Chapter 25 meet at the altar

In that heart-wrenching moment, Tarzan felt the rope from which he was hanging slippery, and heard the sound of stone slabs rubbing against masonry. Then the rope stopped moving—the slab got stuck on the edge of the well.The ape Tarzan carefully climbed up this weak rope.After a while, his head was exposed at the mouth of the well.The courtyard was empty, and the residents of Opa City went to watch the excitement.From the nearby hall came the singing of the priestess Ra.The dancing has stopped.A terrible thought flashed through Feng Shan's mind: Maybe it's time to get up and down.He flew towards the place where the voice of the priestess was heard.

The god of fate led him straight to the door of the hall without a roof.Between him and the altar stood a long procession of priests and priestesses.Holding golden cups in their hands, they are preparing to receive the warm blood of the victim. On the hard stone of the altar lay a frail, motionless woman.The child holding the steel knife slowly moved towards her chest.Taishan recognized that the woman offering sacrifice to Vulcan was the girl he was deeply in love with.He whimpered and took a breath, the scar on his forehead suddenly turned scarlet, and a cloud of blood rose in front of his eyes.He roared like a crazy giant ape, a brave hero, and rushed into the group of "good men and women".

Tai Shan snatched a "mace" from the male priest who was closest to him, and like a true demon, he slammed in all directions, and rushed towards the altar with the force of wind and clouds.Priestess Ra heard the first sound, and her hand holding the steel knife stopped in mid-air.She raised her head and saw that it was Tai Shan who caused the chaos, and her face suddenly turned pale.She has never been able to figure out how this strange white man could escape from the basement that she personally locked.She never wanted him to leave Opa City.For she had seen his strong body and handsome face as a woman and not as a priest, and her clever mind had already spun a convincing story.She told everyone that Vulcan had sent her a secret order that this strange white man was his messenger to his subjects on the ground.She knew that the residents of Opa City would be very satisfied.She was also convinced that this man would be happy to be her husband, rather than on the altar of death.

But when she returned to the basement to explain her plan to him, the man had disappeared without a trace, although the door was still locked as tightly as she had left it. Now, he manifested again like a ghost, suddenly appeared in Opa City, and killed her priests like a sheep.In an instant, she forgot about the woman on the altar, and before she had time to think about it, the big man was already standing in front of her, holding in his arms the woman who almost became her victim woman. "Stand aside, la!" he yelled. "You saved me, so I won't do you any harm. But don't stop me, chase me, or I'll kill you too."

He said as he strode toward the basement entrance. "Who is she?" Priest Wen asked, pointing to the unconscious woman in Taishan's arms. "She is my woman," said Tarzan. The beautiful girl from Opa City stood there with her eyes wide open, looking at Mount Tai in amazement, tears gradually filled her eyes, and a desperate and pitiful expression appeared on her face.She cried and sat down on the cold floor. A group of handsome men rushed past her, trying to capture Tarzan the ape. However, when they surrounded the altar, Mount Tai had disappeared into the tunnel leading to the basement like a bolt of lightning.The group of monsters pursued cautiously, and when they found the first basement empty, they all chirped and laughed.Because they know that this is the only entrance and exit of the secret passage.Whoever figured it out, here is the only way.So the Opa people happily waited for the rabbit to go.

Just like that, Tarzan the Ape walked through the tunnel under the Fire God Temple in Opa City with the unconscious Jenny Potter in his arms without any pursuers behind him.Later, when those ugly men were discussing this matter, it suddenly occurred to them that this man had escaped from the basement before.Although they kept guarding the entrance of the cave, they did not see him come out.Today he suddenly flew out of the sky again and made a big disturbance in the temple, which shows that he must have another technique of traveling through the sky and into the earth.So they immediately sent 50 warriors to the canyon to pursue the strong man who had desecrated the temple.

When Taishan reached the ancient well on the other side of the false wall, he was sure of his escape, so he stopped and used the stone slabs he had just removed to build the wall.Because he didn't want anyone to discover the secret passage to the treasure house.One day he would return to Opa City and take more gold ingots than was buried in the "little stage". He walked quickly in the tunnel, passed through the first door of the treasure house, the second door, and finally got into the straight tunnel connected with the huge rock outside the city.Jenny Potter is still unconscious.

