Chapter Eleven

TARZAN of the Apes was led directly from the Royal Dome to the quarries

of Veltopismakus, which lie a quarter of a mile from the nearer of the

eight domes which constitute the city. A ninth dome was in course of

construction and it was toward this that the line of burdened slaves

wound from the entrance to the quarry to which the ape-man was conducted.

Just below the surface, in a well-lighted chamber, he was turned over to

the officer in charge of the quarry guard, to whom the king's

instructions concerning him were communicated.

"Your name?" demanded the officer, opening a large book that lay upon the

table at which he was seated.

"He is as dumb as the Zertalacolols," explained the commander of the

escort that had brought him to the quarry. "Therefore he has no name."

"We will call him The Giant, then," said the officer, "for as such has he

been known since his capture," and he wrote in his book, Zuanthrol, with

Zoanthrohago as the owner, and Trohanadalmakus as the city of his origin,

and then he turned to one of the warriors lolling upon a nearby bench.

"Take him to the timbering crew in the extension of tunnel thirteen at

the thirty-sixth level and tell the Vental in charge to give him light

work and see that no harm befalls him, for such are the commands of the

Thagostogol. But wait! Here is his number. Fasten it upon his shoulder."

The warrior took the circular piece of fabric with black hieroglyphics

stamped upon it and affixed it with a metal clasp to the left shoulder of

Tarzan's green tunic and then, motioning the ape-man to precede him, quit

the chamber.

Tarzan now found himself in a short, dark corridor which presently opened

into a wider and lighter one along which innumerable, unladen slaves were

moving in the same direction that his guard now escorted him. He noticed

that the floor of the corridor had a constant downward gradient and that

it turned ever to the right, forming a great spiral leading downward into

the earth. The walls and ceiling were timbered and the floor paved with

flat stones, worn smooth by the millions of sandaled feet that had passed

over them. At sufficiently frequent intervals candles were set in niches

in the left-hand wall, and, also at regular intervals, other corridors

opened out of it. Over each of these openings were more of the strange

hieroglyphics of Minuni. As Tarzan was to learn later, these designated

the levels at which the tunnels lay and led to circular corridors which

surrounded the main spiral runway. From these circular corridors ran the

numerous horizontal tunnels leading to the workings at each level. Shafts

for ventilation and emergency exit pierced these tunnels at varying

distances, running from the surface to the lowest levels of the quarry.

At almost every level a few slaves turned off into these lateral tunnels

which were well lighted, though not quite as brilliantly as the spiral.

Shortly after they had commenced the descent, Tarzan, accustomed from

infancy to keen observation, had taken note of the numbers of tunnel

entrances they passed, but he could only conjecture at the difference in

the depths of the levels into which they opened. A rough guess placed

them at fifteen feet, but before they reached the thirty-sixth, into

which they turned, Tarzan felt that there must be an error in his

calculations, for he was sure that they could not be five hundred and

forty feet below the earth's surface with open flames and no forced

ventilation.

The horizontal corridor they now entered after leaving the spiral curved

sharply to the right and then back to the left. Shortly afterward it

crossed a wide, circular corridor in which were both laden and unladen

slaves, beyond which were two lines, those laden with rock moving back in

the direction from which Tarzan had come, while others, bearing lumber

moved in the same direction that he did. With both lines there were

unladen slaves.

After traversing the horizontal tunnel for a considerable distance they

came at last upon the working party, and here Tarzan was turned over to

the Vental, a warrior who, in the military organizations of the

Minunians, commands ten men.

"So this is The Giant!" exclaimed the Vental. "And we are not to work him

too hard." His tone was sneering and disagreeable. "Such a giant!" he

cried. "Why, he is no larger than I and they are afraid to let him do any

work into the bargain. Mark you, he will work here or get the lash.

Kalfastoban permits no sluggards," and the fellow struck his chest

vauntingly.

