Tarzan and the Lost Empire t-12

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  "Who comes?" shouted one.

  "It is I, Tarzan of the Apes," replied the ape-man.

  The shout that went up in response to this declaration proved that the fickle populace had not, as yet, turned against him.

  Within the palace the cries of the people brought a scowl to the face of Caesar and a sneer to many a patrician lip, but their reaction might have been far different had they known the cause of the elation of the mob.

  "Why are you here?" cried voices. "What are you going to do?"

  "We have come to rescue Dilecta from the arms of Fastus and to drag the tyrant from the throne of Castra Sanguinarius."

  Roars of approval greeted the announcement. "Death to the tyrant!"

  "Down with the palace guards!"

  "Kill them!"

  "Kill them!" rose from a thousand lips.

  The crowd pushed forward. The officer of the guard, seeing the reinforcements, among which were many legionaries, ordered his men to fall back within the palace grounds and close and bar the gate, nor did they succeed in accomplishing this an instant too soon, for as the bolts were shot the crowd hurled itself upon the stout barriers of iron and oak.

  A pale-faced messenger hastened to the throne-room and to Caesar's side.

  "The people have risen," he whispered, hoarsely, "and many soldiers and gladiators and slaves have joined them. They are throwing themselves against the gates, which cannot hold for long."

  Caesar arose and paced nervously to and fro, and presently he paused and summoned officers.

  "Dispatch messengers to every gate and every barracks," he ordered. "Summon the troops to the last man that may be spared from the gates. Order them to fall upon the rabble and kill. Let them kill until no citizen remains alive in the streets of Castra Sanguinarius. Take no prisoners."

  As word finds its way through a crowd, as though by some strange telepathic means, so the knowledge soon became common that Sublatus had ordered every legionary in the city to the palace with instructions to destroy the revolutionaries to the last man.

  The people, encouraged by the presence of the legionaries led by Praeclarus, had renewed their assaults upon the gates, and though many were piked through its bars, their bodies were dragged away by their friends and others took their places, so that the gates sagged and bent beneath their numbers; yet they held and Tarzan saw that they might hold for long—or at least long enough to permit the arrival of the re-enforcements that, if they remained loyal to Caesar, might overcome this undisciplined mob with ease.

  Gathering around him some of those he knew best, Tarzan explained a new plan that was greeted with exclamations of approval, and summoning the apes he moved down the dark avenue, followed by Maximus Praeclarus, Cassius Hasta, Caecilius Metellus, Mpingu, and a half dozen of Castra Sanguinarius's most famous gladiators.

  The wedding of Fastus and Dilecta was to take place upon the steps of Caesar's throne. The high priest of the temple stood facing the audience, and just below him, and at one side, Fastus waited, while slowly up the center of the long chamber came the bride, followed by the vestal virgins, who tended the temple's sacred fires.

  Dilecta was pale, but she did not falter as she moved slowly forward to her doom. There were many who whispered that she looked the Empress already, so noble was her mien, so stately her carriage. They could not see the slim dagger clutched in her right hand beneath the flowing bridal robes. Up the aisle she moved, but she did not halt before the priest as Fastus had done—and as she should have done—but passed him and mounting the first few steps toward the throne she halted, facing Sublatus.

  "The people of Castra Sanguinarius have been taught through all the ages that they may look to Caesar for protection," she said. "Caesar not only makes the law—he is the law. He is either the personification of justice or he is a tyrant. Which, Sublatus, are you?"

  Caesar flushed. "What mad whim is this, child?" he demanded. "Who has set you to speak such words to Caesar?"

  "I have not been prompted," replied the girl, wearily. "It is my last hope and though I knew beforehand that it was futile, I felt that I must not cast it aside as useless before putting it to the test."

  "Come! Come!" snapped Caesar. "Enough of this foolishness. Take your place before the priest and repeat your marriage vows."

