Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
In the garden were tiny artificial streams and little pools of water,
flanked by flowering bushes, as though it all had been designed by the
cunning hand of some master gardener, so faithfully did it carry out
the beauties and contours of nature upon a miniature scale.
The interior surface of the wall was fashioned to represent the white
cliffs of Pal-ul-don, broken occasionally by small replicas of the
verdure-filled gorges of the original.
Filled with admiration and thoroughly enjoying each new surprise which
the scene offered, Tarzan moved slowly around the garden, and as always
he moved silently. Passing through a miniature forest he came presently
upon a tiny area of flowerstudded sward and at the same time beheld
before him the first Ho-don female he had seen since entering the
palace. A young and beautiful woman stood in the center of the little
open space, stroking the head of a bird which she held against her
golden breastplate with one hand. Her profile was presented to the
ape-man and he saw that by the standards of any land she would have
been accounted more than lovely.
Seated in the grass at her feet, with her back toward him, was a female
Waz-don slave. Seeing that she he sought was not there and apprehensive
that an alarm be raised were he discovered by the two women, Tarzan
moved back to hide himself in the foliage, but before he had succeeded
the Ho-don girl turned quickly toward him as though apprised of his
presence by that unnamed sense, the manifestations of which are more or
less familiar to us all.
At sight of him her eyes registered only her surprise though there was
no expression of terror reflected in them, nor did she scream or even
raise her well-modulated voice as she addressed him.
"Who are you," she asked, "who enters thus boldly the Forbidden Garden?"
At sound of her mistress' voice the slave maiden turned quickly, rising
to her feet. "Tarzan-jad-guru!" she exclaimed in tones of mingled
astonishment and relief.
"You know him?" cried her mistress turning toward the slave and
affording Tarzan an opportunity to raise a cautioning finger to his
lips lest Pan-at-lee further betray him, for it was Pan-at-lee indeed
who stood before him, no less a source of surprise to him than had his
presence been to her.
Thus questioned by her mistress and simultaneously admonished to
silence by Tarzan, Pan-at-lee was momentarily silenced and then
haltingly she groped for a way to extricate herself from her dilemma.
"I thought--" she faltered, "but no, I am mistaken--I thought that he
was one whom I had seen before near the Kor-ul-GRYF."
The Ho-don looked first at one and then at the other an expression of
doubt and questioning in her eyes. "But you have not answered me," she
continued presently; "who are you?"
"You have not heard then," asked Tarzan, "of the visitor who arrived at
your king's court yesterday?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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