第71章

Into this narrow alley Tarzan made his way, turning his giant shoulders sideways that they might enter at all.

Behind him trailed his black warriors.At the turn in the cleft the stairs ended, and the path was level; but it wound and twisted in a serpentine fashion, until suddenly at a sharp angle it debouched upon a narrow court, across which loomed an inner wall equally as high as the outer.This inner wall was set with little round towers alternating along its entire summit with pointed monoliths.In places these had fallen, and the wall was ruined, but it was in a much better state of preservation than the outer wall.

Another narrow passage led through this wall, and at its end Tarzan and his warriors found themselves in a broad avenue, on the opposite side of which crumbling edifices of hewn granite loomed dark and forbidding.Upon the crumbling debris along the face of the buildings trees had grown, and vines wound in and out of the hollow, staring windows; but the building directly opposite them seemed less overgrown than the others, and in a much better state of preservation.It was a massive pile, surmounted by an enormous dome.At either side of its great entrance stood rows of tall pillars, each capped by a huge, grotesque bird carved from the solid rock of the monoliths.

As the ape-man and his companions stood gazing in varying degrees of wonderment at this ancient city in the midst of savage Africa, several of them became aware of movement within the structure at which they were looking.

Dim, shadowy shapes appeared to be moving about in the semi-darkness of the interior.There was nothing tangible that the eye could grasp--only an uncanny suggestion of life where it seemed that there should be no life, for living things seemed out of place in this weird, dead city of the long-dead past.

Tarzan recalled something that he had read in the library at Paris of a lost race of white men that native legend described as living in the heart of Africa.He wondered if he were not looking upon the ruins of the civilization that this strange people had wrought amid the savage surroundings of their strange and savage home.Could it be possible that even now a remnant of that lost race inhabited the ruined grandeur that had once been their progenitor? Again he became conscious of a stealthy movement within the great temple before him.

"Come!" he said, to his Waziri."Let us have a look at what lies behind those ruined walls."His men were loath to follow him, but when they saw that he was bravely entering the frowning portal they trailed a few paces behind in a huddled group that seemed the personification of nervous terror.A single shriek such as they had heard the night before would have been sufficient to have sent them all racing madly for the narrow cleft that led through the great walls to the outer world.

As Tarzan entered the building he was distinctly aware of many eyes upon him.There was a rustling in the shadows of a near-by corridor, and he could have sworn that he saw a human hand withdrawn from an embrasure that opened above him into the domelike rotunda in which he found himself.

The floor of the chamber was of concrete, the walls of smooth granite, upon which strange figures of men and beasts were carved.In places tablets of yellow metal had been set in the solid masonry of the walls.

When he approached closer to one of these tablets he saw that it was of gold, and bore many hieroglyphics.Beyond this first chamber there were others, and back of them the building branched out into enormous wings.Tarzan passed through several of these chambers, finding many evidences of the fabulous wealth of the original builders.In one room were seven pillars of solid gold, and in another the floor itself was of the precious metal.And all the while that he explored, his blacks huddled close together at his back, and strange shapes hovered upon either hand and before them and behind, yet never close enough that any might say that they were not alone.

The strain, however, was telling upon the nerves of the Waziri.

They begged Tarzan to return to the sunlight.They said that no good could come of such an expedition, for the ruins were haunted by the spirits of the dead who had once inhabited them.

"They are watching us, O king," whispered Busuli."They are waiting until they have led us into the innermost recesses of their stronghold, and then they will fall upon us and tear us to pieces with their teeth.That is the way with spirits.

My mother's uncle, who is a great witch doctor, has told me all about it many times."Tarzan laughed."Run back into the sunlight, my children,"he said."I will join you when I have searched this old ruin from top to bottom, and found the gold, or found that there is none.At least we may take the tablets from the walls, though the pillars are too heavy for us to handle; but there should be great storerooms filled with gold--gold that we can carry away upon our backs with ease.Run on now, out into the fresh air where you may breathe easier."Some of the warriors started to obey their chief with alacrity, but Busuli and several others hesitated to leave him--hesitated between love and loyalty for their king, and superstitious fear of the unknown.And then, quite unexpectedly, that occurred which decided the question without the necessity for further discussion.

Out of the silence of the ruined temple there rang, close to their ears, the same hideous shriek they had heard the previous night, and with horrified cries the black warriors turned and fled through the empty halls of the age-old edifice.