Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

By

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Contents

CHAPTER

 1 Belgian and Arab 2 On the Road to Opar 3 The Call of the Jungle 4 Prophecy and Fulfillment 5 The Altar of the Flaming God 6 The Arab Raid 7 The Jewel-Room of Opar 8 The Escape from Opar 9 The Theft of the Jewels 10 Achmet Zek Sees the Jewels 11 Tarzan Becomes a Beast Again 12 La Seeks Vengeance 13 Condemned to Torture and Death 14 A Priestess But Yet a Woman 15 The Flight of Werper 16 Tarzan Again Leads the Mangani 17 The Deadly Peril of Jane Clayton 18 The Fight For the Treasure 19 Jane Clayton and The Beasts of the Jungle 20 Jane Clayton Again a Prisoner 21 The Flight to the Jungle 22 Tarzan Recovers His Reason 23 A Night of Terror 24 Home

1

Belgian and Arab

Lieutenant Albert Werper had only the prestige of the name he haddishonored to thank for his narrow escape from being cashiered. Atfirst he had been humbly thankful, too, that they had sent him to thisGodforsaken Congo post instead of court-martialing him, as he had sojustly deserved; but now six months of the monotony, the frightfulisolation and the loneliness had wrought a change. The young manbrooded continually over his fate. His days were filled with morbidself-pity, which eventually engendered in his weak and vacillating minda hatred for those who had sent him here--for the very men he had atfirst inwardly thanked for saving him from the ignominy of degradation. 

He regretted the gay life of Brussels as he never had regretted thesins which had snatched him from that gayest of capitals, and as thedays passed he came to center his resentment upon the representative inCongo land of the authority which had exiled him--his captain andimmediate superior. 

This officer was a cold, taciturn man, inspiring little love in thosedirectly beneath him, yet respected and feared by the black soldiers ofhis little command. 

Werper was accustomed to sit for hours glaring at his superior as thetwo sat upon the veranda of their common quarters, smoking theirevening cigarets in a silence which neither seemed desirous ofbreaking. The senseless hatred of the lieutenant grew at last into aform of mania. The captain's natural taciturnity he distorted into astudied attempt to insult him because of his past shortcomings. Heimagined that his superior held him in contempt, and so he chafed andfumed inwardly until one evening his madness became suddenly homicidal. He fingered the butt of the revolver at his hip, his eyes narrowed andhis brows contracted. At last he spoke. 

"You have insulted me for the last time!" he cried, springing to hisfeet. "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 towardhis junior. He had seen men before with the jungle madness uponthem--the madness of solitude and unrestrained brooding, and perhaps atouch of fever. 

He rose and extended his hand to lay it upon the other's shoulder. Quiet words of counsel were upon his lips; but they were never spoken. Werper construed his superior's action into an attempt to close withhim. His revolver was on a level with the captain's heart, and thelatter had taken but a step when Werper pulled the trigger. Without amoan the man sank to the rough planking of the veranda, and as he fellthe mists that had clouded Werper's brain lifted, so that he sawhimself and the deed that he had done in the same light that those whomust judge him would see them. 

He heard excited exclamations from the quarters of the soldiers and heheard men running in his direction. They would seize him, and if theydidn't kill him they would take him down the Congo to a point where aproperly ordered military tribunal would do so just as effectively, though in a more regular manner. 

Werper had no desire to die. Never before had he so yearned for lifeas in this moment that he had so effectively forfeited his right tolive. The men were nearing him. What was he to do? He glanced aboutas though searching for the tangible form of a legitimate excuse forhis crime; but he could find only the body of the man he had socauselessly shot down. 

In despair, he turned and fled from the oncoming soldiery. Across thecompound he ran, his revolver still clutched tightly in his hand. Atthe gates a sentry halted him. Werper did not pause to parley or toexert the influence of his commission--he merely raised his weapon andshot down the innocent black. A moment later the fugitive had tornopen the gates and vanished into the blackness of the jungle, but notbefore he had transferred the rifle and ammunition belts of the deadsentry 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 alistening halt; but with cocked and ready rifle he pushed ahead again, more fearful of the human huntsmen in his rear than of the wildcarnivora ahead. 

Dawn came at last, but still the man plodded on. All sense of hungerand fatigue were lost in the terrors of contemplated capture. He couldthink only of escape. He dared not pause to rest or eat until therewas no further danger from pursuit, and so he staggered on until atlast he fell and could rise no more. How long he had fled he did notknow, or try to know. When he could flee no longer the knowledge thathe had reached his limit was hidden from him in the unconsciousness ofutter exhaustion. 

And thus it was that Achmet Zek, the Arab, found him. Achmet'sfollowers were for running a spear through the body of their hereditaryenemy; but Achmet would have it otherwise. First he would question theBelgian. It were easier to question a man first and kill himafterward, than kill him first and then question him. 

So he had Lieutenant Albert Werper carried to his own tent, and thereslaves administered wine and food in small quantities until at last theprisoner regained consciousness. As he opened his eyes he saw thefaces of strange black men about him, and just outside the tent thefigure of an Arab. Nowhere was the uniform of his soldiers to be seen. 

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

"I am Achmet Zek, " he announced. "Who are you, and what were you doingin my country? Where are your soldiers?"

Achmet Zek! Werper's eyes went wide, and his heart sank. He was inthe clutches of the most notorious of cut-throats--a hater of allEuropeans, especially those who wore the uniform of Belgium. For yearsthe military forces of Belgian Congo had waged a fruitless war uponthis man and his followers--a war in which quarter had never been askednor expected by either side. 

But presently in the very hatred of the man for Belgians, Werper saw afaint ray of hope for himself. He, too, was an outcast and an outlaw. So far, at least, they possessed a common interest, and Werper decidedto play upon it for all that it might yield. 

"I have heard of you, " he replied, "and was searching for you. Mypeople have turned against me. I hate them. Even now their soldiersare searching for me, to kill me. I knew that you would protect mefrom them, for you, too, hate them. In return I will take service withyou. I am a trained soldier. I can fight, and your enemies are myenemies. "

Achmet Zek eyed the European in silence. In his mind he revolved manythoughts, chief among which was that the unbeliever lied. Of coursethere was the chance that he did not lie, and if he told the truth thenhis proposition was one well worthy of consideration, since fightingmen were never over plentiful--especially white men with the trainingand knowledge of military 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, andsmile where another would scowl. 

"And if you have lied to me, " said Achmet Zek, "I will kill you at anytime. What return, other than your life, do you expect for yourservices?"

"My keep only, at first, " replied Werper. "Later, if I am worth more, we can easily reach an understanding. " Werper's only desire at themoment was to preserve his life. And so the agreement was reached andLieutenant 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 foughtwith a savage abandon, and a vicious cruelty fully equal to that of hisfellow desperadoes. Achmet Zek watched his recruit with eagle eye, andwith a growing satisfaction which finally found expression in a greaterconfidence in the man, and resulted in an increased independence ofaction for Werper. 

Achmet Zek took the Belgian into his confidence to a great extent, andat last unfolded to him a pet scheme which the Arab had long fostered, but which he never had found an opportunity to effect. With the aid ofa European, however, the thing might be easily accomplished. Hesounded 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 and with greatprofit, " continued the Arab. "For years he has fought us, driving usfrom the richest part of the country, harassing us, and arming thenatives that they may repel us when we come to 'trade. ' He is veryrich. If we could find some way to make him pay us many pieces of goldwe should not only be avenged upon him; but repaid for much that he hasprevented us 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 very beautiful. 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 good remained in Albert Werper revolted at the thought of sellinga white woman into the slavery and degradation of a Moslem harem. Helooked up at Achmet Zek. He saw the Arab's eyes narrow, and he guessedthat the other had sensed his antagonism to the plan. What would itmean to Werper to refuse? His life lay in the hands of thissemi-barbarian, who esteemed the life of an unbeliever less highlythan 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 an outcast. The hand of every white man was against him. Shewas his natural enemy, and if he refused to lend himself to herundoing, Achmet Zek would have him killed. 

"You hesitate, " murmured the Arab. 

"I was but weighing the chances of success, " lied Werper, "and myreward. As a European I can gain admittance to their home and table. You have no other with you who could do so much. The risk will begreat. 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 sittogether and plan how best the thing may be done, " and the two mensquatted upon a soft rug beneath the faded silks of Achmet's oncegorgeous tent, and talked together in low voices well into the night. Both were tall and bearded, and the exposure to sun and wind had givenan almost Arab hue to the European's complexion. In every detail ofdress, too, he copied the fashions of his chief, so that outwardly hewas as much an Arab as the other. It was late when he arose andretired to his own tent. 

The following day Werper spent in overhauling his Belgian uniform, removing from it every vestige of evidence that might indicate itsmilitary purposes. From a heterogeneous collection of loot, Achmet Zekprocured a pith helmet and a European saddle, and from his black slavesand followers a party of porters, askaris and tent boys to make up amodest safari for a big game hunter. At the head of this party Werperset out from camp. 

2

On the Road To Opar

It was two weeks later that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, riding infrom a tour of inspection of his vast African estate, glimpsed the headof a column of men crossing the plain that lay between his bungalow andthe forest to the north and west. 

He reined in his horse and watched the little party as it emerged froma concealing swale. His keen eyes caught the reflection of the sunupon the white helmet of a mounted man, and with the conviction that awandering European hunter was seeking his hospitality, he wheeled hismount and rode slowly forward to meet the newcomer. 

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

"I was completely lost, " M. Frecoult was explaining. "My head man hadnever before been in this part of the country and the guides who wereto have accompanied me from the last village we passed knew even lessof the country than we. They finally deserted us two days since. I amvery fortunate indeed to have stumbled so providentially upon succor. I do not know what I should have done, had I not found you. "

It was decided that Frecoult and his party should remain several days, or until they were thoroughly rested, when Lord Greystoke would furnishguides to lead them safely back into country with which Frecoult's headman was supposedly familiar. 

In his guise of a French gentleman of leisure, Werper found littledifficulty in deceiving his host and in ingratiating himself with bothTarzan and Jane Clayton; but the longer he remained the less hopeful hebecame of an easy accomplishment of his designs. 

Lady Greystoke never rode alone at any great distance from thebungalow, and the savage loyalty of the ferocious Waziri warriors whoformed a great part of Tarzan's followers seemed to preclude thepossibility of a successful attempt at forcible abduction, or of thebribery of the Waziri themselves. 

A week passed, and Werper was no nearer the fulfillment of his plan, inso far as he could judge, than upon the day of his arrival, but at thatvery moment something occurred which gave him renewed hope and set hismind upon an even greater reward than a woman's ransom. 

A runner had arrived at the bungalow with the weekly mail, and LordGreystoke had spent the afternoon in his study reading and answeringletters. At dinner he seemed distraught, and early in the evening heexcused himself and retired, Lady Greystoke following him very soonafter. Werper, sitting upon the veranda, could hear their voices inearnest discussion, and having realized that something of unusualmoment was afoot, he quietly rose from his chair, and keeping well inthe shadow of the shrubbery growing profusely about the bungalow, madehis silent way to a point beneath the window of the room in which hishost and hostess slept. 

Here he listened, and not without result, for almost the first words heoverheard filled him with excitement. Lady Greystoke was speaking asWerper came 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 the cause, thefact remains that I have lost everything, and there is nothing for itbut 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 ofyou returning to that frightful city. I would rather live in povertyalways than to have you risk the hideous dangers of Opar. "

"You need have no fear, " replied Tarzan, laughing. "I am pretty wellable 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, " she remindedhim. 

"They will not do it again, " he answered. "They were very much ashamedof 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 inhabitantsof Opar will never know that I have been there again and despoiled themof another portion of the treasure, the very existence of which theyare as ignorant of as they would be of its value. "

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

Werper remained, listening, for a short time, and then, confident thathe had overheard all that was necessary and fearing discovery, returnedto the veranda, where he smoked numerous cigarets in rapid successionbefore retiring. 

The following morning at breakfast, Werper announced his intention ofmaking an early departure, and asked Tarzan's permission to hunt biggame in the Waziri country on his way out--permission which LordGreystoke readily granted. 

The Belgian consumed two days in completing his preparations, butfinally got away with his safari, accompanied by a single Waziri guidewhom Lord Greystoke had loaned him. The party made but a single shortmarch when Werper simulated illness, and announced his intention ofremaining where he was until he had fully recovered. As they had gonebut a short distance from the Greystoke bungalow, Werper dismissed theWaziri guide, telling the warrior that he would send for him when hewas able to proceed. The Waziri gone, the Belgian summoned one ofAchmet Zek's trusted blacks to his tent, and dispatched him to watchfor 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 hisemissary returned with word that Tarzan and a party of fifty Waziriwarriors had set out toward the southeast early in the morning. 

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

"Send a runner at once to Achmet Zek with this, " he instructed the headman. "Remain here in camp awaiting further instructions from him orfrom me. If any come from the bungalow of the Englishman, tell themthat I am very ill within my tent and can see no one. Now, give me sixporters and six askaris--the strongest and bravest of the safari--and Iwill march after the Englishman and discover where his gold is hidden. "

And so it was that as Tarzan, stripped to the loin cloth and armedafter the primitive fashion he best loved, led his loyal Waziri towardthe dead city of Opar, Werper, the renegade, haunted his trail throughthe long, hot days, and camped close behind him by night. 

And as they marched, Achmet Zek rode with his entire followingsouthward toward the Greystoke farm. 

To Tarzan of the Apes the expedition was in the nature of a holidayouting. His civilization was at best but an outward veneer which hegladly peeled off with his uncomfortable European clothes whenever anyreasonable pretext presented itself. It was a woman's love which keptTarzan even to the semblance of civilization--a condition for whichfamiliarity had bred contempt. He hated the shams and the hypocrisiesof it and with the clear vision of an unspoiled mind he had penetratedto the rotten core of the heart of the thing--the cowardly greed forpeace and ease and the safe-guarding of property rights. That the finethings of life--art, music and literature--had thriven upon suchenervating ideals he strenuously denied, insisting, rather, that theyhad endured in spite of civilization. 

"Show me the fat, opulent coward, " he was wont to say, "who everoriginated a beautiful ideal. In the clash of arms, in the battle forsurvival, amid hunger and death and danger, in the face of God asmanifested in the display of Nature's most terrific forces, is born allthat is finest and best in the human heart and mind. "

And so Tarzan always came back to Nature in the spirit of a loverkeeping a long deferred tryst after a period behind prison walls. HisWaziri, at marrow, were more civilized than he. They cooked their meatbefore they ate it and they shunned many articles of food as uncleanthat Tarzan had eaten with gusto all his life and so insidious is thevirus of hypocrisy that even the stalwart ape-man hesitated to giverein to his natural longings before them. He ate burnt flesh when hewould have preferred it raw and unspoiled, and he brought down gamewith 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 callof the milk of the savage mother that had suckled him in infancy roseto an insistent demand--he craved the hot blood of a fresh kill and hismuscles yearned to pit themselves against the savage jungle in thebattle for existence that had been his sole birthright for the firsttwenty years of his life. 

3

The Call of the Jungle

Moved by these vague yet all-powerful urgings the ape-man lay awake onenight in the little thorn boma that protected, in a way, his party fromthe depredations of the great carnivora of the jungle. A singlewarrior stood sleepy guard beside the fire that yellow eyes out of thedarkness beyond the camp made imperative. The moans and the coughingof the big cats mingled with the myriad noises of the lesser denizensof the jungle to fan the savage flame in the breast of this savageEnglish lord. He tossed upon his bed of grasses, sleepless, for anhour and then he rose, noiseless as a wraith, and while the Waziri'sback was turned, vaulted the boma wall in the face of the flaming eyes, swung silently into a great tree and was gone. 

For a time in sheer exuberance of animal spirit he raced swiftlythrough the middle terrace, swinging perilously across wide spans fromone jungle giant to the next, and then he clambered upward to theswaying, lesser boughs of the upper terrace where the moon shone fullupon him and the air was stirred by little breezes and death lurkedready in each frail branch. Here he paused and raised his face toGoro, the moon. With uplifted arm he stood, the cry of the bull apequivering upon his lips, yet he remained silent lest he arouse hisfaithful Waziri who were all too familiar with the hideous challenge oftheir master. 

And then he went on more slowly and with greater stealth and caution, for now Tarzan of the Apes was seeking a kill. Down to the ground hecame in the utter blackness of the close-set boles and the overhangingverdure of the jungle. He stooped from time to time and put his noseclose to earth. He sought and found a wide game trail and at last hisnostrils were rewarded with the scent of the fresh spoor of Bara, thedeer. Tarzan's mouth watered and a low growl escaped his patricianlips. Sloughed from him was the last vestige of artificial caste--onceagain he was the primeval hunter--the first man--the highest caste typeof the human race. Up wind he followed the elusive spoor with a senseof perception so transcending that of ordinary man as to beinconceivable to us. Through counter currents of the heavy stench ofmeat eaters he traced the trail of Bara; the sweet and cloying stink ofHorta, the boar, could not drown his quarry's scent--the permeating, mellow musk of the deer's foot. 

Presently the body scent of the deer told Tarzan that his prey wasclose at hand. It sent him into the trees again--into the lowerterrace where he could watch the ground below and catch with ears andnose the first intimation of actual contact with his quarry. Nor wasit long before the ape-man came upon Bara standing alert at the edge ofa moon-bathed clearing. Noiselessly Tarzan crept through the treesuntil he was directly over the deer. In the ape-man's right hand wasthe long hunting knife of his father and in his heart the blood lust ofthe carnivore. Just for an instant he poised above the unsuspectingBara and then he launched himself downward upon the sleek back. Theimpact of his weight carried the deer to its knees and before theanimal could regain its feet the knife had found its heart. As Tarzanrose upon the body of his kill to scream forth his hideous victory cryinto the face of the moon the wind carried to his nostrils somethingwhich froze him to statuesque immobility and silence. His savage eyesblazed into the direction from which the wind had borne down thewarning to him and a moment later the grasses at one side of theclearing parted and Numa, the lion, strode majestically into view. Hisyellow-green eyes were fastened upon Tarzan as he halted just withinthe clearing and glared enviously at the successful hunter, for Numahad had no luck this night. 

From the lips of the ape-man broke a rumbling growl of warning. Numaanswered but he did not advance. Instead he stood waving his tailgently to and fro, and presently Tarzan squatted upon his kill and cuta generous portion from a hind quarter. Numa eyed him with growingresentment and rage as, between mouthfuls, the ape-man growled out hissavage warnings. Now this particular lion had never before come incontact with Tarzan of the Apes and he was much mystified. Here wasthe appearance and the scent of a man-thing and Numa had tasted ofhuman flesh and learned that though not the most palatable it wascertainly by far the easiest to secure, yet there was that in thebestial growls of the strange creature which reminded him of formidableantagonists and gave him pause, while his hunger and the odor of thehot flesh of Bara goaded him almost to madness. Always Tarzan watchedhim, guessing what was passing in the little brain of the carnivore andwell it was that he did watch him, for at last Numa could stand it nolonger. His tail shot suddenly erect and at the same instant the waryape-man, knowing all too well what the signal portended, grasped theremainder of the deer's hind quarter between his teeth and leaped intoa nearby tree as Numa charged him with all the speed and a sufficientsemblance of the weight of an express train. 

Tarzan's retreat was no indication that he felt fear. Jungle life isordered along different lines than ours and different standardsprevail. Had Tarzan been famished he would, doubtless, have stood hisground and met the lion's charge. He had done the thing before uponmore than one occasion, just as in the past he had charged lionshimself; but tonight he was far from famished and in the hind quarterhe had carried off with him was more raw flesh than he could eat; yetit was with no equanimity that he looked down upon Numa rending theflesh of Tarzan's kill. The presumption of this strange Numa must bepunished! And forthwith Tarzan set out to make life miserable for thebig cat. Close by were many trees bearing large, hard fruits and toone of these the ape-man swung with the agility of a squirrel. Thencommenced a bombardment which brought forth earthshaking roars fromNuma. One after another as rapidly as he could gather and hurl them, Tarzan pelted the hard fruit down upon the lion. It was impossible forthe tawny cat to eat under that hail of missiles--he could but roar andgrowl and dodge and eventually he was driven away entirely from thecarcass of Bara, the deer. He went roaring and resentful; but in thevery center of the clearing his voice was suddenly hushed and Tarzansaw the great head lower and flatten out, the body crouch and the longtail quiver, as the beast slunk cautiously toward the trees upon theopposite side. 

Immediately Tarzan was alert. He lifted his head and sniffed the slow, jungle breeze. What was it that had attracted Numa's attention andtaken him soft-footed and silent away from the scene of hisdiscomfiture? Just as the lion disappeared among the trees beyond theclearing Tarzan caught upon the down-coming wind the explanation of hisnew interest--the scent spoor of man was wafted strongly to thesensitive nostrils. Caching the remainder of the deer's hind quarterin the crotch of a tree the ape-man wiped his greasy palms upon hisnaked thighs and swung off in pursuit of Numa. A broad, well-beatenelephant path led into the forest from the clearing. Parallel to thisslunk Numa, while above him Tarzan moved through the trees, the shadowof a wraith. The savage cat and the savage man saw Numa's quarryalmost simultaneously, though both had known before it came within thevision of their eyes that it was a black man. Their sensitive nostrilshad told them this much and Tarzan's had told him that the scent spoorwas that of a stranger--old and a male, for race and sex and age eachhas its own distinctive scent. It was an old man that made his wayalone through the gloomy jungle, a wrinkled, dried up, little old manhideously scarred and tattooed and strangely garbed, with the skin of ahyena about his shoulders and the dried head mounted upon his greypate. Tarzan recognized the ear-marks of the witch-doctor and awaitedNuma's charge with a feeling of pleasurable anticipation, for theape-man had no love for witch-doctors; but in the instant that Numa didcharge, the white man suddenly recalled that the lion had stolen hiskill a few minutes before and that revenge is sweet. 

The first intimation the black man had that he was in danger was thecrash of twigs as Numa charged through the bushes into the game trailnot twenty yards behind him. Then he turned to see a huge, black-manedlion racing toward him and even as he turned, Numa seized him. At thesame instant the ape-man dropped from an overhanging limb full upon thelion's back and as he alighted he plunged his knife into the tawny sidebehind the left shoulder, tangled the fingers of his right hand in thelong mane, buried his teeth in Numa's neck and wound his powerful legsabout the beast's torso. With a roar of pain and rage, Numa reared upand fell backward upon the ape-man; but still the mighty man-thingclung to his hold and repeatedly the long knife plunged rapidly intohis side. Over and over rolled Numa, the lion, clawing and biting atthe air, roaring and growling horribly in savage attempt to reach thething upon its back. More than once was Tarzan almost brushed from hishold. He was battered and bruised and covered with blood from Numa anddirt from the trail, yet not for an instant did he lessen the ferocityof his mad attack nor his grim hold upon the back of his antagonist. To have loosened for an instant his grip there, would have been tobring him within reach of those tearing talons or rending fangs, andhave ended forever the grim career of this jungle-bred English lord. Where he had fallen beneath the spring of the lion the witch-doctorlay, torn and bleeding, unable to drag himself away and watched theterrific battle between these two lords of the jungle. His sunken eyesglittered and his wrinkled lips moved over toothless gums as he mumbledweird incantations to the demons of his cult. 

For a time he felt no doubt as to the outcome--the strange white manmust certainly succumb to terrible Simba--whoever heard of a lone manarmed only with a knife slaying so mighty a beast! Yet presently theold black man's eyes went wider and he commenced to have his doubts andmisgivings. What wonderful sort of creature was this that battled withSimba and held his own despite the mighty muscles of the king of beastsand slowly there dawned in those sunken eyes, gleaming so brightly fromthe scarred and wrinkled face, the light of a dawning recollection. Gropingly backward into the past reached the fingers of memory, untilat last they seized upon a faint picture, faded and yellow with thepassing years. It was the picture of a lithe, white-skinned youthswinging through the trees in company with a band of huge apes, and theold eyes blinked and a great fear came into them--the superstitiousfear of one who believes in ghosts and spirits and demons. 

