第39章

At Tarzan's direction the business of the court continued where it had been interrupted by his advent.It consisted principally in the settling of disputes between warriors.There was present one who stood upon the step just below the throne and which Tarzan was to learn was the place reserved for the higher chiefs of the allied tribes which made up Ko-tan's kingdom.The one who attracted Tarzan's attention was a stalwart warrior of powerful physique and massive, lion-like features.He was addressing Ko-tan on a question that is as old as government and that will continue in unabated importance until man ceases to exist.It had to do with a boundary dispute with one of his neighbors.

The matter itself held little or no interest for Tarzan, but he was impressed by the appearance of the speaker and when Ko-tan addressed him as Ja-don the ape-man's interest was permanently crystallized, for Ja-don was the father of Ta-den.That the knowledge would benefit him in any way seemed rather a remote possibility since he could not reveal to Ja-don his friendly relations with his son without admitting the falsity of his claims to godship.

When the affairs of the audience were concluded Ko-tan suggested that the son of Jad-ben-Otho might wish to visit the temple in which were performed the religious rites coincident to the worship of the Great God.And so the ape-man was conducted by the king himself, followed by the warriors of his court, through the corridors of the palace toward the northern end of the group of buildings within the royal enclosure.

The temple itself was really a part of the palace and similar in architecture.There were several ceremonial places of varying sizes, the purposes of which Tarzan could only conjecture.Each had an altar in the west end and another in the east and were oval in shape, their longest diameter lying due east and west.

Each was excavated from the summit of a small hillock and all were without roofs.The western altars invariably were a single block of stone the top of which was hollowed into an oblong basin.Those at the eastern ends were similar blocks of stone with flat tops and these latter, unlike those at the opposite ends of the ovals were invariably stained or painted a reddish brown, nor did Tarzan need to examine them closely to be assured of what his keen nostrils already had told him--that the brown stains were dried and drying human blood.

Below these temple courts were corridors and apartments reaching far into the bowels of the hills, dim, gloomy passages that Tarzan glimpsed as he was led from place to place on his tour of inspection of the temple.A messenger had been dispatched by Ko-tan to announce the coming visit of the son of Jad-ben-Otho with the result that they were accompanied through the temple by a considerable procession of priests whose distinguishing mark of profession seemed to consist in grotesque headdresses; sometimes hideous faces carved from wood and entirely concealing the countenances of their wearers, or again, the head of a wild beast cunningly fitted over the head of a man.The high priest alone wore no such head-dress.He was an old man with close-set, cunning eyes and a cruel, thin-lipped mouth.