Chapter 20 mysterious priestess

At first, Taishan thought to himself that the god of fate must have miraculously saved his life.But then he suddenly wondered, how can a girl fight off 20 men who are as fierce as gorillas easily by herself?After a while he saw them dancing around him again, and the girl said something to them in a monotonous singing voice.Only then did he realize that this was just a part of the ceremony, and he was the "central figure" of the ceremony. After a while, the girl took a knife from her belt, bent down to Mount Tai, and cut the rope around his leg.Then, when the men had stopped dancing and gathered around her, she gestured for him to get up.She used the rope that tied him just now, put it around his neck, and led him across the courtyard, with the men following behind in two lines.

She led him through the winding corridors to the deepest part of the temple.There is a hall in front of you, and there is an altar in the middle of the hall. Only then did Taishan realize that the strange ceremony just now was a preparation for taking him into this sacred place. He fell to the descendants of an ancient sun-worshipping race. His rescue by the priestesses of the Sun Goddess was but a symbolic imitation of their savage rites—the sun beamed down on him from the little courtyard, and showed that it had regarded him as its own, And the priestess came out of the inner temple to rescue him from the dirty hands of the worldly people, and to sacrifice him to their god of fire.

To further confirm the correctness of his deduction, one need only look at the stone altar and the red-brown bloodstains on the floor beside the altar, or at the human skulls in the numerous niches on the high walls. The priestess led her victim up the steps of the altar, and the surrounding platforms were crowded with onlookers, and a group of women entered under the arched porch on the east side of the hall.Like the men, they had hides tied around their waists with rawhide strips or gold chains, and their jet-black hair was adorned with head-dresses of pure gold.This headdress is a golden hat delicately strung with many round and oval gold pieces. On both sides of the hat hang tassels made of oval gold pieces as long as the waist.

The women were well-proportioned and well-proportioned, with the contours of their heads and large, soft, dark eyes suggesting that they were more intelligent and more human than the men. Each priestess held two golden cups in her hand.They lined up on one side of the altar, and the men stood one after the other on the other, then went to take a golden cup from the woman standing opposite, and sang the monotonous hymn again. After a while, on the other side of the altar, another woman walked out from the deep part of the hall through the dark aisle. She must be the highest priestess, Tarzan thought.This is a young woman with a pretty face, and the ornaments on her head are roughly the same as those of her followers, except that the workmanship is more elaborate and inlaid with precious stones.Her bare arms and legs were heavily adorned with jewels.A leopard skin wrapped around the waist was fastened by a tight gold chain.The gold chain is made of countless fine pearls to form a strange pattern, and a long waist knife inlaid with pearls hangs on it.She held a slender cane in her hand, instead of the other people's big-headed mace.

She stopped at the place facing the altar, and the monotonous hymn fell silent.Priests and priestesses knelt before her, and she waved her staff over their heads, chanting a long, wearisome prayer.Her voice sounded very soft and musical.Taishan couldn't imagine that such a gentle and beautiful girl would become a leopard-eyed, bloodthirsty executioner driven by fanatical religious beliefs.Holding the waist knife dripping with blood, she was the first to lift up the golden cup on the altar, and drank the warm and bright red blood of Tarzan the Ape. After saying her prayers, she fixed her gaze on Tarzan for the first time.She looked him over from head to toe with obvious curiosity, and said a few words to him.When he had finished speaking, he stood there waiting, hoping to hear his answer.

"I don't understand you," said Tarzan. "Maybe we can talk in another language?" So he spoke French, English, Arabic, the language of the Wanziri tribe, and even stammered some words from the West African coast. The language of the natives spoke to her, but she still could not understand him. She shook her head.There was a palpable weariness and weariness in her voice as she ordered the priests to continue the ritual.Those who danced so awkwardly finally stopped dancing at the order of the priestess.She has been standing there, looking intently at Mount Tai. She made a gesture, and the male priests rushed towards Tarzan, lifted him up, and laid him on his back on the altar.Tarzan's head hung over the edge of the altar, his legs resting on the other side.Then, male and female priests lined up in two rows, holding golden cups, and waited for the sacrificial steel knife to pierce Tarzan's heart, ending the ritual and drawing his blood at the same time.

The male priests quarreled over who should be the first to receive the blood.A very stocky guy with gorilla-like cunning in his fierce face trying to push a small man into the second position.The little man complained to the highest priestess.In a cold, imperious tone, the priestess ordered the big, unreasonable man to stand last.Tarzan heard the guy swearing and whining as he walked slowly back. Standing condescendingly next to Mount Tai, the priestess began to chant the spell and slowly raised her sharp, sharp knife.The ape Tarzan felt that it took a long time before her arm holding the steel knife stopped in mid-air above his bare chest.

