'They will capture him,' said La. 'There is no question as to that.'
'Then I had better hurry and make my investigation of the tunnel, for it might prove embarrassing were they to return him to the cell while I was in the tunnel, if it proved to be a blind one.'
'I will listen at the outer door while you investigate,' offered La. 'Make haste.'
Groping his way toward the section of the wall that La had indicated, Tarzan found a heavy grating of iron closing an aperture leading into a low and narrow corridor. Lifting the barrier, Tarzan entered and with his hands extended before him moved forward in a crouching position, since the low ceiling would not permit him to stand erect. He had progressed but a short distance when he discovered that the corridor made an abrupt right-angle turn to the left, and beyond the turn he saw at a short distance a faint luminosity. Moving quickly forward, he came to the end of the corridor, at the bottom of a vertical shaft, the interior of which was illuminated by subdued daylight. The shaft was constructed of the usual rough-hewn granite of the foundation walls of the city, but here set with no great nicety or precision, giving the interior of the shaft a rough and uneven surface.
As Tarzan was examining it, he heard La's voice coming along the tunnel from the cell in which he had left her. Her tone was one of excitement, and her message one that presaged a situation wrought with extreme danger to them both.
'Make haste, Tarzan. They are returning with the lion!'
The ape-man hurried quickly back to the mouth of the tunnel.
'Quick!' he cried to La, as he raised the gate that had fallen behind him after he had passed through.
'In there?' she demanded in an affrighted voice.
'It is our only chance of escape,' replied the ape-man.
Without another word La crowded into the corridor beside him. Tarzan lowered the grating and, with La following closely behind him, returned to the opening leading into the shaft. Without a word, he lifted La in his arms and raised her as high as he could, nor did she need to be told what to do. With little difficulty she found both hand and footholds upon the rough surface of the interior of the shaft, and with Tarzan just below her, assisting and steadying her, she made her way slowly aloft.
The shaft led directly upward into a room in the tower, which overlooked the entire city of Opar; and here, concealed by the crumbling walls, they paused to formulate their plans.
They both knew that their greatest danger lay in discovery by one of the numerous monkeys infesting the ruins of Opar, with which the inhabitants of the city are able to converse. Tarzan was anxious to be away from Opar that he might thwart the plans of the white men who had invaded his domain. But first he wished to bring about the downfall of La's enemies and reinstate her upon the throne of Opar, or if that should prove impossible, to insure the safety of her flight.
As he viewed her now in the light of day he was struck again by the matchlessness of her deathless beauty that neither time, nor care, nor danger seemed capable of dimming, and he wondered what he should do with her; where he could take her; where this savage priestess of the Flaming God could find a place in all the world, outside the walls of Opar, with the environments of which she would harmonize. And as he pondered, he was forced to admit to himself that no such place existed. La was of Opar, a savage queen born to rule a race of savage half-men. As well introduce a tigress to the salons of civilization as La of Opar. Two or three thousand years earlier she might have been a Cleopatra or a Sheba, but today she could be only La of Opar.
For some time they had sat in silence, the beautiful eyes of the high priestess resting upon the profile of the forest god. 'Tarzan!' she said. The man looked up. 'What is it, La?' he asked.
'I still love you, Tarzan,' she said in a low voice.
A troubled expression came into the eyes of the ape-man. 'Let us not speak of that.'
'I like to speak of it,' she murmured. 'It gives me sorrow, but it is a sweet sorrow-the only sweetness that has ever come into my life.'
Tarzan extended a bronzed hand and laid it upon her slender, tapering fingers. 'You have always possessed my heart, La,' he said, 'up to the point of love. If my affection goes no further than this, it is through no fault of mine nor yours.'
La laughed. 'It is certainly through no fault of mine, Tarzan,' she said, 'but I know that such things are not ordered by ourselves. Love is a gift of the gods. Sometimes it is awarded as a recompense; sometimes as a punishment. For me it has been a punishment, perhaps, but I would not have it otherwise. I had nurtured it in my breast since first I met you; and without that love, however hopeless it may be, I should not care to live.'
Tarzan made no reply, and the two relapsed into silence, waiting for night to fall that they might descend into the city unobserved. Tarzan's alert mind was occupied with plans for reinstating La upon her throne, and presently they fell to discussing these.
'Just before the Flaming God goes to his rest at night,' said La, 'the priests and the priestesses all gather in the throne room. There they will be tonight before the throne upon which Oah will be seated. Then may we descend to the city.'
'And then what?' asked Tarzan.
'If we can kill Oah in the throne room,' said La, 'and Dooth at the same time, they would have no leaders; and without leaders they are lost.'
'I cannot kill a woman,' said Tarzan.
'I can,' returned La, 'and you can attend to Dooth. You certainly would not object to killing him?'
'If he attacked, I would kill him,' said Tarzan, 'but not otherwise. Tarzan of the Apes kills only in self- defense and for food, or when there is no other way to thwart an enemy.'
In the floor of the ancient room in which they were waiting were two openings; one was the mouth of the shaft through which they had ascended from the dungeons, the other opened into a similar but larger shaft, to the bottom of which ran a long wooden ladder set in the masonry of its sides. It was this shaft which offered them a means of escape from the tower, and as Tarzan sat with his eyes resting idly upon the opening, an unpleasant thought suddenly obtruded itself upon his consciousness.
He turned toward La. 'We had forgotten,' he said, 'that whoever casts the meat down the shaft to the lion must ascend by this other shaft. We may not be as safe from detection here as we had hoped.'
'They do not feed the lion very often,' said La; 'not every day.'
'When did they feed him last?' asked Tarzan.
'I do not recall,' said La. 'Time drags so heavily in the darkness of the cell that I lost count of days.'
'S-st!' cautioned Tarzan. 'Someone is ascending now.'
Silently the ape-man arose and crossed the floor to the opening, where he crouched upon the side opposite the ladder. La moved stealthily to his side, so that the ascending man, whose back would be toward them, as he emerged from the shaft, would not see them. Slowly the man ascended. They could hear his shuffling progress coming nearer and nearer to the top. He did not climb as the ape-like priests of Opar are wont to climb. Tarzan thought perhaps he was carrying a load either of such weight or cumbersomeness as to retard his progress, but when finally his head came into view the apeman saw that he was an old man, which accounted for his lack of agility; and then powerful fingers closed about the throat of the unsuspecting Oparian, and he was lifted bodily out of the shaft.
'Silence!' said the ape-man. 'Do as you are told and you will not be harmed.'
La had snatched a knife from the girdle of their victim, and now Tarzan forced him to the floor of the room and slightly released his hold upon the fellow's throat, turning him around so that he faced them.
An expression of incredulity and surprise crossed the face of the old priest as his eyes fell upon La.
'Darus!' exclaimed La.
'All honor to the Flaming God who has ordered your escape!' exclaimed the priest.
La turned to Tarzan. 'You need not fear Darus,' she said; 'he will not betray us. Of all the priests of Opar, there never lived one more loyal to his queen.'
'That is right,' said the old man, shaking his head.
'Are there many more loyal to the high priestess, La?' demanded Tarzan. 'Yes, very many,' replied Darns, 'but they are afraid. Oah is a she-devil and Dooth is a fool. Between the two of them there is no longer either safety or happiness in Opar.'
'How many are there whom you absolutely know may be depended upon?' demanded La.
'Oh, very many,' replied Darus.
'Gather them in the throne room tonight then, Darus; and as the Flaming God goes to his couch, be ready to
