Chapter Six

SKA, the vulture, winged his way leisurely in great circles far above the

right bank of the Ugogo. The pendant locket, sparkling in the sun light,

had ceased to annoy him while on the wing, only when he alighted and

walked upon the ground did it become an encumbrance; then he stepped upon

it and tripped, but long since had he ceased to fight it, accepting it

now as an inescapable evil. Beneath him he presently descried the still,

recumbent form of Gorgo, the buffalo, whose posture proclaimed that he

was already fit food for Ska. The great bird dropped, alighting in a

nearby tree. All was well, no foes were in evidence. Satisfied of this,

Ska flapped down to the fallen beast.

Miles away a giant white man crouched in the concealment of a dense

thicket with a little black girl. The fingers of one of the man's hands

were across her mouth, those of the other held a knife at her heart. The

man's eyes were not upon the girl, but were straining through the dense

foliage toward a game trail along which two ebon warriors were advancing.

Succor was close at hand for Uhha, the daughter of Khamis the witch

doctor, for the two approaching were hunters from the village of Obebe,

the chief; but she dared not call aloud to attract them lest the sharp

point of Miranda's knife slip into her young heart, and so she heard them

come and go until, their voices lost in the distance, the Spaniard arose

and dragged her back upon the trail, where they took up, what seemed to

Uhha, their endless and fruitless wanderings through the jungle.

In the village of the ant men Tarzan found a warm welcome and having

decided to remain for a while that he might study them and their customs

he set to work, as was his wont when thrown among strange peoples, to

learn their language as quickly as possible. Having already mastered

several languages and numerous dialects the ape-man never found it

difficult to add to his linguistic attainments, and so it was only a

matter of a comparatively short time before he found it possible to

understand his hosts and to make himself understood by them. It was then

that he learned that they had at first thought that he was some form of

Alalus and had consequently believed that it ever would be impossible to

communicate with him by other means than signs. They were greatly

delighted therefore when it had become apparent that he could utter vocal

sounds identical to theirs, and when they comprehended that he desired to

learn their tongue, Adendrohahkis, the king, placed several instructors

at his disposal and gave orders that all his people, with whom the giant

stranger might come in contact, should aid him to an early understanding

of their language.

Adendrohahkis was particularly well inclined toward the ape-man because

of the fact that it had been the king's son, Komodoflorensal, whom Tarzan

had rescued from the clutches of the Alalus woman, and so it was that

everything was done to make the giant's stay among them a pleasant one. A

hundred slaves brought his food to him where he had taken up his abode

beneath the shade of a great tree that grew in lonely majesty just

outside the city. When he walked among the group of dome-houses a troop

of cavalry galloped ahead to clear a path for him, lest he trod upon some

of the people of the city; but always was Tarzan careful of his hosts, so

that no harm ever befell one of them because of him.

As he mastered the language he learned many things concerning these

remarkable people. Prince Komodoflorensal almost daily took it upon

himself to assist in the instruction of his colossal guest and it was

from him that Tarzan learned most. Nor were his eyes idle as he strolled

around the city. Particularly interesting was the method of construction

used in erecting the comparatively gigantic dome-houses which towered

high above even the great Tarzan. The first step in the construction was

to outline the periphery of the base with boulders of uniform size and

weighing, perhaps, fifty pounds each. Two slaves easily carried such a

boulder when it was slung in a rope hammock and as thousands of slaves

were employed the work progressed with rapidity. The circular base, with

a diameter of one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, having been

outlined, another, smaller circle was laid about ten feet inside the

first, four openings being left in each circle to mark the location of

the four entrances to the completed building and corresponding to the

four principal cardinal points of the compass. The walls of the entrances

were then outlined upon the ground with similar large boulders, these

being a little more carefully selected for uniformity, after which the

four enclosures thus formed were packed closely with boulders. The

corridors and chambers of the first floor were then outlined and the

spaces between filled with boulders, each being placed with the utmost

care and nicety in relation to those touching it and those that should

rest upon it when the second course was laid, for these were to support a

tremendous weight when the edifice was completed. The corridors were

generally three feet wide, the equivalent of twelve feet by our

standards, while the chambers, varied in dimensions according to the uses

to which they were to be put. In the exact center of the building a

circular opening was left that measured ten feet in diameter and this was

carried upward as the building progressed until the whole formed an open

shaft from ground floor to roof in the completed edifice.

