'It was quite simple,' Tarzan assured him. 'A loyal friend, whose identity you may guess, came and told me that she was a prisoner in the temple. I went at once to find her. Fortunately the trees of Cathne are old and large and numerous; one of them grows close to the rear of the temple, its branches almost brushing the window of the room in which Doria was confined. When I arrived there, I found Erot there with Doria. I also found the sack in which he had purposed tying her for the journey tc Xarator. What was simpler? I let Erot take the ride that had been planned for Doria.'
'You saved her! Where is she?' cried Thudos, his voice breaking in the first emotion he had displayed since he had learned of his daughter's plight.
'Come close,' cautioned Tarzan, 'lest the walls themselves be enemies.' The two men pressed close to the speaker who continued in a low whisper, 'Do you recall, Gemnon, that when we were at the gold mine I spoke aside to one of the slaves there?'
'I believe that I did notice it,' replied Gemnon. 'I thought you were asking questions about the operation of the mine.
'No; I was delivering a message from his brother, and so grateful was he that he begged that he be permitted to serve me if the opportunity arose. It was to arise much sooner than either of us could have expected; and so, when it was necessary to find a hiding place for Doria, I thought immediately of the isolated hut of Niaka, the headman of the black slaves at the gold mine.
'She is there now, and the man will protect her as long as is necessary. He has promised me that if he hears nothing from me for half a moon he is to understand that none of us three can come to her aid, and that then he will get word to the faithful slaves of the house of Thudos. He says that that will be difficult but not impossible.'
'Doria safe!' whispered Gemnon. 'Thudos and I may now die happy.'
For some time the three men sat in silence that was broken at last by Gemnon. 'How did it happen that you knew the brother of a slave well enough to carry a message from one to the other?' he asked, a note of puzzlement in his voice.
'Do you recall Xerstle's grand hunt?' asked Tarzan with a laugh.
'Of course, but what has that to do with it?' demanded Gemnon.
'Do you remember the quarry, the man we saw on the slave block in the market place?'
'Yes.'
'He is the brother of Niaka,' explained Tarzan.
'But you never had an opportunity to speak to him,' objected the young noble.
'Oh, but I did. It was I who helped him escape. That was why his brother was so grateful to me.'
'I still do not understand,' said Gemnon.
'There is probably much connected with Xerstle's grand hunt that you do not understand,' suggested Tarzan. And he went on to tell his part in the hunt.
'Now I am doubly sorry that I must die,' said Gemnon.
'Why more so than before?' asked Thudos.
'I shall never have the opportunity to tell the story of Xerstle's grand hunt,' he explained. 'What a story that would make!'
The morning dawned bright and beautiful, just as though there was no misery or sorrow or cruelty in the world, but it did not change matters at all, other than to make the cell in which the three men were confined uncomfortably warm as the day progressed.
Shortly after noon a guard came and took Tarzan away. All three of the prisoners were acquainted with the officer who commanded it, a decent fellow who spoke sympathetically to them. 'Is he coming back?' asked Thudos, nodding toward Tarzan.
The officer shook his head. 'No. The queen hunts today.'
Thudos and Gemnon pressed the ape-man's shoulder.
No word was spoken, but that wordless farewell was more eloquent than words. They saw him go out, saw the door close behind him, but neither spoke, and so they sat for a long hour in silence.
In the guardroom, to which he had been conducted from his cell, Tarzan was heavily chained. A golden collar was placed about his neck, and a chain reaching from each side of it was held in the hands of a warrior.
'Why all the precautions?' demanded the ape-man.
'It is merely a custom,' explained the officer. 'It is always thus that the queen's quarry is led to the Field of the Lions.'
Once again Tarzan of the Apes walked near the chariot of the queen of Cathne, but this time he walked behind it, a chained prisoner between two stalwart warriors and surrounded by a score of others. Once again he crossed the bridge of gold out onto the Field of the Lions in the valley of Onthar .
The procession did not go far, scarcely more than a mile from the city. With scowling brows Nemone sat brooding in her chariot as it stopped at last at the point she had selected for the start of the hunt. She ordered the guard to fetch the prisoner to her. She was looking straight ahead as the ape-man halted by the wheel of her chariot.
'Send all away except the two warriors who hold him,' commanded Nemone.
'You may send them, too, if you wish,' said Tarzan. 'I give you my word not to harm you or try to escape while they are away.
Nemone, still looking straight ahead, was silent for a moment; then, 'You may all go. I would speak with the prisoner alone.'
When the guard had departed a number of paces, the queen turned her eyes toward Tarzan and found his smiling into her own. 'You are going to be very happy, Nemone,' he said in an easy, friendly voice.
'What do you mean?' she asked. 'How am I going to be happy?'
'You are going to see me die, that is if the lion catches me,' he laughed.
'You think that will give me pleasure? Well, I thought so myself, but now I am wondering if it will. Nothing in life is ever what I hope for.'
'Pфssibly you don't hope for the right things,' he suggested. 'Did you ever try hoping for something that would bring pleasure and happiness to someone beside yourself?'
'Why should I?' she asked. 'I hope for my own happiness; let others do the same. I strive for my own happiness…'
'And never have any,' interrupted the ape-man good-naturedly.
'Probably I should have less if I strove only for the happiness of others,' she insisted.
'There are people like that,' he assented. 'Perhaps you are one of them, so you might as well go on striving for happiness in your own way. Of course you won't get it, but you will at least have the pleasures of anticipation, and that is something.'
'I think I know myself and my own affairs well enough to determine for myself how to conduct my life,' she said with a note of asperity in her voice.
Tarzan shrugged. 'It was not in my thoughts to interfere,' he said. 'If you are determined to kill me and are quite sure that you will derive pleasure from it, why, I should be the last in the world to suggest that you abandon the idea.'
'You do not amuse me,' said Nemone haughtily. 'I do not care for irony that is aimed at myself.' She turned fiercely on him. 'Men have died for less!' she cried, and the Lord of the Jungle laughed in her face.
'How many times?' he asked.
'A moment ago,' said Nemone, 'I was beginning to regret the thing that is about to happen. Had you been different, I might have relented and returned you to faviour, but you do everything to antagonize me. You affront me, you insult me, you laugh at me.' Her voice was rising, a barometric indication, Tarzan had learned, of her mental state.
'You will go on killing people and being unhappy until it is your turn to be killed,' Tarzan said.
She shuddered. 'Killed!' she repeated. 'Yes, they are all killed, the kings and queens of Cathne. But it is not my turn yet. While Belthar lives, Nemone lives.'
She was silent for a moment. 'You may live, too, Tarzan, if you kneel here, before my people, and beg for mercy. 'Bring on your lion,' said Tarzan. 'His mercy might be kinder than Nemone's.'
'You refuse?' she demanded angrily. 'You would kill me eventually,' he replied. 'There is a chance the lion
