Part 32 (1/2)

She led him back to the chamber beneath the altar roo from it In the darkness Tarzan could not see which one For ten e, until at length they ca with a key, and presently caainst es, and they entered

”You will be safe here until to the door, locked it behind her

Where Tarzan stood it was dark as Erebus Not even his trained eyes could penetrate the utter blackness Cautiously he moved forward until his out-stretched hand touched a wall, then very slowly he traveled around the four walls of the chamber

Apparently it was about twenty feet square The floor was of concrete, the walls of the dry round Seniously laid together without mortar to construct these ancient foundations

The first tie phenoain he crept carefully around close to the wall No, he could not be mistaken! He paused before the center of the wall opposite the door

For a moment he stood quite ain he returned, only to move a few feet to the other side

Oncecarefully every foot of the walls Finally he stopped again before the particular section that had aroused his curiosity There was no doubt of it! A distinct draft of fresh air was blowing into the chah the intersection of the masonry at that particular point--and nowhere else

Tarzan tested several pieces of the granite which made up the wall at this spot, and finally was rewarded by finding one which lifted out readily It was about ten inches wide, with a face so within the chamber One by one the ape-man lifted out similarly shaped stones The wall at this point was constructed entirely, it seemed, of these almost perfect slabs In a short time he had removed some dozen, when he reached in to test the next layer ofbehind thearm could reach

It was a h of the wall to perh the aperture Directly ahead of hilow--scarcely more than a less impenetrable darkness Cautiously he moved forward on hands and knees, until at about fifteen feet, or the average thickness of the foundation walls, the floor ended abruptly in a sudden drop As far out as he could reach he felt nothing, nor could he find the botto to the edge of the floor, he lowered his body into the darkness to its full length

Finally it occurred to hih a round opening a tiny circular patch of starry sky Feeling up along the sides of the shaft as far as he could reach, the ape-man discovered that so ed toward the center of the shaft as it rose This fact precluded possibility of escape in that direction

As he sat speculating on the nature and uses of this strange passage and its ter a flood of soft, silvery light into the shadowy place Instantly the nature of the shaft became apparent to Tarzan, for far below hi surface of water He had come upon an ancient well--but as the purpose of the connection between the well and the dungeon in which he had been hidden?

As the ht flooded the whole interior, and then Tarzan saw directly across fro in the opposite wall He wondered if thisto possible escape It would be worth investigating, at least, and this he deter to the wall he had demolished to explore what lay beyond it, he carried the stones into the passageway and replaced them from that side The deep deposit of dust which he had noticed upon the blocks as he had first removed them from the wall had convinced him that even if the present occupants of the ancient pile had knowledge of this hidden passage they had enerations

The wall replaced, Tarzan turned to the shaft, which was some fifteen feet wide at this point To leap across the intervening space was a smallalong a narrow tunnel,precipitated into another shaft such as he had just crossed

He had advanced so doard into Stygian gloom Some twenty feet below, the level floor of the tunnel recoress was stopped by a heavy wooden door which was secured by massive wooden bars upon the side of Tarzan's approach This fact suggested to the ape- to the outer world, for the bolts, barring progress from the opposite side, tended to substantiate this hypothesis, unless it werethe tops of the bars were deep layers of dust--a further indication that the passage had lain long unused As he pushed the es shrieked out in weird protest against this unaccustomed disturbance For a moht indicate that the unusual night noise had alar he advanced beyond the doorway

Carefully feeling about, he found hi the walls of which, and down the length of the floor, were piled h unifor hands they felt not unlike double-headed bootjacks The ingots were quite heavy, and but for the enormous nuold; but the thought of the fabulous wealth these thousands of pounds of old, almost convinced him that they must be of some baser metal

At the far end of the chaain the bars upon the inside renewed the hope that he was traversing an ancient and forgotten passageway to liberty Beyond the door the passage ran straight as a war spear, and it soon became evident to the ape-man that it had already led him beyond the outer walls of the te him! If toward the west, then he must also be beyond the city's outer walls

With increasing hopes he forged ahead as rapidly as he dared, until at the end of half an hour he ca upward At the bottoht was of concrete, but as he ascended his naked feet felt a sudden change in the substance they were treading The steps of concrete had given place to steps of granite

Feeling with his hands, the ape-man discovered that these latter were evidently hewed from rock, for there was no crack to indicate a joint

For a hundred feet the steps wound spirally up, until at a sudden turning Tarzan came into a narrow cleft between two rocky walls Above him shone the starry sky, and before him a steep incline replaced the steps that had terminated at its foot Up this pathway Tarzan hastened, and at its upper end caranite bowlder

A mile away lay the ruined city of Opar, its doht of the equatorial ht aith hiht rays, then he raised his head to look out upon the ancient piles of crurandeur in the distance

”Opar,” he otten past The city of the beauties and the beasts City of horrors and death; but--city of fabulous riches” The ingot was of virgin gold

The bowlder on which Tarzan found himself lay well out in the plain between the city and the distant cliffs he and his black warriors had scaled the h and precipitous face was a task of infinite labor and considerable peril even to the ape-man; but at last he felt the soft soil of the valley beneath his feet, and without a backward glance at Opar he turned his face toward the guardian cliffs, and at a rapid trot set off across the valley

The sun was just rising as he gained the summit of the flat mountain at the valley's western boundary Far beneath hi above the tree-tops of the forest at the base of the foothills