The lower course having been built up in this manner to a height of six

inches wooden arches were placed at intervals the lengths of the

corridors which were now ceiled over by the simple expedient of fastening

thin wooden strips lengthways of the corridors from arch to arch until

the corridors were entirely roofed. The strips, or boards, which

overlapped one another, were fastened in place by wooden dowels driven

through them into the peripheries of the arches. As this work was

progressing the walls of the various chambers and the outer wall of the

building were raised to a height of twenty-four inches, bringing them to

the level of the ceilings of the arched corridors, and the spaces between

chambers and corridors were packed with boulders, the interstices between

which were filled with smaller stones and gravel. The ceiling beams were

then placed across the other chambers, timbers six inches square hewn

from a hard, tough wood being used, and in the larger chambers these were

further supported, at intervals, by columns of the same dimensions and

material. The ceiling beams being in place they were covered over with

tight-fitting boards, doweled to place. The ceilings of the chambers now

projected six inches above the surrounding course of the structure, and

at this juncture hundreds of cauldrons were brought in which a crude

asphalt was heated until it became liquid and the interstices of the next

six-inch course were filled with it, bringing the entire completed course

to the same level at a height of thirty inches, over all of which a

second six-inch course of rock and asphalt was laid, and the second story

laid out and completed in a similar manner.

The palace of Adendrohahkis, constructed in this way, was two hundred

twenty feet in diameter, and one hundred ten feet high, with thirty-six

floors capable of housing eighty thousand people, a veritable anthill of

humanity. The city consisted of ten similar domes, though each slightly

smaller than the king's, housing a total of five hundred thousand people,

two-thirds of whom were slaves; these being for the most part the

artisans and body servants of the ruling class. Another half million

slaves, the unskilled laborers of the city, dwelt in the subterranean

chambers of the quarries from which the building material was obtained.

The passageways and chambers of these mines were carefully shored and

timbered as the work progressed, resulting in fairly commodious and

comfortable quarters for the slaves upon the upper levels at least, and

as the city was built upon the surface of an ancient ground moraine, on

account of the accessibility of building material, the drainage was

perfect, the slaves suffering no inconvenience because of their

underground quarters.

The domes themselves were well ventilated through the large central air

shaft and the numerous windows that pierced the outer walls at frequent

intervals at each level above the ground floor, in which, as previously

explained, there were but four openings. The windows, which were six and

one-quarter inches wide by eighteen and a half inches high, admitted a

certain amount of light as well as air; but the interior of the dome,

especially the gloomy chambers midway between the windows and the central

light and air shaft, was illuminated by immense, slow-burning, smokeless

candles.

Tarzan watched the construction of the new dome with keenest interest,

realizing that it was the only opportunity that he ever would have to see

the ulterior of one of these remarkable, human hives, and as he was thus

engaged Komodoflorensal and his friends hastened to initiate him into

the mysteries of their language; and while he learned the language of his

hosts he learned many other things of interest about them. The slaves, he

discovered, were either prisoners of war or the descendants of prisoners

of war. Some had been in bondage for so many generations that all trace

of their origin had become lost and they considered themselves as much

citizens of Trohanadalmakus, the city of King Adendrohahkis, as did any

of the nobility. On the whole they were treated with kindness and were

not overworked after the second generation. The recent prisoners and

their children were, for the most part, included in the caste of

unskilled labor from which the limit of human endurance was exacted. They

were the miners, the quarriers and the builders and fully fifty per cent

of them were literally worked to death. With the second generation the

education of the children commenced, those who showed aptitude for any of

the skilled crafts being immediately transferred from the quarries to the

domes, where they took up the relatively easy life of a prosperous and

indulged middle class. In another manner might an individual escape the

quarries--by marriage, or rather by selection as they choose to call it,

with a member of the ruling class. In a community where class

consciousness was such a characteristic of the people and where caste was

almost a fetish it was rather remarkable that such connections brought no

odium upon the inferiors, but, on the contrary, automatically elevated

the lesser to the caste of the higher contracting party.