Then, the steel knife began to stab downward.It was slow at first, but as the incantation became faster and faster, the speed of the steel knife stabbing over became faster and faster.Taishan heard the angry quarrel of the disgruntled male priest from the back of the line, and the noise grew louder.A priestess next to him scolded him sharply.Now the steel knife is very close to Taishan's chest.At this critical moment, the priestess holding the steel knife raised her head and glanced dissatisfiedly at the loud and blasphemous guy, and the knife paused in the air. Immediately afterwards, the team preparing to drink blood suddenly became chaotic, Taishan turned his head, just in time to see that ferocious male priest, like a wild beast, pounced on the female priest standing opposite him, and hit him on the head.The woman's brains split open.

In an instant, Tarzan saw again what he had seen many times in the primeval jungle, among those wild and ferocious jungle dwellers.He had seen Kochak, Tabrant, and Teganz go mad, and he had seen a dozen other great apes of great strength from his tribe, and Tante the elephant went mad.There is hardly a male animal in the great forest who does not engage in such follies.Now the male priest is also crazy. He wields a "mace" and kills indiscriminately among the crowd. He dashed here and there, uttering furious, terrible cries, brandishing his club, beating anyone he saw, and baring his yellow teeth to gnaw at the flesh of his hapless companions.Meanwhile, the priestess stood with the steel knife in her hand, looking in horror at the monster that was killing her followers.

In the blink of an eye, all the priests fled in all directions. In the empty hall, apart from those who had been beaten to death and those who were wounded to death, only Tarzan on the altar, the priestess and the lunatic remained.When the madman's fierce, cunning eyes caught sight of the priestess, a new lust burst forth.He walked towards her slowly and said a few words.Taishan was very surprised to find that he could understand his language.He never dreamed that humans would speak in such a language. They spoke his mother tongue—the guttural, dog-barking "language" of the great ape tribe.The priestess spoke to him in the same language.