  "You cannot refuse me," cried the girl, stubbornly. "I appeal to Caesar, which is my right as a citizen of Rome, the mother city that we have never seen, but whose right to citizenship has been handed down to us from our ancient sires. Unless the spark of freedom is to be denied us, you cannot refuse me that right, Sublatus."

  The Emperor paled and then flushed with anger. "Come lo me tomorrow," be said. "You shall have whatever you wish."

  "If you do not hear me now, there will be no tomorrow," she said. "I demand my rights now."

  "Well," demanded Caesar, coldly, "what favor do you seek?"

  "I seek no favor," replied Dilecta. "I seek the right to know if the thing for which I am paying this awful price has been done, as it was promised."

  "What do you mean?" demanded Sublatus. "What proof do you wish?"

  "I wish to see Maximus Praeclarus here alive and free," replied the girl, "before I pledge my troth to Fastus. That, as you well know, was the price of my promise to wed him."

  Caesar arose angrily. "That cannot be," he said.

  "Oh, yes, it can be," cried a voice from the balcony at the side of the chamber, "for Maximus Praeclarus stands just behead me."

  Chapter Nineteen

  EVERY eye turned in the direction of the balcony from which came the voice of the speaker. A gasp of astonishment arose from the crowded room.

  "The barbarian!"

  "Maximus Praeclarus!" cried a score of voices.

  "The guard! The guard!" screamed Caesar, as Tarzan leaped from the balcony to one of the tall pillars that supported the roof and slid quickly to the floor, while behind him came six hairy apes.

  A dozen swords flashed from their scabbards as Tarzan and the six leaped toward the throne. Women screamed and fainted. Caesar shrank back upon his golden seat, momentarily paralyzed by terror.

  A noble with bared blade leaped in front of Tarzan to bur his way, but Go-yad sprang full upon him. Yellow fangs bit once into his neck and, as the great ape arose and standing on the body of his kill roared forth his victory cry, the other nobles shrank back. Fastus, with a scream, turned and fled, and Tarzan leaped to Dilecta's side. As the apes ascended the steps to the dais, Caesar, jabbering with terror, scuttled from his seat and hid, half-fainting, behind the great throne that was the symbol of his majesty and his power.

  But it was not long before the nobles and officers and soldiers in the apartment regained the presence of mind that the sudden advent of this horrid horde had scattered to the four winds, and now, seeing only the wild barbarian and six unarmed beasts threatening them, they pushed forward. Just then a small door beneath the balcony from which Tarzan had descended to the floor of the throne-room was pushed open, giving entrance to Maximus Praeclarus, Cassius Hasta, Callous Metellus, Mpingu, and the others who had accompanied Tarzan over the palace wall beneath the shadows of the great trees into which the ape-man and the apes had assisted their less agile fellows.

  As Caesar's defenders sprang forward they were met by some of the best swords in Castra Sanguinarius, as in the forefront of the fighting were the very gladiators whose exploits they had cheered during the week. Tarzan passed Dilecta to Mpingu, for he and Praeclarus must lend a hand in the fighting.

  Slowly, Dilecta's defenders fell back before the greater number of nobles, soldiers, and guardsmen who were summoned from other parts of the palace. Back toward the little door they fell, while shoulder to shoulder with the gladiators and with Maximus Praeclarus and Hasta and Metellus, Tarzan fought and the great apes spread consternation among all because of their disposition to attack friend as well as foe.

  And out upon the Via Principalis the crowd surged and the great gates gave to a shrieking mo
b that poured into the palace grounds, overwhelming the guards, trampling them—trampling their own dead and their own living.

  But the veteran legionaries who composed the palace guard made a new stand at the entrance to the palace. Once more they checked the undisciplined rabble, which had by now grown to such proportions that the revolting troops, who had joined them, were lost in their midst. The guard had dragged an onager to the palace steps and were discharging stones into the midst of the crowd, which continued to rush forward to fall upon the pikes of the palace defenders.

