16
The Secret Way
It was a baffled GRYF that bellowed in angry rage as Tarzan's sleekbrown body cutting the moonlit waters shot through the aperture in thewall of the GRYF pool and out into the lake beyond. The ape-man smiledas he thought of the comparative ease with which he had defeated thepurpose of the high priest but his face clouded again at the ensuingremembrance of the grave danger that threatened his mate. His soleobject now must be to return as quickly as he might to the chamberwhere he had last seen her on the third floor of the Temple of theGryf, but how he was to find his way again into the temple grounds wasa question not easy of solution.
In the moonlight he could see the sheer cliff rising from the water fora great distance along the shore--far beyond the precincts of thetemple and the palace--towering high above him, a seemingly impregnablebarrier against his return. Swimming close in, he skirted the wallsearching diligently for some foothold, however slight, upon itssmooth, forbidding surface. Above him and quite out of reach werenumerous apertures, but there were no means at hand by which he couldreach them. Presently, however, his hopes were raised by the sight ofan opening level with the surface of the water. It lay just ahead and afew strokes brought him to it--cautious strokes that brought forth nosound from the yielding waters. At the nearer side of the opening hestopped and reconnoitered. There was no one in sight. Carefully heraised his body to the threshold of the entrance-way, his smooth brownhide glistening in the moonlight as it shed the water in tiny sparklingrivulets.
Before him stretched a gloomy corridor, unlighted save for the faintillumination of the diffused moonlight that penetrated it for but ashort distance from the opening. Moving as rapidly as reasonablecaution warranted, Tarzan followed the corridor into the bowels of thecave. There was an abrupt turn and then a flight of steps at the top ofwhich lay another corridor running parallel with the face of the cliff.This passage was dimly lighted by flickering cressets set in niches inthe walls at considerable distances apart. A quick survey showed theape-man numerous openings upon each side of the corridor and his quickears caught sounds that indicated that there were other beings not fardistant--priests, he concluded, in some of the apartments letting uponthe passageway.
To pass undetected through this hive of enemies appeared quite beyondthe range of possibility. He must again seek disguise and knowing fromexperience how best to secure such he crept stealthily along thecorridor toward the nearest doorway. Like Numa, the lion, stalking awary prey he crept with quivering nostrils to the hangings that shutoff his view from the interior of the apartment beyond. A moment laterhis head disappeared within; then his shoulders, and his lithe body,and the hangings dropped quietly into place again. A moment later therefiltered to the vacant corridor without a brief, gasping gurgle andagain silence. A minute passed; a second, and a third, and then thehangings were thrust aside and a grimly masked priest of the temple ofJad-ben-Otho strode into the passageway.
With bold steps he moved along and was about to turn into a diverginggallery when his attention was aroused by voices coming from a roomupon his left. Instantly the figure halted and crossing the corridorstood with an ear close to the skins that concealed the occupants ofthe room from him, and him from them. Presently he leaped back intothe concealing shadows of the diverging gallery and immediatelythereafter the hangings by which he had been listening parted and apriest emerged to turn quickly down the main corridor. The eavesdropperwaited until the other had gained a little distance and then steppingfrom his place of concealment followed silently behind.
The way led along the corridor which ran parallel with the face of thecliff for some little distance and then Pan-sat, taking a cresset fromone of the wall niches, turned abruptly into a small apartment at hisleft. The tracker followed cautiously in time to see the rays of theflickering light dimly visible from an aperture in the floor beforehim. Here he found a series of steps, similar to those used by theWaz-don in scaling the cliff to their caves, leading to a lower level.
First satisfying himself that his guide was continuing upon his wayunsuspecting, the other descended after him and continued his stealthystalking. The passageway was now both narrow and low, giving but bareheadroom to a tall man, and it was broken often by flights of stepsleading always downward. The steps in each unit seldom numbered morethan six and sometimes there was only one or two but in the aggregatethe tracker imagined that they had descended between fifty andseventy-five feet from the level of the upper corridor when thepassageway terminated in a small apartment at one side of which was alittle pile of rubble.
Setting his cresset upon the ground, Pan-sat commenced hurriedly totoss the bits of broken stone aside, presently revealing a smallaperture at the base of the wall upon the opposite side of which thereappeared to be a further accumulation of rubble. This he also removeduntil he had a hole of sufficient size to permit the passage of hisbody, and leaving the cresset still burning upon the floor the priestcrawled through the opening he had made and disappeared from the sightof the watcher hiding in the shadows of the narrow passageway behindhim.
