Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
"It is thus, Deliverer of the Son of Adendrohahkis," explained
Komodoflorensal, in reply to Tarzan's inquiry relative to this rather
peculiar exception to the rigid class distinctions the king's son
had so often impressed upon him: "Ages ago, during the reign of
Klamataamorosal in the city of Trohanadalmakus, the warriors of
Veltopishago, king of the city of Veltopismakus, marched upon our
fair Trohanadalmakus and in the battle that ensued the troops of our
ancestors were all but annihilated. Thousands of our men and women were
carried away into slavery and all that saved us from being totally
wiped out was the courageous defense that our own slaves waged for
their masters. Klamataamorosal, from whom I am descended, fighting in
the thick of the fray noted the greater stamina of the slaves; they
were stronger than the warriors of either city and seemed not to tire
at all, while the high caste nobility of the fighting clans, though
highly courageous, became completely exhausted after a few minutes of
fighting.
"After the battle was over Klamataamorosal called together all the
chief officers of the city, or rather all who had not been killed or
taken prisoner, and pointed out to them that the reason our city had
been defeated was not so much because of the greater numbers of the
forces of the king Veltopishago as to the fact that our own warriors
were physical weaklings, and he asked them why this should be and what
could be done to remedy so grievous a fault. The youngest man among
them, wounded and weak from loss of blood, was the only one who could
offer a reasonable explanation, or suggest a means of correcting the
one obvious weakness of the city.
"He called their attention to the fact that of all the race of
Minunians the people of the city of Trohanadalmakus were the most
ancient and that for ages there had been no infusion of new blood,
since they were not permitted to mate outside their own caste, while
their slaves, recruited from all the cities of Minuni, had inter-bred,
with the result that they had become strong and robust while their
masters, through inbreeding, had grown correspondingly weaker.
"He exhorted Klamataamorosal to issue a decree elevating to the warrior
class any slave that was chosen as mate by either a man or woman of
that class, and further to obligate each and every warrior to select
at least one mate from among their slaves. At first, of course, the
objections to so iconoclastic a suggestion were loud and bitter; but
Klamataamorosal was quick to sense the wisdom of the idea and not only
did he issue the decree, but he was the first to espouse a slave woman,
and what the king did all were anxious to do also.
"The very next generation showed the wisdom of the change and each
succeeding generation has more than fulfilled the expectations of
Klamataamorosal until now you see in the people of Trohanadalmakus the
most powerful and warlike of the Minunians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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