Tarzan the Ape stopped on the boulder, turned his head and glanced at Opa City, and saw a group of warriors hurriedly walking in the wilderness.The sight made him hesitate.He didn't know whether he should climb down the huge boulder, and then climb down the cliffs of the canyon first, or hide here first, and wait until night falls before making plans.Later, he glanced at the girl's pale face, and immediately made up his mind: those 50 half-human, half-beast guys must not be an obstacle to Jenny's freedom!Because it is difficult for him to absolutely guarantee that no one will be followed from the secret passage.If you are attacked by enemies, it will be very difficult to escape the net of these monsters.Because holding Jenny who is still in a coma, it is difficult to break out of the encirclement.

Climbing down that gigantic granite rock with Jenny Potter on her back was no easy feat. However, there seems to be nothing impossible for Taishan.He tied the girl to his back with straw ropes and managed to climb down safely before the opa men came after her.Because he meandered down from the side of Opa City, the search team didn't even see their shadow.They never imagined in their dreams that those two missing weirdos were so close. Tarzan the Ape ran nearly half a mile away under the cover of the jagged rocks, before the warriors of Opa City bypassed the towering granite rock and saw the prey running in front of them.The savage yelled with joy, and ran like crazy, thinking that there was no doubt that he would soon be able to catch the monster with a person in its arms.However, they both underestimated the strength of Tarzan the ape, and overestimated the speed of their own two legs.

Tai Shan ran very easily, keeping a constant distance from the pursuers behind him.He occasionally glanced down at the face that was so close to him. The face was pale and haggard, and if it hadn't been for the feeble beating of her heart against his chest, he would have wondered if she was still alive. In this way, Taishan quickly ran up the flat-topped mountain, and there were cliffs on the other side of the mountain.When he was still a mile away from the mountain, Tarzan galloped like a deer.He wanted to buy enough time to climb down this cliff before the opa people climbed to the top of the mountain and rolled down the rocks to hit them.Taishan got his wish, and when the group of "warriors" ran out of breath to the cliff, he was already half a mile away from the foot of the mountain.

