The priests led their own forces through the secret passageway
into the temple, while some of the loyal ones sought out Ja-don
and told him all that had happened. The fight in the banquet hall
had spread over a considerable portion of the palace grounds and had
at last resulted in the temporary defeat of those who had opposed
Ja-don. This force, counseled by under priests sent for the purpose
by Lu-don, had withdrawn within the temple grounds so that now
the issue was plainly marked as between Ja-don on the one side and
Lu-don on the other.
The former had been told of all that had occurred in the apartments
of O-lo-a to whose safety he had attended at the first opportunity
and he had also learned of Tarzan's part in leading his men to the
gathering of Lu-don's warriors.
These things had naturally increased the old warrior's former
inclinations of friendliness toward the ape-man, and now he regretted
that the other had departed from the city.
The testimony of O-lo-a and Pan-at-lee was such as to strengthen
whatever belief in the godliness of the stranger Ja-don and others
of the warriors had previously entertained, until presently there
appeared a strong tendency upon the part of this palace faction
to make the Dor-ul-otho an issue of their original quarrel with
Lu-don. Whether this occurred as the natural sequence to repeated
narrations of the ape-man's exploits, which lost nothing by repetition,
in conjunction with Lu-don's enmity toward him, or whether it was
the shrewd design of some wily old warrior such as Ja-don, who
realized the value of adding a religious cause to their temporal
one, it were difficult to determine; but the fact remained that
Ja-don's followers developed bitter hatred for the followers of
Lu-don because of the high priest's antagonism to Tarzan.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313