  In the distance trumpets sounded from the direction of the Porta Decumana, and from the Porta Principalis Dextra came the sound of advancing troops. At first those upon the outskirts of the mob, who had heard these sounds, did not interpret them correctly. They cheered and shouted. These cowards that hang always upon the fringe of every crowd, letting others take the risks and do the fighting for them, thought that more troops had revolted and that the reinforcements were for them. But their joy was short-lived, for the first century that swung into the Via Principalis from the Porta Decumana fell upon them with pike and sword until those who were not slain escaped, screaming, in all directions.

  Century after century came at the double. They cleared the Via Principalis and fell upon the mob within the palace court until the revolt dissolved into screaming individuals fleeing through the darkness of the palace grounds, seeking any shelter that they might find, while terrible legionaries pursued them with flaming torches and bloody swords.

  Back into the little room from which they had come fell Tarzan and his followers. The doorway was small and it was not difficult for a few men to hold it, but when they would have retreated through the window they had entered and gone back into the palace grounds to seek escape across the walls in the shadows of the old trees, they saw the grounds swarming with legionaries and realized that the back of the revolt had been broken.

  The anteroom in which they had taken refuge would barely accommodate them all, but it offered probably the best refuge they could have found in all the palace of Sublatus , for there were but two openings in it—the single small doorway leading into the throne-room and an even smaller window letting into the palace gardens. The walls were all stone and proof against any weapons at the disposal of the legionaries; yet if the uprising had failed and the legionaries had not joined the people, as they had expected, of what value this temporary sanctuary? The instant that hunger and thirst assailed them this same room would become their prison cell and torture chamber—and perhaps for many of them a vestibule to the grave.

  "Ah, Dilecta," cried Praeclarus, in the first moment that he could seize to go to her side, "I have found you only to lose you again. My rashness, perhaps, has brought you death."

  "Your coming saved me from death," replied the girl, drawing the dagger from her gown and exhibiting it to Praeclarus. "I chose this as husband rather than Fastus," she said, "so if I die now I have lived longer than I should have, had you not come; and at least I die happy, for we shall die together."

  "This is no time to be speaking of dying," said Tarzan. "Did you think a few hours ago that you would ever be together again? Well, here you are. Perhaps in a few more hours everything will be changed and you will be laughing at the fears you are now entertaining."

  Some of the gladiators, who were standing near and had overheard Tarzan's words, shook their heads.

  "Any of us who gets out of this room alive," said one, "will be burned at the stake, or fed to lions, or pulled apart by wild buffalo. We are through, but it has been a good fight, and I for one thank this great barbarian for this glorious end."

  Tarzan shrugged and turned away. "I am not dead yet," he said, "and not until I am dead is it time to think of it—and then it will be too late."

  Maximus Praeclarus laughed. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "What do you suggest? If we stay here, we shall be slain, so you must have some plan for getting us out."

  "If we can discern no hope of advantage through our own efforts," replied Tarzan, "we must look elsewhere and await such favors of fortune as may come from without, either through the intervention of our friends beyond the palace grounds or from the carelessness of the enemy himself. I admit that just at present our case appears desperate, but even so I am not without hope; at least we may be cheered by the realization that whatever turn events may take it must be for the better, since nothing could be worse."

  "I do not agree with you," said Metellus, pointing through the window. "See, they ere setting up a small ballista in the garden. Presently our condition will be much worse than it is now."

  "The walls appear substantial," returned the ape-man. "Do you think they can batter them down, Praeclarus?"

  "I doubt it," replied the Roman, "but every missile that comes through the window must take its toll, as we are so crowded here that all of us cannot get out of range."

  The legionaries that had been summoned to the throne-room had been held at the small doorway by a handful of gladiators and the defenders had been able to close and bar the stout oaken door. For a time there had been silence in the throne-room and no attempt was made to gain entrance to the room upon that side; while upon the garden side two or three attempts to rush the window had been thwarted, and now the legionaries held off while the small ballista was being dragged into place and trained upon the palace wall.

  Dilecta having been placed in an angle of the room where she would be safest, Tarzan and his lieutenants watched the operations of the legionaries in the garden.

