Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
He entered the room, followed by Tarzan. A white-tunicked slave
approached them. "Candles for two," demanded Komodoflorensal, handing
the slave one of the smaller golden coins he had filched from the
sleeping nobles.
The fellow led them to a far corner of the room where there was plenty
of space upon the floor, lit two candles and left them. A moment later
they were stretched at full length, their faces toward the wall as a
further protection against recognition, and were soon asleep.
When Tarzan awoke he saw that he and Komodoflorensal were the only
remaining occupants of the chamber, other than the slave who had
admitted them, and he awoke his companion, believing that they should
do nothing that might even in a slight degree call more than ordinary
attention to them. A bucket of water was brought them and they
performed their ablutions at a gutter which encircled the chamber,
passing along the foot of each wall, as was the custom throughout
Minuni, the waste water being carried away in pipes to the fields
beyond the cities, where it was used for irrigating the crops. As
all the water had to be carried into the domes and to the different
levels in buckets, the amount used for ablutions was reduced to the
minimum, the warrior and noble class getting the bulk of it, while the
white-tunicked slaves depended principally upon the rivers, near which
domes are always erected, for their baths. The green slaves fare the
worst, and suffer a real hardship through lack of bathing facilities,
for the Minunians are a cleanly people; but they manage to alleviate
their plight to some extent, where the quarry masters are more kindly
disposed, by the use of stagnant seepage water that accumulates in
every quarry at the lower levels and which, not being fit for drinking
purposes, may be used by the slaves for bathing when they are permitted
the time to obtain it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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