Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
“Good!” growled the High Priest and led the way from the garden through
the corridors of the temple back toward the outer wall of Opar. From
here they watched the approaching party that was in plain view of them,
far out across the valley. The watchers conversed in low gutturals in
the language of the great apes, interspersed with which were occasional
words and phrases of a strange tongue that were doubtless corrupted
forms of the ancient language of Atlantis handed down through countless
generations from their human progenitors—that now extinct race whose
cities and civilization lie buried deep beneath the tossing waves of the
Atlantic, and whose adventurous spirit had, in remote ages, caused them
to penetrate into the heart of Africa in search of gold and to build
there, in duplication of their far home cities, the magnificent city of
Opar.
As Cadj and his followers watched from beneath shaggy brows the
strangers plodding laboriously beneath the now declining equatorial sun
across the rocky, barren valley, a gray little monkey eyed them from
amidst the foliage of one of the giant trees that had forced its way
through the pavement of the ancient avenue behind them. A solemn,
sad-faced little monkey it was, but like all his kind overcome by
curiosity, and finally to such an extent that his fear of the fierce
males of Opar was so considerably overcome that he at last swung lightly
from the tree to the pavement, made his way through the inner wall and
up the inside of the outer wall to a position in their rear where he
could hide behind one of the massive granite blocks of the crumbling
wall in comparative safety from detection, the while he might overhear
the conversation of the Oparians, all of which that was carried on in
the language of the great apes he could understand perfectly.
The afternoon was drawing to a close before the slowly moving company
approaching Opar was close enough for individuals to be recognizable in
any way, and then presently one of the younger priests exclaimed
excitedly:
“It is he, Cadj. It is the great Tarmangani who calls himself Tarzan of
the Apes. I can see him plainly; the others are all black men. He is
urging them on, prodding them with his spear. They act as though they
were afraid and very tired, but he is forcing them forward.”
“You are sure,” demanded Cadj, “you are sure that it is Tarzan of the
Apes?”
“I am positive,” replied the speaker, and then another of the priests
joined his assurances to that of his fellow. At last they were close
enough so that Cadj himself, whose eyesight was not as good as that of
the younger members of the company, realized that it was indeed Tarzan
of the Apes who was returning to Opar. The High Priest scowled angrily
in thought. Suddenly he turned upon the others.
“He must not come,” he cried; “he must not enter Opar. Hasten and fetch
a hundred fighting men. We will meet them as they come through the outer
wall and slay them one by one.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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