Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
And so a black Waz-don came to the temple gate and asked to see Lu-don,
the high priest, on a matter of great importance, and though the hour
was late Lu-don saw him, and when he had heard his story he promised
him and his friend not only their freedom but many gifts if they could
prove the correctness of their claims.
And as the slave talked with the high priest in the temple at A-lur the
figure of a man groped its way around the shoulder of Pastar-ul-ved and
the moonlight glistened from the shiny barrel of an Enfield that was
strapped to the naked back, and brass cartridges shed tiny rays of
reflected light from their polished cases where they hung in the
bandoliers across the broad brown shoulders and the lean waist.
Tarzan's guide conducted him to a chamber overlooking the blue lake
where he found a bed similar to that which he had seen in the villages
of the Waz-don, merely a raised dais of stone upon which was piled
great quantities of furry pelts. And so he lay down to sleep, the
question that he most wished to put still unasked and unanswered.
With the coming of a new day he was awake and wandering about the
palace and the palace grounds before there was sign of any of the
inmates of the palace other than slaves, or at least he saw no others
at first, though presently he stumbled upon an enclosure which lay
almost within the center of the palace grounds surrounded by a wall
that piqued the ape-man's curiosity, since he had determined to
investigate as fully as possible every part of the palace and its
environs.
This place, whatever it might be, was apparently without doors or
windows but that it was at least partially roofless was evidenced by
the sight of the waving branches of a tree which spread above the top
of the wall near him. Finding no other method of access, the ape-man
uncoiled his rope and throwing it over the branch of the tree where it
projected beyond the wall, was soon climbing with the ease of a monkey
to the summit.
There he found that the wall surrounded an enclosed garden in which
grew trees and shrubs and flowers in riotous profusion. Without
waiting to ascertain whether the garden was empty or contained Ho-don,
Waz-don, or wild beasts, Tarzan dropped lightly to the sward on the
inside and without further loss of time commenced a systematic
investigation of the enclosure.
His curiosity was aroused by the very evident fact that the place was
not for general use, even by those who had free access to other parts
of the palace grounds and so there was added to its natural beauties an
absence of mortals which rendered its exploration all the more alluring
to Tarzan since it suggested that in such a place might he hope to come
upon the object of his long and difficult search.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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