As the hissing reptile bore down upon the stranger swimming in the open
water near the center of the morass on the frontier of Pal-ul-don it
seemed to the man that this indeed must be the futile termination of an
arduous and danger-filled journey. It seemed, too, equally futile to
pit his puny knife against this frightful creature. Had he been
attacked on land it is possible that he might as a last resort have
used his Enfield, though he had come thus far through all these weary,
danger-ridden miles without recourse to it, though again and again had
his life hung in the balance in the face of the savage denizens of
forest, jungle, and steppe. For whatever it may have been for which he
was preserving his precious ammunition he evidently held it more sacred
even than his life, for as yet he had not used a single round and now
the decision was not required of him, since it would have been
impossible for him to have unslung his Enfield, loaded and fired with
the necessary celerity while swimming.
Though his chance for survival seemed slender, and hope at its lowest
ebb, he was not minded therefore to give up without a struggle. Instead
he drew his blade and awaited the oncoming reptile. The creature was
like no living thing he ever before had seen although possibly it
resembled a crocodile in some respects more than it did anything with
which he was familiar.
As this frightful survivor of some extinct progenitor charged upon him
with distended jaws there came to the man quickly a full consciousness
of the futility of endeavoring to stay the mad rush or pierce the
armor-coated hide with his little knife. The thing was almost upon him
now and whatever form of defense he chose must be made quickly. There
seemed but a single alternative to instant death, and this he took at
almost the instant the great reptile towered directly above him.
With the celerity of a seal he dove headforemost beneath the oncoming
body and at the same instant, turning upon his back, he plunged his
blade into the soft, cold surface of the slimy belly as the momentum of
the hurtling reptile carried it swiftly over him; and then with
powerful strokes he swam on beneath the surface for a dozen yards
before he rose. A glance showed him the stricken monster plunging madly
in pain and rage upon the surface of the water behind him. That it was
writhing in its death agonies was evidenced by the fact that it made no
effort to pursue him, and so, to the accompaniment of the shrill
screaming of the dying monster, the man won at last to the farther edge
of the open water to take up once more the almost superhuman effort of
crossing the last stretch of clinging mud which separated him from the
solid ground of Pal-ul-don.
A good two hours it took him to drag his now weary body through the
clinging, stinking muck, but at last, mud covered and spent, he dragged
himself out upon the soft grasses of the bank. A hundred yards away a
stream, winding its way down from the distant mountains, emptied into
the morass, and, after a short rest, he made his way to this and
seeking a quiet pool, bathed himself and washed the mud and slime from
his weapons, accouterments, and loin cloth. Another hour was spent
beneath the rays of the hot sun in wiping, polishing, and oiling his
Enfield though the means at hand for drying it consisted principally of
dry grasses. It was afternoon before he had satisfied himself that his
precious weapon was safe from any harm by dirt, or dampness, and then
he arose and took up the search for the spoor he had followed to the
opposite side of the swamp.
Would he find again the trail that had led into the opposite side of
the morass, to be lost there, even to his trained senses? If he found
it not again upon this side of the almost impassable barrier he might
assume that his long journey had ended in failure. And so he sought up
and down the verge of the stagnant water for traces of an old spoor
that would have been invisible to your eyes or mine, even had we
followed directly in the tracks of its maker.
As Tarzan advanced upon the gryfs he imitated as closely as he could
recall them the methods and mannerisms of the Tor-o-don, but up to the
instant that he stood close beside one of the huge creatures he
realized that his fate still hung in the balance, for the thing gave
forth no sign, either menacing or otherwise. It only stood there,
watching him out of its cold, reptilian eyes and then Tarzan raised his
staff and with a menacing "Whee-oo!" struck the GRYF a vicious blow
across the face.
The creature made a sudden side snap in his direction, a snap that did
not reach him, and then turned sullenly away, precisely as it had when
the Tor-o-don commanded it. Walking around to its rear as he had seen
the shaggy first-man do, Tarzan ran up the broad tail and seated
himself upon the creature's back, and then again imitating the acts of
the Tor-o-don he prodded it with the sharpened point of his staff, and
thus goading it forward and guiding it with blows, first upon one side
and then upon the other, he started it down the gorge in the direction
of the valley.
At first it had been in his mind only to determine if he could
successfully assert any authority over the great monsters, realizing
that in this possibility lay his only hope of immediate escape from his
jailers. But once seated upon the back of his titanic mount the ape-man
experienced the sensation of a new thrill that recalled to him the day
in his boyhood that he had first clambered to the broad head of Tantor,
the elephant, and this, together with the sense of mastery that was
always meat and drink to the lord of the jungle, decided him to put his
newly acquired power to some utilitarian purpose.
