Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
The very boldness of Tarzan's entry into this hostile city had had the
effect of giving him a great moral advantage over Mo-sar and the savage
warriors who stood upon either side of the chief. Truly it seemed to
them that no other than the son of Jad-ben-Otho would dare so heroic an
act. Would any mortal warrior act thus boldly, and alone enter the
presence of a powerful chief and, in the midst of a score of warriors,
arrogantly demand an accounting? No, it was beyond reason. Mo-sar was
faltering in his decision to betray the stranger by seeming
friendliness. He even paled to a sudden thought--Jad-ben-Otho knew
everything, even our inmost thoughts. Was it not therefore possible
that this creature, if after all it should prove true that he was the
Dor-ul-Otho, might even now be reading the wicked design that the
priests had implanted in the brain of Mo-sar and which he had
entertained so favorably? The chief squirmed and fidgeted upon the
bench of hewn rock that was his throne.
"Quick," snapped the ape-man, "Where is she?"
"She is not here," cried Mo-sar.
"You lie," replied Tarzan.
"As Jad-ben-Otho is my witness, she is not in Tu-lur," insisted the
chief. "You may search the palace and the temple and the entire city
but you will not find her, for she is not here."
"Where is she, then?" demanded the ape-man. "You took her from the
palace at A-lur. If she is not here, where is she? Tell me not that
harm has befallen her," and he took a sudden threatening step toward
Mo-sar, that sent the chief shrinking back in terror.
"Wait," he cried, "if you are indeed the Dor-ul-Otho you will know that
I speak the truth. I took her from the palace of Ko-tan to save her for
Lu-don, the high priest, lest with Ko-tan dead Ja-don seize her. But
during the night she escaped from me between here and A-lur, and I have
but just sent three canoes full-manned in search of her."
Something in the chief's tone and manner assured the ape-man that he
spoke in part the truth, and that once again he had braved incalculable
dangers and suffered loss of time futilely.
"What wanted the priests of Lu-don that preceded me here?" demanded
Tarzan chancing a shrewd guess that the two he had seen paddling so
frantically to avoid a meeting with him had indeed come from the high
priest at A-lur.
"They came upon an errand similar to yours," replied Mo-sar; "to demand
the return of the woman whom Lu-don thought I had stolen from him, thus
wronging me as deeply, O Dor-ul-Otho, as have you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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