And came the time once more when the witch-doctor no longer doubted theoutcome of the duel, yet his first judgment was reversed, for now heknew that the jungle god would slay Simba and the old black was evenmore terrified of his own impending fate at the hands of the victorthan he had been by the sure and sudden death which the triumphant lionwould have meted out to him. He saw the lion weaken from loss ofblood. He saw the mighty limbs tremble and stagger and at last he sawthe beast sink down to rise no more. He saw the forest god or demonrise from the vanquished foe, and placing a foot upon the stillquivering carcass, raise his face to the moon and bay out a hideous crythat froze the ebbing blood in the veins of the witch-doctor. 

4

Prophecy and Fulfillment

Then Tarzan turned his attention to the man. He had not slain Numa tosave the Negro--he had merely done it in revenge upon the lion; but nowthat he saw the old man lying helpless and dying before him somethingakin to pity touched his savage heart. In his youth he would haveslain the witch-doctor without the slightest compunction; butcivilization had had its softening effect upon him even as it does uponthe nations and races which it touches, though it had not yet gone farenough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly or effeminate. He sawan old man suffering and dying, and he stooped and felt of his woundsand stanched 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 not withouta greater touch of pride than he would have said, "I am John Clayton, Lord Greystoke. "

The witch-doctor shook convulsively and closed his eyes. When heopened them again there was in them a resignation to whatever horriblefate awaited him at the hands of this feared demon of the woods. "Whydo you not kill me?" he asked. 

"Why should I kill you?" inquired Tarzan. "You have not harmed me, andanyway you are already dying. Numa, the lion, has killed you. "

"You would not kill me?" Surprise and incredulity were in the tones ofthe quavering old voice. 

"I would save you if I could, " replied Tarzan, "but that cannot bedone. Why did you think I would kill you?"

For a moment the old man was silent. When he spoke it was evidentlyafter some little effort to muster his courage. "I knew you of old, "he said, "when you ranged the jungle in the country of Mbonga, thechief. I was already a witch-doctor when you slew Kulonga and theothers, and when you robbed our huts and our poison pot. At first Idid not remember you; but at last I did--the white-skinned ape thatlived with the hairy apes and made life miserable in the village ofMbonga, the chief--the forest god--the Munango-Keewati for whom we setfood outside our gates and who came and ate it. Tell me before Idie--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 mefrom Simba, " 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 writ in my own blood which I have smeared upon my palm. A godgreater even than you will rise up and strike you down. Turn back, Munango-Keewati! Turn back before it is too late. Danger lies aheadof you and danger lurks behind; but greater is the danger before. Isee--" He paused and drew a long, gasping breath. Then he crumpledinto a little, wrinkled heap and died. Tarzan wondered what else hehad seen. 

It was very late when the ape-man re-entered the boma and lay downamong his black warriors. None had seen him go and none saw himreturn. He thought about the warning of the old witch-doctor before hefell asleep and he thought of it again after he awoke; but he did notturn back for he was unafraid, though had he known what lay in storefor one he loved most in all the world he would have flown through thetrees to her side and allowed the gold of Opar to remain forever hiddenin its forgotten storehouse. 

Behind him that morning another white man pondered something he hadheard during the night and very nearly did he give up his project andturn back upon his trail. It was Werper, the murderer, who in thestill of the night had heard far away upon the trail ahead of him asound that had filled his cowardly soul with terror--a sound such as henever before had heard in all his life, nor dreamed that such afrightful thing could emanate from the lungs of a God-created creature. He had heard the victory cry of the bull ape as Tarzan had screamed itforth into the face of Goro, the moon, and he had trembled then andhidden his face; and now in the broad light of a new day he trembledagain as he recalled it, and would have turned back from the namelessdanger the echo of that frightful sound seemed to portend, had he notstood in even greater fear 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 knewwhat lay in store for each. 

At the edge of the desolate valley, overlooking the golden domes andminarets of Opar, Tarzan halted. By night he would go alone to thetreasure vault, reconnoitering, for he had determined that cautionshould mark his every move upon this expedition. 

With the coming of night he set forth, and Werper, who had scaled thecliffs alone behind the ape-man's party, and hidden through the dayamong the rough boulders of the mountain top, slunk stealthily afterhim. The boulder-strewn plain between the valley's edge and the mightygranite kopje, outside the city's walls, where lay the entrance to thepassage-way leading to the treasure vault, gave the Belgian ample coveras he followed Tarzan toward Opar. 

He saw the giant ape-man swing himself nimbly up the face of the greatrock. Werper, clawing fearfully during the perilous ascent, sweatingin terror, almost palsied by fear, but spurred on by avarice, followingupward, until at last he stood upon the summit of the rocky hill. 

Tarzan was nowhere in sight. For a time Werper hid behind one of thelesser boulders that were scattered over the top of the hill, but, seeing or hearing nothing of the Englishman, he crept from his place ofconcealment to undertake a systematic search of his surroundings, inthe hope that he might discover the location of the treasure in ampletime to make his escape before Tarzan returned, for it was theBelgian's desire merely to locate the gold, that, after Tarzan haddeparted, he might come in safety with his followers and carry away asmuch as he could transport. 

He found the narrow cleft leading downward into the heart of the kopjealong well-worn, granite steps. He advanced quite to the dark mouth ofthe tunnel into which the runway disappeared; but here he halted, fearing to enter, lest he meet Tarzan returning. 

The ape-man, far ahead of him, groped his way along the rocky passage, until he came to the ancient wooden door. A moment later he stoodwithin the treasure chamber, where, ages since, long-dead hands hadranged the lofty rows of precious ingots for the rulers of that greatcontinent which now lies submerged beneath the waters of the Atlantic. 

No sound broke the stillness of the subterranean vault. There was noevidence that another had discovered the forgotten wealth since lastthe ape-man had visited its hiding place. 

Satisfied, Tarzan turned and retraced his steps toward the summit ofthe kopje. Werper, from the concealment of a jutting, graniteshoulder, watched him pass up from the shadows of the stairway andadvance toward the edge of the hill which faced the rim of the valleywhere the Waziri awaited the signal of their master. Then Werper, slipping stealthily from his hiding place, dropped into the somberdarkness of the entrance and disappeared. 

Tarzan, halting upon the kopje's edge, raised his voice in thethunderous roar of a lion. Twice, at regular intervals, he repeatedthe call, standing in attentive silence for several minutes after theechoes of the third call had died away. And then, from far across thevalley, faintly, came an answering roar--once, twice, thrice. Basuli, the Waziri chieftain, had heard and replied. 

Tarzan again made his way toward the treasure vault, knowing that in afew hours his blacks would be with him, ready to bear away anotherfortune in the strangely shaped, golden ingots of Opar. In themeantime he would carry as much of the precious metal to the summit ofthe kopje as he could. 

Six trips he made in the five hours before Basuli reached the kopje, and at the end of that time he had transported forty-eight ingots tothe edge of the great boulder, carrying upon each trip a load whichmight well have staggered two ordinary men, yet his giant frame showedno evidence of fatigue, as he helped to raise his ebon warriors to thehill top with the rope that had been brought for the purpose. 

Six times he had returned to the treasure chamber, and six timesWerper, the Belgian, had cowered in the black shadows at the far end ofthe long vault. Once again came the ape-man, and this time there camewith him fifty fighting men, turning porters for love of the onlycreature in the world who might command of their fierce and haughtynatures such menial service. Fifty-two more ingots passed out of thevaults, making the total of one hundred which Tarzan intended takingaway with him. 

As the last of the Waziri filed from the chamber, Tarzan turned backfor a last glimpse of the fabulous wealth upon which his two inroadshad made no appreciable impression. Before he extinguished the singlecandle he had brought with him for the purpose, and the flickeringlight of which had cast the first alleviating rays into theimpenetrable darkness of the buried chamber, that it had known for thecountless ages since it had lain forgotten of man, Tarzan's mindreverted to that first occasion upon which he had entered the treasurevault, coming upon it by chance as he fled from the pits beneath thetemple, 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 uponthe sacrificial altar, while La, with high-raised dagger, stood abovehim, and the rows of priests and priestesses awaited, in the ecstatichysteria of fanaticism, the first gush of their victim's warm blood, that they might fill their golden goblets and drink to the glory oftheir Flaming God. 

The brutal and bloody interruption by Tha, the mad priest, passedvividly before the ape-man's recollective eyes, the flight of thevotaries before the insane blood lust of the hideous creature, thebrutal attack upon La, and his own part of the grim tragedy when he hadbattled with the infuriated Oparian and left him dead at the feet ofthe 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 thetemples of the ruined city whose crumbling walls rose upon the veryfoundations about him. Had she finally been forced into a union withone of her grotesque priests? It seemed a hideous fate, indeed, forone so beautiful. With a shake of his head, Tarzan stepped to theflickering candle, extinguished its feeble rays and turned toward theexit. 

Behind him the spy waited for him to be gone. He had learned thesecret for which he had come, and now he could return at his leisure tohis waiting followers, bring them to the treasure vault and carry awayall the gold that they could stagger under. 

The Waziri had reached the outer end of the tunnel, and were windingupward toward the fresh air and the welcome starlight of the kopje'ssummit, before Tarzan shook off the detaining hand of reverie andstarted slowly after them. 

Once again, and, he thought, for the last time, he closed the massivedoor of the treasure room. In the darkness behind him Werper rose andstretched his cramped muscles. He stretched forth a hand and lovinglycaressed a golden ingot on the nearest tier. He raised it from itsimmemorial resting place and weighed it in his hands. He clutched itto his bosom in an ecstasy of avarice. 

Tarzan dreamed of the happy homecoming which lay before him, of deararms about his neck, and a soft cheek pressed to his; but there rose todispel that dream the memory of the old witch-doctor and his warning. 

And then, in the span of a few brief seconds, the hopes of both thesemen were shattered. The one forgot even his greed in the panic ofterror--the other was plunged into total forgetfulness of the past by ajagged fragment of rock which gashed a deep cut upon his head. 

5

The Altar of the Flaming God

It was at the moment that Tarzan turned from the closed door to pursuehis way to the outer world. The thing came without warning. Oneinstant all was quiet and stability--the next, and the world rocked, the tortured sides of the narrow passageway split and crumbled, greatblocks of granite, dislodged from the ceiling, tumbled into the narrowway, choking it, and the walls bent inward upon the wreckage. Beneaththe blow of a fragment of the roof, Tarzan staggered back against thedoor to the treasure room, his weight pushed it open and his bodyrolled inward upon the floor. 

In the great apartment where the treasure lay less damage was wroughtby the earthquake. A few ingots toppled from the higher tiers, asingle piece of the rocky ceiling splintered off and crashed downwardto the floor, and the walls cracked, though they did not collapse. 

There was but the single shock, no other followed to complete thedamage undertaken by the first. Werper, thrown to his length by thesuddenness and violence of the disturbance, staggered to his feet whenhe found himself unhurt. Groping his way toward the far end of thechamber, he sought the candle which Tarzan had left stuck in its ownwax upon the protruding end of an ingot. 

By striking numerous matches the Belgian at last found what he sought, and when, a moment later, the sickly rays relieved the Stygian darknessabout him, he breathed a nervous sigh of relief, for the impenetrablegloom had accentuated the terrors of his situation. 

As they became accustomed to the light the man turned his eyes towardthe door--his one thought now was of escape from this frightfultomb--and as he did so he saw the body of the naked giant lyingstretched upon the floor just within the doorway. Werper drew back insudden fear of detection; but a second glance convinced him that theEnglishman was dead. From a great gash in the man's head a pool ofblood had collected upon the concrete floor. 

Quickly, the Belgian leaped over the prostrate form of his erstwhilehost, and without a thought of succor for the man in whom, for aught heknew, life still remained, he bolted for the passageway and safety. 

But his renewed hopes were soon dashed. Just beyond the doorway hefound the passage completely clogged and choked by impenetrable massesof shattered rock. Once more he turned and re-entered the treasurevault. Taking the candle from its place he commenced a systematicsearch of the apartment, nor had he gone far before he discoveredanother door in the opposite end of the room, a door which gave uponcreaking hinges to the weight of his body. Beyond the door lay anothernarrow passageway. Along this Werper made his way, ascending a flightof stone steps to another corridor twenty feet above the level of thefirst. The flickering candle lighted the way before him, and a momentlater he was thankful for the possession of this crude and antiquatedluminant, which, a few hours before he might have looked upon withcontempt, for it showed him, just in time, a yawning pit, apparentlyterminating the tunnel he was traversing. 

Before him was a circular shaft. He held the candle above it andpeered downward. Below him, at a great distance, he saw the lightreflected back from the surface of a pool of water. He had come upon awell. He raised the candle above his head and peered across the blackvoid, and there upon the opposite side he saw the continuation of thetunnel; but how was he to span the gulf?

As he stood there measuring the distance to the opposite side andwondering if he dared venture so great a leap, there broke suddenlyupon his startled ears a piercing scream which diminished graduallyuntil it ended in a series of dismal moans. The voice seemed partlyhuman, yet so hideous that it might well have emanated from thetortured throat of a lost soul, writhing in the fires of hell. 

The Belgian shuddered and looked fearfully upward, for the scream hadseemed to come from above him. As he looked he saw an opening faroverhead, and a patch of sky pinked with brilliant stars. 

His half-formed intention to call for help was expunged by theterrifying cry--where such a voice lived, no human creatures coulddwell. He dared not reveal himself to whatever inhabitants dwelt inthe place above him. He cursed himself for a fool that he had everembarked upon such a mission. He wished himself safely back in thecamp of Achmet Zek, and would almost have embraced an opportunity togive himself up to the military authorities of the Congo if by so doinghe might be rescued from the frightful predicament in which he now was. 

He listened fearfully, but the cry was not repeated, and at lastspurred to desperate means, he gathered himself for the leap across thechasm. Going back twenty paces, he took a running start, and at theedge of the well, leaped upward and outward in an attempt to gain theopposite side. 

In his hand he clutched the sputtering candle, and as he took the leapthe rush of air extinguished it. In utter darkness he flew throughspace, clutching outward for a hold should his feet miss the invisibleledge. 

He struck the edge of the door of the opposite terminus of the rockytunnel with his knees, slipped backward, clutched desperately for amoment, and at last hung half within and half without the opening; buthe was safe. For several minutes he dared not move; but clung, weakand sweating, where he lay. At last, cautiously, he drew himself wellwithin the tunnel, and again he lay at full length upon the floor, fighting to regain control of his shattered nerves. 

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 uponall fours and commenced a diligent search for the little tallowcylinder, which now seemed infinitely more precious to him than all thefabulous wealth of the hoarded ingots of Opar. 

And when, at last, he found it, he clasped it to him and sank backsobbing and exhausted. For many minutes he lay trembling and broken;but finally he drew himself to a sitting posture, and taking a matchfrom his pocket, lighted the stump of the candle which remained to him. With the light he found it easier to regain control of his nerves, andpresently he was again making his way along the tunnel in search of anavenue of escape. The horrid cry that had come down to him from abovethrough the ancient well-shaft still haunted him, so that he trembledin terror at even the sounds of his own cautious advance. 

He had gone forward but a short distance, when, to his chagrin, a wallof masonry barred his farther progress, closing the tunnel completelyfrom top to bottom and from side to side. What could it mean? Werperwas an educated and intelligent man. His military training had taughthim to use his mind for the purpose for which it was intended. A blindtunnel such as this was senseless. It must continue beyond the wall. Someone, at some time in the past, had had it blocked for an unknownpurpose of his own. The man fell to examining the masonry by the lightof his candle. To his delight he discovered that the thin blocks ofhewn stone of which it was constructed were fitted in loosely withoutmortar or cement. He tugged upon one of them, and to his joy foundthat it was easily removable. One after another he pulled out theblocks until he had opened an aperture large enough to admit his body, then he crawled through into a large, low chamber. Across this anotherdoor barred his way; but this, too, gave before his efforts, for it wasnot barred. A long, dark corridor showed before him, but before he hadfollowed it far, his candle burned down until it scorched his fingers. With an oath he dropped it to the floor, where it sputtered for amoment and went out. 

Now he was in total darkness, and again terror rode heavily astride hisneck. What further pitfalls and dangers lay ahead he could not guess;but that he was as far as ever from liberty he was quite willing tobelieve, so depressing is utter absence of light to one in unfamiliarsurroundings. 

Slowly he groped his way along, feeling with his hands upon thetunnel's walls, and cautiously with his feet ahead of him upon thefloor before he could take a single forward step. How long he crept onthus he could not guess; but at last, feeling that the tunnel's lengthwas interminable, and exhausted by his efforts, by terror, and loss ofsleep, he determined to lie down and rest before proceeding farther. 

When he awoke there was no change in the surrounding blackness. Hemight have slept a second or a day--he could not know; but that he hadslept for some time was attested by the fact that he felt refreshed andhungry. 

Again he commenced his groping advance; but this time he had gone but ashort distance when he emerged into a room, which was lighted throughan opening in the ceiling, from which a flight of concrete steps leddownward to the floor of the chamber. 

Above him, through the aperture, Werper could see sunlight glancingfrom massive columns, which were twined about by clinging vines. Helistened; but he heard no sound other than the soughing of the windthrough leafy branches, the hoarse cries of birds, and the chatteringof monkeys. 

Boldly he ascended the stairway, to find himself in a circular court. Just before him stood a stone altar, stained with rusty-browndiscolorations. At the time Werper gave no thought to an explanationof these stains--later their origin became all too hideously apparentto him. 

Beside the opening in the floor, just behind the altar, through whichhe had entered the court from the subterranean chamber below, theBelgian discovered several doors leading from the enclosure upon thelevel of the floor. Above, and circling the courtyard, was a series ofopen balconies. Monkeys scampered about the deserted ruins, and gailyplumaged birds flitted in and out among the columns and the galleriesfar above; but no sign of human presence was discernible. Werper feltrelieved. He sighed, as though a great weight had been lifted from hisshoulders. He took a step toward one of the exits, and then he halted, wide-eyed in astonishment and terror, for almost at the same instant adozen doors opened in the courtyard wall and a horde of frightful menrushed in upon him. 

They were the priests of the Flaming God of Opar--the same, shaggy, knotted, hideous little men who had dragged Jane Clayton to thesacrificial altar at this very spot years before. Their long arms, their short and crooked legs, their close-set, evil eyes, and theirlow, receding foreheads gave them a bestial appearance that sent aqualm of paralyzing fright through the shaken nerves of the Belgian. 

With a scream he turned to flee back into the lesser terrors of thegloomy corridors and apartments from which he had just emerged, but thefrightful men anticipated his intentions. They blocked the way; theyseized him, and though he fell, groveling upon his knees before them, begging for his life, they bound him and hurled him to the floor of theinner temple. 

The rest was but a repetition of what Tarzan and Jane Clayton hadpassed through. The priestesses came, and with them La, the HighPriestess. Werper was raised and laid across the altar. Cold sweatexuded from his every pore as La raised the cruel, sacrificial knifeabove him. The death chant fell upon his tortured ears. His staringeyes wandered to the golden goblets from which the hideous votarieswould soon quench their inhuman thirst in his own, warm life-blood. 

He wished that he might be granted the brief respite of unconsciousnessbefore the final plunge of the keen blade--and then there was afrightful roar that sounded almost in his ears. The High Priestesslowered her dagger. Her eyes went wide in horror. The priestesses, her votaresses, screamed and fled madly toward the exits. The priestsroared out their rage and terror according to the temper of theircourage. Werper strained his neck about to catch a sight of the causeof their panic, and when, at last he saw it, he too went cold in dread, 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 beneathhis cruel paws. 

Again the lord of the wilderness roared, turning his baleful gaze uponthe altar. La staggered forward, reeled, and fell across Werper in aswoon. 

6

The Arab Raid

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

They found the way blocked by jammed and distorted rock. For two daysthey labored to tear a way through to their imprisoned friends; butwhen, after Herculean efforts, they had unearthed but a few yards ofthe choked passage, and discovered the mangled remains of one of theirfellows they were forced to the conclusion that Tarzan and the secondWaziri also lay dead beneath the rock mass farther in, beyond humanaid, and no longer susceptible of it. 

Again and again as they labored they called aloud the names of theirmaster and their comrade; but no answering call rewarded theirlistening ears. At last they gave up the search. Tearfully they casta last look at the shattered tomb of their master, shouldered the heavyburden of gold that would at least furnish comfort, if not happiness, to their bereaved and beloved mistress, and made their mournful wayback across the desolate valley of Opar, and downward through theforests 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 hislieutenant's letter. With him came his horde of renegade Arabs, outlawed marauders, these, and equally degraded blacks, garnered fromthe more debased and ignorant tribes of savage cannibals through whosecountries the raider passed to and fro with perfect impunity. 

Mugambi, the ebon Hercules, who had shared the dangers and vicissitudesof his beloved Bwana, from Jungle Island, almost to the headwaters ofthe Ugambi, was the first to note the bold approach of the sinistercaravan. 

He it was whom Tarzan had left in charge of the warriors who remainedto guard Lady Greystoke, nor could a braver or more loyal guardian havebeen found in any clime or upon any soil. A giant in stature, asavage, fearless warrior, the huge black possessed also soul andjudgment in proportion to his bulk and his ferocity. 

Not once since his master had departed had he been beyond sight orsound of the bungalow, except when Lady Greystoke chose to canteracross the broad plain, or relieve the monotony of her loneliness by abrief hunting excursion. On such occasions Mugambi, mounted upon awiry Arab, had ridden close at her horse'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 partyin silence, then he turned and ran rapidly in the direction of thenative huts which lay a few hundred yards below the bungalow. 

Here he called out to the lolling warriors. He issued orders rapidly. In compliance with them the men seized upon their weapons and theirshields. Some ran to call in the workers from the fields and to warnthe tenders of the flocks and herds. The majority followed Mugambiback toward the bungalow. 

The dust of the raiders was still a long distance away. Mugambi couldnot know positively that it hid an enemy; but he had spent a lifetimeof savage life in savage Africa, and he had seen parties before comethus unheralded. Sometimes they had come in peace and sometimes theyhad come in war--one could never tell. It was well to be prepared. Mugambi did not like the haste with which the strangers advanced. 

The Greystoke bungalow was not well adapted for defense. No palisadesurrounded it, for, situated as it was, in the heart of loyal Waziri, its master had anticipated no possibility of an attack in force by anyenemy. Heavy, wooden shutters there were to close the window aperturesagainst hostile arrows, and these Mugambi was engaged in lowering whenLady Greystoke appeared upon the veranda. 

"Why, Mugambi!" she exclaimed. "What has happened? Why are youlowering the shutters?"

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

"Arabs, " he explained. "They come for no good purpose in the absenceof the Great Bwana. "

Beyond the neat lawn and the flowering shrubs, Jane Clayton saw theglistening bodies of her Waziri. The sun glanced from the tips oftheir metal-shod spears, picked out the gorgeous colors in the feathersof their war bonnets, and reflected the high-lights from the glossyskins of their broad shoulders and high cheek bones. 

Jane Clayton surveyed them with unmixed feelings of pride andaffection. What harm could befall her with such as these to protecther?

The raiders had halted now, a hundred yards out upon the plain. Mugambi had hastened down to join his warriors. He advanced a fewyards before them and raising his voice hailed the strangers. AchmetZek sat straight in his saddle before 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 want youhere. There can be no peace between Arab and Waziri. "

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

Achmet Zek drew to one side of his horde, speaking to his men in a lowvoice. A moment later, without warning, a ragged volley was pouredinto the ranks of the Waziri. A couple of warriors fell, the otherswere for charging the attackers; but Mugambi was a cautious as well asa brave leader. He knew the futility of charging mounted men armedwith muskets. He withdrew his force behind the shrubbery of thegarden. Some he dispatched to various other parts of the groundssurrounding the bungalow. Half a dozen he sent to the bungalow itselfwith instructions to keep their mistress within doors, and to protecther with their lives. 

Adopting the tactics of the desert fighters from which he had sprung, Achmet Zek led his followers at a gallop in a long, thin line, describing a great circle which drew closer and closer in toward thedefenders. 

At that part of the circle closest to the Waziri, a constant fusilladeof shots was poured into the bushes behind which the black warriors hadconcealed themselves. The latter, on their part, loosed their slimshafts at the nearest of the enemy. 

