riestess had her way, though he was equally positive that
they would find Tarzan of the Apes unbound and with a long dagger in
his hand a much less tractable victim than Tarzan disarmed and bound.

The girl stood looking at him for a long moment before she spoke.

"You are a very wonderful man," she said. "You are such a man as I
have seen in my daydreams ever since I was a little girl. You are such
a man as I imagine the forbears of my people must have been--the great
race of people who built this mighty city in the heart of a savage
world that they might wrest from the bowels of the earth the fabulous
wealth for which they had sacrificed their far-distant civilization.

"I cannot understand why you came to my rescue in the first place, and
now I cannot understand why, having me within your power, you do not
wish to be revenged upon me for having sentenced you to death--for
having almost put you to death with my own hand."

"I presume," replied the ape-man, "that you but followed the teachings
of your religion. I cannot blame YOU for that, no matter what I may
think of your creed. But who are you--what people have I fallen among?"

"I am La, high priestess of the Temple of the Sun, in the city of Opar.
We are descendants of a people who came to this savage world more than
ten thousand years ago in search of gold. Their cities stretched from
a great sea under the rising sun to a great sea into which the sun
descends at night to cool his flaming brow. They were very rich and
very powerful, but they lived only a few months of the year in their
magnificent palaces here; the rest of the time they spent in their
native land, far, far to the north.

"Many ships went back and forth between this new world and the old.
During the rainy season there were but few of the inhabitants remained
here, only those who superintended the working of the mines by the
black slaves, and the merchants who had to stay to supply their wants,
and the soldiers who guarded the cities and the mines.

"It was at one of these times that the great calamity occurred. When
the time came for the teeming thousands to return none came. For weeks
the people waited. Then they sent out a great galley to learn why no
one came from the mother country, but though they sailed about for many
months, they were unable to find any trace of the mighty land that had
for countless ages borne their ancient civilization--it had sunk into
the sea.

"From tha