and in this way I attract no attention upon the few occasions that our masters or the warriors enter our chamber."
"But you are not ill-favored—your face would surely attract attention anywhere," Tarzan reminded her.
For just an instant she turned her back upon him, putting her hands to her face and to her hair, and then she faced him again and the apeman saw before him a hideous and wrinkled hag upon whose crooked features no man would look a second time.
"God!" ejaculated Tarzan.
Slowly the girl’s face relaxed, assuming its normal lines of beauty, and with quick, deft touches she arranged her disheveled hair. An expression that was almost a smile haunted her lips.
"My mother taught me this," she said, "so that when they came and looked upon me they would not want me."
"But would it not be better to be mated with one of them and live a life of comfort above ground than to eke out a terrible existence below ground?" he demanded. "The warriors of Veltopismakus are, doubtless, but little different from those of your own country."
She shook her head. "It cannot be, for me," she said. "My father is of far Mandalamakus. My mother was stolen from him but a couple of moons before I was born in this horrid chamber,
