A panel splintered and bits of wood flew to the center of the floor from the door at the gallery just as Tarzan seized the outstretched hands of Komodoflorensal, and an instant later, as both men kneeled in the darkness of the loft and looked down into the chamber below the opposite door flew open and the ten warriors who composed the ental burst in at the heels of their Vental.
For an instant they looked about in blank surprise and then their attention was attracted by the pounding upon the other door. A smile crossed the face of the Vental as he stepped quickly to the gallery door and unlocked it. Angry warriors rushed in upon him, but when he had explained the misapprehension under which both parties had been striving for entrance to the chamber they all joined in the laughter, albeit a trifle shamefacedly.
"But who was in here?" demanded the Vental who had brought the soldiers from the quarry.
"Kalfastoban and the green slave Caraftap," proffered a woman belonging to Hamadalban.
"They must be hiding," said a warrior.
"Search the quarters!" commanded the Vental.
"It will not take long to find one," said another warrior, pointing at the floor just inside the storeroom doorway.
The others looked and there they saw a human hand resting upon the floor. The fingers seemed frozen into the semblance of clutching claws. Mutely they proclaimed death. One of the warriors stepped quickly to the storeroom, opened the door and dragged forth the body of Caraftap, to which the head was clinging by a shred of flesh. Even the warriors stepped back, aghast. They looked quickly around the chamber.
"Both doors were barred upon the inside," said the Vental. "Whatever did this must still be here."