The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Tarzan and gift ideas with toy food sets for boysthe Jewels of Opar

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Contents

CHAPTER I.
Belgian and Arab

Lieutenant Albert Werper had only the prestige of the name he had dishonored tothank for his narrow escape from being cashiered. At first he had been humblythankful, too, that they had sent him to this Godforsaken Congo post instead ofcourt-martialing him, as he had so justly deserved; but now six months of themonotony, the frightful isolation and the loneliness had wrought a change. Theyoung man brooded continually over his fate. His days were filled with morbidself-pity, which eventually engendered in his weak and vacillating mind ahatred for those who had sent him here—for the very men he had at firstinwardly thanked for saving him from the ignominy of degradation.

He regretted the gay life of Brussels as he never had regretted the sins whichhad snatched him from that gayest of capitals, and as the days passed he cameto center his resentment upon the representative in Congo land of the authoritywhich had exiled him—his captain and immediate superior.

This officer was a cold, taciturn man, inspiring little love in those directlybeneath him, yet respected and feared by the black soldiers of his littlecommand.

Werper was accustomed to sit for hours glaring at his superior as the two satupon the veranda of their common quarters, smoking their evening cigarets in asilence which neither seemed desirous of breaking. The senseless hatred of thelieutenant grew at last into a form of mania. The captain’s naturaltaciturnity he distorted into a studied attempt to insult him because of hispast shortcomings. He imagined that his superior held him in contempt, and sohe chafed and fumed inwardly until one evening his madness became suddenlyhomicidal. He fingered the butt of the revolver at his hip, his eyes narrowedand his brows contracted. At last he spoke.

“You have insulted me for the last time!” he cried, springing tohis feet. “I am an officer and a gentleman, and I shall put up with it nolonger without an accounting from you, you pig.”

The captain, an expression of surprise upon his features, turned toward hisjunior. He had seen men before with the jungle madness upon them—themadness of solitude and unrestrained brooding, and perhaps a touch of fever.

He rose and extended his hand to lay it upon the other’s shoulder. Quietwords of counsel were upon his lips; but they were never spoken. Werperconstrued his superior’s action into an attempt to close with him. Hisrevolver was on a level with the captain’s heart, and the latter hadtaken but a step when Werper pulled the trigger. Without a moan the man sank tothe rough planking of the veranda, and as he fell the mists that had cloudedWerper’s brain lifted, so that he saw himself and the deed that he haddone in the same light that those who must judge him would see them.

He heard excited exclamations from the quarters of the soldiers and he heardmen running in his direction. They would seize him, and if they didn’tkill him they would take him down the Congo to a point where a properly orderedmilitary tribunal would do so just as effectively, though in a more regularmanner.

Werper had no desire to die. Never before had he so yearned for life as in thismoment that he had so effectively forfeited his right to live. The men werenearing him. What was he to do? He glanced about as though searching for thetangible form of a legitimate excuse for his crime; but he could find only thebody of the man he had so causelessly shot down.

In despair, he turned and fled from the oncoming soldiery. Across the compoundhe ran, his revolver still clutched tightly in his hand. At the gates a sentryhalted him. Werper did not pause to parley or to exert the influence of hiscommission—he merely raised his weapon and shot down the innocent black.A moment later the fugitive had torn open the gates and vanished into theblackness of the jungle, but not before he had transferred the rifle andammunition belts of the dead sentry to his own person.

All that night Werper fled farther and farther into the heart of thewilderness. Now and again the voice of a lion brought him to a listening halt;but with cocked and ready rifle he pushed ahead again, more fearful of thehuman huntsmen in his rear than of the wild carnivora ahead.

Dawn came at last, but still the man plodded on. All sense of hunger andfatigue were lost in the terrors of contemplated capture. He could think onlyof escape. He dared not pause to rest or eat until there was no further dangerfrom pursuit, and so he staggered on until at last he fell and could rise nomore. How long he had fled he did not know, or try to know. When he could fleeno longer the knowledge that he had reached his limit was hidden from him inthe unconsciousness of utter exhaustion.

And thus it was that Achmet Zek, the Arab, found him. Achmet’s followerswere for running a spear through the body of their hereditary enemy; but Achmetwould have it otherwise. First he would question the Belgian. It were easier toquestion a man first and kill him afterward, than kill him first and thenquestion him.

So he had Lieutenant Albert Werper carried to his own tent, and there slavesadministered wine and food in small quantities until at last the prisonerregained consciousness. As he opened his eyes he saw the faces of strange blackmen about him, and just outside the tent the figure of an Arab. Nowhere was theuniform of his soldiers to be seen.

The Arab turned and seeing the open eyes of the prisoner upon him, entered thetent.

“I am Achmet Zek,” he announced. “Who are you, and what wereyou doing in my country? Where are your soldiers?”

Achmet Zek! Werper’s eyes went wide, and his heart sank. He was in theclutches of the most notorious of cut-throats—a hater of all Europeans,especially those who wore the uniform of Belgium. For years the military forcesof Belgian Congo had waged a fruitless war upon this man and hisfollowers—a war in which quarter had never been asked nor expected byeither side.

But presently in the very hatred of the man for Belgians, Werper saw a faintray of hope for himself. He, too, was an outcast and an outlaw. So far, atleast, they possessed a common interest, and Werper decided to play upon it forall that it might yield.

“I have heard of you,” he replied, “and was searching foryou. My people have turned against me. I hate them. Even now their soldiers aresearching for me, to kill me. I knew that you would protect me from them, foryou, too, hate them. In return I will take service with you. I am a trainedsoldier. I can fight, and your enemies are my enemies.”

Achmet Zek eyed the European in silence. In his mind he revolved many thoughts,chief among which was that the unbeliever lied. Of course there was the chancethat he did not lie, and if he told the truth then his proposition was one wellworthy of consideration, since fighting men were never overplentiful—especially white men with the training and knowledge ofmilitary matters that a European officer must possess.

Achmet Zek scowled and Werper’s heart sank; but Werper did not knowAchmet Zek, who was quite apt to scowl where another would smile, and smilewhere another would scowl.

“And if you have lied to me,” said Achmet Zek, “I will killyou at any time. What return, other than your life, do you expect for yourservices?”

“My keep only, at first,” replied Werper. “Later, if I amworth more, we can easily reach an understanding.” Werper’s onlydesire at the moment was to preserve his life. And so the agreement was reachedand Lieutenant Albert Werper became a member of the ivory and slave raidingband of the notorious Achmet Zek.

For months the renegade Belgian rode with the savage raider. He fought with asavage abandon, and a vicious cruelty fully equal to that of his fellowdesperadoes. Achmet Zek watched his recruit with eagle eye, and with a growingsatisfaction which finally found expression in a greater confidence in the man,and resulted in an increased independence of action for Werper.

Achmet Zek took the Belgian into his confidence to a great extent, and at lastunfolded to him a pet scheme which the Arab had long fostered, but which henever had found an opportunity to effect. With the aid of a European, however,the thing might be easily accomplished. He sounded Werper.

“You have heard of the man men call Tarzan?” he asked.

Werper nodded. “I have heard of him; but I do not know him.”

“But for him we might carry on our ‘trading’ in safety andwith great profit,” continued the Arab. “For years he has foughtus, driving us from the richest part of the country, harassing us, and armingthe natives that they may repel us when we come to ‘trade.’ He isvery rich. If we could find some way to make him pay us many pieces of gold weshould not only be avenged upon him; but repaid for much that he has preventedus from winning from the natives under his protection.”

Werper withdrew a cigaret from a jeweled case and lighted it.

“And you have a plan to make him pay?” he asked.

“He has a wife,” replied Achmet Zek, “whom men say is verybeautiful. She would bring a great price farther north, if we found it toodifficult to collect ransom money from this Tarzan.”

Werper bent his head in thought. Achmet Zek stood awaiting his reply. What goodremained in Albert Werper revolted at the thought of selling a white woman intothe slavery and degradation of a Moslem harem. He looked up at Achmet Zek. Hesaw the Arab’s eyes narrow, and he guessed that the other had sensed hisantagonism to the plan. What would it mean to Werper to refuse? His life lay inthe hands of this semi-barbarian, who esteemed the life of an unbeliever lesshighly than that of a dog. Werper loved life. What was this woman to him,anyway? She was a European, doubtless, a member of organized society. He was anoutcast. The hand of every white man was against him. She was his naturalenemy, and if he refused to lend himself to her undoing, Achmet Zek would havehim killed.

“You hesitate,” murmured the Arab.

“I was but weighing the chances of success,” lied Werper,“and my reward. As a European I can gain admittance to their home andtable. You have no other with you who could do so much. The risk will be great.I should be well paid, Achmet Zek.”

A smile of relief passed over the raider’s face.

“Well said, Werper,” and Achmet Zek slapped his lieutenant upon theshoulder. “You should be well paid and you shall. Now let us sit togetherand plan how best the thing may be done,” and the two men squatted upon asoft rug beneath the faded silks of Achmet’s once gorgeous tent, andtalked together in low voices well into the night. Both were tall and bearded,and the exposure to sun and wind had given an almost Arab hue to theEuropean’s complexion. In every detail of dress, too, he copied thefashions of his chief, so that outwardly he was as much an Arab as the other.It was late when he arose and retired to his own tent.

The following day Werper spent in overhauling his Belgian uniform, removingfrom it every vestige of evidence that might indicate its military purposes.From a heterogeneous collection of loot, Achmet Zek procured a pith helmet anda European saddle, and from his black slaves and followers a party of porters,askaris and tent boys to make up a modest safari for a big game hunter. At thehead of this party Werper set out from camp.

CHAPTER II.
On the Road To Opar

It was two weeks later that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, riding in from a tourof inspection of his vast African estate, glimpsed the head of a column of mencrossing the plain that lay between his bungalow and the forest to the northand west.

He reined in his horse and watched the little party as it emerged from aconcealing swale. His keen eyes caught the reflection of the sun upon the whitehelmet of a mounted man, and with the conviction that a wandering Europeanhunter was seeking his hospitality, he wheeled his mount and rode slowlyforward to meet the newcomer.

A half hour later he was mounting the steps leading to the veranda of hisbungalow, and introducing M. Jules Frecoult to Lady Greystoke.

“I was completely lost,” M. Frecoult was explaining. “My headman had never before been in this part of the country and the guides who wereto have accompanied me from the last village we passed knew even less of thecountry than we. They finally deserted us two days since. I am very fortunateindeed to have stumbled so providentially upon succor. I do not know what Ishould have done, had I not found you.”

It was decided that Frecoult and his party should remain several days, or untilthey were thoroughly rested, when Lord Greystoke would furnish guides to leadthem safely back into country with which Frecoult’s head man wassupposedly familiar.

In his guise of a French gentleman of leisure, Werper found little difficultyin deceiving his host and in ingratiating himself with both Tarzan and JaneClayton; but the longer he remained the less hopeful he became of an easyaccomplishment of his designs.

Lady Greystoke never rode alone at any great distance from the bungalow, andthe savage loyalty of the ferocious Waziri warriors who formed a great part ofTarzan’s followers seemed to preclude the possibility of a successfulattempt at forcible abduction, or of the bribery of the Waziri themselves.

A week passed, and Werper was no nearer the fulfillment of his plan, in so faras he could judge, than upon the day of his arrival, but at that very momentsomething occurred which gave him renewed hope and set his mind upon an evengreater reward than a woman’s ransom.

A runner had arrived at the bungalow with the weekly mail, and Lord Greystokehad spent the afternoon in his study reading and answering letters. At dinnerhe seemed distraught, and early in the evening he excused himself and retired,Lady Greystoke following him very soon after. Werper, sitting upon the veranda,could hear their voices in earnest discussion, and having realized thatsomething of unusual moment was afoot, he quietly rose from his chair, andkeeping well in the shadow of the shrubbery growing profusely about thebungalow, made his silent way to a point beneath the window of the room inwhich his host and hostess slept.

Here he listened, and not without result, for almost the first words heoverheard filled him with excitement. Lady Greystoke was speaking as Werpercame within hearing.

“I always feared for the stability of the company,” she was saying;“but it seems incredible that they should have failed for so enormous asum—unless there has been some dishonest manipulation.”

“That is what I suspect,” replied Tarzan; “but whatever thecause, the fact remains that I have lost everything, and there is nothing forit but to return to Opar and get more.”

“Oh, John,” cried Lady Greystoke, and Werper could feel the shudderthrough her voice, “is there no other way? I cannot bear to think of youreturning to that frightful city. I would rather live in poverty always than tohave you risk the hideous dangers of Opar.”

“You need have no fear,” replied Tarzan, laughing. “I ampretty well able to take care of myself, and were I not, the Waziri who willaccompany me will see that no harm befalls me.”

“They ran away from Opar once, and left you to your fate,” shereminded him.

“They will not do it again,” he answered. “They were verymuch ashamed of themselves, and were coming back when I met them.”

“But there must be some other way,” insisted the woman.

“There is no other way half so easy to obtain another fortune, as to goto the treasure vaults of Opar and bring it away,” he replied. “Ishall be very careful, Jane, and the chances are that the inhabitants of Oparwill never know that I have been there again and despoiled them of anotherportion of the treasure, the very existence of which they are as ignorant of asthey would be of its value.”

The finality in his tone seemed to assure Lady Greystoke that further argumentwas futile, and so she abandoned the subject.

Werper remained, listening, for a short time, and then, confident that he hadoverheard all that was necessary and fearing discovery, returned to theveranda, where he smoked numerous cigarets in rapid succession before retiring.

The following morning at breakfast, Werper announced his intention of making anearly departure, and asked Tarzan’s permission to hunt big game in theWaziri country on his way out—permission which Lord Greystoke readilygranted.

The Belgian consumed two days in completing his preparations, but finally gotaway with his safari, accompanied by a single Waziri guide whom Lord Greystokehad loaned him. The party made but a single short march when Werper simulatedillness, and announced his intention of remaining where he was until he hadfully recovered. As they had gone but a short distance from the Greystokebungalow, Werper dismissed the Waziri guide, telling the warrior that he wouldsend for him when he was able to proceed. The Waziri gone, the Belgian summonedone of Achmet Zek’s trusted blacks to his tent, and dispatched him towatch for the departure of Tarzan, returning immediately to advise Werper ofthe event and the direction taken by the Englishman.

The Belgian did not have long to wait, for the following day his emissaryreturned with word that Tarzan and a party of fifty Waziri warriors had set outtoward the southeast early in the morning.

Werper called his head man to him, after writing a long letter to Achmet Zek.This letter he handed to the head man.

“Send a runner at once to Achmet Zek with this,” he instructed thehead man. “Remain here in camp awaiting further instructions from him orfrom me. If any come from the bungalow of the Englishman, tell them that I amvery ill within my tent and can see no one. Now, give me six porters and sixaskaris—the strongest and bravest of the safari—and I will marchafter the Englishman and discover where his gold is hidden.”

And so it was that as Tarzan, stripped to the loin cloth and armed after theprimitive fashion he best loved, led his loyal Waziri toward the dead city ofOpar, Werper, the renegade, haunted his trail through the long, hot days, andcamped close behind him by night.

And as they marched, Achmet Zek rode with his entire following southward towardthe Greystoke farm.

To Tarzan of the Apes the expedition was in the nature of a holiday outing. Hiscivilization was at best but an outward veneer which he gladly peeled off withhis uncomfortable European clothes whenever any reasonable pretext presenteditself. It was a woman’s love which kept Tarzan even to the semblance ofcivilization—a condition for which familiarity had bred contempt. Hehated the shams and the hypocrisies of it and with the clear vision of anunspoiled mind he had penetrated to the rotten core of the heart of thething—the cowardly greed for peace and ease and the safe-guarding ofproperty rights. That the fine things of life—art, music andliterature—had thriven upon such enervating ideals he strenuously denied,insisting, rather, that they had endured in spite of civilization.

“Show me the fat, opulent coward,” he was wont to say, “whoever originated a beautiful ideal. In the clash of arms, in the battle forsurvival, amid hunger and death and danger, in the face of God as manifested inthe display of Nature’s most terrific forces, is born all that is finestand best in the human heart and mind.”

And so Tarzan always came back to Nature in the spirit of a lover keeping along deferred tryst after a period behind prison walls. His Waziri, at marrow,were more civilized than he. They cooked their meat before they ate it and theyshunned many articles of food as unclean that Tarzan had eaten with gusto allhis life and so insidious is the virus of hypocrisy that even the stalwartape-man hesitated to give rein to his natural longings before them. He ateburnt flesh when he would have preferred it raw and unspoiled, and he broughtdown game with arrow or spear when he would far rather have leaped upon it fromambush and sunk his strong teeth in its jugular; but at last the call of themilk of the savage mother that had suckled him in infancy rose to an insistentdemand—he craved the hot blood of a fresh kill and his muscles yearned topit themselves against the savage jungle in the battle for existence that hadbeen his sole birthright for the first twenty years of his life.

CHAPTER III.
The Call of the Jungle

Moved by these vague yet all-powerful urgings the ape-man lay awake one nightin the little thorn boma that protected, in a way, his party from thedepredations of the great carnivora of the jungle. A single warrior stoodsleepy guard beside the fire that yellow eyes out of the darkness beyond thecamp made imperative. The moans and the coughing of the big cats mingled withthe myriad noises of the lesser denizens of the jungle to fan the savage flamein the breast of this savage English lord. He tossed upon his bed of grasses,sleepless, for an hour and then he rose, noiseless as a wraith, and while theWaziri’s back was turned, vaulted the boma wall in the face of theflaming eyes, swung silently into a great tree and was gone.

For a time in sheer exuberance of animal spirit he raced swiftly through themiddle terrace, swinging perilously across wide spans from one jungle giant tothe next, and then he clambered upward to the swaying, lesser boughs of theupper terrace where the moon shone full upon him and the air was stirred bylittle breezes and death lurked ready in each frail branch. Here he paused andraised his face to Goro, the moon. With uplifted arm he stood, the cry of thebull ape quivering upon his lips, yet he remained silent lest he arouse hisfaithful Waziri who were all too familiar with the hideous challenge of theirmaster.

And then he went on more slowly and with greater stealth and caution, for nowTarzan of the Apes was seeking a kill. Down to the ground he came in the utterblackness of the close-set boles and the overhanging verdure of the jungle. Hestooped from time to time and put his nose close to earth. He sought and founda wide game trail and at last his nostrils were rewarded with the scent of thefresh spoor of Bara, the deer. Tarzan’s mouth watered and a low growlescaped his patrician lips. Sloughed from him was the last vestige ofartificial caste—once again he was the primeval hunter—the firstman—the highest caste type of the human race. Up wind he followed theelusive spoor with a sense of perception so transcending that of ordinary manas to be inconceivable to us. Through counter currents of the heavy stench ofmeat eaters he traced the trail of Bara; the sweet and cloying stink of Horta,the boar, could not drown his quarry’s scent—the permeating, mellowmusk of the deer’s foot.

Presently the body scent of the deer told Tarzan that his prey was close athand. It sent him into the trees again—into the lower terrace where hecould watch the ground below and catch with ears and nose the first intimationof actual contact with his quarry. Nor was it long before the ape-man came uponBara standing alert at the edge of a moon-bathed clearing. Noiselessly Tarzancrept through the trees until he was directly over the deer. In theape-man’s right hand was the long hunting knife of his father and in hisheart the blood lust of the carnivore. Just for an instant he poised above theunsuspecting Bara and then he launched himself downward upon the sleek back.The impact of his weight carried the deer to its knees and before the animalcould regain its feet the knife had found its heart. As Tarzan rose upon thebody of his kill to scream forth his hideous victory cry into the face of themoon the wind carried to his nostrils something which froze him to statuesqueimmobility and silence. His savage eyes blazed into the direction from whichthe wind had borne down the warning to him and a moment later the grasses atone side of the clearing parted and Numa, the lion, strode majestically intoview. His yellow-green eyes were fastened upon Tarzan as he halted just withinthe clearing and glared enviously at the successful hunter, for Numa had had noluck this night.

From the lips of the ape-man broke a rumbling growl of warning. Numa answeredbut he did not advance. Instead he stood waving his tail gently to and fro, andpresently Tarzan squatted upon his kill and cut a generous portion from a hindquarter. Numa eyed him with growing resentment and rage as, between mouthfuls,the ape-man growled out his savage warnings. Now this particular lion had neverbefore come in contact with Tarzan of the Apes and he was much mystified. Herewas the appearance and the scent of a man-thing and Numa had tasted of humanflesh and learned that though not the most palatable it was certainly by farthe easiest to secure, yet there was that in the bestial growls of the strangecreature which reminded him of formidable antagonists and gave him pause, whilehis hunger and the odor of the hot flesh of Bara goaded him almost to madness.Always Tarzan watched him, guessing what was passing in the little brain of thecarnivore and well it was that he did watch him, for at last Numa could standit no longer. His tail shot suddenly erect and at the same instant the waryape-man, knowing all too well what the signal portended, grasped the remainderof the deer’s hind quarter between his teeth and leaped into a nearbytree as Numa charged him with all the speed and a sufficient semblance of theweight of an express train.

Tarzan’s retreat was no indication that he felt fear. Jungle life isordered along different lines than ours and different standards prevail. HadTarzan been famished he would, doubtless, have stood his ground and met thelion’s charge. He had done the thing before upon more than one occasion,just as in the past he had charged lions himself; but tonight he was far fromfamished and in the hind quarter he had carried off with him was more raw fleshthan he could eat; yet it was with no equanimity that he looked down upon Numarending the flesh of Tarzan’s kill. The presumption of this strange Numamust be punished! And forthwith Tarzan set out to make life miserable for thebig cat. Close by were many trees bearing large, hard fruits and to one ofthese the ape-man swung with the agility of a squirrel. Then commenced abombardment which brought forth earthshaking roars from Numa. One after anotheras rapidly as he could gather and hurl them, Tarzan pelted the hard fruit downupon the lion. It was impossible for the tawny cat to eat under that hail ofmissiles—he could but roar and growl and dodge and eventually he wasdriven away entirely from the carcass of Bara, the deer. He went roaring andresentful; but in the very center of the clearing his voice was suddenly hushedand Tarzan saw the great head lower and flatten out, the body crouch and thelong tail quiver, as the beast slunk cautiously toward the trees upon theopposite side.

Immediately Tarzan was alert. He lifted his head and sniffed the slow, junglebreeze. What was it that had attracted Numa’s attention and taken himsoft-footed and silent away from the scene of his discomfiture? Just as thelion disappeared among the trees beyond the clearing Tarzan caught upon thedown-coming wind the explanation of his new interest—the scent spoor ofman was wafted strongly to the sensitive nostrils. Caching the remainder of thedeer’s hind quarter in the crotch of a tree the ape-man wiped his greasypalms upon his naked thighs and swung off in pursuit of Numa. A broad,well-beaten elephant path led into the forest from the clearing. Parallel tothis slunk Numa, while above him Tarzan moved through the trees, the shadow ofa wraith. The savage cat and the savage man saw Numa’s quarry almostsimultaneously, though both had known before it came within the vision of theireyes that it was a black man. Their sensitive nostrils had told them this muchand Tarzan’s had told him that the scent spoor was that of astranger—old and a male, for race and sex and age each has its owndistinctive scent. It was an old man that made his way alone through the gloomyjungle, a wrinkled, dried up, little old man hideously scarred and tattooed andstrangely garbed, with the skin of a hyena about his shoulders and the driedhead mounted upon his grey pate. Tarzan recognized the ear-marks of thewitch-doctor and awaited Numa’s charge with a feeling of pleasurableanticipation, for the ape-man had no love for witch-doctors; but in the instantthat Numa did charge, the white man suddenly recalled that the lion had stolenhis kill a few minutes before and that revenge is sweet.

The first intimation the black man had that he was in danger was the crash oftwigs as Numa charged through the bushes into the game trail not twenty yardsbehind him. Then he turned to see a huge, black-maned lion racing toward himand even as he turned, Numa seized him. At the same instant the ape-man droppedfrom an overhanging limb full upon the lion’s back and as he alighted heplunged his knife into the tawny side behind the left shoulder, tangled thefingers of his right hand in the long mane, buried his teeth in Numa’sneck and wound his powerful legs about the beast’s torso. With a roar ofpain and rage, Numa reared up and fell backward upon the ape-man; but still themighty man-thing clung to his hold and repeatedly the long knife plungedrapidly into his side. Over and over rolled Numa, the lion, clawing and bitingat the air, roaring and growling horribly in savage attempt to reach the thingupon its back. More than once was Tarzan almost brushed from his hold. He wasbattered and bruised and covered with blood from Numa and dirt from the trail,yet not for an instant did he lessen the ferocity of his mad attack nor hisgrim hold upon the back of his antagonist. To have loosened for an instant hisgrip there, would have been to bring him within reach of those tearing talonsor rending fangs, and have ended forever the grim career of this jungle-bredEnglish lord. Where he had fallen beneath the spring of the lion thewitch-doctor lay, torn and bleeding, unable to drag himself away and watchedthe terrific battle between these two lords of the jungle. His sunken eyesglittered and his wrinkled lips moved over toothless gums as he mumbled weirdincantations to the demons of his cult.

For a time he felt no doubt as to the outcome—the strange white man mustcertainly succumb to terrible Simba—whoever heard of a lone man armedonly with a knife slaying so mighty a beast! Yet presently the old blackman’s eyes went wider and he commenced to have his doubts and misgivings.What wonderful sort of creature was this that battled with Simba and held hisown despite the mighty muscles of the king of beasts and slowly there dawned inthose sunken eyes, gleaming so brightly from the scarred and wrinkled face, thelight of a dawning recollection. Gropingly backward into the past reached thefingers of memory, until at last they seized upon a faint picture, faded andyellow with the passing years. It was the picture of a lithe, white-skinnedyouth swinging through the trees in company with a band of huge apes, and theold eyes blinked and a great fear came into them—the superstitious fearof one who believes in ghosts and spirits and demons.

And came the time once more when the witch-doctor no longer doubted the outcomeof the duel, yet his first judgment was reversed, for now he knew that thejungle god would slay Simba and the old black was even more terrified of hisown impending fate at the hands of the victor than he had been by the sure andsudden death which the triumphant lion would have meted out to him. He saw thelion weaken from loss of blood. He saw the mighty limbs tremble and stagger andat last he saw the beast sink down to rise no more. He saw the forest god ordemon rise from the vanquished foe, and placing a foot upon the still quiveringcarcass, raise his face to the moon and bay out a hideous cry that froze theebbing blood in the veins of the witch-doctor.

CHAPTER IV.
Prophecy and Fulfillment

Then Tarzan turned his attention to the man. He had not slain Numa to save theNegro—he had merely done it in revenge upon the lion; but now that he sawthe old man lying helpless and dying before him something akin to pity touchedhis savage heart. In his youth he would have slain the witch-doctor without theslightest compunction; but civilization had had its softening effect upon himeven as it does upon the nations and races which it touches, though it had notyet gone far enough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly or effeminate. Hesaw an old man suffering and dying, and he stooped and felt of his wounds andstanched the flow of blood.

“Who are you?” asked the old man in a trembling voice.

“I am Tarzan—Tarzan of the Apes,” replied the ape-man and notwithout a greater touch of pride than he would have said, “I am JohnClayton, Lord Greystoke.”

The witch-doctor shook convulsively and closed his eyes. When he opened themagain there was in them a resignation to whatever horrible fate awaited him atthe hands of this feared demon of the woods. “Why do you not killme?” he asked.

“Why should I kill you?” inquired Tarzan. “You have notharmed me, and anyway you are already dying. Numa, the lion, has killedyou.”

“You would not kill me?” Surprise and incredulity were in the tonesof the quavering old voice.

“I would save you if I could,” replied Tarzan, “but thatcannot be done. Why did you think I would kill you?”

For a moment the old man was silent. When he spoke it was evidently after somelittle effort to muster his courage. “I knew you of old,” he said,“when you ranged the jungle in the country of Mbonga, the chief. I wasalready a witch-doctor when you slew Kulonga and the others, and when yourobbed our huts and our poison pot. At first I did not remember you; but atlast I did—the white-skinned ape that lived with the hairy apes and madelife miserable in the village of Mbonga, the chief—the forestgod—the Munango-Keewati for whom we set food outside our gates and whocame and ate it. Tell me before I die—are you man or devil?”

Tarzan laughed. “I am a man,” he said.

The old fellow sighed and shook his head. “You have tried to save me fromSimba,” he said. “For that I shall reward you. I am a greatwitch-doctor. Listen to me, white man! I see bad days ahead of you. It is writin my own blood which I have smeared upon my palm. A god greater even than youwill rise up and strike you down. Turn back, Munango-Keewati! Turn back beforeit is too late. Danger lies ahead of you and danger lurks behind; but greateris the danger before. I see—” He paused and drew a long, gaspingbreath. Then he crumpled into a little, wrinkled heap and died. Tarzan wonderedwhat else he had seen.

It was very late when the ape-man re-entered the boma and lay down among hisblack warriors. None had seen him go and none saw him return. He thought aboutthe warning of the old witch-doctor before he fell asleep and he thought of itagain after he awoke; but he did not turn back for he was unafraid, though hadhe known what lay in store for one he loved most in all the world he would haveflown through the trees to her side and allowed the gold of Opar to remainforever hidden in its forgotten storehouse.

Behind him that morning another white man pondered something he had heardduring the night and very nearly did he give up his project and turn back uponhis trail. It was Werper, the murderer, who in the still of the night had heardfar away upon the trail ahead of him a sound that had filled his cowardly soulwith terror—a sound such as he never before had heard in all his life,nor dreamed that such a frightful thing could emanate from the lungs of aGod-created creature. He had heard the victory cry of the bull ape as Tarzanhad screamed it forth into the face of Goro, the moon, and he had trembled thenand hidden his face; and now in the broad light of a new day he trembled againas he recalled it, and would have turned back from the nameless danger the echoof that frightful sound seemed to portend, had he not stood in even greaterfear of Achmet Zek, his master.

And so Tarzan of the Apes forged steadily ahead toward Opar’s ruinedramparts and behind him slunk Werper, jackal-like, and only God knew what layin store for each.

At the edge of the desolate valley, overlooking the golden domes and minaretsof Opar, Tarzan halted. By night he would go alone to the treasure vault,reconnoitering, for he had determined that caution should mark his every moveupon this expedition.

With the coming of night he set forth, and Werper, who had scaled the cliffsalone behind the ape-man’s party, and hidden through the day among therough boulders of the mountain top, slunk stealthily after him. Theboulder-strewn plain between the valley’s edge and the mighty granitekopje, outside the city’s walls, where lay the entrance to thepassage-way leading to the treasure vault, gave the Belgian ample cover as hefollowed Tarzan toward Opar.

He saw the giant ape-man swing himself nimbly up the face of the great rock.Werper, clawing fearfully during the perilous ascent, sweating in terror,almost palsied by fear, but spurred on by avarice, following upward, until atlast he stood upon the summit of the rocky hill.

Tarzan was nowhere in sight. For a time Werper hid behind one of the lesserboulders that were scattered over the top of the hill, but, seeing or hearingnothing of the Englishman, he crept from his place of concealment to undertakea systematic search of his surroundings, in the hope that he might discover thelocation of the treasure in ample time to make his escape before Tarzanreturned, for it was the Belgian’s desire merely to locate the gold,that, after Tarzan had departed, he might come in safety with his followers andcarry away as much as he could transport.

He found the narrow cleft leading downward into the heart of the kopje alongwell-worn, granite steps. He advanced quite to the dark mouth of the tunnelinto which the runway disappeared; but here he halted, fearing to enter, lesthe meet Tarzan returning.

The ape-man, far ahead of him, groped his way along the rocky passage, until hecame to the ancient wooden door. A moment later he stood within the treasurechamber, where, ages since, long-dead hands had ranged the lofty rows ofprecious ingots for the rulers of that great continent which now lies submergedbeneath the waters of the Atlantic.

No sound broke the stillness of the subterranean vault. There was no evidencethat another had discovered the forgotten wealth since last the ape-man hadvisited its hiding place.

Satisfied, Tarzan turned and retraced his steps toward the summit of the kopje.Werper, from the concealment of a jutting, granite shoulder, watched him passup from the shadows of the stairway and advance toward the edge of the hillwhich faced the rim of the valley where the Waziri awaited the signal of theirmaster. Then Werper, slipping stealthily from his hiding place, dropped intothe somber darkness of the entrance and disappeared.

Tarzan, halting upon the kopje’s edge, raised his voice in the thunderousroar of a lion. Twice, at regular intervals, he repeated the call, standing inattentive silence for several minutes after the echoes of the third call haddied away. And then, from far across the valley, faintly, came an answeringroar—once, twice, thrice. Basuli, the Waziri chieftain, had heard andreplied.

Tarzan again made his way toward the treasure vault, knowing that in a fewhours his blacks would be with him, ready to bear away another fortune in thestrangely shaped, golden ingots of Opar. In the meantime he would carry as muchof the precious metal to the summit of the kopje as he could.

Six trips he made in the five hours before Basuli reached the kopje, and at theend of that time he had transported forty-eight ingots to the edge of the greatboulder, carrying upon each trip a load which might well have staggered twoordinary men, yet his giant frame showed no evidence of fatigue, as he helpedto raise his ebon warriors to the hill top with the rope that had been broughtfor the purpose.

Six times he had returned to the treasure chamber, and six times Werper, theBelgian, had cowered in the black shadows at the far end of the long vault.Once again came the ape-man, and this time there came with him fifty fightingmen, turning porters for love of the only creature in the world who mightcommand of their fierce and haughty natures such menial service. Fifty-two moreingots passed out of the vaults, making the total of one hundred which Tarzanintended taking away with him.

As the last of the Waziri filed from the chamber, Tarzan turned back for a lastglimpse of the fabulous wealth upon which his two inroads had made noappreciable impression. Before he extinguished the single candle he had broughtwith him for the purpose, and the flickering light of which had cast the firstalleviating rays into the impenetrable darkness of the buried chamber, that ithad known for the countless ages since it had lain forgotten of man,Tarzan’s mind reverted to that first occasion upon which he had enteredthe treasure vault, coming upon it by chance as he fled from the pits beneaththe temple, where he had been hidden by La, the High Priestess of the SunWorshipers.

He recalled the scene within the temple when he had lain stretched upon thesacrificial altar, while La, with high-raised dagger, stood above him, and therows of priests and priestesses awaited, in the ecstatic hysteria offanaticism, the first gush of their victim’s warm blood, that they mightfill their golden goblets and drink to the glory of their Flaming God.

The brutal and bloody interruption by Tha, the mad priest, passed vividlybefore the ape-man’s recollective eyes, the flight of the votaries beforethe insane blood lust of the hideous creature, the brutal attack upon La, andhis own part of the grim tragedy when he had battled with the infuriatedOparian and left him dead at the feet of the priestess he would have profaned.

This and much more passed through Tarzan’s memory as he stood gazing atthe long tiers of dull-yellow metal. He wondered if La still ruled the templesof the ruined city whose crumbling walls rose upon the very foundations abouthim. Had she finally been forced into a union with one of her grotesquepriests? It seemed a hideous fate, indeed, for one so beautiful. With a shakeof his head, Tarzan stepped to the flickering candle, extinguished its feeblerays and turned toward the exit.

Behind him the spy waited for him to be gone. He had learned the secret forwhich he had come, and now he could return at his leisure to his waitingfollowers, bring them to the treasure vault and carry away all the gold thatthey could stagger under.

The Waziri had reached the outer end of the tunnel, and were winding upwardtoward the fresh air and the welcome starlight of the kopje’s summit,before Tarzan shook off the detaining hand of reverie and started slowly afterthem.

Once again, and, he thought, for the last time, he closed the massive door ofthe treasure room. In the darkness behind him Werper rose and stretched hiscramped muscles. He stretched forth a hand and lovingly caressed a golden ingoton the nearest tier. He raised it from its immemorial resting place and weighedit in his hands. He clutched it to his bosom in an ecstasy of avarice.

Tarzan dreamed of the happy homecoming which lay before him, of dear arms abouthis neck, and a soft cheek pressed to his; but there rose to dispel that dreamthe memory of the old witch-doctor and his warning.

And then, in the span of a few brief seconds, the hopes of both these men wereshattered. The one forgot even his greed in the panic of terror—the otherwas plunged into total forgetfulness of the past by a jagged fragment of rockwhich gashed a deep cut upon his head.

CHAPTER V.
The Altar of the Flaming God

It was at the moment that Tarzan turned from the closed door to pursue his wayto the outer world. The thing came without warning. One instant all was quietand stability—the next, and the world rocked, the tortured sides of thenarrow passageway split and crumbled, great blocks of granite, dislodged fromthe ceiling, tumbled into the narrow way, choking it, and the walls bent inwardupon the wreckage. Beneath the blow of a fragment of the roof, Tarzan staggeredback against the door to the treasure room, his weight pushed it open and hisbody rolled inward upon the floor.

In the great apartment where the treasure lay less damage was wrought by theearthquake. A few ingots toppled from the higher tiers, a single piece of therocky ceiling splintered off and crashed downward to the floor, and the wallscracked, though they did not collapse.

There was but the single shock, no other followed to complete the damageundertaken by the first. Werper, thrown to his length by the suddenness andviolence of the disturbance, staggered to his feet when he found himselfunhurt. Groping his way toward the far end of the chamber, he sought the candlewhich Tarzan had left stuck in its own wax upon the protruding end of an ingot.

By striking numerous matches the Belgian at last found what he sought, andwhen, a moment later, the sickly rays relieved the Stygian darkness about him,he breathed a nervous sigh of relief, for the impenetrable gloom hadaccentuated the terrors of his situation.

As they became accustomed to the light the man turned his eyes toward thedoor—his one thought now was of escape from this frightful tomb—andas he did so he saw the body of the naked giant lying stretched upon the floorjust within the doorway. Werper drew back in sudden fear of detection; but asecond glance convinced him that the Englishman was dead. From a great gash inthe man’s head a pool of blood had collected upon the concrete floor.