He who had brought Tarzan appeared disgusted. "You will do well,

Kalfastoban," he said, as he turned away to retrace his steps to the

guard room, "to heed the king's commands. I should hate to be wearing

your harness if aught befell this speechless slave that has set every

tongue in Veltopismakus going and made Elkomoelhago so jealous of

Zoanthrohago that he would slip steel between his ribs were it not that

he could then no longer steal the great wizard's applause."

"Kalfastoban fears no king," blustered the Vental, "least of all the

sorry specimen that befouls the throne of Veltopishago. He fools no one

but himself. We all know that Zoanthrohago is his brain and Gefasto his

sword."

"However," warned the other, "be careful of Zuanthrol," and he departed.

Kalfastoban Vental set the new slave to work upon the timbering of the

tunnel as it was excavated from the great moraine that formed the quarry,

the line of slaves coming from the surface empty-handed passed down one

side of the tunnel to the end, loosened each a rock, or if heavy a rock

to two men, and turned back up the tunnel's opposite side, carrying their

burdens back to the spiral runway used by those leaving the workings and

so up and out to the new dome. The earth, a light clay, that filled the

interstices between the rocks in the moraine was tamped into the opening

behind the wall timbers, the tunnel being purposely made sufficiently

large to permit of this. Certain slaves were detailed for this work,

others carried timbers cut to the right dimensions down to the timbering

crew, of which Tarzan was one. It was only necessary for this crew of

three to scoop a narrow, shallow trench in which to place the foot of

each wall board, set them in place and slip the ceiling board on top of

them. At each end of the ceiling boards was a cleat, previously attached

at the surface, which kept the wall boards from falling in after being

set in place. The dirt tamped behind them fastened them solidly in their

places, the whole making a quickly erected and substantial shoring.

The work was light for the ape-man, though he still was weak from the

effects of his wounds, and he had opportunities constantly to observe all

that went on around him and to gather new information relative to the

people in whose power he found himself. Kalfastoban he soon set down as a

loudmouthed braggart, from whom one need have nothing to fear during the

routine of their everyday work, but who would bear watching if ever

opportunity came for him to make a show of authority or physical prowess

before the eyes of his superiors.

The slaves about him worked steadily, but seemed not to be overtaxed,

while the guards, who accompanied them constantly, in the ratio of

about one warrior to every fifty slaves, gave no indications of brutality

in the treatment they accorded their charges, insofar as Tarzan was able

to observe.

The fact that puzzled him most now as it had since the moment of his

first return to consciousness, was the stature of these people. They were

no pygmies, but men fully as large as the usual run of Europeans. There

was none quite as tall as the ape-man, but there were many who missed it

by but the scantiest fraction of an inch. He knew that they were

Veltopismakusians, the same people he had seen battling with the

Trohanadalmakusians; they spoke of having captured him in the battle that

he had seen waged; and they called him Zuanthrol, The Giant, yet they

were as large as he, and as he had passed from the Royal Dome to the

quarry he had seen their gigantic dome dwellings rising fully four

hundred feet above his head. It was all preposterous and impossible, yet

he had the testimony of all his faculties that it was true. Contemplation

of it but tended to confuse him more and so he gave over all attempts to

solve the mystery and set himself to the gathering of information

concerning his captors and his prison against that time which he well

knew must some day come when the means of escape should offer itself to

the alert and cunning instincts of the wild beast that, at heart, he

always considered himself.

Wherever he had been in Veltopismakus, whoever he had heard refer to the

subject, he had had it borne in upon him that the people were generally

dissatisfied with their king and his government, and he knew that among a

discontented people efficiency would be at low ebb and discipline

demoralized to such an extent that, should he watch carefully, he must

eventually discover the opportunity he sought, through the laxity of

those responsible for his safekeeping. He did not expect it today or

tomorrow, but today and tomorrow were the days upon which to lay the

foundation of observation that would eventually reveal an avenue of

escape.