The Waziri, justly famed for their archery, found no cause to blush fortheir performance that day. Time and again some swarthy horseman threwhands above his head and toppled from his saddle, pierced by a deadlyarrow; but the contest was uneven. The Arabs outnumbered the Waziri;their bullets penetrated the shrubbery and found marks that the Arabriflemen had not even seen; and then Achmet Zek circled inward a halfmile above the bungalow, tore down a section of the fence, and led hismarauders within the grounds. 

Across the fields they charged at a mad run. Not again did they pauseto lower fences, instead, they drove their wild mounts straight forthem, clearing the obstacles as lightly as winged gulls. 

Mugambi saw them coming, and, calling those of his warriors whoremained, ran for the bungalow and the last stand. Upon the verandaLady Greystoke stood, rifle in hand. More than a single raider hadaccounted to her steady nerves and cool aim for his outlawry; more thana single pony raced, riderless, in the wake of the charging horde. 

Mugambi pushed his mistress back into the greater security of theinterior, and with his depleted force prepared to make a last standagainst the foe. 

On came the Arabs, shouting and waving their long guns above theirheads. Past the veranda they raced, pouring a deadly fire into thekneeling Waziri who discharged their volley of arrows from behind theirlong, oval shields--shields well adapted, perhaps, to stop a hostilearrow, or deflect a spear; but futile, quite, before the leadenmissiles of the riflemen. 

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

Again and again the Arabs charged, at last forming a stationary circleabout the little fortress, and outside the effective range of thedefenders' arrows. From their new position they fired at will at thewindows. One by one the Waziri fell. Fewer and fewer were the arrowsthat replied to the guns of the raiders, and at last Achmet Zek feltsafe in ordering an assault. 

Firing as they ran, the bloodthirsty horde raced for the veranda. Adozen of them fell to the arrows of the defenders; but the majorityreached the door. Heavy gun butts fell upon it. The crash ofsplintered wood mingled with the report of a rifle as Jane Claytonfired through the panels upon the relentless foe. 

Upon both sides of the door men fell; but at last the frail barriergave to the vicious assaults of the maddened attackers; it crumpledinward and a dozen swarthy murderers leaped into the living-room. Atthe far end stood Jane Clayton surrounded by the remnant of her devotedguardians. The floor was covered by the bodies of those who alreadyhad given up their lives in her defense. In the forefront of herprotectors stood the giant Mugambi. The Arabs raised their rifles topour in the last volley that would effectually end all resistance; butAchmet Zek roared out a warning order that stayed their trigger fingers. 

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

The Arabs rushed across the room; the Waziri met them with their heavyspears. Swords flashed, long-barreled pistols roared out their sullendeath dooms. Mugambi launched his spear at the nearest of the enemywith a force that drove the heavy shaft completely through the Arab'sbody, then he seized a pistol from another, and grasping it by thebarrel brained all who forced their way too near his mistress. 

Emulating his example the few warriors who remained to him fought likedemons; but one by one they fell, until only Mugambi remained to defendthe life and honor of the ape-man's mate. 

From across the room Achmet Zek watched the unequal struggle and urgedon his minions. In his hands was a jeweled musket. Slowly he raisedit to his shoulder, waiting until another move should place Mugambi athis mercy without endangering the lives of the woman or any of his ownfollowers. 

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

An instant later she was surrounded and disarmed. Without a word theydragged her from the bungalow. A giant Negro lifted her to the pommelof his saddle, and while the raiders searched the bungalow andouthouses for plunder he rode with her beyond the gates and waited thecoming of his master. 

Jane Clayton saw the raiders lead the horses from the corral, and drivethe herds in from the fields. She saw her home plundered of all thatrepresented intrinsic worth in the eyes of the Arabs, and then she sawthe torch applied, and the flames lick up what remained. 

And at last, when the raiders assembled after glutting their fury andtheir avarice, and rode away with her toward the north, she saw thesmoke and the flames rising far into the heavens until the winding ofthe trail into the thick forests hid the sad view from her eyes. 

As the flames ate their way into the living-room, reaching out forkedtongues to lick up the bodies of the dead, one of that gruesome companywhose bloody welterings had long since been stilled, moved again. Itwas a huge black who rolled over upon his side and opened blood-shot, suffering eyes. Mugambi, whom the Arabs had left for dead, stilllived. The hot flames were almost upon him as he raised himselfpainfully upon his hands and knees and crawled slowly toward thedoorway. 

Again and again he sank weakly to the floor; but each time he roseagain and continued his pitiful way toward safety. After what seemedto him an interminable time, during which the flames had become averitable fiery furnace at the far side of the room, the great blackmanaged to reach the veranda, roll down the steps, and crawl off intothe cool safety of some nearby shrubbery. 

All night he lay there, alternately unconscious and painfully sentient;and in the latter state watching with savage hatred the lurid flameswhich still rose from burning crib and hay cock. A prowling lionroared close at hand; but the giant black was unafraid. There wasplace for but a single thought in his savage mind--revenge! revenge!revenge!

7

The Jewel-Room of Opar

For some time Tarzan lay where he had fallen upon the floor of thetreasure chamber beneath the ruined walls of Opar. He lay as one dead;but he was not dead. At length he stirred. His eyes opened upon theutter darkness of the room. He raised his hand to his head and broughtit away sticky with clotted blood. He sniffed at his fingers, as awild beast might sniff at the life-blood upon a wounded paw. 

Slowly he rose to a sitting posture--listening. No sound reached tothe buried depths of his sepulcher. He staggered to his feet, andgroped his way about among the tiers of ingots. What was he? Wherewas he? His head ached; but otherwise he felt no ill effects from theblow that had felled him. The accident he did not recall, nor did herecall aught of what had led up to it. 

He let his hands grope unfamiliarly over his limbs, his torso, and hishead. He felt of the quiver at his back, the knife in his loin cloth. Something struggled for recognition within his brain. Ah! he had it. There was something missing. He crawled about upon the floor, feelingwith his hands for the thing that instinct warned him was gone. Atlast he found it--the heavy war spear that in past years had formed soimportant a feature of his daily life, almost of his very existence, soinseparably had it been connected with his every action since thelong-gone day that he had wrested his first spear from the body of ablack victim of his savage training. 

Tarzan was sure that there was another and more lovely world than thatwhich was confined to the darkness of the four stone walls surroundinghim. He continued his search and at last found the doorway leadinginward beneath the city and the temple. This he followed, mostincautiously. He came to the stone steps leading upward to the higherlevel. He ascended them and continued onward toward the well. 

Nothing spurred his hurt memory to a recollection of past familiaritywith his surroundings. He blundered on through the darkness as thoughhe were traversing an open plain under the brilliance of a noonday sun, and suddenly there happened that which had to happen under thecircumstances of his rash advance. 

He reached the brink of the well, stepped outward into space, lungedforward, and shot downward into the inky depths below. Still clutchinghis spear, he struck the water, and sank beneath its surface, plumbingthe depths. 

The fall had not injured him, and when he rose to the surface, he shookthe water from his eyes, and found that he could see. Daylight wasfiltering into the well from the orifice far above his head. Itillumined the inner walls faintly. Tarzan gazed about him. On thelevel with the surface of the water he saw a large opening in the darkand slimy wall. He swam to it, and drew himself out upon the wet floorof a tunnel. 

Along this he passed; but now he went warily, for Tarzan of the Apeswas learning. The unexpected pit had taught him care in the traversingof dark passageways--he needed no second lesson. 

For a long distance the passage went straight as an arrow. The floorwas slippery, as though at times the rising waters of the welloverflowed and flooded it. This, in itself, retarded Tarzan's pace, for it was with difficulty that he kept his footing. 

The foot of a stairway ended the passage. Up this he made his way. Itturned back and forth many times, leading, at last, into a small, circular chamber, the gloom of which was relieved by a faint lightwhich found ingress through a tubular shaft several feet in diameterwhich rose from the center of the room's ceiling, upward to a distanceof a hundred feet or more, where it terminated in a stone gratingthrough which Tarzan could see a blue and sun-lit sky. 

Curiosity prompted the ape-man to investigate his surroundings. Several metal-bound, copper-studded chests constituted the solefurniture of the round room. Tarzan let his hands run over these. Hefelt of the copper studs, he pulled upon the hinges, and at last, bychance, he raised the cover of one. 

An exclamation of delight broke from his lips at sight of the prettycontents. Gleaming and glistening in the subdued light of the chamber, lay a great tray full of brilliant stones. Tarzan, reverted to theprimitive by his accident, had no conception of the fabulous value ofhis find. To him they were but pretty pebbles. He plunged his handsinto them and let the priceless gems filter through his fingers. Hewent to others of the chests, only to find still further stores ofprecious stones. Nearly all were cut, and from these he gathered ahandful and filled the pouch which dangled at his side--the uncutstones he tossed back into the chests. 

Unwittingly, the ape-man had stumbled upon the forgotten jewel-room ofOpar. For ages it had lain buried beneath the temple of the FlamingGod, midway of one of the many inky passages which the superstitiousdescendants of the ancient Sun Worshipers had either dared not or carednot to explore. 

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

Above him an opening in the ceiling at the upper end of a flight ofconcrete steps revealed a brilliant sunlit scene. Tarzan viewed thevine-covered columns in mild wonderment. He puckered his brows in anattempt to recall some recollection of similar things. He was not sureof himself. There was a tantalizing suggestion always present in hismind that something was eluding him--that he should know many thingswhich he did not know. 

His earnest cogitation was rudely interrupted by a thunderous roar fromthe opening above him. Following the roar came the cries and screamsof men and women. Tarzan grasped his spear more firmly and ascendedthe steps. A strange sight met his eyes as he emerged from thesemi-darkness of the cellar to the brilliant light of the temple. 

The creatures he saw before him he recognized for what they were--menand women, and a huge lion. The men and women were scuttling for thesafety of the exits. The lion stood upon the body of one who had beenless fortunate than the others. He was in the center of the temple. Directly before Tarzan, a woman stood beside a block of stone. Uponthe top of the stone lay stretched a man, and as the ape-man watchedthe scene, he saw the lion glare terribly at the two who remainedwithin the temple. Another thunderous roar broke from the savagethroat, the woman screamed and swooned across the body of the manstretched prostrate upon the stone altar before her. 

The lion advanced a few steps and crouched. The tip of his sinuoustail twitched nervously. He was upon the point of charging when hiseyes were attracted toward the ape-man. 

Werper, helpless upon the altar, saw the great carnivore preparing toleap upon him. He saw the sudden change in the beast's expression ashis eyes wandered to something beyond the altar and out of theBelgian's view. He saw the formidable creature rise to a standingposition. A figure darted past Werper. He saw a mighty arm upraised, and a stout spear shoot forward toward the lion, to bury itself in thebroad 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 chargingupon the great beast, only a long knife ready to meet those ferociousfangs and talons. 

The lion reared up to meet this new enemy. The beast was growlingfrightfully, and then upon the startled ears of the Belgian, broke asimilar savage growl from 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, brown fist was driving a long keen blade repeatedly into the beast'sside. 

During the battle, La regained consciousness. Spellbound, she stoodabove her victim watching the spectacle. It seemed incredible that ahuman being could best the king of beasts in personal encounter and yetbefore her very eyes there was taking place just such an improbability. 

At last Tarzan's knife found the great heart, and with a final, spasmodic struggle the lion rolled over upon the marble floor, dead. Leaping to his feet the conqueror placed a foot upon the carcass of hiskill, raised his face toward the heavens, and gave voice to so hideousa cry that both La and Werper trembled as it reverberated through thetemple. 

Then the ape-man turned, and Werper recognized him as the man he hadleft for dead in the treasure room. 

8

The Escape from Opar

Werper was astounded. Could this creature be the same dignifiedEnglishman who had entertained him so graciously in his luxuriousAfrican home? Could this wild beast, with blazing eyes, and bloodycountenance, be at the same time a man? Could the horrid, victory cryhe had but just heard have been formed in human throat?

Tarzan was eyeing the man and the woman, a puzzled expression in hiseyes, but there was no faintest tinge of recognition. It was as thoughhe had discovered some new species of living creature and was marvelingat his find. 

La was studying the ape-man's features. Slowly her large eyes openedvery wide. 

"Tarzan!" she exclaimed, and then, in the vernacular of the great apeswhich constant association with the anthropoids had rendered the commonlanguage of the Oparians: "You have come back to me! La has ignoredthe mandates of her religion, waiting, always waiting for Tarzan--forher Tarzan. She has taken no mate, for in all the world there was butone with whom La would mate. And now you have come back! Tell me, OTarzan, that it is for me you have returned. "

Werper listened to the unintelligible jargon. He looked from La toTarzan. Would the latter understand this strange tongue? To theBelgian's surprise, the Englishman answered in a language evidentlyidentical to hers. 

"Tarzan, " he repeated, musingly. "Tarzan. The name sounds familiar. "

"It is your name--you are Tarzan, " cried La. 

"I am Tarzan?" The ape-man shrugged. "Well, it is a good name--I knowno other, so I will keep it; but I do not know you. I did not comehither for you. Why I came, I do not know at all; neither do I knowfrom whence 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 inthe language 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 thechange, Tarzan repeated his question in French. Werper suddenly cameto a full realization of the magnitude of the injury of which Tarzanwas a victim. The man had lost his memory--no longer could herecollect past events. The Belgian was upon the point of enlighteninghim, when it suddenly occurred to him that by keeping Tarzan inignorance, for a time at least, of his true identity, it might bepossible to turn the ape-man's misfortune to his own advantage. 

"I cannot tell you from whence you came, " he said; "but this I can tellyou--if we do not get out of this horrible place we shall both be slainupon this bloody altar. The woman was about to plunge her knife intomy heart when the lion interrupted the fiendish ritual. Come! Beforethey recover from their fright and reassemble, let us find a way out oftheir damnable temple. "

Tarzan turned again toward La. 

"Why, " he asked, "would you have killed this man? Are you hungry?"

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 was determined toget 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, " she said. 

Tarzan looked puzzled. He was again an ape, and apes do not understandsuch matters 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 wishto die. 

"Very well then, you shall not, " said Tarzan. "Come! We will go. This SHE would kill you and keep me for herself. It is no place anywayfor a 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 High Priest. Laloves 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--if she cannot haveyou alive, she will have you dead, " and raising her face to the sun shegave voice to the same hideous shriek that Werper had heard once beforeand Tarzan many times. 

In answer to her cry a babel of voices broke from the surroundingchambers and corridors. 

"Come, Guardian Priests!" she cried. "The infidels have profaned theholiest of the holies. Come! Strike terror to their hearts; defend Laand her altar; wash clean the temple with the blood of the polluters. "

Tarzan understood, though Werper did not. The former glanced at theBelgian and saw that he was unarmed. Stepping quickly to La's side theape-man seized her in his strong arms and though she fought with allthe mad savagery of a demon, he soon disarmed her, handing her long, sacrificial knife to Werper. 

"You will need this, " he said, and then from each doorway a horde ofthe monstrous, little men of Opar streamed into the temple. 

They were armed with bludgeons and knives, and fortified in theircourage by fanatical hate and frenzy. Werper was terrified. Tarzanstood eyeing the foe in proud disdain. Slowly he advanced toward theexit he had chosen to utilize in making his way from the temple. Aburly priest barred his way. Behind the first was a score of others. Tarzan swung his heavy spear, clublike, down upon the skull of thepriest. The fellow collapsed, his head crushed. 

Again and again the weapon fell as Tarzan made his way slowly towardthe doorway. Werper pressed close behind, casting backward glancestoward the shrieking, dancing mob menacing their rear. He held thesacrificial knife ready to strike whoever might come within its reach;but none came. For a time he wondered that they should so bravelybattle with the giant ape-man, yet hesitate to rush upon him, who wasrelatively so weak. Had they done so he knew that he must have fallenat the first charge. Tarzan had reached the doorway over the corpsesof all that had stood to dispute his way, before Werper guessed at thereason for his immunity. The priests feared the sacrificial knife!Willingly would they face death and welcome it if it came while theydefended their High Priestess and her altar; but evidently there weredeaths, and deaths. Some strange superstition must surround thatpolished blade, that no Oparian cared to chance a death thrust from it, yet gladly rushed to the slaughter of the ape-man's flaying spear. 

Once outside the temple court, Werper communicated his discovery toTarzan. The ape-man grinned, and let Werper go before him, brandishingthe jeweled and holy weapon. Like leaves before a gale, the Opariansscattered in all directions and Tarzan and the Belgian found a clearpassage through the corridors and chambers of the ancient temple. 

The Belgian's eyes went wide as they passed through the room of theseven pillars of solid gold. With ill-concealed avarice he looked uponthe age-old, golden tablets set in the walls of nearly every room anddown the sides of many of the corridors. To the ape-man all thiswealth appeared to mean nothing. 

On the two went, chance leading them toward the broad avenue which laybetween the stately piles of the half-ruined edifices and the innerwall of the city. Great apes jabbered at them and menaced them; butTarzan answered them after their own kind, giving back taunt for taunt, insult for insult, challenge for challenge. 

Werper saw a hairy bull swing down from a broken column and advance, stiff-legged and bristling, toward the naked giant. The yellow fangswere bared, angry snarls and barkings rumbled threateningly through thethick and hanging lips. 

The Belgian watched his companion. To his horror, he saw the man stoopuntil his closed knuckles rested upon the ground as did those of theanthropoid. He saw him circle, stiff-legged about the circling ape. He heard the same bestial barkings and growlings issue from the humanthroat that were coming from the mouth of the brute. Had his eyes beenclosed he could not have known but that two giant apes were bridlingfor combat. 

But there was no battle. It ended as the majority of such jungleencounters end--one of the boasters loses his nerve, and becomessuddenly interested in a blowing leaf, a beetle, or the lice upon hishairy stomach. 

In this instance it was the anthropoid that retired in stiff dignity toinspect an unhappy caterpillar, which he presently devoured. For amoment Tarzan seemed inclined to pursue the argument. He swaggeredtruculently, stuck out his chest, roared and advanced closer to thebull. It was with difficulty that Werper finally persuaded him toleave well enough alone and continue his way from the ancient city ofthe Sun Worshipers. 

The two searched for nearly an hour before they found the narrow exitthrough the inner wall. From there the well-worn trail led them beyondthe outer fortification to the desolate valley of Opar. 

Tarzan had no idea, in so far as Werper could discover, as to where hewas or whence he came. He wandered aimlessly about, searching forfood, which he discovered beneath small rocks, or hiding in the shadeof the scant brush which dotted the ground. 

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

At last Werper succeeded in leading his companion toward the distanthills which mark the northwestern boundary of the valley, and togetherthe two set out in the direction of the Greystoke bungalow. 

What purpose prompted the Belgian in leading the victim of histreachery and greed back toward his former home it is difficult toguess, unless it was that without Tarzan there could be no ransom forTarzan's wife. 

That night they camped in the valley beyond the hills, and as they satbefore a little fire where cooked a wild pig that had fallen to one ofTarzan's arrows, the latter sat lost in speculation. He seemedcontinually to be trying to grasp some mental image which as constantlyeluded him. 

At last he opened the leathern pouch which hung at his side. From ithe poured into the palm of his hand a quantity of glittering gems. Thefirelight playing upon them conjured a multitude of scintillating rays, and as the wide eyes of the Belgian looked on in rapt fascination, theman's expression at last acknowledged a tangible purpose in courtingthe society of the ape-man. 

9

The Theft of the Jewels

For two days Werper sought for the party that had accompanied him fromthe camp to the barrier cliffs; but not until late in the afternoon ofthe second day did he find clew to its whereabouts, and then in suchgruesome form that he was totally unnerved by the sight. 

In an open glade he came upon the bodies of three of the blacks, terribly mutilated, nor did it require considerable deductive power toexplain their murder. Of the little party only these three had notbeen slaves. The others, evidently tempted to hope for freedom fromtheir cruel Arab master, had taken advantage of their separation fromthe main camp, to slay the three representatives of the hated powerwhich held them in slavery, and vanish into the jungle. 

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

Tarzan showed not the slightest surprise or interest in the discovery. Inherent in him was a calloused familiarity with violent death. Therefinements of his recent civilization expunged by the force of the sadcalamity which had befallen him, left only the primitive sensibilitieswhich his childhood's training had imprinted indelibly upon the fabricof his mind. 

The training of Kala, the examples and precepts of Kerchak, of Tublat, and of Terkoz now formed the basis of his every thought and action. Heretained a mechanical knowledge of French and English speech. Werperhad spoken to him in French, and Tarzan had replied in the same tonguewithout conscious realization that he had departed from theanthropoidal speech in which he had addressed La. Had Werper usedEnglish, the result would have been the same. 

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

Werper was relieved to find that Tarzan had no conception of the valueof the gems. This would make it easier for the Belgian to obtainpossession of them. Possibly the man would give them to him for theasking. Werper reached out his hand toward the little pile that Tarzanhad arranged upon a piece of flat wood before him. 

"Let me see them, " said the Belgian. 

Tarzan placed a large palm over his treasure. He bared his fightingfangs, and growled. Werper withdrew his hand more quickly than he hadadvanced it. Tarzan resumed his playing with the gems, and hisconversation with Werper as though nothing unusual had occurred. Hehad but exhibited the beast's jealous protective instinct for apossession. When he killed he shared the meat with Werper; but hadWerper ever, by accident, laid a hand upon Tarzan's share, he wouldhave aroused the same savage, and resentful warning. 

From that occurrence dated the beginning of a great fear in the breastof the Belgian for his savage companion. He had never understood thetransformation that had been wrought in Tarzan by the blow upon hishead, other than to attribute it to a form of amnesia. That Tarzan hadonce been, in truth, a savage, jungle beast, Werper had not known, andso, of course, he could not guess that the man had reverted to thestate in which his childhood and young manhood 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 amoment did Werper attempt to delude himself into the belief that hecould defend himself successfully against an attack by the ape-man. His one hope lay in eluding him, and making for the far distant camp ofAchmet Zek as rapidly as he could; but armed only with the sacrificialknife, Werper shrank from attempting the journey through the jungle. Tarzan constituted a protection that was by no means despicable, evenin the face of the larger carnivora, as Werper had reason toacknowledge from the evidence he had witnessed in the Oparian temple. 

Too, Werper had his covetous soul set upon the pouch of gems, and so hewas torn between the various emotions of avarice and fear. But avariceit was that burned most strongly in his breast, to the end that hedared the dangers and suffered the terrors of constant association withhim he thought a mad man, rather than give up the hope of obtainingpossession of the fortune which the contents of the little pouchrepresented. 

Achmet Zek should know nothing of these--these would be for Werperalone, and so soon as he could encompass his design he would reach thecoast and take passage for America, where he could conceal himselfbeneath the veil of a new identity and enjoy to some measure the fruitsof his theft. He had it all planned out, did Lieutenant Albert Werper, living in anticipation the luxurious life of the idle rich. He evenfound himself regretting that America was so provincial, and thatnowhere in the new world was a city that might compare with his belovedBrussels. 

It was upon the third day of their progress from Opar that the keenears of Tarzan caught the sound of men behind them. Werper heardnothing above the humming of the jungle insects, and the chatteringlife of the lesser monkeys and the birds. 

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

In single file behind him, there followed, one after another, nearfifty others, each burdened with two dull-yellow ingots lashed upon hisback. Werper recognized the party immediately as that which hadaccompanied Tarzan on his journey to Opar. He glanced at the ape-man;but in the savage, watchful eyes he saw no recognition of Basuli andthose other loyal Waziri. 

When all had passed, Tarzan rose and emerged from concealment. Helooked down the trail in the direction the party had gone. Then heturned to Werper. 

"We will follow and slay them, " he said. 

"Why?" asked the Belgian. 

"They are black, " explained Tarzan. "It was a black who killed Kala. They are the enemies of the Manganis. "

Werper did not relish the idea of engaging in a battle with Basuli andhis fierce fighting men. And, again, he had welcomed the sight of themreturning toward the Greystoke bungalow, for he had begun to havedoubts as to his ability to retrace his steps to the Waziri country. Tarzan, he knew, had not the remotest idea of whither they were going. By keeping at a safe distance behind the laden warriors, they wouldhave no difficulty in following them home. Once at the bungalow, Werper knew the way to the camp of Achmet Zek. There was still anotherreason why he did not wish to interfere with the Waziri--they werebearing the great burden of treasure in the direction he wished itborne. 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 followthem in peace, saying that he was sure they would lead them out of theforest into a rich country, teeming with game. 