Pan-at-lee he judged must either have already reached safety or met
with death. At least, no longer could he be of service to her, while
below Kor-ul-GRYF, in the soft green valley, lay A-lur, the City of
Light, which, since he had gazed upon it from the shoulder of
Pastar-ul-ved, had been his ambition and his goal.
Whether or not its gleaming walls held the secret of his lost mate he
could not even guess but if she lived at all within the precincts of
Pal-ul-don it must be among the Ho-don, since the hairy black men of
this forgotten world took no prisoners. And so to A-lur he would go,
and how more effectively than upon the back of this grim and terrible
creature that the races of Pal-ul-don held in such awe?
A little mountain stream tumbles down from Kor-ul-GRYF to be joined in
the foothills with that which empties the waters of Kor-ul-lul into the
valley, forming a small river which runs southwest, eventually entering
the valley's largest lake at the City of A-lur, through the center of
which the stream passes. An ancient trail, well marked by countless
generations of naked feet of man and beast, leads down toward A-lur
beside the river, and along this Tarzan guided the GRYF. Once clear of
the forest which ran below the mouth of the gorge, Tarzan caught
occasional glimpses of the city gleaming in the distance far below him.
The country through which he passed was resplendent with the riotous
beauties of tropical verdure. Thick, lush grasses grew waist high upon
either side of the trail and the way was broken now and again by
patches of open park-like forest, or perhaps a little patch of dense
jungle where the trees overarched the way and trailing creepers
depended in graceful loops from branch to branch.
At times the ape-man had difficulty in commanding obedience upon the
part of his unruly beast, but always in the end its fear of the
relatively puny goad urged it on to obedience. Late in the afternoon as
they approached the confluence of the stream they were skirting and
another which appeared to come from the direction of Kor-ul-JA the
ape-man, emerging from one of the jungle patches, discovered a
considerable party of Ho-don upon the opposite bank. Simultaneously
they saw him and the mighty creature he bestrode. For a moment they
stood in wide-eyed amazement and then, in answer to the command of
their leader, they turned and bolted for the shelter of the nearby wood.
The ape-man had but a brief glimpse of them but it was sufficient
indication that there were Waz-don with them, doubtless prisoners taken
in one of the raids upon the Waz-don villages of which Ta-den and Om-at
had told him.
At the sound of their voices the GRYF had bellowed terrifically and
started in pursuit even though a river intervened, but by dint of much
prodding and beating, Tarzan had succeeded in heading the animal back
into the path though thereafter for a long time it was sullen and more
intractable than ever.
As the sun dropped nearer the summit of the western hills Tarzan became
aware that his plan to enter A-lur upon the back of a GRYF was likely
doomed to failure, since the stubbornness of the great beast was
increasing momentarily, doubtless due to the fact that its huge belly
was crying out for food. The ape-man wondered if the Tor-o-dons had any
means of picketing their beasts for the night, but as he did not know
and as no plan suggested itself, he determined that he should have to
trust to the chance of finding it again in the morning.
There now arose in his mind a question as to what would be their
relationship when Tarzan had dismounted. Would it again revert to that
of hunter and quarry or would fear of the goad continue to hold its
supremacy over the natural instinct of the hunting flesh-eater? Tarzan
wondered but as he could not remain upon the GRYF forever, and as he
preferred dismounting and putting the matter to a final test while it
was still light, he decided to act at once.
How to stop the creature he did not know, as up to this time his sole
desire had been to urge it forward. By experimenting with his staff,
however, he found that he could bring it to a halt by reaching forward
and striking the thing upon its beaklike snout. Close by grew a number
of leafy trees, in any one of which the ape-man could have found
sanctuary, but it had occurred to him that should he immediately take
to the trees it might suggest to the mind of the GRYF that the creature
that had been commanding him all day feared him, with the result that
Tarzan would once again be held a prisoner by the triceratops.
And so, when the GRYF halted, Tarzan slid to the ground, struck the
creature a careless blow across the flank as though in dismissal and
walked indifferently away. From the throat of the beast came a low
rumbling sound and without even a glance at Tarzan it turned and
entered the river where it stood drinking for a long time.
Convinced that the GRYF no longer constituted a menace to him the
ape-man, spurred on himself by the gnawing of hunger, unslung his bow
and selecting a handful of arrows set forth cautiously in search of
food, evidence of the near presence of which was being borne up to him
by a breeze from down river.
Ten minutes later he had made his kill, again one of the Pal-ul-don
specimens of antelope, all species of which Tarzan had known since
childhood as Bara, the deer, since in the little primer that had been
the basis of his education the picture of a deer had been the nearest
approach to the likeness of the antelope, from the giant eland to the
smaller bushbuck of the hunting grounds of his youth.