He was threatening her, and she tried to reason with it, because it was obvious to her that he was flouting her authority.But the beast turned a deaf ear to it, and walked closer and closer until it reached the altar, and stretched out its big claw-like hands to her. Taishan suffocated to break the rope that bound him.The priestess didn't see it.She herself was in great peril, and in her terror she forgot her victim long ago.With a jerk of superhuman strength Tarzan rolled from the altar onto the stone floor opposite where the priestess stood, and by the time he jumped up, the ropes had come loose from his freed arms.He found himself alone in the hall, the priestess and the madman had disappeared without a trace. After a while there came a muffled cry for help from the dark, cave-like passage through which the priestess had entered the hall beyond the altar.The ape Tarzan didn't even think about his own safety and the possibility of escape brought about by this series of events, so he went to rescue the woman in distress.He jumped very nimbly to the entrance to the basement, and in the blink of an eye he ran down a long stretch of steps that would take him nowhere. With the faint light from above, Taishan saw that it was a large, not too high vaulted basement, with several door openings leading to darker and deeper places.But he didn't have to grope in the dark anymore, the two he was looking for were right in front of him—the madman who had pinned the girl to the floor and was choking her throat with his huge gorilla-like claws.The girl struggled desperately, trying to escape from the huge clutches of the terrible beast. Taishan's hand fell heavily on the male priest's shoulder. The guy put down the girl, turned around and rushed towards the ground.The crazy "Worshiper of the Sun" bared his fangs, sprayed saliva, and fought against Mount Tai with ten times the madness before.Thirst and rage for blood turned the priest suddenly back into a beast again.He forgot the dagger hanging at his waist, but fought like his ancestors with the weapons he was born with-big hands and sharp teeth. However, if he could use his teeth and hands to take advantage of others, he would be "hands-on-hand" in front of Tarzan the ape.Taishan hugged him tightly, and the two rolled on the floor like two giant apes, tearing and biting.And the priestess, who seemed to be in ancient times, stood close to the wall, with wide-eyed, terrified, bewildered eyes, watching the two snarling and wrestling beasts at his feet. Later, she saw the stranger clamp a powerful hand around the priest's throat, raining fists down on his face.In a short while the motionless fellow was pushed aside, rose to his feet like a lion, put one foot on the dead body, and raised his head in a cry of victory.But when his eyes fell on the hall leading to the sun sacrificed by human beings, he changed his mind. Tarzan and the mad priest beat so hard that the girl was almost paralyzed with fright.Only now did she begin to think about her own safety.Although she was saved from the claws of that lunatic, she fell into the hands of a man who almost became her ghost again.She looked around, trying to run away.Not far from her was a dark archway, she was about to turn around and rush through it when Tarzan's eyes fell on her, he stepped over and grabbed her arm. "Wait!" said Tarzan in the ape language of the Kochak tribe. The girl looked at him in surprise. "Who are you?" she asked softly, "How can you speak the language of our ancestors?" "I am Tarzan," he replied in the ape-tongue. "What are you going to do with me?" she continued. "Why did you save me from Priest Sha?" "How can I watch a woman be killed?" Taishan said, as if talking to himself, and as if answering a girl's question. "What are you going to do with me now?" asked the girl. "Not much," replied Tarzan, "but you can do something for me. You can send me out of this place and set me free again." agree.He felt that if the priestess insisted on her own way, the sacrifice must continue.He had every reason to believe, of course, that they would find a free Tarzan armed with a long waist-knife very different from a disarmed and bound Tarzan. The girl stood looking at him for a long time before she spoke. "You are a very strange man," she said. "You are exactly the kind of man I have seen in my dreams so many times since I was a little girl. You are exactly what I imagined our ancestors to be. Our ancestors were a great people who built this mighty city in the depths of this savage world. In order to discover the vast and unbelievable riches, they probably dug down to the bottom of the earth and died. the ancient civilization they created. "At first, I couldn't understand why you saved me. Now I don't understand, since I fell into your hands, why didn't you take revenge on me? You know, I declared you dead, and I almost killed you with my own hands." "I suppose," replied Tarzan, "that you are only following your religion. Whether I approve of your teachings or not, I cannot condemn your conduct. But who are you? What have I come to?" in human hands?" "My name is Ra, and I am the highest priestess of the Sun Temple in Opa City. We are the descendants of a group of white people who came to this barren land in search of gold about 10,000 years ago. The city of this white group is separated from the land Wang Yang, where the sun rises in the morning, and quenches its burning flames there at night. They are very rich, very powerful. But they live only a few months a year in these beautiful palaces, and the rest of the time they live My hometown - spent in a place far, far away in the north. "Many ships shuttled back and forth, keeping the old and new continents in constant contact. In the rainy season, there were very few residents left here. There were some overseers in the mine who supervised the mining of black slaves. There were also merchants who ensured the supply of these workers, and Soldiers guarding the city and the mines. "About such a rainy season, a great catastrophe occurred. Thousands of people did not return when they should have returned. Those who stayed here waited a long time, and finally sent a galleon , trying to find out why no one returned from their hometown. But they have been sailing the sea for several months, but they have not been able to find the continent with a very long history and created an ancient civilization-it has sunk in the sea. "Since then, our race has plummeted. People are discouraged and demoralized, and are quickly targeted by black nomadic tribes on both sides of the north and south. One city after another is captured by the enemy, or abandoned by the enemy. Finally, it falls apart. Only a small number of people were left, and were forced to flee into this fortress surrounded by mountains. Slowly, our strength, civilization, wisdom, and numbers were weakened, degraded, and reduced, and now only a savage ape-man remains small tribe. "Actually, there are apes living with us, and have been for many years. We call them 'primitives'. We have our own language, but we often speak their language. In order not to forget our mother tongue, when holding religious ceremonies, We still speak the words left by our ancestors, but sooner or later we will forget them all. Only speaking ape language will become commonplace sooner or later. We all take it for granted that our people and apes marry. Therefore, sooner or later our race will Revert to beast." "But why are you more human than others?" asked Tarzan. "I don't know why, but women don't degenerate as much as men. Maybe it's because when the great disaster came, the men who stayed here were all people with less developed intelligence in the lower class, while the women in the temple were all of us. The essence of the race. My blood seems to be purer than others, because for many years my mother's ancestors were the highest priestesses-the priesthood is passed from mother to daughter. Our kind of women Priests have the right to choose as husbands those men who are the most developed and the healthiest in body and mind." "If one chooses a husband from among the gentlemen I have just seen," said Tarzan, laughing, "it would need no brains or troubles." The girl looked at him for a moment in bewilderment. "Don't blaspheme the gods," she said, "they are noble people, priests." "So, there are men who are better looking than them?" Tai Shan asked. "Other men are uglier than these priests," she replied. Taishan shuddered at the thought of his fate.Although the basement was dimly lit, he could still see that she was quite beautiful. "But what should I do?" he asked suddenly, "Are you going to let me go?" "You have been chosen by Vulcan to take you for himself," she replied solemnly, "Even I am powerless to save you. They will find you. But I don't want you to fall into the They have. You risked your life to save me, and I cannot be ungrateful. It will be difficult, and it may take days, but I think I can always get you outside the walls. Go, they are very Come here soon and look for it. If they see you with me, we're both doomed. If they think I've been unfaithful to our god, they'll kill me." "Then don't take this risk." He said hastily, "I'll go back to the temple, if I can rush out, they won't suspect you." But she disagreed and insisted on persuading him to go with her.She said they had spent so much time in the basement that even if they returned to the temple, they would still be suspected. "I'll hide you first, and then go back alone." She said, "I told them, after you killed Sha, I was unconscious for a long time, so I don't know if you escaped." So she led him through several dark, winding corridors, and finally into a small room.There are several air holes made of stone in the ceiling of the small room, and a faint light shines in. "This is the 'House of the Dead,'" she said. "No one will come here for you, they dare not. I'll pick you up after dark. Then maybe I can figure out a way to help you escape." With that she left, leaving Tarzan alone in the "House of the Dead" beneath the long-dead city of Opa.