11

Tarzan the Terrible

by Edgar R. Burroughs

11, TARZAN THE TERRIBLE by Edgar R. Burroughs
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The Sentence of Death

BUT it was an hour before the king re-entered the apartment and
in the meantime the ape-man had occupied himself in examining the
carvings upon the walls and the numerous specimens of the
handicraft of Pal-ul-donian artisans which combined to impart an
atmosphere of richness and luxury to the apartment.

The limestone of the country, close-grained and of marble
whiteness yet worked with comparative ease with crude implements,
had been wrought by cunning craftsmen into bowls and urns and
vases of considerable grace and beauty. Into the carved designs
of many of these virgin gold had been hammered, presenting the
effect of a rich and magnificent cloisonne. A barbarian
himself the art of barbarians had always appealed to the ape-man
to whom they represented a natural expression of man's love of
the beautiful to even a greater extent than the studied and
artificial efforts of civilization. Here was the real art of old
masters, the other the cheap imitation of the chromo.

It was while he was thus pleasurably engaged that Ko-tan
returned. As Tarzan, attracted by the movement of the hangings
through which the king entered, turned and faced him he was
almost shocked by the remarkable alteration of the king's
appearance. His face was livid; his hands trembled as with palsy,
and his eyes were wide as with fright. His appearance was one
apparently of a combination of consuming anger and withering
fear. Tarzan looked at him questioningly.

"You have had bad news, Ko-tan?" he asked.

The king mumbled an unintelligible reply. Behind there thronged
into the apartment so great a number of warriors that they choked
the entrance-way. The king looked apprehensively to right and
left. He cast terrified glances at the ape-man and then raising
his face and turning his eyes upward he cried: "Jad-ben-Otho be
my witness that I do not this thing of my own accord." There was
a moment's silence which was again broken by Ko-tan. "Seize him,"
he cried to the warriors about him, "for Lu-don, the high priest,
swears that he is an impostor."

To have offered armed resistance to this great concourse of
warriors in the very heart of the palace of their king would have
been worse than fatal. Already Tarzan had come far by his wits
and now that within a few hours he had had his hopes and his
suspicions partially verified by the vague admissions of O-lo-a
he was impressed with the necessity of inviting no mortal risk
that he could avoid.

"Stop!" he cried, raising his palm against them. "What is the
meaning of this?"

"Lu-don claims he has proof that you are not the son of
Jad-ben-Otho," replied Ko-tan. "He demands that you be brought to
the throneroom to face your accusers. If you are what you claim
to be none knows better than you that you need have no fear in
acquiescing to his demands, but remember always that in such
matters the high priest commands the king and that I am only the
bearer of these commands, not their author."

Tarzan saw that Ko-tan was not entirely convinced of his
duplicity as was evidenced by his palpable design to play safe.

"Let not your warriors seize me," he said to Ko-tan, "lest
Jad-ben-Otho, mistaking their intention, strike them dead." The
effect of his words was immediate upon the men in the front rank
of those who faced him, each seeming suddenly to acquire a new
modesty that compelled him to self-effacement behind those
directly in his rear--a modesty that became rapidly contagious.

The ape-man smiled. "Fear not," he said, "I will go willingly to
the audience chamber to face the blasphemers who accuse me."

Arrived at the great throneroom a new complication arose. Ko-tan
would not acknowledge the right of Lu-don to occupy the apex of
the pyramid and Lu-don would not consent to occupying an inferior
position while Tarzan, to remain consistent with his high claims,
insisted that no one should stand above him, but only to the
ape-man was the humor of the situation apparent.

To relieve the situation Ja-don suggested that all three of them
occupy the throne, but this suggestion was repudiated by Ko-tan
who argued that no mortal other than a king of Pal-ul-don had ever
sat upon the high eminence, and that furthermore there was not
room for three there.

"But who," said Tarzan, "is my accuser and who is my judge?"

"Lu-don is your accuser," explained Ko-tan.

"And Lu-don is your judge," cried the high priest.

"I am to be judged by him who accuses me then," said Tarzan. "It
were better to dispense then with any formalities and ask Lu-don
to sentence me." His tone was ironical and his sneering face,
looking straight into that of the high priest, but caused the
latter's hatred to rise to still greater proportions.

It was evident that Ko-tan and his warriors saw the justice of
Tarzan's implied objection to this unfair method of dispensing
justice. "Only Ko-tan can judge in the throneroom of his palace,"
said Ja-don, "let him hear Lu-don's charges and the testimony of
his witnesses, and then let Ko-tan's judgment be final."

