to be delivered to Lu-don. Pan-sat, knowing himself
all the details of the plannings of Lu-don, had made the quite natural
error of assuming that the ocher was perfectly aware that only by
publicly sacrificing the false Dor-ul-Otho could the high priest at
A-lur bolster his waning power and that the assassination of Mo-sar,
the pretender, would remove from Lu-don's camp the only obstacle to his
combining the offices of high priest and king. The high priest at
Tu-lur thought that he had been commissioned to kill Tarzan and bring
Mo-sar to A-lur. He also thought that when he had done these things he
would be made high priest at A-lur; but he did not know that already
the priest had been selected who was to murder him within the hour that
he arrived at A-lur, nor did he know that a secret grave had been
prepared for him in the floor of a subterranean chamber in the very
temple he dreamed of controlling.

And so when he should have been arranging the assassination of his
chief he was leading a dozen heavily bribed warriors through the dark
corridors beneath the temple to slay Tarzan in the lion pit. Night had
fallen. A single torch guided the footsteps of the murderers as they
crept stealthily upon their evil way, for they knew that they were
doing the thing that their chief did not want done and their guilty
consciences warned them to stealth.

In the dark of his cell the ape-man worked at his seemingly endless
chipping and scraping. His keen ears detected the coming of footsteps
along the corridor without--footsteps that approached the larger door.
Always before had they come to the smaller door--the footsteps of a
single slave who brought his food. This time there were many more than
one and their coming at this time of night carried a sinister
suggestion. Tarzan continued to work at his scraping and chipping. He
heard them stop beyond the door. All was silence broken only by the
scrape, scrape, scrape of the ape-man's tireless blade.

Those without heard it and listening sought to explain it. They
whispered in low tones making their plans. Two would raise the door
quickly and the others would rush in and hurl their clubs at the
prisoner. They would take no chances, for the stories that had
circulated in A-lur had been brought to Tu-lur--stories of the great
strength and wonderful prowess of Tarzan-jad-guru that caused the sweat
to stand upon the brows of the warriors, though it was cool in the damp
corridor and they