For some time Tarzan lay where he had fallen upon thefloor of the treasure chamber beneath the ruined wallsof Opar. He lay as one dead; but he was not dead.At length he stirred. His eyes opened upon the utterdarkness of the room. He raised his hand to his headand brought it away sticky with clotted blood. Hesniffed at his fingers, as a wild beast might sniff atthe life-blood upon a wounded paw.

Slowly he rose to a sitting posture--listening.No sound reached to the buried depths of his sepulcher.He staggered to his feet, and groped his way aboutamong the tiers of ingots. What was he? Where was he?His head ached; but otherwise he felt no ill effectsfrom the blow that had felled him. The accident he did notrecall, nor did he recall aught of what had led up to it.

He let his hands grope unfamiliarly over his limbs,his torso, and his head. He felt of the quiver at hisback, the knife in his loin cloth. Something struggledfor recognition within his brain. Ah! he had it.There was something missing. He crawled about uponthe floor, feeling with his hands for the thing thatinstinct warned him was gone. At last he found it--theheavy war spear that in past years had formed soimportant a feature of his daily life, almost of hisvery existence, so inseparably had it been connectedwith his every action since the long-gone day that hehad wrested his first spear from the body of a blackvictim of his savage training.

Tarzan was sure that there was another and more lovelyworld than that which was confined to the darkness ofthe four stone walls surrounding him. He continued hissearch and at last found the doorway leading inwardbeneath the city and the temple. This he followed,most incautiously. He came to the stone steps leadingupward to the higher level. He ascended them andcontinued onward toward the well.

Nothing spurred his hurt memory to a recollection ofpast familiarity with his surroundings. He blunderedon through the darkness as though he were traversing anopen plain under the brilliance of a noonday sun, andsuddenly there happened that which had to happen underthe circumstances of his rash advance.

He reached the brink of the well, stepped outward intospace, lunged forward, and shot downward into the inkydepths below. Still clutching his spear, he struck thewater, and sank beneath its surface, plumbing thedepths.

The fall had not injured him, and when he rose to thesurface, he shook the water from his eyes, and foundthat he could see. Daylight was filtering into thewell from the orifice far above his head. It illuminedthe inner walls faintly. Tarzan gazed about him.On the level with the surface of the water he saw alarge opening in the dark and slimy wall. He swam to it,and drew himself out upon the wet floor of a tunnel.

Along this he passed; but now he went warily, forTarzan of the Apes was learning. The unexpected pithad taught him care in the traversing of darkpassageways--he needed no second lesson.

For a long distance the passage went straight as anarrow. The floor was slippery, as though at times therising waters of the well overflowed and flooded it.This, in itself, retarded Tarzan's pace, for it waswith difficulty that he kept his footing.

The foot of a stairway ended the passage. Up this hemade his way. It turned back and forth many times,leading, at last, into a small, circular chamber,the gloom of which was relieved by a faint light whichfound ingress through a tubular shaft several feet indiameter which rose from the center of the room'sceiling, upward to a distance of a hundred feet ormore, where it terminated in a stone grating throughwhich Tarzan could see a blue and sun-lit sky.

Curiosity prompted the ape-man to investigate hissurroundings. Several metal-bound, copper-studdedchests constituted the sole furniture of the roundroom. Tarzan let his hands run over these. He feltof the copper studs, he pulled upon the hinges, and atlast, by chance, he raised the cover of one.

An exclamation of delight broke from his lips at sightof the pretty contents. Gleaming and glistening in thesubdued light of the chamber, lay a great tray full ofbrilliant stones. Tarzan, reverted to the primitive byhis accident, had no conception of the fabulous valueof his find. To him they were but pretty pebbles.He plunged his hands into them and let the priceless gemsfilter through his fingers. He went to others of thechests, only to find still further stores of preciousstones. Nearly all were cut, and from these hegathered a handful and filled the pouch which dangled athis side--the uncut stones he tossed back into the chests.

Unwittingly, the ape-man had stumbled upon theforgotten jewel-room of Opar. For ages it had lainburied beneath the temple of the Flaming God, midway ofone of the many inky passages which the superstitiousdescendants of the ancient Sun Worshipers had eitherdared not or cared not to explore.

Tiring at last of this diversion, Tarzan took up his wayalong the corridor which led upward from the jewel-roomby a steep incline. Winding and twisting, but alwaystending upward, the tunnel led him nearer andnearer to the surface, ending finally in a low-ceiledroom, lighter than any that he had as yet discovered.

Above him an opening in the ceiling at the upper end ofa flight of concrete steps revealed a brilliant sunlitscene. Tarzan viewed the vine-covered columns in mildwonderment. He puckered his brows in an attempt torecall some recollection of similar things. He was notsure of himself. There was a tantalizing suggestionalways present in his mind that something was eludinghim--that he should know many things which he did not know.

His earnest cogitation was rudely interrupted by athunderous roar from the opening above him. Followingthe roar came the cries and screams of men and women.Tarzan grasped his spear more firmly and ascended thesteps. A strange sight met his eyes as he emerged fromthe semi-darkness of the cellar to the brilliant lightof the temple.

The creatures he saw before him he recognized for whatthey were--men and women, and a huge lion. The men andwomen were scuttling for the safety of the exits.The lion stood upon the body of one who had been less fortunatethan the others. He was in the center of the temple.Directly before Tarzan, a woman stood beside ablock of stone. Upon the top of the stone laystretched a man, and as the ape-man watched the scene,he saw the lion glare terribly at the two who remainedwithin the temple. Another thunderous roar broke fromthe savage throat, the woman screamed and swoonedacross the body of the man stretched prostrate upon thestone altar before her.

The lion advanced a few steps and crouched. The tip ofhis sinuous tail twitched nervously. He was upon thepoint of charging when his eyes were attracted towardthe ape-man.

Werper, helpless upon the altar, saw the greatcarnivore preparing to leap upon him. He saw thesudden change in the beast's expression as his eyeswandered to something beyond the altar and out of theBelgian's view. He saw the formidable creature rise toa standing position. A figure darted past Werper.He saw a mighty arm upraised, and a stout spear shootforward toward the lion, to bury itself in the broad chest.

He saw the lion snapping and tearing at the weapon'sshaft, and he saw, wonder of wonders, the naked giantwho had hurled the missile charging upon the greatbeast, only a long knife ready to meet those ferociousfangs and talons.

The lion reared up to meet this new enemy. The beastwas growling frightfully, and then upon the startledears of the Belgian, broke a similar savage growl fromthe lips of the man rushing upon the beast.

By a quick side step, Tarzan eluded the first swingingclutch of the lion's paws. Darting to the beast'sside, he leaped upon the tawny back. His armsencircled the maned neck, his teeth sank deep into thebrute's flesh. Roaring, leaping, rolling andstruggling, the giant cat attempted to dislodge thissavage enemy, and all the while one great, brown fistwas driving a long keen blade repeatedly into thebeast's side.

During the battle, La regained consciousness.Spellbound, she stood above her victim watching thespectacle. It seemed incredible that a human beingcould best the king of beasts in personal encounter andyet before her very eyes there was taking place justsuch an improbability.

At last Tarzan's knife found the great heart, and witha final, spasmodic struggle the lion rolled over uponthe marble floor, dead. Leaping to his feet theconqueror placed a foot upon the carcass of his kill,raised his face toward the heavens, and gave voice toso hideous a cry that both La and Werper trembled as itreverberated through the temple.

Then the ape-man turned, and Werper recognized him asthe man he had left for dead in the treasure room.