The Opa people were angry and disappointed. They waved their maces and danced on the cliff, shouting and cursing.This time, however, they did not chase beyond the boundaries of their territory.Whether it was because the last pursuit was exhausted and nothing was found, or because Taishan ran with ease, especially in the final sprint, he was as fast as lightning, and realized that chasing him would be beyond reach, so it is unknown.Anyway, when Taishan entered the forest at the foot of the mountain, they turned around and went back to Opa City in despair. As soon as he entered the forest, Tarzan put Jenny on the grass, fetched water from a nearby stream, and washed her face and hands.But she still couldn't regain consciousness.Taishan was very anxious, so he had no choice but to hold the girl in his arms and continue walking westward in a hurry. It was late in the afternoon when Jenny Potter slowly came to life.She didn't open her eyes right away, but tried to recall the last things she saw before she lost consciousness.Oh, she remembered!The altar, the terrible priestess, the steel knife that stabs the chest.She shivered, and felt that either she had died; or, the steel knife had pierced her heart, and before she died, she had the last hallucination. She finally plucked up the courage to open her eyes, and what she saw further confirmed her guess.It turned out that she was being hugged by her dead lover, walking hurriedly in the "Paradise of Eden" covered by greenery. "If this is death," she murmured, "thank God for giving me death." "You speak, Jenny!" cried Tarzan joyfully. "You regain consciousness!" "Yes, Tarzan!" she replied.For the first time in months, a happy, peaceful smile appeared on his face. "Thank God!" cried Tarzan.He carried her to a grassy clearing beside the stream: "I finally arrived in time." "In time? What do you mean?" she asked. "Get you off the altar just in time, dear!" he answered, "don't you remember?" "Saved from death?" she asked, bewildered. "Aren't we both alive, my Tarzan?" By this time, he had put her on the grass and sat her down against the trunk of a big tree.Hearing her question, he stepped back a few steps, trying to see her face more clearly. "Dead?" he asked, and then laughed. "You're not dead, Jenny. I'm not dead either. If you could go back to Opa and ask the monsters who live there, they'd tell you I'm a Quite a living man! Oh, my dear, we are both alive and well!" "But, Hazel and Mr. Thrane both told me, you were drowned in the sea a long, long way from land," argued Jenny, as if trying to convince him that he did. Indeed dead, "They said you fell into the sea, and there was no hope of surviving." "How can I convince you that I'm not a ghost?" he asked, laughing. "I was thrown into the sea by that very pleasant Mr. Selance. But I didn't drown. These things, after a while." I'll tell you again. You should understand now that I'm the wild man you first met again, Jenny Potter." The girl stood up slowly and walked towards him. "I still can't believe this is all true." Jenny murmured, "Since the 'Alice' wreck, I have experienced great suffering in the past few months. Now, how can happiness fall from the sky?" She came up to him, stretched out a limp, trembling hand, and grabbed his arm. "This must be a dream. I will wake up from the dream in a short while and see the steel knife piercing my heart. Kiss me, dear, and kiss me one more time before this beautiful dream is shattered." There was no need to ask for a second time, Tarzan immediately stretched out his powerful arms, hugged the girl he loved deeply, and kissed her not once, but a hundred times, until she lay on the ground I couldn't even catch my breath.But she still wasn't kissed enough.When Tarzan stopped kissing her, she stretched out two arms to wrap around his neck, and pressed her plump lips to his. "Speaking of which, am I really alive, or a dream?" he asked. "If you are no longer alive, my man," she replied, "I will pray to God to let me leave this earth immediately, so that I will not wake up again and face the terrible reality." The two of them were silent for a while, staring into each other's eyes, as if they still couldn't believe the sudden happiness.All the pain and fear of the past have been forgotten, and the future does not seem to belong to them.Only now belongs to them, and no one can take it away.It was the girl who broke the silence first. "Where are we going, dear?" she asked. "What shall we do?" "Where do you most want to be?" he asked. "What do you most want to do?" "I want to go where you want to go, my man! I want to do what you want to do," she replied. "But what about Clayton?" he asked.For a while he forgot that there were other people in the world besides him and Jenny. "We've forgotten about your husband." "I am not married, Tarzan!" she cried, "and I have broken my engagement to him. I declared my love to you to Mr. Clayton the day before those dreadful savages took me. He has already understood that I cannot fulfill the promise I made to him. That was after we were miraculously rescued from the lion's claw." She stopped talking suddenly, looked up at Mount Tai, her gaze is full of doubts. "Tarzan," she cried, "you saved us? It must be! There will be no one but you!" He lowered his eyes, feeling very ashamed. "How could you leave me and walk away?" she yelled, her voice full of grievances and reproaches. "Stop it, Jenny!" he begged, "Stop it. You don't know how much pain I've had in my heart since I did this stupid thing. You don't know how much I suffered emotionally back then. At first, I was angry with jealousy, and then I was angry at my rough fate. After that, I went back to the apes, intending not to see anyone again." Then he told her what happened after returning to the jungle. All sorts of things - how he went from a civilized and civilized Parisian to a savage warrior of the Vanziri tribe, and then gradually recovered the bestiality he had cultivated since childhood. She asked him many questions, and finally asked with trepidation what Thrane had told her--about the scandal of the Parisian girl.He gave her a detailed account of his life as a civilized man, without missing anything.He has no shame at all, because his heart has always been infinitely loyal to her.When he was done, he sat looking at her, as if waiting for her judgment and verdict. "I know he's