Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
And while these events were transpiring in the north, Tarzan-jad-guru
lay in the lion pit at Tu-lur while messengers passed back and forth
between Mo-sar and Lu-don as the two dickered for the throne of
Pal-ul-don. Mo-sar was cunning enough to guess that should an open
breach occur between himself and the high priest he might use his
prisoner to his own advantage, for he had heard whisperings among even
his own people that suggested that there were those who were more than
a trifle inclined to belief in the divinity of the stranger and that he
might indeed be the Dor-ul-Otho. Lu-don wanted Tarzan himself. He
wanted to sacrifice him upon the eastern altar with his own hands
before a multitude of people, since he was not without evidence that
his own standing and authority had been lessened by the claims of the
bold and heroic figure of the stranger.
The method that the high priest of Tu-lur had employed to trap Tarzan
had left the ape-man in possession of his weapons though there seemed
little likelihood of their being of any service to him. He also had his
pouch, in which were the various odds and ends which are the natural
accumulation of all receptacles from a gold meshbag to an attic. There
were bits of obsidian and choice feathers for arrows, some pieces of
flint and a couple of steel, an old knife, a heavy bone needle, and
strips of dried gut. Nothing very useful to you or me, perhaps; but
nothing useless to the savage life of the ape-man.
When Tarzan realized the trick that had been so neatly played upon him
he had awaited expectantly the coming of the lion, for though the scent
of JA was old he was sure that sooner or later they would let one of
the beasts in upon him. His first consideration was a thorough
exploration of his prison. He had noticed the hide-covered windows and
these he immediately uncovered, letting in the light, and revealing the
fact that though the chamber was far below the level of the temple
courts it was yet many feet above the base of the hill from which the
temple was hewn. The windows were so closely barred that he could not
see over the edge of the thick wall in which they were cut to determine
what lay close in below him. At a little distance were the blue waters
of Jad-in-lul and beyond, the verdure-clad farther shore, and beyond
that the mountains. It was a beautiful picture upon which he looked--a
picture of peace and harmony and quiet. Nor anywhere a slightest
suggestion of the savage men and beasts that claimed this lovely
landscape as their own. What a paradise! And some day civilized man
would come and--spoil it! Ruthless axes would raze that age-old wood;
black, sticky smoke would rise from ugly chimneys against that azure
sky; grimy little boats with wheels behind or upon either side would
churn the mud from the bottom of Jad-in-lul, turning its blue waters to
a dirty brown; hideous piers would project into the lake from squalid
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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