No sooner, however, was he safely gone than the other followed, findinghimself, after passing through the hole, on a little ledge abouthalfway between the surface of the lake and the top of the cliff above.The ledge inclined steeply upward, ending at the rear of a buildingwhich stood upon the edge of the cliff and which the second priestentered just in time to see Pan-sat pass out into the city beyond.
As the latter turned a nearby corner the other emerged from the doorwayand quickly surveyed his surroundings. He was satisfied the priest whohad led him hither had served his purpose in so far as the tracker wasconcerned. Above him, and perhaps a hundred yards away, the white wallsof the palace gleamed against the northern sky. The time that it hadtaken him to acquire definite knowledge concerning the secretpassageway between the temple and the city he did not count as lost,though he begrudged every instant that kept him from the prosecution ofhis main objective. It had seemed to him, however, necessary to thesuccess of a bold plan that he had formulated upon overhearing theconversation between Lu-don and Pan-sat as he stood without thehangings of the apartment of the high priest.
Alone against a nation of suspicious and half-savage enemies he couldscarce hope for a successful outcome to the one great issue upon whichhung the life and happiness of the creature he loved best. For her sakehe must win allies and it was for this purpose that he had sacrificedthese precious moments, but now he lost no further time in seeking toregain entrance to the palace grounds that he might search out whatevernew prison they had found in which to incarcerate his lost love.
He found no difficulty in passing the guards at the entrance to thepalace for, as he had guessed, his priestly disguise disarmed allsuspicion. As he approached the warriors he kept his hands behind himand trusted to fate that the sickly light of the single torch whichstood beside the doorway would not reveal his un-Pal-ul-donian feet. Asa matter of fact so accustomed were they to the comings and goings ofthe priesthood that they paid scant attention to him and he passed oninto the palace grounds without even a moment's delay.
His goal now was the Forbidden Garden and this he had little difficultyin reaching though he elected to enter it over the wall rather than tochance arousing any suspicion on the part of the guards at the innerentrance, since he could imagine no reason why a priest should seekentrance there thus late at night.
He found the garden deserted, nor any sign of her he sought. That shehad been brought hither he had learned from the conversation he hadoverheard between Lu-don and Pan-sat, and he was sure that there hadbeen no time or opportunity for the high priest to remove her from thepalace grounds. The garden he knew to be devoted exclusively to theuses of the princess and her women and it was only reasonable to assumetherefore that if Jane had been brought to the garden it could onlyhave been upon an order from Ko-tan. This being the case the naturalassumption would follow that he would find her in some other portion ofO-lo-a's quarters.
Just where these lay he could only conjecture, but it seemed reasonableto believe that they must be adjacent to the garden, so once more hescaled the wall and passing around its end directed his steps toward anentrance-way which he judged must lead to that portion of the palacenearest the Forbidden Garden.
To his surprise he found the place unguarded and then there fell uponhis ear from an interior apartment the sound of voices raised in angerand excitement. Guided by the sound he quickly traversed severalcorridors and chambers until he stood before the hangings whichseparated him from the chamber from which issued the sounds ofaltercation. Raising the skins slightly he looked within. There weretwo women battling with a Ho-don warrior. One was the daughter ofKo-tan and the other Pan-at-lee, the Kor-ul-JA.
At the moment that Tarzan lifted the hangings, the warrior threw O-lo-aviciously to the ground and seizing Pan-at-lee by the hair drew hisknife and raised it above her head. Casting the encumbering headdressof the dead priest from his shoulders the ape-man leaped across theintervening space and seizing the brute from behind struck him a singleterrible blow.
As the man fell forward dead, the two women recognized Tarzansimultaneously. Pan-at-lee fell upon her knees and would have bowed herhead upon his feet had he not, with an impatient gesture, commanded herto rise. He had no time to listen to their protestations of gratitudeor answer the numerous questions which he knew would soon be flowingfrom those two feminine tongues.
"Tell me," he cried, "where is the woman of my own race whom Ja-donbrought here from the temple?"
"She is but this moment gone," cried O-lo-a. "Mo-sar, the father ofthis thing here," and she indicated the body of Bu-lot with a scornfulfinger, "seized her and carried her away."