When the long working day at last drew to a close the slaves were

conducted to their quarters, which, as Tarzan discovered, were always on

levels near to those in which they labored. He, with several other

slaves, was conducted to the thirty-fifth level and into a tunnel the far

end of which had been widened to the proportions of a large chamber, the

narrow entrance to which had been walled up with stone except for a small

aperture through which the slaves were forced to pass in and out of their

chamber upon all fours, and when the last of them was within, this was

closed and secured by a heavy door outside which two warriors watched

throughout the night.

Once inside and standing upon his feet the ape-man looked about him to

discover himself within a chamber so large that it seemed easy to

accommodate the great throng of slaves that must have numbered fully five

thousand souls of both sexes. The women were preparing food over small

fires the smoke of which found its way from the chamber through openings

in the ceiling. For the great number of fires the amount of smoke was

noticeably little, a fact which was, however, accounted for by the nature

of the fuel, a clean, hard charcoal; but why the liberated gases did not

asphyxiate them all was quite beyond the ape-man, as was still the riddle

of the open flames and the pure air at the depth where the workings lay.

Candles burned in niches all about the walls and there were at least

half-a-dozen large ones standing upon the floor.

The slaves were of all ages from infancy to middle age, but there were no

aged venerables among them. The skins of the women and children were the

whitest Tarzan had ever seen and he marveled at them until he came to

know that some of the former and all of the latter had never seen

daylight since birth. The children who were born here would go up into

the daylight some time, when they were of an age that warranted beginning

the training for the vocations their masters had chosen for them, but the

women who had been captured from other cities would remain here until

death claimed them, unless that rarest of miracles occurred--they should

be chosen by a Veltopismakusian warrior as his mate; but that was scarce

even a remote possibility, since the warriors almost invariably chose

their mates from the slaves of the white tunic with whom they came in

daily contact in the domes above ground.

The faces of the women bore the imprint of a sadness that brought a

spontaneous surge of sympathy to the breast of the savage ape-man. Never

in his life had he seen such abject hopelessness depicted upon any face.

As he crossed the room many were the glances that were cast upon him, for

it was obvious from his deep tan that he was a newcomer, and, too, there

was that about him that marked him of different clay from them, and soon

there were whispers running through the throng, for the slaves who had

entered with him had passed the word of his identity to the others, and

who, even in the bowels of the earth, had not heard of the wondrous giant

captured by Zoanthrohago during the battle with the Trohanadalmakusians?

Presently a young girl, kneeling above a brazier over which she was

grilling a cut of flesh, caught his eye and motioned him to her. As he

came he saw that she was very beautiful, with a pale, translucent skin

the whiteness of which was accentuated by the blue-black of a wealth of

lustrous hair.

"You are The Giant?" she asked.

"I am Zuanthrol," he replied.

"He has told me about you," said the girl. "I will cook for you, too. I

cook for him. Unless," she added with a trace of embarrassment, "there is

another you would rather have cook for you."

"There is no one I would rather have cook for me," Tarzan told her; "but

who are you and who is he?"

"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 those whom we shall cook for. I do not choose to cook

for you."

"If you know what is well for you, you will cook for me," growled the

man. "You will be my mate, too. I have a right to you, because I have

asked you many times before these others came. Rather than let them have

you I will tell the Vental tomorrow the truth about you and he will take

you away. Have you ever seen Kalfastoban?"

The girl shuddered.

"I will see that Kalfastoban gets you," continued Caraftap. "They will

not permit you to remain here when they find that you refuse to produce

more slaves."

"I should prefer Kalfastoban to you," sneered the girl, "but neither one

nor the other shall have me."

"Do not be too sure of that," he cried, and stepping forward, quickly,

seized her by the arm before she could elude him. Dragging her toward him

the man attempted to kiss her--but he did not succeed. Steel fingers

closed upon his shoulder, he was torn roughly from his prey and hurled

ruthlessly a dozen paces, stumbling and falling to the floor. Between him

and the girl stood the gray-eyed stranger with the shock of black hair.

Almost roaring in his rage, Caraftap scrambled to his feet and charged

Tarzan--charged as a mad bull charges, with lowered head and bloodshot

eyes.

"For this you shall die," he screamed.