It was many marches from Opar to the Waziri country; but at last camethe hour when Tarzan and the Belgian, following the trail of thewarriors, topped the last rise, and saw before them the broad Waziriplain, the winding river, and the distant forests to the north and west. 

A mile or more ahead of them, the line of warriors was creeping like agiant caterpillar through the tall grasses of the plain. Beyond, grazing herds of zebra, hartebeest, and topi dotted the levellandscape, while closer to the river a bull buffalo, his head andshoulders protruding from the reeds watched the advancing blacks for amoment, only to turn at last and disappear into the safety of his dankand gloomy retreat. 

Tarzan looked out across the familiar vista with no faintest gleam ofrecognition in his eyes. He saw the game animals, and his mouthwatered; but he did not look in the direction of his bungalow. Werper, however, did. A puzzled expression entered the Belgian's eyes. Heshaded them with his palms and gazed long and earnestly toward the spotwhere the bungalow had stood. He could not credit the testimony of hiseyes--there was no bungalow--no barns--no out-houses. The corrals, thehay 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 valleysince last his eyes had rested upon it--Achmet Zek had been there!

Basuli and his warriors had noted the devastation the moment they hadcome in sight of the farm. Now they hastened on toward it talkingexcitedly among themselves in animated speculation upon the cause andmeaning of the catastrophe. 

When, at last they crossed the trampled garden and stood before thecharred ruins of their master's bungalow, their greatest fears becameconvictions in the light of the evidence about them. 

Remnants of human dead, half devoured by prowling hyenas and others ofthe carnivora which infested the region, lay rotting upon the ground, and among the corpses remained sufficient remnants of their clothingand ornaments to make clear to Basuli the frightful story of thedisaster that had befallen his master's house. 

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

The Waziri gazed about in mute rage for several minutes. Everywherethey encountered only further evidence of the ruthlessness of the cruelenemy that had come during the Great Bwana's absence and laid waste hisproperty. 

"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 womenand his. "

A giant black raised his spear above his head, and gave voice to asavage cry of rage and hate. The others followed his example. Basulisilenced them with a gesture. 

"This is no time for useless noises of the mouth, " he said. "The GreatBwana has taught us that it is acts by which things are done, notwords. 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 the needof haste, and warriors cannot travel fast upon empty lungs. "

From the shelter of the reeds along the river, Werper and Tarzanwatched the blacks. They saw them dig a trench with their knives andfingers. They saw them lay their yellow burdens in it and scoop theoverturned earth back over the tops of the ingots. 

Tarzan seemed little interested, after Werper had assured him that thatwhich they buried was not good to eat; but Werper was intenselyinterested. He would have given much had he had his own followers withhim, that he might take away the treasure as soon as the blacks left, for he was sure that they would leave this scene of desolation anddeath as soon as possible. 

The treasure buried, the blacks removed themselves a short distance upwind from the fetid corpses, where they made camp, that they might restbefore setting out in pursuit of the Arabs. It was already dusk. Werper and Tarzan sat devouring some pieces of meat they had broughtfrom their last camp. The Belgian was occupied with his plans for theimmediate future. He was positive that the Waziri would pursue AchmetZek, for he knew enough of savage warfare, and of the characteristicsof the Arabs and their degraded followers to guess that they hadcarried the Waziri women off into slavery. This alone would assureimmediate pursuit by so warlike a people as the Waziri. 

Werper felt that he should find the means and the opportunity to pushon ahead, that he might warn Achmet Zek of the coming of Basuli, andalso of the location of the buried treasure. What the Arab would nowdo with Lady Greystoke, in view of the mental affliction of herhusband, Werper neither knew nor cared. It was enough that the goldentreasure buried upon the site of the burned bungalow was infinitelymore valuable than any ransom that would have occurred even to theavaricious mind of the Arab, and if Werper could persuade the raider toshare even a portion of it with him he would be well satisfied. 

But by far the most important consideration, to Werper, at least, wasthe incalculably valuable treasure in the little leathern pouch atTarzan's side. 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 washopeless. What could he, Werper, hope to accomplish, other than hisown death, by an attempt to wrest the gems from their savage owner?

Disconsolate, Werper threw himself upon his side. His head waspillowed on one arm, the other rested across his face in such a waythat his eyes were hidden from the ape-man, though one of them wasfastened upon him from beneath the shadow of the Belgian's forearm. For a time he lay thus, glowering at Tarzan, and originating schemesfor plundering him of his treasure--schemes that were discarded asfutile as rapidly as they were born. 

Tarzan presently let his own eyes rest upon Werper. The Belgian sawthat he was being watched, and lay very still. After a few moments hesimulated the regular breathing of deep slumber. 

Tarzan had been thinking. He had seen the Waziri bury theirbelongings. Werper had told him that they were hiding them lest someone find them and take them away. This seemed to Tarzan a splendidplan for safeguarding valuables. Since Werper had evinced a desire topossess his glittering pebbles, Tarzan, with the suspicions of asavage, 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 that he slept, Tarzan withdrew his hunting knife andcommenced to dig a hole in the ground before him. With the blade heloosened up the earth, and with his hands he scooped it out until hehad excavated a little cavity a few inches in diameter, and five or sixinches in depth. Into this he placed the pouch of jewels. Werperalmost forgot to breathe after the fashion of a sleeper as he saw whatthe ape-man was doing--he scarce repressed an ejaculation ofsatisfaction. 

Tarzan become suddenly rigid as his keen ears noted the cessation ofthe regular inspirations and expirations of his companion. Hisnarrowed eyes bored straight down upon the Belgian. Werper felt thathe was lost--he must risk all on his ability to carry on the deception. He sighed, threw both arms outward, and turned over on his backmumbling as though in the throes of a bad dream. A moment later heresumed the regular breathing. 

Now he could not watch Tarzan, but he was sure that the man sat for along time looking at him. Then, faintly, Werper heard the other'shands scraping dirt, and later patting it down. He knew then that thejewels were buried. 

It was an hour before Werper moved again, then he rolled over facingTarzan and opened his eyes. The ape-man slept. By reaching out hishand Werper could touch the spot where the pouch was buried. 

For a long time he lay watching and listening. He moved about, makingmore noise than necessary, yet Tarzan did not awaken. He drew thesacrificial knife from his belt, and plunged it into the ground. Tarzan did not move. Cautiously the Belgian pushed the blade downwardthrough the loose earth above the pouch. He felt the point touch thesoft, tough fabric of the leather. Then he pried down upon the handle. Slowly the little mound of loose earth rose and parted. An instantlater a corner of the pouch came into view. Werper pulled it from itshiding place, and tucked it in his shirt. Then he refilled the holeand pressed the dirt carefully down as it had been before. 

Greed had prompted him to an act, the discovery of which by hiscompanion could lead only to the most frightful consequences forWerper. Already he could almost feel those strong, white fangs buryingthemselves in his neck. He shuddered. Far out across the plain aleopard screamed, and in the dense reeds behind him some great beastmoved on padded feet. 

Werper feared these prowlers of the night; but infinitely more hefeared the just wrath of the human beast sleeping at his side. Withutmost caution the Belgian arose. Tarzan did not move. Werper took afew steps toward the plain and the distant forest to the northwest, then he paused and fingered the hilt of the long knife in his belt. Heturned 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 handwas the sacrificial knife of the High Priestess of the Flaming God!

10

Achmet Zek Sees the Jewels

Mugambi, weak and suffering, had dragged his painful way along thetrail of the retreating raiders. He could move but slowly, restingoften; but savage hatred and an equally savage desire for vengeancekept him to his task. As the days passed his wounds healed and hisstrength returned, until at last his giant frame had regained all ofits former mighty powers. Now he went more rapidly; but the mountedArabs had covered a great distance while the wounded black had beenpainfully crawling after them. 

They had reached their fortified camp, and there Achmet Zek awaited thereturn of his lieutenant, Albert Werper. During the long, roughjourney, Jane Clayton had suffered more in anticipation of herimpending fate than from the hardships of the road. 

Achmet Zek had not deigned to acquaint her with his intentionsregarding her future. She prayed that she had been captured in thehope of ransom, for if such should prove the case, no great harm wouldbefall her at the hands of the Arabs; but there was the chance, thehorrid chance, that another fate awaited her. She had heard of manywomen, among whom were white women, who had been sold by outlaws suchas Achmet Zek into the slavery of black harems, or taken farther northinto the almost equally hideous existence of some Turkish seraglio. 

Jane Clayton was of sterner stuff than that which bends in spinelessterror before danger. Until hope proved futile she would not give itup; nor did she entertain thoughts of self-destruction only as a finalescape from dishonor. So long as Tarzan lived there was every reasonto expect succor. No man nor beast who roamed the savage continentcould boast the cunning and the powers of her lord and master. To her, he was little short of omnipotent in his native world--this world ofsavage beasts and savage men. Tarzan would come, and she would berescued 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 timebefore he had surrounded the Arab stronghold and punished the motleycrew of wrongdoers who inhabited it. 

That he could find her she had no slightest doubt. No spoor, howeverfaint, could elude the keen vigilance of his senses. To him, the trailof the raiders would be as plain as the printed page of an open book toher. 

And while she hoped, there came through the dark jungle another. Terrified by night and by day, came Albert Werper. A dozen times hehad escaped the claws and fangs of the giant carnivora only by whatseemed a miracle to him. Armed with nothing more than the knife he hadbrought with him from Opar, he had made his way through as savage acountry as yet exists upon the face of the globe. 

By night he had slept in trees. By day he had stumbled fearfully on, often taking refuge among the branches when sight or sound of somegreat cat warned him from danger. But at last he had come within sightof the palisade behind which were his fierce companions. 

At almost the same time Mugambi came out of the jungle before thewalled village. As he stood in the shadow of a great tree, reconnoitering, he saw a man, ragged and disheveled, emerge from thejungle almost at his elbow. Instantly he recognized the newcomer as hewho had been a guest of his master before the latter had departed forOpar. 

The black was upon the point of hailing the Belgian when somethingstayed him. He saw the white man walking confidently across theclearing toward the village gate. No sane man thus approached avillage in this part of Africa unless he was sure of a friendlywelcome. Mugambi waited. His suspicions were aroused. 

He heard Werper halloo; he saw the gates swing open, and he witnessedthe surprised and friendly welcome that was accorded the erstwhileguest of Lord and Lady Greystoke. A light broke upon the understandingof Mugambi. This white man had been a traitor and a spy. It was tohim they owed the raid during the absence of the Great Bwana. To hishate for the Arabs, Mugambi added a still greater hate for the whitespy. 

Within the village Werper passed hurriedly toward the silken tent ofAchmet Zek. The Arab arose as his lieutenant entered. His face showedsurprise as he viewed the tattered apparel of the Belgian. 

"What has happened?" he asked. 

Werper narrated all, save the little matter of the pouch of gems whichwere now tightly strapped about his waist, beneath his clothing. TheArab's eyes narrowed greedily as his henchman described the treasurethat the Waziri had buried beside the ruins of the Greystoke bungalow. 

"It will be a simple matter now to return and get it, " said Achmet Zek. "First we will await the coming of the rash Waziri, and after we haveslain 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 is the onlyway, now. She should bring a good price. "

The Belgian nodded. He was thinking rapidly. If he could persuadeAchmet Zek to send him in command of the party which took LadyGreystoke north it would give him the opportunity he craved to make hisescape from his chief. He would forego a share of the gold, if hecould but get away unscathed with the jewels. 

He knew Achmet Zek well enough by this time to know that no member ofhis band ever was voluntarily released from the service of Achmet Zek. Most of the few who deserted were recaptured. More than once hadWerper listened to their agonized screams as they were tortured beforebeing put to death. The Belgian had no wish to take the slightestchance of recapture. 

"Who will go north with the woman, " he asked, "while we are returningfor the gold that the Waziri buried by the bungalow of the Englishman?"

Achmet Zek thought for a moment. The buried gold was of much greatervalue than the price the woman would bring. It was necessary to ridhimself of her as quickly as possible and it was also well to obtainthe gold with the least possible delay. Of all his followers, theBelgian was the most logical lieutenant to intrust with the command ofone of the parties. An Arab, as familiar with the trails and tribes asAchmet Zek himself, might collect the woman's price and make good hisescape into the far north. Werper, on the other hand, could scarcemake his escape alone through a country hostile to Europeans while themen he would send with the Belgian could be carefully selected with aview to preventing Werper from persuading any considerable portion ofhis command to accompany him should he contemplate desertion of hischief. 

At last the Arab spoke: "It is not necessary that we both return forthe gold. You shall go north with the woman, carrying a letter to afriend of mine who is always in touch with the best markets for suchmerchandise, while I return for the gold. We can meet again here whenour business is concluded. "

Werper could scarce disguise the joy with which he received thiswelcome decision. And that he did entirely disguise it from the keenand suspicious eyes of Achmet Zek is open to question. However, thedecision reached, the Arab and his lieutenant discussed the details oftheir forthcoming ventures for a short time further, when Werper madehis excuses and returned to his own tent for the comforts and luxury ofa long-desired bath and shave. 

Having bathed, the Belgian tied a small hand mirror to a cord sewn tothe rear wall of his tent, placed a rude chair beside an equally rudetable that stood beside the glass, and proceeded to remove the roughstubble from his face. 

In the catalog of masculine pleasures there is scarce one which impartsa feeling of greater comfort and refreshment than follows a cleanshave, and now, with weariness temporarily banished, Albert Werpersprawled in his rickety chair to enjoy a final cigaret before retiring. His thumbs, tucked in his belt in lazy support of the weight of hisarms, touched the belt which held the jewel pouch about his waist. Hetingled with excitement as he let his mind dwell upon the value of thetreasure, which, unknown to all save himself, lay hidden beneath hisclothing. 

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 tofeast his eyes for any great length of time upon them. He had not evencounted them--only roughly had he guessed at their value. 

He unfastened the belt and drew the pouch from its hiding place. Hewas alone. The balance of the camp, save the sentries, hadretired--none would enter the Belgian's tent. He fingered the pouch, feeling out the shapes and sizes of the precious, little noduleswithin. He hefted the bag, first in one palm, then in the other, andat last he wheeled his chair slowly around before the table, and in therays of his small lamp let the glittering gems roll out upon the roughwood. 

The refulgent rays transformed the interior of the soiled and squalidcanvas to the splendor of a palace in the eyes of the dreaming man. Hesaw the gilded halls of pleasure that would open their portals to thepossessor of the wealth which lay scattered upon this stained anddented table top. He dreamed of joys and luxuries and power whichalways had been beyond his grasp, and as he dreamed his gaze liftedfrom the table, as the gaze of a dreamer will, to a far distant goalabove the mean horizon of terrestrial commonplaceness. 

Unseeing, his eyes rested upon the shaving mirror which still hung uponthe tent wall above the table; but his sight was focused far beyond. And then a reflection moved within the polished surface of the tinyglass, the man's eyes shot back out of space to the mirror's face, andin it he saw reflected the grim visage of Achmet Zek, framed in theflaps of the tent doorway behind him. 

Werper stifled a gasp of dismay. With rare self-possession he let hisgaze drop, without appearing to have halted upon the mirror until itrested again upon the gems. Without haste, he replaced them in thepouch, tucked the latter into his shirt, selected a cigaret from hiscase, lighted it and rose. Yawning, and stretching his arms above hishead, he turned slowly toward the opposite end of the tent. The faceof Achmet Zek had disappeared from the opening. 

To say that Albert Werper was terrified would be putting it mildly. Herealized that he not only had sacrificed his treasure; but his life aswell. Achmet Zek would never permit the wealth that he had discoveredto slip through his fingers, nor would he forgive the duplicity of alieutenant who had gained possession of such a treasure withoutoffering to share it with his chief. 

Slowly the Belgian prepared for bed. If he were being watched, hecould not know; but if so the watcher saw no indication of the nervousexcitement which the European strove to conceal. When ready for hisblankets, the man crossed to the little table and extinguished thelight. 

It was two hours later that the flaps at the front of the tentseparated silently and gave entrance to a dark-robed figure, whichpassed noiselessly from the darkness without to the darkness within. Cautiously the prowler crossed the interior. In one hand was a longknife. He came at last to the pile of blankets spread upon severalrugs close to one of the tent walls. 

Lightly, his fingers sought and found the bulk beneath theblankets--the bulk that should be Albert Werper. They traced out thefigure of a man, and then an arm shot upward, poised for an instant anddescended. Again and again it rose and fell, and each time the longblade of the knife buried itself in the thing beneath the blankets. But there was an initial lifelessness in the silent bulk that gave theassassin momentary wonder. Feverishly he threw back the coverlets, andsearched with nervous hands for the pouch of jewels which he expectedto find concealed upon his victim's body. 

An instant later he rose with a curse upon his lips. It was AchmetZek, and he cursed because he had discovered beneath the blankets ofhis lieutenant only a pile of discarded clothing arranged in the formand semblance of a sleeping man--Albert Werper had fled. 

Out into the village ran the chief, calling in angry tones to thesleepy Arabs, who tumbled from their tents in answer to his voice. Butthough they searched the village again and again they found no trace ofthe Belgian. Foaming with anger, Achmet Zek called his followers tohorse, and though the night was pitchy black they set out to scour theadjoining 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 aboutthe entrance to watch the searchers depart, and as the last of thempassed out of the village the blacks seized the portals and drew themto, and Mugambi lent a hand in the work as though the best of his lifehad been spent among the raiders. 

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

For an hour he crept about in the rear of the various huts and tents inan effort to locate that in which his master's mate was imprisoned. One there was which he was reasonably assured contained her, for it wasthe only hut before the door of which a sentry had been posted. Mugambi was crouching in the shadow of this structure, just around thecorner from the unsuspecting guard, when another approached to relievehis comrade. 

"The prisoner is safe within?" asked the newcomer. 

"She is, " replied the other, "for none has passed this doorway since Icame. "

The new sentry squatted beside the door, while he whom he had relievedmade his way to his own hut. Mugambi slunk closer to the corner of thebuilding. In one powerful hand he gripped a heavy knob-stick. No signof elation disturbed his phlegmatic calm, yet inwardly he was arousedto joy by the proof he had just heard 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 loomedbehind him. The knob-stick swung upward in a curve, and downwardagain. There was the sound of a dull thud, the crushing of heavy bone, and the sentry slumped into a silent, inanimate lump of clay. 

A moment later Mugambi was searching the interior of the hut. At firstslowly, calling, "Lady!" in a low whisper, and finally with almostfrantic haste, until the truth presently dawned upon him--the hut wasempty!

11

Tarzan Becomes a Beast Again

For a moment Werper had stood above the sleeping ape-man, his murderousknife poised for the fatal thrust; but fear stayed his hand. What ifthe first blow should fail to drive the point to his victim's heart?Werper shuddered in contemplation of the disastrous consequences tohimself. Awakened, and even with a few moments of life remaining, thegiant could literally tear his assailant to pieces should he choose, and the Belgian had no doubt but that Tarzan would so choose. 

Again came the soft sound of padded footsteps in the reeds--closer thistime. Werper abandoned his design. Before him stretched the wideplain and escape. The jewels were in his possession. To remain longerwas to risk death at the hands of Tarzan, or the jaws of the huntercreeping ever nearer. Turning, he slunk away through the night, towardthe distant forest. 

Tarzan slept on. Where were those uncanny, guardian powers that hadformerly rendered him immune from the dangers of surprise? Could thisdull sleeper be the alert, sensitive Tarzan of old?

Perhaps the blow upon his head had numbed his senses, temporarily--whomay say? Closer crept the stealthy creature through the reeds. Therustling curtain of vegetation parted a few paces from where thesleeper lay, and the massive head of a lion appeared. The beastsurveyed the ape-man intently for a moment, then he crouched, his hindfeet drawn well beneath him, his tail lashing from side to side. 

It was the beating of the beast's tail against the reeds which awakenedTarzan. Jungle folk do not awaken slowly--instantly, fullconsciousness and full command of their every faculty returns to themfrom the depth of profound slumber. 

Even as Tarzan opened his eyes he was upon his feet, his spear graspedfirmly in his hand and ready for attack. Again was he Tarzan of theApes, sentient, vigilant, ready. 

No two lions have identical characteristics, nor does the same lioninvariably act similarly under like circumstances. Whether it wassurprise, fear or caution which prompted the lion crouching ready tospring upon the man, is immaterial--the fact remains that he did notcarry out his original design, he did not spring at the man at all, but, instead, wheeled and sprang back into the reeds as Tarzan aroseand confronted him. 

The ape-man shrugged his broad shoulders and looked about for hiscompanion. Werper was nowhere to be seen. At first Tarzan suspectedthat the man had been seized and dragged off by another lion, but uponexamination of the ground he soon discovered that the Belgian had goneaway alone out into the plain. 

For a moment he was puzzled; but presently came to the conclusion thatWerper had been frightened by the approach of the lion, and had sneakedoff 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 wishednothing more of him. He had gone, and for all the ape-man cared, hemight remain away--Tarzan would not search for him. 

A hundred yards from where he stood grew a large tree, alone upon theedge of the reedy jungle. Tarzan made his way to it, clambered intoit, and finding a comfortable crotch among its branches, reposedhimself for uninterrupted sleep until 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 seriousobligations than those of providing sustenance, and safeguarding hislife. Therefore, there was nothing to awaken for until dangerthreatened, or the pangs of hunger assailed. It was the latter whicheventually aroused him. 

Opening his eyes, he stretched his giant thews, yawned, rose and gazedabout him through the leafy foliage of his retreat. Across the wastedmeadowlands and fields of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, Tarzan of theApes looked, as a stranger, upon the moving figures of Basuli and hisbraves as they prepared their morning meal and made ready to set outupon the expedition which Basuli had planned after discovering thehavoc and disaster which had befallen the estate of his dead master. 

The ape-man eyed the blacks with curiosity. In the back of his brainloitered a fleeting sense of familiarity with all that he saw, yet hecould not connect any of the various forms of life, animate andinanimate, which had fallen within the range of his vision since he hademerged from the darkness of the pits of Opar, with any particularevent of the past. 

Hazily he recalled a grim and hideous form, hairy, ferocious. A vaguetenderness dominated his savage sentiments as this phantom memorystruggled for recognition. His mind had reverted to his childhooddays--it was the figure of the giant she-ape, Kala, that he saw; butonly half recognized. He saw, too, other grotesque, manlike forms. They were of Terkoz, Tublat, Kerchak, and a smaller, less ferociousfigure, that was Neeta, the little playmate of his boyhood. 

Slowly, very slowly, as these visions of the past animated hislethargic memory, he came to recognize them. They took definite shapeand form, adjusting themselves nicely to the various incidents of hislife with which they had been intimately connected. His boyhood amongthe apes spread itself in a slow panorama before him, and as itunfolded it induced within him a mighty longing for the companionshipof the shaggy, low-browed brutes of his past. 

He watched the blacks scatter their cook fire and depart; but thoughthe face of each of them had but recently been as familiar to him ashis own, they awakened within him no recollections whatsoever. 

When they had gone, he descended from the tree and sought food. Outupon the plain grazed numerous herds of wild ruminants. Toward asleek, fat bunch of zebra he wormed his stealthy way. No intricateprocess of reasoning caused him to circle widely until he was down windfrom his prey--he acted instinctively. He took advantage of every formof cover as he crawled upon all fours and often flat upon his stomachtoward them. 

A plump young mare and a fat stallion grazed nearest to him as heneared the herd. Again it was instinct which selected the former forhis meat. A low bush grew but a few yards from the unsuspecting two. The ape-man reached its shelter. He gathered his spear firmly in hisgrasp. Cautiously he drew his feet beneath him. In a single swiftmove he rose and cast his heavy weapon at the mare's side. Nor did hewait to note the effect of his assault, but leaped cat-like after hisspear, his hunting knife in his hand. 

