Page:Tarzan and the Ant Men.pdf/144

138 ; ask him if he is."

He who had first addressed him put the ques­tion to Tarzan, but the ape-man only continued to glare at them.

"He does not understand me," said the war­rior. "I do not think that he is a Zertalacolol, though. What he is, however, I do not know."

He approached and examined Tarzan’s wounds. "These will soon be healed. In seven days, or less, he will be fit for the quarries."

They sprinkled a brown powder upon his wounds and brought him food and water and the milk of antelopes, and when they found that his arms were swelling badly and becoming discol­ored they brought an iron chain and, fastening one end about his waist with a clumsy padlock, secured him to a ring in the stone wall of the chamber, and cut the bonds from his wrists.

As they believed that he did not understand their language they spoke freely before him, but as their tongue was almost identical with that em­ployed by the Trohanadalmakusians Tarzan un­derstood everything that they said, and thus he learned that the battle before the city of Adendro­hahkis had not gone as well for the Veltopismakusians as Elkomoelhago, their king, had desired. They had lost many in killed and prisoners and in return had not killed near so many of the enemy and had taken comparatively few prisoners, though Elkomoelhago, he learned, considered