Quickly, the Belgian leaped over the prostrate form of his erstwhile host, andwithout a thought of succor for the man in whom, for aught he knew, life stillremained, he bolted for the passageway and safety.

But his renewed hopes were soon dashed. Just beyond the doorway he found thepassage completely clogged and choked by impenetrable masses of shattered rock.Once more he turned and re-entered the treasure vault. Taking the candle fromits place he commenced a systematic search of the apartment, nor had he gonefar before he discovered another door in the opposite end of the room, a doorwhich gave upon creaking hinges to the weight of his body. Beyond the door layanother narrow passageway. Along this Werper made his way, ascending a flightof stone steps to another corridor twenty feet above the level of the first.The flickering candle lighted the way before him, and a moment later he wasthankful for the possession of this crude and antiquated luminant, which, a fewhours before he might have looked upon with contempt, for it showed him, justin time, a yawning pit, apparently terminating the tunnel he was traversing.

Before him was a circular shaft. He held the candle above it and peereddownward. Below him, at a great distance, he saw the light reflected back fromthe surface of a pool of water. He had come upon a well. He raised the candleabove his head and peered across the black void, and there upon the oppositeside he saw the continuation of the tunnel; but how was he to span the gulf?

As he stood there measuring the distance to the opposite side and wondering ifhe dared venture so great a leap, there broke suddenly upon his startled ears apiercing scream which diminished gradually until it ended in a series of dismalmoans. The voice seemed partly human, yet so hideous that it might well haveemanated from the tortured throat of a lost soul, writhing in the fires ofhell.

The Belgian shuddered and looked fearfully upward, for the scream had seemed tocome from above him. As he looked he saw an opening far overhead, and a patchof sky pinked with brilliant stars.

His half-formed intention to call for help was expunged by the terrifyingcry—where such a voice lived, no human creatures could dwell. He darednot reveal himself to whatever inhabitants dwelt in the place above him. Hecursed himself for a fool that he had ever embarked upon such a mission. Hewished himself safely back in the camp of Achmet Zek, and would almost haveembraced an opportunity to give himself up to the military authorities of theCongo if by so doing he might be rescued from the frightful predicament inwhich he now was.

He listened fearfully, but the cry was not repeated, and at last spurred todesperate means, he gathered himself for the leap across the chasm. Going backtwenty paces, he took a running start, and at the edge of the well, leapedupward and outward in an attempt to gain the opposite side.

In his hand he clutched the sputtering candle, and as he took the leap the rushof air extinguished it. In utter darkness he flew through space, clutchingoutward for a hold should his feet miss the invisible ledge.

He struck the edge of the door of the opposite terminus of the rocky tunnelwith his knees, slipped backward, clutched desperately for a moment, and atlast hung half within and half without the opening; but he was safe. Forseveral minutes he dared not move; but clung, weak and sweating, where he lay.At last, cautiously, he drew himself well within the tunnel, and again he layat full length upon the floor, fighting to regain control of his shatterednerves.

When his knees struck the edge of the tunnel he had dropped the candle.Presently, hoping against hope that it had fallen upon the floor of thepassageway, rather than back into the depths of the well, he rose upon allfours and commenced a diligent search for the little tallow cylinder, which nowseemed infinitely more precious to him than all the fabulous wealth of thehoarded ingots of Opar.

And when, at last, he found it, he clasped it to him and sank back sobbing andexhausted. For many minutes he lay trembling and broken; but finally he drewhimself to a sitting posture, and taking a match from his pocket, lighted thestump of the candle which remained to him. With the light he found it easier toregain control of his nerves, and presently he was again making his way alongthe tunnel in search of an avenue of escape. The horrid cry that had come downto him from above through the ancient well-shaft still haunted him, so that hetrembled in terror at even the sounds of his own cautious advance.

He had gone forward but a short distance, when, to his chagrin, a wall ofmasonry barred his farther progress, closing the tunnel completely from top tobottom and from side to side. What could it mean? Werper was an educated andintelligent man. His military training had taught him to use his mind for thepurpose for which it was intended. A blind tunnel such as this was senseless.It must continue beyond the wall. Someone, at some time in the past, had had itblocked for an unknown purpose of his own. The man fell to examining themasonry by the light of his candle. To his delight he discovered that the thinblocks of hewn stone of which it was constructed were fitted in loosely withoutmortar or cement. He tugged upon one of them, and to his joy found that it waseasily removable. One after another he pulled out the blocks until he hadopened an aperture large enough to admit his body, then he crawled through intoa large, low chamber. Across this another door barred his way; but this, too,gave before his efforts, for it was not barred. A long, dark corridor showedbefore him, but before he had followed it far, his candle burned down until itscorched his fingers. With an oath he dropped it to the floor, where itsputtered for a moment and went out.

Now he was in total darkness, and again terror rode heavily astride his neck.What further pitfalls and dangers lay ahead he could not guess; but that he wasas far as ever from liberty he was quite willing to believe, so depressing isutter absence of light to one in unfamiliar surroundings.

Slowly he groped his way along, feeling with his hands upon the tunnel’swalls, and cautiously with his feet ahead of him upon the floor before he couldtake a single forward step. How long he crept on thus he could not guess; butat last, feeling that the tunnel’s length was interminable, and exhaustedby his efforts, by terror, and loss of sleep, he determined to lie down andrest before proceeding farther.

When he awoke there was no change in the surrounding blackness. He might haveslept a second or a day—he could not know; but that he had slept for sometime was attested by the fact that he felt refreshed and hungry.

Again he commenced his groping advance; but this time he had gone but a shortdistance when he emerged into a room, which was lighted through an opening inthe ceiling, from which a flight of concrete steps led downward to the floor ofthe chamber.

Above him, through the aperture, Werper could see sunlight glancing frommassive columns, which were twined about by clinging vines. He listened; but heheard no sound other than the soughing of the wind through leafy branches, thehoarse cries of birds, and the chattering of monkeys.

Boldly he ascended the stairway, to find himself in a circular court. Justbefore him stood a stone altar, stained with rusty-brown discolorations. At thetime Werper gave no thought to an explanation of these stains—later theirorigin became all too hideously apparent to him.

Beside the opening in the floor, just behind the altar, through which he hadentered the court from the subterranean chamber below, the Belgian discoveredseveral doors leading from the enclosure upon the level of the floor. Above,and circling the courtyard, was a series of open balconies. Monkeys scamperedabout the deserted ruins, and gaily plumaged birds flitted in and out among thecolumns and the galleries far above; but no sign of human presence wasdiscernible. Werper felt relieved. He sighed, as though a great weight had beenlifted from his shoulders. He took a step toward one of the exits, and then hehalted, wide-eyed in astonishment and terror, for almost at the same instant adozen doors opened in the courtyard wall and a horde of frightful men rushed inupon him.

They were the priests of the Flaming God of Opar—the same, shaggy,knotted, hideous little men who had dragged Jane Clayton to the sacrificialaltar at this very spot years before. Their long arms, their short and crookedlegs, their close-set, evil eyes, and their low, receding foreheads gave them abestial appearance that sent a qualm of paralyzing fright through the shakennerves of the Belgian.

With a scream he turned to flee back into the lesser terrors of the gloomycorridors and apartments from which he had just emerged, but the frightful menanticipated his intentions. They blocked the way; they seized him, and thoughhe fell, groveling upon his knees before them, begging for his life, they boundhim and hurled him to the floor of the inner temple.

The rest was but a repetition of what Tarzan and Jane Clayton had passedthrough. The priestesses came, and with them La, the High Priestess. Werper wasraised and laid across the altar. Cold sweat exuded from his every pore as Laraised the cruel, sacrificial knife above him. The death chant fell upon histortured ears. His staring eyes wandered to the golden goblets from which thehideous votaries would soon quench their inhuman thirst in his own, warmlife-blood.

He wished that he might be granted the brief respite of unconsciousness beforethe final plunge of the keen blade—and then there was a frightful roarthat sounded almost in his ears. The High Priestess lowered her dagger. Hereyes went wide in horror. The priestesses, her votaresses, screamed and fledmadly toward the exits. The priests roared out their rage and terror accordingto the temper of their courage. Werper strained his neck about to catch a sightof the cause of their panic, and when, at last he saw it, he too went cold indread, for what his eyes beheld was the figure of a huge lion standing in thecenter of the temple, and already a single victim lay mangled beneath his cruelpaws.

Again the lord of the wilderness roared, turning his baleful gaze upon thealtar. La staggered forward, reeled, and fell across Werper in a swoon.

CHAPTER VI.
The Arab Raid

After their first terror had subsided subsequent to the shock of theearthquake, Basuli and his warriors hastened back into the passageway in searchof Tarzan and two of their own number who were also missing.

They found the way blocked by jammed and distorted rock. For two days theylabored to tear a way through to their imprisoned friends; but when, afterHerculean efforts, they had unearthed but a few yards of the choked passage,and discovered the mangled remains of one of their fellows they were forced tothe conclusion that Tarzan and the second Waziri also lay dead beneath the rockmass farther in, beyond human aid, and no longer susceptible of it.

Again and again as they labored they called aloud the names of their master andtheir comrade; but no answering call rewarded their listening ears. At lastthey gave up the search. Tearfully they cast a last look at the shattered tombof their master, shouldered the heavy burden of gold that would at leastfurnish comfort, if not happiness, to their bereaved and beloved mistress, andmade their mournful way back across the desolate valley of Opar, and downwardthrough the forests beyond toward the distant bungalow.

And as they marched what sorry fate was already drawing down upon thatpeaceful, happy home!

From the north came Achmet Zek, riding to the summons of his lieutenant’sletter. With him came his horde of renegade Arabs, outlawed marauders, these,and equally degraded blacks, garnered from the more debased and ignorant tribesof savage cannibals through whose countries the raider passed to and fro withperfect impunity.

Mugambi, the ebon Hercules, who had shared the dangers and vicissitudes of hisbeloved Bwana, from Jungle Island, almost to the headwaters of the Ugambi, wasthe first to note the bold approach of the sinister caravan.

He it was whom Tarzan had left in charge of the warriors who remained to guardLady Greystoke, nor could a braver or more loyal guardian have been found inany clime or upon any soil. A giant in stature, a savage, fearless warrior, thehuge black possessed also soul and judgment in proportion to his bulk and hisferocity.

Not once since his master had departed had he been beyond sight or sound of thebungalow, except when Lady Greystoke chose to canter across the broad plain, orrelieve the monotony of her loneliness by a brief hunting excursion. On suchoccasions Mugambi, mounted upon a wiry Arab, had ridden close at herhorse’s heels.

The raiders were still a long way off when the warrior’s keen eyesdiscovered them. For a time he stood scrutinizing the advancing party insilence, then he turned and ran rapidly in the direction of the native hutswhich lay a few hundred yards below the bungalow.

Here he called out to the lolling warriors. He issued orders rapidly. Incompliance with them the men seized upon their weapons and their shields. Someran to call in the workers from the fields and to warn the tenders of theflocks and herds. The majority followed Mugambi back toward the bungalow.

The dust of the raiders was still a long distance away. Mugambi could not knowpositively that it hid an enemy; but he had spent a lifetime of savage life insavage Africa, and he had seen parties before come thus unheralded. Sometimesthey had come in peace and sometimes they had come in war—one could nevertell. It was well to be prepared. Mugambi did not like the haste with which thestrangers advanced.

The Greystoke bungalow was not well adapted for defense. No palisade surroundedit, for, situated as it was, in the heart of loyal Waziri, its master hadanticipated no possibility of an attack in force by any enemy. Heavy, woodenshutters there were to close the window apertures against hostile arrows, andthese Mugambi was engaged in lowering when Lady Greystoke appeared upon theveranda.

“Why, Mugambi!” she exclaimed. “What has happened? Why areyou lowering the shutters?”

Mugambi pointed out across the plain to where a white-robed force of mountedmen was now distinctly visible.

“Arabs,” he explained. “They come for no good purpose in theabsence of the Great Bwana.”

Beyond the neat lawn and the flowering shrubs, Jane Clayton saw the glisteningbodies of her Waziri. The sun glanced from the tips of their metal-shod spears,picked out the gorgeous colors in the feathers of their war bonnets, andreflected the high-lights from the glossy skins of their broad shoulders andhigh cheek bones.

Jane Clayton surveyed them with unmixed feelings of pride and affection. Whatharm could befall her with such as these to protect her?

The raiders had halted now, a hundred yards out upon the plain. Mugambi hadhastened down to join his warriors. He advanced a few yards before them andraising his voice hailed the strangers. Achmet Zek sat straight in his saddlebefore his henchmen.

“Arab!” cried Mugambi. “What do you here?”

“We come in peace,” Achmet Zek called back.

“Then turn and go in peace,” replied Mugambi. “We do not wantyou here. There can be no peace between Arab and Waziri.”

Mugambi, although not born in Waziri, had been adopted into the tribe, whichnow contained no member more jealous of its traditions and its prowess than he.

Achmet Zek drew to one side of his horde, speaking to his men in a low voice. Amoment later, without warning, a ragged volley was poured into the ranks of theWaziri. A couple of warriors fell, the others were for charging the attackers;but Mugambi was a cautious as well as a brave leader. He knew the futility ofcharging mounted men armed with muskets. He withdrew his force behind theshrubbery of the garden. Some he dispatched to various other parts of thegrounds surrounding the bungalow. Half a dozen he sent to the bungalow itselfwith instructions to keep their mistress within doors, and to protect her withtheir lives.

Adopting the tactics of the desert fighters from which he had sprung, AchmetZek led his followers at a gallop in a long, thin line, describing a greatcircle which drew closer and closer in toward the defenders.

At that part of the circle closest to the Waziri, a constant fusillade of shotswas poured into the bushes behind which the black warriors had concealedthemselves. The latter, on their part, loosed their slim shafts at the nearestof the enemy.

The Waziri, justly famed for their archery, found no cause to blush for theirperformance that day. Time and again some swarthy horseman threw hands abovehis head and toppled from his saddle, pierced by a deadly arrow; but thecontest was uneven. The Arabs outnumbered the Waziri; their bullets penetratedthe shrubbery and found marks that the Arab riflemen had not even seen; andthen Achmet Zek circled inward a half mile above the bungalow, tore down asection of the fence, and led his marauders within the grounds.

Across the fields they charged at a mad run. Not again did they pause to lowerfences, instead, they drove their wild mounts straight for them, clearing theobstacles as lightly as winged gulls.

Mugambi saw them coming, and, calling those of his warriors who remained, ranfor the bungalow and the last stand. Upon the veranda Lady Greystoke stood,rifle in hand. More than a single raider had accounted to her steady nerves andcool aim for his outlawry; more than a single pony raced, riderless, in thewake of the charging horde.

Mugambi pushed his mistress back into the greater security of the interior, andwith his depleted force prepared to make a last stand against the foe.

On came the Arabs, shouting and waving their long guns above their heads. Pastthe veranda they raced, pouring a deadly fire into the kneeling Waziri whodischarged their volley of arrows from behind their long, ovalshields—shields well adapted, perhaps, to stop a hostile arrow, ordeflect a spear; but futile, quite, before the leaden missiles of the riflemen.

From beneath the half-raised shutters of the bungalow other bowmen dideffective service in greater security, and after the first assault, Mugambiwithdrew his entire force within the building.

Again and again the Arabs charged, at last forming a stationary circle aboutthe little fortress, and outside the effective range of the defenders’arrows. From their new position they fired at will at the windows. One by onethe Waziri fell. Fewer and fewer were the arrows that replied to the guns ofthe raiders, and at last Achmet Zek felt safe in ordering an assault.

Firing as they ran, the bloodthirsty horde raced for the veranda. A dozen ofthem fell to the arrows of the defenders; but the majority reached the door.Heavy gun butts fell upon it. The crash of splintered wood mingled with thereport of a rifle as Jane Clayton fired through the panels upon the relentlessfoe.

Upon both sides of the door men fell; but at last the frail barrier gave to thevicious assaults of the maddened attackers; it crumpled inward and a dozenswarthy murderers leaped into the living-room. At the far end stood JaneClayton surrounded by the remnant of her devoted guardians. The floor wascovered by the bodies of those who already had given up their lives in herdefense. In the forefront of her protectors stood the giant Mugambi. The Arabsraised their rifles to pour in the last volley that would effectually end allresistance; but Achmet Zek roared out a warning order that stayed their triggerfingers.

“Fire not upon the woman!” he cried. “Who harms her, dies.Take the woman alive!”

The Arabs rushed across the room; the Waziri met them with their heavy spears.Swords flashed, long-barreled pistols roared out their sullen death dooms.Mugambi launched his spear at the nearest of the enemy with a force that drovethe heavy shaft completely through the Arab’s body, then he seized apistol from another, and grasping it by the barrel brained all who forced theirway too near his mistress.

Emulating his example the few warriors who remained to him fought like demons;but one by one they fell, until only Mugambi remained to defend the life andhonor of the ape-man’s mate.

From across the room Achmet Zek watched the unequal struggle and urged on hisminions. In his hands was a jeweled musket. Slowly he raised it to hisshoulder, waiting until another move should place Mugambi at his mercy withoutendangering the lives of the woman or any of his own followers.

At last the moment came, and Achmet Zek pulled the trigger. Without a sound thebrave Mugambi sank to the floor at the feet of Jane Clayton.

An instant later she was surrounded and disarmed. Without a word they draggedher from the bungalow. A giant Negro lifted her to the pommel of his saddle,and while the raiders searched the bungalow and outhouses for plunder he rodewith her beyond the gates and waited the coming of his master.

Jane Clayton saw the raiders lead the horses from the corral, and drive theherds in from the fields. She saw her home plundered of all that representedintrinsic worth in the eyes of the Arabs, and then she saw the torch applied,and the flames lick up what remained.

And at last, when the raiders assembled after glutting their fury and theiravarice, and rode away with her toward the north, she saw the smoke and theflames rising far into the heavens until the winding of the trail into thethick forests hid the sad view from her eyes.

As the flames ate their way into the living-room, reaching out forked tonguesto lick up the bodies of the dead, one of that gruesome company whose bloodywelterings had long since been stilled, moved again. It was a huge black whorolled over upon his side and opened blood-shot, suffering eyes. Mugambi, whomthe Arabs had left for dead, still lived. The hot flames were almost upon himas he raised himself painfully upon his hands and knees and crawled slowlytoward the doorway.

Again and again he sank weakly to the floor; but each time he rose again andcontinued his pitiful way toward safety. After what seemed to him aninterminable time, during which the flames had become a veritable fiery furnaceat the far side of the room, the great black managed to reach the veranda, rolldown the steps, and crawl off into the cool safety of some nearby shrubbery.

All night he lay there, alternately unconscious and painfully sentient; and inthe latter state watching with savage hatred the lurid flames which still rosefrom burning crib and hay cock. A prowling lion roared close at hand; but thegiant black was unafraid. There was place for but a single thought in hissavage mind—revenge! revenge! revenge!

CHAPTER VII.
The Jewel-Room of Opar

For some time Tarzan lay where he had fallen upon the floor of the treasurechamber beneath the ruined walls of Opar. He lay as one dead; but he was notdead. At length he stirred. His eyes opened upon the utter darkness of theroom. He raised his hand to his head and brought it away sticky with clottedblood. He sniffed at his fingers, as a wild beast might sniff at the life-bloodupon a wounded paw.

Slowly he rose to a sitting posture—listening. No sound reached to theburied depths of his sepulcher. He staggered to his feet, and groped his wayabout among the tiers of ingots. What was he? Where was he? His head ached; butotherwise he felt no ill effects from the blow that had felled him. Theaccident he did not recall, nor did he recall aught of what had led up to it.

He let his hands grope unfamiliarly over his limbs, his torso, and his head. Hefelt of the quiver at his back, the knife in his loin cloth. Somethingstruggled for recognition within his brain. Ah! he had it. There was somethingmissing. He crawled about upon the floor, feeling with his hands for the thingthat instinct warned him was gone. At last he found it—the heavy warspear that in past years had formed so important a feature of his daily life,almost of his very existence, so inseparably had it been connected with hisevery action since the long-gone day that he had wrested his first spear fromthe body of a black victim of his savage training.

Tarzan was sure that there was another and more lovely world than that whichwas confined to the darkness of the four stone walls surrounding him. Hecontinued his search and at last found the doorway leading inward beneath thecity and the temple. This he followed, most incautiously. He came to the stonesteps leading upward to the higher level. He ascended them and continued onwardtoward the well.

Nothing spurred his hurt memory to a recollection of past familiarity with hissurroundings. He blundered on through the darkness as though he were traversingan open plain under the brilliance of a noonday sun, and suddenly therehappened that which had to happen under the circumstances of his rash advance.

He reached the brink of the well, stepped outward into space, lunged forward,and shot downward into the inky depths below. Still clutching his spear, hestruck the water, and sank beneath its surface, plumbing the depths.

The fall had not injured him, and when he rose to the surface, he shook thewater from his eyes, and found that he could see. Daylight was filtering intothe well from the orifice far above his head. It illumined the inner wallsfaintly. Tarzan gazed about him. On the level with the surface of the water hesaw a large opening in the dark and slimy wall. He swam to it, and drew himselfout upon the wet floor of a tunnel.

Along this he passed; but now he went warily, for Tarzan of the Apes waslearning. The unexpected pit had taught him care in the traversing of darkpassageways—he needed no second lesson.

For a long distance the passage went straight as an arrow. The floor wasslippery, as though at times the rising waters of the well overflowed andflooded it. This, in itself, retarded Tarzan’s pace, for it was withdifficulty that he kept his footing.

The foot of a stairway ended the passage. Up this he made his way. It turnedback and forth many times, leading, at last, into a small, circular chamber,the gloom of which was relieved by a faint light which found ingress through atubular shaft several feet in diameter which rose from the center of theroom’s ceiling, upward to a distance of a hundred feet or more, where itterminated in a stone grating through which Tarzan could see a blue and sun-litsky.

Curiosity prompted the ape-man to investigate his surroundings. Severalmetal-bound, copper-studded chests constituted the sole furniture of the roundroom. Tarzan let his hands run over these. He felt of the copper studs, hepulled upon the hinges, and at last, by chance, he raised the cover of one.

An exclamation of delight broke from his lips at sight of the pretty contents.Gleaming and glistening in the subdued light of the chamber, lay a great trayfull of brilliant stones. Tarzan, reverted to the primitive by his accident,had no conception of the fabulous value of his find. To him they were butpretty pebbles. He plunged his hands into them and let the priceless gemsfilter through his fingers. He went to others of the chests, only to find stillfurther stores of precious stones. Nearly all were cut, and from these hegathered a handful and filled the pouch which dangled at his side—theuncut stones he tossed back into the chests.

Unwittingly, the ape-man had stumbled upon the forgotten jewel-room of Opar.For ages it had lain buried beneath the temple of the Flaming God, midway ofone of the many inky passages which the superstitious descendants of theancient Sun Worshipers had either dared not or cared not to explore.

Tiring at last of this diversion, Tarzan took up his way along the corridorwhich led upward from the jewel-room by a steep incline. Winding and twisting,but always tending upward, the tunnel led him nearer and nearer to the surface,ending finally in a low-ceiled room, lighter than any that he had as yetdiscovered.

Above him an opening in the ceiling at the upper end of a flight of concretesteps revealed a brilliant sunlit scene. Tarzan viewed the vine-covered columnsin mild wonderment. He puckered his brows in an attempt to recall somerecollection of similar things. He was not sure of himself. There was atantalizing suggestion always present in his mind that something was eludinghim—that he should know many things which he did not know.

His earnest cogitation was rudely interrupted by a thunderous roar from theopening above him. Following the roar came the cries and screams of men andwomen. Tarzan grasped his spear more firmly and ascended the steps. A strangesight met his eyes as he emerged from the semi-darkness of the cellar to thebrilliant light of the temple.

The creatures he saw before him he recognized for what they were—men andwomen, and a huge lion. The men and women were scuttling for the safety of theexits. The lion stood upon the body of one who had been less fortunate than theothers. He was in the center of the temple. Directly before Tarzan, a womanstood beside a block of stone. Upon the top of the stone lay stretched a man,and as the ape-man watched the scene, he saw the lion glare terribly at the twowho remained within the temple. Another thunderous roar broke from the savagethroat, the woman screamed and swooned across the body of the man stretchedprostrate upon the stone altar before her.

The lion advanced a few steps and crouched. The tip of his sinuous tailtwitched nervously. He was upon the point of charging when his eyes wereattracted toward the ape-man.

Werper, helpless upon the altar, saw the great carnivore preparing to leap uponhim. He saw the sudden change in the beast’s expression as his eyeswandered to something beyond the altar and out of the Belgian’s view. Hesaw the formidable creature rise to a standing position. A figure darted pastWerper. He saw a mighty arm upraised, and a stout spear shoot forward towardthe lion, to bury itself in the broad chest.

He saw the lion snapping and tearing at the weapon’s shaft, and he saw,wonder of wonders, the naked giant who had hurled the missile charging upon thegreat beast, only a long knife ready to meet those ferocious fangs and talons.

The lion reared up to meet this new enemy. The beast was growling frightfully,and then upon the startled ears of the Belgian, broke a similar savage growlfrom the lips of the man rushing upon the beast.

By a quick side step, Tarzan eluded the first swinging clutch of thelion’s paws. Darting to the beast’s side, he leaped upon the tawnyback. His arms encircled the maned neck, his teeth sank deep into thebrute’s flesh. Roaring, leaping, rolling and struggling, the giant catattempted to dislodge this savage enemy, and all the while one great, brownfist was driving a long keen blade repeatedly into the beast’s side.

During the battle, La regained consciousness. Spellbound, she stood above hervictim watching the spectacle. It seemed incredible that a human being couldbest the king of beasts in personal encounter and yet before her very eyesthere was taking place just such an improbability.

At last Tarzan’s knife found the great heart, and with a final, spasmodicstruggle the lion rolled over upon the marble floor, dead. Leaping to his feetthe conqueror placed a foot upon the carcass of his kill, raised his facetoward the heavens, and gave voice to so hideous a cry that both La and Werpertrembled as it reverberated through the temple.

Then the ape-man turned, and Werper recognized him as the man he had left fordead in the treasure room.

CHAPTER VIII.
The Escape from Opar

Werper was astounded. Could this creature be the same dignified Englishman whohad entertained him so graciously in his luxurious African home? Could thiswild beast, with blazing eyes, and bloody countenance, be at the same time aman? Could the horrid, victory cry he had but just heard have been formed inhuman throat?

Tarzan was eyeing the man and the woman, a puzzled expression in his eyes, butthere was no faintest tinge of recognition. It was as though he had discoveredsome new species of living creature and was marveling at his find.

La was studying the ape-man’s features. Slowly her large eyes opened verywide.

“Tarzan!” she exclaimed, and then, in the vernacular of the greatapes which constant association with the anthropoids had rendered the commonlanguage of the Oparians: “You have come back to me! La has ignored themandates of her religion, waiting, always waiting for Tarzan—for herTarzan. She has taken no mate, for in all the world there was but one with whomLa would mate. And now you have come back! Tell me, O Tarzan, that it is for meyou have returned.”

Werper listened to the unintelligible jargon. He looked from La to Tarzan.Would the latter understand this strange tongue? To the Belgian’ssurprise, the Englishman answered in a language evidently identical to hers.

“Tarzan,” he repeated, musingly. “Tarzan. The name soundsfamiliar.”

“It is your name—you are Tarzan,” cried La.

“I am Tarzan?” The ape-man shrugged. “Well, it is a goodname—I know no other, so I will keep it; but I do not know you. I did notcome hither for you. Why I came, I do not know at all; neither do I know fromwhence I came. Can you tell me?”

La shook her head. “I never knew,” she replied.

Tarzan turned toward Werper and put the same question to him; but in thelanguage of the great apes. The Belgian shook his head.

“I do not understand that language,” he said in French.

Without effort, and apparently without realizing that he made the change,Tarzan repeated his question in French. Werper suddenly came to a fullrealization of the magnitude of the injury of which Tarzan was a victim. Theman had lost his memory—no longer could he recollect past events. TheBelgian was upon the point of enlightening him, when it suddenly occurred tohim that by keeping Tarzan in ignorance, for a time at least, of his trueidentity, it might be possible to turn the ape-man’s misfortune to hisown advantage.

“I cannot tell you from whence you came,” he said; “but thisI can tell you—if we do not get out of this horrible place we shall bothbe slain upon this bloody altar. The woman was about to plunge her knife intomy heart when the lion interrupted the fiendish ritual. Come! Before theyrecover from their fright and reassemble, let us find a way out of theirdamnable temple.”

Tarzan turned again toward La.

“Why,” he asked, “would you have killed this man? Are youhungry?”

The High Priestess cried out in disgust.

“Did he attempt to kill you?” continued Tarzan.

The woman shook her head.

“Then why should you have wished to kill him?” Tarzan wasdetermined to get to the bottom of the thing.

La raised her slender arm and pointed toward the sun.

“We were offering up his soul as a gift to the Flaming God,” shesaid.

Tarzan looked puzzled. He was again an ape, and apes do not understand suchmatters as souls and Flaming Gods.

“Do you wish to die?” he asked Werper.

The Belgian assured him, with tears in his eyes, that he did not wish to die.

“Very well then, you shall not,” said Tarzan. “Come! We willgo. This SHE would kill you and keep me for herself. It is no place anyway fora Mangani. I should soon die, shut up behind these stone walls.”

He turned toward La. “We are going now,” he said.

The woman rushed forward and seized the ape-man’s hands in hers.

“Do not leave me!” she cried. “Stay, and you shall be HighPriest. La loves you. All Opar shall be yours. Slaves shall wait upon you.Stay, Tarzan of the Apes, and let love reward you.”

The ape-man pushed the kneeling woman aside. “Tarzan does not desireyou,” he said, simply, and stepping to Werper’s side he cut theBelgian’s bonds and motioned him to follow.

Panting—her face convulsed with rage, La sprang to her feet.

“Stay, you shall!” she screamed. “La will have you—ifshe cannot have you alive, she will have you dead,” and raising her faceto the sun she gave voice to the same hideous shriek that Werper had heard oncebefore and Tarzan many times.

In answer to her cry a babel of voices broke from the surrounding chambers andcorridors.

“Come, Guardian Priests!” she cried. “The infidels haveprofaned the holiest of the holies. Come! Strike terror to their hearts; defendLa and her altar; wash clean the temple with the blood of the polluters.”

Tarzan understood, though Werper did not. The former glanced at the Belgian andsaw that he was unarmed. Stepping quickly to La’s side the ape-man seizedher in his strong arms and though she fought with all the mad savagery of ademon, he soon disarmed her, handing her long, sacrificial knife to Werper.

“You will need this,” he said, and then from each doorway a hordeof the monstrous, little men of Opar streamed into the temple.

They were armed with bludgeons and knives, and fortified in their courage byfanatical hate and frenzy. Werper was terrified. Tarzan stood eyeing the foe inproud disdain. Slowly he advanced toward the exit he had chosen to utilize inmaking his way from the temple. A burly priest barred his way. Behind the firstwas a score of others. Tarzan swung his heavy spear, clublike, down upon theskull of the priest. The fellow collapsed, his head crushed.

Again and again the weapon fell as Tarzan made his way slowly toward thedoorway. Werper pressed close behind, casting backward glances toward theshrieking, dancing mob menacing their rear. He held the sacrificial knife readyto strike whoever might come within its reach; but none came. For a time hewondered that they should so bravely battle with the giant ape-man, yethesitate to rush upon him, who was relatively so weak. Had they done so he knewthat he must have fallen at the first charge. Tarzan had reached the doorwayover the corpses of all that had stood to dispute his way, before Werperguessed at the reason for his immunity. The priests feared the sacrificialknife! Willingly would they face death and welcome it if it came while theydefended their High Priestess and her altar; but evidently there were deaths,and deaths. Some strange superstition must surround that polished blade, thatno Oparian cared to chance a death thrust from it, yet gladly rushed to theslaughter of the ape-man’s flaying spear.

Once outside the temple court, Werper communicated his discovery to Tarzan. Theape-man grinned, and let Werper go before him, brandishing the jeweled and holyweapon. Like leaves before a gale, the Oparians scattered in all directions andTarzan and the Belgian found a clear passage through the corridors and chambersof the ancient temple.

The Belgian’s eyes went wide as they passed through the room of the sevenpillars of solid gold. With ill-concealed avarice he looked upon the age-old,golden tablets set in the walls of nearly every room and down the sides of manyof the corridors. To the ape-man all this wealth appeared to mean nothing.

On the two went, chance leading them toward the broad avenue which lay betweenthe stately piles of the half-ruined edifices and the inner wall of the city.Great apes jabbered at them and menaced them; but Tarzan answered them aftertheir own kind, giving back taunt for taunt, insult for insult, challenge forchallenge.

Werper saw a hairy bull swing down from a broken column and advance,stiff-legged and bristling, toward the naked giant. The yellow fangs werebared, angry snarls and barkings rumbled threateningly through the thick andhanging lips.

The Belgian watched his companion. To his horror, he saw the man stoop untilhis closed knuckles rested upon the ground as did those of the anthropoid. Hesaw him circle, stiff-legged about the circling ape. He heard the same bestialbarkings and growlings issue from the human throat that were coming from themouth of the brute. Had his eyes been closed he could not have known but thattwo giant apes were bridling for combat.

But there was no battle. It ended as the majority of such jungle encountersend—one of the boasters loses his nerve, and becomes suddenly interestedin a blowing leaf, a beetle, or the lice upon his hairy stomach.

In this instance it was the anthropoid that retired in stiff dignity to inspectan unhappy caterpillar, which he presently devoured. For a moment Tarzan seemedinclined to pursue the argument. He swaggered truculently, stuck out his chest,roared and advanced closer to the bull. It was with difficulty that Werperfinally persuaded him to leave well enough alone and continue his way from theancient city of the Sun Worshipers.

The two searched for nearly an hour before they found the narrow exit throughthe inner wall. From there the well-worn trail led them beyond the outerfortification to the desolate valley of Opar.

Tarzan had no idea, in so far as Werper could discover, as to where he was orwhence he came. He wandered aimlessly about, searching for food, which hediscovered beneath small rocks, or hiding in the shade of the scant brush whichdotted the ground.

The Belgian was horrified by the hideous menu of his companion. Beetles,rodents and caterpillars were devoured with seeming relish. Tarzan was indeedan ape again.

At last Werper succeeded in leading his companion toward the distant hillswhich mark the northwestern boundary of the valley, and together the two setout in the direction of the Greystoke bungalow.

What purpose prompted the Belgian in leading the victim of his treachery andgreed back toward his former home it is difficult to guess, unless it was thatwithout Tarzan there could be no ransom for Tarzan’s wife.

That night they camped in the valley beyond the hills, and as they sat before alittle fire where cooked a wild pig that had fallen to one of Tarzan’sarrows, the latter sat lost in speculation. He seemed continually to be tryingto grasp some mental image which as constantly eluded him.

At last he opened the leathern pouch which hung at his side. From it he pouredinto the palm of his hand a quantity of glittering gems. The firelight playingupon them conjured a multitude of scintillating rays, and as the wide eyes ofthe Belgian looked on in rapt fascination, the man’s expression at lastacknowledged a tangible purpose in courting the society of the ape-man.

CHAPTER IX.
The Theft of the Jewels

For two days Werper sought for the party that had accompanied him from the campto the barrier cliffs; but not until late in the afternoon of the second daydid he find clew to its whereabouts, and then in such gruesome form that he wastotally unnerved by the sight.

In an open glade he came upon the bodies of three of the blacks, terriblymutilated, nor did it require considerable deductive power to explain theirmurder. Of the little party only these three had not been slaves. The others,evidently tempted to hope for freedom from their cruel Arab master, had takenadvantage of their separation from the main camp, to slay the threerepresentatives of the hated power which held them in slavery, and vanish intothe jungle.

Cold sweat exuded from Werper’s forehead as he contemplated the fatewhich chance had permitted him to escape, for had he been present when theconspiracy bore fruit, he, too, must have been of the garnered.

Tarzan showed not the slightest surprise or interest in the discovery. Inherentin him was a calloused familiarity with violent death. The refinements of hisrecent civilization expunged by the force of the sad calamity which hadbefallen him, left only the primitive sensibilities which his childhood’straining had imprinted indelibly upon the fabric of his mind.

The training of Kala, the examples and precepts of Kerchak, of Tublat, and ofTerkoz now formed the basis of his every thought and action. He retained amechanical knowledge of French and English speech. Werper had spoken to him inFrench, and Tarzan had replied in the same tongue without conscious realizationthat he had departed from the anthropoidal speech in which he had addressed La.Had Werper used English, the result would have been the same.

Again, that night, as the two sat before their camp fire, Tarzan played withhis shining baubles. Werper asked him what they were and where he had foundthem. The ape-man replied that they were gay-colored stones, with which hepurposed fashioning a necklace, and that he had found them far beneath thesacrificial court of the temple of the Flaming God.

Werper was relieved to find that Tarzan had no conception of the value of thegems. This would make it easier for the Belgian to obtain possession of them.Possibly the man would give them to him for the asking. Werper reached out hishand toward the little pile that Tarzan had arranged upon a piece of flat woodbefore him.

“Let me see them,” said the Belgian.

Tarzan placed a large palm over his treasure. He bared his fighting fangs, andgrowled. Werper withdrew his hand more quickly than he had advanced it. Tarzanresumed his playing with the gems, and his conversation with Werper as thoughnothing unusual had occurred. He had but exhibited the beast’s jealousprotective instinct for a possession. When he killed he shared the meat withWerper; but had Werper ever, by accident, laid a hand upon Tarzan’sshare, he would have aroused the same savage, and resentful warning.

