Behind the golden chariot of the queen rolled a second chariot on the floor of which lay a bundle sewn in the skins of lions. Chained to this chariot were Thudos and Gemnon. Following were a hundred chariots driven by nobles in gold and ivory, while other nobles on foot entirely surrounded the chariot of the queen.
There were columns of marching warriors in the lead, and in the rear were the war lions of Cathne, the royal fighting lions of the queen. Keepers held them on leashes of gold, and proud nobles of ancient families marched beside them—the lion men of Cathne.
The barbaric splendor of the scene impressed even the ape-man who cared little for display, though he gave no outward sign of interest as he strode at the wheel of Nemone's chariot drawn by its eight great lions held in leash by twenty four powerful slaves in tunics of red and gold.
The sun, climbing into the heavens, was bringing heat. Slaves carrying an umbrella over the queen adjusted it to fend the hot rays from her; others waved lions' tails attached to the ends of long poles to and fro about her to drive the insects away. A gentle breeze carried the dust of the long column lazily toward the west.
Nemone sighed and turned to Tarzan. "Why were you late?" she asked.
"Would it be strange that I overslept?" he asked. "It was late when I left the palace, and there was no keeper to awaken me since you took Gemnon away.
"Had you wished to see me again as badly as I wished to see you, you would not have been late."
"I was as anxious to be here as you," he replied.
"You have never seen Xarator?" she asked.
"No".
"It is a holy mountain, created by Thoos for the enemies of the kings and queens of Cathne. In all the world there is nothing like it."
"I am going to enjoy seeing it," replied the ape-man grimly.
They were approaching a fork in the road. "That road leading to the right runs through the Pass of the Warriors into the valley of Thenar," she explained. "Some day I shall send you on a raid to Thenar, and you shall bring me Athne's greatest warriors as hostages."
Tarzan thought of Valthor and wondered if he had reached Athne in safety. He glanced back at Thudos and Gemnon. He had not spoken to them, but it was because of them that he was here. He might easily have escaped had he not determined to remain until he was certain that he could not aid these friends. Their case appeared hopeless, yet the ape-man had not given up hope.
At noon the procession stopped for lunch. The populace scattered about seeking the shade of the trees that dotted the plain and that had not already been selected by the queen and the nobles. The lions were led into shade, where they lay down to rest. Warriors, always on the lookout for danger, stood guard about the temporary encampment.
There was always danger on the Field of the Lions.
The halt was brief; in half an hour the cavalcade was on the march again. There was less talking now; silence and the great heat hung over the dusty column. The hills that bounded the valley upon the north were close, and soon they entered them, following a canyon upward to a winding mountain road that led into the hills above.
Presently the smell of sulfur fumes came plainly to the nostrils of the ape-man, and a little later the column turned the shoulder of a great mass of volcanic rock and came upon the edge of a huge crater. Far below, molten rock bubbled, sending up spurts of flame, geysers of steam, and columns of yellow smoke. The scene was impressive and awe-inspiring. Tarzan stood with folded arms and bent head gazing down into the seething inferno until the queen touched him on the shoulder. "What do you think of Xarator?" she asked.
He shook his head. "There are some emotions," he answered slowly, "for which no words have yet been coined."
"It was created by Thoos for the kings of Cathne," she explained proudly.
Tarzan made no reply; perhaps he was thinking that here again the lexicographers had failed to furnish words adequate to the occasion.
On either side of the royal party the people crowded close to the edge of the crater that they might miss nothing of what was about to transpire. The children laughed and played, or teased their mothers for the food that was being saved for the evening meal upon the return journey to Cathne.
The ceremony at Xarator, though it bore the authority of so- called justice, was of a semi-religious nature that required the presence and active participation of priests, two of whom lifted the sack containing the victim from the chariot and placed it at the edge of the crater at the feet of the queen.
As two other priests lifted the body from the ground and were about to hurl it into the crater, she stopped them with a curt command. "Wait!" she cried. "We would look upon the too great beauty of Doria, the daughter of Thudos, the traitor."
All eyes were upon the priest who drew his dagger and ripped open the bag along one loosely sewn seam. The eyes of Thudos and Gemnon were fixed upon the still figure outlined beneath the tawny skins of lions. Beads of perspiration stood upon their foreheads; their jaws and their fists were clenched. The eyes of Tarzan turned from the activities of the priest to the face of the queen; between narrowed lids, from beneath stern brows they watched her.
The priests, gathering the bag by one side, raised it and let the body roll out upon the ground where all could see it. There was a gasp of astonishment. Nemone cried out in a sudden fit of rage. The body was that of Erot, and he was dead!
19. THE QUEEN'S QUARRY
After the first involuntary cries of surprise and rage, an ominous silence fell upon the barbaric scene. Now all eyes were centered upon the queen, whose ordinarily beautiful countenance was almost hideous from rage, a rage which, after her single angry cry, choked further utterance for the moment. But at length she found her voice and turned furiously upon Tomos.
"What means this?" she demanded, her voice now controlled and as cold as the steel in the sheath at her side.
