5
The Altar of the Flaming God
It was at the moment that Tarzan turned from the closed door to pursuehis way to the outer world. The thing came without warning. Oneinstant all was quiet and stability--the next, and the world rocked,the tortured sides of the narrow passageway split and crumbled, greatblocks of granite, dislodged from the ceiling, tumbled into the narrowway, choking it, and the walls bent inward upon the wreckage. Beneaththe blow of a fragment of the roof, Tarzan staggered back against thedoor to the treasure room, his weight pushed it open and his bodyrolled inward upon the floor.
In the great apartment where the treasure lay less damage was wroughtby the earthquake. A few ingots toppled from the higher tiers, asingle piece of the rocky ceiling splintered off and crashed downwardto the floor, and the walls cracked, though they did not collapse.
There was but the single shock, no other followed to complete thedamage undertaken by the first. Werper, thrown to his length by thesuddenness and violence of the disturbance, staggered to his feet whenhe found himself unhurt. Groping his way toward the far end of thechamber, he sought the candle which Tarzan had left stuck in its ownwax upon the protruding end of an ingot.
By striking numerous matches the Belgian at last found what he sought,and when, a moment later, the sickly rays relieved the Stygian darknessabout him, he breathed a nervous sigh of relief, for the impenetrablegloom had accentuated the terrors of his situation.
As they became accustomed to the light the man turned his eyes towardthe door--his one thought now was of escape from this frightfultomb--and as he did so he saw the body of the naked giant lyingstretched upon the floor just within the doorway. Werper drew back insudden fear of detection; but a second glance convinced him that theEnglishman was dead. From a great gash in the man's head a pool ofblood had collected upon the concrete floor.
Quickly, the Belgian leaped over the prostrate form of his erstwhilehost, and without a thought of succor for the man in whom, for aught heknew, life still remained, he bolted for the passageway and safety.
But his renewed hopes were soon dashed. Just beyond the doorway hefound the passage completely clogged and choked by impenetrable massesof shattered rock. Once more he turned and re-entered the treasurevault. Taking the candle from its place he commenced a systematicsearch of the apartment, nor had he gone far before he discoveredanother door in the opposite end of the room, a door which gave uponcreaking hinges to the weight of his body. Beyond the door lay anothernarrow passageway. Along this Werper made his way, ascending a flightof stone steps to another corridor twenty feet above the level of thefirst. The flickering candle lighted the way before him, and a momentlater he was thankful for the possession of this crude and antiquatedluminant, which, a few hours before he might have looked upon withcontempt, for it showed him, just in time, a yawning pit, apparentlyterminating the tunnel he was traversing.
Before him was a circular shaft. He held the candle above it andpeered downward. Below him, at a great distance, he saw the lightreflected back from the surface of a pool of water. He had come upon awell. He raised the candle above his head and peered across the blackvoid, and there upon the opposite side he saw the continuation of thetunnel; but how was he to span the gulf?
As he stood there measuring the distance to the opposite side andwondering if he dared venture so great a leap, there broke suddenlyupon his startled ears a piercing scream which diminished graduallyuntil it ended in a series of dismal moans. The voice seemed partlyhuman, yet so hideous that it might well have emanated from thetortured throat of a lost soul, writhing in the fires of hell.
The Belgian shuddered and looked fearfully upward, for the scream hadseemed to come from above him. As he looked he saw an opening faroverhead, and a patch of sky pinked with brilliant stars.
His half-formed intention to call for help was expunged by theterrifying cry--where such a voice lived, no human creatures coulddwell. He dared not reveal himself to whatever inhabitants dwelt inthe place above him. He cursed himself for a fool that he had everembarked upon such a mission. He wished himself safely back in thecamp of Achmet Zek, and would almost have embraced an opportunity togive himself up to the military authorities of the Congo if by so doinghe might be rescued from the frightful predicament in which he now was.
He listened fearfully, but the cry was not repeated, and at lastspurred to desperate means, he gathered himself for the leap across thechasm. Going back twenty paces, he took a running start, and at theedge of the well, leaped upward and outward in an attempt to gain theopposite side.
In his hand he clutched the sputtering candle, and as he took the leapthe rush of air extinguished it. In utter darkness he flew throughspace, clutching outward for a hold should his feet miss the invisibleledge.
He struck the edge of the door of the opposite terminus of the rockytunnel with his knees, slipped backward, clutched desperately for amoment, and at last hung half within and half without the opening; buthe was safe. For several minutes he dared not move; but clung, weakand sweating, where he lay. At last, cautiously, he drew himself wellwithin the tunnel, and again he lay at full length upon the floor,fighting to regain control of his shattered nerves.
When his knees struck the edge of the tunnel he had dropped the candle.Presently, hoping against hope that it had fallen upon the floor of thepassageway, rather than back into the depths of the well, he rose uponall fours and commenced a diligent search for the little tallowcylinder, which now seemed infinitely more precious to him than all thefabulous wealth of the hoarded ingots of Opar.