From that occurrence dated the beginning of a great fear in the breast of theBelgian for his savage companion. He had never understood the transformationthat had been wrought in Tarzan by the blow upon his head, other than toattribute it to a form of amnesia. That Tarzan had once been, in truth, asavage, jungle beast, Werper had not known, and so, of course, he could notguess that the man had reverted to the state in which his childhood and youngmanhood had been spent.

Now Werper saw in the Englishman a dangerous maniac, whom the slightestuntoward accident might turn upon him with rending fangs. Not for a moment didWerper attempt to delude himself into the belief that he could defend himselfsuccessfully against an attack by the ape-man. His one hope lay in eluding him,and making for the far distant camp of Achmet Zek as rapidly as he could; butarmed only with the sacrificial knife, Werper shrank from attempting thejourney through the jungle. Tarzan constituted a protection that was by nomeans despicable, even in the face of the larger carnivora, as Werper hadreason to acknowledge from the evidence he had witnessed in the Oparian temple.

Too, Werper had his covetous soul set upon the pouch of gems, and so he wastorn between the various emotions of avarice and fear. But avarice it was thatburned most strongly in his breast, to the end that he dared the dangers andsuffered the terrors of constant association with him he thought a mad man,rather than give up the hope of obtaining possession of the fortune which thecontents of the little pouch represented.

Achmet Zek should know nothing of these—these would be for Werper alone,and so soon as he could encompass his design he would reach the coast and takepassage for America, where he could conceal himself beneath the veil of a newidentity and enjoy to some measure the fruits of his theft. He had it allplanned out, did Lieutenant Albert Werper, living in anticipation the luxuriouslife of the idle rich. He even found himself regretting that America was soprovincial, and that nowhere in the new world was a city that might comparewith his beloved Brussels.

It was upon the third day of their progress from Opar that the keen ears ofTarzan caught the sound of men behind them. Werper heard nothing above thehumming of the jungle insects, and the chattering life of the lesser monkeysand the birds.

For a time Tarzan stood in statuesque silence, listening, his sensitivenostrils dilating as he assayed each passing breeze. Then he withdrew Werperinto the concealment of thick brush, and waited. Presently, along the gametrail that Werper and Tarzan had been following, there came in sight a sleek,black warrior, alert and watchful.

In single file behind him, there followed, one after another, near fiftyothers, each burdened with two dull-yellow ingots lashed upon his back. Werperrecognized the party immediately as that which had accompanied Tarzan on hisjourney to Opar. He glanced at the ape-man; but in the savage, watchful eyes hesaw no recognition of Basuli and those other loyal Waziri.

When all had passed, Tarzan rose and emerged from concealment. He looked downthe trail in the direction the party had gone. Then he turned to Werper.

“We will follow and slay them,” he said.

“Why?” asked the Belgian.

“They are black,” explained Tarzan. “It was a black whokilled Kala. They are the enemies of the Manganis.”

Werper did not relish the idea of engaging in a battle with Basuli and hisfierce fighting men. And, again, he had welcomed the sight of them returningtoward the Greystoke bungalow, for he had begun to have doubts as to hisability to retrace his steps to the Waziri country. Tarzan, he knew, had notthe remotest idea of whither they were going. By keeping at a safe distancebehind the laden warriors, they would have no difficulty in following themhome. Once at the bungalow, Werper knew the way to the camp of Achmet Zek.There was still another reason why he did not wish to interfere with theWaziri—they were bearing the great burden of treasure in the direction hewished it borne. The farther they took it, the less the distance that he andAchmet Zek would have to transport it.

He argued with the ape-man therefore, against the latter’s desire toexterminate the blacks, and at last he prevailed upon Tarzan to follow them inpeace, saying that he was sure they would lead them out of the forest into arich country, teeming with game.

It was many marches from Opar to the Waziri country; but at last came the hourwhen Tarzan and the Belgian, following the trail of the warriors, topped thelast rise, and saw before them the broad Waziri plain, the winding river, andthe distant forests to the north and west.

A mile or more ahead of them, the line of warriors was creeping like a giantcaterpillar through the tall grasses of the plain. Beyond, grazing herds ofzebra, hartebeest, and topi dotted the level landscape, while closer to theriver a bull buffalo, his head and shoulders protruding from the reeds watchedthe advancing blacks for a moment, only to turn at last and disappear into thesafety of his dank and gloomy retreat.

Tarzan looked out across the familiar vista with no faintest gleam ofrecognition in his eyes. He saw the game animals, and his mouth watered; but hedid not look in the direction of his bungalow. Werper, however, did. A puzzledexpression entered the Belgian’s eyes. He shaded them with his palms andgazed long and earnestly toward the spot where the bungalow had stood. He couldnot credit the testimony of his eyes—there was no bungalow—nobarns—no out-houses. The corrals, the hay stacks—all were gone.What could it mean?

And then, slowly there filtered into Werper’s consciousness anexplanation of the havoc that had been wrought in that peaceful valley sincelast his eyes had rested upon it—Achmet Zek had been there!

Basuli and his warriors had noted the devastation the moment they had come insight of the farm. Now they hastened on toward it talking excitedly amongthemselves in animated speculation upon the cause and meaning of thecatastrophe.

When, at last they crossed the trampled garden and stood before the charredruins of their master’s bungalow, their greatest fears became convictionsin the light of the evidence about them.

Remnants of human dead, half devoured by prowling hyenas and others of thecarnivora which infested the region, lay rotting upon the ground, and among thecorpses remained sufficient remnants of their clothing and ornaments to makeclear to Basuli the frightful story of the disaster that had befallen hismaster’s house.

“The Arabs,” he said, as his men clustered about him.

The Waziri gazed about in mute rage for several minutes. Everywhere theyencountered only further evidence of the ruthlessness of the cruel enemy thathad come during the Great Bwana’s absence and laid waste his property.

“What did they with ‘Lady’?” asked one of the blacks.

They had always called Lady Greystoke thus.

“The women they would have taken with them,” said Basuli.“Our women and his.”

A giant black raised his spear above his head, and gave voice to a savage cryof rage and hate. The others followed his example. Basuli silenced them with agesture.

“This is no time for useless noises of the mouth,” he said.“The Great Bwana has taught us that it is acts by which things are done,not words. Let us save our breath—we shall need it all to follow up theArabs and slay them. If ‘Lady’ and our women live the greater theneed of haste, and warriors cannot travel fast upon empty lungs.”

From the shelter of the reeds along the river, Werper and Tarzan watched theblacks. They saw them dig a trench with their knives and fingers. They saw themlay their yellow burdens in it and scoop the overturned earth back over thetops of the ingots.

Tarzan seemed little interested, after Werper had assured him that that whichthey buried was not good to eat; but Werper was intensely interested. He wouldhave given much had he had his own followers with him, that he might take awaythe treasure as soon as the blacks left, for he was sure that they would leavethis scene of desolation and death as soon as possible.

The treasure buried, the blacks removed themselves a short distance up windfrom the fetid corpses, where they made camp, that they might rest beforesetting out in pursuit of the Arabs. It was already dusk. Werper and Tarzan satdevouring some pieces of meat they had brought from their last camp. TheBelgian was occupied with his plans for the immediate future. He was positivethat the Waziri would pursue Achmet Zek, for he knew enough of savage warfare,and of the characteristics of the Arabs and their degraded followers to guessthat they had carried the Waziri women off into slavery. This alone wouldassure immediate pursuit by so warlike a people as the Waziri.

Werper felt that he should find the means and the opportunity to push on ahead,that he might warn Achmet Zek of the coming of Basuli, and also of the locationof the buried treasure. What the Arab would now do with Lady Greystoke, in viewof the mental affliction of her husband, Werper neither knew nor cared. It wasenough that the golden treasure buried upon the site of the burned bungalow wasinfinitely more valuable than any ransom that would have occurred even to theavaricious mind of the Arab, and if Werper could persuade the raider to shareeven a portion of it with him he would be well satisfied.

But by far the most important consideration, to Werper, at least, was theincalculably valuable treasure in the little leathern pouch at Tarzan’sside. If he could but obtain possession of this! He must! He would!

His eyes wandered to the object of his greed. They measured Tarzan’sgiant frame, and rested upon the rounded muscles of his arms. It was hopeless.What could he, Werper, hope to accomplish, other than his own death, by anattempt to wrest the gems from their savage owner?

Disconsolate, Werper threw himself upon his side. His head was pillowed on onearm, the other rested across his face in such a way that his eyes were hiddenfrom the ape-man, though one of them was fastened upon him from beneath theshadow of the Belgian’s forearm. For a time he lay thus, glowering atTarzan, and originating schemes for plundering him of histreasure—schemes that were discarded as futile as rapidly as they wereborn.

Tarzan presently let his own eyes rest upon Werper. The Belgian saw that he wasbeing watched, and lay very still. After a few moments he simulated the regularbreathing of deep slumber.

Tarzan had been thinking. He had seen the Waziri bury their belongings. Werperhad told him that they were hiding them lest some one find them and take themaway. This seemed to Tarzan a splendid plan for safeguarding valuables. SinceWerper had evinced a desire to possess his glittering pebbles, Tarzan, with thesuspicions of a savage, had guarded the baubles, of whose worth he was entirelyignorant, as zealously as though they spelled life or death to him.

For a long time the ape-man sat watching his companion. At last, convinced thathe slept, Tarzan withdrew his hunting knife and commenced to dig a hole in theground before him. With the blade he loosened up the earth, and with his handshe scooped it out until he had excavated a little cavity a few inches indiameter, and five or six inches in depth. Into this he placed the pouch ofjewels. Werper almost forgot to breathe after the fashion of a sleeper as hesaw what the ape-man was doing—he scarce repressed an ejaculation ofsatisfaction.

Tarzan become suddenly rigid as his keen ears noted the cessation of theregular inspirations and expirations of his companion. His narrowed eyes boredstraight down upon the Belgian. Werper felt that he was lost—he must riskall on his ability to carry on the deception. He sighed, threw both armsoutward, and turned over on his back mumbling as though in the throes of a baddream. A moment later he resumed the regular breathing.

Now he could not watch Tarzan, but he was sure that the man sat for a long timelooking at him. Then, faintly, Werper heard the other’s hands scrapingdirt, and later patting it down. He knew then that the jewels were buried.

It was an hour before Werper moved again, then he rolled over facing Tarzan andopened his eyes. The ape-man slept. By reaching out his hand Werper could touchthe spot where the pouch was buried.

For a long time he lay watching and listening. He moved about, making morenoise than necessary, yet Tarzan did not awaken. He drew the sacrificial knifefrom his belt, and plunged it into the ground. Tarzan did not move. Cautiouslythe Belgian pushed the blade downward through the loose earth above the pouch.He felt the point touch the soft, tough fabric of the leather. Then he prieddown upon the handle. Slowly the little mound of loose earth rose and parted.An instant later a corner of the pouch came into view. Werper pulled it fromits hiding place, and tucked it in his shirt. Then he refilled the hole andpressed the dirt carefully down as it had been before.

Greed had prompted him to an act, the discovery of which by his companion couldlead only to the most frightful consequences for Werper. Already he couldalmost feel those strong, white fangs burying themselves in his neck. Heshuddered. Far out across the plain a leopard screamed, and in the dense reedsbehind him some great beast moved on padded feet.

Werper feared these prowlers of the night; but infinitely more he feared thejust wrath of the human beast sleeping at his side. With utmost caution theBelgian arose. Tarzan did not move. Werper took a few steps toward the plainand the distant forest to the northwest, then he paused and fingered the hiltof the long knife in his belt. He turned and looked down upon the sleeper.

“Why not?” he mused. “Then I should be safe.”

He returned and bent above the ape-man. Clutched tightly in his hand was thesacrificial knife of the High Priestess of the Flaming God!

CHAPTER X.
Achmet Zek Sees the Jewels

Mugambi, weak and suffering, had dragged his painful way along the trail of theretreating raiders. He could move but slowly, resting often; but savage hatredand an equally savage desire for vengeance kept him to his task. As the dayspassed his wounds healed and his strength returned, until at last his giantframe had regained all of its former mighty powers. Now he went more rapidly;but the mounted Arabs had covered a great distance while the wounded black hadbeen painfully crawling after them.

They had reached their fortified camp, and there Achmet Zek awaited the returnof his lieutenant, Albert Werper. During the long, rough journey, Jane Claytonhad suffered more in anticipation of her impending fate than from the hardshipsof the road.

Achmet Zek had not deigned to acquaint her with his intentions regarding herfuture. She prayed that she had been captured in the hope of ransom, for ifsuch should prove the case, no great harm would befall her at the hands of theArabs; but there was the chance, the horrid chance, that another fate awaitedher. She had heard of many women, among whom were white women, who had beensold by outlaws such as Achmet Zek into the slavery of black harems, or takenfarther north into the almost equally hideous existence of some Turkishseraglio.

Jane Clayton was of sterner stuff than that which bends in spineless terrorbefore danger. Until hope proved futile she would not give it up; nor did sheentertain thoughts of self-destruction only as a final escape from dishonor. Solong as Tarzan lived there was every reason to expect succor. No man nor beastwho roamed the savage continent could boast the cunning and the powers of herlord and master. To her, he was little short of omnipotent in his nativeworld—this world of savage beasts and savage men. Tarzan would come, andshe would be rescued and avenged, of that she was certain. She counted the daysthat must elapse before he would return from Opar and discover what hadtranspired during his absence. After that it would be but a short time beforehe had surrounded the Arab stronghold and punished the motley crew ofwrongdoers who inhabited it.

That he could find her she had no slightest doubt. No spoor, however faint,could elude the keen vigilance of his senses. To him, the trail of the raiderswould be as plain as the printed page of an open book to her.

And while she hoped, there came through the dark jungle another. Terrified bynight and by day, came Albert Werper. A dozen times he had escaped the clawsand fangs of the giant carnivora only by what seemed a miracle to him. Armedwith nothing more than the knife he had brought with him from Opar, he had madehis way through as savage a country as yet exists upon the face of the globe.

By night he had slept in trees. By day he had stumbled fearfully on, oftentaking refuge among the branches when sight or sound of some great cat warnedhim from danger. But at last he had come within sight of the palisade behindwhich were his fierce companions.

At almost the same time Mugambi came out of the jungle before the walledvillage. As he stood in the shadow of a great tree, reconnoitering, he saw aman, ragged and disheveled, emerge from the jungle almost at his elbow.Instantly he recognized the newcomer as he who had been a guest of his masterbefore the latter had departed for Opar.

The black was upon the point of hailing the Belgian when something stayed him.He saw the white man walking confidently across the clearing toward the villagegate. No sane man thus approached a village in this part of Africa unless hewas sure of a friendly welcome. Mugambi waited. His suspicions were aroused.

He heard Werper halloo; he saw the gates swing open, and he witnessed thesurprised and friendly welcome that was accorded the erstwhile guest of Lordand Lady Greystoke. A light broke upon the understanding of Mugambi. This whiteman had been a traitor and a spy. It was to him they owed the raid during theabsence of the Great Bwana. To his hate for the Arabs, Mugambi added a stillgreater hate for the white spy.

Within the village Werper passed hurriedly toward the silken tent of AchmetZek. The Arab arose as his lieutenant entered. His face showed surprise as heviewed the tattered apparel of the Belgian.

“What has happened?” he asked.

Werper narrated all, save the little matter of the pouch of gems which were nowtightly strapped about his waist, beneath his clothing. The Arab’s eyesnarrowed greedily as his henchman described the treasure that the Waziri hadburied beside the ruins of the Greystoke bungalow.

“It will be a simple matter now to return and get it,” said AchmetZek. “First we will await the coming of the rash Waziri, and after wehave slain them we may take our time to the treasure—none will disturb itwhere it lies, for we shall leave none alive who knows of its existence.

“And the woman?” asked Werper.

“I shall sell her in the north,” replied the raider. “It isthe only way, now. She should bring a good price.”

The Belgian nodded. He was thinking rapidly. If he could persuade Achmet Zek tosend him in command of the party which took Lady Greystoke north it would givehim the opportunity he craved to make his escape from his chief. He wouldforego a share of the gold, if he could but get away unscathed with the jewels.

He knew Achmet Zek well enough by this time to know that no member of his bandever was voluntarily released from the service of Achmet Zek. Most of the fewwho deserted were recaptured. More than once had Werper listened to theiragonized screams as they were tortured before being put to death. The Belgianhad no wish to take the slightest chance of recapture.

“Who will go north with the woman,” he asked, “while we arereturning for the gold that the Waziri buried by the bungalow of theEnglishman?”

Achmet Zek thought for a moment. The buried gold was of much greater value thanthe price the woman would bring. It was necessary to rid himself of her asquickly as possible and it was also well to obtain the gold with the leastpossible delay. Of all his followers, the Belgian was the most logicallieutenant to intrust with the command of one of the parties. An Arab, asfamiliar with the trails and tribes as Achmet Zek himself, might collect thewoman’s price and make good his escape into the far north. Werper, on theother hand, could scarce make his escape alone through a country hostile toEuropeans while the men he would send with the Belgian could be carefullyselected with a view to preventing Werper from persuading any considerableportion of his command to accompany him should he contemplate desertion of hischief.

At last the Arab spoke: “It is not necessary that we both return for thegold. You shall go north with the woman, carrying a letter to a friend of minewho is always in touch with the best markets for such merchandise, while Ireturn for the gold. We can meet again here when our business isconcluded.”

Werper could scarce disguise the joy with which he received this welcomedecision. And that he did entirely disguise it from the keen and suspiciouseyes of Achmet Zek is open to question. However, the decision reached, the Araband his lieutenant discussed the details of their forthcoming ventures for ashort time further, when Werper made his excuses and returned to his own tentfor the comforts and luxury of a long-desired bath and shave.

Having bathed, the Belgian tied a small hand mirror to a cord sewn to the rearwall of his tent, placed a rude chair beside an equally rude table that stoodbeside the glass, and proceeded to remove the rough stubble from his face.

In the catalog of masculine pleasures there is scarce one which imparts afeeling of greater comfort and refreshment than follows a clean shave, and now,with weariness temporarily banished, Albert Werper sprawled in his ricketychair to enjoy a final cigaret before retiring. His thumbs, tucked in his beltin lazy support of the weight of his arms, touched the belt which held thejewel pouch about his waist. He tingled with excitement as he let his minddwell upon the value of the treasure, which, unknown to all save himself, layhidden beneath his clothing.

What would Achmet Zek say, if he knew? Werper grinned. How the oldrascal’s eyes would pop could he but have a glimpse of thosescintillating beauties! Werper had never yet had an opportunity to feast hiseyes for any great length of time upon them. He had not even countedthem—only roughly had he guessed at their value.

He unfastened the belt and drew the pouch from its hiding place. He was alone.The balance of the camp, save the sentries, had retired—none would enterthe Belgian’s tent. He fingered the pouch, feeling out the shapes andsizes of the precious, little nodules within. He hefted the bag, first in onepalm, then in the other, and at last he wheeled his chair slowly around beforethe table, and in the rays of his small lamp let the glittering gems roll outupon the rough wood.

The refulgent rays transformed the interior of the soiled and squalid canvas tothe splendor of a palace in the eyes of the dreaming man. He saw the gildedhalls of pleasure that would open their portals to the possessor of the wealthwhich lay scattered upon this stained and dented table top. He dreamed of joysand luxuries and power which always had been beyond his grasp, and as hedreamed his gaze lifted from the table, as the gaze of a dreamer will, to a fardistant goal above the mean horizon of terrestrial commonplaceness.

Unseeing, his eyes rested upon the shaving mirror which still hung upon thetent wall above the table; but his sight was focused far beyond. And then areflection moved within the polished surface of the tiny glass, the man’seyes shot back out of space to the mirror’s face, and in it he sawreflected the grim visage of Achmet Zek, framed in the flaps of the tentdoorway behind him.

Werper stifled a gasp of dismay. With rare self-possession he let his gazedrop, without appearing to have halted upon the mirror until it rested againupon the gems. Without haste, he replaced them in the pouch, tucked the latterinto his shirt, selected a cigaret from his case, lighted it and rose. Yawning,and stretching his arms above his head, he turned slowly toward the oppositeend of the tent. The face of Achmet Zek had disappeared from the opening.

To say that Albert Werper was terrified would be putting it mildly. He realizedthat he not only had sacrificed his treasure; but his life as well. Achmet Zekwould never permit the wealth that he had discovered to slip through hisfingers, nor would he forgive the duplicity of a lieutenant who had gainedpossession of such a treasure without offering to share it with his chief.

Slowly the Belgian prepared for bed. If he were being watched, he could notknow; but if so the watcher saw no indication of the nervous excitement whichthe European strove to conceal. When ready for his blankets, the man crossed tothe little table and extinguished the light.

It was two hours later that the flaps at the front of the tent separatedsilently and gave entrance to a dark-robed figure, which passed noiselesslyfrom the darkness without to the darkness within. Cautiously the prowlercrossed the interior. In one hand was a long knife. He came at last to the pileof blankets spread upon several rugs close to one of the tent walls.

Lightly, his fingers sought and found the bulk beneath the blankets—thebulk that should be Albert Werper. They traced out the figure of a man, andthen an arm shot upward, poised for an instant and descended. Again and againit rose and fell, and each time the long blade of the knife buried itself inthe thing beneath the blankets. But there was an initial lifelessness in thesilent bulk that gave the assassin momentary wonder. Feverishly he threw backthe coverlets, and searched with nervous hands for the pouch of jewels which heexpected to find concealed upon his victim’s body.

An instant later he rose with a curse upon his lips. It was Achmet Zek, and hecursed because he had discovered beneath the blankets of his lieutenant only apile of discarded clothing arranged in the form and semblance of a sleepingman—Albert Werper had fled.

Out into the village ran the chief, calling in angry tones to the sleepy Arabs,who tumbled from their tents in answer to his voice. But though they searchedthe village again and again they found no trace of the Belgian. Foaming withanger, Achmet Zek called his followers to horse, and though the night waspitchy black they set out to scour the adjoining forest for their quarry.

As they galloped from the open gates, Mugambi, hiding in a nearby bush,slipped, unseen, within the palisade. A score of blacks crowded about theentrance to watch the searchers depart, and as the last of them passed out ofthe village the blacks seized the portals and drew them to, and Mugambi lent ahand in the work as though the best of his life had been spent among theraiders.

In the darkness he passed, unchallenged, as one of their number, and as theyreturned from the gates to their respective tents and huts, Mugambi melted intothe shadows and disappeared.

For an hour he crept about in the rear of the various huts and tents in aneffort to locate that in which his master’s mate was imprisoned. Onethere was which he was reasonably assured contained her, for it was the onlyhut before the door of which a sentry had been posted. Mugambi was crouching inthe shadow of this structure, just around the corner from the unsuspectingguard, when another approached to relieve his comrade.

“The prisoner is safe within?” asked the newcomer.

“She is,” replied the other, “for none has passed thisdoorway since I came.”

The new sentry squatted beside the door, while he whom he had relieved made hisway to his own hut. Mugambi slunk closer to the corner of the building. In onepowerful hand he gripped a heavy knob-stick. No sign of elation disturbed hisphlegmatic calm, yet inwardly he was aroused to joy by the proof he had justheard that “Lady” really was within.

The sentry’s back was toward the corner of the hut which hid the giantblack. The fellow did not see the huge form which silently loomed behind him.The knob-stick swung upward in a curve, and downward again. There was the soundof a dull thud, the crushing of heavy bone, and the sentry slumped into asilent, inanimate lump of clay.

A moment later Mugambi was searching the interior of the hut. At first slowly,calling, “Lady!” in a low whisper, and finally with almost frantichaste, until the truth presently dawned upon him—the hut was empty!

CHAPTER XI.
Tarzan Becomes a Beast Again

For a moment Werper had stood above the sleeping ape-man, his murderous knifepoised for the fatal thrust; but fear stayed his hand. What if the first blowshould fail to drive the point to his victim’s heart? Werper shuddered incontemplation of the disastrous consequences to himself. Awakened, and evenwith a few moments of life remaining, the giant could literally tear hisassailant to pieces should he choose, and the Belgian had no doubt but thatTarzan would so choose.

Again came the soft sound of padded footsteps in the reeds—closer thistime. Werper abandoned his design. Before him stretched the wide plain andescape. The jewels were in his possession. To remain longer was to risk deathat the hands of Tarzan, or the jaws of the hunter creeping ever nearer.Turning, he slunk away through the night, toward the distant forest.

Tarzan slept on. Where were those uncanny, guardian powers that had formerlyrendered him immune from the dangers of surprise? Could this dull sleeper bethe alert, sensitive Tarzan of old?

Perhaps the blow upon his head had numbed his senses, temporarily—who maysay? Closer crept the stealthy creature through the reeds. The rustling curtainof vegetation parted a few paces from where the sleeper lay, and the massivehead of a lion appeared. The beast surveyed the ape-man intently for a moment,then he crouched, his hind feet drawn well beneath him, his tail lashing fromside to side.

It was the beating of the beast’s tail against the reeds which awakenedTarzan. Jungle folk do not awaken slowly—instantly, full consciousnessand full command of their every faculty returns to them from the depth ofprofound slumber.

Even as Tarzan opened his eyes he was upon his feet, his spear grasped firmlyin his hand and ready for attack. Again was he Tarzan of the Apes, sentient,vigilant, ready.

No two lions have identical characteristics, nor does the same lion invariablyact similarly under like circumstances. Whether it was surprise, fear orcaution which prompted the lion crouching ready to spring upon the man, isimmaterial—the fact remains that he did not carry out his originaldesign, he did not spring at the man at all, but, instead, wheeled and sprangback into the reeds as Tarzan arose and confronted him.

The ape-man shrugged his broad shoulders and looked about for his companion.Werper was nowhere to be seen. At first Tarzan suspected that the man had beenseized and dragged off by another lion, but upon examination of the ground hesoon discovered that the Belgian had gone away alone out into the plain.

For a moment he was puzzled; but presently came to the conclusion that Werperhad been frightened by the approach of the lion, and had sneaked off in terror.A sneer touched Tarzan’s lips as he pondered the man’sact—the desertion of a comrade in time of danger, and without warning.Well, if that was the sort of creature Werper was, Tarzan wished nothing moreof him. He had gone, and for all the ape-man cared, he might remainaway—Tarzan would not search for him.

A hundred yards from where he stood grew a large tree, alone upon the edge ofthe reedy jungle. Tarzan made his way to it, clambered into it, and finding acomfortable crotch among its branches, reposed himself for uninterrupted sleepuntil morning.

And when morning came Tarzan slept on long after the sun had risen. His mind,reverted to the primitive, was untroubled by any more serious obligations thanthose of providing sustenance, and safeguarding his life. Therefore, there wasnothing to awaken for until danger threatened, or the pangs of hunger assailed.It was the latter which eventually aroused him.

Opening his eyes, he stretched his giant thews, yawned, rose and gazed abouthim through the leafy foliage of his retreat. Across the wasted meadowlands andfields of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, Tarzan of the Apes looked, as astranger, upon the moving figures of Basuli and his braves as they preparedtheir morning meal and made ready to set out upon the expedition which Basulihad planned after discovering the havoc and disaster which had befallen theestate of his dead master.

The ape-man eyed the blacks with curiosity. In the back of his brain loitered afleeting sense of familiarity with all that he saw, yet he could not connectany of the various forms of life, animate and inanimate, which had fallenwithin the range of his vision since he had emerged from the darkness of thepits of Opar, with any particular event of the past.

Hazily he recalled a grim and hideous form, hairy, ferocious. A vaguetenderness dominated his savage sentiments as this phantom memory struggled forrecognition. His mind had reverted to his childhood days—it was thefigure of the giant she-ape, Kala, that he saw; but only half recognized. Hesaw, too, other grotesque, manlike forms. They were of Terkoz, Tublat, Kerchak,and a smaller, less ferocious figure, that was Neeta, the little playmate ofhis boyhood.

Slowly, very slowly, as these visions of the past animated his lethargicmemory, he came to recognize them. They took definite shape and form, adjustingthemselves nicely to the various incidents of his life with which they had beenintimately connected. His boyhood among the apes spread itself in a slowpanorama before him, and as it unfolded it induced within him a mighty longingfor the companionship of the shaggy, low-browed brutes of his past.

He watched the blacks scatter their cook fire and depart; but though the faceof each of them had but recently been as familiar to him as his own, theyawakened within him no recollections whatsoever.

When they had gone, he descended from the tree and sought food. Out upon theplain grazed numerous herds of wild ruminants. Toward a sleek, fat bunch ofzebra he wormed his stealthy way. No intricate process of reasoning caused himto circle widely until he was down wind from his prey—he actedinstinctively. He took advantage of every form of cover as he crawled upon allfours and often flat upon his stomach toward them.

A plump young mare and a fat stallion grazed nearest to him as he neared theherd. Again it was instinct which selected the former for his meat. A low bushgrew but a few yards from the unsuspecting two. The ape-man reached itsshelter. He gathered his spear firmly in his grasp. Cautiously he drew his feetbeneath him. In a single swift move he rose and cast his heavy weapon at themare’s side. Nor did he wait to note the effect of his assault, butleaped cat-like after his spear, his hunting knife in his hand.

For an instant the two animals stood motionless. The tearing of the cruel barbinto her side brought a sudden scream of pain and fright from the mare, andthen they both wheeled and broke for safety; but Tarzan of the Apes, for adistance of a few yards, could equal the speed of even these, and the firststride of the mare found her overhauled, with a savage beast at her shoulder.She turned, biting and kicking at her foe. Her mate hesitated for an instant,as though about to rush to her assistance; but a backward glance revealed tohim the flying heels of the balance of the herd, and with a snort and a shakeof his head he wheeled and dashed away.

Clinging with one hand to the short mane of his quarry, Tarzan struck again andagain with his knife at the unprotected heart. The result had, from the first,been inevitable. The mare fought bravely, but hopelessly, and presently sank tothe earth, her heart pierced. The ape-man placed a foot upon her carcass andraised his voice in the victory call of the Mangani. In the distance, Basulihalted as the faint notes of the hideous scream broke upon his ears.

“The great apes,” he said to his companion. “It has been longsince I have heard them in the country of the Waziri. What could have broughtthem back?”

Tarzan grasped his kill and dragged it to the partial seclusion of the bushwhich had hidden his own near approach, and there he squatted upon it, cut ahuge hunk of flesh from the loin and proceeded to satisfy his hunger with thewarm and dripping meat.

Attracted by the shrill screams of the mare, a pair of hyenas slunk presentlyinto view. They trotted to a point a few yards from the gorging ape-man, andhalted. Tarzan looked up, bared his fighting fangs and growled. The hyenasreturned the compliment, and withdrew a couple of paces. They made no move toattack; but continued to sit at a respectful distance until Tarzan hadconcluded his meal. After the ape-man had cut a few strips from the carcass tocarry with him, he walked slowly off in the direction of the river to quenchhis thirst. His way lay directly toward the hyenas, nor did he alter his coursebecause of them.

With all the lordly majesty of Numa, the lion, he strode straight toward thegrowling beasts. For a moment they held their ground, bristling and defiant;but only for a moment, and then slunk away to one side while the indifferentape-man passed them on his lordly way. A moment later they were tearing at theremains of the zebra.

Back to the reeds went Tarzan, and through them toward the river. A herd ofbuffalo, startled by his approach, rose ready to charge or to fly. A great bullpawed the ground and bellowed as his bloodshot eyes discovered the intruder;but the ape-man passed across their front as though ignorant of theirexistence. The bull’s bellowing lessened to a low rumbling, he turned andscraped a horde of flies from his side with his muzzle, cast a final glance atthe ape-man and resumed his feeding. His numerous family either followed hisexample or stood gazing after Tarzan in mild-eyed curiosity, until the oppositereeds swallowed him from view.

At the river, Tarzan drank his fill and bathed. During the heat of the day helay up under the shade of a tree near the ruins of his burned barns. His eyeswandered out across the plain toward the forest, and a longing for thepleasures of its mysterious depths possessed his thoughts for a considerabletime. With the next sun he would cross the open and enter the forest! There wasno hurry—there lay before him an endless vista of tomorrows with naughtto fill them but the satisfying of the appetites and caprices of the moment.

The ape-man’s mind was untroubled by regret for the past, or aspirationfor the future. He could lie at full length along a swaying branch, stretchinghis giant limbs, and luxuriating in the blessed peace of utter thoughtlessness,without an apprehension or a worry to sap his nervous energy and rob him of hispeace of mind. Recalling only dimly any other existence, the ape-man was happy.Lord Greystoke had ceased to exist.

For several hours Tarzan lolled upon his swaying, leafy couch until once againhunger and thirst suggested an excursion. Stretching lazily he dropped to theground and moved slowly toward the river. The game trail down which he walkedhad become by ages of use a deep, narrow trench, its walls topped on eitherside by impenetrable thicket and dense-growing trees closely interwoven withthick-stemmed creepers and lesser vines inextricably matted into two solidramparts of vegetation. Tarzan had almost reached the point where the traildebouched upon the open river bottom when he saw a family of lions approachingalong the path from the direction of the river. The ape-man countedseven—a male and two lionesses, full grown, and four young lions as largeand quite as formidable as their parents. Tarzan halted, growling, and thelions paused, the great male in the lead baring his fangs and rumbling forth awarning roar. In his hand the ape-man held his heavy spear; but he had nointention of pitting his puny weapon against seven lions; yet he stood theregrowling and roaring and the lions did likewise. It was purely an exhibition ofjungle bluff. Each was trying to frighten off the other. Neither wished to turnback and give way, nor did either at first desire to precipitate an encounter.The lions were fed sufficiently so as not to be goaded by pangs of hunger andas for Tarzan he seldom ate the meat of the carnivores; but a point of ethicswas at stake and neither side wished to back down. So they stood there facingone another, making all sorts of hideous noises the while they hurled jungleinvective back and forth. How long this bloodless duel would have persisted itis difficult to say, though eventually Tarzan would have been forced to yieldto superior numbers.

There came, however, an interruption which put an end to the deadlock and itcame from Tarzan’s rear. He and the lions had been making so much noisethat neither could hear anything above their concerted bedlam, and so it wasthat Tarzan did not hear the great bulk bearing down upon him from behind untilan instant before it was upon him, and then he turned to see Buto, therhinoceros, his little, pig eyes blazing, charging madly toward him and alreadyso close that escape seemed impossible; yet so perfectly were mind and musclescoordinated in this unspoiled, primitive man that almost simultaneously withthe sense perception of the threatened danger he wheeled and hurled his spearat Buto’s chest. It was a heavy spear shod with iron, and behind it werethe giant muscles of the ape-man, while coming to meet it was the enormousweight of Buto and the momentum of his rapid rush. All that happened in theinstant that Tarzan turned to meet the charge of the irascible rhinoceros mighttake long to tell, and yet would have taxed the swiftest lens to record. As hisspear left his hand the ape-man was looking down upon the mighty horn loweredto toss him, so close was Buto to him. The spear entered the rhinoceros’neck at its junction with the left shoulder and passed almost entirely throughthe beast’s body, and at the instant that he launched it, Tarzan leapedstraight into the air alighting upon Buto’s back but escaping the mightyhorn.

Then Buto espied the lions and bore madly down upon them while Tarzan of theApes leaped nimbly into the tangled creepers at one side of the trail. Thefirst lion met Buto’s charge and was tossed high over the back of themaddened brute, torn and dying, and then the six remaining lions were upon therhinoceros, rending and tearing the while they were being gored or trampled.From the safety of his perch Tarzan watched the royal battle with the keenestinterest, for the more intelligent of the jungle folk are interested in suchencounters. They are to them what the racetrack and the prize ring, the theaterand the movies are to us. They see them often; but always they enjoy them forno two are precisely alike.

For a time it seemed to Tarzan that Buto, the rhinoceros, would prove victor inthe gory battle. Already had he accounted for four of the seven lions and badlywounded the three remaining when in a momentary lull in the encounter he sanklimply to his knees and rolled over upon his side. Tarzan’s spear haddone its work. It was the man-made weapon which killed the great beast thatmight easily have survived the assault of seven mighty lions, forTarzan’s spear had pierced the great lungs, and Buto, with victory almostin sight, succumbed to internal hemorrhage.

Then Tarzan came down from his sanctuary and as the wounded lions, growling,dragged themselves away, the ape-man cut his spear from the body of Buto,hacked off a steak and vanished into the jungle. The episode was over. It hadbeen all in the day’s work—something which you and I might talkabout for a lifetime Tarzan dismissed from his mind the moment that the scenepassed from his sight.

CHAPTER XII.
La Seeks Vengeance

Swinging back through the jungle in a wide circle the ape-man came to the riverat another point, drank and took to the trees again and while he hunted, alloblivious of his past and careless of his future, there came through the darkjungles and the open, parklike places and across the wide meadows, where grazedthe countless herbivora of the mysterious continent, a weird and terriblecaravan in search of him. There were fifty frightful men with hairy bodies andgnarled and crooked legs. They were armed with knives and great bludgeons andat their head marched an almost naked woman, beautiful beyond compare. It wasLa of Opar, High Priestess of the Flaming God, and fifty of her horrid priestssearching for the purloiner of the sacred sacrificial knife.

Never before had La passed beyond the crumbling outer walls of Opar; but neverbefore had need been so insistent. The sacred knife was gone! Handed downthrough countless ages it had come to her as a heritage and an insignia of herreligious office and regal authority from some long-dead progenitor of lost andforgotten Atlantis. The loss of the crown jewels or the Great Seal of Englandcould have brought no greater consternation to a British king than did thepilfering of the sacred knife bring to La, the Oparian, Queen and HighPriestess of the degraded remnants of the oldest civilization upon earth. WhenAtlantis, with all her mighty cities and her cultivated fields and her greatcommerce and culture and riches sank into the sea long ages since, she tookwith her all but a handful of her colonists working the vast gold mines ofCentral Africa. From these and their degraded slaves and a later intermixtureof the blood of the anthropoids sprung the gnarled men of Opar; but by somequeer freak of fate, aided by natural selection, the old Atlantean strain hadremained pure and undegraded in the females descended from a single princess ofthe royal house of Atlantis who had been in Opar at the time of the greatcatastrophe. Such was La.

