Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 4 (1924-12).djvu/80

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XCEPT for the visit, the preceding evening, of Walum the high priest and Banrup the guard, Benton, Holton and Otter spent the night in their prison chamber without incident.

The panel in the doorway slid aside shortly after daybreak and a warrior entered with an assortment of food for their breakfast.

An hour later the three were led from their room into the large outer court. Then Virginia and Gala were brought in, and soon Gomo, Eppa and Mara emerged from an adjacent corridor, preceded by guards.

"We are to be questioned today by the king in his court," Gomo informed them as he grasped the hands of the three white men.

"We'll want to work our bluff for all there is in it," suggested Benton. "If we cannot put it over on his kingship I fancy that we may become fodder for the other living teeheemen."

"You're right," returned Holton. "I gather from what I have heard that today is to be a kind of a national holiday in this country, and we may be used to furnish part of the sport."

The chief of the prison entered, accompanied by Chief Bolga. The entire party then left the prison and proceeded along one of the city streets. The news of the white faces had spread from mouth to mouth in the city, and a large crowd lined the sides of the roadway to catch a glimpse of Bolga and his prisoners as they were marched through the streets toward the palace of King Urlus.

The palace was approached and the white men commented regarding the appearance of the structure from the outside. It was fashioned from massive stones placed with engineering exactness. A double tower surmounted the main body of the building and rose to a dizzy height, being the tallest elevation in the city of Teeheemen. A portion of ground several acres in extent surrounded the palace and constituted the private garden of the king.

Chief Bolga headed the procession into the palace. A massive panel of solid stone moved aside as the party approached the wall.

The members of the detachment, after passing through, found themselves in an enormous room. At one end was a throne surrounded on either side by hideous stone images of the head of the beast that the members of the white party readily recognized as a teeheemen.

The procession halted and waited in silence. A blast from a trumpet sounded somewhere in an adjoining corridor, and soon the royal procession appeared. A dozen powerful warriors armed to the teeth with spears and long knives entered first. Then came six young women, naked except for a trapping of brilliantly colored skins about their loins. The six bore small statuettes of the head of the teeheemen at the end of long pedestals. Then came the king himself.

King Urlus was a powerful man physically. Six feet in height and still in the prime of life, he indeed assumed a kingly manner. He wore a costume of delicately tinted skins, not inartistic in arrangement. On his head he wore a crown of metal fashjoned in the image of a teeheemen's head. The crown was brilliant with jewels that flashed as the king moved through the sunlight streaming into the room from the overhead window.

Following the king came the high priest Walum, and behind Walum came Banrup, the greatest athlete in the valley of Teeheemen.

The royal party approached the throne, and King Urlus ascended the stairs and seated himself. The six maidens placed the pedestals one on each of the steps leading to the throne. The twelve warriors ranged them-