For an instant the two animals stood motionless. The tearing of thecruel barb into her side brought a sudden scream of pain and frightfrom the mare, and then they both wheeled and broke for safety; butTarzan of the Apes, for a distance of a few yards, could equal thespeed of even these, and the first stride of the mare found heroverhauled, with a savage beast at her shoulder. She turned, bitingand kicking at her foe. Her mate hesitated for an instant, as thoughabout to rush to her assistance; but a backward glance revealed to himthe flying heels of the balance of the herd, and with a snort and ashake of his head he wheeled and dashed away. 

Clinging with one hand to the short mane of his quarry, Tarzan struckagain and again with his knife at the unprotected heart. The resulthad, from the first, been inevitable. The mare fought bravely, buthopelessly, and presently sank to the earth, her heart pierced. Theape-man placed a foot upon her carcass and raised his voice in thevictory call of the Mangani. In the distance, Basuli halted as thefaint notes of the hideous scream broke upon his ears. 

"The great apes, " he said to his companion. "It has been long since Ihave 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 thebush which had hidden his own near approach, and there he squatted uponit, cut a huge hunk of flesh from the loin and proceeded to satisfy hishunger with the warm and dripping meat. 

Attracted by the shrill screams of the mare, a pair of hyenas slunkpresently into view. They trotted to a point a few yards from thegorging ape-man, and halted. Tarzan looked up, bared his fightingfangs and growled. The hyenas returned the compliment, and withdrew acouple of paces. They made no move to attack; but continued to sit ata respectful distance until Tarzan had concluded his meal. After theape-man had cut a few strips from the carcass to carry with him, hewalked slowly off in the direction of the river to quench his 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 straighttoward the growling beasts. For a moment they held their ground, bristling and defiant; but only for a moment, and then slunk away toone side while the indifferent ape-man passed them on his lordly way. A moment later they were tearing at the remains of the zebra. 

Back to the reeds went Tarzan, and through them toward the river. Aherd of buffalo, startled by his approach, rose ready to charge or tofly. A great bull pawed the ground and bellowed as his bloodshot eyesdiscovered the intruder; but the ape-man passed across their front asthough ignorant of their existence. The bull's bellowing lessened to alow rumbling, he turned and scraped a horde of flies from his side withhis muzzle, cast a final glance at the ape-man and resumed his feeding. His numerous family either followed his example or stood gazing afterTarzan in mild-eyed curiosity, until the opposite reeds swallowed himfrom view. 

At the river, Tarzan drank his fill and bathed. During the heat of theday he lay up under the shade of a tree near the ruins of his burnedbarns. His eyes wandered out across the plain toward the forest, and alonging for the pleasures of its mysterious depths possessed histhoughts for a considerable time. With the next sun he would cross theopen and enter the forest! There was no hurry--there lay before him anendless vista of tomorrows with naught to fill them but the satisfyingof 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, stretching his giant limbs, and luxuriating in the blessed peace ofutter thoughtlessness, without an apprehension or a worry to sap hisnervous energy and rob him of his peace of mind. Recalling only dimlyany other existence, the ape-man was happy. Lord Greystoke had ceasedto exist. 

For several hours Tarzan lolled upon his swaying, leafy couch untilonce again hunger and thirst suggested an excursion. Stretching lazilyhe dropped to the ground and moved slowly toward the river. The gametrail down which he walked had become by ages of use a deep, narrowtrench, its walls topped on either side by impenetrable thicket anddense-growing trees closely interwoven with thick-stemmed creepers andlesser vines inextricably matted into two solid ramparts of vegetation. Tarzan had almost reached the point where the trail debouched upon theopen river bottom when he saw a family of lions approaching along thepath from the direction of the river. The ape-man counted seven--amale and two lionesses, full grown, and four young lions as large andquite as formidable as their parents. Tarzan halted, growling, and thelions paused, the great male in the lead baring his fangs and rumblingforth a warning roar. In his hand the ape-man held his heavy spear;but he had no intention of pitting his puny weapon against seven lions;yet he stood there growling and roaring and the lions did likewise. Itwas purely an exhibition of jungle bluff. Each was trying to frightenoff the other. Neither wished to turn back and give way, nor dideither at first desire to precipitate an encounter. The lions were fedsufficiently so as not to be goaded by pangs of hunger and as forTarzan 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 therefacing one another, making all sorts of hideous noises the while theyhurled jungle invective back and forth. How long this bloodless duelwould have persisted it is difficult to say, though eventually Tarzanwould have been forced to yield to superior numbers. 

There came, however, an interruption which put an end to the deadlockand it came from Tarzan's rear. He and the lions had been making somuch noise that neither could hear anything above their concertedbedlam, and so it was that Tarzan did not hear the great bulk bearingdown upon him from behind until an instant before it was upon him, andthen he turned to see Buto, the rhinoceros, his little, pig eyesblazing, charging madly toward him and already so close that escapeseemed impossible; yet so perfectly were mind and muscles coordinatedin this unspoiled, primitive man that almost simultaneously with thesense perception of the threatened danger he wheeled and hurled hisspear at Buto's chest. It was a heavy spear shod with iron, and behindit were the giant muscles of the ape-man, while coming to meet it wasthe enormous weight of Buto and the momentum of his rapid rush. Allthat happened in the instant that Tarzan turned to meet the charge ofthe irascible rhinoceros might take long to tell, and yet would havetaxed the swiftest lens to record. As his spear left his hand theape-man was looking down upon the mighty horn lowered to toss him, soclose was Buto to him. The spear entered the rhinoceros' neck at itsjunction with the left shoulder and passed almost entirely through thebeast's body, and at the instant that he launched it, Tarzan leapedstraight into the air alighting upon Buto's back but escaping themighty horn. 

Then Buto espied the lions and bore madly down upon them while Tarzanof the Apes leaped nimbly into the tangled creepers at one side of thetrail. The first lion met Buto's charge and was tossed high over theback of the maddened brute, torn and dying, and then the six remaininglions were upon the rhinoceros, rending and tearing the while they werebeing gored or trampled. From the safety of his perch Tarzan watchedthe royal battle with the keenest interest, for the more intelligent ofthe jungle folk are interested in such encounters. They are to themwhat the racetrack and the prize ring, the theater and the movies areto us. They see them often; but always they enjoy them for no two areprecisely alike. 

For a time it seemed to Tarzan that Buto, the rhinoceros, would provevictor in the gory battle. Already had he accounted for four of theseven lions and badly wounded the three remaining when in a momentarylull in the encounter he sank limply to his knees and rolled over uponhis side. Tarzan's spear had done its work. It was the man-madeweapon which killed the great beast that might easily have survived theassault of seven mighty lions, for Tarzan's spear had pierced the greatlungs, and Buto, with victory almost in sight, succumbed to internalhemorrhage. 

Then Tarzan came down from his sanctuary and as the wounded lions, growling, dragged themselves away, the ape-man cut his spear from thebody of Buto, hacked off a steak and vanished into the jungle. Theepisode was over. It had been all in the day's work--something whichyou and I might talk about for a lifetime Tarzan dismissed from hismind the moment that the scene passed from his sight. 

12

La Seeks Vengeance

Swinging back through the jungle in a wide circle the ape-man came tothe river at another point, drank and took to the trees again and whilehe hunted, all oblivious of his past and careless of his future, therecame through the dark jungles and the open, parklike places and acrossthe wide meadows, where grazed the countless herbivora of themysterious continent, a weird and terrible caravan in search of him. There were fifty frightful men with hairy bodies and gnarled andcrooked legs. They were armed with knives and great bludgeons and attheir head marched an almost naked woman, beautiful beyond compare. Itwas La of Opar, High Priestess of the Flaming God, and fifty of herhorrid priests searching for the purloiner of the sacred sacrificialknife. 

Never before had La passed beyond the crumbling outer walls of Opar;but never before had need been so insistent. The sacred knife wasgone! Handed down through countless ages it had come to her as aheritage and an insignia of her religious office and regal authorityfrom some long-dead progenitor of lost and forgotten Atlantis. Theloss of the crown jewels or the Great Seal of England could havebrought 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 uponearth. When Atlantis, with all her mighty cities and her cultivatedfields and her great commerce and culture and riches sank into the sealong ages since, she took with her all but a handful of her colonistsworking the vast gold mines of Central Africa. From these and theirdegraded slaves and a later intermixture of the blood of theanthropoids sprung the gnarled men of Opar; but by some queer freak offate, aided by natural selection, the old Atlantean strain had remainedpure and undegraded in the females descended from a single princess ofthe royal house of Atlantis who had been in Opar at the time of thegreat catastrophe. Such was La. 

Burning with white-hot anger was the High Priestess, her heart aseething, molten mass of hatred for Tarzan of the Apes. The zeal ofthe religious fanatic whose altar has been desecrated was triplyenhanced by the rage of a woman scorned. Twice had she thrown herheart at the feet of the godlike ape-man and twice had she beenrepulsed. La knew that she was beautiful--and she was beautiful, notby the standards of prehistoric Atlantis alone, but by those of moderntimes 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 matesooner or later that the direct line of high priestesses might not bebroken, unless Fate should bring other men to Opar. Before Tarzan cameupon his first visit, La had had no thought that such men as heexisted, for she knew only her hideous little priests and the bulls ofthe tribe of great anthropoids that had dwelt from time immemorial inand about Opar, until they had come to be looked upon almost as equalsby the Oparians. Among the legends of Opar were tales of godlike menof the olden time and of black men who had come more recently; butthese latter had been enemies who killed and robbed. And, too, theselegends always held forth the hope that some day that namelesscontinent from which their race had sprung, would rise once more out ofthe sea and with slaves at the long sweeps would send her carven, gold-picked galleys forth to succor the long-exiled colonists. 

The coming of Tarzan had aroused within La's breast the wild hope thatat last the fulfillment of this ancient prophecy was at hand; but morestrongly still had it aroused the hot fires of love in a heart thatnever otherwise would have known the meaning of that all-consumingpassion, for such a wondrous creature as La could never have felt lovefor any of the repulsive priests of Opar. Custom, duty and religiouszeal might have commanded the union; but there could have been no loveon La's part. She had grown to young womanhood a cold and heartlesscreature, daughter of a thousand other cold, heartless, beautiful womenwho had never known love. And so when love came to her it liberatedall the pent passions of a thousand generations, transforming La into apulsing, throbbing volcano of desire, and with desire thwarted thisgreat force of love and gentleness and sacrifice was transmuted by itsown fires into one of hatred and revenge. 

It was in a state of mind superinduced by these conditions that La ledforth her jabbering company to retrieve the sacred emblem of her highoffice and wreak vengeance upon the author of her wrongs. To Werpershe gave little thought. The fact that the knife had been in his handwhen it departed from Opar brought down no thoughts of vengeance uponhis head. Of course, he should be slain when captured; but his deathwould give La no pleasure--she looked for that in the contemplateddeath agonies of Tarzan. He should be tortured. His should be a slowand frightful death. His punishment should be adequate to theimmensity of his crime. He had wrested the sacred knife from La; hehad lain sacreligious hands upon the High Priestess of the Flaming God;he had desecrated the altar and the temple. For these things he shoulddie; but he had scorned the love of La, the woman, and for this heshould die horribly with great anguish. 

The march of La and her priests was not without its adventures. Unusedwere these to the ways of the jungle, since seldom did any ventureforth from behind Opar's crumbling walls, yet their very numbersprotected them and so they came without fatalities far along the trailof Tarzan and Werper. Three great apes accompanied them and to thesewas delegated the business of tracking the quarry, a feat beyond thesenses of the Oparians. La commanded. She arranged the order ofmarch, she selected the camps, she set the hour for halting and thehour for resuming and though she was inexperienced in such matters, hernative intelligence was so far above that of the men or the apes thatshe did better than they could have done. She was a hard taskmaster, too, for she looked down with loathing and contempt upon the misshapencreatures amongst which cruel Fate had thrown her and to some extentvented upon them her dissatisfaction and her thwarted love. She madethem build her a strong protection and shelter each night and keep agreat fire burning before it from dusk to dawn. When she tired ofwalking they were forced to carry her upon an improvised litter, nordid one dare to question her authority or her right to such services. In fact they did not question either. To them she was a goddess andeach loved her and each hoped that he would be chosen as her mate, sothey slaved for her and bore the stinging lash of her displeasure andthe habitually haughty disdain of her manner without a murmur. 

For many days they marched, the apes following the trail easily andgoing a little distance ahead of the body of the caravan that theymight warn the others of impending danger. It was during a noondayhalt while all were lying resting after a tiresome march that one ofthe apes rose suddenly and sniffed the breeze. In a low guttural hecautioned the others to silence and a moment later was swinging quietlyup wind into the jungle. La and the priests gathered silentlytogether, 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 leafythicket and approach them. Straight to La he came and in the languageof the great apes which was also the language of decadent Opar headdressed 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 the greatTarmangani 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 thegreat ape until at last he halted them with a raised hand and pointedupward and a little ahead. There they saw the giant form of theape-man stretched along a low bough and even in sleep one hand graspeda stout limb and one strong, brown leg reached out and overlappedanother. At ease lay Tarzan of the Apes, sleeping heavily upon a fullstomach and dreaming of Numa, the lion, and Horta, the boar, and othercreatures of the jungle. No intimation of danger assailed the dormantfaculties of the ape-man--he saw no crouching hairy figures upon theground 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 ofthree bodies as the three apes leaped upon him and hurled him to theground, where he alighted half stunned beneath their combined weightand was immediately set upon by the fifty hairy men or as many of themas could swarm upon his person. Instantly the ape-man became thecenter of a whirling, striking, biting maelstrom of horror. He foughtnobly but the odds against him were too great. Slowly they overcamehim though there was scarce one of them that did not feel the weight ofhis mighty fist or the rending of his fangs. 

13

Condemned To Torture and Death

La had followed her company and when she saw them clawing and biting atTarzan, she raised her voice and cautioned them not to kill him. Shesaw that he was weakening and that soon the greater numbers wouldprevail over him, nor had she long to wait before the mighty junglecreature lay helpless and bound at her feet. 

"Bring him to the place at which we stopped, " she commanded and theycarried Tarzan back to the little clearing and threw him down beneath atree. 

"Build me a shelter!" ordered La. "We shall stop here tonight andtomorrow in the face of the Flaming God, La will offer up the heart ofthis defiler of the temple. Where is the sacred knife? Who took itfrom 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 surroundedhim and snarled his defiance. He looked upon La and smiled. In theface of death he was unafraid. 

"Where is the knife?" La asked him. 

"I do not know, " replied Tarzan. "The man took it with him when heslipped away during the night. Since you are so desirous for itsreturn I would look for him and get it back for you, did you not holdme prisoner; but now that I am to die I cannot get it back. Of whatgood was your knife, anyway? You can make another. Did you follow usall this way for nothing more than a knife? Let me go and find him andI 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; yetas she looked at him lying bound and helpless before her, tears rose toher eyes so that she had to turn away to hide them; but she remainedinflexible in her determination to make him pay in frightful sufferingand in eventual death for daring 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 at thefirst streak of dawn you may prepare the flaming altar upon which hisheart shall be offered up to the Flaming God. Gather wood well filledwith pitch, lay it in the form and size of the altar at Opar in thecenter of the clearing that the Flaming God may look down upon ourhandiwork and be pleased. "

During the balance of the day the priests of Opar were busy erecting analtar in the center of the clearing, and while they worked they chantedweird hymns in the ancient tongue of that lost continent that lies atthe bottom of the Atlantic. They knew not the meanings of the wordsthey mouthed; they but repeated the ritual that had been handed downfrom preceptor to neophyte since that long-gone day when the ancestorsof the Piltdown man still swung by their tails in the humid junglesthat are England now. 

And in the shelter of the hut, La paced to and fro beside the stoicape-man. Resigned to his fate was Tarzan. No hope of succor gleamedthrough the dead black of the death sentence hanging over him. He knewthat his giant muscles could not part the many strands that bound hiswrists and ankles, for he had strained often, but ineffectually forrelease. He had no hope of outside help and only enemies surroundedhim within the camp, and yet he smiled at La as she paced nervouslyback and forth the length of the shelter. 

And La? She fingered her knife and looked down upon her captive. Sheglared and muttered 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 thenshe steeled her heart again by thoughts of her love spurned; byreligious thoughts that damned the infidel who had desecrated the holyof holies; who had taken from the blood-stained altar of Opar theoffering to the Flaming God--and not once but thrice. Three times hadTarzan cheated the god of her fathers. At the thought La paused andknelt at his side. In her hand was a sharp knife. She placed itspoint against the ape-man's side and pressed upon the hilt; but Tarzanonly smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 

How beautiful he was! La bent low over him, looking into his eyes. How perfect was his figure. She compared it with those of the knurledand knotted men from whom she must choose a mate, and La shuddered atthe thought. Dusk came and after dusk came night. A great fire blazedwithin the little thorn boma about the camp. The flames played uponthe new altar erected in the center of the clearing, arousing in themind of the High Priestess of the Flaming God a picture of the event ofthe coming dawn. She saw this giant and perfect form writhing amid theflames of the burning pyre. She saw those smiling lips, burned andblackened, falling away from the strong, white teeth. She saw theshock of black hair tousled upon Tarzan's well-shaped head disappear ina spurt of flame. She saw these and many other frightful pictures asshe stood with closed eyes and clenched fists above the object of herhate--ah! was it hate that La of Opar felt?

The darkness of the jungle night had settled down upon the camp, relieved only by the fitful flarings of the fire that was kept up towarn off the man-eaters. Tarzan lay quietly in his bonds. He sufferedfrom thirst and from the cutting of the tight strands about his wristsand ankles; but he made no complaint. A jungle beast was Tarzan withthe stoicism of the beast and the intelligence of man. He knew thathis doom was sealed--that no supplications would avail to temper theseverity of his end and so he wasted no breath in pleadings; but waitedpatiently in the firm conviction that his sufferings could not endureforever. 

In the darkness La stooped above him. In her hand was a sharp knifeand in her mind the determination to initiate his torture withoutfurther delay. The knife was pressed against his side and La's facewas close to his when a sudden burst of flame from new branches thrownupon the fire without, lighted up the interior of the shelter. Closebeneath her lips La saw the perfect features of the forest god and intoher woman's heart welled all the great love she had felt for Tarzansince first she had seen him, and all the accumulated passion of theyears that she had dreamed of him. 

Dagger in hand, La, the High Priestess, towered above the helplesscreature that had dared to violate the sanctuary of her deity. Thereshould be no torture--there should be instant death. No longer shouldthe defiler of the temple pollute the sight of the lord god almighty. A single stroke of the heavy blade and then the corpse to the flamingpyre without. The knife arm stiffened ready for the downward plunge, and then La, the woman, collapsed weakly upon the body of the man sheloved. 

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 herbody as though to protect him from the hideous fate she had ordainedfor him, and in trembling, piteous tones she begged him for his love. For hours the frenzy of her passion possessed the burning hand-maidenof the Flaming God, until at last sleep overpowered her and she lapsedinto unconsciousness beside the man she had sworn to torture and toslay. And Tarzan, untroubled by thoughts of the future, sleptpeacefully in La's embrace. 

At the first hint of dawn the chanting of the priests of Opar broughtTarzan to wakefulness. Initiated in low and subdued tones, the soundsoon rose in volume to the open diapason of barbaric blood lust. Lastirred. Her perfect arm pressed Tarzan closer to her--a smile partedher lips and then she awoke, and slowly the smile faded and her eyeswent wide in horror as the significance of the death chant impingedupon her understanding. 

"Love me, Tarzan!" she cried. "Love me, and you shall be saved. "

Tarzan's bonds hurt him. He was suffering the tortures oflong-restricted circulation. With an angry growl he rolled over withhis back toward La. That was her answer! The High Priestess leaped toher feet. A hot flush of shame mantled her cheek and then she wentdead white and stepped to the shelter's entrance. 

"Come, Priests of the Flaming God!" she cried, "and make ready thesacrifice. "

The warped things advanced and entered the shelter. They laid handsupon Tarzan and bore him forth, and as they chanted they kept time withtheir crooked bodies, swaying to and fro to the rhythm of their song ofblood and death. Behind them came La, swaying too; but not in unisonwith the chanted cadence. White and drawn was the face of the HighPriestess--white and drawn with unrequited love and hideous terror ofthe moments to come. Yet stern in her resolve was La. The infidelshould die! The scorner of her love should pay the price upon thefiery altar. She saw them lay the perfect body there upon the roughbranches. She saw the High Priest, he to whom custom would uniteher--bent, crooked, gnarled, stunted, hideous--advance with the flamingtorch and stand awaiting her command to apply it to the faggotssurrounding the sacrificial pyre. His hairy, bestial face wasdistorted in a yellow-fanged grin of anticipatory enjoyment. His handswere cupped to receive the life blood of the victim--the red nectarthat at Opar would have filled the golden sacrificial goblets. 

La approached with upraised knife, her face turned toward the risingsun and upon her lips a prayer to the burning deity of her people. TheHigh Priest looked questioningly toward her--the brand was burningclose to his hand and the faggots lay temptingly near. Tarzan closedhis eyes and awaited the end. He knew that he would suffer, for herecalled the faint memories of past burns. He knew that he wouldsuffer and die; but he did not flinch. Death is no great adventure tothe jungle bred who walk hand-in-hand with the grim specter by day andlie down at his side by night through all the years of their lives. Itis doubtful that the ape-man even speculated upon what came afterdeath. As a matter of fact as his end approached, his mind wasoccupied by thoughts of the pretty pebbles he had lost, yet his everyfaculty still was open to what passed around him. 

He felt La lean over him and he opened his eyes. He saw her white, drawn face and he saw tears blinding her eyes. "Tarzan, my Tarzan!"she moaned, "tell me that you love me--that you will return to Oparwith me--and you shall live. Even in the face of the anger of mypeople I will save you. This last chance I give you. What is youranswer?"

At the last moment the woman in La had triumphed over the HighPriestess of a cruel cult. She saw upon the altar the only creaturethat ever had aroused the fires of love within her virgin breast; shesaw the beast-faced fanatic who would one day be her mate, unless shefound another less repulsive, standing with the burning torch ready toignite the pyre; yet with all her mad passion for the ape-man she wouldgive the word to apply the flame if Tarzan's final answer wasunsatisfactory. With heaving bosom she leaned close above him. "Yesor no?" she whispered. 

Through the jungle, out of the distance, came faintly a sound thatbrought a sudden light of hope to Tarzan's eyes. He raised his voicein a weird scream that sent La back from him a step or two. Theimpatient priest grumbled and switched the torch from one hand to theother at the same time holding it closer to the tinder at the base ofthe pyre. 

"Your answer!" insisted La. "What is your answer to the love of La ofOpar?"

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 the first time, she guessed the meaning of Tarzan's shrillscream--he had summoned Tantor, the elephant, to his rescue! La'sbrows contracted in a savage scowl. "You refuse La!" she cried. "Thendie! The torch!" she commanded, turning toward the priest. 

Tarzan looked up into her face. "Tantor is coming, " he said. "Ithought 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 withthe cunning of Sheeta, the panther, those who would hide from him, forTantor is mad 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 inthe cunning, cruel brain of the great beast might send it hither andthither hunting through the forest for those who escaped its firstcharge, or the beast might pass on without returning--no one mightguess which. 

"I cannot love you, La, " said Tarzan in a low voice. "I do not knowwhy, 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 cannotlove you but I cannot see you die beneath the goring tusks of madTantor. Cut my bonds before it is too late. Already he is almost uponus. Cut them and I may yet save you. "

A little spiral of curling smoke rose from one corner of the pyre--theflames licked upward, crackling. La stood there like a beautifulstatue of despair gazing at Tarzan and at the spreading flames. In amoment they would reach out and grasp him. From the tangled forestcame the sound of cracking limbs and crashing trunks--Tantor was comingdown upon them, a huge Juggernaut of the jungle. The priests werebecoming uneasy. They cast apprehensive glances in the direction ofthe approaching elephant and then back at La. 

