Part 20 (1/2)
”OKo-tan is already dead and Mo-sar fled His friends are fighting with the warriors of the palace but they have no head, while Ja-don leads the others I could learn but little frohtened slaves who had fled at the outburst of the quarrel One toldand that he had seen Mo-sar and the assassin hurrying froh priest ”The fools willif we do not act and act quickly Get into the city, Pan-sat-let your feet fly and raise the cry that Ja-don has killed the king and is seeking to wrest the throne from O-lo-a Spread the word as you know best how to spread it that Ja-don has threatened to destroy the priests and hurl the altars of the tee them to attack at once Lead them into the temple by the secret way that only the priests know and from here we may spew them out upon the palace before they learn the truth Go, Pan-sat, immediately-delay not an instant”
”But stay,” he called as the under priest turned to leave the aparte white woman that Ja-don stole from the Temple of the Gryf where we have had her imprisoned?”
”Only that Ja-don took her into the palace where he threatened the priests with violence if they did not permit him to pass,” replied Pan-sat ”This they told me, but where within the palace she is hidden I know not”
”Ko-tan ordered her to the Forbidden Garden,” said Lu-don, ”doubtless we shall find her there And now, Pan-sat, be upon your errand”
In a corridor by Lu-don's chamber a hideously masked priest leaned close to the curtained aperture that led within Were he listening he h priest, and that he had listened was evidenced by his hasty withdrawal to the shadows of a nearby passage as the lesser priest moved across the chanorance of the near presence that he ale that leads from the temple of Jad-ben-Otho, far beneath the palace, to the city beyond, nor did he sense the silent creature following in his footsteps
16
The Secret Way
It was a baffled GRYF that bellowed in angry rage as Tarzan's sleek brown body cutting the h the aperture in the wall of the GRYF pool and out into the lake beyond The ape-ht of the comparative ease hich he had defeated the purpose of the high priest but his face clouded again at the ensuing reer that threatened his mate His sole object now ht to the chamber where he had last seen her on the third floor of the Teain into the terounds was a question not easy of solution
In thefro the shore-far beyond the precincts of the tely i close in, he skirted the wall searching diligently for so surface Above him and quite out of reach were numerous apertures, but there were no means at hand by which he could reach theht of an opening level with the surface of the water It lay just ahead and a few strokes brought hiht forth no sound fro he stopped and reconnoitered There was no one in sight Carefully he raised his body to the threshold of the entrance-way, his sht as it shed the water in tiny sparkling rivulets
Before hihted save for the faint illuht that penetrated it for but a short distance fro as rapidly as reasonable caution warranted, Tarzan followed the corridor into the bowels of the cave There was an abrupt turn and then a flight of steps at the top of which lay another corridor running parallel with the face of the cliff This passage was di cressets set in niches in the walls at considerable distances apart A quick survey showed the ape-s upon each side of the corridor and his quick ears caught sounds that indicated that there were other beings not far distant-priests, he concluded, in soeway
To pass undetected through this hive of enee of possibility Hefro the corridor toward the nearest doorway Like Nu nostrils to the hangings that shut off his view from the interior of the apartment beyond A moment later his head disappeared within; then his shoulders, and his lithe body, and the hangings dropped quietly into place again A moment later there filtered to the vacant corridor without a brief, gasping gurgle and again silence A s were thrust aside and a grimly masked priest of the teeway
With bold steps he allery when his attention was aroused by voices coure halted and crossing the corridor stood with an ear close to the skins that concealed the occupants of the room from him, and hi shadows of the diverging gallery and is by which he had been listening parted and a priest eed to turn quickly down the ained a little distance and then stepping from his place of conceal the corridor which ran parallel with the face of the cliff for so a cresset from one of the wall niches, turned abruptly into a small apartment at his left The tracker followed cautiously in tiht dimly visible from an aperture in the floor before him Here he found a series of steps, si the cliff to their caves, leading to a lower level
First satisfying hi, the other descended after hieas now both narrow and low, giving but bare headroohts of steps leading always doard The steps in each unit seldom numbered more than six and soate the tracker iined that they had descended between fifty and seventy-five feet froeway terminated in a small apartment at one side of which was a little pile of rubble
Setting his cresset upon the ground, Pan-sat commenced hurriedly to toss the bits of broken stone aside, presently revealing a small aperture at the base of the wall upon the opposite side of which there appeared to be a further accumulation of rubble This he also removed until he had a hole of sufficient size to per the cresset still burning upon the floor the priest crawled through the opening he hadin the shadows of the narrow passageway behind hione than the other followed, finding hie about halfway between the surface of the lake and the top of the cliff above The ledge inclined steeply upward, ending at the rear of a building which stood upon the edge of the cliff and which the second priest entered just in time to see Pan-sat pass out into the city beyond
As the latter turned a nearby corner the other es He was satisfied the priest who had led him hither had served his purpose in so far as the tracker was concerned Above him, and perhaps a hundred yards away, the white walls of the palace gleaainst the northern sky The tie concerning the secret passageway between the teed every instant that kept him from the prosecution of his main objective It had seemed to him, however, necessary to the success of a bold plan that he had for the conversation between Lu-don and Pan-sat as he stood without the hangings of the apartainst a nation of suspicious and half-savage enemies he could scarce hope for a successful outco the life and happiness of the creature he loved best For her sake he must win allies and it was for this purpose that he had sacrificed these precious ain entrance to the palace grounds that he ht search out whatever new prison they had found in which to incarcerate his lost love
He found no difficulty in passing the guards at the entrance to the palace for, as he had guessed, his priestly disguise disarmed all suspicion As he approached the warriors he kept his hands behind hile torch which stood beside the doorould not reveal his un-Pal-ul-donian feet As a oings of the priesthood that they paid scant attention to hirounds without even a oal noas the Forbidden Garden and this he had little difficulty in reaching though he elected to enter it over the wall rather than to chance arousing any suspicion on the part of the guards at the inner entrance, since he could iine no reason why a priest should seek entrance there thus late at night
He found the garden deserted, nor any sign of her he sought That she had been brought hither he had learned from the conversation he had overheard between Lu-don and Pan-sat, and he was sure that there had been no tih priest to rearden he knew to be devoted exclusively to the uses of the princess and her women and it was only reasonable to assuarden it could only have been upon an order fro the case the natural assumption would follow that he would find her in some other portion of O-lo-a's quarters
Just where these lay he could only conjecture, but it seearden, so oncearound its end directed his steps toward an entrance-hich he judged must lead to that portion of the palace nearest the Forbidden Garden
To his surprise he found the place unguarded and then there fell upon his ear froer and excitement Guided by the sound he quickly traversed several corridors and chas which separated him from the cha the skins slightly he looked within There were tohter of Ko-tan and the other Pan-at-lee, the Kor-ul-JA