And when, at last, he found it, he clasped it to him and sank backsobbing and exhausted. For many minutes he lay trembling and broken;but finally he drew himself to a sitting posture, and taking a matchfrom his pocket, lighted the stump of the candle which remained to him.With the light he found it easier to regain control of his nerves, andpresently he was again making his way along the tunnel in search of anavenue of escape. The horrid cry that had come down to him from abovethrough the ancient well-shaft still haunted him, so that he trembledin terror at even the sounds of his own cautious advance.
He had gone forward but a short distance, when, to his chagrin, a wallof masonry barred his farther progress, closing the tunnel completelyfrom top to bottom and from side to side. What could it mean? Werperwas an educated and intelligent man. His military training had taughthim to use his mind for the purpose for which it was intended. A blindtunnel such as this was senseless. It must continue beyond the wall.Someone, at some time in the past, had had it blocked for an unknownpurpose of his own. The man fell to examining the masonry by the lightof his candle. To his delight he discovered that the thin blocks ofhewn stone of which it was constructed were fitted in loosely withoutmortar or cement. He tugged upon one of them, and to his joy foundthat it was easily removable. One after another he pulled out theblocks until he had opened an aperture large enough to admit his body,then he crawled through into a large, low chamber. Across this anotherdoor barred his way; but this, too, gave before his efforts, for it wasnot barred. A long, dark corridor showed before him, but before he hadfollowed it far, his candle burned down until it scorched his fingers.With an oath he dropped it to the floor, where it sputtered for amoment and went out.
Now he was in total darkness, and again terror rode heavily astride hisneck. What further pitfalls and dangers lay ahead he could not guess;but that he was as far as ever from liberty he was quite willing tobelieve, so depressing is utter absence of light to one in unfamiliarsurroundings.
Slowly he groped his way along, feeling with his hands upon thetunnel's walls, and cautiously with his feet ahead of him upon thefloor before he could take a single forward step. How long he crept onthus he could not guess; but at last, feeling that the tunnel's lengthwas interminable, and exhausted by his efforts, by terror, and loss ofsleep, he determined to lie down and rest before proceeding farther.
When he awoke there was no change in the
surrounding blackness. Hemight have slept a second or a day--he could not know; but that he hadslept for some time was attested by the fact that he felt refreshed andhungry.
Again he commenced his groping advance; but this time he had gone but ashort distance when he emerged into a room, which was lighted throughan opening in the ceiling, from which a flight of concrete steps leddownward to the floor of the chamber.
Above him, through the aperture, Werper could see sunlight glancingfrom massive columns, which were twined about by clinging vines. Helistened; but he heard no sound other than the soughing of the windthrough leafy branches, the hoarse cries of birds, and the chatteringof monkeys.
Boldly he ascended the stairway, to find himself in a circular court.Just before him stood a stone altar, stained with rusty-browndiscolorations. At the time Werper gave no thought to an explanationof these stains--later their origin became all too hideously apparentto him.
Beside the opening in the floor, just behind the altar, through whichhe had entered the court from the subterranean chamber below, theBelgian discovered several doors leading from the enclosure upon thelevel of the floor. Above, and circling the courtyard, was a series ofopen balconies. Monkeys scampered about the deserted ruins, and gailyplumaged birds flitted in and out among the columns and the galleriesfar above; but no sign of human presence was discernible. Werper feltrelieved. He sighed, as though a great weight had been lifted from hisshoulders. He took a step toward one of the exits, and then he halted,wide-eyed in astonishment and terror, for almost at the same instant adozen doors opened in the courtyard wall and a horde of frightful menrushed in upon him.
They were the priests of the Flaming God of Opar--the same, shaggy,knotted, hideous little men who had dragged Jane Clayton to thesacrificial altar at this very spot years before. Their long arms,their short and crooked legs, their close-set, evil eyes, and theirlow, receding foreheads gave them a bestial appearance that sent aqualm of paralyzing fright through the shaken nerves of the Belgian.
With a scream he turned to flee back into the lesser terrors of thegloomy corridors and apartments from which he had just emerged, but thefrightful men anticipated his intentions. They blocked the way; theyseized him, and though he fell, groveling upon his knees before them,begging for his life, they bound him and hurled him to the floor of theinner temple.
The rest was but a repetition of what Tarzan and Jane Clayton hadpassed through. The priestesses came, and with them La, the HighPriestess. Werper was raised and laid across the altar. Cold sweatexuded from his every pore as La raised the cruel, sacrificial knifeabove him. The death chant fell upon his tortured ears. His staringeyes wandered to the golden goblets from which the hideous votarieswould soon quench their inhuman thirst in his own, warm life-blood.
He wished that he might be granted the brief respite of unconsciousnessbefore the final plunge of the keen blade--and then there was afrightful roar that sounded almost in his ears. The High Priestesslowered her dagger. Her eyes went wide in horror. The priestesses,her votaresses, screamed and fled madly toward the exits. The priestsroared out their rage and terror according to the temper of theircourage. Werper strained his neck about to catch a sight of the causeof their panic, and when, at last he saw it, he too went cold in dread,for what his eyes beheld was the figure of a huge lion standing in thecenter of the temple, and already a single victim lay mangled beneathhis cruel paws.
Again the lord of the wilderness roared, turning his baleful gaze uponthe altar. La staggered forward, reeled, and fell across Werper in aswoon.