Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
There is a Pal-ul-donian proverb setting forth a truth similar to that
contained in the old Scotch adage that "The best laid schemes o' mice
and men gang aft a-gley." Freely translated it might read, "He who
follows the right trail sometimes reaches the wrong destination," and
such apparently was the fate that lay in the footsteps of the great
chieftain of the north and his godlike ally.
Tarzan, more familiar with the windings of the corridors than his
fellows and having the advantage of the full light of the torch, which
at best was but a dim and flickering affair, was some distance ahead of
the others, and in his keen anxiety to close with the enemy he gave too
little thought to those who were to support him. Nor is this strange,
since from childhood the ape-man had been accustomed to fight the
battles of life single-handed so that it had become habitual for him to
depend solely upon his own cunning and prowess.
And so it was that he came into the upper corridor from which opened
the chambers of Lu-don and the lesser priests far in advance of his
warriors, and as he turned into this corridor with its dim cressets
flickering somberly, he saw another enter it from a corridor before
him--a warrior half carrying, half dragging the figure of a woman.
Instantly Tarzan recognized the gagged and fettered captive whom he had
thought safe in the palace of Ja-don at Ja-lur.
The warrior with the woman had seen Tarzan at the same instant that the
latter had discovered him. He heard the low beastlike growl that broke
from the ape-man's lips as he sprang forward to wrest his mate from her
captor and wreak upon him the vengeance that was in the Tarmangani's
savage heart. Across the corridor from Pan-sat was the entrance to a
smaller chamber. Into this he leaped carrying the woman with him.
Close behind came Tarzan of the Apes. He had cast aside his torch and
drawn the long knife that had been his father's. With the impetuosity
of a charging bull he rushed into the chamber in pursuit of Pan-sat to
find himself, when the hangings dropped behind him, in utter darkness.
Almost immediately there was a crash of stone on stone before him
followed a moment later by a similar crash behind. No other evidence
was necessary to announce to the ape-man that he was again a prisoner
in Lu-don's temple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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