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 h