"It is thus, Deliverer of the Son of Adendrohahkis," explained

Komodoflorensal, in reply to Tarzan's inquiry relative to this rather

peculiar exception to the rigid class distinctions the king's son had so

often impressed upon him: "Ages ago, during the reign of Klamataamorosal

in the city of Trohanadalmakus, the warriors of Veltopishago, king of

the city of Veltopismakus, marched upon our fair Trohanadalmakus and in

the battle that ensued the troops of our ancestors were all but

annihilated. Thousands of our men and women were carried away into

slavery and all that saved us from being totally wiped out was the

courageous defense that our own slaves waged for their masters.

Klamataamorosal, from whom I am descended, fighting in the thick of the

fray noted the greater stamina of the slaves; they were stronger than the

warriors of either city and seemed not to tire at all, while the high-caste nobility of the fighting clans, though highly courageous, became

completely exhausted after a few minutes of fighting.

"After the battle was over Klamataamorosal called together all the chief

officers of the city, or rather all who had not been killed or taken

prisoner, and pointed out to them that the reason our city had been

defeated was not so much because of the greater numbers of the forces of

the king Veltopishago as due to the fact that our own warriors were

physical weaklings, and he asked them why this should be and what could

be done to remedy so grievous a fault. The youngest man among them,

wounded and weak from loss of blood, was the only one who could offer a

reasonable explanation, or suggest a means of correcting the one obvious

weakness of the city.

"He called their attention to the fact that of all the race of Minunians

the people of the city of Trohanadalmakus were the most ancient and that

for ages there had been no infusion of new blood, since they were not

permitted to mate outside their own caste, while their slaves, recruited

from all the cities of Minuni, had interbred, with the result that they

had become strong and robust while their masters, through inbreeding, had

grown correspondingly weaker.

"He exhorted Klamataamorosal to issue a decree elevating to the warrior

class any slave that was chosen as mate by either a man or woman of that

class, and further to obligate each and every warrior to select at least

one mate from among their slaves. At first, of course, the objections to

so iconoclastic a suggestion were loud and bitter; but Klamataamorosal

was quick to sense the wisdom of the idea and not only did he issue the

decree, but he was the first to espouse a slave woman, and what the king

did all were anxious to do also.

"The very next generation showed the wisdom of the change and each

succeeding generation has more than fulfilled the expectations of

Klamataamorosal until now you see in the people of Trohanadalmakus the

most powerful and warlike of the Minunians.

"Our ancient enemy, Veltopismakus, was the next city to adopt the new

order, having learned of it through slaves taken in raids upon our own

community, but they were several generations behind us. Now all the

cities of Minuni wed their warriors with their slave women. And why not?

Our slaves were all descended from the warrior class of other cities from

which their ancestors were captured. We all are of the same race, we all

have the same language and in all important respects the same customs.

"Time has made some slight changes in the manner of the selection of

these new mates and now it is often customary to make war upon another

city for the sole purpose of capturing their noblest born and most

beautiful women.

"For us of the royal family it has been nothing less than salvation from

extinction. Our ancestors were transmitting disease and insanity to their

progeny. The new, pure, virile blood of the slaves has washed the taint

from our veins and so altered has our point of view become that whereas,

in the past, the child of a slave woman and a warrior was without caste

the lowest of the low, now they rank highest of the high, since it is

considered immoral for one of the royal family to wed other than a

slave."

"And your wife?" asked Tarzan. "You took her in a battle with some other

city?"

"I have no wife," replied Komodoflorensal. "We are preparing now to make

war upon Veltopismakus, the daughter of whose king, we are told by slaves

from that city, is the most beautiful creature in the world. Her name is

Janzara, and as she is not related to me, except possibly very remotely,

she is a fit mate for the son of Adendrohahkis."

"How do you know she is not related to you?" asked the ape-man.