Burning with white-hot anger was the High Priestess, her heart a seething,molten mass of hatred for Tarzan of the Apes. The zeal of the religious fanaticwhose altar has been desecrated was triply enhanced by the rage of a womanscorned. Twice had she thrown her heart at the feet of the godlike ape-man andtwice had she been repulsed. La knew that she was beautiful—and she wasbeautiful, not by the standards of prehistoric Atlantis alone, but by those ofmodern times was La physically a creature of perfection. Before Tarzan camethat first time to Opar, La had never seen a human male other than thegrotesque and knotted men of her clan. With one of these she must mate sooneror later that the direct line of high priestesses might not be broken, unlessFate should bring other men to Opar. Before Tarzan came upon his first visit,La had had no thought that such men as he existed, for she knew only herhideous little priests and the bulls of the tribe of great anthropoids that haddwelt from time immemorial in and about Opar, until they had come to be lookedupon almost as equals by the Oparians. Among the legends of Opar were tales ofgodlike men of the olden time and of black men who had come more recently; butthese latter had been enemies who killed and robbed. And, too, these legendsalways held forth the hope that some day that nameless continent from whichtheir race had sprung, would rise once more out of the sea and with slaves atthe long sweeps would send her carven, gold-picked galleys forth to succor thelong-exiled colonists.

The coming of Tarzan had aroused within La’s breast the wild hope that atlast the fulfillment of this ancient prophecy was at hand; but more stronglystill had it aroused the hot fires of love in a heart that never otherwisewould have known the meaning of that all-consuming passion, for such a wondrouscreature as La could never have felt love for any of the repulsive priests ofOpar. Custom, duty and religious zeal might have commanded the union; but therecould have been no love on La’s part. She had grown to young womanhood acold and heartless creature, daughter of a thousand other cold, heartless,beautiful women who had never known love. And so when love came to her itliberated all the pent passions of a thousand generations, transforming La intoa pulsing, throbbing volcano of desire, and with desire thwarted this greatforce of love and gentleness and sacrifice was transmuted by its own fires intoone of hatred and revenge.

It was in a state of mind superinduced by these conditions that La led forthher jabbering company to retrieve the sacred emblem of her high office andwreak vengeance upon the author of her wrongs. To Werper she gave littlethought. The fact that the knife had been in his hand when it departed fromOpar brought down no thoughts of vengeance upon his head. Of course, he shouldbe slain when captured; but his death would give La no pleasure—shelooked for that in the contemplated death agonies of Tarzan. He should betortured. His should be a slow and frightful death. His punishment should beadequate to the immensity of his crime. He had wrested the sacred knife fromLa; he had lain sacrilegious hands upon the High Priestess of the Flaming God;he had desecrated the altar and the temple. For these things he should die; buthe had scorned the love of La, the woman, and for this he should die horriblywith great anguish.

The march of La and her priests was not without its adventures. Unused werethese to the ways of the jungle, since seldom did any venture forth from behindOpar’s crumbling walls, yet their very numbers protected them and so theycame without fatalities far along the trail of Tarzan and Werper. Three greatapes accompanied them and to these was delegated the business of tracking thequarry, a feat beyond the senses of the Oparians. La commanded. She arrangedthe order of march, she selected the camps, she set the hour for halting andthe hour for resuming and though she was inexperienced in such matters, hernative intelligence was so far above that of the men or the apes that she didbetter than they could have done. She was a hard taskmaster, too, for shelooked down with loathing and contempt upon the misshapen creatures amongstwhich cruel Fate had thrown her and to some extent vented upon them herdissatisfaction and her thwarted love. She made them build her a strongprotection and shelter each night and keep a great fire burning before it fromdusk to dawn. When she tired of walking they were forced to carry her upon animprovised litter, nor did one dare to question her authority or her right tosuch services. In fact they did not question either. To them she was a goddessand each loved her and each hoped that he would be chosen as her mate, so theyslaved for her and bore the stinging lash of her displeasure and the habituallyhaughty disdain of her manner without a murmur.

For many days they marched, the apes following the trail easily and going alittle distance ahead of the body of the caravan that they might warn theothers of impending danger. It was during a noonday halt while all were lyingresting after a tiresome march that one of the apes rose suddenly and sniffedthe breeze. In a low guttural he cautioned the others to silence and a momentlater was swinging quietly up wind into the jungle. La and the priests gatheredsilently together, the hideous little men fingering their knives and bludgeons,and awaited the return of the shaggy anthropoid.

Nor had they long to wait before they saw him emerge from a leafy thicket andapproach them. Straight to La he came and in the language of the great apeswhich was also the language of decadent Opar he addressed her.

“The great Tarmangani lies asleep there,” he said, pointing in thedirection from which he had just come. “Come and we can kill him.”

“Do not kill him,” commanded La in cold tones. “Bring thegreat Tarmangani to me alive and unhurt. The vengeance is La’s. Go; butmake no sound!” and she waved her hands to include all her followers.

Cautiously the weird party crept through the jungle in the wake of the greatape until at last he halted them with a raised hand and pointed upward and alittle ahead. There they saw the giant form of the ape-man stretched along alow bough and even in sleep one hand grasped a stout limb and one strong, brownleg reached out and overlapped another. At ease lay Tarzan of the Apes,sleeping heavily upon a full stomach and dreaming of Numa, the lion, and Horta,the boar, and other creatures of the jungle. No intimation of danger assailedthe dormant faculties of the ape-man—he saw no crouching hairy figuresupon the ground beneath him nor the three apes that swung quietly into the treebeside him.

The first intimation of danger that came to Tarzan was the impact of threebodies as the three apes leaped upon him and hurled him to the ground, where healighted half stunned beneath their combined weight and was immediately setupon by the fifty hairy men or as many of them as could swarm upon his person.Instantly the ape-man became the center of a whirling, striking, bitingmaelstrom of horror. He fought nobly but the odds against him were too great.Slowly they overcame him though there was scarce one of them that did not feelthe weight of his mighty fist or the rending of his fangs.

CHAPTER XIII.
Condemned To Torture and Death

La had followed her company and when she saw them clawing and biting at Tarzan,she raised her voice and cautioned them not to kill him. She saw that he wasweakening and that soon the greater numbers would prevail over him, nor had shelong to wait before the mighty jungle creature lay helpless and bound at herfeet.

“Bring him to the place at which we stopped,” she commanded andthey carried Tarzan back to the little clearing and threw him down beneath atree.

“Build me a shelter!” ordered La. “We shall stop here tonightand tomorrow in the face of the Flaming God, La will offer up the heart of thisdefiler of the temple. Where is the sacred knife? Who took it from him?”

But no one had seen it and each was positive in his assurance that thesacrificial weapon had not been upon Tarzan’s person when they capturedhim. The ape-man looked upon the menacing creatures which surrounded him andsnarled his defiance. He looked upon La and smiled. In the face of death he wasunafraid.

“Where is the knife?” La asked him.

“I do not know,” replied Tarzan. “The man took it with himwhen he slipped away during the night. Since you are so desirous for its returnI would look for him and get it back for you, did you not hold me prisoner; butnow that I am to die I cannot get it back. Of what good was your knife, anyway?You can make another. Did you follow us all this way for nothing more than aknife? Let me go and find him and I will bring it back to you.”

La laughed a bitter laugh, for in her heart she knew that Tarzan’s sinwas greater than the purloining of the sacrificial knife of Opar; yet as shelooked at him lying bound and helpless before her, tears rose to her eyes sothat she had to turn away to hide them; but she remained inflexible in herdetermination to make him pay in frightful suffering and in eventual death fordaring to spurn the love of La.

When the shelter was completed La had Tarzan transferred to it. “Allnight I shall torture him,” she muttered to her priests, “and atthe first streak of dawn you may prepare the flaming altar upon which his heartshall be offered up to the Flaming God. Gather wood well filled with pitch, layit in the form and size of the altar at Opar in the center of the clearing thatthe Flaming God may look down upon our handiwork and be pleased.”

During the balance of the day the priests of Opar were busy erecting an altarin the center of the clearing, and while they worked they chanted weird hymnsin the ancient tongue of that lost continent that lies at the bottom of theAtlantic. They knew not the meanings of the words they mouthed; they butrepeated the ritual that had been handed down from preceptor to neophyte sincethat long-gone day when the ancestors of the Piltdown man still swung by theirtails in the humid jungles that are England now.

And in the shelter of the hut, La paced to and fro beside the stoic ape-man.Resigned to his fate was Tarzan. No hope of succor gleamed through the deadblack of the death sentence hanging over him. He knew that his giant musclescould not part the many strands that bound his wrists and ankles, for he hadstrained often, but ineffectually for release. He had no hope of outside helpand only enemies surrounded him within the camp, and yet he smiled at La as shepaced nervously back and forth the length of the shelter.

And La? She fingered her knife and looked down upon her captive. She glared andmuttered but she did not strike. “Tonight!” she thought.“Tonight, when it is dark I will torture him.” She looked upon hisperfect, godlike figure and upon his handsome, smiling face and then shesteeled her heart again by thoughts of her love spurned; by religious thoughtsthat damned the infidel who had desecrated the holy of holies; who had takenfrom the blood-stained altar of Opar the offering to the Flaming God—andnot once but thrice. Three times had Tarzan cheated the god of her fathers. Atthe thought La paused and knelt at his side. In her hand was a sharp knife. Sheplaced its point against the ape-man’s side and pressed upon the hilt;but Tarzan only smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

How beautiful he was! La bent low over him, looking into his eyes. How perfectwas his figure. She compared it with those of the knurled and knotted men fromwhom she must choose a mate, and La shuddered at the thought. Dusk came andafter dusk came night. A great fire blazed within the little thorn boma aboutthe camp. The flames played upon the new altar erected in the center of theclearing, arousing in the mind of the High Priestess of the Flaming God apicture of the event of the coming dawn. She saw this giant and perfect formwrithing amid the flames of the burning pyre. She saw those smiling lips,burned and blackened, falling away from the strong, white teeth. She saw theshock of black hair tousled upon Tarzan’s well-shaped head disappear in aspurt of flame. She saw these and many other frightful pictures as she stoodwith closed eyes and clenched fists above the object of her hate—ah! wasit hate that La of Opar felt?

The darkness of the jungle night had settled down upon the camp, relieved onlyby the fitful flarings of the fire that was kept up to warn off the man-eaters.Tarzan lay quietly in his bonds. He suffered from thirst and from the cuttingof the tight strands about his wrists and ankles; but he made no complaint. Ajungle beast was Tarzan with the stoicism of the beast and the intelligence ofman. He knew that his doom was sealed—that no supplications would availto temper the severity of his end and so he wasted no breath in pleadings; butwaited patiently in the firm conviction that his sufferings could not endureforever.

In the darkness La stooped above him. In her hand was a sharp knife and in hermind the determination to initiate his torture without further delay. The knifewas pressed against his side and La’s face was close to his when a suddenburst of flame from new branches thrown upon the fire without, lighted up theinterior of the shelter. Close beneath her lips La saw the perfect features ofthe forest god and into her woman’s heart welled all the great love shehad felt for Tarzan since first she had seen him, and all the accumulatedpassion of the years that she had dreamed of him.

Dagger in hand, La, the High Priestess, towered above the helpless creaturethat had dared to violate the sanctuary of her deity. There should be notorture—there should be instant death. No longer should the defiler ofthe temple pollute the sight of the lord god almighty. A single stroke of theheavy blade and then the corpse to the flaming pyre without. The knife armstiffened ready for the downward plunge, and then La, the woman, collapsedweakly upon the body of the man she loved.

She ran her hands in mute caress over his naked flesh; she covered hisforehead, his eyes, his lips with hot kisses; she covered him with her body asthough to protect him from the hideous fate she had ordained for him, and intrembling, piteous tones she begged him for his love. For hours the frenzy ofher passion possessed the burning hand-maiden of the Flaming God, until at lastsleep overpowered her and she lapsed into unconsciousness beside the man shehad sworn to torture and to slay. And Tarzan, untroubled by thoughts of thefuture, slept peacefully in La’s embrace.

At the first hint of dawn the chanting of the priests of Opar brought Tarzan towakefulness. Initiated in low and subdued tones, the sound soon rose in volumeto the open diapason of barbaric blood lust. La stirred. Her perfect armpressed Tarzan closer to her—a smile parted her lips and then she awoke,and slowly the smile faded and her eyes went wide in horror as the significanceof the death chant impinged upon her understanding.

“Love me, Tarzan!” she cried. “Love me, and you shall besaved.”

Tarzan’s bonds hurt him. He was suffering the tortures of long-restrictedcirculation. With an angry growl he rolled over with his back toward La. Thatwas her answer! The High Priestess leaped to her feet. A hot flush of shamemantled her cheek and then she went dead white and stepped to theshelter’s entrance.

“Come, Priests of the Flaming God!” she cried, “and makeready the sacrifice.”

The warped things advanced and entered the shelter. They laid hands upon Tarzanand bore him forth, and as they chanted they kept time with their crookedbodies, swaying to and fro to the rhythm of their song of blood and death.Behind them came La, swaying too; but not in unison with the chanted cadence.White and drawn was the face of the High Priestess—white and drawn withunrequited love and hideous terror of the moments to come. Yet stern in herresolve was La. The infidel should die! The scorner of her love should pay theprice upon the fiery altar. She saw them lay the perfect body there upon therough branches. She saw the High Priest, he to whom custom would uniteher—bent, crooked, gnarled, stunted, hideous—advance with theflaming torch and stand awaiting her command to apply it to the faggotssurrounding the sacrificial pyre. His hairy, bestial face was distorted in ayellow-fanged grin of anticipatory enjoyment. His hands were cupped to receivethe life blood of the victim—the red nectar that at Opar would havefilled the golden sacrificial goblets.

La approached with upraised knife, her face turned toward the rising sun andupon her lips a prayer to the burning deity of her people. The High Priestlooked questioningly toward her—the brand was burning close to his handand the faggots lay temptingly near. Tarzan closed his eyes and awaited theend. He knew that he would suffer, for he recalled the faint memories of pastburns. He knew that he would suffer and die; but he did not flinch. Death is nogreat adventure to the jungle bred who walk hand-in-hand with the grim specterby day and lie down at his side by night through all the years of their lives.It is doubtful that the ape-man even speculated upon what came after death. Asa matter of fact as his end approached, his mind was occupied by thoughts ofthe pretty pebbles he had lost, yet his every faculty still was open to whatpassed around him.

He felt La lean over him and he opened his eyes. He saw her white, drawn faceand he saw tears blinding her eyes. “Tarzan, my Tarzan!” shemoaned, “tell me that you love me—that you will return to Opar withme—and you shall live. Even in the face of the anger of my people I willsave you. This last chance I give you. What is your answer?”

At the last moment the woman in La had triumphed over the High Priestess of acruel cult. She saw upon the altar the only creature that ever had aroused thefires of love within her virgin breast; she saw the beast-faced fanatic whowould one day be her mate, unless she found another less repulsive, standingwith the burning torch ready to ignite the pyre; yet with all her mad passionfor the ape-man she would give the word to apply the flame if Tarzan’sfinal answer was unsatisfactory. With heaving bosom she leaned close above him.“Yes or no?” she whispered.

Through the jungle, out of the distance, came faintly a sound that brought asudden light of hope to Tarzan’s eyes. He raised his voice in a weirdscream that sent La back from him a step or two. The impatient priest grumbledand switched the torch from one hand to the other at the same time holding itcloser to the tinder at the base of the pyre.

“Your answer!” insisted La. “What is your answer to the loveof La of Opar?”

Closer came the sound that had attracted Tarzan’s attention and now theothers heard it—the shrill trumpeting of an elephant. As La lookedwide-eyed into Tarzan’s face, there to read her fate for happiness orheartbreak, she saw an expression of concern shadow his features. Now, for thefirst time, she guessed the meaning of Tarzan’s shrill scream—hehad summoned Tantor, the elephant, to his rescue! La’s brows contractedin a savage scowl. “You refuse La!” she cried. “Then die! Thetorch!” she commanded, turning toward the priest.

Tarzan looked up into her face. “Tantor is coming,” he said.“I thought that he would rescue me; but I know now from his voice that hewill slay me and you and all that fall in his path, searching out with thecunning of Sheeta, the panther, those who would hide from him, for Tantor ismad with the madness of love.”

La knew only too well the insane ferocity of a bull elephant in must.She knew that Tarzan had not exaggerated. She knew that the devil in thecunning, cruel brain of the great beast might send it hither and thitherhunting through the forest for those who escaped its first charge, or the beastmight pass on without returning—no one might guess which.

“I cannot love you, La,” said Tarzan in a low voice. “I donot know why, for you are very beautiful. I could not go back and live inOpar—I who have the whole broad jungle for my range. No, I cannot loveyou but I cannot see you die beneath the goring tusks of mad Tantor. Cut mybonds before it is too late. Already he is almost upon us. Cut them and I mayyet save you.”

A little spiral of curling smoke rose from one corner of the pyre—theflames licked upward, crackling. La stood there like a beautiful statue ofdespair gazing at Tarzan and at the spreading flames. In a moment they wouldreach out and grasp him. From the tangled forest came the sound of crackinglimbs and crashing trunks—Tantor was coming down upon them, a hugeJuggernaut of the jungle. The priests were becoming uneasy. They castapprehensive glances in the direction of the approaching elephant and then backat La.

“Fly!” she commanded them and then she stooped and cut the bondssecuring her prisoner’s feet and hands. In an instant Tarzan was upon theground. The priests screamed out their rage and disappointment. He with thetorch took a menacing step toward La and the ape-man. “Traitor!” Heshrieked at the woman. “For this you too shall die!” Raising hisbludgeon he rushed upon the High Priestess; but Tarzan was there before her.Leaping in to close quarters the ape-man seized the upraised weapon andwrenched it from the hands of the frenzied fanatic and then the priest closedupon him with tooth and nail. Seizing the stocky, stunted body in his mightyhands Tarzan raised the creature high above his head, hurling him at hisfellows who were now gathered ready to bear down upon their erstwhile captive.La stood proudly with ready knife behind the ape-man. No faint sign of fearmarked her perfect brow—only haughty disdain for her priests andadmiration for the man she loved so hopelessly filled her thoughts.

Suddenly upon this scene burst the mad bull—a huge tusker, his littleeyes inflamed with insane rage. The priests stood for an instant paralyzed withterror; but Tarzan turned and gathering La in his arms raced for the nearesttree. Tantor bore down upon him trumpeting shrilly. La clung with both whitearms about the ape-man’s neck. She felt him leap into the air andmarveled at his strength and his ability as, burdened with her weight, he swungnimbly into the lower branches of a large tree and quickly bore her upwardbeyond reach of the sinuous trunk of the pachyderm.

Momentarily baffled here, the huge elephant wheeled and bore down upon thehapless priests who had now scattered, terror-stricken, in every direction. Thenearest he gored and threw high among the branches of a tree. One he seized inthe coils of his trunk and broke upon a huge bole, dropping the mangled pulp tocharge, trumpeting, after another. Two he trampled beneath his huge feet and bythen the others had disappeared into the jungle. Now Tantor turned hisattention once more to Tarzan for one of the symptoms of madness is a revulsionof affection—objects of sane love become the objects of insane hatred.Peculiar in the unwritten annals of the jungle was the proverbial love that hadexisted between the ape-man and the tribe of Tantor. No elephant in all thejungle would harm the Tarmangani—the white-ape; but with the madness ofmustupon him the great bull sought to destroy his long-timeplay-fellow.

Back to the tree where La and Tarzan perched came Tantor, the elephant. Hereared up with his forefeet against the bole and reached high toward them withhis long trunk; but Tarzan had foreseen this and clambered beyond thebull’s longest reach. Failure but tended to further enrage the madcreature. He bellowed and trumpeted and screamed until the earth shook to themighty volume of his noise. He put his head against the tree and pushed and thetree bent before his mighty strength; yet still it held.

The actions of Tarzan were peculiar in the extreme. Had Numa, or Sabor, orSheeta, or any other beast of the jungle been seeking to destroy him, theape-man would have danced about hurling missiles and invectives at hisassailant. He would have insulted and taunted them, reviling in the jungleBillingsgate he knew so well; but now he sat silent out of Tantor’s reachand upon his handsome face was an expression of deep sorrow and pity, for ofall the jungle folk Tarzan loved Tantor the best. Could he have slain him hewould not have thought of doing so. His one idea was to escape, for he knewthat with the passing of the mustTantor would be sane again and thatonce more he might stretch at full length upon that mighty back and makefoolish speech into those great, flapping ears.

Finding that the tree would not fall to his pushing, Tantor was but enraged themore. He looked up at the two perched high above him, his red-rimmed eyesblazing with insane hatred, and then he wound his trunk about the bole of thetree, spread his giant feet wide apart and tugged to uproot the jungle giant. Ahuge creature was Tantor, an enormous bull in the full prime of all hisstupendous strength. Mightily he strove until presently, to Tarzan’sconsternation, the great tree gave slowly at the roots. The ground rose inlittle mounds and ridges about the base of the bole, the tree tilted—inanother moment it would be uprooted and fall.

The ape-man whirled La to his back and just as the tree inclined slowly in itsfirst movement out of the perpendicular, before the sudden rush of its finalcollapse, he swung to the branches of a lesser neighbor. It was a long andperilous leap. La closed her eyes and shuddered; but when she opened them againshe found herself safe and Tarzan whirling onward through the forest. Behindthem the uprooted tree crashed heavily to the ground, carrying with it thelesser trees in its path and then Tantor, realizing that his prey had escapedhim, set up once more his hideous trumpeting and followed at a rapid chargeupon their trail.

CHAPTER XIV.
A Priestess But Yet a Woman

At first La closed her eyes and clung to Tarzan in terror, though she made nooutcry; but presently she gained sufficient courage to look about her, to lookdown at the ground beneath and even to keep her eyes open during the wide,perilous swings from tree to tree, and then there came over her a sense ofsafety because of her confidence in the perfect physical creature in whosestrength and nerve and agility her fate lay. Once she raised her eyes to theburning sun and murmured a prayer of thanks to her pagan god that she had notbeen permitted to destroy this godlike man, and her long lashes were wet withtears. A strange anomaly was La of Opar—a creature of circumstance tornby conflicting emotions. Now the cruel and bloodthirsty creature of a heartlessgod and again a melting woman filled with compassion and tenderness. Sometimesthe incarnation of jealousy and revenge and sometimes a sobbing maiden,generous and forgiving; at once a virgin and a wanton; but always—awoman. Such was La.

She pressed her cheek close to Tarzan’s shoulder. Slowly she turned herhead until her hot lips were pressed against his flesh. She loved him and wouldgladly have died for him; yet within an hour she had been ready to plunge aknife into his heart and might again within the coming hour.

A hapless priest seeking shelter in the jungle chanced to show himself toenraged Tantor. The great beast turned to one side, bore down upon the crooked,little man, snuffed him out and then, diverted from his course, blundered awaytoward the south. In a few minutes even the noise of his trumpeting was lost inthe distance.

Tarzan dropped to the ground and La slipped to her feet from his back.“Call your people together,” said Tarzan.

“They will kill me,” replied La.

“They will not kill you,” contradicted the ape-man. “No onewill kill you while Tarzan of the Apes is here. Call them and we will talk withthem.”

La raised her voice in a weird, flutelike call that carried far into the jungleon every side. From near and far came answering shouts in the barking tones ofthe Oparian priests: “We come! We come!” Again and again, Larepeated her summons until singly and in pairs the greater portion of herfollowing approached and halted a short distance away from the High Priestessand her savior. They came with scowling brows and threatening mien. When allhad come Tarzan addressed them.

“Your La is safe,” said the ape-man. “Had she slain me shewould now herself be dead and many more of you; but she spared me that I mightsave her. Go your way with her back to Opar, and Tarzan will go his way intothe jungle. Let there be peace always between Tarzan and La. What is youranswer?”

The priests grumbled and shook their heads. They spoke together and La andTarzan could see that they were not favorably inclined toward the proposition.They did not wish to take La back and they did wish to complete the sacrificeof Tarzan to the Flaming God. At last the ape-man became impatient.

“You will obey the commands of your queen,” he said, “and goback to Opar with her or Tarzan of the Apes will call together the othercreatures of the jungle and slay you all. La saved me that I might save you andher. I have served you better alive than I could have dead. If you are not allfools you will let me go my way in peace and you will return to Opar with La. Iknow not where the sacred knife is; but you can fashion another. Had I nottaken it from La you would have slain me and now your god must be glad that Itook it since I have saved his priestess from love-mad Tantor. Will you go backto Opar with La, promising that no harm shall befall her?”

The priests gathered together in a little knot arguing and discussing. Theypounded upon their breasts with their fists; they raised their hands and eyesto their fiery god; they growled and barked among themselves until it becameevident to Tarzan that one of their number was preventing the acceptance of hisproposal. This was the High Priest whose heart was filled with jealous ragebecause La openly acknowledged her love for the stranger, when by the worldlycustoms of their cult she should have belonged to him. Seemingly there was tobe no solution of the problem until another priest stepped forth and, raisinghis hand, addressed La.

“Cadj, the High Priest,” he announced, “would sacrifice youboth to the Flaming God; but all of us except Cadj would gladly return to Oparwith our queen.”

“You are many against one,” spoke up Tarzan. “Why should younot have your will? Go your way with La to Opar and if Cadj interferes slayhim.”

The priests of Opar welcomed this suggestion with loud cries of approval. Tothem it appeared nothing short of divine inspiration. The influence of ages ofunquestioning obedience to high priests had made it seem impossible to them toquestion his authority; but when they realized that they could force him totheir will they were as happy as children with new toys.

They rushed forward and seized Cadj. They talked in loud menacing tones intohis ear. They threatened him with bludgeon and knife until at last heacquiesced in their demands, though sullenly, and then Tarzan stepped closebefore Cadj.

“Priest,” he said, “La goes back to her temple under theprotection of her priests and the threat of Tarzan of the Apes that whoeverharms her shall die. Tarzan will go again to Opar before the next rains and ifharm has befallen La, woe betide Cadj, the High Priest.”

Sullenly Cadj promised not to harm his queen.

“Protect her,” cried Tarzan to the other Oparians. “Protecther so that when Tarzan comes again he will find La there to greet him.”

“La will be there to greet thee,” exclaimed the High Priestess,“and La will wait, longing, always longing, until you come again. Oh,tell me that you will come!”

“Who knows?” asked the ape-man as he swung quickly into the treesand raced off toward the east.

For a moment La stood looking after him, then her head drooped, a sigh escapedher lips and like an old woman she took up the march toward distant Opar.

Through the trees raced Tarzan of the Apes until the darkness of night hadsettled upon the jungle, then he lay down and slept, with no thought beyond themorrow and with even La but the shadow of a memory within his consciousness.

But a few marches to the north Lady Greystoke looked forward to the day whenher mighty lord and master should discover the crime of Achmet Zek, and bespeeding to rescue and avenge, and even as she pictured the coming of JohnClayton, the object of her thoughts squatted almost naked, beside a fallen log,beneath which he was searching with grimy fingers for a chance beetle or aluscious grub.

Two days elapsed following the theft of the jewels before Tarzan gave them athought. Then, as they chanced to enter his mind, he conceived a desire to playwith them again, and, having nothing better to do than satisfy the first whimwhich possessed him, he rose and started across the plain from the forest inwhich he had spent the preceding day.

Though no mark showed where the gems had been buried, and though the spotresembled the balance of an unbroken stretch several miles in length, where thereeds terminated at the edge of the meadowland, yet the ape-man moved withunerring precision directly to the place where he had hid his treasure.

With his hunting knife he upturned the loose earth, beneath which the pouchshould be; but, though he excavated to a greater distance than the depth of theoriginal hole there was no sign of pouch or jewels. Tarzan’s brow cloudedas he discovered that he had been despoiled. Little or no reasoning wasrequired to convince him of the identity of the guilty party, and with the samecelerity that had marked his decision to unearth the jewels, he set out uponthe trail of the thief.

Though the spoor was two days old, and practically obliterated in many places,Tarzan followed it with comparative ease. A white man could not have followedit twenty paces twelve hours after it had been made, a black man would havelost it within the first mile; but Tarzan of the Apes had been forced inchildhood to develop senses that an ordinary mortal scarce ever uses.

We may note the garlic and whisky on the breath of a fellow strap hanger, orthe cheap perfume emanating from the person of the wondrous lady sitting infront of us, and deplore the fact of our sensitive noses; but, as a matter offact, we cannot smell at all, our olfactory organs are practically atrophied,by comparison with the development of the sense among the beasts of the wild.

Where a foot is placed an effluvium remains for a considerable time. It isbeyond the range of our sensibilities; but to a creature of the lower orders,especially to the hunters and the hunted, as interesting and ofttimes morelucid than is the printed page to us.

Nor was Tarzan dependent alone upon his sense of smell. Vision and hearing hadbeen brought to a marvelous state of development by the necessities of hisearly life, where survival itself depended almost daily upon the exercise ofthe keenest vigilance and the constant use of all his faculties.

And so he followed the old trail of the Belgian through the forest and towardthe north; but because of the age of the trail he was constrained to a far fromrapid progress. The man he followed was two days ahead of him when Tarzan tookup the pursuit, and each day he gained upon the ape-man. The latter, however,felt not the slightest doubt as to the outcome. Some day he would overhaul hisquarry—he could bide his time in peace until that day dawned. Doggedly hefollowed the faint spoor, pausing by day only to kill and eat, and at nightonly to sleep and refresh himself.

Occasionally he passed parties of savage warriors; but these he gave a wideberth, for he was hunting with a purpose that was not to be distracted by theminor accidents of the trail.

These parties were of the collecting hordes of the Waziri and their allieswhich Basuli had scattered his messengers broadcast to summon. They weremarching to a common rendezvous in preparation for an assault upon thestronghold of Achmet Zek; but to Tarzan they were enemies—he retained noconscious memory of any friendship for the black men.

It was night when he halted outside the palisaded village of the Arab raider.Perched in the branches of a great tree he gazed down upon the life within theenclosure. To this place had the spoor led him. His quarry must be within; buthow was he to find him among so many huts? Tarzan, although cognizant of hismighty powers, realized also his limitations. He knew that he could notsuccessfully cope with great numbers in open battle. He must resort to thestealth and trickery of the wild beast, if he were to succeed.

Sitting in the safety of his tree, munching upon the leg bone of Horta, theboar, Tarzan waited a favorable opportunity to enter the village. For awhile hegnawed at the bulging, round ends of the large bone, splintering off smallpieces between his strong jaws, and sucking at the delicious marrow within; butall the time he cast repeated glances into the village. He saw white-robedfigures, and half-naked blacks; but not once did he see one who resembled thestealer of the gems.

Patiently he waited until the streets were deserted by all save the sentries atthe gates, then he dropped lightly to the ground, circled to the opposite sideof the village and approached the palisade.

At his side hung a long, rawhide rope—a natural and more dependableevolution from the grass rope of his childhood. Loosening this, he spread thenoose upon the ground behind him, and with a quick movement of his wrist tossedthe coils over one of the sharpened projections of the summit of the palisade.

Drawing the noose taut, he tested the solidity of its hold. Satisfied, theape-man ran nimbly up the vertical wall, aided by the rope which he clutched inboth hands. Once at the top it required but a moment to gather the danglingrope once more into its coils, make it fast again at his waist, take a quickglance downward within the palisade, and, assured that no one lurked directlybeneath him, drop softly to the ground.

Now he was within the village. Before him stretched a series of tents andnative huts. The business of exploring each of them would be fraught withdanger; but danger was only a natural factor of each day’s life—itnever appalled Tarzan. The chances appealed to him—the chances of lifeand death, with his prowess and his faculties pitted against those of a worthyantagonist.

It was not necessary that he enter each habitation—through a door, awindow or an open chink, his nose told him whether or not his prey lay within.For some time he found one disappointment following upon the heels of anotherin quick succession. No spoor of the Belgian was discernible. But at last hecame to a tent where the smell of the thief was strong. Tarzan listened, hisear close to the canvas at the rear, but no sound came from within.

At last he cut one of the pin ropes, raised the bottom of the canvas, andintruded his head within the interior. All was quiet and dark. Tarzan crawledcautiously within—the scent of the Belgian was strong; but it was notlive scent. Even before he had examined the interior minutely, Tarzan knew thatno one was within it.

In one corner he found a pile of blankets and clothing scattered about; but nopouch of pretty pebbles. A careful examination of the balance of the tentrevealed nothing more, at least nothing to indicate the presence of the jewels;but at the side where the blankets and clothing lay, the ape-man discoveredthat the tent wall had been loosened at the bottom, and presently he sensedthat the Belgian had recently passed out of the tent by this avenue.

Tarzan was not long in following the way that his prey had fled. The spoor ledalways in the shadow and at the rear of the huts and tents of thevillage—it was quite evident to Tarzan that the Belgian had gone aloneand secretly upon his mission. Evidently he feared the inhabitants of thevillage, or at least his work had been of such a nature that he dared not riskdetection.

At the back of a native hut the spoor led through a small hole recently cut inthe brush wall and into the dark interior beyond. Fearlessly, Tarzan followedthe trail. On hands and knees, he crawled through the small aperture. Withinthe hut his nostrils were assailed by many odors; but clear and distinct amongthem was one that half aroused a latent memory of the past—it was thefaint and delicate odor of a woman. With the cognizance of it there rose in thebreast of the ape-man a strange uneasiness—the result of an irresistibleforce which he was destined to become acquainted with anew—the instinctwhich draws the male to his mate.

In the same hut was the scent spoor of the Belgian, too, and as both theseassailed the nostrils of the ape-man, mingling one with the other, a jealousrage leaped and burned within him, though his memory held before the mirror ofrecollection no image of the she to which he had attached his desire.

Like the tent he had investigated, the hut, too, was empty, and aftersatisfying himself that his stolen pouch was secreted nowhere within, he left,as he had entered, by the hole in the rear wall.

Here he took up the spoor of the Belgian, followed it across the clearing, overthe palisade, and out into the dark jungle beyond.

CHAPTER XV.
The Flight of Werper

After Werper had arranged the dummy in his bed, and sneaked out into thedarkness of the village beneath the rear wall of his tent, he had gone directlyto the hut in which Jane Clayton was held captive.

Before the doorway squatted a black sentry. Werper approached him boldly, spokea few words in his ear, handed him a package of tobacco, and passed into thehut. The black grinned and winked as the European disappeared within thedarkness of the interior.

The Belgian, being one of Achmet Zek’s principal lieutenants, mightnaturally go where he wished within or without the village, and so the sentryhad not questioned his right to enter the hut with the white, woman prisoner.

Within, Werper called in French and in a low whisper: “Lady Greystoke! Itis I, M. Frecoult. Where are you?” But there was no response. Hastily theman felt around the interior, groping blindly through the darkness withoutstretched hands. There was no one within!

Werper’s astonishment surpassed words. He was on the point of steppingwithout to question the sentry, when his eyes, becoming accustomed to the dark,discovered a blotch of lesser blackness near the base of the rear wall of thehut. Examination revealed the fact that the blotch was an opening cut in thewall. It was large enough to permit the passage of his body, and assured as hewas that Lady Greystoke had passed out through the aperture in an attempt toescape the village, he lost no time in availing himself of the same avenue; butneither did he lose time in a fruitless search for Jane Clayton.

His own life depended upon the chance of his eluding, or outdistancing AchmetZek, when that worthy should have discovered that he had escaped. His originalplan had contemplated connivance in the escape of Lady Greystoke for two verygood and sufficient reasons. The first was that by saving her he would win thegratitude of the English, and thus lessen the chance of his extradition shouldhis identity and his crime against his superior officer be charged against him.

The second reason was based upon the fact that only one direction of escape wassafely open to him. He could not travel to the west because of the Belgianpossessions which lay between him and the Atlantic. The south was closed to himby the feared presence of the savage ape-man he had robbed. To the north laythe friends and allies of Achmet Zek. Only toward the east, through BritishEast Africa, lay reasonable assurance of freedom.

Accompanied by a titled Englishwoman whom he had rescued from a frightful fate,and his identity vouched for by her as that of a Frenchman by the name ofFrecoult, he had looked forward, and not without reason, to the activeassistance of the British from the moment that he came in contact with theirfirst outpost.

But now that Lady Greystoke had disappeared, though he still looked toward theeast for hope, his chances were lessened, and another, subsidiary designcompletely dashed. From the moment that he had first laid eyes upon JaneClayton he had nursed within his breast a secret passion for the beautifulAmerican wife of the English lord, and when Achmet Zek’s discovery of thejewels had necessitated flight, the Belgian had dreamed, in his planning, of afuture in which he might convince Lady Greystoke that her husband was dead, andby playing upon her gratitude win her for himself.

At that part of the village farthest from the gates, Werper discovered that twoor three long poles, taken from a nearby pile which had been collected for theconstruction of huts, had been leaned against the top of the palisade, forminga precarious, though not impossible avenue of escape.

Rightly, he inferred that thus had Lady Greystoke found the means to scale thewall, nor did he lose even a moment in following her lead. Once in the junglehe struck out directly eastward.

A few miles south of him, Jane Clayton lay panting among the branches of a treein which she had taken refuge from a prowling and hungry lioness.

Her escape from the village had been much easier than she had anticipated. Theknife which she had used to cut her way through the brush wall of the hut tofreedom she had found sticking in the wall of her prison, doubtless left thereby accident when a former tenant had vacated the premises.

To cross the rear of the village, keeping always in the densest shadows, hadrequired but a few moments, and the fortunate circumstance of the discovery ofthe hut poles lying so near the palisade had solved for her the problem of thepassage of the high wall.

