Now that the torches were gone the room was very dark, but Tarzan lost no time in starting to investigate his prison. First he groped his way to the door, which he found to be constructed of solid planking with a small, square hole cut in it about the height of his eyes. There was no sign of lock or latch upon the inside and no way of ascertaining how it was secured from the outside.
Leaving the door, Tarzan moved slowly along the walls, feeling carefully over the stone surface. He knew that the other occupant of the cell was sitting on a bench in one corner at the far end. He could hear him breathing. As he examined the room Tarzan approached closer and closer to his fellow prisoner.
In the rear wall the ape-man discovered a window. It was small and high-set. The night was so dark that he could not tell whether it opened onto the outdoors or into another apartment of the building. As an avenue of escape the window appeared quite useless, as it was much too small to accommodate the body of a man.
As Tarzan was examining the window he was close to the corner where the other man sat, and now he heard a movement there. He also noticed that the fellow's breathing had increased in rapidity, as though he were nervous or excited. At last a voice sounded through the darkness.
'What are you doing?' it demanded.
'Examining the cell,' replied Tarzan.
'It will do you no good, if you are looking for a way to escape,' said the voice. 'You won't get out of here until they take you out, no more than I shall.'
Tarzan made no reply. There seemed nothing to say, and Tarzan seldom speaks, even when others might find much to say. He went on with his examination of the room. Passing the other occupant, he felt along the fourth and last wail, but his search revealed nothing to repay the effort. He was in a small, rectangular cell of stone that was furnished with a long bench at one end and had a door and a window letting into it.
Tarzan walked to the far end of the room and sat down upon the bench. He was cold, wet, and hungry, but he was unafraid. He was thinking of all that had transpired since night had fallen and left him to the mercy of the storm; he wondered what the morrow held for him.
Presently the man in the corner of the cell addressed him. 'Who are you?' he asked. 'When they brought you in I saw by the light of the torches that you are neither a Cathnean nor an Athnean.' The man's voice was coarse, his tones gruff; he demanded rather than requested.
This did not please Tarzan, so he did not reply. 'What's the matter?' growled his fellow prisoner. 'Are you dumb?' His voice was raised angrily.
'Nor deaf,' replied the ape-man. 'You do not have to shout at me.'
The other was silent for a short time; then he spoke in an altered tone. 'We may be locked in this hole together for a long time,' he said. 'We might as well be friends.'
'As you will,' replied Tarzan, his involuntary shrug passing unoticed in the darkness of the cell.
My name is Phobez,' said the man; 'what is yours?'
'Tarzan' replied the ape-man.
'Are you either cathnean or Athnean?'
'Neither: I am from a country far to the south.'
'You would be better off had you stayed there,' offered Phobeg. 'How do you happen to be here in Cathne?'
'I was lost,' explained the ape-man, who had no intention of telling the entire truth and thus identifying himself as a friend of one of the Cathneans' enemies. 'I was caught in the flood and carried down the river to your city. Here they captured me and accused me of coming to assassinate your queen.
'So they think you came to assassinate Nemone! Well, whether you did come for that purpose or not will make no difference.'
'What do you mean?' demanded Tarzan.
'I mean that in any event you will be killed in one way or another,' explained Phobeg, 'whatever way will best amuse Nemone.'
'Nemone is your queen?' inquired the ape-man indifferently.
'By the mane of Thoos, she is all that and more!' exclaimed Phobeg fervently. 'Such a queen there never has been in Onthar or Thenar before nor ever will be again. By the teeth of the great one! She makes them all stand around, the priests, the captains, and the councillors.'
'But why should she have me destroyed who am only a stranger that became lost?'
'We keep no white men prisoners, only blacks as slaves. Now, were you a woman you would not be killed, unless, of course, you were too good-looking.'
'And what would happen to a too good-looking woman?' asked Tarzan.
'Enough, if Nemone saw her,' replied Phobeg meaningly. 'To be more beautiful than the queen is equivalent to high treason in the estimation of Nemone. Why, men hide their wives and daughters if they think that they are too beautiful.'
'What did you do to get here?' inquired the ape-man.
'I accidentally stepped on our god's tail,' replied Phobeg gloomily.
The man's strange oaths had not gone unnoticed by Tarzan and now this latest remarkable reference to diety astounded him. But contact with strange peoples had taught him to learn certain things concerning them by observation and experience rather than by direct questioning, matters of religion being chief among these. Now he only commented, 'And therefore you are being punished.'
'Not yet,' replied Phobeg. 'The form of my punishment has not yet been decided. If Nemone has other amusements I may escape punishment, or I may come through my trial successfully and be freed, but the chances are all against me, for Nemone seldom has sufficient bloody amusement to sate her.
'Of course, if she leaves the decision of my guilt or innocence to the chances of an encounter with a single man, I shall doubtless be successful in proving the latter, for I am very strong and there is no better sword, or spear-man in Cathne. But I should have less chance against a lion, while, faced by the eternal fires of frowning Xarator, all men are guilty.'
Although the man spoke the language Valthor had taught the ape-man and he understood the words, the meaning of what he said was as Greek to Tarzan. He could not quite grasp what the amusements of the queen had to do with the administration of justice, even though the inferences to be derived from Phobeg's remarks seemed apparent. The conclusion was too sinister to be entertained by the noble mind of the Lord of the Jungle.
He was still considering the subject and wondering about the eternal fires of frowning Xarator when sleep overcame his physical discomforts and merged his speculations with his dreams. To the south, another jungle beast crouched in the shelter of a rocky ledge while the storm that had betrayed Tarzan to new enemies wasted its waning wrath and passed on into the nothingness that is the sepulchre of storms. Then, as the new day dawned bright and clear, he arose and stepped out into the sunlight, the great lion that we have seen before, the great lion with the golden coat and the black mane.
He sniffed the morning air and stretched, yawning. His sinuous tail twitched nervously as he looked about over the vast domain that was his because he was there, as every wilderness is the domain of the king of beasts while his majesty is in residence.
From the slight elevation upon which he stood, his yellow-green eyes surveyed a broad plain, tree-dotted. There was game there in plenty— wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, koodoo, and hartebeest—and the king was hungry, for the rain had prevented his making a kill the previous night. He blinked his yellow-green eyes in the new sunlight and strode majestically down toward the plain and his breakfast, as, many miles to the north, a black slave accompanied by two warriors brought breakfast to another lord of the jungle in a prison cell at Cathne.
At the sound of footsteps approaching his prison, Tarzan awoke and arose from the cold stone floor where he had been sleeping. Phobeg sat upon the edge of the wooden bench and watched the door.
'They bring us food or death,' he said; 'one never knows.'
The ape-man made no reply. He stood there waiting until the door swung open and the slave entered with the food in a rough earthen bowl, and water in a glazed jug. He looked at the two warriors standing in the open doorway and at the sunlit courtyard beyond them. Curiosity kept him prisoner there quite as much as armed men or sturdy door, and now he only looked beyond the two warriors who were eyeing him intently. They had not been on duty the night before and had not seen him, but they had heard of him. His feat with his strange weapon had been told them by their fellows.
