"The girl," shouted the large man.
"What girl, Photos?"
"THE girl," replied Phoros drunkenly.
"Oh THE girl," said some one.
"Well, why don't you bring her?"
"Bring who?"
"Bring THE girl," repeated Phoros.
"Who bring her?" asked another.
"You bring her," ordered Phoros.
The fellow addressed shook his head. "Not me," he said. "Menofra'd have the hide off me."
"She won't know. She's gone to bed," Phoros assured him.
"I ain't takin' any chances. Send a slave."
"You'd better not send anyone," counselled a man sitting next to Phoros, one who did not seem as drunk as the others. "Menofra would cut her heart out and yours too."
"Who's king?" demanded Phoros.
"Ask Menofra," suggested the other.
"I'm king," asserted Phoros. He turned to a slave. The fellow happened to be looking in another direction. Phoros threw a heavy goblet at him, which barely missed his head. "Here, you! Go fetch the girl."
"What girl, master?" asked the trembling slave.
"There's only one girl in Athne, you son of a wart hog! Go get her!"
The slave hurried from the room. Then there ensued a discussion as to what Menofra would do if she found out. Phoros announced that he was tired of Menofra, and that if she didn't mind her own business he'd take her apart and forget to put her together again. He thought this such a good joke that he laughed immoderately and fell off his bench, but some of the others seemed nervous and looked apprehensively toward the doorway.
Tarzan watched and listened. He felt disgust and shame –shame, because he belonged to the same species as these creatures. Since infancy he had been fellow of the beasts of the forest and the plain, the lower orders; yet he had never seen them sink to the level of man. Most of them had courage and dignity of a sort; seldom did they stoop to buffoonery, with the possible exception of the lesser monkeys, who were most closely allied to man. Had he been impelled to theorize he would doubtless have reversed Darwin's theory of evolution. But his mind was occupied with another thought –who was "THE girl"? He wondered if she might not be Gonfala, but further speculation was discouraged by the coming of a large, masculine looking woman who strode into the room followed by the slave who had just been dispatched to bring the girl. So this was the girl! Tarzan looked at her in mild astonishment. She had large, red hands, a whiskered mole on her chin, and quite a noticeable mustache. In other respects she was quite as unlovely.
"What's the meaning of this?" she demanded, glaring at Phoros. "Why did you send for me at this time in the morning, you drunken lout?"
Phoros' jaw dropped; he looked wildly about at his companions as though seeking help; but he got none. Each of those who had not passed out completely was engaged in trying to appear dignified and sober.
"My dear," explained Phoros ingratiatingly, "we wanted you to join us and help celebrate."
" 'My dear' nothing!" snapped the woman; then her eyes narrowed. "Celebrate what?" she demanded.
Phoros looked about him helplessly. Bleary eyed and belching, he looked foolishly at the man sitting next him. "What were we celebrating, Kandos?"
Kandos fidgeted, and moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
"Don't lie to me!" screamed the woman. "The truth is that you never intended to send for me."
"Now, Menofra!" exclaimed Phoros in what was intended to be a soothing tone.
The woman wheeled on the frightened slave behind her. "Were you told to fetch me?" she demanded.
"Oh, great queen! I thought he meant you," whimpered the slave, dropping to his knees.
"What did he say to you?" Menofra's voice was raised almost to a shriek.
"He said 'Go fetch the girl!' and when I asked him what girl, he said, 'There's only one girl in Athne, you son of a wart hog!'"
Menofra's eyes narrowed menacingly. "The only girl in Athne, eh? I know who you sent for-it's that yellow haired hussy that was brought in with the two men. You think you been fooling me, don't you? Well, you haven't. You just been waiting for your chance, and tonight you got drunk enough to muster up a little courage. Well, I'll attend to you; and when I get through with you, I'll fix the only girl in Athne. I'll send her to you, if there's anything left of you-I'll send her to you in pieces." She wheeled on the subdued and frightened company. "Get out of here, you swine-all of you!" Then she strode to the head of the table and seized Phoros by an ear. "And you come with me-king!" The title bristled with contumely.
Chapter 22. Menofra
TARZAN LEFT THE window and walked along the side of the building, looking up at the second floor. There, he surmised, would be the sleeping chambers. In some room above, doubtless, Gonfala was confined. Several vines clambered up the wall. He tested them, trying to find one that might bear his weight; and at last he came to some old ivy that had a stem that was as large around as his arm, a gnarled old plant that clung to the rough wall with a million aerial roots. He tried it with his weight; then, satisfied that it would bear him, he started to ascend toward a window directly above.
Close beside the open window he paused and listened, his sensitive nostrils classifying the odors that came from the chamber. A man slept within. Heavy breathing told him the man was asleep. Its stertorousness and odor told him that the fellow was drunk. Tarzan threw a leg across the sill and stepped into the room. He moved noiselessly, feeling his way through the darkness. He took his time, and gradually his eyes became accustomed to the blackness of the interior. He had the gift, that some men have in common with nocturnal animals, of being able to see in the dark better than other men. Perhaps it had been developed to a higher state of efficiency by necessity. One who can see by night in the jungle has a better chance of survival.
Soon he identified a darker mass on the floor near a side wall as the sleeper. That, however, was not difficult; the man's snores screamed his location. Tarzan crossed to the opposite end of the room and found a door. His fingers searched for lock or bolt and found the latter. It squeaked a little as he drew it back; but he had no fear that it would arouse the man, nor did it. The door opened into a dimly lighted corridor-an arched corridor along which were other doors and the arched openings into other corridors.
Tarzan heard voices. They were raised in angry altercation, and there were sounds of scuffling. The voices were those of Menofra and Phoros. Presently there was a loud scream followed by a thud as of a body falling; then silence. Tarzan waited, listening. He heard a door open farther up the corridor in the direction from which the voices had come; then he stepped back into the room behind him, leaving the door slightly ajar so that he could look out into the corridor. He saw a man step from a doorway and approach along the corridor. It was Phoros. He was staggering a little, and in his right hand he carried a bloody short-sword. His expression was bleary-eyed and vacuous. He passed the door from which Tarzan watched and turned into another corridor; then the ape-man stepped into the passageway and followed him.
When he reached the head of the corridor into which Phoros had turned, Tarzan saw the Athnean fumbling with a key at the lock of a door only a short distance ahead; and he waited until Phoros had unlocked the door and entered the room beyond; then the ape-man followed at a run. He wished to reach the door before Phoros could lock it from within, if such were his intention; but it was not. In fact, in his drunken carelessness, he did not even close the door tightly; and he had little more than entered the room when Tarzan pushed the door open and followed him.
The ape-man had moved with utter silence; so that though he stood just behind Phoros the latter was unaware of his presence. The room was lighted by a single cresset-a wick burning in a shallow vessel half filled with fat. Lying in one corner of the room, bound hand and foot, was Gonfala; in another corner, similarly trussed, was Stanley Wood. They both saw and recognized Tarzan simultaneously, but he raised a finger to his lips to caution them to silence. Phoros stood leering at his two prisoners, his gross body swaying unsteadily.