For an hour she had followed the old game trail toward the south, until therefell upon her trained hearing the stealthy padding of a stalking beast behindher. The nearest tree gave her instant sanctuary, for she was too wise in theways of the jungle to chance her safety for a moment after discovering that shewas being hunted.

Werper, with better success, traveled slowly onward until dawn, when, to hischagrin, he discovered a mounted Arab upon his trail. It was one of AchmetZek’s minions, many of whom were scattered in all directions through theforest, searching for the fugitive Belgian.

Jane Clayton’s escape had not yet been discovered when Achmet Zek and hissearchers set forth to overhaul Werper. The only man who had seen the Belgianafter his departure from his tent was the black sentry before the doorway ofLady Greystoke’s prison hut, and he had been silenced by the discovery ofthe dead body of the man who had relieved him, the sentry that Mugambi haddispatched.

The bribe taker naturally inferred that Werper had slain his fellow and darednot admit that he had permitted him to enter the hut, fearing as he did, theanger of Achmet Zek. So, as chance directed that he should be the one todiscover the body of the sentry when the first alarm had been given followingAchmet Zek’s discovery that Werper had outwitted him, the crafty blackhad dragged the dead body to the interior of a nearby tent, and himself resumedhis station before the doorway of the hut in which he still believed the womanto be.

With the discovery of the Arab close behind him, the Belgian hid in the foliageof a leafy bush. Here the trail ran straight for a considerable distance, anddown the shady forest aisle, beneath the overarching branches of the trees,rode the white-robed figure of the pursuer.

Nearer and nearer he came. Werper crouched closer to the ground behind theleaves of his hiding place. Across the trail a vine moved. Werper’s eyesinstantly centered upon the spot. There was no wind to stir the foliage in thedepths of the jungle. Again the vine moved. In the mind of the Belgian only thepresence of a sinister and malevolent force could account for the phenomenon.

The man’s eyes bored steadily into the screen of leaves upon the oppositeside of the trail. Gradually a form took shape beyond them—a tawny form,grim and terrible, with yellow-green eyes glaring fearsomely across the narrowtrail straight into his.

Werper could have screamed in fright, but up the trail was coming the messengerof another death, equally sure and no less terrible. He remained silent, almostparalyzed by fear. The Arab approached. Across the trail from Werper the lioncrouched for the spring, when suddenly his attention was attracted toward thehorseman.

The Belgian saw the massive head turn in the direction of the raider and hisheart all but ceased its beating as he awaited the result of this interruption.At a walk the horseman approached. Would the nervous animal he rode take frightat the odor of the carnivore, and, bolting, leave Werper still to the merciesof the king of beasts?

But he seemed unmindful of the near presence of the great cat. On he came, hisneck arched, champing at the bit between his teeth. The Belgian turned his eyesagain toward the lion. The beast’s whole attention now seemed rivetedupon the horseman. They were abreast the lion now, and still the brute did notspring. Could he be but waiting for them to pass before returning his attentionto the original prey? Werper shuddered and half rose. At the same instant thelion sprang from his place of concealment, full upon the mounted man. Thehorse, with a shrill neigh of terror, shrank sideways almost upon the Belgian,the lion dragged the helpless Arab from his saddle, and the horse leaped backinto the trail and fled away toward the west.

But he did not flee alone. As the frightened beast had pressed in upon him,Werper had not been slow to note the quickly emptied saddle and the opportunityit presented. Scarcely had the lion dragged the Arab down from one side, thanthe Belgian, seizing the pommel of the saddle and the horse’s mane,leaped upon the horse’s back from the other.

A half hour later a naked giant, swinging easily through the lower branches ofthe trees, paused, and with raised head, and dilating nostrils sniffed themorning air. The smell of blood fell strong upon his senses, and mingled withit was the scent of Numa, the lion. The giant cocked his head upon one side andlistened.

From a short distance up the trail came the unmistakable noises of the greedyfeeding of a lion. The crunching of bones, the gulping of great pieces, thecontented growling, all attested the nearness of the king at table.

Tarzan approached the spot, still keeping to the branches of the trees. He madeno effort to conceal his approach, and presently he had evidence that Numa hadheard him, from the ominous, rumbling warning that broke from a thicket besidethe trail.

Halting upon a low branch just above the lion Tarzan looked down upon thegrisly scene. Could this unrecognizable thing be the man he had been trailing?The ape-man wondered. From time to time he had descended to the trail andverified his judgment by the evidence of his scent that the Belgian hadfollowed this game trail toward the east.

Now he proceeded beyond the lion and his feast, again descended and examinedthe ground with his nose. There was no scent spoor here of the man he had beentrailing. Tarzan returned to the tree. With keen eyes he searched the groundabout the mutilated corpse for a sign of the missing pouch of pretty pebbles;but naught could he see of it.

He scolded Numa and tried to drive the great beast away; but only angry growlsrewarded his efforts. He tore small branches from a nearby limb and hurled themat his ancient enemy. Numa looked up with bared fangs, grinning hideously, buthe did not rise from his kill.

Then Tarzan fitted an arrow to his bow, and drawing the slim shaft far back letdrive with all the force of the tough wood that only he could bend. As thearrow sank deeply into his side, Numa leaped to his feet with a roar of mingledrage and pain. He leaped futilely at the grinning ape-man, tore at theprotruding end of the shaft, and then, springing into the trail, paced back andforth beneath his tormentor. Again Tarzan loosed a swift bolt. This time themissile, aimed with care, lodged in the lion’s spine. The great creaturehalted in its tracks, and lurched awkwardly forward upon its face, paralyzed.

Tarzan dropped to the trail, ran quickly to the beast’s side, and drovehis spear deep into the fierce heart, then after recovering his arrows turnedhis attention to the mutilated remains of the animal’s prey in the nearbythicket.

The face was gone. The Arab garments aroused no doubt as to the man’sidentity, since he had trailed him into the Arab camp and out again, where hemight easily have acquired the apparel. So sure was Tarzan that the body wasthat of he who had robbed him that he made no effort to verify his deductionsby scent among the conglomerate odors of the great carnivore and the freshblood of the victim.

He confined his attentions to a careful search for the pouch, but nowhere uponor about the corpse was any sign of the missing article or its contents. Theape-man was disappointed—possibly not so much because of the loss of thecolored pebbles as with Numa for robbing him of the pleasures of revenge.

Wondering what could have become of his possessions, the ape-man turned slowlyback along the trail in the direction from which he had come. In his mind herevolved a plan to enter and search the Arab camp, after darkness had againfallen. Taking to the trees, he moved directly south in search of prey, that hemight satisfy his hunger before midday, and then lie up for the afternoon insome spot far from the camp, where he might sleep without fear of discoveryuntil it came time to prosecute his design.

Scarcely had he quitted the trail when a tall, black warrior, moving at adogged trot, passed toward the east. It was Mugambi, searching for hismistress. He continued along the trail, halting to examine the body of the deadlion. An expression of puzzlement crossed his features as he bent to search forthe wounds which had caused the death of the jungle lord. Tarzan had removedhis arrows, but to Mugambi the proof of death was as strong as though both thelighter missiles and the spear still protruded from the carcass.

The black looked furtively about him. The body was still warm, and from thisfact he reasoned that the killer was close at hand, yet no sign of living manappeared. Mugambi shook his head, and continued along the trail, but withredoubled caution.

All day he traveled, stopping occasionally to call aloud the single word,“Lady,” in the hope that at last she might hear and respond; but inthe end his loyal devotion brought him to disaster.

From the northeast, for several months, Abdul Mourak, in command of adetachment of Abyssinian soldiers, had been assiduously searching for the Arabraider, Achmet Zek, who, six months previously, had affronted the majesty ofAbdul Mourak’s emperor by conducting a slave raid within the boundariesof Menelek’s domain.

And now it happened that Abdul Mourak had halted for a short rest at noon uponthis very day and along the same trail that Werper and Mugambi were followingtoward the east.

It was shortly after the soldiers had dismounted that the Belgian, unaware oftheir presence, rode his tired mount almost into their midst, before he haddiscovered them. Instantly he was surrounded, and a volley of questions hurledat him, as he was pulled from his horse and led toward the presence of thecommander.

Falling back upon his European nationality, Werper assured Abdul Mourak that hewas a Frenchman, hunting in Africa, and that he had been attacked by strangers,his safari killed or scattered, and himself escaping only by a miracle.

From a chance remark of the Abyssinian, Werper discovered the purpose of theexpedition, and when he realized that these men were the enemies of Achmet Zek,he took heart, and immediately blamed his predicament upon the Arab.

Lest, however, he might again fall into the hands of the raider, he discouragedAbdul Mourak in the further prosecution of his pursuit, assuring the Abyssinianthat Achmet Zek commanded a large and dangerous force, and also that he wasmarching rapidly toward the south.

Convinced that it would take a long time to overhaul the raider, and that thechances of engagement made the outcome extremely questionable, Mourak, none toounwillingly, abandoned his plan and gave the necessary orders for his commandto pitch camp where they were, preparatory to taking up the return march towardAbyssinia the following morning.

It was late in the afternoon that the attention of the camp was attractedtoward the west by the sound of a powerful voice calling a single word,repeated several times: “Lady! Lady! Lady!”

True to their instincts of precaution, a number of Abyssinians, acting underorders from Abdul Mourak, advanced stealthily through the jungle toward theauthor of the call.

A half hour later they returned, dragging Mugambi among them. The first personthe big black’s eyes fell upon as he was hustled into the presence of theAbyssinian officer, was M. Jules Frecoult, the Frenchman who had been the guestof his master and whom he last had seen entering the village of Achmet Zekunder circumstances which pointed to his familiarity and friendship for theraiders.

Between the disasters that had befallen his master and his master’shouse, and the Frenchman, Mugambi saw a sinister relationship, which kept himfrom recalling to Werper’s attention the identity which the latterevidently failed to recognize.

Pleading that he was but a harmless hunter from a tribe farther south, Mugambibegged to be allowed to go upon his way; but Abdul Mourak, admiring thewarrior’s splendid physique, decided to take him back to Adis Abeba andpresent him to Menelek. A few moments later Mugambi and Werper were marchedaway under guard, and the Belgian learned for the first time, that he too was aprisoner rather than a guest. In vain he protested against such treatment,until a strapping soldier struck him across the mouth and threatened to shoothim if he did not desist.

Mugambi took the matter less to heart, for he had not the slightest doubt butthat during the course of the journey he would find ample opportunity to eludethe vigilance of his guards and make good his escape. With this idea alwaysuppermost in his mind, he courted the good opinion of the Abyssinians, askedthem many questions about their emperor and their country, and evinced agrowing desire to reach their destination, that he might enjoy all the goodthings which they assured him the city of Adis Abeba contained. Thus hedisarmed their suspicions, and each day found a slight relaxation of theirwatchfulness over him.

By taking advantage of the fact that he and Werper always were kept together,Mugambi sought to learn what the other knew of the whereabouts of Tarzan, orthe authorship of the raid upon the bungalow, as well as the fate of LadyGreystoke; but as he was confined to the accidents of conversation for thisinformation, not daring to acquaint Werper with his true identity, and asWerper was equally anxious to conceal from the world his part in thedestruction of his host’s home and happiness, Mugambi learnednothing—at least in this way.

But there came a time when he learned a very surprising thing, by accident.

The party had camped early in the afternoon of a sultry day, upon the banks ofa clear and beautiful stream. The bottom of the river was gravelly, there wasno indication of crocodiles, those menaces to promiscuous bathing in the riversof certain portions of the dark continent, and so the Abyssinians tookadvantage of the opportunity to perform long-deferred, and much needed,ablutions.

As Werper, who, with Mugambi, had been given permission to enter the water,removed his clothing, the black noted the care with which he unfastenedsomething which circled his waist, and which he took off with his shirt,keeping the latter always around and concealing the object of his suspicioussolicitude.

It was this very carefulness which attracted the black’s attention to thething, arousing a natural curiosity in the warrior’s mind, and so itchanced that when the Belgian, in the nervousness of overcaution, fumbled thehidden article and dropped it, Mugambi saw it as it fell upon the ground,spilling a portion of its contents on the sward.

Now Mugambi had been to London with his master. He was not the unsophisticatedsavage that his apparel proclaimed him. He had mingled with the cosmopolitanhordes of the greatest city in the world; he had visited museums and inspectedshop windows; and, besides, he was a shrewd and intelligent man.

The instant that the jewels of Opar rolled, scintillating, before hisastonished eyes, he recognized them for what they were; but he recognizedsomething else, too, that interested him far more deeply than the value of thestones. A thousand times he had seen the leathern pouch which dangled at hismaster’s side, when Tarzan of the Apes had, in a spirit of play andadventure, elected to return for a few hours to the primitive manners andcustoms of his boyhood, and surrounded by his naked warriors hunt the lion andthe leopard, the buffalo and the elephant after the manner he loved best.

Werper saw that Mugambi had seen the pouch and the stones. Hastily he gatheredup the precious gems and returned them to their container, while Mugambi,assuming an air of indifference, strolled down to the river for his bath.

The following morning Abdul Mourak was enraged and chagrined to discover thathis huge, black prisoner had escaped during the night, while Werper wasterrified for the same reason, until his trembling fingers discovered the pouchstill in its place beneath his shirt, and within it the hard outlines of itscontents.

CHAPTER XVI.
Tarzan Again Leads the Mangani

Achmet Zek with two of his followers had circled far to the south to interceptthe flight of his deserting lieutenant, Werper. Others had spread out invarious directions, so that a vast circle had been formed by them during thenight, and now they were beating in toward the center.

Achmet and the two with him halted for a short rest just before noon. Theysquatted beneath the trees upon the southern edge of a clearing. The chief ofthe raiders was in ill humor. To have been outwitted by an unbeliever was badenough; but to have, at the same time, lost the jewels upon which he had sethis avaricious heart was altogether too much—Allah must, indeed be angrywith his servant.

Well, he still had the woman. She would bring a fair price in the north, andthere was, too, the buried treasure beside the ruins of the Englishman’shouse.

A slight noise in the jungle upon the opposite side of the clearing broughtAchmet Zek to immediate and alert attention. He gathered his rifle in readinessfor instant use, at the same time motioning his followers to silence andconcealment. Crouching behind the bushes the three waited, their eyes fastenedupon the far side of the open space.

Presently the foliage parted and a woman’s face appeared, glancingfearfully from side to side. A moment later, evidently satisfied that noimmediate danger lurked before her, she stepped out into the clearing in fullview of the Arab.

Achmet Zek caught his breath with a muttered exclamation of incredulity and animprecation. The woman was the prisoner he had thought safely guarded at hiscamp!

Apparently she was alone, but Achmet Zek waited that he might make sure of itbefore seizing her. Slowly Jane Clayton started across the clearing. Twicealready since she had quitted the village of the raiders had she barely escapedthe fangs of carnivora, and once she had almost stumbled into the path of oneof the searchers. Though she was almost despairing of ever reaching safety shestill was determined to fight on, until death or success terminated herendeavors.

As the Arabs watched her from the safety of their concealment, and Achmet Zeknoted with satisfaction that she was walking directly into his clutches,another pair of eyes looked down upon the entire scene from the foliage of anadjacent tree.

Puzzled, troubled eyes they were, for all their gray and savage glint, fortheir owner was struggling with an intangible suggestion of the familiarity ofthe face and figure of the woman below him.

A sudden crashing of the bushes at the point from which Jane Clayton hademerged into the clearing brought her to a sudden stop and attracted theattention of the Arabs and the watcher in the tree to the same point.

The woman wheeled about to see what new danger menaced her from behind, and asshe did so a great, anthropoid ape waddled into view. Behind him came anotherand another; but Lady Greystoke did not wait to learn how many more of thehideous creatures were so close upon her trail.

With a smothered scream she rushed toward the opposite jungle, and as shereached the bushes there, Achmet Zek and his two henchmen rose up and seizedher. At the same instant a naked, brown giant dropped from the branches of atree at the right of the clearing.

Turning toward the astonished apes he gave voice to a short volley of lowgutturals, and without waiting to note the effect of his words upon them,wheeled and charged for the Arabs.

Achmet Zek was dragging Jane Clayton toward his tethered horse. His two menwere hastily unfastening all three mounts. The woman, struggling to escape theArab, turned and saw the ape-man running toward her. A glad light of hopeilluminated her face.

“John!” she cried. “Thank God that you have come intime.”

Behind Tarzan came the great apes, wondering, but obedient to his summons. TheArabs saw that they would not have time to mount and make their escape beforethe beasts and the man were upon them. Achmet Zek recognized the latter as theredoubtable enemy of such as he, and he saw, too, in the circumstance anopportunity to rid himself forever of the menace of the ape-man’spresence.

Calling to his men to follow his example he raised his rifle and leveled itupon the charging giant. His followers, acting with no less alacrity thanhimself, fired almost simultaneously, and with the reports of the rifles,Tarzan of the Apes and two of his hairy henchmen pitched forward among thejungle grasses.

The noise of the rifle shots brought the balance of the apes to a wonderingpause, and, taking advantage of their momentary distraction, Achmet Zek and hisfellows leaped to their horses’ backs and galloped away with the nowhopeless and grief-stricken woman.

Back to the village they rode, and once again Lady Greystoke found herselfincarcerated in the filthy, little hut from which she had thought to haveescaped for good. But this time she was not only guarded by an additionalsentry, but bound as well.

Singly and in twos the searchers who had ridden out with Achmet Zek upon thetrail of the Belgian, returned empty handed. With the report of each theraider’s rage and chagrin increased, until he was in such a transport offerocious anger that none dared approach him. Threatening and cursing, AchmetZek paced up and down the floor of his silken tent; but his temper served himnaught—Werper was gone and with him the fortune in scintillating gemswhich had aroused the cupidity of his chief and placed the sentence of deathupon the head of the lieutenant.

With the escape of the Arabs the great apes had turned their attention to theirfallen comrades. One was dead, but another and the great white ape stillbreathed. The hairy monsters gathered about these two, grumbling and mutteringafter the fashion of their kind.

Tarzan was the first to regain consciousness. Sitting up, he looked about him.Blood was flowing from a wound in his shoulder. The shock had thrown him downand dazed him; but he was far from dead. Rising slowly to his feet he let hiseyes wander toward the spot where last he had seen the she, who had arousedwithin his savage breast such strange emotions.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“The Tarmangani took her away,” replied one of the apes. “Whoare you who speak the language of the Mangani?”

“I am Tarzan,” replied the ape-man; “mighty hunter, greatestof fighters. When I roar, the jungle is silent and trembles with terror. I amTarzan of the Apes. I have been away; but now I have come back to mypeople.”

“Yes,” spoke up an old ape, “he is Tarzan. I know him. It iswell that he has come back. Now we shall have good hunting.”

The other apes came closer and sniffed at the ape-man. Tarzan stood very still,his fangs half bared, and his muscles tense and ready for action; but there wasnone there to question his right to be with them, and presently, the inspectionsatisfactorily concluded, the apes again returned their attention to the othersurvivor.

He too was but slightly wounded, a bullet, grazing his skull, having stunnedhim, so that when he regained consciousness he was apparently as fit as ever.

The apes told Tarzan that they had been traveling toward the east when thescent spoor of the she had attracted them and they had stalked her. Now theywished to continue upon their interrupted march; but Tarzan preferred to followthe Arabs and take the woman from them. After a considerable argument it wasdecided that they should first hunt toward the east for a few days and thenreturn and search for the Arabs, and as time is of little moment to the apefolk, Tarzan acceded to their demands, he, himself, having reverted to a mentalstate but little superior to their own.

Another circumstance which decided him to postpone pursuit of the Arabs was thepainfulness of his wound. It would be better to wait until that had healedbefore he pitted himself again against the guns of the Tarmangani.

And so, as Jane Clayton was pushed into her prison hut and her hands and feetsecurely bound, her natural protector roamed off toward the east in companywith a score of hairy monsters, with whom he rubbed shoulders as familiarly asa few months before he had mingled with his immaculate fellow-members of one ofLondon’s most select and exclusive clubs.

But all the time there lurked in the back of his injured brain a troublesomeconviction that he had no business where he was—that he should be, forsome unaccountable reason, elsewhere and among another sort of creature. Also,there was the compelling urge to be upon the scent of the Arabs, undertakingthe rescue of the woman who had appealed so strongly to his savage sentiments;though the thought-word which naturally occurred to him in the contemplation ofthe venture, was “capture,” rather than “rescue.”

To him she was as any other jungle she, and he had set his heart upon her ashis mate. For an instant, as he had approached closer to her in the clearingwhere the Arabs had seized her, the subtle aroma which had first aroused hisdesires in the hut that had imprisoned her had fallen upon his nostrils, andtold him that he had found the creature for whom he had developed so sudden andinexplicable a passion.

The matter of the pouch of jewels also occupied his thoughts to some extent, sothat he found a double urge for his return to the camp of the raiders. He wouldobtain possession of both his pretty pebbles and the she. Then he would returnto the great apes with his new mate and his baubles, and leading his hairycompanions into a far wilderness beyond the ken of man, live out his life,hunting and battling among the lower orders after the only manner which he nowrecollected.

He spoke to his fellow-apes upon the matter, in an attempt to persuade them toaccompany him; but all except Taglat and Chulk refused. The latter was youngand strong, endowed with a greater intelligence than his fellows, and thereforethe possessor of better developed powers of imagination. To him the expeditionsavored of adventure, and so appealed, strongly. With Taglat there was anotherincentive—a secret and sinister incentive, which, had Tarzan of the Apeshad knowledge of it, would have sent him at the other’s throat in jealousrage.

Taglat was no longer young; but he was still a formidable beast, mightilymuscled, cruel, and, because of his greater experience, crafty and cunning.Too, he was of giant proportions, the very weight of his huge bulk servingofttimes to discount in his favor the superior agility of a younger antagonist.

He was of a morose and sullen disposition that marked him even among hisfrowning fellows, where such characteristics are the rule rather than theexception, and, though Tarzan did not guess it, he hated the ape-man with aferocity that he was able to hide only because the dominant spirit of thenobler creature had inspired within him a species of dread which was aspowerful as it was inexplicable to him.

These two, then, were to be Tarzan’s companions upon his return to thevillage of Achmet Zek. As they set off, the balance of the tribe vouchsafedthem but a parting stare, and then resumed the serious business of feeding.

Tarzan found difficulty in keeping the minds of his fellows set upon thepurpose of their adventure, for the mind of an ape lacks the power oflong-sustained concentration. To set out upon a long journey, with a definitedestination in view, is one thing, to remember that purpose and keep ituppermost in one’s mind continually is quite another. There are so manythings to distract one’s attention along the way.

Chulk was, at first, for rushing rapidly ahead as though the village of theraiders lay but an hour’s march before them instead of several days; butwithin a few minutes a fallen tree attracted his attention with its suggestionof rich and succulent forage beneath, and when Tarzan, missing him, returned insearch, he found Chulk squatting beside the rotting bole, from beneath which hewas assiduously engaged in digging out the grubs and beetles, whose kind form aconsiderable proportion of the diet of the apes.

Unless Tarzan desired to fight there was nothing to do but wait until Chulk hadexhausted the storehouse, and this he did, only to discover that Taglat was nowmissing. After a considerable search, he found that worthy gentlemancontemplating the sufferings of an injured rodent he had pounced upon. He wouldsit in apparent indifference, gazing in another direction, while the crippledcreature wriggled slowly and painfully away from him, and then, just as hisvictim felt assured of escape, he would reach out a giant palm and slam it downupon the fugitive. Again and again he repeated this operation, until, tiring ofthe sport, he ended the sufferings of his plaything by devouring it.

Such were the exasperating causes of delay which retarded Tarzan’s returnjourney toward the village of Achmet Zek; but the ape-man was patient, for inhis mind was a plan which necessitated the presence of Chulk and Taglat when heshould have arrived at his destination.

It was not always an easy thing to maintain in the vacillating minds of theanthropoids a sustained interest in their venture. Chulk was wearying of thecontinued marching and the infrequency and short duration of the rests. Hewould gladly have abandoned this search for adventure had not Tarzancontinually filled his mind with alluring pictures of the great stores of foodwhich were to be found in the village of Tarmangani.

Taglat nursed his secret purpose to better advantage than might have beenexpected of an ape, yet there were times when he, too, would have abandoned theadventure had not Tarzan cajoled him on.

It was mid-afternoon of a sultry, tropical day when the keen senses of thethree warned them of the proximity of the Arab camp. Stealthily theyapproached, keeping to the dense tangle of growing things which madeconcealment easy to their uncanny jungle craft.

First came the giant ape-man, his smooth, brown skin glistening with the sweatof exertion in the close, hot confines of the jungle. Behind him crept Chulkand Taglat, grotesque and shaggy caricatures of their godlike leader.

Silently they made their way to the edge of the clearing which surrounded thepalisade, and here they clambered into the lower branches of a large treeoverlooking the village occupied by the enemy, the better to spy upon hisgoings and comings.

A horseman, white burnoosed, rode out through the gateway of the village.Tarzan, whispering to Chulk and Taglat to remain where they were, swung,monkey-like, through the trees in the direction of the trail the Arab wasriding. From one jungle giant to the next he sped with the rapidity of asquirrel and the silence of a ghost.

The Arab rode slowly onward, unconscious of the danger hovering in the treesbehind him. The ape-man made a slight detour and increased his speed until hehad reached a point upon the trail in advance of the horseman. Here he haltedupon a leafy bough which overhung the narrow, jungle trail. On came the victim,humming a wild air of the great desert land of the north. Above him poised thesavage brute that was today bent upon the destruction of a human life—thesame creature who a few months before, had occupied his seat in the House ofLords at London, a respected and distinguished member of that august body.

The Arab passed beneath the overhanging bough, there was a slight rustling ofthe leaves above, the horse snorted and plunged as a brown-skinned creaturedropped upon its rump. A pair of mighty arms encircled the Arab and he wasdragged from his saddle to the trail.

Ten minutes later the ape-man, carrying the outer garments of an Arab bundledbeneath an arm, rejoined his companions. He exhibited his trophies to them,explaining in low gutturals the details of his exploit. Chulk and Taglatfingered the fabrics, smelled of them, and, placing them to their ears, triedto listen to them.

Then Tarzan led them back through the jungle to the trail, where the three hidthemselves and waited. Nor had they long to wait before two of AchmetZek’s blacks, clothed in habiliments similar to their master’s,came down the trail on foot, returning to the camp.

One moment they were laughing and talking together—the next they laystretched in death upon the trail, three mighty engines of destruction bendingover them. Tarzan removed their outer garments as he had removed those of hisfirst victim, and again retired with Chulk and Taglat to the greater seclusionof the tree they had first selected.

Here the ape-man arranged the garments upon his shaggy fellows and himself,until, at a distance, it might have appeared that three white-robed Arabssquatted silently among the branches of the forest.

Until dark they remained where they were, for from his point of vantage, Tarzancould view the enclosure within the palisade. He marked the position of the hutin which he had first discovered the scent spoor of the she he sought. He sawthe two sentries standing before its doorway, and he located the habitation ofAchmet Zek, where something told him he would most likely find the missingpouch and pebbles.

Chulk and Taglat were, at first, greatly interested in their wonderful raiment.They fingered the fabric, smelled of it, and regarded each other intently withevery mark of satisfaction and pride. Chulk, a humorist in his way, stretchedforth a long and hairy arm, and grasping the hood of Taglat’s burnoosepulled it down over the latter’s eyes, extinguishing him, snuffer-like,as it were.

The older ape, pessimistic by nature, recognized no such thing as humor.Creatures laid their paws upon him for but two things—to search for fleasand to attack. The pulling of the Tarmangani-scented thing about his head andeyes could not be for the performance of the former act; therefore it must bethe latter. He was attacked! Chulk had attacked him.

With a snarl he was at the other’s throat, not even waiting to lift thewoolen veil which obscured his vision. Tarzan leaped upon the two, and swayingand toppling upon their insecure perch the three great beasts tussled andsnapped at one another until the ape-man finally succeeded in separating theenraged anthropoids.

As apology is unknown to these savage progenitors of man, and explanation alaborious and usually futile process, Tarzan bridged the dangerous gulf bydistracting their attention from their altercation to a consideration of theirplans for the immediate future. Accustomed to frequent arguments in which morehair than blood is wasted, the apes speedily forget such trivial encounters,and presently Chulk and Taglat were again squatting in close proximity to eachother and peaceful repose, awaiting the moment when the ape-man should leadthem into the village of the Tarmangani.

It was long after darkness had fallen, that Tarzan led his companions fromtheir hiding place in the tree to the ground and around the palisade to the farside of the village.

Gathering the skirts of his burnoose, beneath one arm, that his legs might havefree action, the ape-man took a short running start, and scrambled to the topof the barrier. Fearing lest the apes should rend their garments to shreds in asimilar attempt, he had directed them to wait below for him, and himselfsecurely perched upon the summit of the palisade he unslung his spear andlowered one end of it to Chulk.

The ape seized it, and while Tarzan held tightly to the upper end, theanthropoid climbed quickly up the shaft until with one paw he grasped the topof the wall. To scramble then to Tarzan’s side was the work of but aninstant. In like manner Taglat was conducted to their sides, and a moment laterthe three dropped silently within the enclosure.

Tarzan led them first to the rear of the hut in which Jane Clayton wasconfined, where, through the roughly repaired aperture in the wall, he soughtwith his sensitive nostrils for proof that the she he had come for was within.

Chulk and Taglat, their hairy faces pressed close to that of the patrician,sniffed with him. Each caught the scent spoor of the woman within, and eachreacted according to his temperament and his habits of thought.

It left Chulk indifferent. The she was for Tarzan—all that he desired wasto bury his snout in the foodstuffs of the Tarmangani. He had come to eat hisfill without labor—Tarzan had told him that that should be his reward,and he was satisfied.

But Taglat’s wicked, bloodshot eyes, narrowed to the realization of thenearing fulfillment of his carefully nursed plan. It is true that sometimesduring the several days that had elapsed since they had set out upon theirexpedition it had been difficult for Taglat to hold his idea uppermost in hismind, and on several occasions he had completely forgotten it, until Tarzan, bya chance word, had recalled it to him, but, for an ape, Taglat had done well.

Now, he licked his chops, and he made a sickening, sucking noise with hisflabby lips as he drew in his breath.

Satisfied that the she was where he had hoped to find her, Tarzan led his apestoward the tent of Achmet Zek. A passing Arab and two slaves saw them, but thenight was dark and the white burnooses hid the hairy limbs of the apes and thegiant figure of their leader, so that the three, by squatting down as though inconversation, were passed by, unsuspected. To the rear of the tent they madetheir way. Within, Achmet Zek conversed with several of his lieutenants.Without, Tarzan listened.

CHAPTER XVII.
The Deadly Peril of Jane Clayton

Lieutenant Albert Werper, terrified by contemplation of the fate which mightawait him at Adis Abeba, cast about for some scheme of escape, but after theblack Mugambi had eluded their vigilance the Abyssinians redoubled theirprecautions to prevent Werper following the lead of the Negro.

For some time Werper entertained the idea of bribing Abdul Mourak with aportion of the contents of the pouch; but fearing that the man would demand allthe gems as the price of liberty, the Belgian, influenced by avarice, soughtanother avenue from his dilemma.

It was then that there dawned upon him the possibility of the success of adifferent course which would still leave him in possession of the jewels, whileat the same time satisfying the greed of the Abyssinian with the convictionthat he had obtained all that Werper had to offer.

And so it was that a day or so after Mugambi had disappeared, Werper asked foran audience with Abdul Mourak. As the Belgian entered the presence of hiscaptor the scowl upon the features of the latter boded ill for any hope whichWerper might entertain, still he fortified himself by recalling the commonweakness of mankind, which permits the most inflexible of natures to bend tothe consuming desire for wealth.

Abdul Mourak eyed him, frowningly. “What do you want now?” heasked.

“My liberty,” replied Werper.

The Abyssinian sneered. “And you disturbed me thus to tell me what anyfool might know,” he said.

“I can pay for it,” said Werper.

Abdul Mourak laughed loudly. “Pay for it?” he cried. “Whatwith—the rags that you have upon your back? Or, perhaps you areconcealing beneath your coat a thousand pounds of ivory. Get out! You are afool. Do not bother me again or I shall have you whipped.”

But Werper persisted. His liberty and perhaps his life depended upon hissuccess.

“Listen to me,” he pleaded. “If I can give you as much goldas ten men may carry will you promise that I shall be conducted in safety tothe nearest English commissioner?”

“As much gold as ten men may carry!” repeated Abdul Mourak.“You are crazy. Where have you so much gold as that?”

“I know where it is hid,” said Werper. “Promise, and I willlead you to it—if ten loads is enough?”

Abdul Mourak had ceased to laugh. He was eyeing the Belgian intently. Thefellow seemed sane enough—yet ten loads of gold! It was preposterous. TheAbyssinian thought in silence for a moment.

“Well, and if I promise,” he said. “How far is thisgold?”

“A long week’s march to the south,” replied Werper.

“And if we do not find it where you say it is, do you realize what yourpunishment will be?”

“If it is not there I will forfeit my life,” replied the Belgian.“I know it is there, for I saw it buried with my own eyes. Andmore—there are not only ten loads, but as many as fifty men may carry. Itis all yours if you will promise to see me safely delivered into the protectionof the English.”

“You will stake your life against the finding of the gold?” askedAbdul.

Werper assented with a nod.

“Very well,” said the Abyssinian, “I promise, and even ifthere be but five loads you shall have your freedom; but until the gold is inmy possession you remain a prisoner.”

“I am satisfied,” said Werper. “Tomorrow we start?”

Abdul Mourak nodded, and the Belgian returned to his guards. The following daythe Abyssinian soldiers were surprised to receive an order which turned theirfaces from the northeast to the south. And so it happened that upon the verynight that Tarzan and the two apes entered the village of the raiders, theAbyssinians camped but a few miles to the east of the same spot.

While Werper dreamed of freedom and the unmolested enjoyment of the fortune inhis stolen pouch, and Abdul Mourak lay awake in greedy contemplation of thefifty loads of gold which lay but a few days farther to the south of him,Achmet Zek gave orders to his lieutenants that they should prepare a force offighting men and carriers to proceed to the ruins of the Englishman’sDOUAR on the morrow and bring back the fabulous fortune which his renegadelieutenant had told him was buried there.

And as he delivered his instructions to those within, a silent listenercrouched without his tent, waiting for the time when he might enter in safetyand prosecute his search for the missing pouch and the pretty pebbles that hadcaught his fancy.

At last the swarthy companions of Achmet Zek quitted his tent, and the leaderwent with them to smoke a pipe with one of their number, leaving his own silkenhabitation unguarded. Scarcely had they left the interior when a knife bladewas thrust through the fabric of the rear wall, some six feet above the ground,and a swift downward stroke opened an entrance to those who waited beyond.

Through the opening stepped the ape-man, and close behind him came the hugeChulk; but Taglat did not follow them. Instead he turned and slunk through thedarkness toward the hut where the she who had arrested his brutish interest laysecurely bound. Before the doorway the sentries sat upon their haunches,conversing in monotones. Within, the young woman lay upon a filthy sleepingmat, resigned, through utter hopelessness to whatever fate lay in store for heruntil the opportunity arrived which would permit her to free herself by theonly means which now seemed even remotely possible—the hitherto detestedact of self-destruction.

Creeping silently toward the sentries, a white-burnoosed figure approached theshadows at one end of the hut. The meager intellect of the creature denied itthe advantage it might have taken of its disguise. Where it could have walkedboldly to the very sides of the sentries, it chose rather to sneak upon them,unseen, from the rear.

It came to the corner of the hut and peered around. The sentries were but a fewpaces away; but the ape did not dare expose himself, even for an instant, tothose feared and hated thunder-sticks which the Tarmangani knew so well how touse, if there were another and safer method of attack.

Taglat wished that there was a tree nearby from the over-hanging branches ofwhich he might spring upon his unsuspecting prey; but, though there was notree, the idea gave birth to a plan. The eaves of the hut were just above theheads of the sentries—from them he could leap upon the Tarmangani,unseen. A quick snap of those mighty jaws would dispose of one of them beforethe other realized that they were attacked, and the second would fall an easyprey to the strength, agility and ferocity of a second quick charge.

Taglat withdrew a few paces to the rear of the hut, gathered himself for theeffort, ran quickly forward and leaped high into the air. He struck the roofdirectly above the rear wall of the hut, and the structure, reinforced by thewall beneath, held his enormous weight for an instant, then he moved forward astep, the roof sagged, the thatching parted and the great anthropoid shotthrough into the interior.

The sentries, hearing the crashing of the roof poles, leaped to their feet andrushed into the hut. Jane Clayton tried to roll aside as the great form litupon the floor so close to her that one foot pinned her clothing to the ground.

The ape, feeling the movement beside him, reached down and gathered the girl inthe hollow of one mighty arm. The burnoose covered the hairy body so that JaneClayton believed that a human arm supported her, and from the extremity ofhopelessness a great hope sprang into her breast that at last she was in thekeeping of a rescuer.

The two sentries were now within the hut, but hesitating because of doubt as tothe nature of the cause of the disturbance. Their eyes, not yet accustomed tothe darkness of the interior, told them nothing, nor did they hear any sound,for the ape stood silently awaiting their attack.

Seeing that they stood without advancing, and realizing that, handicapped as hewas by the weight of the she, he could put up but a poor battle, Taglat electedto risk a sudden break for liberty. Lowering his head, he charged straight forthe two sentries who blocked the doorway. The impact of his mighty shouldersbowled them over upon their backs, and before they could scramble to theirfeet, the ape was gone, darting in the shadows of the huts toward the palisadeat the far end of the village.