lying," she said. "Oh, what a rotten brute." "So. You're not mad at me anymore?" he asked. Her answer didn't match the lips of the donkey.But quite a bit "feminine". "Is Olga de Cauder beautiful?" she asked. Tarzan smiled and kissed her. "Not even a tenth of your beauty, my dear," he said. She let out a sigh of satisfaction and rested her head on his shoulder.He knew that she had forgiven him. That night, Tarzan built a comfortable hut for the already exhausted Jenny on the gently swaying branches of a towering tree.He himself slept on a branch under the shack—even in his sleep he would protect her. It took them many days to get back to the coast.When you come across a good road, you walk hand in hand under the shade of the big tree, just like the ancestors of human beings in ancient times.When he encountered bushes and thorns tangled with vines, he held her in his arms, jumped up the big tree, and swayed and climbed among the thick green branches and leaves.They were very happy and felt that the days were passing too quickly.If it is not urgent to save Clayton, I really want to go on like this forever and enjoy the sweetness and happiness of this wonderful journey. On the last day of arriving at the coast, Taishan suddenly smelled a human smell, and it was black.He told Jenny to keep quiet. "There are very few people in the jungle who can be called friends," he said coldly. Half an hour later they saw a small procession of Negroes marching westward in single file.Taishan looked closely, and suddenly shouted happily. It turned out that they were warriors of the Wanqirui tribe, and there were Busuri and other friends who accompanied him to Opa City.Seeing him, they all jumped for joy.They told him they had been looking for him for weeks. The blacks were amazed to see the white girl with him.Taishan told them that she was going to be his woman, and everyone rushed to ask her to pay their respects.In this way, the warriors of the Wanqirui tribe hugged each other, laughed and danced, and accompanied them to the simple shack on the coast. There was no sign of life on the beach, and no one answered their calls.Taishan hurriedly climbed up the big tree, got into the small shack, and poked his head out after a while, holding an empty tin can in his hand.He tossed the tin can to Bussuri, telling him to hurry for water, and beckoned to Jenny Porter to come up. Clayton had sunken eyes, described as dry, and was so thin that only a handful of bones remained.They bent down and looked at the once handsome British nobleman, and tears welled up in him.But I'm afraid it's too late. " After Bushuri retrieved the water, Tarzan managed to pour a few drops into Clayton's chapped, swollen lips, then washed his burning brow and wiped his terribly thin limbs. After a while, Clayton opened his eyes and saw Jenny lying beside her, with a smile on her haggard face.Seeing Taishan, he looked very surprised. "Nothing, old chap!" said Tarzan, "we found you just in time. Everything will be fine now, and you'll be in front of the crowd soon enough. " Clayton shook his head slowly. "It's too late," he said softly, "but it's all right, I'd rather die." "And Mr. Thrane?" asked the girl. "After my high fever worsened, he left me and ran away alone. This guy is a devil. I was too weak and begged him to give me a sip of water. He not only refused, but also mocked me in front of me. I drank half a bowl of water from my face, and poured the rest on the ground." Thinking of the scoundrel, Clayton, dying, suddenly burst into a rage, and got up on his elbows, almost crying out: "Yes, I want to live, I want to live, I want to find this Fu Sheng, and kill him with my own hands!" After being excited, he became weaker than before, and fell weakly on the pile of moldy thatch.The thatch was covered with his worn long overcoat.Previously this was Jenny Potter's bed. "Don't worry about Thrane,"' said Tarzan.He put a hand on Clayton's forehead and comforted him gently: "I'll settle with this villain. Don't worry, I'll catch him sooner or later." Clayton lay motionless for a long time.Several times Tarzan had to press his ear to his shriveled chest and listen to the feeble beating of his exhausted heart.In the evening, he struggled to get up again. "Jenny!" he said softly.The girl bent down and brought her ear to his lips. "I have always mistreated you, and him..." He nodded weakly at Tarzan, "because I love you so much...Of course, this is a very weak excuse. However, I almost lost Your thoughts are unbearable. I don't want to ask your forgiveness, I just want to do something that should have been done a year ago." He groped in the pocket of his long coat, looking for something he had stumbled across while feverish.After a while, he found it. It was a crumpled piece of yellow paper.He handed it to Jenny.As soon as Jenny reached out to catch it, his arm slid limply to his chest, his head was thrown back, he took a breath, and remained motionless.Tarzan pulled his coat over his pained face. For a long while they knelt beside him, and Miss Jenny's lips moved in silent prayer.Then they stood on either side of the quietly lying corpse, and tears welled up in Tarzan's eyes.Because of his spiritual suffering, Tarzan has learned to sympathize with others. Jenny looked at the faded piece of paper through blurred tears.She was dumbfounded by the words on the paper.She read it twice before she slowly understood the meaning. Fingerprints prove that you belong to the Greystock family.best wishes congratulations. Diarnot She handed the piece of paper to Taishan: "It seems that he already knew the truth," she said, "just kept it from you." "I knew it first, Jenny!" Tarzan replied, "but I didn't know he knew my story too. I must have left the telegram in the waiting room that night. For it was there that I received it." Telegram." "But you actually told us that your mother was a female ape, and you never knew who your father was." Jenny said angrily. "My dear, the title and inheritance are worthless to me without you." Tarzan said, "If I take these things from his hands, I will leave the girl I love dearly in poverty and misery. Don't you even understand that, Jenny!" He seemed to justify one's own mistakes. She stretched out both arms, and clasped Tarzan's hands across the body of Clayton lying between them. "And I almost abandoned such a deep and noble love!"