"Which way?" he cried. "Tell me quickly, in what direction he took her."
"That way," cried Pan-at-lee, pointing to the doorway through whichMo-sar had passed. "They would have taken the princess and the strangerwoman to Tu-lur, Mo-sar's city by the Dark Lake."
"I go to find her," he said to Pan-at-lee, "she is my mate. And if Isurvive I shall find means to liberate you too and return you to Om-at."
Before the girl could reply he had disappeared behind the hangings ofthe door near the foot of the dais. The corridor through which he ranwas illy lighted and like nearly all its kind in the Ho-don city woundin and out and up and down, but at last it terminated at a sudden turnwhich brought him into a courtyard filled with warriors, a portion ofthe palace guard that had just been summoned by one of the lesserpalace chiefs to join the warriors of Ko-tan in the battle that wasraging in the banquet hall.
At sight of Tarzan, who in his haste had forgotten to recover hisdisguising headdress, a great shout arose. "Blasphemer!" "Defiler ofthe temple!" burst hoarsely from savage throats, and mingling withthese were a few who cried, "Dor-ul-Otho!" evidencing the fact thatthere were among them still some who clung to their belief in hisdivinity.
To cross the courtyard armed only with a knife, in the face of thisgreat throng of savage fighting men seemed even to the giant ape-man athing impossible of achievement. He must use his wits now and quicklytoo, for they were closing upon him. He might have turned and fled backthrough the corridor but flight now even in the face of dire necessitywould but delay him in his pursuit of Mo-sar and his mate.
"Stop!" he cried, raising his palm against them. "I am the Dor-ul-Othoand I come to you with a word from Ja-don, who it is my father's willshall be your king now that Ko-tan is slain. Lu-don, the high priest,has planned to seize the palace and destroy the loyal warriors thatMo-sar may be made king--Mo-sar who will be the tool and creature ofLu-don. Follow me. There is no time to lose if you would prevent thetraitors whom Lu-don has organized in the city from entering the palaceby a secret way and overpowering Ja-don and the faithful band within."
For a moment they hesitated. At last one spoke. "What guarantee havewe," he demanded, "that it is not you who would betray us and byleading us now away from the fighting in the banquet hall cause thosewho fight at Ja-don's side to be defeated?"
"My life will be your guarantee," replied Tarzan. "If you find that Ihave not spoken the truth you are sufficient in numbers to executewhatever penalty you choose. But come, there is not time to lose.Already are the lesser priests gathering their warriors in the citybelow," and without waiting for any further parley he strode directlytoward them in the direction of the gate upon the opposite side of thecourtyard which led toward the principal entrance to the palace ground.
Slower in wit than he, they were swept away by his greater initiativeand that compelling power which is inherent to all natural leaders. Andso they followed him, the giant ape-man with a dead tail dragging theground behind him--a demi-god where another would have been ridiculous.Out into the city he led them and down toward the unpretentiousbuilding that hid Lu-don's secret passageway from the city to thetemple, and as they rounded the last turn they saw before them agathering of warriors which was being rapidly augmented from alldirections as the traitors of A-lur mobilized at the call of thepriesthood.
"You spoke the truth, stranger," said the chief who marched at Tarzan'sside, "for there are the warriors with the priests among them, even asyou told us."
"And now," replied the ape-man, "that I have fulfilled my promise Iwill go my way after Mo-sar, who has done me a great wrong. TellJa-don that Jad-ben-Otho is upon his side, nor do you forget to tellhim also that it was the Dor-ul-Otho who thwarted Lu-don's plan toseize the palace."
"I will not forget," replied the chief. "Go your way. We are enough tooverpower the traitors."
"Tell me," asked Tarzan, "how I may know this city of Tu-lur?"
"It lies upon the south shore of the second lake below A-lur," repliedthe chief, "the lake that is called Jad-in-lul."
They were now approaching the band of traitors, who evidently thoughtthat this was another contingent of their own party since they made noeffort either toward defense or retreat. Suddenly the chief raised hisvoice in a savage war cry that was immediately taken up by hisfollowers, and simultaneously, as though the cry were a command, theentire party broke into a mad charge upon the surprised rebels.
Satisfied with the outcome of his suddenly conceived plan and sure thatit would work to the disadvantage of Lu-don, Tarzan turned into a sidestreet and pointed his steps toward the outskirts of the city in searchof the trail that led southward toward Tu-lur.