"We keep as accurate a record of the royal families of Veltopismakus and

several others of the nearer cities of Minuni as we do of our own,"

replied Komodoflorensal, "obtaining our information from captives,

usually from those who are chosen in marriage by our own people. For

several generations the kings of Veltopismakus have not been sufficiently

powerful or fortunate to succeed in taking royal princesses from us by

either force of arms or strategy, though they never have ceased

attempting to do so, and the result has been that they have been forced

to find their mates in other and oftentimes distant cities.

"The present king of Veltopismakus, Elkomoelhago, the father of the

princess Janzara, took his mate, the mother of the princess, from a far

distant city that has never, within historic times, taken slaves from

Trohanadalmakus, nor have our warriors visited that city within the

memory of any living man. Janzara, therefore, should make me an excellent

mate."

"But what about love--suppose you should not care for one another?" asked

Tarzan.

Komodoflorensal shrugged his shoulders. "She will bear me a son who will

some day be king of Trohanadalmakus," he replied, "and that is all that

can be asked."

While the preparations for the expedition against Veltopismakus were

being carried on, Tarzan was left much to his own devices. The activities

of these diminutive people were a never ending source of interest to him.

He watched the endless lines of slaves struggling with their heavy

burdens toward the new dome that was rising with almost miraculous speed,

or he strolled to the farmlands just beyond the city where other slaves

tilled the rich soil, which they scratched with tiny plows drawn by teams

of diadets, the diminutive antelope that was their only beast of burden.

Always were the slaves accompanied by armed warriors if they were slaves

of the first or second generation, lest they should attempt escape or

revolution, as well as a protection against beasts of prey and human

enemies, since the slaves were not permitted to bear arms and,

consequently, could not protect themselves. These slaves of the first and

second generations were always easily recognizable by the vivid green

tunic, reaching almost to the knees, which was the single garment of

their caste, and which carried upon both its front and back an emblem or

character in black that denoted the city of the slave's birth and the

individual to whom he now belonged. The slaves employed upon public works

all belonged to the king, Adendrohahkis, but in the fields many families

were represented by their chattels.

Moving about the city upon their various duties were thousands of

white-tunicked slaves. They exercised the mounts of their masters, they

oversaw much of the more menial and laborious work of the lower caste

slaves, they plied their trades and sold their wares in perfect freedom;

but like the other slaves they wore but a single garment, together with

rough sandals which were common to both classes. On their breasts and

backs in red were the emblems of their masters. The second generation

slaves of the green tunics had a similar emblem, these having been born

in the city and being consequently considered a part of it. There were

other, though minor, distinguishing marks upon the tunics of the higher

caste slaves; small insignia upon one shoulder or upon both, or upon a

sleeve, denoting the occupation of the wearer. Groom, body servant,

major-domo, cook, hairdresser, worker in gold and silver, potter--one could tell at a glance the vocation of each--and each belonged, body and

soul, to his master, who was compelled to feed and dome these dependents,

the fruits of whose labors belonged exclusively to him.

The wealth of one warrior family might lie in the beauty and perfection

of the gold and silver ornaments it sold to its wealthy fellows and in

such an instance all its skilled slaves, other than those required for

personal and household duties, would be employed in the designing and

fabrication of these articles. Another family might devote its attention

to agriculture, another to the raising of diadets; but all the work was

done by the slaves, with the single exception of the breaking of the

diadets that were bred for riding, an occupation that was not considered

beneath the dignity of the warrior class, but rather, on the contrary,

looked upon as a fitting occupation for nobles. Even the king's son broke

his own diadets.

As an interested spectator Tarzan whiled the lazy days away. To his

repeated queries as to the possibility of a way out of this bizarre,

thorn-infested world, his hosts replied that it was naught to penetrate

the forest of thorn trees, but that as it continued indefinitely to the

uttermost extremities of matter it was quite useless to attempt to

penetrate it at all, their conception of the world being confined to what

they actually had seen--a land of hills, valleys and forest, surrounded by

thorn trees. To creatures of their size the thorn forest was far from

impenetrable, but Tarzan was not their size. Still he never ceased to

plan on a means of escape, though he was in no great haste to attempt it,

since he found the Minunians interesting and it suited his present

primitive mood to loll in lazy ease in the city of Trohanadalmakus.

But of a sudden a change came, early of a morning, just as the first,

faint promise of dawn was tingeing the eastern sky.