TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE
of the window, they can make a breach more quickly there than elsewhere.
“That is evidently what they are planning on doing,” said Metellus, as a second missile struck in the same place and a large fragment of the wall crumbled.
“Look to the door,” shouted Tarzan, as the weakened timbers sagged to the impact of the ram.
A dozen swordsmen stood ready and waiting to receive the legionaries, whose rush they expected the instant that the door fell. At one side of the room the six apes crouched, growling, and kept in leash only by the repeated assurances of Tarzan that the man-things in the room with them were the friends of the ape-man.
As the door crashed, there was a momentary silence, as each side waited to see what the other would do, and in the lull that ensued there came through the air a roaring sound ominous and threatening, and then the shouts of the legionaries in the throne-room and the legionaries in the garden drowned all other sounds.
The gap around the window had been enlarged. The missiles of the ballista had crumbled the wall from the ceiling to the floor, and as though in accordance with a prearranged plan the legionaries assaulted simultaneously, one group rushing the doorway from the throne-room, the other the breach in the opposite wall.
Tarzan turned toward the apes and pointing in the direction of the breached wall, shouted: “Stop them, Zutho! Kill, Goy-ad! Kill!”
The men near him looked at him in surprise and perhaps they shuddered a little as they heard the growling voice of a beast issue from the throat of the giant barbarian, but instantly they realized he was speaking to his hairy fellows, as they saw the apes spring forward with bared fangs and,growling hideously, throw themselves upon the first legionaries to reach the window. Two apes went down, pierced by Roman pikes, but before the beastly rage of the others Caesar’s soldiers gave back.
“After them,” cried Tarzan to Praeclarus. “Follow them into the garden. Capture the ballista and turn it upon the
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