The speed and strength of her rescuer filled Jane Clayton with wonder. Could itbe that Tarzan had survived the bullet of the Arab? Who else in all the junglecould bear the weight of a grown woman as lightly as he who held her? She spokehis name; but there was no response. Still she did not give up hope.

At the palisade the beast did not even hesitate. A single mighty leap carriedit to the top, where it poised but for an instant before dropping to the groundupon the opposite side. Now the girl was almost positive that she was safe inthe arms of her husband, and when the ape took to the trees and bore herswiftly into the jungle, as Tarzan had done at other times in the past, beliefbecame conviction.

In a little moonlit glade, a mile or so from the camp of the raiders, herrescuer halted and dropped her to the ground. His roughness surprised her, butstill she had no doubts. Again she called him by name, and at the same instantthe ape, fretting under the restraints of the unaccustomed garments of theTarmangani, tore the burnoose from him, revealing to the eyes of thehorror-struck woman the hideous face and hairy form of a giant anthropoid.

With a piteous wail of terror, Jane Clayton swooned, while, from theconcealment of a nearby bush, Numa, the lion, eyed the pair hungrily and lickedhis chops.

Tarzan, entering the tent of Achmet Zek, searched the interior thoroughly. Hetore the bed to pieces and scattered the contents of box and bag about thefloor. He investigated whatever his eyes discovered, nor did those keen organsoverlook a single article within the habitation of the raider chief; but nopouch or pretty pebbles rewarded his thoroughness.

Satisfied at last that his belongings were not in the possession of Achmet Zek,unless they were on the person of the chief himself, Tarzan decided to securethe person of the she before further prosecuting his search for the pouch.

Motioning for Chulk to follow him, he passed out of the tent by the same waythat he had entered it, and walking boldly through the village, made directlyfor the hut where Jane Clayton had been imprisoned.

He noted with surprise the absence of Taglat, whom he had expected to findawaiting him outside the tent of Achmet Zek; but, accustomed as he was to theunreliability of apes, he gave no serious attention to the present defection ofhis surly companion. So long as Taglat did not cause interference with hisplans, Tarzan was indifferent to his absence.

As he approached the hut, the ape-man noticed that a crowd had collected aboutthe entrance. He could see that the men who composed it were much excited, andfearing lest Chulk’s disguise should prove inadequate to the concealmentof his true identity in the face of so many observers, he commanded the ape tobetake himself to the far end of the village, and there await him.

As Chulk waddled off, keeping to the shadows, Tarzan advanced boldly toward theexcited group before the doorway of the hut. He mingled with the blacks and theArabs in an endeavor to learn the cause of the commotion, in his interestforgetting that he alone of the assemblage carried a spear, a bow and arrows,and thus might become an object of suspicious attention.

Shouldering his way through the crowd he approached the doorway, and had almostreached it when one of the Arabs laid a hand upon his shoulder, crying:“Who is this?” at the same time snatching back the hood from theape-man’s face.

Tarzan of the Apes in all his savage life had never been accustomed to pause inargument with an antagonist. The primitive instinct of self-preservationacknowledges many arts and wiles; but argument is not one of them, nor did henow waste precious time in an attempt to convince the raiders that he was not awolf in sheep’s clothing. Instead he had his unmasker by the throat erethe man’s words had scarce quitted his lips, and hurling him from side toside brushed away those who would have swarmed upon him.

Using the Arab as a weapon, Tarzan forced his way quickly to the doorway, and amoment later was within the hut. A hasty examination revealed the fact that itwas empty, and his sense of smell discovered, too, the scent spoor of Taglat,the ape. Tarzan uttered a low, ominous growl. Those who were pressing forwardat the doorway to seize him, fell back as the savage notes of the bestialchallenge smote upon their ears. They looked at one another in surprise andconsternation. A man had entered the hut alone, and yet with their own earsthey had heard the voice of a wild beast within. What could it mean? Had a lionor a leopard sought sanctuary in the interior, unbeknown to the sentries?

Tarzan’s quick eyes discovered the opening in the roof, through whichTaglat had fallen. He guessed that the ape had either come or gone by way ofthe break, and while the Arabs hesitated without, he sprang, catlike, for theopening, grasped the top of the wall and clambered out upon the roof, droppinginstantly to the ground at the rear of the hut.

When the Arabs finally mustered courage to enter the hut, after firing severalvolleys through the walls, they found the interior deserted. At the same timeTarzan, at the far end of the village, sought for Chulk; but the ape wasnowhere to be found.

Robbed of his she, deserted by his companions, and as much in ignorance as everas to the whereabouts of his pouch and pebbles, it was an angry Tarzan whoclimbed the palisade and vanished into the darkness of the jungle.

For the present he must give up the search for his pouch, since it would beparamount to self-destruction to enter the Arab camp now while all itsinhabitants were aroused and upon the alert.

In his escape from the village, the ape-man had lost the spoor of the fleeingTaglat, and now he circled widely through the forest in an endeavor to againpick it up.

Chulk had remained at his post until the cries and shots of the Arabs hadfilled his simple soul with terror, for above all things the ape folk fear thethunder-sticks of the Tarmangani; then he had clambered nimbly over thepalisade, tearing his burnoose in the effort, and fled into the depths of thejungle, grumbling and scolding as he went.

Tarzan, roaming the jungle in search of the trail of Taglat and the she,traveled swiftly. In a little moonlit glade ahead of him the great ape wasbending over the prostrate form of the woman Tarzan sought. The beast wastearing at the bonds that confined her ankles and wrists, pulling and gnawingupon the cords.

The course the ape-man was taking would carry him but a short distance to theright of them, and though he could not have seen them the wind was bearing downfrom them to him, carrying their scent spoor strongly toward him.

A moment more and Jane Clayton’s safety might have been assured, eventhough Numa, the lion, was already gathering himself in preparation for acharge; but Fate, already all too cruel, now outdid herself—the windveered suddenly for a few moments, the scent spoor that would have led theape-man to the girl’s side was wafted in the opposite direction; Tarzanpassed within fifty yards of the tragedy that was being enacted in the glade,and the opportunity was gone beyond recall.

CHAPTER XVIII.
The Fight For the Treasure

It was morning before Tarzan could bring himself to a realization of thepossibility of failure of his quest, and even then he would only admit thatsuccess was but delayed. He would eat and sleep, and then set forth again. Thejungle was wide; but wide too were the experience and cunning of Tarzan. Taglatmight travel far; but Tarzan would find him in the end, though he had to searchevery tree in the mighty forest.

Soliloquizing thus, the ape-man followed the spoor of Bara, the deer, theunfortunate upon which he had decided to satisfy his hunger. For half an hourthe trail led the ape-man toward the east along a well-marked game path, whensuddenly, to the stalker’s astonishment, the quarry broke into sight,racing madly back along the narrow way straight toward the hunter.

Tarzan, who had been following along the trail, leaped so quickly to theconcealing verdure at the side that the deer was still unaware of the presenceof an enemy in this direction, and while the animal was still some distanceaway, the ape-man swung into the lower branches of the tree which overhung thetrail. There he crouched, a savage beast of prey, awaiting the coming of itsvictim.

What had frightened the deer into so frantic a retreat, Tarzan did notknow—Numa, the lion, perhaps, or Sheeta, the panther; but whatsoever itwas mattered little to Tarzan of the Apes—he was ready and willing todefend his kill against any other denizen of the jungle. If he were unable todo it by means of physical prowess, he had at his command another and a greaterpower—his shrewd intelligence.

And so, on came the running deer, straight into the jaws of death. The ape-manturned so that his back was toward the approaching animal. He poised with bentknees upon the gently swaying limb above the trail, timing with keen ears thenearing hoof beats of frightened Bara.

In a moment the victim flashed beneath the limb and at the same instant theape-man above sprang out and down upon its back. The weight of the man’sbody carried the deer to the ground. It stumbled forward once in a futileeffort to rise, and then mighty muscles dragged its head far back, gave theneck a vicious wrench, and Bara was dead.

Quick had been the killing, and equally quick were the ape-man’ssubsequent actions, for who might know what manner of killer pursued Bara, orhow close at hand he might be? Scarce had the neck of the victim snapped thanthe carcass was hanging over one of Tarzan’s broad shoulders, and aninstant later the ape-man was perched once more among the lower branches of atree above the trail, his keen, gray eyes scanning the pathway down which thedeer had fled.

Nor was it long before the cause of Bara’s fright became evident toTarzan, for presently came the unmistakable sounds of approaching horsemen.Dragging his kill after him the ape-man ascended to the middle terrace, andsettling himself comfortably in the crotch of a tree where he could still viewthe trail beneath, cut a juicy steak from the deer’s loin, and buryinghis strong, white teeth in the hot flesh proceeded to enjoy the fruits of hisprowess and his cunning.

Nor did he neglect the trail beneath while he satisfied his hunger. His sharpeyes saw the muzzle of the leading horse as it came into view around a bend inthe tortuous trail, and one by one they scrutinized the riders as they passedbeneath him in single file.

Among them came one whom Tarzan recognized, but so schooled was the ape-man inthe control of his emotions that no slightest change of expression, much lessany hysterical demonstration that might have revealed his presence, betrayedthe fact of his inward excitement.

Beneath him, as unconscious of his presence as were the Abyssinians before andbehind him, rode Albert Werper, while the ape-man scrutinized the Belgian forsome sign of the pouch which he had stolen.

As the Abyssinians rode toward the south, a giant figure hovered ever upontheir trail—a huge, almost naked white man, who carried the bloodycarcass of a deer upon his shoulders, for Tarzan knew that he might not haveanother opportunity to hunt for some time if he were to follow the Belgian.

To endeavor to snatch him from the midst of the armed horsemen, not even Tarzanwould attempt other than in the last extremity, for the way of the wild is theway of caution and cunning, unless they be aroused to rashness by pain oranger.

So the Abyssinians and the Belgian marched southward and Tarzan of the Apesswung silently after them through the swaying branches of the middle terrace.

A two days’ march brought them to a level plain beyond which laymountains—a plain which Tarzan remembered and which aroused within himvague half memories and strange longings. Out upon the plain the horsemen rode,and at a safe distance behind them crept the ape-man, taking advantage of suchcover as the ground afforded.

Beside a charred pile of timbers the Abyssinians halted, and Tarzan, sneakingclose and concealing himself in nearby shrubbery, watched them in wonderment.He saw them digging up the earth, and he wondered if they had hidden meat therein the past and now had come for it. Then he recalled how he had buried hispretty pebbles, and the suggestion that had caused him to do it. They weredigging for the things the blacks had buried here!

Presently he saw them uncover a dirty, yellow object, and he witnessed the joyof Werper and of Abdul Mourak as the grimy object was exposed to view. One byone they unearthed many similar pieces, all of the same uniform, dirty yellow,until a pile of them lay upon the ground, a pile which Abdul Mourak fondled andpetted in an ecstasy of greed.

Something stirred in the ape-man’s mind as he looked long upon the goldeningots. Where had he seen such before? What were they? Why did these Tarmanganicovet them so greatly? To whom did they belong?

He recalled the black men who had buried them. The things must be theirs.Werper was stealing them as he had stolen Tarzan’s pouch of pebbles. Theape-man’s eyes blazed in anger. He would like to find the black men andlead them against these thieves. He wondered where their village might be.

As all these things ran through the active mind, a party of men moved out ofthe forest at the edge of the plain and advanced toward the ruins of the burnedbungalow.

Abdul Mourak, always watchful, was the first to see them, but already they werehalfway across the open. He called to his men to mount and hold themselves inreadiness, for in the heart of Africa who may know whether a strange host befriend or foe?

Werper, swinging into his saddle, fastened his eyes upon the newcomers, then,white and trembling he turned toward Abdul Mourak.

“It is Achmet Zek and his raiders,” he whispered. “They arecome for the gold.”

It must have been at about the same instant that Achmet Zek discovered the pileof yellow ingots and realized the actuality of what he had already feared sincefirst his eyes had alighted upon the party beside the ruins of theEnglishman’s bungalow. Someone had forestalled him—another had comefor the treasure ahead of him.

The Arab was crazed by rage. Recently everything had gone against him. He hadlost the jewels, the Belgian, and for the second time he had lost theEnglishwoman. Now some one had come to rob him of this treasure which he hadthought as safe from disturbance here as though it never had been mined.

He cared not whom the thieves might be. They would not give up the gold withouta battle, of that he was certain, and with a wild whoop and a command to hisfollowers, Achmet Zek put spurs to his horse and dashed down upon theAbyssinians, and after him, waving their long guns above their heads, yellingand cursing, came his motley horde of cut-throat followers.

The men of Abdul Mourak met them with a volley which emptied a few saddles, andthen the raiders were among them, and sword, pistol and musket, each was doingits most hideous and bloody work.

Achmet Zek, spying Werper at the first charge, bore down upon the Belgian, andthe latter, terrified by contemplation of the fate he deserved, turned hishorse’s head and dashed madly away in an effort to escape. Shouting to alieutenant to take command, and urging him upon pain of death to dispatch theAbyssinians and bring the gold back to his camp, Achmet Zek set off across theplain in pursuit of the Belgian, his wicked nature unable to forego thepleasures of revenge, even at the risk of sacrificing the treasure.

As the pursued and the pursuer raced madly toward the distant forest the battlebehind them raged with bloody savageness. No quarter was asked or given byeither the ferocious Abyssinians or the murderous cut-throats of Achmet Zek.

From the concealment of the shrubbery Tarzan watched the sanguinary conflictwhich so effectually surrounded him that he found no loop-hole through which hemight escape to follow Werper and the Arab chief.

The Abyssinians were formed in a circle which included Tarzan’s position,and around and into them galloped the yelling raiders, now darting away, nowcharging in to deliver thrusts and cuts with their curved swords.

Numerically the men of Achmet Zek were superior, and slowly but surely thesoldiers of Menelek were being exterminated. To Tarzan the result wasimmaterial. He watched with but a single purpose—to escape the ring ofblood-mad fighters and be away after the Belgian and his pouch.

When he had first discovered Werper upon the trail where he had slain Bara, hehad thought that his eyes must be playing him false, so certain had he beenthat the thief had been slain and devoured by Numa; but after following thedetachment for two days, with his keen eyes always upon the Belgian, he nolonger doubted the identity of the man, though he was put to it to explain theidentity of the mutilated corpse he had supposed was the man he sought.

As he crouched in hiding among the unkempt shrubbery which so short a whilesince had been the delight and pride of the wife he no longer recalled, an Araband an Abyssinian wheeled their mounts close to his position as they slashed ateach other with their swords.

Step by step the Arab beat back his adversary until the latter’s horseall but trod upon the ape-man, and then a vicious cut clove the blackwarrior’s skull, and the corpse toppled backward almost upon Tarzan.

As the Abyssinian tumbled from his saddle the possibility of escape which wasrepresented by the riderless horse electrified the ape-man to instant action.Before the frightened beast could gather himself for flight a naked giant wasastride his back. A strong hand had grasped his bridle rein, and the surprisedArab discovered a new foe in the saddle of him, whom he had slain.

But this enemy wielded no sword, and his spear and bow remained upon his back.The Arab, recovered from his first surprise, dashed in with raised sword toannihilate this presumptuous stranger. He aimed a mighty blow at theape-man’s head, a blow which swung harmlessly through thin air as Tarzanducked from its path, and then the Arab felt the other’s horse brushinghis leg, a great arm shot out and encircled his waist, and before he couldrecover himself he was dragged from his saddle, and forming a shield for hisantagonist was borne at a mad run straight through the encircling ranks of hisfellows.

Just beyond them he was tossed aside upon the ground, and the last he saw ofhis strange foeman the latter was galloping off across the plain in thedirection of the forest at its farther edge.

For another hour the battle raged nor did it cease until the last of theAbyssinians lay dead upon the ground, or had galloped off toward the north inflight. But a handful of men escaped, among them Abdul Mourak.

The victorious raiders collected about the pile of golden ingots which theAbyssinians had uncovered, and there awaited the return of their leader. Theirexultation was slightly tempered by the glimpse they had had of the strangeapparition of the naked white man galloping away upon the horse of one of theirfoemen and carrying a companion who was now among them expatiating upon thesuperhuman strength of the ape-man. None of them there but was familiar withthe name and fame of Tarzan of the Apes, and the fact that they had recognizedthe white giant as the ferocious enemy of the wrongdoers of the jungle, addedto their terror, for they had been assured that Tarzan was dead.

Naturally superstitious, they fully believed that they had seen the disembodiedspirit of the dead man, and now they cast fearful glances about them inexpectation of the ghost’s early return to the scene of the ruin they hadinflicted upon him during their recent raid upon his home, and discussed inaffrighted whispers the probable nature of the vengeance which the spirit wouldinflict upon them should he return to find them in possession of his gold.

As they conversed their terror grew, while from the concealment of the reedsalong the river below them a small party of naked, black warriors watched theirevery move. From the heights beyond the river these black men had heard thenoise of the conflict, and creeping warily down to the stream had forded it andadvanced through the reeds until they were in a position to watch every move ofthe combatants.

For a half hour the raiders awaited Achmet Zek’s return, their fear ofthe earlier return of the ghost of Tarzan constantly undermining their loyaltyto and fear of their chief. Finally one among them voiced the desires of allwhen he announced that he intended riding forth toward the forest in search ofAchmet Zek. Instantly every man of them sprang to his mount.

“The gold will be safe here,” cried one. “We have killed theAbyssinians and there are no others to carry it away. Let us ride in search ofAchmet Zek!”

And a moment later, amidst a cloud of dust, the raiders were galloping madlyacross the plain, and out from the concealment of the reeds along the river,crept a party of black warriors toward the spot where the golden ingots of Oparlay piled on the ground.

Werper had still been in advance of Achmet Zek when he reached the forest; butthe latter, better mounted, was gaining upon him. Riding with the recklesscourage of desperation the Belgian urged his mount to greater speed even withinthe narrow confines of the winding, game trail that the beast was following.

Behind him he could hear the voice of Achmet Zek crying to him to halt; butWerper only dug the spurs deeper into the bleeding sides of his panting mount.Two hundred yards within the forest a broken branch lay across the trail. Itwas a small thing that a horse might ordinarily take in his natural stridewithout noticing its presence; but Werper’s horse was jaded, his feetwere heavy with weariness, and as the branch caught between his front legs hestumbled, was unable to recover himself, and went down, sprawling in the trail.

Werper, going over his head, rolled a few yards farther on, scrambled to hisfeet and ran back. Seizing the reins he tugged to drag the beast to his feet;but the animal would not or could not rise, and as the Belgian cursed andstruck at him, Achmet Zek appeared in view.

Instantly the Belgian ceased his efforts with the dying animal at his feet, andseizing his rifle, dropped behind the horse and fired at the oncoming Arab.

His bullet, going low, struck Achmet Zek’s horse in the breast, bringinghim down a hundred yards from where Werper lay preparing to fire a second shot.

The Arab, who had gone down with his mount, was standing astride him, andseeing the Belgian’s strategic position behind his fallen horse, lost notime in taking up a similar one behind his own.

And there the two lay, alternately firing at and cursing each other, while frombehind the Arab, Tarzan of the Apes approached to the edge of the forest. Herehe heard the occasional shots of the duelists, and choosing the safer andswifter avenue of the forest branches to the uncertain transportation affordedby a half-broken Abyssinian pony, took to the trees.

Keeping to one side of the trail, the ape-man came presently to a point wherehe could look down in comparative safety upon the fighters. First one and thenthe other would partially raise himself above his breastwork of horseflesh,fire his weapon and immediately drop flat behind his shelter, where he wouldreload and repeat the act a moment later.

Werper had but little ammunition, having been hastily armed by Abdul Mourakfrom the body of one of the first of the Abyssinians who had fallen in thefight about the pile of ingots, and now he realized that soon he would haveused his last bullet, and be at the mercy of the Arab—a mercy with whichhe was well acquainted.

Facing both death and despoilment of his treasure, the Belgian cast about forsome plan of escape, and the only one that appealed to him as containing even aremote possibility of success hinged upon the chance of bribing Achmet Zek.

Werper had fired all but a single cartridge, when, during a lull in thefighting, he called aloud to his opponent.

“Achmet Zek,” he cried, “Allah alone knows which one of usmay leave our bones to rot where he lies upon this trail today if we keep upour foolish battle. You wish the contents of the pouch I wear about my waist,and I wish my life and my liberty even more than I do the jewels. Let us each,then, take that which he most desires and go our separate ways in peace. I willlay the pouch upon the carcass of my horse, where you may see it, and you, inturn, will lay your gun upon your horse, with butt toward me. Then I will goaway, leaving the pouch to you, and you will let me go in safety. I want onlymy life, and my freedom.”

The Arab thought in silence for a moment. Then he spoke. His reply wasinfluenced by the fact that he had expended his last shot.

“Go your way, then,” he growled, “leaving the pouch in plainsight behind you. See, I lay my gun thus, with the butt toward you. Go.”

Werper removed the pouch from about his waist. Sorrowfully and affectionatelyhe let his fingers press the hard outlines of the contents. Ah, if he couldextract a little handful of the precious stones! But Achmet Zek was standingnow, his eagle eyes commanding a plain view of the Belgian and his every act.

Regretfully Werper laid the pouch, its contents undisturbed, upon the body ofhis horse, rose, and taking his rifle with him, backed slowly down the trailuntil a turn hid him from the view of the watchful Arab.

Even then Achmet Zek did not advance, fearful as he was of some such treacheryas he himself might have been guilty of under like circumstances; nor were hissuspicions groundless, for the Belgian, no sooner had he passed out of therange of the Arab’s vision, halted behind the bole of a tree, where hestill commanded an unobstructed view of his dead horse and the pouch, andraising his rifle covered the spot where the other’s body must appearwhen he came forward to seize the treasure.

But Achmet Zek was no fool to expose himself to the blackened honor of a thiefand a murderer. Taking his long gun with him, he left the trail, entering therank and tangled vegetation which walled it, and crawling slowly forward onhands and knees he paralleled the trail; but never for an instant was his bodyexposed to the rifle of the hidden assassin.

Thus Achmet Zek advanced until he had come opposite the dead horse of hisenemy. The pouch lay there in full view, while a short distance along thetrail, Werper waited in growing impatience and nervousness, wondering why theArab did not come to claim his reward.

Presently he saw the muzzle of a rifle appear suddenly and mysteriously a fewinches above the pouch, and before he could realize the cunning trick that theArab had played upon him the sight of the weapon was adroitly hooked into therawhide thong which formed the carrying strap of the pouch, and the latter wasdrawn quickly from his view into the dense foliage at the trail’s side.

Not for an instant had the raider exposed a square inch of his body, and Werperdared not fire his one remaining shot unless every chance of a successful hitwas in his favor.

Chuckling to himself, Achmet Zek withdrew a few paces farther into the jungle,for he was as positive that Werper was waiting nearby for a chance to pot himas though his eyes had penetrated the jungle trees to the figure of the hidingBelgian, fingering his rifle behind the bole of the buttressed giant.

Werper did not dare advance—his cupidity would not permit him to depart,and so he stood there, his rifle ready in his hands, his eyes watching thetrail before him with catlike intensity.

But there was another who had seen the pouch and recognized it, who did advancewith Achmet Zek, hovering above him, as silent and as sure as death itself, andas the Arab, finding a little spot less overgrown with bushes than he had yetencountered, prepared to gloat his eyes upon the contents of the pouch, Tarzanpaused directly above him, intent upon the same object.

Wetting his thin lips with his tongue, Achmet Zek loosened the tie stringswhich closed the mouth of the pouch, and cupping one claw-like hand pouredforth a portion of the contents into his palm.

A single look he took at the stones lying in his hand. His eyes narrowed, acurse broke from his lips, and he hurled the small objects upon the ground,disdainfully. Quickly he emptied the balance of the contents until he hadscanned each separate stone, and as he dumped them all upon the ground andstamped upon them his rage grew until the muscles of his face worked indemon-like fury, and his fingers clenched until his nails bit into the flesh.

Above, Tarzan watched in wonderment. He had been curious to discover what allthe pow-wow about his pouch had meant. He wanted to see what the Arab would doafter the other had gone away, leaving the pouch behind him, and, havingsatisfied his curiosity, he would then have pounced upon Achmet Zek and takenthe pouch and his pretty pebbles away from him, for did they not belong toTarzan?

He saw the Arab now throw aside the empty pouch, and grasping his long gun bythe barrel, clublike, sneak stealthily through the jungle beside the trailalong which Werper had gone.

As the man disappeared from his view, Tarzan dropped to the ground andcommenced gathering up the spilled contents of the pouch, and the moment thathe obtained his first near view of the scattered pebbles he understood the rageof the Arab, for instead of the glittering and scintillating gems which hadfirst caught and held the attention of the ape-man, the pouch now contained buta collection of ordinary river pebbles.

CHAPTER XIX.
Jane Clayton and the Beasts of the Jungle

Mugambi, after his successful break for liberty, had fallen upon hard times.His way had led him through a country with which he was unfamiliar, a junglecountry in which he could find no water, and but little food, so that afterseveral days of wandering he found himself so reduced in strength that he couldbarely drag himself along.

It was with growing difficulty that he found the strength necessary toconstruct a shelter by night wherein he might be reasonably safe from the largecarnivora, and by day he still further exhausted his strength in digging foredible roots, and searching for water.

A few stagnant pools at considerable distances apart saved him from death bythirst; but his was a pitiable state when finally he stumbled by accident upona large river in a country where fruit was abundant, and small game which hemight bag by means of a combination of stealth, cunning, and a crude knob-stickwhich he had fashioned from a fallen limb.

Realizing that he still had a long march ahead of him before he could reacheven the outskirts of the Waziri country, Mugambi wisely decided to remainwhere he was until he had recuperated his strength and health. A fewdays’ rest would accomplish wonders for him, he knew, and he could illafford to sacrifice his chances for a safe return by setting forth handicappedby weakness.

And so it was that he constructed a substantial thorn boma, and rigged athatched shelter within it, where he might sleep by night in security, and fromwhich he sallied forth by day to hunt the flesh which alone could return to hisgiant thews their normal prowess.

One day, as he hunted, a pair of savage eyes discovered him from theconcealment of the branches of a great tree beneath which the black warriorpassed. Bloodshot, wicked eyes they were, set in a fierce and hairy face.

They watched Mugambi make his little kill of a small rodent, and they followedhim as he returned to his hut, their owner moving quietly through the treesupon the trail of the Negro.

The creature was Chulk, and he looked down upon the unconscious man more incuriosity than in hate. The wearing of the Arab burnoose which Tarzan hadplaced upon his person had aroused in the mind of the anthropoid a desire forsimilar mimicry of the Tarmangani. The burnoose, though, had obstructed hismovements and proven such a nuisance that the ape had long since torn it fromhim and thrown it away.

Now, however, he saw a Gomangani arrayed in less cumbersome apparel—aloin cloth, a few copper ornaments and a feather headdress. These were more inline with Chulk’s desires than a flowing robe which was constantlygetting between one’s legs, and catching upon every limb and bush alongthe leafy trail.

Chulk eyed the pouch, which, suspended over Mugambi’s shoulder, swungbeside his black hip. This took his fancy, for it was ornamented with feathersand a fringe, and so the ape hung about Mugambi’s boma, waiting anopportunity to seize either by stealth or might some object of theblack’s apparel.

Nor was it long before the opportunity came. Feeling safe within his thornyenclosure, Mugambi was wont to stretch himself in the shade of his shelterduring the heat of the day, and sleep in peaceful security until the decliningsun carried with it the enervating temperature of midday.

Watching from above, Chulk saw the black warrior stretched thus in theunconsciousness of sleep one sultry afternoon. Creeping out upon an overhangingbranch the anthropoid dropped to the ground within the boma. He approached thesleeper upon padded feet which gave forth no sound, and with an uncannywoodcraft that rustled not a leaf or a grass blade.

Pausing beside the man, the ape bent over and examined his belongings. Great aswas the strength of Chulk there lay in the back of his little brain a somethingwhich deterred him from arousing the man to combat—a sense that isinherent in all the lower orders, a strange fear of man, that rules even themost powerful of the jungle creatures at times.

To remove Mugambi’s loin cloth without awakening him would be impossible,and the only detachable things were the knob-stick and the pouch, which hadfallen from the black’s shoulder as he rolled in sleep.

Seizing these two articles, as better than nothing at all, Chulk retreated withhaste, and every indication of nervous terror, to the safety of the tree fromwhich he had dropped, and, still haunted by that indefinable terror which theclose proximity of man awakened in his breast, fled precipitately through thejungle. Aroused by attack, or supported by the presence of another of his kind,Chulk could have braved the presence of a score of human beings, butalone—ah, that was a different matter—alone, and unenraged.

It was some time after Mugambi awoke that he missed the pouch. Instantly he wasall excitement. What could have become of it? It had been at his side when helay down to sleep—of that he was certain, for had he not pushed it frombeneath him when its bulging bulk, pressing against his ribs, caused himdiscomfort? Yes, it had been there when he lay down to sleep. How then had itvanished?

Mugambi’s savage imagination was filled with visions of the spirits ofdeparted friends and enemies, for only to the machinations of such as thesecould he attribute the disappearance of his pouch and knob-stick in the firstexcitement of the discovery of their loss; but later and more carefulinvestigation, such as his woodcraft made possible, revealed indisputableevidence of a more material explanation than his excited fancy and superstitionhad at first led him to accept.

In the trampled turf beside him was the faint impress of huge, manlike feet.Mugambi raised his brows as the truth dawned upon him. Hastily leaving the bomahe searched in all directions about the enclosure for some further sign of thetell-tale spoor. He climbed trees and sought for evidence of the direction ofthe thief’s flight; but the faint signs left by a wary ape who elects totravel through the trees eluded the woodcraft of Mugambi. Tarzan might havefollowed them; but no ordinary mortal could perceive them, or perceiving,translate.

The black, now strengthened and refreshed by his rest, felt ready to set outagain for Waziri, and finding himself another knob-stick, turned his back uponthe river and plunged into the mazes of the jungle.

As Taglat struggled with the bonds which secured the ankles and wrists of hiscaptive, the great lion that eyed the two from behind a nearby clump of busheswormed closer to his intended prey.

The ape’s back was toward the lion. He did not see the broad head,fringed by its rough mane, protruding through the leafy wall. He could not knowthat the powerful hind paws were gathering close beneath the tawny bellypreparatory to a sudden spring, and his first intimation of impending dangerwas the thunderous and triumphant roar which the charging lion could no longersuppress.

Scarce pausing for a backward glance, Taglat abandoned the unconscious womanand fled in the opposite direction from the horrid sound which had broken in sounexpected and terrifying a manner upon his startled ears; but the warning hadcome too late to save him, and the lion, in his second bound, alighted fullupon the broad shoulders of the anthropoid.

As the great bull went down there was awakened in him to the full all thecunning, all the ferocity, all the physical prowess which obey the mightiest ofthe fundamental laws of nature, the law of self-preservation, and turning uponhis back he closed with the carnivore in a death struggle so fearless andabandoned, that for a moment the great Numa himself may have trembled for theoutcome.

Seizing the lion by the mane, Taglat buried his yellowed fangs deep in themonster’s throat, growling hideously through the muffled gag of blood andhair. Mixed with the ape’s voice the lion’s roars of rage and painreverberated through the jungle, till the lesser creatures of the wild,startled from their peaceful pursuits, scurried fearfully away.

Rolling over and over upon the turf the two battled with demoniac fury, untilthe colossal cat, by doubling his hind paws far up beneath his belly sank histalons deep into Taglat’s chest, then, ripping downward with all hisstrength, Numa accomplished his design, and the disemboweled anthropoid, with alast spasmodic struggle, relaxed in limp and bloody dissolution beneath histitanic adversary.

Scrambling to his feet, Numa looked about quickly in all directions, as thoughseeking to detect the possible presence of other foes; but only the still andunconscious form of the girl, lying a few paces from him met his gaze, and withan angry growl he placed a forepaw upon the body of his kill and raising hishead gave voice to his savage victory cry.

For another moment he stood with fierce eyes roving to and fro about theclearing. At last they halted for a second time upon the girl. A low growlrumbled from the lion’s throat. His lower jaw rose and fell, and theslaver drooled and dripped upon the dead face of Taglat.

Like two yellow-green augurs, wide and unblinking, the terrible eyes remainedfixed upon Jane Clayton. The erect and majestic pose of the great frame shranksuddenly into a sinister crouch as, slowly and gently as one who treads oneggs, the devil-faced cat crept forward toward the girl.

Beneficent Fate maintained her in happy unconsciousness of the dread presencesneaking stealthily upon her. She did not know when the lion paused at herside. She did not hear the sniffing of his nostrils as he smelled about her.She did not feel the heat of the fetid breath upon her face, nor the drippingof the saliva from the frightful jaws half opened so close above her.

Finally the lion lifted a forepaw and turned the body of the girl half over,then he stood again eyeing her as though still undetermined whether life wasextinct or not. Some noise or odor from the nearby jungle attracted hisattention for a moment. His eyes did not again return to Jane Clayton, andpresently he left her, walked over to the remains of Taglat, and crouching downupon his kill with his back toward the girl, proceeded to devour the ape.

It was upon this scene that Jane Clayton at last opened her eyes. Inured todanger, she maintained her self-possession in the face of the startlingsurprise which her new-found consciousness revealed to her. She neither criedout nor moved a muscle, until she had taken in every detail of the scene whichlay within the range of her vision.

She saw that the lion had killed the ape, and that he was devouring his preyless than fifty feet from where she lay; but what could she do? Her hands andfeet were bound. She must wait then, in what patience she could command, untilNuma had eaten and digested the ape, when, without doubt, he would return tofeast upon her, unless, in the meantime, the dread hyenas should discover her,or some other of the numerous prowling carnivora of the jungle.

As she lay tormented by these frightful thoughts, she suddenly became consciousthat the bonds at her wrists and ankles no longer hurt her, and then of thefact that her hands were separated, one lying upon either side of her, insteadof both being confined at her back.

Wonderingly she moved a hand. What miracle had been performed? It was notbound! Stealthily and noiselessly she moved her other limbs, only to discoverthat she was free. She could not know how the thing had happened, that Taglat,gnawing upon them for sinister purposes of his own, had cut them through but aninstant before Numa had frightened him from his victim.

For a moment Jane Clayton was overwhelmed with joy and thanksgiving; but onlyfor a moment. What good was her new-found liberty in the face of the frightfulbeast crouching so close beside her? If she could have had this chance underdifferent conditions, how happily she would have taken advantage of it; but nowit was given to her when escape was practically impossible.

The nearest tree was a hundred feet away, the lion less than fifty. To rise andattempt to reach the safety of those tantalizing branches would be but toinvite instant destruction, for Numa would doubtless be too jealous of thisfuture meal to permit it to escape with ease. And yet, too, there was anotherpossibility—a chance which hinged entirely upon the unknown temper of thegreat beast.

His belly already partially filled, he might watch with indifference thedeparture of the girl; yet could she afford to chance so improbable acontingency? She doubted it. Upon the other hand she was no more minded toallow this frail opportunity for life to entirely elude her without taking orattempting to take some advantage from it.

She watched the lion narrowly. He could not see her without turning his headmore than halfway around. She would attempt a ruse. Silently she rolled over inthe direction of the nearest tree, and away from the lion, until she lay againin the same position in which Numa had left her, but a few feet farther fromhim.

Here she lay breathless watching the lion; but the beast gave no indicationthat he had heard aught to arouse his suspicions. Again she rolled over,gaining a few more feet and again she lay in rigid contemplation of thebeast’s back.

During what seemed hours to her tense nerves, Jane Clayton continued thesetactics, and still the lion fed on in apparent unconsciousness that his secondprey was escaping him. Already the girl was but a few paces from thetree—a moment more and she would be close enough to chance springing toher feet, throwing caution aside and making a sudden, bold dash for safety. Shewas halfway over in her turn, her face away from the lion, when he suddenlyturned his great head and fastened his eyes upon her. He saw her roll over uponher side away from him, and then her eyes were turned again toward him, and thecold sweat broke from the girl’s every pore as she realized that withlife almost within her grasp, death had found her out.

For a long time neither the girl nor the lion moved. The beast lay motionless,his head turned upon his shoulders and his glaring eyes fixed upon the rigidvictim, now nearly fifty yards away. The girl stared back straight into thosecruel orbs, daring not to move even a muscle.

The strain upon her nerves was becoming so unbearable that she could scarcelyrestrain a growing desire to scream, when Numa deliberately turned back to thebusiness of feeding; but his back-layed ears attested a sinister regard for theactions of the girl behind him.

Realizing that she could not again turn without attracting his immediate andperhaps fatal attention, Jane Clayton resolved to risk all in one last attemptto reach the tree and clamber to the lower branches.

Gathering herself stealthily for the effort, she leaped suddenly to her feet,but almost simultaneously the lion sprang up, wheeled and with wide-distendedjaws and terrific roars, charged swiftly down upon her.

Those who have spent lifetimes hunting the big game of Africa will tell youthat scarcely any other creature in the world attains the speed of a charginglion. For the short distance that the great cat can maintain it, it resemblesnothing more closely than the onrushing of a giant locomotive under full speed,and so, though the distance that Jane Clayton must cover was relatively small,the terrific speed of the lion rendered her hopes of escape almost negligible.

Yet fear can work wonders, and though the upward spring of the lion as heneared the tree into which she was scrambling brought his talons in contactwith her boots she eluded his raking grasp, and as he hurtled against the boleof her sanctuary, the girl drew herself into the safety of the branches abovehis reach.

For some time the lion paced, growling and moaning, beneath the tree in whichJane Clayton crouched, panting and trembling. The girl was a prey to thenervous reaction from the frightful ordeal through which she had so recentlypassed, and in her overwrought state it seemed that never again should she daredescend to the ground among the fearsome dangers which infested the broadstretch of jungle that she knew must lie between herself and the nearestvillage of her faithful Waziri.

