"Yes, My Lord, I sent one of the lesser priests to fetch her. They should be here any minute now. But, My Lord, do you think that it will be wise to anger Henry further? You know that many of the nobles are on his side and are plotting against you."
A horrid chuckle broke from the lips of the gorilla-man. "You forget that I am God," he said. "You must never forget that fact, Cranmer. Henry is forgetting it, and his poor memory will prove his undoing." The creature straightened up to its full height. An ugly growl supplanted the chuckle of a moment before. "You all forget," he cried, "that it was I who created you; it is I who can destroy you! First I shall make Henry mad, and then I shall crush him. That is the kind of god that humans like—it is the only kind they can understand. Because they are jealous and cruel and vindictive they have to have a jealous, cruel, vindictive god. I was able to give you only the minds of humans; so I have to be a god that such minds can appreciate. Tomorrow Henry shall appreciate me to the full!"
"What do you mean, My Lord?"
The gorilla god chuckled again. "When he reaches the top of the stairs I am going to blast him; I am going to destroy him."
"You are going to kill the king! But, My Lord, the Prince of Wales is too young to be king."
"He will not be king—I am tired of kings. We shall pass over Edward VI and Mary. That is one of the advantages of having God on your side, Cranmer—we shall skip eleven years and save you from burning at the stake. The next sovereign of England will be Queen Elizabeth."
"Henry has many daughters from which to choose, My Lord," said Cranmer.
"I shall choose none of them. I have just had an inspiration, Cranmer."
"From whence, My Lord God?"
"From myself, of course, you fool! It is perfect. It is ideal." He chuckled appreciatively. "I am going to make this English girl queen of England—Queen Elizabeth! She will be tractable'—she will do as I tell her; and she will serve all my other purposes as well. Or almost all. Of course I cannot eat her, Cranmer. One cannot eat his queen and have her too."
"Here comes the under-priest, My Lord," interrupted Cranmer.
"He is alone," exclaimed God. "He has not brought the girl."
An old gorilla lumbered up to the two. He appeared excited.
"Where is the girl?" demanded God.
"She was not there, My Lord. She is gone, and the man too."
"Gone! But that is impossible."
"The room is empty."
"And the doors! Had they been unlocked—either of them?"
"No, My Lord; they were both locked," replied the under priest.
The gorilla god went suddenly silent. For a few moments he remained in thought; then he spoke in very low tones to Ms two companions.
Tarzan and the girl watched them from their place of concealment in the tower. The ape-man was restless. He wished that they would go away so that he could search for some avenue of escape from the castle. Alone, he might have faced them and relied on his strength and agility to win his freedom; but he could not hope to make good the escape of the girl and himself both in the face of their ignorance of a way out of the castle and the numbers which he was sure the gorilla god could call to his assistance in case of need.
He saw the priest turn and hurry away. The other two walked a short distance from the tower, turned so that they faced it, leaned against the parapet, and continued their conversation: though now Tarzan could no longer overhear their exact words. The position of the two was such that the fugitives could not have left the tower without being seen by them.
The ape-man became apprehensive. The abnormal sensibility of the hunted beast warned him of impending danger; but he did not know where to look for it, nor in what form to expect it.
Presently he saw a bull gorilla roll within the range of his vision. The beast carried a poke. Behind him came an other similarly armed, and another and another and another until twenty of the great anthropoids were gathered on the castle roof.
They clustered about Cranmer and the gorilla god for a minute or two. The latter was talking to them. Tarzan could recognize the tones if not the words. Then the twenty approached the tower and grouped themselves in a semicircle before the low aperture leading into it.
Both Rhonda Terry and the lord of the jungle were assured that their hiding place was guessed if not known, yet they could not be certain. They would wait. That was all that they could do. However, it was an easy place to defend; and they might remain there awaiting some happy circumstance that would give them a better chance of escape than was presented to them at the moment.
The gorillas on the roof seemed only to be waiting. They did not appear to be contemplating an investigation of the interior of the tower. Perhaps, thought Tarzan, they were there for some other purpose than that which he had imagined. They might have been gathered in preparation for the coming of the king to his death in the morning.
By the parapet stood the gorilla god with the bull called Cranmer. The weird chuckle of the former was the only sound that broke the silence of the night. The ape-man wondered why the thing was chuckling.
A sudden upward draft from the shaft below them brought a puff of acrid smoke and a wave of heat. Tarzan felt the girl clutch his arm. Now he knew why the gorillas waited so patiently before the entrance to the tower. Now he knew why the gorilla god chuckled,
27. HOLOCAUST
Tarzan considered the problem that confronted him. It was evident that they could not long endure the stifling, blinding smoke. To make a sudden attack upon the gorillas would be but to jeopardize the life of his companion without offering her any hope of escape. Had he been alone it would have been different, but now there seemed no alternative to coming quietly out and giving themselves up.
On the other hand he knew that the gorilla god purposed death for him and either death or a worse fate for the girl. Whatever course he pursued, then, would evidently prove disastrous. The ape- man, seldom hesitant in reaching a decision, was frankly in a quandary.
Briefly he explained his doubts to Rhonda. "I think I'll rush them," he concluded. "At least there will be some satisfaction in that."
"They'd only kill you, Stanley," she said. "Oh, I wish you hadn't come. It was brave, but you have just thrown away your life. I can never—" The stifling smoke terminated her words in a fit of coughing.
"We can't stand this any longer," he muttered. "I'm going out. Follow me, and watch for a chance to escape."
Stooping low, the ape-man sprang from the tower. A savage growl rumbled from his deep chest. The girl, following directly behind him, heard and was horrified. She thought only of the man with her as Stanley Obroski, the coward; and she believed that his mind must have been deranged by the hopelessness of his situation.
The gorillas leaped forward to seize him. "Capture him!" cried the gorilla god. "But do not kill him."
Tarzan leaped at the nearest beast. His knife flashed in the light of the torches that some of the creatures carried. It sank deep into the chest of the victim that chance had placed in the path of the lord of the jungle. The brute screamed, clutched at the ape-man only to collapse at his feet.
But others closed upon the bronzed giant; then another and another tasted the steel of that swift blade. The gorilla god was beside himself with rage and excitement. "Seize him! Seize him!" he screamed. "Do not kill him! He is mine!"
During the excitement Rhonda sought an avenue of escape. She slunk behind the battling beasts to search for a stairway leading from the roof. Every eye, every thought was on the battle being waged before the tower. No one noticed the girl. She came to a doorway in another tower. Before her she saw the top of a flight of stairs. They were illuminated by the flickering light of torches.