s the reason our people shun this
chamber. Were one to enter he knows that the waiting dead would seize
him for their sacrifice."

"But you?" he asked.

"I am high priestess--I alone am safe from the dead. It is I who at
rare intervals bring them a human sacrifice from the world above. I
alone may enter here in safety."

"Why have they not seized me?" he asked, humoring her grotesque belief.

She looked at him quizzically for a moment. Then she replied:

"It is the duty of a high priestess to instruct, to
interpret--according to the creed that others, wiser than herself, have
laid down; but there is nothing in the creed which says that she must
believe. The more one knows of one's religion the less one
believes--no one living knows more of mine than I."

"Then your only fear in aiding me to escape is that your fellow mortals
may discover your duplicity?"

"That is all--the dead are dead; they cannot harm--or help. We must
therefore depend entirely upon ourselves, and the sooner we act the
better it will be. I had difficulty in eluding their vigilance but now
in bringing you this morsel of food. To attempt to repeat the thing
daily would be the height of folly. Come, let us see how far we may go
toward liberty before I must return."

She led him back to the chamber beneath the altar room. Here she
turned into one of the several corridors leading from it. In the
darkness Tarzan could not see which one. For ten minutes they groped
slowly along a winding passage, until at length they came to a closed
door. Here he heard her fumbling with a key, and presently came the
sound of a metal bolt grating against metal. The door swung in on
scraping hinges, and they entered.

"You will be safe here until tomorrow night," she said.

Then she went out, and, closing the door, locked it behind her.

Where Tarzan stood it was dark as Erebus. Not even his trained eyes
could penetrate the utter blackness. Cautiously he moved forward until
his out-stretched hand touched a wall, then very slowly he traveled
around the four walls of the chamber.

Apparently it was about twenty feet square. The floor was of concrete,
the walls of the dry masonry that marked the method of construction
above ground. Small pieces of granite of various sizes were
ingeniously laid together without mortar to construct these ancient
foundations.

The first time around the walls Tarzan thought he detected a strange
phenomenon for a r