It was almost dark before the lion finally quit the clearing, and even had hisplace beside the remnants of the mangled ape not been immediately usurped by apack of hyenas, Jane Clayton would scarcely have dared venture from her refugein the face of impending night, and so she composed herself as best she couldfor the long and tiresome wait, until daylight might offer some means of escapefrom the dread vicinity in which she had witnessed such terrifying adventures.

Tired nature at last overcame even her fears, and she dropped into a deepslumber, cradled in a comparatively safe, though rather uncomfortable, positionagainst the bole of the tree, and supported by two large branches which grewoutward, almost horizontally, but a few inches apart.

The sun was high in the heavens when she at last awoke, and beneath her was nosign either of Numa or the hyenas. Only the clean-picked bones of the ape,scattered about the ground, attested the fact of what had transpired in thisseemingly peaceful spot but a few hours before.

Both hunger and thirst assailed her now, and realizing that she must descend ordie of starvation, she at last summoned courage to undertake the ordeal ofcontinuing her journey through the jungle.

Descending from the tree, she set out in a southerly direction, toward thepoint where she believed the plains of Waziri lay, and though she knew thatonly ruin and desolation marked the spot where once her happy home had stood,she hoped that by coming to the broad plain she might eventually reach one ofthe numerous Waziri villages that were scattered over the surrounding country,or chance upon a roving band of these indefatigable huntsmen.

The day was half spent when there broke unexpectedly upon her startled ears thesound of a rifle shot not far ahead of her. As she paused to listen, this firstshot was followed by another and another and another. What could it mean? Thefirst explanation which sprung to her mind attributed the firing to anencounter between the Arab raiders and a party of Waziri; but as she did notknow upon which side victory might rest, or whether she were behind friend orfoe, she dared not advance nearer on the chance of revealing herself to anenemy.

After listening for several minutes she became convinced that no more than twoor three rifles were engaged in the fight, since nothing approximating thesound of a volley reached her ears; but still she hesitated to approach, and atlast, determining to take no chance, she climbed into the concealing foliage ofa tree beside the trail she had been following and there fearfully awaitedwhatever might reveal itself.

As the firing became less rapid she caught the sound of men’s voices,though she could distinguish no words, and at last the reports of the gunsceased, and she heard two men calling to each other in loud tones. Then therewas a long silence which was finally broken by the stealthy padding offootfalls on the trail ahead of her, and in another moment a man appeared inview backing toward her, a rifle ready in his hands, and his eyes directed incareful watchfulness along the way that he had come.

Almost instantly Jane Clayton recognized the man as M. Jules Frecoult, who sorecently had been a guest in her home. She was upon the point of calling to himin glad relief when she saw him leap quickly to one side and hide himself inthe thick verdure at the trail’s side. It was evident that he was beingfollowed by an enemy, and so Jane Clayton kept silent, lest she distractFrecoult’s attention, or guide his foe to his hiding place.

Scarcely had Frecoult hidden himself than the figure of a white-robed Arabcrept silently along the trail in pursuit. From her hiding place, Jane Claytoncould see both men plainly. She recognized Achmet Zek as the leader of the bandof ruffians who had raided her home and made her a prisoner, and as she sawFrecoult, the supposed friend and ally, raise his gun and take careful aim atthe Arab, her heart stood still and every power of her soul was directed upon afervent prayer for the accuracy of his aim.

Achmet Zek paused in the middle of the trail. His keen eyes scanned every bushand tree within the radius of his vision. His tall figure presented a perfecttarget to the perfidious assassin. There was a sharp report, and a little puffof smoke arose from the bush that hid the Belgian, as Achmet Zek stumbledforward and pitched, face down, upon the trail.

As Werper stepped back into the trail, he was startled by the sound of a gladcry from above him, and as he wheeled about to discover the author of thisunexpected interruption, he saw Jane Clayton drop lightly from a nearby treeand run forward with outstretched hands to congratulate him upon his victory.

CHAPTER XX.
Jane Clayton Again a Prisoner

Though her clothes were torn and her hair disheveled, Albert Werper realizedthat he never before had looked upon such a vision of loveliness as that whichLady Greystoke presented in the relief and joy which she felt in coming sounexpectedly upon a friend and rescuer when hope had seemed so far away.

If the Belgian had entertained any doubts as to the woman’s knowledge ofhis part in the perfidious attack upon her home and herself, it was quicklydissipated by the genuine friendliness of her greeting. She told him quickly ofall that had befallen her since he had departed from her home, and as she spokeof the death of her husband her eyes were veiled by the tears which she couldnot repress.

“I am shocked,” said Werper, in well-simulated sympathy; “butI am not surprised. That devil there,” and he pointed toward the body ofAchmet Zek, “has terrorized the entire country. Your Waziri are eitherexterminated, or have been driven out of their country, far to the south. Themen of Achmet Zek occupy the plain about your former home—there isneither sanctuary nor escape in that direction. Our only hope lies in travelingnorthward as rapidly as we may, of coming to the camp of the raiders before theknowledge of Achmet Zek’s death reaches those who were left there, and ofobtaining, through some ruse, an escort toward the north.

“I think that the thing can be accomplished, for I was a guest of theraider’s before I knew the nature of the man, and those at the camp arenot aware that I turned against him when I discovered his villainy.

“Come! We will make all possible haste to reach the camp before those whoaccompanied Achmet Zek upon his last raid have found his body and carried thenews of his death to the cut-throats who remained behind. It is our only hope,Lady Greystoke, and you must place your entire faith in me if I am to succeed.Wait for me here a moment while I take from the Arab’s body the walletthat he stole from me,” and Werper stepped quickly to the deadman’s side, and, kneeling, sought with quick fingers the pouch of jewels.To his consternation, there was no sign of them in the garments of Achmet Zek.Rising, he walked back along the trail, searching for some trace of the missingpouch or its contents; but he found nothing, even though he searched carefullythe vicinity of his dead horse, and for a few paces into the jungle on eitherside. Puzzled, disappointed and angry, he at last returned to the girl.“The wallet is gone,” he explained, crisply, “and I dare notdelay longer in search of it. We must reach the camp before the returningraiders.”

Unsuspicious of the man’s true character, Jane Clayton saw nothingpeculiar in his plans, or in his specious explanation of his former friendshipfor the raider, and so she grasped with alacrity the seeming hope for safetywhich he proffered her, and turning about she set out with Albert Werper towardthe hostile camp in which she so lately had been a prisoner.

It was late in the afternoon of the second day before they reached theirdestination, and as they paused upon the edge of the clearing before the gatesof the walled village, Werper cautioned the girl to accede to whatever he mightsuggest by his conversation with the raiders.

“I shall tell them,” he said, “that I apprehended you afteryou escaped from the camp, that I took you to Achmet Zek, and that as he wasengaged in a stubborn battle with the Waziri, he directed me to return to campwith you, to obtain here a sufficient guard, and to ride north with you asrapidly as possible and dispose of you at the most advantageous terms to acertain slave broker whose name he gave me.”

Again the girl was deceived by the apparent frankness of the Belgian. Sherealized that desperate situations required desperate handling, and though shetrembled inwardly at the thought of again entering the vile and hideous villageof the raiders she saw no better course than that which her companion hadsuggested.

Calling aloud to those who tended the gates, Werper, grasping Jane Clayton bythe arm, walked boldly across the clearing. Those who opened the gates to himpermitted their surprise to show clearly in their expressions. That thediscredited and hunted lieutenant should be thus returning fearlessly of hisown volition, seemed to disarm them quite as effectually as his manner towardLady Greystoke had deceived her.

The sentries at the gate returned Werper’s salutations, and viewed withastonishment the prisoner whom he brought into the village with him.

Immediately the Belgian sought the Arab who had been left in charge of the campduring Achmet Zek’s absence, and again his boldness disarmed suspicionand won the acceptance of his false explanation of his return. The fact that hehad brought back with him the woman prisoner who had escaped, added strength tohis claims, and Mohammed Beyd soon found himself fraternizing good-naturedlywith the very man whom he would have slain without compunction had hediscovered him alone in the jungle a half hour before.

Jane Clayton was again confined to the prison hut she had formerly occupied,but as she realized that this was but a part of the deception which she andFrecoult were playing upon the credulous raiders, it was with quite a differentsensation that she again entered the vile and filthy interior, from that whichshe had previously experienced, when hope was so far away.

Once more she was bound and sentries placed before the door of her prison; butbefore Werper left her he whispered words of cheer into her ear. Then he left,and made his way back to the tent of Mohammed Beyd. He had been wondering howlong it would be before the raiders who had ridden out with Achmet Zek wouldreturn with the murdered body of their chief, and the more he thought upon thematter the greater his fears became, that without accomplices his plan wouldfail.

What, even, if he got away from the camp in safety before any returned with thetrue story of his guilt—of what value would this advantage be other thanto protract for a few days his mental torture and his life? These hard riders,familiar with every trail and bypath, would get him long before he could hopeto reach the coast.

As these thoughts passed through his mind he entered the tent where MohammedBeyd sat cross-legged upon a rug, smoking. The Arab looked up as the Europeancame into his presence.

“Greetings, O Brother!” he said.

“Greetings!” replied Werper.

For a while neither spoke further. The Arab was the first to break the silence.

“And my master, Achmet Zek, was well when last you saw him?” heasked.

“Never was he safer from the sins and dangers of mortality,”replied the Belgian.

“It is well,” said Mohammed Beyd, blowing a little puff of bluesmoke straight out before him.

Again there was silence for several minutes.

“And if he were dead?” asked the Belgian, determined to lead up tothe truth, and attempt to bribe Mohammed Beyd into his service.

The Arab’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, his gaze boring straightinto the eyes of the Belgian.

“I have been thinking much, Werper, since you returned so unexpectedly tothe camp of the man whom you had deceived, and who sought you with death in hisheart. I have been with Achmet Zek for many years—his own mother neverknew him so well as I. He never forgives—much less would he again trust aman who had once betrayed him; that I know.

“I have thought much, as I said, and the result of my thinking hasassured me that Achmet Zek is dead—for otherwise you would never havedared return to his camp, unless you be either a braver man or a bigger foolthan I have imagined. And, if this evidence of my judgment is not sufficient, Ihave but just now received from your own lips even more confirmatorywitness—for did you not say that Achmet Zek was never more safe from thesins and dangers of mortality?

“Achmet Zek is dead—you need not deny it. I was not his mother, orhis mistress, so do not fear that my wailings shall disturb you. Tell me whyyou have come back here. Tell me what you want, and, Werper, if you stillpossess the jewels of which Achmet Zek told me, there is no reason why you andI should not ride north together and divide the ransom of the white woman andthe contents of the pouch you wear about your person. Eh?”

The evil eyes narrowed, a vicious, thin-lipped smile tortured the villainousface, as Mohammed Beyd grinned knowingly into the face of the Belgian.

Werper was both relieved and disturbed by the Arab’s attitude. Thecomplacency with which he accepted the death of his chief lifted a considerableburden of apprehension from the shoulders of Achmet Zek’s assassin; buthis demand for a share of the jewels boded ill for Werper when Mohammed Beydshould have learned that the precious stones were no longer in theBelgian’s possession.

To acknowledge that he had lost the jewels might be to arouse the wrath orsuspicion of the Arab to such an extent as would jeopardize his new-foundchances of escape. His one hope seemed, then, to lie in fostering MohammedBeyd’s belief that the jewels were still in his possession, and dependupon the accidents of the future to open an avenue of escape.

Could he contrive to tent with the Arab upon the march north, he might findopportunity in plenty to remove this menace to his life and liberty—itwas worth trying, and, further, there seemed no other way out of hisdifficulty.

“Yes,” he said, “Achmet Zek is dead. He fell in battle with acompany of Abyssinian cavalry that held me captive. During the fighting Iescaped; but I doubt if any of Achmet Zek’s men live, and the gold theysought is in the possession of the Abyssinians. Even now they are doubtlessmarching on this camp, for they were sent by Menelek to punish Achmet Zek andhis followers for a raid upon an Abyssinian village. There are many of them,and if we do not make haste to escape we shall all suffer the same fate asAchmet Zek.”

Mohammed Beyd listened in silence. How much of the unbeliever’s story hemight safely believe he did not know; but as it afforded him an excuse fordeserting the village and making for the north he was not inclined tocross-question the Belgian too minutely.

“And if I ride north with you,” he asked, “half the jewelsand half the ransom of the woman shall be mine?”

“Yes,” replied Werper.

“Good,” said Mohammed Beyd. “I go now to give the order forthe breaking of camp early on the morrow,” and he rose to leave the tent.

Werper laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

“Wait,” he said, “let us determine how many shall accompanyus. It is not well that we be burdened by the women and children, for thenindeed we might be overtaken by the Abyssinians. It would be far better toselect a small guard of your bravest men, and leave word behind that we areriding WEST. Then, when the Abyssinians come they will be put upon the wrongtrail should they have it in their hearts to pursue us, and if they do not theywill at least ride north with less rapidity than as though they thought that wewere ahead of them.”

“The serpent is less wise than thou, Werper,” said Mohammed Beydwith a smile. “It shall be done as you say. Twenty men shall accompanyus, and we shall ride west—when we leave the village.”

“Good,” cried the Belgian, and so it was arranged.

Early the next morning Jane Clayton, after an almost sleepless night, wasaroused by the sound of voices outside her prison, and a moment later, M.Frecoult, and two Arabs entered. The latter unbound her ankles and lifted herto her feet. Then her wrists were loosed, she was given a handful of dry bread,and led out into the faint light of dawn.

She looked questioningly at Frecoult, and at a moment that the Arab’sattention was attracted in another direction the man leaned toward her andwhispered that all was working out as he had planned. Thus assured, the youngwoman felt a renewal of the hope which the long and miserable night of bondagehad almost expunged.

Shortly after, she was lifted to the back of a horse, and surrounded by Arabs,was escorted through the gateway of the village and off into the jungle towardthe west. Half an hour later the party turned north, and northerly was theirdirection for the balance of the march.

M. Frecoult spoke with her but seldom, and she understood that in carrying outhis deception he must maintain the semblance of her captor, rather thanprotector, and so she suspected nothing though she saw the friendly relationswhich seemed to exist between the European and the Arab leader of the band.

If Werper succeeded in keeping himself from conversation with the young woman,he failed signally to expel her from his thoughts. A hundred times a day hefound his eyes wandering in her direction and feasting themselves upon hercharms of face and figure. Each hour his infatuation for her grew, until hisdesire to possess her gained almost the proportions of madness.

If either the girl or Mohammed Beyd could have guessed what passed in the mindof the man which each thought a friend and ally, the apparent harmony of thelittle company would have been rudely disturbed.

Werper had not succeeded in arranging to tent with Mohammed Beyd, and so herevolved many plans for the assassination of the Arab that would have beengreatly simplified had he been permitted to share the other’s nightlyshelter.

Upon the second day out Mohammed Beyd reined his horse to the side of theanimal on which the captive was mounted. It was, apparently, the first noticewhich the Arab had taken of the girl; but many times during these two days hadhis cunning eyes peered greedily from beneath the hood of his burnoose to gloatupon the beauties of the prisoner.

Nor was this hidden infatuation of any recent origin. He had conceived it whenfirst the wife of the Englishman had fallen into the hands of Achmet Zek; butwhile that austere chieftain lived, Mohammed Beyd had not even dared hope for arealization of his imaginings.

Now, though, it was different—only a despised dog of a Christian stoodbetween himself and possession of the girl. How easy it would be to slay theunbeliever, and take unto himself both the woman and the jewels! With thelatter in his possession, the ransom which might be obtained for the captivewould form no great inducement to her relinquishment in the face of thepleasures of sole ownership of her. Yes, he would kill Werper, retain all thejewels and keep the Englishwoman.

He turned his eyes upon her as she rode along at his side. How beautiful shewas! His fingers opened and closed—skinny, brown talons itching to feelthe soft flesh of the victim in their remorseless clutch.

“Do you know,” he asked leaning toward her, “where this manwould take you?”

Jane Clayton nodded affirmatively.

“And you are willing to become the plaything of a black sultan?”

The girl drew herself up to her full height, and turned her head away; but shedid not reply. She feared lest her knowledge of the ruse that M. Frecoult wasplaying upon the Arab might cause her to betray herself through an insufficientdisplay of terror and aversion.

“You can escape this fate,” continued the Arab; “MohammedBeyd will save you,” and he reached out a brown hand and seized thefingers of her right hand in a grasp so sudden and so fierce that his brutalpassion was revealed as clearly in the act as though his lips had confessed itin words. Jane Clayton wrenched herself from his grasp.

“You beast!” she cried. “Leave me or I shall call M.Frecoult.”

Mohammed Beyd drew back with a scowl. His thin, upper lip curled upward,revealing his smooth, white teeth.

“M. Frecoult?” he jeered. “There is no such person. Theman’s name is Werper. He is a liar, a thief, and a murderer. He killedhis captain in the Congo country and fled to the protection of Achmet Zek. Heled Achmet Zek to the plunder of your home. He followed your husband, andplanned to steal his gold from him. He has told me that you think him yourprotector, and he has played upon this to win your confidence that it might beeasier to carry you north and sell you into some black sultan’s harem.Mohammed Beyd is your only hope,” and with this assertion to provide thecaptive with food for thought, the Arab spurred forward toward the head of thecolumn.

Jane Clayton could not know how much of Mohammed Beyd’s indictment mightbe true, or how much false; but at least it had the effect of dampening herhopes and causing her to review with suspicion every past act of the man uponwhom she had been looking as her sole protector in the midst of a world ofenemies and dangers.

On the march a separate tent had been provided for the captive, and at night itwas pitched between those of Mohammed Beyd and Werper. A sentry was posted atthe front and another at the back, and with these precautions it had not beenthought necessary to confine the prisoner to bonds. The evening following herinterview with Mohammed Beyd, Jane Clayton sat for some time at the opening ofher tent watching the rough activities of the camp. She had eaten the meal thathad been brought her by Mohammed Beyd’s Negro slave—a meal ofcassava cakes and a nondescript stew in which a new-killed monkey, a couple ofsquirrels and the remains of a zebra, slain the previous day, were impartiallyand unsavorily combined; but the one-time Baltimore belle had long sincesubmerged in the stern battle for existence, an estheticism which formerlyrevolted at much slighter provocation.

As the girl’s eyes wandered across the trampled jungle clearing, alreadysqualid from the presence of man, she no longer apprehended either the nearerobjects of the foreground, the uncouth men laughing or quarreling amongthemselves, or the jungle beyond, which circumscribed the extreme range of hermaterial vision. Her gaze passed through all these, unseeing, to center itselfupon a distant bungalow and scenes of happy security which brought to her eyestears of mingled joy and sorrow. She saw a tall, broad-shouldered man riding infrom distant fields; she saw herself waiting to greet him with an armful offresh-cut roses from the bushes which flanked the little rustic gate beforeher. All this was gone, vanished into the past, wiped out by the torches andbullets and hatred of these hideous and degenerate men. With a stifled sob, anda little shudder, Jane Clayton turned back into her tent and sought the pile ofunclean blankets which were her bed. Throwing herself face downward upon themshe sobbed forth her misery until kindly sleep brought her, at least temporary,relief.

And while she slept a figure stole from the tent that stood to the right ofhers. It approached the sentry before the doorway and whispered a few words inthe man’s ear. The latter nodded, and strode off through the darkness inthe direction of his own blankets. The figure passed to the rear of JaneClayton’s tent and spoke again to the sentry there, and this man alsoleft, following in the trail of the first.

Then he who had sent them away stole silently to the tent flap and untying thefastenings entered with the noiselessness of a disembodied spirit.

CHAPTER XXI.
The Flight to the Jungle

Sleepless upon his blankets, Albert Werper let his evil mind dwell upon thecharms of the woman in the nearby tent. He had noted Mohammed Beyd’ssudden interest in the girl, and judging the man by his own standards, hadguessed at the basis of the Arab’s sudden change of attitude toward theprisoner.

And as he let his imaginings run riot they aroused within him a bestialjealousy of Mohammed Beyd, and a great fear that the other might encompass hisbase designs upon the defenseless girl. By a strange process of reasoning,Werper, whose designs were identical with the Arab’s, pictured himself asJane Clayton’s protector, and presently convinced himself that theattentions which might seem hideous to her if proffered by Mohammed Beyd, wouldbe welcomed from Albert Werper.

Her husband was dead, and Werper fancied that he could replace in thegirl’s heart the position which had been vacated by the act of the grimreaper. He could offer Jane Clayton marriage—a thing which Mohammed Beydwould not offer, and which the girl would spurn from him with as deep disgustas she would his unholy lust.

It was not long before the Belgian had succeeded in convincing himself that thecaptive not only had every reason for having conceived sentiments of love forhim; but that she had by various feminine methods acknowledged her new-bornaffection.

And then a sudden resolution possessed him. He threw the blankets from him androse to his feet. Pulling on his boots and buckling his cartridge belt andrevolver about his hips he stepped to the flap of his tent and looked out.There was no sentry before the entrance to the prisoner’s tent! Whatcould it mean? Fate was indeed playing into his hands.

Stepping outside he passed to the rear of the girl’s tent. There was nosentry there, either! And now, boldly, he walked to the entrance and steppedwithin.

Dimly the moonlight illumined the interior. Across the tent a figure bent abovethe blankets of a bed. There was a whispered word, and another figure rose fromthe blankets to a sitting position. Slowly Albert Werper’s eyes werebecoming accustomed to the half darkness of the tent. He saw that the figureleaning over the bed was that of a man, and he guessed at the truth of thenocturnal visitor’s identity.

A sullen, jealous rage enveloped him. He took a step in the direction of thetwo. He heard a frightened cry break from the girl’s lips as sherecognized the features of the man above her, and he saw Mohammed Beyd seizeher by the throat and bear her back upon the blankets.

Cheated passion cast a red blur before the eyes of the Belgian. No! The manshould not have her. She was for him and him alone. He would not be robbed ofhis rights.

Quickly he ran across the tent and threw himself upon the back of MohammedBeyd. The latter, though surprised by this sudden and unexpected attack, wasnot one to give up without a battle. The Belgian’s fingers were feelingfor his throat, but the Arab tore them away, and rising wheeled upon hisadversary. As they faced each other Werper struck the Arab a heavy blow in theface, sending him staggering backward. If he had followed up his advantage hewould have had Mohammed Beyd at his mercy in another moment; but instead hetugged at his revolver to draw it from its holster, and Fate ordained that atthat particular moment the weapon should stick in its leather scabbard.

Before he could disengage it, Mohammed Beyd had recovered himself and wasdashing upon him. Again Werper struck the other in the face, and the Arabreturned the blow. Striking at each other and ceaselessly attempting to clinch,the two battled about the small interior of the tent, while the girl, wide-eyedin terror and astonishment, watched the duel in frozen silence.

Again and again Werper struggled to draw his weapon. Mohammed Beyd,anticipating no such opposition to his base desires, had come to the tentunarmed, except for a long knife which he now drew as he stood panting duringthe first brief rest of the encounter.

“Dog of a Christian,” he whispered, “look upon this knife inthe hands of Mohammed Beyd! Look well, unbeliever, for it is the last thing inlife that you shall see or feel. With it Mohammed Beyd will cut out your blackheart. If you have a God pray to him now—in a minute more you shall bedead,” and with that he rushed viciously upon the Belgian, his kniferaised high above his head.

Werper was still dragging futilely at his weapon. The Arab was almost upon him.In desperation the European waited until Mohammed Beyd was all but against him,then he threw himself to one side to the floor of the tent, leaving a legextended in the path of the Arab.

The trick succeeded. Mohammed Beyd, carried on by the momentum of his charge,stumbled over the projecting obstacle and crashed to the ground. Instantly hewas up again and wheeling to renew the battle; but Werper was on foot ahead ofhim, and now his revolver, loosened from its holster, flashed in his hand.

The Arab dove headfirst to grapple with him, there was a sharp report, a luridgleam of flame in the darkness, and Mohammed Beyd rolled over and over upon thefloor to come to a final rest beside the bed of the woman he had sought todishonor.

Almost immediately following the report came the sound of excited voices in thecamp without. Men were calling back and forth to one another asking the meaningof the shot. Werper could hear them running hither and thither, investigating.

Jane Clayton had risen to her feet as the Arab died, and now she came forwardwith outstretched hands toward Werper.

“How can I ever thank you, my friend?” she asked. “And tothink that only today I had almost believed the infamous story which this beasttold me of your perfidy and of your past. Forgive me, M. Frecoult. I might haveknown that a white man and a gentleman could be naught else than the protectorof a woman of his own race amid the dangers of this savage land.”

Werper’s hands dropped limply at his sides. He stood looking at the girl;but he could find no words to reply to her. Her innocent arraignment of histrue purposes was unanswerable.

Outside, the Arabs were searching for the author of the disturbing shot. Thetwo sentries who had been relieved and sent to their blankets by Mohammed Beydwere the first to suggest going to the tent of the prisoner. It occurred tothem that possibly the woman had successfully defended herself against theirleader.

Werper heard the men approaching. To be apprehended as the slayer of MohammedBeyd would be equivalent to a sentence of immediate death. The fierce andbrutal raiders would tear to pieces a Christian who had dared spill the bloodof their leader. He must find some excuse to delay the finding of MohammedBeyd’s dead body.

Returning his revolver to its holster, he walked quickly to the entrance of thetent. Parting the flaps he stepped out and confronted the men, who were rapidlyapproaching. Somehow he found within him the necessary bravado to force a smileto his lips, as he held up his hand to bar their farther progress.

“The woman resisted,” he said, “and Mohammed Beyd was forcedto shoot her. She is not dead—only slightly wounded. You may go back toyour blankets. Mohammed Beyd and I will look after the prisoner;” then heturned and re-entered the tent, and the raiders, satisfied by this explanation,gladly returned to their broken slumbers.

As he again faced Jane Clayton, Werper found himself animated by quitedifferent intentions than those which had lured him from his blankets but a fewminutes before. The excitement of his encounter with Mohammed Beyd, as well asthe dangers which he now faced at the hands of the raiders when morning mustinevitably reveal the truth of what had occurred in the tent of the prisonerthat night, had naturally cooled the hot passion which had dominated him whenhe entered the tent.

But another and stronger force was exerting itself in the girl’s favor.However low a man may sink, honor and chivalry, has he ever possessed them, arenever entirely eradicated from his character, and though Albert Werper had longsince ceased to evidence the slightest claim to either the one or the other,the spontaneous acknowledgment of them which the girl’s speech hadpresumed had reawakened them both within him.

For the first time he realized the almost hopeless and frightful position ofthe fair captive, and the depths of ignominy to which he had sunk, that hadmade it possible for him, a well-born, European gentleman, to have entertainedeven for a moment the part that he had taken in the ruin of her home,happiness, and herself.

Too much of baseness already lay at the threshold of his conscience for himever to hope entirely to redeem himself; but in the first, sudden burst ofcontrition the man conceived an honest intention to undo, in so far as laywithin his power, the evil that his criminal avarice had brought upon thissweet and unoffending woman.

As he stood apparently listening to the retreating footsteps—Jane Claytonapproached him.

“What are we to do now?” she asked. “Morning will bringdiscovery of this,” and she pointed to the still body of Mohammed Beyd.“They will kill you when they find him.”

For a time Werper did not reply, then he turned suddenly toward the woman.

“I have a plan,” he cried. “It will require nerve and courageon your part; but you have already shown that you possess both. Can you endurestill more?”

“I can endure anything,” she replied with a brave smile,“that may offer us even a slight chance for escape.”

“You must simulate death,” he explained, “while I carry youfrom the camp. I will explain to the sentries that Mohammed Beyd has ordered meto take your body into the jungle. This seemingly unnecessary act I shallexplain upon the grounds that Mohammed Beyd had conceived a violent passion foryou and that he so regretted the act by which he had become your slayer that hecould not endure the silent reproach of your lifeless body.”

The girl held up her hand to stop. A smile touched her lips.

“Are you quite mad?” she asked. “Do you imagine that thesentries will credit any such ridiculous tale?”

“You do not know them,” he replied. “Beneath their roughexteriors, despite their calloused and criminal natures, there exists in each awell-defined strain of romantic emotionalism—you will find it among suchas these throughout the world. It is romance which lures men to lead wild livesof outlawry and crime. The ruse will succeed—never fear.”

Jane Clayton shrugged. “We can but try it—and then what?”

“I shall hide you in the jungle,” continued the Belgian,“coming for you alone and with two horses in the morning.”

“But how will you explain Mohammed Beyd’s death?” she asked.“It will be discovered before ever you can escape the camp in themorning.”

“I shall not explain it,” replied Werper. “Mohammed Beydshall explain it himself—we must leave that to him. Are you ready for theventure?”

“Yes.”

“But wait, I must get you a weapon and ammunition,” and Werperwalked quickly from the tent.

Very shortly he returned with an extra revolver and ammunition belt strappedabout his waist.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Quite ready,” replied the girl.

“Then come and throw yourself limply across my left shoulder,” andWerper knelt to receive her.

“There,” he said, as he rose to his feet. “Now, let yourarms, your legs and your head hang limply. Remember that you are dead.”

A moment later the man walked out into the camp, the body of the woman acrosshis shoulder.

A thorn boma had been thrown up about the camp, to discourage the bolder of thehungry carnivora. A couple of sentries paced to and fro in the light of a firewhich they kept burning brightly. The nearer of these looked up in surprise ashe saw Werper approaching.

“Who are you?” he cried. “What have you there?”

Werper raised the hood of his burnoose that the fellow might see his face.

“This is the body of the woman,” he explained. “Mohammed Beydhas asked me to take it into the jungle, for he cannot bear to look upon theface of her whom he loved, and whom necessity compelled him to slay. He suffersgreatly—he is inconsolable. It was with difficulty that I prevented himtaking his own life.”

Across the speaker’s shoulder, limp and frightened, the girl waited forthe Arab’s reply. He would laugh at this preposterous story; of that shewas sure. In an instant he would unmask the deception that M. Frecoult wasattempting to practice upon him, and they would both be lost. She tried to planhow best she might aid her would-be rescuer in the fight which must mostcertainly follow within a moment or two.

Then she heard the voice of the Arab as he replied to M. Frecoult.

“Are you going alone, or do you wish me to awaken someone to accompanyyou?” he asked, and his tone denoted not the least surprise that MohammedBeyd had suddenly discovered such remarkably sensitive characteristics.

“I shall go alone,” replied Werper, and he passed on and outthrough the narrow opening in the boma, by which the sentry stood.

A moment later he had entered among the boles of the trees with his burden, andwhen safely hidden from the sentry’s view lowered the girl to her feet,with a low, “sh-sh,” when she would have spoken.

Then he led her a little farther into the forest, halted beneath a large treewith spreading branches, buckled a cartridge belt and revolver about her waist,and assisted her to clamber into the lower branches.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered, “as soon as I can elude them, Iwill return for you. Be brave, Lady Greystoke—we may yet escape.”

“Thank you,” she replied in a low tone. “You have been verykind, and very brave.”

Werper did not reply, and the darkness of the night hid the scarlet flush ofshame which swept upward across his face. Quickly he turned and made his wayback to camp. The sentry, from his post, saw him enter his own tent; but he didnot see him crawl under the canvas at the rear and sneak cautiously to the tentwhich the prisoner had occupied, where now lay the dead body of Mohammed Beyd.

Raising the lower edge of the rear wall, Werper crept within and approached thecorpse. Without an instant’s hesitation he seized the dead wrists anddragged the body upon its back to the point where he had just entered. On handsand knees he backed out as he had come in, drawing the corpse after him. Onceoutside the Belgian crept to the side of the tent and surveyed as much of thecamp as lay within his vision—no one was watching.

Returning to the body, he lifted it to his shoulder, and risking all on a quicksally, ran swiftly across the narrow opening which separated theprisoner’s tent from that of the dead man. Behind the silken wall hehalted and lowered his burden to the ground, and there he remained motionlessfor several minutes, listening.

Satisfied, at last, that no one had seen him, he stooped and raised the bottomof the tent wall, backed in and dragged the thing that had been Mohammed Beydafter him. To the sleeping rugs of the dead raider he drew the corpse, then hefumbled about in the darkness until he had found Mohammed Beyd’srevolver. With the weapon in his hand he returned to the side of the dead man,kneeled beside the bedding, and inserted his right hand with the weapon beneaththe rugs, piled a number of thicknesses of the closely woven fabric over andabout the revolver with his left hand. Then he pulled the trigger, and at thesame time he coughed.

The muffled report could not have been heard above the sound of his cough byone directly outside the tent. Werper was satisfied. A grim smile touched hislips as he withdrew the weapon from the rugs and placed it carefully in theright hand of the dead man, fixing three of the fingers around the grip and theindex finger inside the trigger guard.

A moment longer he tarried to rearrange the disordered rugs, and then he leftas he had entered, fastening down the rear wall of the tent as it had beenbefore he had raised it.

Going to the tent of the prisoner he removed there also the evidence thatsomeone might have come or gone beneath the rear wall. Then he returned to hisown tent, entered, fastened down the canvas, and crawled into his blankets.

The following morning he was awakened by the excited voice of MohammedBeyd’s slave calling to him at the entrance of his tent.

“Quick! Quick!” cried the black in a frightened tone. “Come!Mohammed Beyd is dead in his tent—dead by his own hand.”

Werper sat up quickly in his blankets at the first alarm, a startled expressionupon his countenance; but at the last words of the black a sigh of reliefescaped his lips and a slight smile replaced the tense lines upon his face.

“I come,” he called to the slave, and drawing on his boots, roseand went out of his tent.

Excited Arabs and blacks were running from all parts of the camp toward thesilken tent of Mohammed Beyd, and when Werper entered he found a number of theraiders crowded about the corpse, now cold and stiff.

Shouldering his way among them, the Belgian halted beside the dead body of theraider. He looked down in silence for a moment upon the still face, then hewheeled upon the Arabs.

“Who has done this thing?” he cried. His tone was both menacing andaccusing. “Who has murdered Mohammed Beyd?”

A sudden chorus of voices arose in tumultuous protest.

“Mohammed Beyd was not murdered,” they cried. “He died by hisown hand. This, and Allah, are our witnesses,” and they pointed to arevolver in the dead man’s hand.

For a time Werper pretended to be skeptical; but at last permitted himself tobe convinced that Mohammed Beyd had indeed killed himself in remorse for thedeath of the white woman he had, all unknown to his followers, loved sodevotedly.

Werper himself wrapped the blankets of the dead man about the corpse, takingcare to fold inward the scorched and bullet-torn fabric that had muffled thereport of the weapon he had fired the night before. Then six husky blackscarried the body out into the clearing where the camp stood, and deposited itin a shallow grave. As the loose earth fell upon the silent form beneath thetell-tale blankets, Albert Werper heaved another sigh of relief—his planhad worked out even better than he had dared hope.

With Achmet Zek and Mohammed Beyd both dead, the raiders were without a leader,and after a brief conference they decided to return into the north on visits tothe various tribes to which they belonged. Werper, after learning the directionthey intended taking, announced that for his part, he was going east to thecoast, and as they knew of nothing he possessed which any of them coveted, theysignified their willingness that he should go his way.

As they rode off, he sat his horse in the center of the clearing watching themdisappear one by one into the jungle, and thanked his God that he had at lastescaped their villainous clutches.

When he could no longer hear any sound of them, he turned to the right and rodeinto the forest toward the tree where he had hidden Lady Greystoke, and drawingrein beneath it, called up in a gay and hopeful voice a pleasant, “Goodmorning!”

There was no reply, and though his eyes searched the thick foliage above him,he could see no sign of the girl. Dismounting, he quickly climbed into thetree, where he could obtain a view of all its branches. The tree wasempty—Jane Clayton had vanished during the silent watches of the junglenight.

CHAPTER XXII.
Tarzan Recovers His Reason

As Tarzan let the pebbles from the recovered pouch run through his fingers, histhoughts returned to the pile of yellow ingots about which the Arabs and theAbyssinians had waged their relentless battle.

What was there in common between that pile of dirty metal and the beautiful,sparkling pebbles that had formerly been in his pouch? What was the metal? Fromwhence had it come? What was that tantalizing half-conviction which seemed todemand the recognition of his memory that the yellow pile for which these menhad fought and died had been intimately connected with his past—that ithad been his?

What had been his past? He shook his head. Vaguely the memory of his apishchildhood passed slowly in review—then came a strangely tangled mass offaces, figures and events which seemed to have no relation to Tarzan of theApes, and yet which were, even in their fragmentary form, familiar.

Slowly and painfully, recollection was attempting to reassert itself, the hurtbrain was mending, as the cause of its recent failure to function was beingslowly absorbed or removed by the healing processes of perfect circulation.

The people who now passed before his mind’s eye for the first time inweeks wore familiar faces; but yet he could neither place them in the nichesthey had once filled in his past life, nor call them by name. One was a fairshe, and it was her face which most often moved through the tangledrecollections of his convalescing brain. Who was she? What had she been toTarzan of the Apes? He seemed to see her about the very spot upon which thepile of gold had been unearthed by the Abyssinians; but the surroundings werevastly different from those which now obtained.

There was a building—there were many buildings—and there werehedges, fences, and flowers. Tarzan puckered his brow in puzzled study of thewonderful problem. For an instant he seemed to grasp the whole of a trueexplanation, and then, just as success was within his grasp, the picture fadedinto a jungle scene where a naked, white youth danced in company with a band ofhairy, primordial ape-things.

Tarzan shook his head and sighed. Why was it that he could not recollect? Atleast he was sure that in some way the pile of gold, the place where it lay,the subtle aroma of the elusive she he had been pursuing, the memory figure ofthe white woman, and he himself, were inextricably connected by the ties of aforgotten past.

If the woman belonged there, what better place to search or await her than thevery spot which his broken recollections seemed to assign to her? It was worthtrying. Tarzan slipped the thong of the empty pouch over his shoulder andstarted off through the trees in the direction of the plain.

