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Rh three should be able to hit upon some plan of escape," but they shook their heads, smiling sadly.

For a while, after they had eaten, they sat talk­ing together, being joined occasionally by other slaves, for Tarzan had many friends here now since he had chastized Caraftap and they would have talked all night had not the ape-man ques­tioned Komodoflorensal as to the sleeping ar­rangements of the slaves.

Komodoflorensal laughed, and pointed here and there about the chamber at recumbent figures lying upon the hard earthen floor; men, women and children sleeping, for the most part, where they had eaten their evening meal.

"The green slaves are not pampered," he re­marked laconically.

"I can sleep anywhere," said Tarzan, "but more easily when it is dark. I shall wait until the lights are extinguished."

"You will wait forever, then," Komodofloren­sal told him.

"The lights are never extinguished?" de­manded the ape-man.

"Were they, we should all be soon dead," re­plied the prince. "These flames serve two pur­poses—they dissipate the darkness and consume the foul gases that would otherwise quickly as­phyxiate us. Unlike the ordinary flame, that con­sumes oxygen, these candles, perfected from the discoveries and inventions of an ancient Minunian