Ko-tan, however, was not particularly enthusiastic over the
prospect of sitting in trial upon one who might after all very
possibly be the son of his god, and so he temporized, seeking for
an avenue of escape. "It is purely a religious matter," he said,
"and it is traditional that the kings of Pal-ul-don interfere not
in questions of the church."

"Then let the trial be held in the temple," cried one of the
chiefs, for the warriors were as anxious as their king to be
relieved of all responsibility in the matter. This suggestion was
more than satisfactory to the high priest who inwardly condemned
himself for not having thought of it before.

"It is true," he said, "this man's sin is against the temple.
Let him be dragged thither then for trial."

"The son of Jad-ben-Otho will be dragged nowhere," cried Tarzan.
"But when this trial is over it is possible that the corpse of
Lu-don, the high priest, will be dragged from the temple of the
god he would desecrate. Think well, then, Lu-don before you commit
this folly."

His words, intended to frighten the high priest from his position
failed utterly in consummating their purpose. Lu-don showed no
terror at the suggestion the ape-man's words implied.

"Here is one," thought Tarzan, "who, knowing more of his religion
than any of his fellows, realizes fully the falsity of my claims
as he does the falsity of the faith he preaches."

He realized, however, that his only hope lay in seeming
indifference to the charges. Ko-tan and the warriors were still
under the spell of their belief in him and upon this fact must he
depend in the final act of the drama that Lu-don was staging for
his rescue from the jealous priest whom he knew had already
passed sentence upon him in his own heart.

With a shrug he descended the steps of the pyramid. "It matters
not to Dor-ul-Otho," he said, "where Lu-don enrages his god, for
Jad-ben-Otho can reach as easily into the chambers of the temple
as into the throneroom of Ko-tan."

Immeasurably relieved by this easy solution of their problem the
king and the warriors thronged from the throneroom toward the
temple grounds, their faith in Tarzan increased by his apparent
indifference to the charges against him. Lu-don led them to the
largest of the altar courts.

Taking his place behind the western altar he motioned Ko-tan to a
place upon the platform at the left hand of the altar and
directed Tarzan to a similar place at the right.

As Tarzan ascended the platform his eyes narrowed angrily at the
sight which met them. The basin hollowed in the top of the altar
was filled with water in which floated the naked corpse of a
new-born babe. "What means this?" he cried angrily, turning upon
Lu-don.

The latter smiled malevolently. "That you do not know," he
replied, "is but added evidence of the falsity of your claim. He
who poses as the son of god did not know that as the last rays of
the setting sun flood the eastern altar of the temple the
lifeblood of an adult reddens the white stone for the edification
of Jad-ben-Otho, and that when the sun rises again from the body
of its maker it looks first upon this western altar and rejoices
in the death of a new-born babe each day, the ghost of which
accompanies it across the heavens by day as the ghost of the
adult returns with it to Jad-ben-Otho at night.

"Even the little children of the Ho-don know these things, while
he who claims to be the son of Jad-ben-Otho knows them not; and
if this proof be not enough, there is more. Come, Waz-don," he
cried, pointing to a tall slave who stood with a group of other
blacks and priests on the temple floor at the left of the altar.

The fellow came forward fearfully. "Tell us what you know of this
creature," cried Lu-don, pointing to Tarzan.

"I have seen him before," said the Waz-don. "I am of the tribe of
Kor-ul-lul, and one day recently a party of which I was one
encountered a few of the warriors of the Kor-ul-ja upon the ridge
which separates our villages. Among the enemy was this strange
creature whom they called Tarzan-jad-guru; and terrible indeed
was he for he fought with the strength of many men so that it
required twenty of us to subdue him. But he did not fight as a
god fights, and when a club struck him upon the head he sank
unconscious as might an ordinary mortal.

"We carried him with us to our village as a prisoner but he
escaped after cutting off the head of the warrior we left to
guard him and carrying it down into the gorge and tying it to the
branch of a tree upon the opposite side."

"The word of a slave against that of a god!" cried Ja-don, who
had shown previously a friendly interest in the pseudo godling.

"It is only a step in the progress toward truth," interjected
Lu-don. "Possibly the evidence of the only princess of the house
of Ko-tan will have greater weight with the great chief from the
north, though the father of a son who fled the holy offer of the
priesthood may not receive with willing ears any testimony
against another blasphemer."

