The limestone of the country, close-grained and of marble whiteness
yet worked with comparative ease with crude implements, had been
wrought by cunning craftsmen into bowls and urns and vases of
considerable grace and beauty. Into the carved designs of many of
these virgin gold had been hammered, presenting the effect of a rich
and magnificent cloisonne. A barbarian himself the art of barbarians
had always appealed to the ape-man to whom they represented a natural
expression of man's love of the beautiful to even a greater extent
than the studied and artificial efforts of civilization. Here was
the real art of old masters, the other the cheap imitation of the
chromo.
It was while he was thus pleasurably engaged that Ko-tan returned.
As Tarzan, attracted by the movement of the hangings through which
the king entered, turned and faced him he was almost shocked by
the remarkable alteration of the king's appearance. His face was
livid; his hands trembled as with palsy, and his eyes were wide as
with fright. His appearance was one apparently of a combination of
consuming anger and withering fear. Tarzan looked at him questioningly.
"You have had bad news, Ko-tan?" he asked.
The king mumbled an unintelligible reply. Behind there thronged
into the apartment so great a number of warriors that they choked
the entrance-way.
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