And so when they led her from her dungeon, through long, dark corridors, and up a flight of concrete steps to a brilliant courtyard, she went willingly, even gladly--for was she not among the servants of God? It might be, of course, that their interpretation of the supreme being differed from her own, but that they owned a god was sufficient evidence to her that they were kind and good.
But when she saw a stone altar in the center of the courtyard, and dark-brown stains upon it and the nearby concrete of the floor, she began to wonder and to doubt.And as they stooped and bound her ankles, and secured her wrists behind her, her doubts were turned to fear.A moment later, as she was lifted and placed supine across the altar's top, hope left her entirely, and she trembled in an agony of fright.
During the grotesque dance of the votaries which followed, she lay frozen in horror, nor did she require the sight of the thin blade in the hands of the high priestess as it rose slowly above her to enlighten her further as to her doom.
As the hand began its descent, Jane Porter closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer to the Maker she was so soon to face--then she succumbed to the strain upon her tired nerves, and swooned.
Day and night Tarzan of the Apes raced through the primeval forest toward the ruined city in which he was positive the woman he loved lay either a prisoner or dead.
In a day and a night he covered the same distance that the fifty frightful men had taken the better part of a week to traverse, for Tarzan of the Apes traveled along the middle terrace high above the tangled obstacles that impede progress upon the ground.
The story the young bull ape had told made it clear to him that the girl captive had been Jane Porter, for there was not another small white "she" in all the jungle.The "bulls" he had recognized from the ape's crude description as the grotesque parodies upon humanity who inhabit the ruins of Opar.
And the girl's fate he could picture as plainly as though he were an eyewitness to it.When they would lay her across that trim altar he could not guess, but that her dear, frail body would eventually find its way there he was confident.
But, finally, after what seemed long ages to the impatient ape-man, he topped the barrier cliffs that hemmed the desolate valley, and below him lay the grim and awful ruins of the now hideous city of Opar.At a rapid trot he started across the dry and dusty, bowlder-strewn ground toward the goal of his desires.
Would he be in time to rescue? He hoped against hope.
At least he could be revenged, and in his wrath it seemed to him that he was equal to the task of wiping out the entire population of that terrible city.It was nearly noon when he reached the great bowlder at the top of which terminated the secret passage to the pits beneath the city.Like a cat he scaled the precipitous sides of the frowning granite KOPJE.
A moment later he was running through the darkness of the long, straight tunnel that led to the treasure vault.
Through this he passed, then on and on until at last he came to the well-like shaft upon the opposite side of which lay the dungeon with the false wall.