  "They do not seem to be aiming directly at the window," remarked Cassius Hasta.

  "No," said Praeclarus. "I rather think they intend making a breach in the wall through which a sufficient number of them can enter to overpower us."

  "If we could rush the ballista and take it," mused Tarzan, "We could make it rather hot for them. Let us bold ourselves in readiness for that, if their missiles make it too hot for us in here. We shall have some advantage if we anticipate their assault by a sortie of our own."

  A dull thud upon the door at the opposite end of the room brought the startled attention of the defenders to that quarter. The oak door sagged and the stone walls trembled to the impact.

  Cassius Hasta smiled wryly. "They have brought a ram," he said.

  And now a heavy projectile shook the outer wall and a piece of plaster crumbled to the floor upon the inside—the ballista had come into action. Once again the heavy battering-ram shivered the groaning timbers of the door and the inmates of the room could hear the legionaries chanting the hymn of the ram to the cadence of which they swung it Kick and heaved it forward.

  The troops in the garden went about their duty with quiet, military efficiency. Each time a stone from the ballista struck the wall there was a shout, but there was nothing spontaneous in the demonstration, which seemed as perfunctory as the mechanical operation of the ancient war-engine that delivered its missiles with almost clocklike regularity.

  The greatest damage that the ballista appeared to be doing was to the plaster on the inside of the wall, but the battering-ram was slowly but surely shattering the door at the opposite side of the room.

  "Look," said Metellus, "they are altering the line of the ballista. They have discovered that they can effect nothing against the wall."

  "They are aiming at the window," said Praeclarus.

  "Those of you who are in line with the window lie down upon the floor," commanded Tarzan. "Quickly! the hammer is falling upon the trigger."

  The next missile struck one side of the window, carrying away a piece of the stone, and this time the result was followed by an enthusiastic shout from the legionaries in the garden.

  "That's what they should have done in the beginning," commented Hasta. "If they get the walls started at the edge of the window, they can make a breach more quickly there than elsewhere."

  "That is evidently what they are planning on doing," said Metellus, as a second missile struck in the same place and a large
fragment of the wall crumbled.

  "Look to the door," shouted Tarzan, as the weakened timbers sagged to the impact of the ram.

  A dozen swordsmen stood ready and waiting to receive the legionaries, whose rush they expected the instant that the door fell. At one side of the room the six apes crouched, growling, and kept in leash only by the repeated assurances of Tarzan that the man-things in the room with them were the friends of the ape-man.

  As the door crashed, there was a momentary silence, as each side waited to see what the other would do, and in the lull that ensued there came through the air a roaring sound ominous and threatening, and then the shouts of the legionaries in the throne-room and the legionaries in the garden drowned all other sounds.

  The gap around the window had been enlarged. The missiles of the ballista had crumbled the wall from the ceiling to the floor, and as though in accordance with a prearranged plan the legionaries assaulted simultaneously, one group rushing the doorway from the throne-room, the other the breach in the opposite wall.

  Tarzan turned toward the apes and pointing in the direction of the breached wall, shouted: "Stop them, Zutho! Kill, Go-yad! Kill!"

  The men near him looked at him in surprise and perhaps they shuddered a little as they heard the growling voice of a beast issue from the throat of the giant barbarian, but instantly they realized he was speaking to his hairy fellows, as they saw the apes spring forward with bared fangs and, growling hideously, throw themselves upon the first legionaries to reach the window. Two apes went down, pierced by Roman pikes, but before the beastly rage of the others Caesar's soldiers gave back.

  "After them," cried Tarzan to Praeclarus. "Follow them into the garden. Capture the ballista and turn it upon the legionaries. We will hold the throne-room door until you have seized the ballista, then we shall fall back upon you."

  After the battling apes rushed the three patricians, Maximus Praeclarus, Cassius Hasta, and Caecilius Metellus, leading gladiators, thieves, murderers, and slaves into the garden, profiting by the temporary advantage the apes had gained for them.