Ja-don's hand leaped to his knife, but the warriors next him laid
detaining fingers upon his arms. "You are in the temple of
Jad-ben-Otho, Ja-don," they cautioned and the great chief was
forced to swallow Lu-don's affront though it left in his heart
bitter hatred of the high priest.

And now Ko-tan turned toward Lu-don. "What knoweth my daughter of
this matter?" he asked. "You would not bring a princess of my
house to testify thus publicly?"

"No," replied Lu-don, "not in person, but I have here one who
will testify for her." He beckoned to an under priest. "Fetch
the slave of the princess," he said.

His grotesque headdress adding a touch of the hideous to the
scene, the priest stepped forward dragging the reluctant
Pan-at-lee by the wrist.

"The Princess O-lo-a was alone in the Forbidden Garden with but
this one slave," explained the priest, "when there suddenly
appeared from the foliage nearby this creature who claims to be
the Dor-ul-Otho. When the slave saw him the princess says that
she cried aloud in startled recognition and called the creature
by name--Tarzan-jad-guru--the same name that the slave from
Kor-ul-lul gave him. This woman is not from Kor-ul-lul but from
Kor-ul-ja, the very tribe with which the Kor-ul-lul says the
creature was associating when he first saw him. And further the
princess said that when this woman, whose name is Pan-at-lee, was
brought to her yesterday she told a strange story of having been
rescued from a Tor-o-don in the Kor-ul-gryf by a creature such as
this, whom she spoke of then as Tarzan-jad-guru; and of how the
two were pursued in the bottom of the gorge by two monster gryfs,
and of how the man led them away while Pan-at-lee escaped, only
to be taken prisoner in the Kor-ul-lul as she was seeking to
return to her own tribe.

"Is it not plain now," cried Lu-don, "that this creature is no
god. Did he tell you that he was the son of god?" he almost
shouted, turning suddenly upon Pan-at-lee.

The girl shrank back terrified. "Answer me, slave!" cried the
high priest.

"He seemed more than mortal," parried Pan-at-lee.

"Did he tell you that he was the son of god? Answer my question,"
insisted Lu-don.

"No," she admitted in a low voice, casting an appealing look of
forgiveness at Tarzan who returned a smile of encouragement and
friendship.

"That is no proof that he is not the son of god," cried Ja-don.
"Dost think Jad-ben-Otho goes about crying 'I am god! I am god!'
Hast ever heard him Lu-don? No, you have not. Why should his son
do that which the father does not do?"

"Enough," cried Lu-don. "The evidence is clear. The creature is
an impostor and I, the head priest of Jad-ben-Otho in the city of
A-lur, do condemn him to die." There was a moment's silence
during which Lu-don evidently paused for the dramatic effect of
his climax. "And if I am wrong may Jad-ben-Otho pierce my heart
with his lightnings as I stand here before you all."

The lapping of the wavelets of the lake against the foot of the
palace wall was distinctly audible in the utter and almost
breathless silence which ensued. Lu-don stood with his face
turned toward the heavens and his arms outstretched in the
attitude of one who bares his breast to the dagger of an
executioner. The warriors and the priests and the slaves gathered
in the sacred court awaited the consuming vengeance of their god.

It was Tarzan who broke the silence. "Your god ignores you
Lu-don," he taunted, with a sneer that he meant to still further
anger the high priest, "he ignores you and I can prove it before
the eyes of your priests and your people."

"Prove it, blasphemer! How can you prove it?"

"You have called me a blasphemer," replied Tarzan, "you have
proved to your own satisfaction that I am an impostor, that I, an
ordinary mortal, have posed as the son of god. Demand then that
Jad-ben-Otho uphold his godship and the dignity of his priesthood
by directing his consuming fires through my own bosom."

Again there ensued a brief silence while the onlookers waited for
Lu-don to thus consummate the destruction of this presumptuous
impostor.

"You dare not," taunted Tarzan, "for you know that I would be
struck dead no quicker than were you."

"You lie," cried Lu-don, "and I would do it had I not but just
received a message from Jad-ben-Otho directing that your fate be
different."

A chorus of admiring and reverential "Ahs" arose from the
priesthood. Ko-tan and his warriors were in a state of mental
confusion. Secretly they hated and feared Lu-don, but so
ingrained was their sense of reverence for the office of the high
priest that none dared raise a voice against him.

