"Who are you," she whispered, "who speaks the language of the first man?""I am Tarzan of the Apes," he answered in the vernacular of the anthropoids.
"What do you want of me?" she continued."For what purpose did you save me from Tha?""I could not see a woman murdered?" It was a half question that answered her.
"But what do you intend to do with me now?" she continued.
"Nothing," he replied, "but you can do something for me--you can lead me out of this place to *******." He made the suggestion without the slightest thought that she would accede.
He felt quite sure that the sacrifice would go on from the point where it had been interrupted if the high priestess had her way, though he was equally positive that they would find Tarzan of the Apes unbound and with a long dagger in his hand a much less tractable victim than Tarzan disarmed and bound.
The girl stood looking at him for a long moment before she spoke.
"You are a very wonderful man," she said."You are such a man as I have seen in my daydreams ever since Iwas a little girl.You are such a man as I imagine the forbears of my people must have been--the great race of people who built this mighty city in the heart of a savage world that they might wrest from the bowels of the earth the fabulous wealth for which they had sacrificed their far-distant civilization.
"I cannot understand why you came to my rescue in the first place, and now I cannot understand why, having me within your power, you do not wish to be revenged upon me for having sentenced you to death--for having almost put you to death with my own hand.""I presume," replied the ape-man, "that you but followed the teachings of your religion.I cannot blame YOU for that, no matter what I may think of your creed.But who are you --what people have I fallen among?""I am La, high priestess of the Temple of the Sun, in the city of Opar.We are descendants of a people who came to this savage world more than ten thousand years ago in search of gold.Their cities stretched from a great sea under the rising sun to a great sea into which the sun descends at night to cool his flaming brow.They were very rich and very powerful, but they lived only a few months of the year in their magnificent palaces here; the rest of the time they spent in their native land, far, far to the north.
"Many ships went back and forth between this new world and the old.During the rainy season there were but few of the inhabitants remained here, only those who superintended the working of the mines by the black slaves, and the merchants who had to stay to supply their wants, and the soldiers who guarded the cities and the mines.
"It was at one of these times that the great calamity occurred.
When the time came for the teeming thousands to return none came.
For weeks the people waited.Then they sent out a great galley to learn why no one came from the mother country, but though they sailed about for many months, they were unable to find any trace of the mighty land that had for countless ages borne their ancient civilization--it had sunk into the sea.
"From that day dated the downfall of my people.
Disheartened and unhappy, they soon became a prey to the black hordes of the north and the black hordes of the south.