"Fly!" she commanded them and then she stooped and cut the bondssecuring her prisoner's feet and hands. In an instant Tarzan was uponthe ground. The priests screamed out their rage and disappointment. He with the torch took a menacing step toward La and the ape-man. "Traitor!" He shrieked at the woman. "For this you too shall die!"Raising his bludgeon he rushed upon the High Priestess; but Tarzan wasthere before her. Leaping in to close quarters the ape-man seized theupraised weapon and wrenched it from the hands of the frenzied fanaticand then the priest closed upon him with tooth and nail. Seizing thestocky, stunted body in his mighty hands Tarzan raised the creaturehigh above his head, hurling him at his fellows who were now gatheredready to bear down upon their erstwhile captive. La stood proudly withready knife behind the ape-man. No faint sign of fear marked herperfect brow--only haughty disdain for her priests and admiration forthe 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 instantparalyzed with terror; but Tarzan turned and gathering La in his armsraced for the nearest tree. Tantor bore down upon him trumpetingshrilly. La clung with both white arms about the ape-man's neck. Shefelt him leap into the air and marveled at his strength and his abilityas, burdened with her weight, he swung nimbly into the lower branchesof a large tree and quickly bore her upward beyond reach of the sinuoustrunk of the pachyderm. 

Momentarily baffled here, the huge elephant wheeled and bore down uponthe hapless priests who had now scattered, terror-stricken, in everydirection. The nearest he gored and threw high among the branches of atree. One he seized in the coils of his trunk and broke upon a hugebole, dropping the mangled pulp to charge, trumpeting, after another. Two he trampled beneath his huge feet and by then the others haddisappeared into the jungle. Now Tantor turned his attention once moreto Tarzan for one of the symptoms of madness is a revulsion ofaffection--objects of sane love become the objects of insane hatred. Peculiar in the unwritten annals of the jungle was the proverbial lovethat had existed between the ape-man and the tribe of Tantor. Noelephant in all the jungle would harm the Tarmangani--the white-ape;but with the madness of MUST upon him the great bull sought to destroyhis long-time play-fellow. 

Back to the tree where La and Tarzan perched came Tantor, the elephant. He reared up with his forefeet against the bole and reached high towardthem with his long trunk; but Tarzan had foreseen this and clamberedbeyond the bull's longest reach. Failure but tended to further enragethe mad creature. He bellowed and trumpeted and screamed until theearth shook to the mighty volume of his noise. He put his head againstthe tree and pushed and the tree bent before his mighty strength; yetstill it held. 

The actions of Tarzan were peculiar in the extreme. Had Numa, orSabor, or Sheeta, or any other beast of the jungle been seeking todestroy him, the ape-man would have danced about hurling missiles andinvectives at his assailant. He would have insulted and taunted them, reviling in the jungle Billingsgate he knew so well; but now he satsilent out of Tantor's reach and upon his handsome face was anexpression of deep sorrow and pity, for of all the jungle folk Tarzanloved Tantor the best. Could he have slain him he would not havethought of doing so. His one idea was to escape, for he knew that withthe passing of the MUST Tantor would be sane again and that once morehe might stretch at full length upon that mighty back and make foolishspeech into those great, flapping ears. 

Finding that the tree would not fall to his pushing, Tantor was butenraged the more. He looked up at the two perched high above him, hisred-rimmed eyes blazing with insane hatred, and then he wound his trunkabout the bole of the tree, spread his giant feet wide apart and tuggedto uproot the jungle giant. A huge creature was Tantor, an enormousbull in the full prime of all his stupendous strength. Mightily hestrove until presently, to Tarzan's consternation, the great tree gaveslowly at the roots. The ground rose in little mounds and ridges aboutthe base of the bole, the tree tilted--in another moment it would beuprooted and fall. 

The ape-man whirled La to his back and just as the tree inclined slowlyin its first movement out of the perpendicular, before the sudden rushof its final collapse, he swung to the branches of a lesser neighbor. It was a long and perilous leap. La closed her eyes and shuddered; butwhen she opened them again she found herself safe and Tarzan whirlingonward through the forest. Behind them the uprooted tree crashedheavily to the ground, carrying with it the lesser trees in its pathand then Tantor, realizing that his prey had escaped him, set up oncemore his hideous trumpeting and followed at a rapid charge upon theirtrail. 

14

A Priestess But Yet a Woman

At first La closed her eyes and clung to Tarzan in terror, though shemade no outcry; but presently she gained sufficient courage to lookabout her, to look down at the ground beneath and even to keep her eyesopen during the wide, perilous swings from tree to tree, and then therecame over her a sense of safety because of her confidence in theperfect physical creature in whose strength and nerve and agility herfate lay. Once she raised her eyes to the burning sun and murmured aprayer of thanks to her pagan god that she had not been permitted todestroy this godlike man, and her long lashes were wet with tears. Astrange anomaly was La of Opar--a creature of circumstance torn byconflicting emotions. Now the cruel and bloodthirsty creature of aheartless god and again a melting woman filled with compassion andtenderness. Sometimes the incarnation of jealousy and revenge andsometimes a sobbing maiden, generous and forgiving; at once a virginand a wanton; but always--a woman. Such was La. 

She pressed her cheek close to Tarzan's shoulder. Slowly she turnedher head until her hot lips were pressed against his flesh. She lovedhim and would gladly have died for him; yet within an hour she had beenready to plunge a knife into his heart and might again within thecoming hour. 

A hapless priest seeking shelter in the jungle chanced to show himselfto enraged Tantor. The great beast turned to one side, bore down uponthe crooked, little man, snuffed him out and then, diverted from hiscourse, blundered away toward the south. In a few minutes even thenoise of his trumpeting was lost in the 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 one will killyou 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 intothe jungle on every side. From near and far came answering shouts inthe barking tones of the Oparian priests: "We come! We come!" Againand again, La repeated her summons until singly and in pairs thegreater portion of her following approached and halted a short distanceaway from the High Priestess and her savior. They came with scowlingbrows and threatening mien. When all had come Tarzan addressed them. 

"Your La is safe, " said the ape-man. "Had she slain me she would nowherself 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 hisway into the jungle. Let there be peace always between Tarzan and La. What is your answer?"

The priests grumbled and shook their heads. They spoke together and Laand Tarzan could see that they were not favorably inclined toward theproposition. They did not wish to take La back and they did wish tocomplete the sacrifice of Tarzan to the Flaming God. At last theape-man became impatient. 

"You will obey the commands of your queen, " he said, "and go back toOpar with her or Tarzan of the Apes will call together the othercreatures of the jungle and slay you all. La saved me that I mightsave you and her. I have served you better alive than I could havedead. If you are not all fools you will let me go my way in peace andyou will return to Opar with La. I know not where the sacred knife is;but you can fashion another. Had I not taken it from La you would haveslain me and now your god must be glad that I took it since I havesaved his priestess from love-mad Tantor. Will you go back to Oparwith La, promising that no harm shall befall her?"

The priests gathered together in a little knot arguing and discussing. They pounded upon their breasts with their fists; they raised theirhands and eyes to their fiery god; they growled and barked amongthemselves until it became evident to Tarzan that one of their numberwas preventing the acceptance of his proposal. This was the HighPriest whose heart was filled with jealous rage because La openlyacknowledged her love for the stranger, when by the worldly customs oftheir cult she should have belonged to him. Seemingly there was to beno solution of the problem until another priest stepped forth and, raising his hand, addressed La. 

"Cadj, the High Priest, " he announced, "would sacrifice you both to theFlaming God; but all of us except Cadj would gladly return to Opar withour queen. "

"You are many against one, " spoke up Tarzan. "Why should you not haveyour will? Go your way with La to Opar and if Cadj interferes slayhim. "

The priests of Opar welcomed this suggestion with loud cries ofapproval. To them it appeared nothing short of divine inspiration. The influence of ages of unquestioning obedience to high priests hadmade it seem impossible to them to question his authority; but whenthey realized that they could force him to their will they were ashappy as children with new toys. 

They rushed forward and seized Cadj. They talked in loud menacingtones into his ear. They threatened him with bludgeon and knife untilat last he acquiesced in their demands, though sullenly, and thenTarzan stepped close before Cadj. 

"Priest, " he said, "La goes back to her temple under the protection ofher priests and the threat of Tarzan of the Apes that whoever harms hershall 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. "Protect her sothat when Tarzan comes again he will find La there to greet him. "

"La will be there to greet thee, " exclaimed the High Priestess, "and Lawill wait, longing, always longing, until you come again. Oh, tell methat you will come!"

"Who knows?" asked the ape-man as he swung quickly into the trees andraced off toward the east. 

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

Through the trees raced Tarzan of the Apes until the darkness of nighthad settled upon the jungle, then he lay down and slept, with nothought beyond the morrow and with even La but the shadow of a memorywithin his consciousness. 

But a few marches to the north Lady Greystoke looked forward to the daywhen her mighty lord and master should discover the crime of AchmetZek, and be speeding to rescue and avenge, and even as she pictured thecoming of John Clayton, the object of her thoughts squatted almostnaked, beside a fallen log, beneath which he was searching with grimyfingers for a chance beetle or a luscious grub. 

Two days elapsed following the theft of the jewels before Tarzan gavethem a thought. Then, as they chanced to enter his mind, he conceiveda desire to play with them again, and, having nothing better to do thansatisfy the first whim which possessed him, he rose and started acrossthe plain from the forest in which he had spent the preceding day. 

Though no mark showed where the gems had been buried, and though thespot resembled the balance of an unbroken stretch several miles inlength, where the reeds terminated at the edge of the meadowland, yetthe ape-man moved with unerring precision directly to the place wherehe had hid his treasure. 

With his hunting knife he upturned the loose earth, beneath which thepouch should be; but, though he excavated to a greater distance thanthe depth of the original hole there was no sign of pouch or jewels. Tarzan's brow clouded as he discovered that he had been despoiled. Little or no reasoning was required to convince him of the identity ofthe guilty party, and with the same celerity that had marked hisdecision to unearth the jewels, he set out upon the trail of the thief. 

Though the spoor was two days old, and practically obliterated in manyplaces, Tarzan followed it with comparative ease. A white man couldnot have followed it twenty paces twelve hours after it had been made, a black man would have lost it within the first mile; but Tarzan of theApes had been forced in childhood to develop senses that an ordinarymortal scarce ever uses. 

We may note the garlic and whisky on the breath of a fellow straphanger, or the cheap perfume emanating from the person of the wondrouslady sitting in front of us, and deplore the fact of our sensitivenoses; but, as a matter of fact, we cannot smell at all, our olfactoryorgans are practically atrophied, by comparison with the development ofthe sense among the beasts of the wild. 

Where a foot is placed an effluvium remains for a considerable time. It is beyond the range of our sensibilities; but to a creature of thelower orders, especially to the hunters and the hunted, as interestingand ofttimes more lucid than is the printed page to us. 

Nor was Tarzan dependent alone upon his sense of smell. Vision andhearing had been brought to a marvelous state of development by thenecessities of his early life, where survival itself depended almostdaily upon the exercise of the keenest vigilance and the constant useof all his faculties. 

And so he followed the old trail of the Belgian through the forest andtoward the north; but because of the age of the trail he wasconstrained to a far from rapid progress. The man he followed was twodays ahead of him when Tarzan took up the pursuit, and each day hegained upon the ape-man. The latter, however, felt not the slightestdoubt as to the outcome. Some day he would overhaul his quarry--hecould bide his time in peace until that day dawned. Doggedly hefollowed the faint spoor, pausing by day only to kill and eat, and atnight only to sleep and refresh himself. 

Occasionally he passed parties of savage warriors; but these he gave awide berth, for he was hunting with a purpose that was not to bedistracted by the minor accidents of the trail. 

These parties were of the collecting hordes of the Waziri and theirallies which Basuli had scattered his messengers broadcast to summon. They were marching to a common rendezvous in preparation for an assaultupon the stronghold of Achmet Zek; but to Tarzan they were enemies--heretained no conscious memory of any friendship for the black men. 

It was night when he halted outside the palisaded village of the Arabraider. Perched in the branches of a great tree he gazed down upon thelife within the enclosure. To this place had the spoor led him. Hisquarry must be within; but how was he to find him among so many huts?Tarzan, although cognizant of his mighty powers, realized also hislimitations. He knew that he could not successfully cope with greatnumbers in open battle. He must resort to the stealth and trickery ofthe wild beast, if he were to succeed. 

Sitting in the safety of his tree, munching upon the leg bone of Horta, the boar, Tarzan waited a favorable opportunity to enter the village. For awhile he gnawed at the bulging, round ends of the large bone, splintering off small pieces between his strong jaws, and sucking atthe delicious marrow within; but all the time he cast repeated glancesinto the village. He saw white-robed figures, and half-naked blacks;but not once did he see one who resembled the stealer of the gems. 

Patiently he waited until the streets were deserted by all save thesentries at the gates, then he dropped lightly to the ground, circledto the opposite side of 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, hespread the noose upon the ground behind him, and with a quick movementof his wrist tossed the coils over one of the sharpened projections ofthe summit of the palisade. 

Drawing the noose taut, he tested the solidity of its hold. Satisfied, the ape-man ran nimbly up the vertical wall, aided by the rope which heclutched in both hands. Once at the top it required but a moment togather the dangling rope once more into its coils, make it fast againat his waist, take a quick glance downward within the palisade, and, assured that no one lurked directly beneath him, drop softly to theground. 

Now he was within the village. Before him stretched a series of tentsand native huts. The business of exploring each of them would befraught with danger; but danger was only a natural factor of each day'slife--it never appalled Tarzan. The chances appealed to him--thechances of life and death, with his prowess and his faculties pittedagainst those of a worthy antagonist. 

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 laywithin. For some time he found one disappointment following upon theheels of another in quick succession. No spoor of the Belgian wasdiscernible. But at last he came to a tent where the smell of the thiefwas strong. Tarzan listened, his ear 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, and intruded his head within the interior. All was quiet and dark. Tarzan crawled cautiously within--the scent of the Belgian was strong;but it was not live scent. Even before he had examined the interiorminutely, Tarzan knew that no one was within it. 

In one corner he found a pile of blankets and clothing scattered about;but no pouch of pretty pebbles. A careful examination of the balanceof the tent revealed nothing more, at least nothing to indicate thepresence of the jewels; but at the side where the blankets and clothinglay, the ape-man discovered that the tent wall had been loosened at thebottom, and presently he sensed that the Belgian had recently passedout of the tent by this avenue. 

Tarzan was not long in following the way that his prey had fled. Thespoor led always in the shadow and at the rear of the huts and tents ofthe village--it was quite evident to Tarzan that the Belgian had gonealone and secretly upon his mission. Evidently he feared theinhabitants of the village, or at least his work had been of such anature that he dared not risk detection. 

At the back of a native hut the spoor led through a small hole recentlycut in the brush wall and into the dark interior beyond. Fearlessly, Tarzan followed the trail. On hands and knees, he crawled through thesmall aperture. Within the hut his nostrils were assailed by manyodors; but clear and distinct among them was one that half aroused alatent memory of the past--it was the faint and delicate odor of awoman. With the cognizance of it there rose in the breast of theape-man a strange uneasiness--the result of an irresistible force whichhe was destined to become acquainted with anew--the instinct whichdraws the male to his mate. 

In the same hut was the scent spoor of the Belgian, too, and as boththese assailed the nostrils of the ape-man, mingling one with theother, a jealous rage leaped and burned within him, though his memoryheld before the mirror of recollection no image of the she to which hehad 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 theclearing, over the palisade, and out into the dark jungle beyond. 

15

The Flight of Werper

After Werper had arranged the dummy in his bed, and sneaked out intothe darkness of the village beneath the rear wall of his tent, he hadgone directly to the hut in which Jane Clayton was held captive. 

Before the doorway squatted a black sentry. Werper approached himboldly, spoke a few words in his ear, handed him a package of tobacco, and passed into the hut. The black grinned and winked as the Europeandisappeared within the darkness 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 thesentry had 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!It is I, M. Frecoult. Where are you?" But there was no response. Hastily the man felt around the interior, groping blindly through thedarkness with outstretched 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 tothe dark, discovered a blotch of lesser blackness near the base of therear wall of the hut. Examination revealed the fact that the blotch wasan opening cut in the wall. It was large enough to permit the passageof his body, and assured as he was that Lady Greystoke had passed outthrough the aperture in an attempt to escape the village, he lost notime in availing himself of the same avenue; but neither did he losetime in a fruitless search for Jane Clayton. 

His own life depended upon the chance of his eluding, or outdistancingAchmet Zek, when that worthy should have discovered that he hadescaped. His original plan had contemplated connivance in the escapeof Lady Greystoke for two very good and sufficient reasons. The firstwas that by saving her he would win the gratitude of the English, andthus lessen the chance of his extradition should his identity and hiscrime against his superior officer be charged against him. 

The second reason was based upon the fact that only one direction ofescape was safely open to him. He could not travel to the west becauseof the Belgian possessions which lay between him and the Atlantic. Thesouth was closed to him by the feared presence of the savage ape-man hehad robbed. To the north lay the friends and allies of Achmet Zek. Only toward the east, through British East Africa, lay reasonableassurance of freedom. 

Accompanied by a titled Englishwoman whom he had rescued from afrightful fate, and his identity vouched for by her as that of aFrenchman by the name of Frecoult, he had looked forward, and notwithout reason, to the active assistance of the British from the momentthat he came in contact with their first outpost. 

But now that Lady Greystoke had disappeared, though he still lookedtoward the east for hope, his chances were lessened, and another, subsidiary design completely dashed. From the moment that he had firstlaid eyes upon Jane Clayton he had nursed within his breast a secretpassion for the beautiful American wife of the English lord, and whenAchmet Zek's discovery of the jewels had necessitated flight, theBelgian had dreamed, in his planning, of a future in which he mightconvince Lady Greystoke that her husband was dead, and by playing uponher gratitude win her for himself. 

At that part of the village farthest from the gates, Werper discoveredthat two or three long poles, taken from a nearby pile which had beencollected for the construction of huts, had been leaned against the topof the palisade, forming a precarious, though not impossible avenue ofescape. 

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

A few miles south of him, Jane Clayton lay panting among the branchesof a tree in which she had taken refuge from a prowling and hungrylioness. 

Her escape from the village had been much easier than she hadanticipated. The knife which she had used to cut her way through thebrush wall of the hut to freedom she had found sticking in the wall ofher prison, doubtless left there by accident when a former tenant hadvacated the premises. 

To cross the rear of the village, keeping always in the densestshadows, had required but a few moments, and the fortunate circumstanceof the discovery of the hut poles lying so near the palisade had solvedfor her the problem of the passage of the high wall. 

For an hour she had followed the old game trail toward the south, untilthere fell upon her trained hearing the stealthy padding of a stalkingbeast behind her. The nearest tree gave her instant sanctuary, for shewas too wise in the ways of the jungle to chance her safety for amoment after discovering that she was being hunted. 

Werper, with better success, traveled slowly onward until dawn, when, to his chagrin, he discovered a mounted Arab upon his trail. It wasone of Achmet Zek's minions, many of whom were scattered in alldirections through the forest, searching for the fugitive Belgian. 

Jane Clayton's escape had not yet been discovered when Achmet Zek andhis searchers set forth to overhaul Werper. The only man who had seenthe Belgian after his departure from his tent was the black sentrybefore the doorway of Lady Greystoke's prison hut, and he had beensilenced by the discovery of the dead body of the man who had relievedhim, the sentry that Mugambi had dispatched. 

The bribe taker naturally inferred that Werper had slain his fellow anddared not admit that he had permitted him to enter the hut, fearing ashe did, the anger of Achmet Zek. So, as chance directed that he shouldbe the one to discover the body of the sentry when the first alarm hadbeen given following Achmet Zek's discovery that Werper had outwittedhim, the crafty black had dragged the dead body to the interior of anearby tent, and himself resumed his station before the doorway of thehut in which he still believed the woman to be. 

With the discovery of the Arab close behind him, the Belgian hid in thefoliage of a leafy bush. Here the trail ran straight for aconsiderable distance, and down the shady forest aisle, beneath theoverarching branches of the trees, rode the white-robed figure of thepursuer. 

Nearer and nearer he came. Werper crouched closer to the ground behindthe leaves of his hiding place. Across the trail a vine moved. Werper's eyes instantly centered upon the spot. There was no wind tostir the foliage in the depths of the jungle. Again the vine moved. In the mind of the Belgian only the presence of a sinister andmalevolent force could account for the phenomenon. 

The man's eyes bored steadily into the screen of leaves upon theopposite side of the trail. Gradually a form took shape beyond them--atawny form, grim and terrible, with yellow-green eyes glaringfearsomely across the narrow trail straight into his. 

Werper could have screamed in fright, but up the trail was coming themessenger of another death, equally sure and no less terrible. Heremained silent, almost paralyzed by fear. The Arab approached. Acrossthe trail from Werper the lion crouched for the spring, when suddenlyhis attention was attracted toward the horseman. 

The Belgian saw the massive head turn in the direction of the raiderand his heart all but ceased its beating as he awaited the result ofthis interruption. At a walk the horseman approached. Would thenervous animal he rode take fright at the odor of the carnivore, and, bolting, leave Werper still to the mercies of the king of beasts?

But he seemed unmindful of the near presence of the great cat. On hecame, his neck arched, champing at the bit between his teeth. TheBelgian turned his eyes again toward the lion. The beast's wholeattention now seemed riveted upon the horseman. They were abreast thelion now, and still the brute did not spring. Could he be but waitingfor them to pass before returning his attention to the original prey?Werper shuddered and half rose. At the same instant the lion sprangfrom his place of concealment, full upon the mounted man. The horse, with a shrill neigh of terror, shrank sideways almost upon the Belgian, the lion dragged the helpless Arab from his saddle, and the horseleaped back into the trail and fled away toward the west. 

But he did not flee alone. As the frightened beast had pressed in uponhim, Werper had not been slow to note the quickly emptied saddle andthe opportunity it presented. Scarcely had the lion dragged the Arabdown from one side, than the Belgian, seizing the pommel of the saddleand the horse's mane, leaped upon the horse's back from the other. 

A half hour later a naked giant, swinging easily through the lowerbranches of the trees, paused, and with raised head, and dilatingnostrils sniffed the morning air. The smell of blood fell strong uponhis senses, and mingled with it was the scent of Numa, the lion. Thegiant cocked his head upon one side and listened. 

From a short distance up the trail came the unmistakable noises of thegreedy feeding of a lion. The crunching of bones, the gulping of greatpieces, the contented growling, all attested the nearness of the kingat table. 

Tarzan approached the spot, still keeping to the branches of the trees. He made no effort to conceal his approach, and presently he hadevidence that Numa had heard him, from the ominous, rumbling warningthat broke from a thicket beside the trail. 

Halting upon a low branch just above the lion Tarzan looked down uponthe grisly scene. Could this unrecognizable thing be the man he hadbeen trailing? The ape-man wondered. From time to time he haddescended to the trail and verified his judgment by the evidence of hisscent that the Belgian had followed this game trail toward the east. 

Now he proceeded beyond the lion and his feast, again descended andexamined the ground with his nose. There was no scent spoor here ofthe man he had been trailing. Tarzan returned to the tree. With keeneyes he searched the ground about the mutilated corpse for a sign ofthe 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 angrygrowls rewarded his efforts. He tore small branches from a nearby limband hurled them at his ancient enemy. Numa looked up with bared fangs, grinning hideously, but he did not rise from his kill. 

Then Tarzan fitted an arrow to his bow, and drawing the slim shaft farback let drive with all the force of the tough wood that only he couldbend. As the arrow sank deeply into his side, Numa leaped to his feetwith a roar of mingled rage and pain. He leaped futilely at thegrinning ape-man, tore at the protruding end of the shaft, and then, springing into the trail, paced back and forth beneath his tormentor. Again Tarzan loosed a swift bolt. This time the missile, aimed withcare, lodged in the lion's spine. The great creature halted in itstracks, 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 arrowsturned his attention to the mutilated remains of the animal's prey inthe nearby thicket. 

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 he might easily have acquired the apparel. So sure was Tarzanthat the body was that of he who had robbed him that he made no effortto verify his deductions by scent among the conglomerate odors of thegreat carnivore and the fresh blood of the victim. 

He confined his attentions to a careful search for the pouch, butnowhere upon or about the corpse was any sign of the missing article orits contents. The ape-man was disappointed--possibly not so muchbecause of the loss of the colored pebbles as with Numa for robbing himof the pleasures of revenge. 