None? Well, there was Ja-don, fearless old Lion-man of the north.
"The proposition was a fair one," he cried. "Invoke the
lightnings of Jad-ben-Otho upon this man if you would ever
convince us of his guilt."

"Enough of this," snapped Lu-don. "Since when was Ja-don created
high priest? Seize the prisoner," he cried to the priests and
warriors, "and on the morrow he shall die in the manner that
Jad-ben-Otho has willed."

There was no immediate movement on the part of any of the
warriors to obey the high priest's command, but the lesser
priests on the other hand, imbued with the courage of fanaticism
leaped eagerly forward like a flock of hideous harpies to seize
upon their prey.

The game was up. That Tarzan knew. No longer could cunning and
diplomacy usurp the functions of the weapons of defense he best
loved. And so the first hideous priest who leaped to the platform
was confronted by no suave ambassador from heaven, but rather a
grim and ferocious beast whose temper savored more of hell.

The altar stood close to the western wall of the enclosure.
There was just room between the two for the high priest to stand
during the performance of the sacrificial ceremonies and only
Lu-don stood there now behind Tarzan, while before him were
perhaps two hundred warriors and priests.

The presumptuous one who would have had the glory of first laying
arresting hands upon the blasphemous impersonator rushed forward
with outstretched hand to seize the ape-man. Instead it was he
who was seized; seized by steel fingers that snapped him up as
though he had been a dummy of straw, grasped him by one leg and
the harness at his back and raised him with giant arms high above
the altar. Close at his heels were others ready to seize the
ape-man and drag him down, and beyond the altar was Lu-don with
drawn knife advancing toward him.

There was no instant to waste, nor was it the way of the ape-man
to fritter away precious moments in the uncertainty of belated
decision. Before Lu-don or any other could guess what was in the
mind of the condemned, Tarzan with all the force of his great
muscles dashed the screaming hierophant in the face of the high
priest, and, as though the two actions were one, so quickly did
he move, he had leaped to the top of the altar and from there to
a handhold upon the summit of the temple wall. As he gained a
footing there he turned and looked down upon those beneath. For a
moment he stood in silence and then he spoke.

"Who dare believe," he cried, "that Jad-ben-Otho would forsake
his son?" and then he dropped from their sight upon the other
side.

There were two at least left within the enclosure whose hearts
leaped with involuntary elation at the success of the ape-man's
maneuver, and one of them smiled openly. This was Ja-don, and the
other, Pan-at-lee.

The brains of the priest that Tarzan had thrown at the head of
Lu-don had been dashed out against the temple wall while the high
priest himself had escaped with only a few bruises, sustained in
his fall to the hard pavement. Quickly scrambling to his feet he
looked around in fear, in terror and finally in bewilderment, for
he had not been a witness to the ape-man's escape. "Seize him,"
he cried; "seize the blasphemer," and he continued to look around
in search of his victim with such a ridiculous expression of
bewilderment that more than a single warrior was compelled to
hide his smiles beneath his palm.

The priests were rushing around wildly, exhorting the warriors to
pursue the fugitive but these awaited now stolidly the command of
their king or high priest. Ko-tan, more or less secretly pleased
by the discomfiture of Lu-don, waited for that worthy to give the
necessary directions which he presently did when one of his
acolytes excitedly explained to him the manner of Tarzan's
escape.

Instantly the necessary orders were issued and priests and
warriors sought the temple exit in pursuit of the ape-man. His
departing words, hurled at them from the summit of the temple
wall, had had little effect in impressing the majority that his
claims had not been disproven by Lu-don, but in the hearts of the
warriors was admiration for a brave man and in many the same
unholy gratification that had risen in that of their ruler at the
discomfiture of Lu-don.

A careful search of the temple grounds revealed no trace of the
quarry. The secret recesses of the subterranean chambers,
familiar only to the priesthood, were examined by these while the
warriors scattered through the palace and the palace grounds
without the temple. Swift runners were dispatched to the city to
arouse the people there that all might be upon the lookout for
Tarzan the Terrible. The story of his imposture and of his
escape, and the tales that the Waz-don slaves had brought into
the city concerning him were soon spread throughout A-lur, nor
did they lose aught in the spreading, so that before an hour had
passed the women and children were hiding behind barred doorways
while the warriors crept apprehensively through the streets
expecting momentarily to be pounced upon by a ferocious demon
who, bare-handed, did victorious battle with huge gryfs and whose
lightest pastime consisted in tearing strong men limb from limb.