At the outskirts of the forest he met the Arabs returning in search of AchmetZek. Hiding, he let them pass, and then resumed his way toward the charredruins of the home he had been almost upon the point of recalling to his memory.

His journey across the plain was interrupted by the discovery of a small herdof antelope in a little swale, where the cover and the wind were well combinedto make stalking easy. A fat yearling rewarded a half hour of stealthy creepingand a sudden, savage rush, and it was late in the afternoon when the ape-mansettled himself upon his haunches beside his kill to enjoy the fruits of hisskill, his cunning, and his prowess.

His hunger satisfied, thirst next claimed his attention. The river lured him bythe shortest path toward its refreshing waters, and when he had drunk, nightalready had fallen and he was some half mile or more down stream from the pointwhere he had seen the pile of yellow ingots, and where he hoped to meet thememory woman, or find some clew to her whereabouts or her identity.

To the jungle bred, time is usually a matter of small moment, and haste, exceptwhen engendered by terror, by rage, or by hunger, is distasteful. Today wasgone. Therefore tomorrow, of which there was an infinite procession, wouldanswer admirably for Tarzan’s further quest. And, besides, the ape-manwas tired and would sleep.

A tree afforded him the safety, seclusion and comforts of a well-appointedbedchamber, and to the chorus of the hunters and the hunted of the wild riverbank he soon dropped off into deep slumber.

Morning found him both hungry and thirsty again, and dropping from his tree hemade his way to the drinking place at the river’s edge. There he foundNuma, the lion, ahead of him. The big fellow was lapping the water greedily,and at the approach of Tarzan along the trail in his rear, he raised his head,and turning his gaze backward across his maned shoulders glared at theintruder. A low growl of warning rumbled from his throat; but Tarzan, guessingthat the beast had but just quitted his kill and was well filled, merely made aslight detour and continued to the river, where he stopped a few yards abovethe tawny cat, and dropping upon his hands and knees plunged his face into thecool water. For a moment the lion continued to eye the man; then he resumed hisdrinking, and man and beast quenched their thirst side by side each apparentlyoblivious of the other’s presence.

Numa was the first to finish. Raising his head, he gazed across the river for afew minutes with that stony fixity of attention which is a characteristic ofhis kind. But for the ruffling of his black mane to the touch of the passingbreeze he might have been wrought from golden bronze, so motionless, sostatuesque his pose.

A deep sigh from the cavernous lungs dispelled the illusion. The mighty headswung slowly around until the yellow eyes rested upon the man. The bristled lipcurved upward, exposing yellow fangs. Another warning growl vibrated the heavyjowls, and the king of beasts turned majestically about and paced slowly up thetrail into the dense reeds.

Tarzan of the Apes drank on, but from the corners of his gray eyes he watchedthe great brute’s every move until he had disappeared from view, and,after, his keen ears marked the movements of the carnivore.

A plunge in the river was followed by a scant breakfast of eggs which chancediscovered to him, and then he set off up river toward the ruins of thebungalow where the golden ingots had marked the center of yesterday’sbattle.

And when he came upon the spot, great was his surprise and consternation, forthe yellow metal had disappeared. The earth, trampled by the feet of horses andmen, gave no clew. It was as though the ingots had evaporated into thin air.

The ape-man was at a loss to know where to turn or what next to do. There wasno sign of any spoor which might denote that the she had been here. The metalwas gone, and if there was any connection between the she and the metal itseemed useless to wait for her now that the latter had been removed elsewhere.

Everything seemed to elude him—the pretty pebbles, the yellow metal, theshe, his memory. Tarzan was disgusted. He would go back into the jungle andlook for Chulk, and so he turned his steps once more toward the forest. Hemoved rapidly, swinging across the plain in a long, easy trot, and at the edgeof the forest, taking to the trees with the agility and speed of a smallmonkey.

His direction was aimless—he merely raced on and on through the jungle,the joy of unfettered action his principal urge, with the hope of stumblingupon some clew to Chulk or the she, a secondary incentive.

For two days he roamed about, killing, eating, drinking and sleeping whereverinclination and the means to indulge it occurred simultaneously. It was uponthe morning of the third day that the scent spoor of horse and man were waftedfaintly to his nostrils. Instantly he altered his course to glide silentlythrough the branches in the direction from which the scent came.

It was not long before he came upon a solitary horseman riding toward the east.Instantly his eyes confirmed what his nose had previously suspected—therider was he who had stolen his pretty pebbles. The light of rage flaredsuddenly in the gray eyes as the ape-man dropped lower among the branches untilhe moved almost directly above the unconscious Werper.

There was a quick leap, and the Belgian felt a heavy body hurtle onto the rumpof his terror-stricken mount. The horse, snorting, leaped forward. Giant armsencircled the rider, and in the twinkling of an eye he was dragged from hissaddle to find himself lying in the narrow trail with a naked, white giantkneeling upon his breast.

Recognition came to Werper with the first glance at his captor’s face,and a pallor of fear overspread his features. Strong fingers were at histhroat, fingers of steel. He tried to cry out, to plead for his life; but thecruel fingers denied him speech, as they were as surely denying him life.

“The pretty pebbles?” cried the man upon his breast. “Whatdid you with the pretty pebbles—with Tarzan’s prettypebbles?”

The fingers relaxed to permit a reply. For some time Werper could only chokeand cough—at last he regained the powers of speech.

“Achmet Zek, the Arab, stole them from me,” he cried; “hemade me give up the pouch and the pebbles.”

“I saw all that,” replied Tarzan; “but the pebbles in thepouch were not the pebbles of Tarzan—they were only such pebbles as fillthe bottoms of the rivers, and the shelving banks beside them. Even the Arabwould not have them, for he threw them away in anger when he had looked uponthem. It is my pretty pebbles that I want—where are they?”

“I do not know, I do not know,” cried Werper. “I gave them toAchmet Zek or he would have killed me. A few minutes later he followed me alongthe trail to slay me, although he had promised to molest me no further, and Ishot and killed him; but the pouch was not upon his person and though Isearched about the jungle for some time I could not find it.”

“I found it, I tell you,” growled Tarzan, “and I also foundthe pebbles which Achmet Zek had thrown away in disgust. They were notTarzan’s pebbles. You have hidden them! Tell me where they are or I willkill you,” and the brown fingers of the ape-man closed a little tighterupon the throat of his victim.

Werper struggled to free himself. “My God, Lord Greystoke,” hemanaged to scream, “would you commit murder for a handful ofstones?”

The fingers at his throat relaxed, a puzzled, far-away expression softened thegray eyes.

“Lord Greystoke!” repeated the ape-man. “Lord Greystoke! Whois Lord Greystoke? Where have I heard that name before?”

“Why man, you are Lord Greystoke,” cried the Belgian. “Youwere injured by a falling rock when the earthquake shattered the passage to theunderground chamber to which you and your black Waziri had come to fetch goldeningots back to your bungalow. The blow shattered your memory. You are JohnClayton, Lord Greystoke—don’t you remember?”

“John Clayton, Lord Greystoke!” repeated Tarzan. Then for a momenthe was silent. Presently his hand went falteringly to his forehead, anexpression of wonderment filled his eyes—of wonderment and suddenunderstanding. The forgotten name had reawakened the returning memory that hadbeen struggling to reassert itself. The ape-man relinquished his grasp upon thethroat of the Belgian, and leaped to his feet.

“God!” he cried, and then, “Jane!” Suddenly he turnedtoward Werper. “My wife?” he asked. “What has become of her?The farm is in ruins. You know. You have had something to do with all this. Youfollowed me to Opar, you stole the jewels which I thought but pretty pebbles.You are a crook! Do not try to tell me that you are not.”

“He is worse than a crook,” said a quiet voice close behind them.

Tarzan turned in astonishment to see a tall man in uniform standing in thetrail a few paces from him. Back of the man were a number of black soldiers inthe uniform of the Congo Free State.

“He is a murderer, Monsieur,” continued the officer. “I havefollowed him for a long time to take him back to stand trial for the killing ofhis superior officer.”

Werper was upon his feet now, gazing, white and trembling, at the fate whichhad overtaken him even in the fastness of the labyrinthine jungle.Instinctively he turned to flee; but Tarzan of the Apes reached out a stronghand and grasped him by the shoulder.

“Wait!” said the ape-man to his captive. “This gentlemanwishes you, and so do I. When I am through with you, he may have you. Tell mewhat has become of my wife.”

The Belgian officer eyed the almost naked, white giant with curiosity. He notedthe strange contrast of primitive weapons and apparel, and the easy, fluentFrench which the man spoke. The former denoted the lowest, the latter thehighest type of culture. He could not quite determine the social status of thisstrange creature; but he knew that he did not relish the easy assurance withwhich the fellow presumed to dictate when he might take possession of theprisoner.

“Pardon me,” he said, stepping forward and placing his hand onWerper’s other shoulder; “but this gentleman is my prisoner. Hemust come with me.”

“When I am through with him,” replied Tarzan, quietly.

The officer turned and beckoned to the soldiers standing in the trail behindhim. A company of uniformed blacks stepped quickly forward and pushing past thethree, surrounded the ape-man and his captive.

“Both the law and the power to enforce it are upon my side,”announced the officer. “Let us have no trouble. If you have a grievanceagainst this man you may return with me and enter your charge regularly beforean authorized tribunal.”

“Your legal rights are not above suspicion, my friend,” repliedTarzan, “and your power to enforce your commands are onlyapparent—not real. You have presumed to enter British territory with anarmed force. Where is your authority for this invasion? Where are theextradition papers which warrant the arrest of this man? And what assurancehave you that I cannot bring an armed force about you that will prevent yourreturn to the Congo Free State?”

The Belgian lost his temper. “I have no disposition to argue with a nakedsavage,” he cried. “Unless you wish to be hurt you will notinterfere with me. Take the prisoner, Sergeant!”

Werper raised his lips close to Tarzan’s ear. “Keep me from them,and I can show you the very spot where I saw your wife last night,” hewhispered. “She cannot be far from here at this very minute.”

The soldiers, following the signal from their sergeant, closed in to seizeWerper. Tarzan grabbed the Belgian about the waist, and bearing him beneath hisarm as he might have borne a sack of flour, leaped forward in an attempt tobreak through the cordon. His right fist caught the nearest soldier upon thejaw and sent him hurtling backward upon his fellows. Clubbed rifles were tornfrom the hands of those who barred his way, and right and left the blacksoldiers stumbled aside in the face of the ape-man’s savage break forliberty.

So completely did the blacks surround the two that they dared not fire for fearof hitting one of their own number, and Tarzan was already through them andupon the point of dodging into the concealing mazes of the jungle when one whohad sneaked upon him from behind struck him a heavy blow upon the head with arifle.

In an instant the ape-man was down and a dozen black soldiers were upon hisback. When he regained consciousness he found himself securely bound, as wasWerper also. The Belgian officer, success having crowned his efforts, was ingood humor, and inclined to chaff his prisoners about the ease with which theyhad been captured; but from Tarzan of the Apes he elicited no response. Werper,however, was voluble in his protests. He explained that Tarzan was an Englishlord; but the officer only laughed at the assertion, and advised his prisonerto save his breath for his defense in court.

As soon as Tarzan regained his senses and it was found that he was notseriously injured, the prisoners were hastened into line and the return marchtoward the Congo Free State boundary commenced.

Toward evening the column halted beside a stream, made camp and prepared theevening meal. From the thick foliage of the nearby jungle a pair of fierce eyeswatched the activities of the uniformed blacks with silent intensity andcuriosity. From beneath beetling brows the creature saw the boma constructed,the fires built, and the supper prepared.

Tarzan and Werper had been lying bound behind a small pile of knapsacks fromthe time that the company had halted; but with the preparation of the mealcompleted, their guard ordered them to rise and come forward to one of thefires where their hands would be unfettered that they might eat.

As the giant ape-man rose, a startled expression of recognition entered theeyes of the watcher in the jungle, and a low guttural broke from the savagelips. Instantly Tarzan was alert, but the answering growl died upon his lips,suppressed by the fear that it might arouse the suspicions of the soldiers.

Suddenly an inspiration came to him. He turned toward Werper.

“I am going to speak to you in a loud voice and in a tongue which you donot understand. Appear to listen intently to what I say, and occasionallymumble something as though replying in the same language—our escape mayhinge upon the success of your efforts.”

Werper nodded in assent and understanding, and immediately there broke from thelips of his companion a strange jargon which might have been compared withequal propriety to the barking and growling of a dog and the chattering ofmonkeys.

The nearer soldiers looked in surprise at the ape-man. Some of them laughed,while others drew away in evident superstitious fear. The officer approachedthe prisoners while Tarzan was still jabbering, and halted behind them,listening in perplexed interest. When Werper mumbled some ridiculous jargon inreply his curiosity broke bounds, and he stepped forward, demanding to knowwhat language it was that they spoke.

Tarzan had gauged the measure of the man’s culture from the nature andquality of his conversation during the march, and he rested the success of hisreply upon the estimate he had made.

“Greek,” he explained.

“Oh, I thought it was Greek,” replied the officer; “but ithas been so many years since I studied it that I was not sure. In future,however, I will thank you to speak in a language which I am more familiarwith.”

Werper turned his head to hide a grin, whispering to Tarzan: “It wasGreek to him all right—and to me, too.”

But one of the black soldiers mumbled in a low voice to a companion: “Ihave heard those sounds before—once at night when I was lost in thejungle, I heard the hairy men of the trees talking among themselves, and theirwords were like the words of this white man. I wish that we had not found him.He is not a man at all—he is a bad spirit, and we shall have bad luck ifwe do not let him go,” and the fellow rolled his eyes fearfully towardthe jungle.

His companion laughed nervously, and moved away, to repeat the conversation,with variations and exaggerations, to others of the black soldiery, so that itwas not long before a frightful tale of black magic and sudden death was wovenabout the giant prisoner, and had gone the rounds of the camp.

And deep in the gloomy jungle amidst the darkening shadows of the falling nighta hairy, manlike creature swung swiftly southward upon some secret mission ofhis own.

CHAPTER XXIII.
A Night of Terror

To Jane Clayton, waiting in the tree where Werper had placed her, it seemedthat the long night would never end, yet end it did at last, and within an hourof the coming of dawn her spirits leaped with renewed hope at sight of asolitary horseman approaching along the trail.

The flowing burnoose, with its loose hood, hid both the face and the figure ofthe rider; but that it was M. Frecoult the girl well knew, since he had beengarbed as an Arab, and he alone might be expected to seek her hiding place.

That which she saw relieved the strain of the long night vigil; but there wasmuch that she did not see. She did not see the black face beneath the whitehood, nor the file of ebon horsemen beyond the trail’s bend riding slowlyin the wake of their leader. These things she did not see at first, and so sheleaned downward toward the approaching rider, a cry of welcome forming in herthroat.

At the first word the man looked up, reining in in surprise, and as she saw theblack face of Abdul Mourak, the Abyssinian, she shrank back in terror among thebranches; but it was too late. The man had seen her, and now he called to herto descend. At first she refused; but when a dozen black cavalrymen drew upbehind their leader, and at Abdul Mourak’s command one of them started toclimb the tree after her she realized that resistance was futile, and cameslowly down to stand upon the ground before this new captor and plead her causein the name of justice and humanity.

Angered by recent defeat, and by the loss of the gold, the jewels, and hisprisoners, Abdul Mourak was in no mood to be influenced by any appeal to thosesofter sentiments to which, as a matter of fact, he was almost a stranger evenunder the most favourable conditions.

He looked for degradation and possible death in punishment for his failures andhis misfortunes when he should have returned to his native land and made hisreport to Menelek; but an acceptable gift might temper the wrath of theemperor, and surely this fair flower of another race should be gratefullyreceived by the black ruler!

When Jane Clayton had concluded her appeal, Abdul Mourak replied briefly thathe would promise her protection; but that he must take her to his emperor. Thegirl did not need ask him why, and once again hope died within her breast.Resignedly she permitted herself to be lifted to a seat behind one of thetroopers, and again, under new masters, her journey was resumed toward what shenow began to believe was her inevitable fate.

Abdul Mourak, bereft of his guides by the battle he had waged against theraiders, and himself unfamiliar with the country, had wandered far from thetrail he should have followed, and as a result had made but little progresstoward the north since the beginning of his flight. Today he was beating towardthe west in the hope of coming upon a village where he might obtain guides; butnight found him still as far from a realization of his hopes as had the risingsun.

It was a dispirited company which went into camp, waterless and hungry, in thedense jungle. Attracted by the horses, lions roared about the boma, and totheir hideous din was added the shrill neighs of the terror-stricken beaststhey hunted. There was little sleep for man or beast, and the sentries weredoubled that there might be enough on duty both to guard against the suddencharge of an overbold, or overhungry lion, and to keep the fire blazing whichwas an even more effectual barrier against them than the thorny boma.

It was well past midnight, and as yet Jane Clayton, notwithstanding that shehad passed a sleepless night the night before, had scarcely more than dozed. Asense of impending danger seemed to hang like a black pall over the camp. Theveteran troopers of the black emperor were nervous and ill at ease. AbdulMourak left his blankets a dozen times to pace restlessly back and forthbetween the tethered horses and the crackling fire. The girl could see hisgreat frame silhouetted against the lurid glare of the flames, and she guessedfrom the quick, nervous movements of the man that he was afraid.

The roaring of the lions rose in sudden fury until the earth trembled to thehideous chorus. The horses shrilled their neighs of terror as they lay backupon their halter ropes in their mad endeavors to break loose. A trooper,braver than his fellows, leaped among the kicking, plunging, fear-maddenedbeasts in a futile attempt to quiet them. A lion, large, and fierce, andcourageous, leaped almost to the boma, full in the bright light from the fire.A sentry raised his piece and fired, and the little leaden pellet unstopperedthe vials of hell upon the terror-stricken camp.

The shot ploughed a deep and painful furrow in the lion’s side, arousingall the bestial fury of the little brain; but abating not a whit the power andvigor of the great body.

Unwounded, the boma and the flames might have turned him back; but now the painand the rage wiped caution from his mind, and with a loud, and angry roar hetopped the barrier with an easy leap and was among the horses.

What had been pandemonium before became now an indescribable tumult of hideoussound. The stricken horse upon which the lion leaped shrieked out its terrorand its agony. Several about it broke their tethers and plunged madly about thecamp. Men leaped from their blankets and with guns ready ran toward the picketline, and then from the jungle beyond the boma a dozen lions, emboldened by theexample of their fellow charged fearlessly upon the camp.

Singly and in twos and threes they leaped the boma, until the little enclosurewas filled with cursing men and screaming horses battling for their lives withthe green-eyed devils of the jungle.

With the charge of the first lion, Jane Clayton had scrambled to her feet, andnow she stood horror-struck at the scene of savage slaughter that swirled andeddied about her. Once a bolting horse knocked her down, and a moment later alion, leaping in pursuit of another terror-stricken animal, brushed her soclosely that she was again thrown from her feet.

Amidst the cracking of the rifles and the growls of the carnivora rose thedeath screams of stricken men and horses as they were dragged down by theblood-mad cats. The leaping carnivora and the plunging horses, prevented anyconcerted action by the Abyssinians—it was every man forhimself—and in the melee, the defenseless woman was either forgotten orignored by her black captors. A score of times was her life menaced by charginglions, by plunging horses, or by the wildly fired bullets of the frightenedtroopers, yet there was no chance of escape, for now with the fiendish cunningof their kind, the tawny hunters commenced to circle about their prey, hemmingthem within a ring of mighty, yellow fangs, and sharp, long talons. Again andagain an individual lion would dash suddenly among the frightened men andhorses, and occasionally a horse, goaded to frenzy by pain or terror, succeededin racing safely through the circling lions, leaping the boma, and escapinginto the jungle; but for the men and the woman no such escape was possible.

A horse, struck by a stray bullet, fell beside Jane Clayton, a lion leapedacross the expiring beast full upon the breast of a black trooper just beyond.The man clubbed his rifle and struck futilely at the broad head, and then hewas down and the carnivore was standing above him.

Shrieking out his terror, the soldier clawed with puny fingers at the shaggybreast in vain endeavor to push away the grinning jaws. The lion lowered hishead, the gaping fangs closed with a single sickening crunch upon thefear-distorted face, and turning strode back across the body of the dead horsedragging his limp and bloody burden with him.

Wide-eyed the girl stood watching. She saw the carnivore step upon the corpse,stumblingly, as the grisly thing swung between its forepaws, and her eyesremained fixed in fascination while the beast passed within a few paces of her.

The interference of the body seemed to enrage the lion. He shook the inanimateclay venomously. He growled and roared hideously at the dead, insensate thing,and then he dropped it and raised his head to look about in search of someliving victim upon which to wreak his ill temper. His yellow eyes fastenedthemselves balefully upon the figure of the girl, the bristling lips raised,disclosing the grinning fangs. A terrific roar broke from the savage throat,and the great beast crouched to spring upon this new and helpless victim.

Quiet had fallen early upon the camp where Tarzan and Werper lay securelybound. Two nervous sentries paced their beats, their eyes rolling often towardthe impenetrable shadows of the gloomy jungle. The others slept or tried tosleep—all but the ape-man. Silently and powerfully he strained at thebonds which fettered his wrists.

The muscles knotted beneath the smooth, brown skin of his arms and shoulders,the veins stood out upon his temples from the force of his exertions—astrand parted, another and another, and one hand was free. Then from the junglecame a low guttural, and the ape-man became suddenly a silent, rigid statue,with ears and nostrils straining to span the black void where his eyesightcould not reach.

Again came the uncanny sound from the thick verdure beyond the camp. A sentryhalted abruptly, straining his eyes into the gloom. The kinky wool upon hishead stiffened and raised. He called to his comrade in a hoarse whisper.

“Did you hear it?” he asked.

The other came closer, trembling.

“Hear what?”

Again was the weird sound repeated, followed almost immediately by a similarand answering sound from the camp. The sentries drew close together, watchingthe black spot from which the voice seemed to come.

Trees overhung the boma at this point which was upon the opposite side of thecamp from them. They dared not approach. Their terror even prevented them fromarousing their fellows—they could only stand in frozen fear and watch forthe fearsome apparition they momentarily expected to see leap from the jungle.

Nor had they long to wait. A dim, bulky form dropped lightly from the branchesof a tree into the camp. At sight of it one of the sentries recovered commandof his muscles and his voice. Screaming loudly to awaken the sleeping camp, heleaped toward the flickering watch fire and threw a mass of brush upon it.

The white officer and the black soldiers sprang from their blankets. The flamesleaped high upon the rejuvenated fire, lighting the entire camp, and theawakened men shrank back in superstitious terror from the sight that met theirfrightened and astonished vision.

A dozen huge and hairy forms loomed large beneath the trees at the far side ofthe enclosure. The white giant, one hand freed, had struggled to his knees andwas calling to the frightful, nocturnal visitors in a hideous medley of bestialgutturals, barkings and growlings.

Werper had managed to sit up. He, too, saw the savage faces of the approachinganthropoids and scarcely knew whether to be relieved or terror-stricken.

Growling, the great apes leaped forward toward Tarzan and Werper. Chulk ledthem. The Belgian officer called to his men to fire upon the intruders; but theNegroes held back, filled as they were with superstitious terror of the hairytreemen, and with the conviction that the white giant who could thus summon thebeasts of the jungle to his aid was more than human.

Drawing his own weapon, the officer fired, and Tarzan fearing the effect of thenoise upon his really timid friends called to them to hasten and fulfill hiscommands.

A couple of the apes turned and fled at the sound of the firearm; but Chulk anda half dozen others waddled rapidly forward, and, following the ape-man’sdirections, seized both him and Werper and bore them off toward the jungle.

By dint of threats, reproaches and profanity the Belgian officer succeeded inpersuading his trembling command to fire a volley after the retreating apes. Aragged, straggling volley it was, but at least one of its bullets found a mark,for as the jungle closed about the hairy rescuers, Chulk, who bore Werperacross one broad shoulder, staggered and fell.

In an instant he was up again; but the Belgian guessed from his unsteady gaitthat he was hard hit. He lagged far behind the others, and it was severalminutes after they had halted at Tarzan’s command before he came slowlyup to them, reeling from side to side, and at last falling again beneath theweight of his burden and the shock of his wound.

As Chulk went down he dropped Werper, so that the latter fell face downwardwith the body of the ape lying half across him. In this position the Belgianfelt something resting against his hands, which were still bound at hisback—something that was not a part of the hairy body of the ape.

Mechanically the man’s fingers felt of the object resting almost in theirgrasp—it was a soft pouch, filled with small, hard particles. Werpergasped in wonderment as recognition filtered through the incredulity of hismind. It was impossible, and yet—it was true!

Feverishly he strove to remove the pouch from the ape and transfer it to hisown possession; but the restricted radius to which his bonds held his handsprevented this, though he did succeed in tucking the pouch with its preciouscontents inside the waist band of his trousers.

Tarzan, sitting at a short distance, was busy with the remaining knots of thecords which bound him. Presently he flung aside the last of them and rose tohis feet. Approaching Werper he knelt beside him. For a moment he examined theape.

“Quite dead,” he announced. “It is too bad—he was asplendid creature,” and then he turned to the work of liberating theBelgian.

He freed his hands first, and then commenced upon the knots at his ankles.

“I can do the rest,” said the Belgian. “I have a smallpocketknife which they overlooked when they searched me,” and in this wayhe succeeded in ridding himself of the ape-man’s attentions that he mightfind and open his little knife and cut the thong which fastened the pouch aboutChulk’s shoulder, and transfer it from his waist band to the breast ofhis shirt. Then he rose and approached Tarzan.

Once again had avarice claimed him. Forgotten were the good intentions whichthe confidence of Jane Clayton in his honor had awakened. What she had done,the little pouch had undone. How it had come upon the person of the great ape,Werper could not imagine, unless it had been that the anthropoid had witnessedhis fight with Achmet Zek, seen the Arab with the pouch and taken it away fromhim; but that this pouch contained the jewels of Opar, Werper was positive, andthat was all that interested him greatly.

“Now,” said the ape-man, “keep your promise to me. Lead me tothe spot where you last saw my wife.”

It was slow work pushing through the jungle in the dead of night behind theslow-moving Belgian. The ape-man chafed at the delay, but the European couldnot swing through the trees as could his more agile and muscular companions,and so the speed of all was limited to that of the slowest.

The apes trailed out behind the two white men for a matter of a few miles; butpresently their interest lagged, the foremost of them halted in a little gladeand the others stopped at his side. There they sat peering from beneath theirshaggy brows at the figures of the two men forging steadily ahead, until thelatter disappeared in the leafy trail beyond the clearing. Then an ape sought acomfortable couch beneath a tree, and one by one the others followed hisexample, so that Werper and Tarzan continued their journey alone; nor was thelatter either surprised or concerned.

The two had gone but a short distance beyond the glade where the apes haddeserted them, when the roaring of distant lions fell upon their ears. Theape-man paid no attention to the familiar sounds until the crack of a riflecame faintly from the same direction, and when this was followed by the shrillneighing of horses, and an almost continuous fusillade of shots intermingledwith increased and savage roaring of a large troop of lions, he becameimmediately concerned.

“Someone is having trouble over there,” he said, turning towardWerper. “I’ll have to go to them—they may be friends.”

“Your wife might be among them,” suggested the Belgian, for sincehe had again come into possession of the pouch he had become fearful andsuspicious of the ape-man, and in his mind had constantly revolved many plansfor eluding this giant Englishman, who was at once his savior and his captor.

At the suggestion Tarzan started as though struck with a whip.

“God!” he cried, “she might be, and the lions are attackingthem—they are in the camp. I can tell from the screams of thehorses—and there! that was the cry of a man in his death agonies. Stayhere man—I will come back for you. I must go first to them,” andswinging into a tree the lithe figure swung rapidly off into the night with thespeed and silence of a disembodied spirit.

For a moment Werper stood where the ape-man had left him. Then a cunning smilecrossed his lips. “Stay here?” he asked himself. “Stay hereand wait until you return to find and take these jewels from me? Not I, myfriend, not I,” and turning abruptly eastward Albert Werper passedthrough the foliage of a hanging vine and out of the sight of hisfellow-man—forever.

CHAPTER XXIV.
Home

As Tarzan of the Apes hurtled through the trees the discordant sounds of thebattle between the Abyssinians and the lions smote more and more distinctlyupon his sensitive ears, redoubling his assurance that the plight of the humanelement of the conflict was critical indeed.

At last the glare of the camp fire shone plainly through the intervening trees,and a moment later the giant figure of the ape-man paused upon an overhangingbough to look down upon the bloody scene of carnage below.

His quick eye took in the whole scene with a single comprehending glance andstopped upon the figure of a woman standing facing a great lion across thecarcass of a horse.

The carnivore was crouching to spring as Tarzan discovered the tragic tableau.Numa was almost beneath the branch upon which the ape-man stood, naked andunarmed. There was not even an instant’s hesitation upon the part of thelatter—it was as though he had not even paused in his swift progressthrough the trees, so lightning-like his survey and comprehension of the scenebelow him—so instantaneous his consequent action.

So hopeless had seemed her situation to her that Jane Clayton but stood inlethargic apathy awaiting the impact of the huge body that would hurl her tothe ground—awaiting the momentary agony that cruel talons and grislyfangs may inflict before the coming of the merciful oblivion which would endher sorrow and her suffering.

What use to attempt escape? As well face the hideous end as to be dragged downfrom behind in futile flight. She did not even close her eyes to shut out thefrightful aspect of that snarling face, and so it was that as she saw the lionpreparing to charge she saw, too, a bronzed and mighty figure leap from anoverhanging tree at the instant that Numa rose in his spring.

Wide went her eyes in wonder and incredulity, as she beheld this seemingapparition risen from the dead. The lion was forgotten—her ownperil—everything save the wondrous miracle of this strange recrudescence.With parted lips, with palms tight pressed against her heaving bosom, the girlleaned forward, large-eyed, enthralled by the vision of her dead mate.

She saw the sinewy form leap to the shoulder of the lion, hurtling against theleaping beast like a huge, animate battering ram. She saw the carnivore brushedaside as he was almost upon her, and in the instant she realized that nosubstanceless wraith could thus turn the charge of a maddened lion with bruteforce greater than the brute’s.

Tarzan, her Tarzan, lived! A cry of unspeakable gladness broke from her lips,only to die in terror as she saw the utter defenselessness of her mate, andrealized that the lion had recovered himself and was turning upon Tarzan in madlust for vengeance.

At the ape-man’s feet lay the discarded rifle of the dead Abyssinianwhose mutilated corpse sprawled where Numa had abandoned it. The quick glancewhich had swept the ground for some weapon of defense discovered it, and as thelion reared upon his hind legs to seize the rash man-thing who had daredinterpose its puny strength between Numa and his prey, the heavy stock whirredthrough the air and splintered upon the broad forehead.

Not as an ordinary mortal might strike a blow did Tarzan of the Apes strike;but with the maddened frenzy of a wild beast backed by the steel thews whichhis wild, arboreal boyhood had bequeathed him. When the blow ended thesplintered stock was driven through the splintered skull into the savage brain,and the heavy iron barrel was bent into a rude V.

In the instant that the lion sank, lifeless, to the ground, Jane Clayton threwherself into the eager arms of her husband. For a brief instant he strained herdear form to his breast, and then a glance about him awakened the ape-man tothe dangers which still surrounded them.

Upon every hand the lions were still leaping upon new victims. Fear-maddenedhorses still menaced them with their erratic bolting from one side of theenclosure to the other. Bullets from the guns of the defenders who remainedalive but added to the perils of their situation.

To remain was to court death. Tarzan seized Jane Clayton and lifted her to abroad shoulder. The blacks who had witnessed his advent looked on in amazementas they saw the naked giant leap easily into the branches of the tree fromwhence he had dropped so uncannily upon the scene, and vanish as he had come,bearing away their prisoner with him.

They were too well occupied in self-defense to attempt to halt him, nor couldthey have done so other than by the wasting of a precious bullet which might beneeded the next instant to turn the charge of a savage foe.

And so, unmolested, Tarzan passed from the camp of the Abyssinians, from whichthe din of conflict followed him deep into the jungle until distance graduallyobliterated it entirely.

Back to the spot where he had left Werper went the ape-man, joy in his heartnow, where fear and sorrow had so recently reigned; and in his mind adetermination to forgive the Belgian and aid him in making good his escape. Butwhen he came to the place, Werper was gone, and though Tarzan called aloud manytimes he received no reply. Convinced that the man had purposely eluded him forreasons of his own, John Clayton felt that he was under no obligations toexpose his wife to further danger and discomfort in the prosecution of a morethorough search for the missing Belgian.

“He has acknowledged his guilt by his flight, Jane,” he said.“We will let him go to lie in the bed that he has made forhimself.”

Straight as homing pigeons, the two made their way toward the ruin anddesolation that had once been the center of their happy lives, and which wassoon to be restored by the willing black hands of laughing laborers, made happyagain by the return of the master and mistress whom they had mourned as dead.

Past the village of Achmet Zek their way led them, and there they found but thecharred remains of the palisade and the native huts, still smoking, as muteevidence of the wrath and vengeance of a powerful enemy.

“The Waziri,” commented Tarzan with a grim smile.

“God bless them!” cried Jane Clayton.

“They cannot be far ahead of us,” said Tarzan, “Basuli andthe others. The gold is gone and the jewels of Opar, Jane; but we have eachother and the Waziri—and we have love and loyalty and friendship. Andwhat are gold and jewels to these?”

“If only poor Mugambi lived,” she replied, “and those otherbrave fellows who sacrificed their lives in vain endeavor to protect me!”

In the silence of mingled joy and sorrow they passed along through the familiarjungle, and as the afternoon was waning there came faintly to the ears of theape-man the murmuring cadence of distant voices.

“We are nearing the Waziri, Jane,” he said. “I can hear themahead of us. They are going into camp for the night, I imagine.”

A half hour later the two came upon a horde of ebon warriors which Basuli hadcollected for his war of vengeance upon the raiders. With them were thecaptured women of the tribe whom they had found in the village of Achmet Zek,and tall, even among the giant Waziri, loomed a familiar black form at the sideof Basuli. It was Mugambi, whom Jane had thought dead amidst the charred ruinsof the bungalow.

Ah, such a reunion! Long into the night the dancing and the singing and thelaughter awoke the echoes of the somber wood. Again and again were the storiesof their various adventures retold. Again and once again they fought theirbattles with savage beast and savage man, and dawn was already breaking whenBasuli, for the fortieth time, narrated how he and a handful of his warriorshad watched the battle for the golden ingots which the Abyssinians of AbdulMourak had waged against the Arab raiders of Achmet Zek, and how, when thevictors had ridden away they had sneaked out of the river reeds and stolen awaywith the precious ingots to hide them where no robber eye ever could discoverthem.

Pieced out from the fragments of their various experiences with the Belgian thetruth concerning the malign activities of Albert Werper became apparent. OnlyLady Greystoke found aught to praise in the conduct of the man, and it wasdifficult even for her to reconcile his many heinous acts with this oneevidence of chivalry and honor.

“Deep in the soul of every man,” said Tarzan, “must lurk thegerm of righteousness. It was your own virtue, Jane, rather even than yourhelplessness which awakened for an instant the latent decency of this degradedman. In that one act he retrieved himself, and when he is called to face hisMaker may it outweigh in the balance, all the sins he has committed.”

And Jane Clayton breathed a fervent, “Amen!”

Months had passed. The labor of the Waziri and the gold of Opar had rebuilt andrefurnished the wasted homestead of the Greystokes. Once more the simple lifeof the great African farm went on as it had before the coming of the Belgianand the Arab. Forgotten were the sorrows and dangers of yesterday.

For the first time in months Lord Greystoke felt that he might indulge in aholiday, and so a great hunt was organized that the faithful laborers mightfeast in celebration of the completion of their work.

In itself the hunt was a success, and ten days after its inauguration, awell-laden safari took up its return march toward the Waziri plain. Lord andLady Greystoke with Basuli and Mugambi rode together at the head of the column,laughing and talking together in that easy familiarity which common interestsand mutual respect breed between honest and intelligent men of any races.

Jane Clayton’s horse shied suddenly at an object half hidden in the longgrasses of an open space in the jungle. Tarzan’s keen eyes sought quicklyfor an explanation of the animal’s action.

“What have we here?” he cried, swinging from his saddle, and amoment later the four were grouped about a human skull and a little litter ofwhitened human bones.

Tarzan stooped and lifted a leathern pouch from the grisly relics of a man. Thehard outlines of the contents brought an exclamation of surprise to his lips.

“The jewels of Opar!” he cried, holding the pouch aloft,“and,” pointing to the bones at his feet, “all that remainsof Werper, the Belgian.”

Mugambi laughed. “Look within, Bwana,” he cried, “and youwill see what are the jewels of Opar—you will see what the Belgian gavehis life for,” and the black laughed aloud.

“Why do you laugh?” asked Tarzan.

“Because,” replied Mugambi, “I filled the Belgian’spouch with river gravel before I escaped the camp of the Abyssinians whoseprisoners we were. I left the Belgian only worthless stones, while I broughtaway with me the jewels he had stolen from you. That they were afterward stolenfrom me while I slept in the jungle is my shame and my disgrace; but at leastthe Belgian lost them—open his pouch and you will see.”

Tarzan untied the thong which held the mouth of the leathern bag closed, andpermitted the contents to trickle slowly forth into his open palm.Mugambi’s eyes went wide at the sight, and the others utteredexclamations of surprise and incredulity, for from the rusty and weatherwornpouch ran a stream of brilliant, scintillating gems.

“The jewels of Opar!” cried Tarzan. “But how did Werper comeby them again?”

None could answer, for both Chulk and Werper were dead, and no other knew.

“Poor devil!” said the ape-man, as he swung back into his saddle.“Even in death he has made restitution—let his sins lie with hisbones.”

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