"I brought you this way," replied the black, "to learn if either
lacked the courage to follow where Om-at led. It is here that the
young warriors of Es-sat come to prove their courage. And yet,
though we are born and raised upon cliff sides, it is considered
no disgrace to admit that Pastar-ul-ved, the Father of Mountains,
has defeated us, for of those who try it only a few succeed--the
bones of the others lie at the feet of Pastar-ul-ved."

Ta-den laughed. "I would not care to come this way often," he said.

"No," replied Om-at; "but it has shortened our journey by at least
a full day. So much the sooner shall Tarzan look upon the Valley of
Jad-ben-Otho. Come!" and he led the way upward along the shoulder
of Pastar-ul-ved until there lay spread below them a scene of mystery
and of beauty--a green valley girt by towering cliffs of marble
whiteness--a green valley dotted by deep blue lakes and crossed
by the blue trail of a winding river. In the center a city of the
whiteness of the marble cliffs--a city which even at so great a
distance evidenced a strange, yet artistic architecture. Outside
the city there were visible about the valley isolated groups
of buildings--sometimes one, again two and three and four in a
cluster--but always of the same glaring whiteness, and always in
some fantastic form.

About the valley the cliffs were occasionally cleft by deep gorges,
verdure filled, giving the appearance of green rivers rioting
downward toward a central sea of green.

"Jad Pele ul Jad-ben-Otho," murmured Tarzan in the tongue of the
pithecanthropi; "The Valley of the Great God--it is beautiful!"