw itself about in vain effort to dislodge the man-thing from its back; but, hurt though it was, like all the reptilia it was tenacious of life and far from overcome.
As Tarzan's knife found and severed the creature's jugular vein, the warrior drove his spear through the savage heart, and with a last convulsive shudder it crashed to the ground, dead; then the two men faced one another across the great carcass.
Neither knew the temper or intentions of the other; and both were on guard as they sought to find a medium of communication more satisfactory than an improvised sign language. At last the warrior hit upon a tongue that both could speak and understand, a language he and his people had learned from the Negroes they had captured and forced into slavery—Swahili.
"I am Thetan of Thobos," he said. "I owe you my life, but why did you come to my aid? Are we to be friends or foes?"
"I am Tarzan," said the ape-man. "Let us be friends."
"Let us be friends," agreed Thetan. "Now tell me how I may repay you for what you have done for me."
"I wish to go to Ashair," said Tarzan.
The warrior shook his head. "You have asked me one thing that I cannot do for you," he said. "The Asharians are our enemies. If I took you there, we'd both be imprisoned and destroyed; but perhaps I can persuade my king to let you come to Thobos; then, when the day comes that we conquer Ashair, you may enter the city with us. But why do you wish to go to Ashair?"
"I am not alone," said Tarzan, "and in my party are the father and sister of a man we believe to be a prisoner in Ashair. It is to obtain his release that we are here."
"Perhaps my King will let you all come to Thobos," said Thetan, rather dubiously. "Such a thing would be without precedent; but because you have saved the life of his nephew and because you are enemies of Ashair, he may grant permission. At least it will do no harm to ask him."
"How may I know his answer?" asked Tarzan.
"I can bring it to you, but it will be some time before I can do so," replied Thetan. "I am down here on a mission for the King. I came by way of the only land trail out of Tuen-Baka, a trail known only to my people. I shall sleep tonight in a cave I know of, and tomorrow start back for Thobos. In three days I shall return if Herat will permit you to enter Thobos. If I do not come back, you will know that he has refused. Wait then no more than one day; then leave the country as quickly as you can. It is death for strangers to remain in the vicinity of Tuen-Baka."
"Come back to my camp," said Tarzan, "and spend the night there. We can discuss the matter with my companions."
Thetan hesitated. "They are all strangers to me," he said, "and all strangers are enemies."
"My friends will not be," the ape-man assured him. "I give you my word that they will have no desire to harm you. In the world from which they come no strangers are considered enemies until they prove themselves to be such."
"What a strange world that must be," remarked Thetan. "But I'll accept your word and go with you."
As the two men started back toward the Gregory camp, a party of warriors embarked in a galley at the quay of Ashair, dispatched by Queen Atka to intercept and harass the Gregory expedition, against which Atan Thome
had warned her in order that he might win the favor of the Queen and prevent Tarzan and Gregory from reaching Ashair. The wily Eurasian had hopes of so ingratiating himself with the Queen that he might remain in Ashair until he could formulate a plan for stealing The Father of Diamonds and making his escape. So obsessed was he by his desire to possess the diamond, that he was totally unable to appreciate the futility of his scheme.
The members of the Gregory party were astonished to see Tarzan walk into camp with this strangely appareled warrior. Thetan wore the black plumes of Thobos, and upon the breast and back of his tunic there was embroidered the figure of a bull. Their friendly greetings put him at his ease, and though the Swahili of Gregory, Helen and Lavac was a little lame, they all managed fairly well in the conversation that ensued. He told them much of Tuen-Baka, of Thobos and Ashair; but when the subject of The Father of Diamonds was broached, he was evasive; and, out of courtesy, they did not press him. But his reticence only served to whet their curiosity, as they sensed the mystery that surrounded the fabulous stone.
Late that night the silence of the sleeping camp was broken by sepulchral voices keening out of the mystery of the surrounding darkness. Instantly the camp was awake and in confusion, as the terrified natives milled in panic. So terrified were they that they might have bolted for the forest had it not been that glowing death's-heads suddenly appeared floating in the air around the camp, as the voices warned, "Turn back! Turn back! Death awaits you in forbidden Ashair."
"The Asharians!" cried Thetan.
Tarzan, seeking to solve the mystery of the weird apparitions, sprang into the night in the direction of the nearest death's-head. D'Arnot sought to rally the askaris; but they were as terrified as the porters, many of whom crouched with their foreheads pressed to the ground, while others covered their ears or their eyes with trembling hands.
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