Wondering what could have become of his possessions, the ape-man turnedslowly back along the trail in the direction from which he had come. In his mind he revolved a plan to enter and search the Arab camp, afterdarkness had again fallen. Taking to the trees, he moved directlysouth in search of prey, that he might satisfy his hunger beforemidday, and then lie up for the afternoon in some spot far from thecamp, where he might sleep without fear of discovery until it came timeto prosecute his design. 

Scarcely had he quitted the trail when a tall, black warrior, moving ata dogged trot, passed toward the east. It was Mugambi, searching forhis mistress. He continued along the trail, halting to examine thebody of the dead lion. An expression of puzzlement crossed hisfeatures as he bent to search for the wounds which had caused the deathof the jungle lord. Tarzan had removed his arrows, but to Mugambi theproof of death was as strong as though both the lighter missiles andthe spear still protruded from the carcass. 

The black looked furtively about him. The body was still warm, andfrom this fact he reasoned that the killer was close at hand, yet nosign of living man appeared. Mugambi shook his head, and continuedalong the trail, but with redoubled caution. 

All day he traveled, stopping occasionally to call aloud the singleword, "Lady, " in the hope that at last she might hear and respond; butin the 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 forthe Arab raider, Achmet Zek, who, six months previously, had affrontedthe majesty of Abdul Mourak's emperor by conducting a slave raid withinthe boundaries of Menelek's domain. 

And now it happened that Abdul Mourak had halted for a short rest atnoon upon this very day and along the same trail that Werper andMugambi were following toward the east. 

It was shortly after the soldiers had dismounted that the Belgian, unaware of their presence, rode his tired mount almost into theirmidst, before he had discovered them. Instantly he was surrounded, anda volley of questions hurled at him, as he was pulled from his horseand led toward the presence of the commander. 

Falling back upon his European nationality, Werper assured Abdul Mourakthat he was a Frenchman, hunting in Africa, and that he had beenattacked by strangers, his safari killed or scattered, and himselfescaping only by a miracle. 

From a chance remark of the Abyssinian, Werper discovered the purposeof the expedition, and when he realized that these men were the enemiesof Achmet Zek, he took heart, and immediately blamed his predicamentupon the Arab. 

Lest, however, he might again fall into the hands of the raider, hediscouraged Abdul Mourak in the further prosecution of his pursuit, assuring the Abyssinian that Achmet Zek commanded a large and dangerousforce, and also that he was marching rapidly toward the south. 

Convinced that it would take a long time to overhaul the raider, andthat the chances of engagement made the outcome extremely questionable, Mourak, none too unwillingly, abandoned his plan and gave the necessaryorders for his command to pitch camp where they were, preparatory totaking up the return march toward Abyssinia the following morning. 

It was late in the afternoon that the attention of the camp wasattracted toward the west by the sound of a powerful voice calling asingle word, repeated several times: "Lady! Lady! Lady!"

True to their instincts of precaution, a number of Abyssinians, actingunder orders from Abdul Mourak, advanced stealthily through the jungletoward the author of the call. 

A half hour later they returned, dragging Mugambi among them. Thefirst person the big black's eyes fell upon as he was hustled into thepresence of the Abyssinian officer, was M. Jules Frecoult, theFrenchman who had been the guest of his master and whom he last hadseen entering the village of Achmet Zek under circumstances whichpointed to his familiarity and friendship for the raiders. 

Between the disasters that had befallen his master and his master'shouse, and the Frenchman, Mugambi saw a sinister relationship, whichkept him from recalling to Werper's attention the identity which thelatter evidently failed to recognize. 

Pleading that he was but a harmless hunter from a tribe farther south, Mugambi begged to be allowed to go upon his way; but Abdul Mourak, admiring the warrior's splendid physique, decided to take him back toAdis Abeba and present him to Menelek. A few moments later Mugambi andWerper were marched away under guard, and the Belgian learned for thefirst time, that he too was a prisoner rather than a guest. In vain heprotested against such treatment, until a strapping soldier struck himacross the mouth and threatened to shoot him if he did not desist. 

Mugambi took the matter less to heart, for he had not the slightestdoubt but that during the course of the journey he would find ampleopportunity to elude the vigilance of his guards and make good hisescape. With this idea always uppermost in his mind, he courted thegood opinion of the Abyssinians, asked them many questions about theiremperor and their country, and evinced a growing desire to reach theirdestination, that he might enjoy all the good things which they assuredhim the city of Adis Abeba contained. Thus he disarmed theirsuspicions, and each day found a slight relaxation of theirwatchfulness over him. 

By taking advantage of the fact that he and Werper always were kepttogether, Mugambi sought to learn what the other knew of thewhereabouts of Tarzan, or the authorship of the raid upon the bungalow, as well as the fate of Lady Greystoke; but as he was confined to theaccidents of conversation for this information, not daring to acquaintWerper with his true identity, and as Werper was equally anxious toconceal from the world his part in the destruction of his host's homeand happiness, Mugambi learned nothing--at least in this way. 

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

The party had camped early in the afternoon of a sultry day, upon thebanks of a clear and beautiful stream. The bottom of the river wasgravelly, there was no indication of crocodiles, those menaces topromiscuous bathing in the rivers of certain portions of the darkcontinent, and so the Abyssinians took advantage of the opportunity toperform long-deferred, and much needed, ablutions. 

As Werper, who, with Mugambi, had been given permission to enter thewater, removed his clothing, the black noted the care with which heunfastened something which circled his waist, and which he took offwith his shirt, keeping the latter always around and concealing theobject of his suspicious solicitude. 

It was this very carefulness which attracted the black's attention tothe thing, arousing a natural curiosity in the warrior's mind, and soit chanced that when the Belgian, in the nervousness of overcaution, fumbled the hidden article and dropped it, Mugambi saw it as it fellupon the ground, spilling a portion of its contents on the sward. 

Now Mugambi had been to London with his master. He was not theunsophisticated savage that his apparel proclaimed him. He had mingledwith the cosmopolitan hordes of the greatest city in the world; he hadvisited museums and inspected shop windows; and, besides, he was ashrewd and intelligent man. 

The instant that the jewels of Opar rolled, scintillating, before hisastonished eyes, he recognized them for what they were; but herecognized something else, too, that interested him far more deeplythan the value of the stones. A thousand times he had seen the leathernpouch which dangled at his master's side, when Tarzan of the Apes had, in a spirit of play and adventure, elected to return for a few hours tothe primitive manners and customs of his boyhood, and surrounded by hisnaked warriors hunt the lion and the leopard, the buffalo and theelephant after the manner he loved best. 

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

The following morning Abdul Mourak was enraged and chagrined todiscover that this huge, black prisoner had escaped during the night, while Werper was terrified for the same reason, until his tremblingfingers discovered the pouch still in its place beneath his shirt, andwithin it the hard outlines of its contents. 

16

Tarzan Again Leads the Mangani

Achmet Zek with two of his followers had circled far to the south tointercept the flight of his deserting lieutenant, Werper. Others hadspread out in various directions, so that a vast circle had been formedby them during the night, and now they were beating in toward thecenter. 

Achmet and the two with him halted for a short rest just before noon. They squatted beneath the trees upon the southern edge of a clearing. The chief of the raiders was in ill humor. To have been outwitted byan unbeliever was bad enough; but to have, at the same time, lost thejewels upon which he had set his avaricious heart was altogether toomuch--Allah must, indeed be angry with his servant. 

Well, he still had the woman. She would bring a fair price in thenorth, and there was, too, the buried treasure beside the ruins of theEnglishman's house. 

A slight noise in the jungle upon the opposite side of the clearingbrought Achmet Zek to immediate and alert attention. He gathered hisrifle in readiness for instant use, at the same time motioning hisfollowers to silence and concealment. Crouching behind the bushes thethree waited, their eyes fastened upon 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 thatno immediate danger lurked before her, she stepped out into theclearing in full view of the Arab. 

Achmet Zek caught his breath with a muttered exclamation of incredulityand an imprecation. The woman was the prisoner he had thought safelyguarded at his camp!

Apparently she was alone, but Achmet Zek waited that he might make sureof it before seizing her. Slowly Jane Clayton started across theclearing. Twice already since she had quitted the village of theraiders had she barely escaped the fangs of carnivora, and once she hadalmost stumbled into the path of one of the searchers. Though she wasalmost despairing of ever reaching safety she still was determined tofight on, until death or success terminated her endeavors. 

As the Arabs watched her from the safety of their concealment, andAchmet Zek noted with satisfaction that she was walking directly intohis clutches, another pair of eyes looked down upon the entire scenefrom the foliage of an adjacent tree. 

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

A sudden crashing of the bushes at the point from which Jane Claytonhad emerged into the clearing brought her to a sudden stop andattracted the attention of the Arabs and the watcher in the tree to thesame point. 

The woman wheeled about to see what new danger menaced her from behind, and as she did so a great, anthropoid ape waddled into view. Behindhim came another and another; but Lady Greystoke did not wait to learnhow many more of the hideous creatures were so close upon her trail. 

With a smothered scream she rushed toward the opposite jungle, and asshe reached the bushes there, Achmet Zek and his two henchmen rose upand seized her. At the same instant a naked, brown giant dropped fromthe branches of a tree at the right of the clearing. 

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

Achmet Zek was dragging Jane Clayton toward his tethered horse. Histwo men were hastily unfastening all three mounts. The woman, struggling to escape the Arab, turned and saw the ape-man runningtoward her. A glad light of hope illuminated her face. 

"John!" she cried. "Thank God that you have come in time. "

Behind Tarzan came the great apes, wondering, but obedient to hissummons. The Arabs saw that they would not have time to mount and maketheir escape before the beasts and the man were upon them. Achmet Zekrecognized the latter as the redoubtable enemy of such as he, and hesaw, too, in the circumstance an opportunity to rid himself forever ofthe menace of the ape-man's presence. 

Calling to his men to follow his example he raised his rifle andleveled it upon the charging giant. His followers, acting with no lessalacrity than himself, fired almost simultaneously, and with thereports of the rifles, Tarzan of the Apes and two of his hairy henchmenpitched forward among the jungle grasses. 

The noise of the rifle shots brought the balance of the apes to awondering pause, and, taking advantage of their momentary distraction, Achmet Zek and his fellows leaped to their horses' backs and gallopedaway with the now hopeless and grief-stricken woman. 

Back to the village they rode, and once again Lady Greystoke foundherself incarcerated in the filthy, little hut from which she hadthought to have escaped for good. But this time she was not onlyguarded by an additional sentry, but bound as well. 

Singly and in twos the searchers who had ridden out with Achmet Zekupon the trail of the Belgian, returned empty handed. With the reportof each the raider's rage and chagrin increased, until he was in such atransport of ferocious anger that none dared approach him. Threateningand cursing, Achmet Zek paced up and down the floor of his silken tent;but his temper served him naught--Werper was gone and with him thefortune in scintillating gems which had aroused the cupidity of hischief and placed the sentence of death upon the head of the lieutenant. 

With the escape of the Arabs the great apes had turned their attentionto their fallen comrades. One was dead, but another and the greatwhite ape still breathed. The hairy monsters gathered about these two, grumbling and muttering after the fashion of their kind. 

Tarzan was the first to regain consciousness. Sitting up, he lookedabout him. Blood was flowing from a wound in his shoulder. The shockhad thrown him down and dazed him; but he was far from dead. Risingslowly to his feet he let his eyes wander toward the spot where last hehad seen the she, who had aroused within his savage breast such strangeemotions. 

"Where is she?" he asked. 

"The Tarmangani took her away, " replied one of the apes. "Who are youwho speak the language of the Mangani?"

"I am Tarzan, " replied the ape-man; "mighty hunter, greatest offighters. When I roar, the jungle is silent and trembles with terror. I am Tarzan of the Apes. I have been away; but now I have come back tomy people. "

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

The other apes came closer and sniffed at the ape-man. Tarzan stoodvery still, his fangs half bared, and his muscles tense and ready foraction; but there was none there to question his right to be with them, and presently, the inspection satisfactorily concluded, the apes againreturned their attention to the other survivor. 

He too was but slightly wounded, a bullet, grazing his skull, havingstunned him, so that when he regained consciousness he was apparentlyas fit as ever. 

The apes told Tarzan that they had been traveling toward the east whenthe scent spoor of the she had attracted them and they had stalked her. Now they wished to continue upon their interrupted march; but Tarzanpreferred to follow the Arabs and take the woman from them. After aconsiderable argument it was decided that they should first hunt towardthe east for a few days and then return and search for the Arabs, andas time is of little moment to the ape folk, Tarzan acceded to theirdemands, he, himself, having reverted to a mental state but littlesuperior to their own. 

Another circumstance which decided him to postpone pursuit of the Arabswas the painfulness of his wound. It would be better to wait untilthat had healed before he pitted himself again against the guns of theTarmangani. 

And so, as Jane Clayton was pushed into her prison hut and her handsand feet securely bound, her natural protector roamed off toward theeast in company with a score of hairy monsters, with whom he rubbedshoulders as familiarly as a few months before he had mingled with hisimmaculate fellow-members of one of London's most select and exclusiveclubs. 

But all the time there lurked in the back of his injured brain atroublesome conviction that he had no business where he was--that heshould be, for some unaccountable reason, elsewhere and among anothersort of creature. Also, there was the compelling urge to be upon thescent of the Arabs, undertaking the rescue of the woman who hadappealed so strongly to his savage sentiments; though the thought-wordwhich naturally occurred to him in the contemplation of the venture, was "capture, " rather than "rescue. "

To him she was as any other jungle she, and he had set his heart uponher as his mate. For an instant, as he had approached closer to her inthe clearing where the Arabs had seized her, the subtle aroma which hadfirst aroused his desires in the hut that had imprisoned her had fallenupon his nostrils, and told him that he had found the creature for whomhe had developed so sudden and inexplicable a passion. 

The matter of the pouch of jewels also occupied his thoughts to someextent, so that he found a double urge for his return to the camp ofthe raiders. He would obtain possession of both his pretty pebbles andthe she. Then he would return to the great apes with his new mate andhis baubles, and leading his hairy companions into a far wildernessbeyond the ken of man, live out his life, hunting and battling amongthe lower orders after the only manner which he now recollected. 

He spoke to his fellow-apes upon the matter, in an attempt to persuadethem to accompany him; but all except Taglat and Chulk refused. Thelatter was young and strong, endowed with a greater intelligence thanhis fellows, and therefore the possessor of better developed powers ofimagination. To him the expedition savored of adventure, and soappealed, strongly. With Taglat there was another incentive--a secretand sinister incentive, which, had Tarzan of the Apes had knowledge ofit, would have sent him at the other's throat in jealous rage. 

Taglat was no longer young; but he was still a formidable beast, mightily muscled, cruel, and, because of his greater experience, craftyand cunning. Too, he was of giant proportions, the very weight of hishuge bulk serving ofttimes to discount in his favor the superioragility of a younger antagonist. 

He was of a morose and sullen disposition that marked him even amonghis frowning fellows, where such characteristics are the rule ratherthan the exception, and, though Tarzan did not guess it, he hated theape-man with a ferocity that he was able to hide only because thedominant spirit of the nobler creature had inspired within him aspecies of dread which was as powerful 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 tribevouchsafed them but a parting stare, and then resumed the seriousbusiness of feeding. 

Tarzan found difficulty in keeping the minds of his fellows set uponthe purpose of their adventure, for the mind of an ape lacks the powerof long-sustained concentration. To set out upon a long journey, witha definite destination in view, is one thing, to remember that purposeand keep it uppermost in one's mind continually is quite another. There are so many things to distract one's attention along the way. 

Chulk was, at first, for rushing rapidly ahead as though the village ofthe raiders lay but an hour's march before them instead of severaldays; but within a few minutes a fallen tree attracted his attentionwith its suggestion of rich and succulent forage beneath, and whenTarzan, missing him, returned in search, he found Chulk squattingbeside the rotting bole, from beneath which he was assiduously engagedin digging out the grubs and beetles, whose kind form a considerableproportion of the diet of the apes. 

Unless Tarzan desired to fight there was nothing to do but wait untilChulk had exhausted the storehouse, and this he did, only to discoverthat Taglat was now missing. After a considerable search, he foundthat worthy gentleman contemplating the sufferings of an injured rodenthe had pounced upon. He would sit in apparent indifference, gazing inanother direction, while the crippled creature, wriggled slowly andpainfully away from him, and then, just as his victim felt assured ofescape, he would reach out a giant palm and slam it down upon thefugitive. 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'sreturn journey toward the village of Achmet Zek; but the ape-man waspatient, for in his mind was a plan which necessitated the presence ofChulk and Taglat when he should have arrived at his destination. 

It was not always an easy thing to maintain in the vacillating minds ofthe anthropoids a sustained interest in their venture. Chulk waswearying of the continued marching and the infrequency and shortduration of the rests. He would gladly have abandoned this search foradventure had not Tarzan continually filled his mind with alluringpictures of the great stores of food which were to be found in thevillage of Tarmangani. 

Taglat nursed his secret purpose to better advantage than might havebeen expected of an ape, yet there were times when he, too, would haveabandoned the adventure had not Tarzan cajoled him on. 

It was mid-afternoon of a sultry, tropical day when the keen senses ofthe three warned them of the proximity of the Arab camp. Stealthilythey approached, keeping to the dense tangle of growing things whichmade concealment easy to their uncanny jungle craft. 

First came the giant ape-man, his smooth, brown skin glistening withthe sweat of exertion in the close, hot confines of the jungle. Behindhim crept Chulk and Taglat, grotesque and shaggy caricatures of theirgodlike leader. 

Silently they made their way to the edge of the clearing whichsurrounded the palisade, and here they clambered into the lowerbranches of a large tree overlooking the village occupied by the enemy, the better to spy upon his goings and comings. 

A horseman, white burnoosed, rode out through the gateway of thevillage. Tarzan, whispering to Chulk and Taglat to remain where theywere, swung, monkey-like, through the trees in the direction of thetrail the Arab was riding. From one jungle giant to the next he spedwith the rapidity of a squirrel and the silence of a ghost. 

The Arab rode slowly onward, unconscious of the danger hovering in thetrees behind him. The ape-man made a slight detour and increased hisspeed until he had reached a point upon the trail in advance of thehorseman. Here he halted upon a leafy bough which overhung the narrow, jungle trail. On came the victim, humming a wild air of the greatdesert land of the north. Above him poised the savage brute that wastoday bent upon the destruction of a human life--the same creature whoa few months before, had occupied his seat in the House of Lords atLondon, a respected and distinguished member of that august body. 

The Arab passed beneath the overhanging bough, there was a slightrustling of the leaves above, the horse snorted and plunged as abrown-skinned creature dropped upon its rump. A pair of mighty armsencircled the Arab and he was dragged from his saddle to the trail. 

Ten minutes later the ape-man, carrying the outer garments of an Arabbundled beneath an arm, rejoined his companions. He exhibited histrophies to them, explaining in low gutturals the details of hisexploit. Chulk and Taglat fingered the fabrics, smelled of them, and, placing them to their ears, tried to listen to them. 

Then Tarzan led them back through the jungle to the trail, where thethree hid themselves and waited. Nor had they long to wait before twoof Achmet Zek's blacks, clothed in habiliments similar to theirmaster'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 destructionbending over them. Tarzan removed their outer garments as he hadremoved those of his first victim, and again retired with Chulk andTaglat to the greater seclusion of the tree they had first selected. 

Here the ape-man arranged the garments upon his shaggy fellows andhimself, until, at a distance, it might have appeared that threewhite-robed Arabs squatted silently among the branches of the forest. 

Until dark they remained where they were, for from his point ofvantage, Tarzan could view the enclosure within the palisade. Hemarked the position of the hut in which he had first discovered thescent spoor of the she he sought. He saw the two sentries standingbefore its doorway, and he located the habitation of Achmet Zek, wheresomething told him he would most likely find the missing pouch andpebbles. 

Chulk and Taglat were, at first, greatly interested in their wonderfulraiment. They fingered the fabric, smelled of it, and regarded eachother intently with every mark of satisfaction and pride. Chulk, ahumorist in his way, stretched forth a long and hairy arm, and graspingthe hood of Taglat's burnoose pulled it down over the latter's eyes, extinguishing him, snuffer-like, as it were. 

The older ape, pessimistic by nature, recognized no such thing ashumor. Creatures laid their paws upon him for but two things--tosearch for fleas and to attack. The pulling of the Tarmangani-scentedthing about his head and eyes could not be for the performance of theformer act; therefore it must be the latter. He was attacked! Chulkhad 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, andswaying and toppling upon their insecure perch the three great beaststussled and snapped at one another until the ape-man finally succeededin separating the enraged anthropoids. 

An apology is unknown to these savage progenitors of man, andexplanation a laborious and usually futile process, Tarzan bridged thedangerous gulf by distracting their attention from their altercation toa consideration of their plans for the immediate future. Accustomed tofrequent arguments in which more hair than blood is wasted, the apesspeedily forget such trivial encounters, and presently Chulk and Taglatwere again squatting in close proximity to each other and peacefulrepose, awaiting the moment when the ape-man should lead them into thevillage of the Tarmangani. 

It was long after darkness had fallen, that Tarzan led his companionsfrom their hiding place in the tree to the ground and around thepalisade to the far side of the village. 

Gathering the skirts of his burnoose, beneath one arm, that his legsmight have free action, the ape-man took a short running start, andscrambled to the top of the barrier. Fearing lest the apes should rendtheir garments to shreds in a similar attempt, he had directed them towait below for him, and himself securely perched upon the summit of thepalisade he unslung his spear and lowered 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 graspedthe top of the wall. To scramble then to Tarzan's side was the work ofbut an instant. In like manner Taglat was conducted to their sides, and a moment later the 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, hesought with his sensitive nostrils for proof that the she he had comefor was within. 

Chulk and Taglat, their hairy faces pressed close to that of thepatrician, sniffed with him. Each caught the scent spoor of the womanwithin, and each reacted according to his temperament and his habits ofthought. 

It left Chulk indifferent. The she was for Tarzan--all that he desiredwas to bury his snout in the foodstuffs of the Tarmangani. He had cometo eat his fill without labor--Tarzan had told him that that should behis 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 thatsometimes during the several days that had elapsed since they had setout upon their expedition it had been difficult for Taglat to hold hisidea uppermost in his mind, and on several occasions he had completelyforgotten it, until Tarzan, by a 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 withhis flabby lips as he drew in his breath. 

Satisfied that the she was where he had hoped to find her, Tarzan ledhis apes toward the tent of Achmet Zek. A passing Arab and two slavessaw them, but the night was dark and the white burnooses hid the hairylimbs of the apes and the giant figure of their leader, so that thethree, by squatting down as though in conversation, were passed by, unsuspected. To the rear of the tent they made their way. Within, Achmet Zek conversed with several of his lieutenants. Without, Tarzanlistened. 

17

The Deadly Peril of Jane Clayton

Lieutenant Albert Werper, terrified by contemplation of the fate whichmight await him at Adis Abeba, cast about for some scheme of escape, but after the black Mugambi had eluded their vigilance the Abyssiniansredoubled their precautions to prevent Werper following the lead of theNegro. 

For some time Werper entertained the idea of bribing Abdul Mourak witha portion of the contents of the pouch; but fearing that the man woulddemand all the gems as the price of liberty, the Belgian, influenced byavarice, sought another avenue from his dilemma. 

It was then that there dawned upon him the possibility of the successof a different course which would still leave him in possession of thejewels, while at the same time satisfying the greed of the Abyssinianwith the conviction that he had obtained all that Werper had to offer. 

And so it was that a day or so after Mugambi had disappeared, Werperasked for an audience with Abdul Mourak. As the Belgian entered thepresence of his captor the scowl upon the features of the latter bodedill for any hope which Werper might entertain, still he fortifiedhimself by recalling the common weakness of mankind, which permits themost inflexible of natures to bend to the consuming desire for wealth. 

Abdul Mourak eyed him, frowningly. "What do you want now?" he asked. 

"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. "What with--therags that you have upon your back? Or, perhaps you are concealingbeneath 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 uponhis success. 

"Listen to me, " he pleaded. "If I can give you as much gold as ten menmay carry will you promise that I shall be conducted in safety to thenearest English commissioner?"

"As much gold as ten men may carry!" repeated Abdul Mourak. "You arecrazy. Where have you so much gold as that?"