Cutting off a haunch he cached it in a nearby tree, and throwing the
balance of the carcass across his shoulder trotted back toward the spot
at which he had left the GRYF. The great beast was just emerging from
the river when Tarzan, seeing it, issued the weird cry of the
Tor-o-don. The creature looked in the direction of the sound voicing at
the same time the low rumble with which it answered the call of its
master. Twice Tarzan repeated his cry before the beast moved slowly
toward him, and when it had come within a few paces he tossed the
carcass of the deer to it, upon which it fell with greedy jaws.
"If anything will keep it within call," mused the ape-man as he
returned to the tree in which he had cached his own portion of his
kill, "it is the knowledge that I will feed it." But as he finished his
repast and settled himself comfortably for the night high among the
swaying branches of his eyrie he had little confidence that he would
ride into A-lur the following day upon his prehistoric steed.
When Tarzan awoke early the following morning he dropped lightly to the
ground and made his way to the stream. Removing his weapons and loin
cloth he entered the cold waters of the little pool, and after his
refreshing bath returned to the tree to breakfast upon another portion
of Bara, the deer, adding to his repast some fruits and berries which
grew in abundance nearby.
His meal over he sought the ground again and raising his voice in the
weird cry that he had learned, he called aloud on the chance of
attracting the GRYF, but though he waited for some time and continued
calling there was no response, and he was finally forced to the
conclusion that he had seen the last of his great mount of the
preceding day.
And so he set his face toward A-lur, pinning his faith upon his
knowledge of the Ho-don tongue, his great strength and his native wit.
Refreshed by food and rest, the journey toward A-lur, made in the cool
of the morning along the bank of the joyous river, he found delightful
in the extreme. Differentiating him from his fellows of the savage
jungle were many characteristics other than those physical and mental.
Not the least of these were in a measure spiritual, and one that had
doubtless been as strong as another in influencing Tarzan's love of the
jungle had been his appreciation of the beauties of nature. The apes
cared more for a grubworm in a rotten log than for all the majestic
grandeur of the forest giants waving above them. The only beauties that
Numa acknowledged were those of his own person as he paraded them
before the admiring eyes of his mate, but in all the manifestations of
the creative power of nature of which Tarzan was cognizant he
appreciated the beauties.
As Tarzan neared the city his interest became centered upon the
architecture of the outlying buildings which were hewn from the
chalklike limestone of what had once been a group of low hills, similar
to the many grass-covered hillocks that dotted the valley in every
direction. Ta-den's explanation of the Ho-don methods of house
construction accounted for the ofttimes remarkable shapes and
proportions of the buildings which, during the ages that must have been
required for their construction, had been hewn from the limestone
hills, the exteriors chiseled to such architectural forms as appealed
to the eyes of the builders while at the same time following roughly
the original outlines of the hills in an evident desire to economize
both labor and space. The excavation of the apartments within had been
similarly governed by necessity.
As he came nearer Tarzan saw that the waste material from these
building operations had been utilized in the construction of outer
walls about each building or group of buildings resulting from a single
hillock, and later he was to learn that it had also been used for the
filling of inequalities between the hills and the forming of paved
streets throughout the city, the result, possibly, more of the adoption
of an easy method of disposing of the quantities of broken limestone
than by any real necessity for pavements.
There were people moving about within the city and upon the narrow
ledges and terraces that broke the lines of the buildings and which
seemed to be a peculiarity of Ho-don architecture, a concession, no
doubt, to some inherent instinct that might be traced back to their
early cliff-dwelling progenitors.
Tarzan was not surprised that at a short distance he aroused no
suspicion or curiosity in the minds of those who saw him, since, until
closer scrutiny was possible, there was little to distinguish him from
a native either in his general conformation or his color. He had, of
course, formulated a plan of action and, having decided, he did not
hesitate in the carrying out his plan.
With the same assurance that you might venture upon the main street of
a neighboring city Tarzan strode into the Ho-don city of A-lur. The
first person to detect his spuriousness was a little child playing in
the arched gateway of one of the walled buildings. "No tail! no tail!"
it shouted, throwing a stone at him, and then it suddenly grew dumb and
its eyes wide as it sensed that this creature was something other than
a mere Ho-don warrior who had lost his tail. With a gasp the child
turned and fled screaming into the courtyard of its home.
Tarzan continued on his way, fully realizing that the moment was
imminent when the fate of his plan would be decided. Nor had he long to
wait since at the next turning of the winding street he came face to
face with a Ho-don warrior. He saw the sudden surprise in the latter's
eyes, followed instantly by one of suspicion, but before the fellow
could speak Tarzan addressed him.
"I am a stranger from another land," he said; "I would speak with
Ko-tan, your king."
The fellow stepped back, laying his hand upon his knife. "There are no
strangers that come to the gates of A-lur," he said, "other than as
enemies or slaves."
