EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
The anteroom in which they had taken refuge would barely accommodate them all, but it offered probably the best refuge they could have found in all the palace of Sublatus, for there were but two openings in it—the single small doorway leading into the throne-room and an even smaller window letting into the palace gardens. The walls were all stone and proof against any weapons at the disposal of the legionaries; yet if the uprising had failed and the legionaries had not joined the people, as they had expected, of what value this temporary sanctuary? The instant that hunger and thirst assailed them this same room would become their prison cell and torture chamber—and perhaps for many of them a vestibule to the grave.
“Ah, Dilecta,” tried Praeclarus, in the first moment that he could seize to go to her side, “I have found you only to lose you again. My rashness, perhaps has brought you death.”
“Your coming saved me from death,” replied the girl, drawing the dagger from her gown and exhibiting it to Praeclarus. “I chose this as husband rather than Fastus,” she said, “so if I die now I have lived longer than I should have, had you not come; and at least I die happy, for we, shall die together.”
“This is no time to be speaking of dying,” said Tarzan. “Did you think a few hours ago that you would ever be together again? Well, here you are. Perhaps in a few more hours everything will be changed and you will be laughing at the fears you are now entertaining.”
Some of the gladiators, who were standing near and had overheard Tarzan’s words, shook their heads.
“Any of us who gets out of this room alive,” said one, “will be burned at the stake, or fed to lions, or pulled apart by wild buffalo. We are through, but it has been a good fight, and I for one thank this great barbarian for this glorious end.”
Tarzan shrugged and turned away. “I am not dead yet,” he said, “and not until I am dead is it time to think of it—and then it will be too late.”
Maximus Praeclatus laughed. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. “What do you suggest? If we stay here, we shall be slain, so you must have some plan for getting us out.”
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