Tomos, who was as much astounded as she, stammered as he trembled in his sandals of elephant hide. "There are traitors even in the temple of Thoos!" he cried. "I chose Erot to prepare the girl for the embraces of Xarator because I knew that his loyalty to his queen would ensure the work being well done. I did not know, O gracious Nemone, that this vile crime had been committed or that the body of Erot had been substituted for that of the daughter of Thudos until this very instant."
With an expression of disgust the queen commanded the priests to hurl the body of Erot into the crater, and, as it was swallowed by the fiery pit, she ordered an immediate return to Cathne.
In morose and gloomy silence she rode down the winding mountain trail and out onto the Field of the Lions, and often her eyes were upon the bronzed giant striding beside her chariot.
At last she broke her silence. "Two of your enemies are gone now," she said. "I destroyed one; who do you think destroyed the other?"
"Perhaps I did," suggested Tarzan with a "I had been thinking of that possibility," replied Nemone, but she did not smile.
"Whoever did it performed a service for Cathne."
"Perhaps," she half agreed, "but it is not the killing of Erot that annoys me. It is the effrontery that dared interfere with the plans of Nemone."
Tarzan shrugged his broad shoulders, but remained silent.
The tedious journey back to Cathne ended at last, an with flaring torches lighting the way, the queen's procession crossed the bridge of gold and entered the city. Here she immediately ordered a thorough search to be made for Doria.
Thudos and Gemnon, happy but mystified, were returned to their cell to await the new doom that Nemone would fix for them. Tarzan was commanded to accompany Nemone into the palace and dine with her. Tomos had been dismissed with a curt injunction to find Doria or prepare for the worst.
Tarzan and the queen ate alone in a small dining room attended only by slaves, and when the meal was over Nemone conducted him to the now all too familiar ivory room, where he was greeted by the angry growls of Belthar "Erot and M'duze are dead," said the queen, "and I have sent Tomos away. There will be none to d
isturb us tonight."
The ape-man sat with his eyes fixed upon her, studying her. It seemed incredible that this sweet and lovely woman could be the cruel tyrant that was Nemone the queen.
But then, as the Lord of the Jungle looked at her, the spell that had held him vanished. Beneath the beautiful exterior he saw the crazed mind of a mad woman. He saw the creature that cast defenseless men to will beasts that disfigured or destroyed women who might be more beautiful than she, and all that was fine in him revolted.
With a half growl he arose to his feet. Nemone gazed for a moment questioningly at the man above her; then she seemed to realize what he was thinking, and the mad, cruel light of rage blazed in her eyes. She sprang to one side of the room where a metal gong depended from the ceiling and seizing the striker smote it three times.
The brazen notes rang through the chamber mingling with the roars of the infuriated lion Belthar.
Tarzan stood watching her; she seemed wholly irresponsible, quite mad. It would be useless to attempt to reason with her. He moved slowly toward the door, but before he reached it, it swung open, and a score of warriors accompanied by two nobles rushed in.
"Take this man!" ordered Nemone. "Throw him into the cell with the other enemies of the queen!"
Tarzan was unarmed. He had worn only a sword when he entered the ivory room and that he had unbuckled and laid upon a stand near the doorway. There were twenty spears leveled at him, twenty spears that entirely encircled him. With a shrug he surrendered. It was that or death. In prison he might find the means to escape; at least he would see Gemnon again, and there was something that he very much wished to tell Gemnon and Thudos.
As the soldiers conducted him from the room and the door closed behind them, Nemone threw herself among the cushions of her couch, her body racked by choking sobs. The great lion grumbled in the dusky corner of the room. Suddenly Nemone sat erect and her eyes blazed into the blazing eyes of the lion. For a moment she sat there thus, and then she arose and a peal of maniacal laughter broke from her lips.
Thudos and Gemnon sitting in their cell heard the tramp of marching men approaching the prison in which they were confined. "Evidently Nemone cannot wait until tomorrow," said Thudos.
"You think she is sending for us now?" asked Gemnon.
"What else?" demanded the older man. "The lion pit can be illuminated."
As they waited and listened, the steps stopped outside their cell, the door was pushed open, and a man entered. The warriors had carried no torches and neither neither Thudos nor Gemnon could discern the features of the newcomer. None of them spoke until the guard had departed out of earshot. "Greetings, Thudos and Gemnon!" exclaimed the new prisoner cheerily.
"Tarzan!" exclaimed Gemnon.
"None other," admitted the ape-man.
"What brings you here?" demanded Thudos.
"Twenty warriors and the whim of a woman, an insane woman," replied Tarzan.
"So you have fallen from favor!" exclaimed Gemnon. "I am sorry."
"It was inevitable," said Tarzan.
"And what will your punishment be?"
"I do not know, but I suspect that it will be quite sufficient. However, that is something that need not concern any of us until it happens. Maybe it won't happen at all."
"There is no room in the dungeon of Nemone for optimism," remarked Thudos with a grim laugh.
"Perhaps not," agreed the ape-man, "but I shall continue to indulge myself. Doubtless Doria felt hopeless in her prison in the temple last night, yet she escaped Xarator."
"That is a miracle that I cannot fathom," said Gemnon.
"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 to 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 brid
ge 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."
"Possibly 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.
The Complete Tarzan Collection Page 367