"I come neither as a slave nor an enemy," replied Tarzan. "I come
directly from Jad-ben-Otho. Look!" and he held out his hands that the
Ho-don might see how greatly they differed from his own, and then
wheeled about that the other might see that he was tailless, for it was
upon this fact that his plan had been based, due to his recollection of
the quarrel between Ta-den and Om-at, in which the Waz-don had claimed
that Jad-ben-Otho had a long tail while the Ho-don had been equally
willing to fight for his faith in the taillessness of his god.
The warrior's eyes widened and an expression of awe crept into them,
though it was still tinged with suspicion. "Jad-ben-Otho!" he murmured,
and then, "It is true that you are neither Ho-don nor Waz-don, and it
is also true that Jad-ben-Otho has no tail. Come," he said, "I will
take you to Ko-tan, for this is a matter in which no common warrior may
interfere. Follow me," and still clutching the handle of his knife and
keeping a wary side glance upon the ape-man he led the way through
A-lur.
The city covered a large area. Sometimes there was a considerable
distance between groups of buildings, and again they were quite close
together. There were numerous imposing groups, evidently hewn from the
larger hills, often rising to a height of a hundred feet or more. As
they advanced they met numerous warriors and women, all of whom showed
great curiosity in the stranger, but there was no attempt to menace him
when it was found that he was being conducted to the palace of the king.
They came at last to a great pile that sprawled over a considerable
area, its western front facing upon a large blue lake and evidently
hewn from what had once been a natural cliff. This group of buildings
was surrounded by a wall of considerably greater height than any that
Tarzan had before seen. His guide led him to a gateway before which
waited a dozen or more warriors who had risen to their feet and formed
a barrier across the entrance-way as Tarzan and his party appeared
around the corner of the palace wall, for by this time he had
accumulated such a following of the curious as presented to the guards
the appearance of a formidable mob.
The guide's story told, Tarzan was conducted into the courtyard where
he was held while one of the warriors entered the palace, evidently
with the intention of notifying Ko-tan. Fifteen minutes later a large
warrior appeared, followed by several others, all of whom examined
Tarzan with every sign of curiosity as they approached.
The leader of the party halted before the ape-man. "Who are you?" he
asked, "and what do you want of Ko-tan, the king?"
"I am a friend," replied the ape-man, "and I have come from the country
of Jad-ben-Otho to visit Ko-tan of Pal-ul-don."
The warrior and his followers seemed impressed. Tarzan could see the
latter whispering among themselves.
"How come you here," asked the spokesman, "and what do you want of
Ko-tan?"
Tarzan drew himself to his full height. "Enough!" he cried. "Must the
messenger of Jad-ben-Otho be subjected to the treatment that might be
accorded to a wandering Waz-don? Take me to the king at once lest the
wrath of Jad-ben-Otho fall upon you."
There was some question in the mind of the ape-man as to how far he
might carry his unwarranted show of assurance, and he waited therefore
with amused interest the result of his demand. He did not, however,
have long to wait for almost immediately the attitude of his questioner
changed. He whitened, cast an apprehensive glance toward the eastern
sky and then extended his right palm toward Tarzan, placing his left
over his own heart in the sign of amity that was common among the
peoples of Pal-ul-don.
Tarzan stepped quickly back as though from a profaning hand, a feigned
expression of horror and disgust upon his face.
"Stop!" he cried, "who would dare touch the sacred person of the
messenger of Jad-ben-Otho? Only as a special mark of favor from
Jad-ben-Otho may even Ko-tan himself receive this honor from me.
Hasten! Already now have I waited too long! What manner of reception
the Ho-don of A-lur would extend to the son of my father!"
At first Tarzan had been inclined to adopt the role of Jad-ben-Otho
himself but it occurred to him that it might prove embarrassing and
considerable of a bore to be compelled constantly to portray the
character of a god, but with the growing success of his scheme it had
suddenly occurred to him that the authority of the son of Jad-ben-Otho
would be far greater than that of an ordinary messenger of a god, while
at the same time giving him some leeway in the matter of his acts and
demeanor, the ape-man reasoning that a young god would not be held so
strictly accountable in the matter of his dignity and bearing as an
older and greater god.
This time the effect of his words was immediately and painfully
noticeable upon all those near him. With one accord they shrank back,
the spokesman almost collapsing in evident terror. His apologies, when
finally the paralysis of his fear would permit him to voice them, were
so abject that the ape-man could scarce repress a smile of amused
contempt.
"Have mercy, O Dor-ul-Otho," he pleaded, "on poor old Dak-lot. Precede
me and I will show you to where Ko-tan, the king, awaits you,
trembling. Aside, snakes and vermin," he cried pushing his warriors to
right and left for the purpose of forming an avenue for Tarzan.
"Come!" cried the ape-man peremptorily, "lead the way, and let these
others follow."
The now thoroughly frightened Dak-lot did as he was bid, and Tarzan of
the Apes was ushered into the palace of Kotan, King of Pal-ul-don.
9