compared these facts with the occurrences of the past few seconds with a resultant judgment that sent her lumbering away, in the direction from which she had come, as fast as her hairy legs could carry her, nor did she once pause in her mad flight until she sank exhausted at the mouth of her own cave.
The men did not pursue her. As yet they had not reached that stage in their emancipation that was to give them sufficient courage and confidence in themselves to entirely overcome their hereditary fear of women. To chase one away was sufficient. To pursue her would have been tempting Providence .
When the other women of the tribe saw their fellow stagger to her cave and sensed that her condition was the result of terror and the physical strain of long flight they seized their cudgels and ran forth, prepared to meet and vanquish her pursuer, which they immediately assumed to be a lion. But no lion appeared and then some of them wandered to the side of the woman who lay panting on her threshold.
'From what did you run?' they asked her in their simple sign language.
'Men,' she replied.
Disgust showed plainly upon every face, and one of them kicked her and another spat upon her.
'There were many,' she told them, 'and they would have killed me with flying sticks. Look!' and she showed them the spear wound, and the arrow still embedded in the flesh beneath her arm. 'They did not run from me, but came forward to attack me. Thus have all the women been killed whose corpses we have seen in the forest during the past few moons.'
This troubled them. They ceased to annoy the prostrate woman. Their leader, the fiercest of them, paced to and fro, making hideous faces. Suddenly she halted.
'Come!' she signaled. 'We shall go forth together and find these men, and bring them back and punish them.' She shook her cudgel above her head and grimaced horribly.
The others danced about her, imitating her expression and her actions, and when she started off toward the forest they trooped behind her, a savage, bloodthirsty company—all but the woman who still lay panting where she had fallen. She had had enough of man—she was through with him forever.
'For this you shall die!' screamed Caraftap, as he rushed upon Tarzan of the Apes in the long gallery of the slaves' quarters in the quarry of Elkomeolhago, king of Veltopismakus.
The ape-man stepped quickly aside, avoiding the other, and tripped him with a foot, sending him sprawling, face downward, upon the floor. Caraftap, before he arose, looked about as though in search of a weapon and, his eyes alighting upon the hot brazier, he reached forth to seize it. A murmur of disapproval rose from the slaves who, having been occupied nearby, had seen the inception of the quarrel.
'No weapons!' cried one. 'It is not permitted among us. Fight with your bare hands or not at all.'
But Caraftap was too drunk with hate and jealousy to hear them or to heed, and so he grasped the brazier and, rising, rushed at Tarzan to hurl it in his face. Now it was another who tripped him and this time two slaves leaped upon him and wrenched the brazier from his hand. 'Fight fair!' they admonished him, and dragged him to his feet.
Tarzan had stood smiling and indifferent, for the rage of others amused him where it was greater than circumstances warranted, and now he waited for Caraftap and when his adversary saw the smile upon his face it but increased his spleen, so that he fairly leaped upon the ape-man in his madness to destroy him, and Tarzan met him with the most surprising defense that Caraftap, who for long had been a bully among the slaves, ever had encountered. It was a doubled fist at the end of a straight arm and it caught Caraftap upon the point of his chin, stretching him upon his back. The slaves, who had by this time gathered in considerable numbers to watch the quarrel, voiced then—approval in the shrill, 'Ee-ah-ee-ah,' that constituted one form of applause.
Dazed and groggy, Caraftap staggered to his feet once more and with lowered head looked about him as though in search of his enemy. The girl, Talaskar, had come to Tarzan's side and was standing there looking up into his face.
'You are very strong,' she said, but the expression in her eyes said more, or at least it seemed to Caraftap to say more. It seemed to speak of love, whereas it was only the admiration that a normal woman always feels for strength exercised in a worthy cause.
Caraftap made a noise in his throat that sounded much like the squeal of an angry pig and once again he rushed upon the ape-man. Behind them some slaves were being let into the corridor and as the aperture was open one of the warriors beyond it, who chanced to be stooping down at the time, could see within. He saw but little, though what he saw was enough—a large slave with a shock of black hair raising another large slave high above his head and dashing him to the hard floor. The warrior, pushing the slaves aside, scrambled through into the corridor and ran forward toward the center. Before they were aware of his presence he stood facing Tarzan and Talaskar. It was Kalfastoban.
'What is the meaning of this?' he cried in a loud voice, and then: 'Ah, ha! I see. It is The Giant. He would show the other slaves how strong he is, would he?' He glanced at Caraftap, struggling to rise from the floor, and his face grew very dark—Caraftap was a favorite of his. 'Such things are not permitted here, fellow!' he cried, shaking his fist in the ape-man's face, and forgetting in his anger that the new slave neither spoke nor understood. But presently he recollected and motioned Tarzan to follow him. 'A hundred lashes will explain to him that he must not quarrel,' he said aloud to no one in particular, but he was looking at Talaskar.
'Do not punish him,' cried the girl, still forgetful of herself. 'It was all Caraftap's fault, Zuanthrol but acted in self-defense.'
Kalfastoban could not take his eyes from the girl's face and presently she sensed her danger and flushed, but still she stood her ground, interceding for the ape-man. A crooked smile twisted Kalfastoban's mouth as he laid a familiar hand upon her shoulder.
'How old are you?' he asked.
She told him, shuddering.
'I shall see your master and purchase you,' he announced. 'Take no mate.'
Tarzan was looking at Talaskar and it seemed that he could see her wilt, as a flower wilts in noxious air, and then Kalfastoban turned upon him.
'You cannot understand me, you stupid beast,' he said; 'but I can tell you, and those around you may listen and, perhaps, guide you from danger. This time I shall let you off, but let it happen again and you shall have a hundred lashes, or worse, maybe; and if I hear that you have had aught to do with this girl, whom I intend to purchase and take to the surface, it will go still harder with you,' with which he strode to the entrance and passed through into the corridor beyond.
After the Vental had departed and the door of the chamber had been closed a hand was laid upon Tarzan's shoulder from behind and a man's voice called him by name: 'Tarzan!' It sounded strange in his ears, far down in this buried chamber beneath the ground, in an alien city and among an alien people, not one of whom ever had heard his name, but as he turned to face the man who had greeted him a look of recognition and a smile of pleasure overspread his features.
'Kom-!' he started to ejaculate, but the other placed a finger to his lips. 'Not here,' he said. 'Here I am Aoponato.'
'But your stature! You are as large as I. It is beyond me. What has happened to swell the race of Minunians to such relatively gigantic proportions?'
Komodoflorensal smiled. 'Human egotism would not permit you to attribute this change to an opposite cause from that to which you have ascribed it,' he said.
Tarzan knit his brows and gazed long and thoughtfully at his royal friend. An expression that was of mingled incredulity and amusement crept gradually over his countenance.
'You mean,' he asked slowly, 'that I have been reduced in size to the stature of a Minunian?'
Komodoflorensal nodded. 'Is it not easier to believe that than to think that an entire race of people and all their belongings, even their dwellings and the stones that they were built of, and all their weapons and their diadets, had been increased in size to your own stature?'
'But I tell you it is impossible!' cried the ape-man.
'I should have said the same thing a few moons ago,' replied the prince. 'Even when I heard the rumor here that they had reduced you I did not believe it, not for a long time, and I was still a bit skeptical until I entered this chamber and saw you with my own eyes.'
'How was it accomplished?' demanded Tarzan.
'The greatest mind in Veltopismakus, and perhaps in all Minuni, is Zoanthrohago,' explained
