“I am Talaskar,” she replied; “but I know him only by his number. He says that while he remains a slave he has no name, but will go always by his number, which is Eight Hundred Cubed, Plus Nineteen. I see that you are Eight Hundred Cubed, Plus Twenty-one.” She was looking at the hieroglyphics that had been fastened upon his shoulder. “Have you a name?”
“They call me Zuanthrol.”
“Ah,” she said, “you are a large man, but I should scarcely call you a giant. He, too, is from Trohanadalmakus and he is about your height. I never heard that there were any giants in Minuni except the people they call Zertalacolols.”
“I thought you were a Zertalacolol,” said a man’s voice at Tarzan’s ear.
The ape-man turned to see one of the slaves with whom he had been working eyeing him quizzically, and smiled.
“I am a Zertalacolol to my masters,” he replied.
The other raised his brows. “I see,” he said. “Perhaps you are wise. I shall not be the one to betray you,” and passed on about his business.
“What did he mean?” asked the girl.
“I have never spoken, until now, since they took me prisoner,” he explained, “and they think I am speechless, though I am sure that I do not look like a Zertalacolol, yet some of them insist that I am one.”
“I have never seen one,” said the girl.
“You are fortunate,” Tarzan told her. “They are neither pleasant to see nor to meet.”
“But I should like to see them,” she insisted. “I should like to see anything that was different from these slaves whom I see all day and every day.”
“Do not lose hope,” he encouraged her, “for who knows but that it may be very soon that you will return to the surface.”
“ ‘Return,’ ” she repeated. “I have never been there.”
“Never been to the surface! You mean since you were captured.”
“I was born in this chamber,” she told him, “and never have I been out of it.”
“You are a slave of the second generation and are still confined to the quarries—I do not understand it. In all Minunian cities, I have been told, slaves of the second generation are given the white tunic and comparative freedom above ground.”
“It was not for me. My mother would not permit it. She would rather I had died than mated with a Veltopismakusian or another slave, as I must do if I go into the city above.”
“But how do you avoid it? Your masters certainly do not leave such things to the discretion of their slaves.”
“Where there are so many one or two may go unaccounted for indefinitely, and women, if they be ill-favored, cause no comment upon the part of our masters. My birth was never reported and so they have no record of me. My mother took a number for me from the tunic of one who died, and in this way I attract no attention upon the few occasions that our masters or the warriors enter our chamber.”
“But you are not ill-favored—your face would surely attract attention anywhere,” Tarzan reminded her.
For just an instant she turned her back upon him, putting her hands to her face and to her hair, and then she faced him again and the ape-man saw before him a hideous and wrinkled hag upon whose crooked features no man would look a second time.
“God!” ejaculated Tarzan.
Slowly the girl’s face relaxed, assuming its normal lines of beauty, and with quick, deft touches she arranged her disheveled hair. An expression that was almost a smile haunted her lips.
“My mother taught me this,” she said, “so that when they came and looked upon me they would not want me.”
“But would it not be better to be mated with one of them and live a life of comfort above ground than to eke out a terrible existence below ground?” he demanded. “The warriors of Veltopismakus are, doubtless, but little different from those of your own country.”
She shook her head. “It cannot be, for me,” she said. “My father is of far Mandalamakus. My mother was stolen from him but a couple of moons before I was born in this horrid chamber, far from the air and sunlight that my mother never tired of telling me about.
“And your mother?” asked Tarzan. “Is she here?”
The girl shook her head sadly. “They came for her over twenty moons since and took her away. I do not know what became of her.”
“And these others, they never betray you?” he inquired.
“Never! Whatever slave betrayed another would be torn to pieces by his fellows. But come, you must be hungry,” and she offered him of the flesh she had been cooking.
Tarzan would have preferred his meat raw, but he did not wish to offend her and so he thanked her and ate that which she offered him, squatting on his haunches across the brazier from her.
“It is strange that Aoponato does not come,” she remarked, using the Minunian form of Eight Hundred Cubed, Plus Nineteen. “Never before has he been so late.”
A brawny slave, who had approached from behind her, had halted and was looking scowlingly at Tarzan.
“Perhaps this is he,” said Tarzan to the girl, indicating the man with a gesture.
Talaskar turned quickly, an almost happy light in her eyes, but when she saw who it was that stood behind her she rose quickly and stepped back, her expression altered to one of disgust.
“No,” she said, “it is not he.”
“You are cooking for him?” demanded the fellow, pointing at Tarzan. “But you would not cook for me,” he accused, not waiting for a reply to his question, the answer to which was all too obvious. “Who is he that you should cook for him? Is he better than I? You will cook for me, also.”
“There are plenty to cook for you, Caraftap,” replied Talaskar, “and I do not wish to. Go to some other woman. Until there are too many men we are permitted to choose
