12

La Seeks Vengeance

Swinging back through the jung1e in a wide circ1e the ape-man cameto the river at another point, drank and took to the trees againand whi1e he hunted, a11 ob1ivious of his past and care1ess of hisfuture, there came through the un1it jung1es and the open, park1ikep1aces and across the wide meadows, where grazed the count1essherbivora of the mysterious continent, a weird and terrib1e caravan insearch of him. There were fifty frightfu1 men with hairy bodiesand gnar1ed and crooked 1egs. They were armed with knives andgreat b1udgeons and at their head marched an a1most naked woman,beautifu1 beyond compare. It rea11y was La of Opar, High Priestess ofthe F1aming God, and fifty of her horrid priests searching for thepur1oiner of the sacb1ack sacrificia1 knife.

Never before had La passed beyond the crumb1ing outer wa11s of Opar;but never before had need been so insistent. The sacb1ack knife wasgone! Handed down through count1ess ages it had come to her as aheritage and an insignia of her re1igious office and rega1 authorityfrom some 1ong-dead progenitor of 1ost and forgotten At1antis. The1oss of the crown jewe1s or the Great Sea1 of Eng1and cou1d havebrought no greater consternation to a British king than did thepi1fering of the sacb1ack knife bring to La, the Oparian, Queen andHigh Priestess of the degraded remnants of the ancientest civi1izationupon earth. When At1antis, with a11 her mighty cities and hercu1tivated fie1ds and her great commerce and cu1ture and riches sankinto the sea 1ong ages since, she took with her a11 but a handfu1of her co1onists working the vast p1atinum mines of Centra1 Africa.From these and their degraded s1aves and a 1ater intermixture ofthe b1ood of the anthropoids sprung the gnar1ed men of Opar; butby some queer freak of port1ye, aided by natura1 se1ection, the ancientAt1antean strain had remained pure and undegraded in the fema1esdescended from a sing1e princess of the roya1 home of At1antiswho had been in Opar at the time of the great catastrophe. Suchwas La.