"I know where it is hid, " said Werper. "Promise, and I will lead youto it--if ten loads is enough?"

Abdul Mourak had ceased to laugh. He was eyeing the Belgian intently. The fellow seemed sane enough--yet ten loads of gold! It waspreposterous. The Abyssinian thought in silence for a moment. 

"Well, and if I promise, " he said. "How far is this gold?"

"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. "Iknow 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. It is all yours if you will promise to see me safely delivered into theprotection of the English. "

"You will stake your life against the finding of the gold?" asked Abdul. 

Werper assented with a nod. 

"Very well, " said the Abyssinian, "I promise, and even if there be butfive loads you shall have your freedom; but until the gold is in mypossession you remain a prisoner. "

"I am satisfied, " said Werper. "Tomorrow we start?"

Abdul Mourak nodded, and the Belgian returned to his guards. Thefollowing day the Abyssinian soldiers were surprised to receive anorder which turned their faces from the northeast to the south. And soit happened that upon the very night that Tarzan and the two apesentered the village of the raiders, the Abyssinians camped but a fewmiles to the east of the same spot. 

While Werper dreamed of freedom and the unmolested enjoyment of thefortune in his stolen pouch, and Abdul Mourak lay awake in greedycontemplation of the fifty loads of gold which lay but a few daysfarther to the south of him, Achmet Zek gave orders to his lieutenantsthat they should prepare a force of fighting men and carriers toproceed to the ruins of the Englishman's DOUAR on the morrow and bringback the fabulous fortune which his renegade lieutenant had told himwas 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 insafety and prosecute his search for the missing pouch and the prettypebbles that had caught his fancy. 

At last the swarthy companions of Achmet Zek quitted his tent, and theleader went with them to smoke a pipe with one of their number, leavinghis own silken habitation unguarded. Scarcely had they left theinterior when a knife blade was thrust through the fabric of the rearwall, some six feet above the ground, and a swift downward strokeopened an entrance to those who waited beyond. 

Through the opening stepped the ape-man, and close behind him came thehuge Chulk; but Taglat did not follow them. Instead he turned andslunk through the darkness toward the hut where the she who hadarrested his brutish interest lay securely bound. Before the doorwaythe sentries sat upon their haunches, conversing in monotones. Within, the young woman lay upon a filthy sleeping mat, resigned, through utterhopelessness to whatever fate lay in store for her until theopportunity arrived which would permit her to free herself by the onlymeans which now seemed even remotely possible--the hitherto detestedact of self-destruction. 

Creeping silently toward the sentries, a white-burnoosed figureapproached the shadows at one end of the hut. The meager intellect ofthe creature denied it the advantage it might have taken of itsdisguise. Where it could have walked boldly to the very sides of thesentries, it chose rather to sneak upon them, unseen, from the rear. 

It came to the corner of the hut and peered around. The sentries werebut a few paces away; but the ape did not dare expose himself, even foran instant, to those feared and hated thunder-sticks which theTarmangani knew so well how to use, if there were another and safermethod of attack. 

Taglat wished that there was a tree nearby from the over-hangingbranches of which he might spring upon his unsuspecting prey; but, though there was no tree, the idea gave birth to a plan. The eaves ofthe hut were just above the heads of the sentries--from them he couldleap upon the Tarmangani, unseen. A quick snap of those mighty jawswould dispose of one of them before the other realized that they wereattacked, and the second would fall an easy prey to the strength, agility and ferocity of a second quick charge. 

Taglat withdrew a few paces to the rear of the hut, gathered himselffor the effort, ran quickly forward and leaped high into the air. Hestruck the roof directly above the rear wall of the hut, and thestructure, reinforced by the wall beneath, held his enormous weight foran instant, then he moved forward a step, the roof sagged, thethatching parted and the great anthropoid shot through into theinterior. 

The sentries, hearing the crashing of the roof poles, leaped to theirfeet and rushed into the hut. Jane Clayton tried to roll aside as thegreat form lit upon the floor so close to her that one foot pinned herclothing to the ground. 

The ape, feeling the movement beside him, reached down and gathered thegirl in the hollow of one mighty arm. The burnoose covered the hairybody so that Jane Clayton believed that a human arm supported her, andfrom the extremity of hopelessness a great hope sprang into her breastthat at last she was in the keeping of a rescuer. 

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

Seeing that they stood without advancing, and realizing that, handicapped as he was by the weight of the she, he could put up but apoor battle, Taglat elected to risk a sudden break for liberty. Lowering his head, he charged straight for the two sentries who blockedthe doorway. The impact of his mighty shoulders bowled them over upontheir backs, and before they could scramble to their feet, the ape wasgone, darting in the shadows of the huts toward the palisade at the farend of the village. 

The speed and strength of her rescuer filled Jane Clayton with wonder. Could it be that Tarzan had survived the bullet of the Arab? Who elsein all the jungle could bear the weight of a grown woman as lightly ashe who held her? She spoke his name; but there was no response. Stillshe did not give up hope. 

At the palisade the beast did not even hesitate. A single mighty leapcarried it to the top, where it poised but for an instant beforedropping to the ground upon the opposite side. Now the girl was almostpositive that she was safe in the arms of her husband, and when the apetook to the trees and bore her swiftly into the jungle, as Tarzan haddone at other times in the past, belief became conviction. 

In a little moonlit glade, a mile or so from the camp of the raiders, her rescuer halted and dropped her to the ground. His roughnesssurprised her, but still she had no doubts. Again she called him byname, and at the same instant the ape, fretting under the restraints ofthe unaccustomed garments of the Tarmangani, tore the burnoose fromhim, revealing to the eyes of the horror-struck woman the hideous faceand 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 hungrilyand licked his chops. 

Tarzan, entering the tent of Achmet Zek, searched the interiorthoroughly. He tore the bed to pieces and scattered the contents ofbox and bag about the floor. He investigated whatever his eyesdiscovered, nor did those keen organs overlook a single article withinthe habitation of the raider chief; but no pouch or pretty pebblesrewarded his thoroughness. 

Satisfied at last that his belongings were not in the possession ofAchmet Zek, unless they were on the person of the chief himself, Tarzandecided to secure the person of the she before further prosecuting hissearch for the pouch. 

Motioning for Chulk to follow him, he passed out of the tent by thesame way that he had entered it, and walking boldly through thevillage, made directly for the hut where Jane Clayton had beenimprisoned. 

He noted with surprise the absence of Taglat, whom he had expected tofind awaiting him outside the tent of Achmet Zek; but, accustomed as hewas to the unreliability of apes, he gave no serious attention to thepresent defection of his surly companion. So long as Taglat did notcause interference with his plans, Tarzan was indifferent to hisabsence. 

As he approached the hut, the ape-man noticed that a crowd hadcollected about the entrance. He could see that the men who composedit were much excited, and fearing lest Chulk's disguise should proveinadequate to the concealment of his true identity in the face of somany observers, he commanded the ape to betake himself to the far endof the village, and there await him. 

As Chulk waddled off, keeping to the shadows, Tarzan advanced boldlytoward the excited group before the doorway of the hut. He mingledwith the blacks and the Arabs in an endeavor to learn the cause of thecommotion, in his interest forgetting that he alone of the assemblagecarried a spear, a bow and arrows, and thus might become an object ofsuspicious attention. 

Shouldering his way through the crowd he approached the doorway, andhad almost reached it when one of the Arabs laid a hand upon hisshoulder, crying: "Who is this?" at the same time snatching back thehood from the ape-man's face. 

Tarzan of the Apes in all his savage life had never been accustomed topause in argument with an antagonist. The primitive instinct ofself-preservation acknowledges many arts and wiles; but argument is notone of them, nor did he now waste precious time in an attempt toconvince the raiders that he was not a wolf in sheep's clothing. Instead he had his unmasker by the throat ere the man's words hadscarce quitted his lips, and hurling him from side to side brushed awaythose who would have swarmed upon him. 

Using the Arab as a weapon, Tarzan forced his way quickly to thedoorway, and a moment later was within the hut. A hasty examinationrevealed the fact that it was empty, and his sense of smell discovered, too, the scent spoor of Taglat, the ape. Tarzan uttered a low, ominousgrowl. Those who were pressing forward at the doorway to seize him, fell back as the savage notes of the bestial challenge smote upon theirears. They looked at one another in surprise and consternation. A manhad entered the hut alone, and yet with their own ears they had heardthe voice of a wild beast within. What could it mean? Had a lion or aleopard 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 byway of the break, and while the Arabs hesitated without, he sprang, catlike, for the opening, grasped the top of the wall and clambered outupon the roof, dropping instantly to the ground at the rear of the hut. 

When the Arabs finally mustered courage to enter the hut, after firingseveral volleys through the walls, they found the interior deserted. At the same time Tarzan, at the far end of the village, sought forChulk; but the ape was nowhere to be found. 

Robbed of his she, deserted by his companions, and as much in ignoranceas ever as to the whereabouts of his pouch and pebbles, it was an angryTarzan who climbed the palisade and vanished into the darkness of thejungle. 

For the present he must give up the search for his pouch, since itwould be paramount to self-destruction to enter the Arab camp now whileall its inhabitants were aroused and upon the alert. 

In his escape from the village, the ape-man had lost the spoor of thefleeing Taglat, and now he circled widely through the forest in anendeavor to again pick it up. 

Chulk had remained at his post until the cries and shots of the Arabshad filled his simple soul with terror, for above all things the apefolk fear the thunder-sticks of the Tarmangani; then he had clamberednimbly over the palisade, tearing his burnoose in the effort, and fledinto the depths of the jungle, grumbling and scolding as he went. 

Tarzan, roaming the jungle in search of the trail of Taglat and theshe, traveled swiftly. In a little moonlit glade ahead of him thegreat ape was bending over the prostrate form of the woman Tarzansought. The beast was tearing at the bonds that confined her anklesand wrists, pulling and gnawing upon the cords. 

The course the ape-man was taking would carry him but a short distanceto the right of them, and though he could not have seen them the windwas bearing down from them to him, carrying their scent spoor stronglytoward him. 

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

18

The Fight For the Treasure

It was morning before Tarzan could bring himself to a realization ofthe possibility of failure of his quest, and even then he would onlyadmit that success was but delayed. He would eat and sleep, and thenset forth again. The jungle was wide; but wide too were the experienceand cunning of Tarzan. Taglat might travel far; but Tarzan would findhim in the end, though he had to search every tree in the mighty forest. 

Soliloquizing thus, the ape-man followed the spoor of Bara, the deer, the unfortunate upon which he had decided to satisfy his hunger. Forhalf an hour the trail led the ape-man toward the east along awell-marked game path, when suddenly, to the stalker's astonishment, the quarry broke into sight, racing madly back along the narrow waystraight toward the hunter. 

Tarzan, who had been following along the trail, leaped so quickly tothe concealing verdure at the side that the deer was still unaware ofthe presence of an enemy in this direction, and while the animal wasstill some distance away, the ape-man swung into the lower branches ofthe tree which overhung the trail. There he crouched, a savage beastof prey, awaiting the coming of its victim. 

What had frightened the deer into so frantic a retreat, Tarzan did notknow--Numa, the lion, perhaps, or Sheeta, the panther; but whatsoeverit was mattered little to Tarzan of the Apes--he was ready and willingto defend his kill against any other denizen of the jungle. If he wereunable to do it by means of physical prowess, he had at his commandanother and a greater power--his shrewd intelligence. 

And so, on came the running deer, straight into the jaws of death. Theape-man turned so that his back was toward the approaching animal. Hepoised with bent knees upon the gently swaying limb above the trail, timing with keen ears the nearing hoof beats of frightened Bara. 

In a moment the victim flashed beneath the limb and at the same instantthe ape-man above sprang out and down upon its back. The weight of theman's body carried the deer to the ground. It stumbled forward once ina futile effort to rise, and then mighty muscles dragged its head farback, gave the neck 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 pursuedBara, or how close at hand he might be? Scarce had the neck of thevictim snapped than the carcass was hanging over one of Tarzan's broadshoulders, and an instant later the ape-man was perched once more amongthe lower branches of a tree above the trail, his keen, gray eyesscanning the pathway down which the deer had fled. 

Nor was it long before the cause of Bara's fright became evident toTarzan, for presently came the unmistakable sounds of approachinghorsemen. Dragging his kill after him the ape-man ascended to themiddle terrace, and settling himself comfortably in the crotch of atree where he could still view the trail beneath, cut a juicy steakfrom the deer's loin, and burying his strong, white teeth in the hotflesh proceeded to enjoy the fruits of his prowess and his cunning. 

Nor did he neglect the trail beneath while he satisfied his hunger. His sharp eyes saw the muzzle of the leading horse as it came into viewaround a bend in the tortuous trail, and one by one they scrutinizedthe riders as they passed beneath him in single file. 

Among them came one whom Tarzan recognized, but so schooled was theape-man in the control of his emotions that no slightest change ofexpression, much less any hysterical demonstration that might haverevealed his presence, betrayed the fact of his inward excitement. 

Beneath him, as unconscious of his presence as were the Abyssiniansbefore and behind him, rode Albert Werper, while the ape-manscrutinized the Belgian for some sign of the pouch which he had stolen. 

As the Abyssinians rode toward the south, a giant figure hovered everupon their trail--a huge, almost naked white man, who carried thebloody carcass of a deer upon his shoulders, for Tarzan knew that hemight not have another opportunity to hunt for some time if he were tofollow the Belgian. 

To endeavor to snatch him from the midst of the armed horsemen, noteven Tarzan would attempt other than in the last extremity, for the wayof the wild is the way of caution and cunning, unless they be arousedto rashness by pain or anger. 

So the Abyssinians and the Belgian marched southward and Tarzan of theApes swung silently after them through the swaying branches of themiddle 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 thehorsemen rode, and at a safe distance behind them crept the ape-man, taking advantage of such cover as the ground afforded. 

Beside a charred pile of timbers the Abyssinians halted, and Tarzan, sneaking close and concealing himself in nearby shrubbery, watched themin wonderment. He saw them digging up the earth, and he wondered ifthey had hidden meat there in the past and now had come for it. Thenhe recalled how he had buried his pretty pebbles, and the suggestionthat had caused him to do it. They were digging for the things theblacks had buried here!

Presently he saw them uncover a dirty, yellow object, and he witnessedthe joy of Werper and of Abdul Mourak as the grimy object was exposedto view. One by one they unearthed many similar pieces, all of thesame uniform, dirty yellow, until a pile of them lay upon the ground, apile which Abdul Mourak fondled and petted in an ecstasy of greed. 

Something stirred in the ape-man's mind as he looked long upon thegolden ingots. Where had he seen such before? What were they? Whydid these Tarmangani covet them so greatly? To whom did they belong?

He recalled the black men who had buried them. The things must betheirs. Werper was stealing them as he had stolen Tarzan's pouch ofpebbles. The ape-man's eyes blazed in anger. He would like to findthe black men and lead them against these thieves. He wondered wheretheir village might be. 

As all these things ran through the active mind, a party of men movedout of the forest at the edge of the plain and advanced toward theruins of the burned bungalow. 

Abdul Mourak, always watchful, was the first to see them, but alreadythey were halfway across the open. He called to his men to mount andhold themselves in readiness, for in the heart of Africa who may knowwhether a strange host be friend 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 are come forthe gold. "

It must have been at about the same instant that Achmet Zek discoveredthe pile of yellow ingots and realized the actuality of what he hadalready feared since first his eyes had alighted upon the party besidethe ruins of the Englishman's bungalow. Someone had forestalledhim--another had come for the treasure ahead of him. 

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

He cared not whom the thieves might be. They would not give up thegold without a battle, of that he was certain, and with a wild whoopand a command to his followers, Achmet Zek put spurs to his horse anddashed down upon the Abyssinians, and after him, waving their long gunsabove their heads, yelling and cursing, came his motley horde ofcut-throat followers. 

The men of Abdul Mourak met them with a volley which emptied a fewsaddles, and then the raiders were among them, and sword, pistol andmusket, each was doing its most hideous and bloody work. 

Achmet Zek, spying Werper at the first charge, bore down upon theBelgian, and the latter, terrified by contemplation of the fate hedeserved, turned his horse's head and dashed madly away in an effort toescape. Shouting to a lieutenant to take command, and urging him uponpain of death to dispatch the Abyssinians and bring the gold back tohis camp, Achmet Zek set off across the plain in pursuit of theBelgian, his wicked nature unable to forego the pleasures of revenge, even at the risk of sacrificing the treasure. 

As the pursued and the pursuer raced madly toward the distant forestthe battle behind them raged with bloody savageness. No quarter wasasked or given by either the ferocious Abyssinians or the murderouscut-throats of Achmet Zek. 

From the concealment of the shrubbery Tarzan watched the sanguinaryconflict which so effectually surrounded him that he found no loop-holethrough which he might escape to follow Werper and the Arab chief. 

The Abyssinians were formed in a circle which included Tarzan'sposition, and around and into them galloped the yelling raiders, nowdarting away, now charging in to deliver thrusts and cuts with theircurved swords. 

Numerically the men of Achmet Zek were superior, and slowly but surelythe soldiers of Menelek were being exterminated. To Tarzan the resultwas immaterial. He watched with but a single purpose--to escape thering of blood-mad fighters and be away after the Belgian and his pouch. 

When he had first discovered Werper upon the trail where he had slainBara, he had thought that his eyes must be playing him false, socertain had he been that the thief had been slain and devoured by Numa;but after following the detachment for two days, with his keen eyesalways upon the Belgian, he no longer doubted the identity of the man, though he was put to it to explain the identity of the mutilated corpsehe had supposed was the man he sought. 

As he crouched in hiding among the unkempt shrubbery which so short awhile since had been the delight and pride of the wife he no longerrecalled, an Arab and an Abyssinian wheeled their mounts close to hisposition as they slashed at each 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 escapewhich was represented by the riderless horse electrified the ape-man toinstant action. Before the frightened beast could gather himself forflight a naked giant was astride his back. A strong hand had graspedhis bridle rein, and the surprised Arab discovered a new foe in thesaddle of him, whom he had slain. 

But this enemy wielded no sword, and his spear and bow remained uponhis back. The Arab, recovered from his first surprise, dashed in withraised sword to annihilate this presumptuous stranger. He aimed amighty blow at the ape-man's head, a blow which swung harmlesslythrough thin air as Tarzan ducked from its path, and then the Arab feltthe other's horse brushing his leg, a great arm shot out and encircledhis waist, and before he could recover himself he was dragged from hissaddle, and forming a shield for his antagonist was borne at a mad runstraight through the encircling ranks of his fellows. 

Just beyond them he was tossed aside upon the ground, and the last hesaw of his strange foeman the latter was galloping off across the plainin the direction of the forest at its farther edge. 

For another hour the battle raged nor did it cease until the last ofthe Abyssinians lay dead upon the ground, or had galloped off towardthe north in flight. But a handful of men escaped, among them AbdulMourak. 

The victorious raiders collected about the pile of golden ingots whichthe Abyssinians had uncovered, and there awaited the return of theirleader. Their exultation was slightly tempered by the glimpse they hadhad of the strange apparition of the naked white man galloping awayupon the horse of one of their foemen and carrying a companion who wasnow among them expatiating upon the superhuman strength of the ape-man. None of them there but was familiar with the name and fame of Tarzan ofthe Apes, and the fact that they had recognized the white giant as theferocious enemy of the wrongdoers of the jungle, added to their terror, for they had been assured that Tarzan was dead. 

Naturally superstitious, they fully believed that they had seen thedisembodied spirit of the dead man, and now they cast fearful glancesabout them in expectation of the ghost's early return to the scene ofthe ruin they had inflicted upon him during their recent raid upon hishome, and discussed in affrighted whispers the probable nature of thevengeance which the spirit would inflict upon them should he return tofind them in possession of his gold. 

As they conversed their terror grew, while from the concealment of thereeds along the river below them a small party of naked, black warriorswatched their every move. From the heights beyond the river theseblack men had heard the noise of the conflict, and creeping warily downto the stream had forded it and advanced through the reeds until theywere in a position to watch every move of the combatants. 

For a half hour the raiders awaited Achmet Zek's return, their fear ofthe earlier return of the ghost of Tarzan constantly undermining theirloyalty to and fear of their chief. Finally one among them voiced thedesires of all when he announced that he intended riding forth towardthe forest in search of Achmet Zek. Instantly every man of them sprangto 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 insearch of Achmet Zek!"

And a moment later, amidst a cloud of dust, the raiders were gallopingmadly across the plain, and out from the concealment of the reeds alongthe river, crept a party of black warriors toward the spot where thegolden ingots of Opar lay piled on the ground. 

Werper had still been in advance of Achmet Zek when he reached theforest; but the latter, better mounted, was gaining upon him. Ridingwith the reckless courage of desperation the Belgian urged his mount togreater speed even within the narrow confines of the winding, gametrail that the beast was following. 

Behind him he could hear the voice of Achmet Zek crying to him to halt;but Werper only dug the spurs deeper into the bleeding sides of hispanting mount. Two hundred yards within the forest a broken branch layacross the trail. It was a small thing that a horse might ordinarilytake in his natural stride without noticing its presence; but Werper'shorse was jaded, his feet were heavy with weariness, and as the branchcaught between his front legs he stumbled, was unable to recoverhimself, and went down, sprawling in the trail. 

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

Instantly the Belgian ceased his efforts with the dying animal at hisfeet, and seizing his rifle, dropped behind the horse and fired at theoncoming Arab. 

His bullet, going low, struck Achmet Zek's horse in the breast, bringing him down a hundred yards from where Werper lay preparing tofire a second shot. 

The Arab, who had gone down with his mount, was standing astride him, and seeing the Belgian's strategic position behind his fallen horse, lost no time in taking up a similar one behind his own. 

And there the two lay, alternately firing at and cursing each other, while from behind the Arab, Tarzan of the Apes approached to the edgeof the forest. Here he heard the occasional shots of the duelists, andchoosing the safer and swifter avenue of the forest branches to theuncertain transportation afforded by a half-broken Abyssinian pony, took to the trees. 

Keeping to one side of the trail, the ape-man came presently to a pointwhere he could look down in comparative safety upon the fighters. First one and then the other would partially raise himself above hisbreastwork of horseflesh, fire his weapon and immediately drop flatbehind his shelter, where he would reload and repeat the act a momentlater. 

Werper had but little ammunition, having been hastily armed by AbdulMourak from the body of one of the first of the Abyssinians who hadfallen in the fight about the pile of ingots, and now he realized thatsoon he would have used his last bullet, and be at the mercy of theArab--a mercy with which he was well acquainted. 

Facing both death and despoilment of his treasure, the Belgian castabout for some plan of escape, and the only one that appealed to him ascontaining even a remote possibility of success hinged upon the chanceof 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 us may leaveour bones to rot where he lies upon this trail today if we keep up ourfoolish battle. You wish the contents of the pouch I wear about mywaist, and I wish my life and my liberty even more than I do thejewels. Let us each, then, take that which he most desires and go ourseparate ways in peace. I will lay the pouch upon the carcass of myhorse, where you may see it, and you, in turn, will lay your gun uponyour horse, with butt toward me. Then I will go away, leaving thepouch to you, and you will let me go in safety. I want only my 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 plain sightbehind you. See, I lay my gun thus, with the butt toward you. Go. "

Werper removed the pouch from about his waist. Sorrowfully andaffectionately he let his fingers press the hard outlines of thecontents. Ah, if he could extract a little handful of the preciousstones! But Achmet Zek was standing now, his eagle eyes commanding aplain view of the Belgian and his every act. 

Regretfully Werper laid the pouch, its contents undisturbed, upon thebody of his horse, rose, and taking his rifle with him, backed slowlydown the trail until a turn hid him from the view of the watchful Arab. 

Even then Achmet Zek did not advance, fearful as he was of some suchtreachery as he himself might have been guilty of under likecircumstances; nor were his suspicions groundless, for the Belgian, nosooner had he passed out of the range of the Arab's vision, haltedbehind the bole of a tree, where he still commanded an unobstructedview of his dead horse and the pouch, and raising his rifle covered thespot where the other's body must appear when he came forward to seizethe treasure. 

But Achmet Zek was no fool to expose himself to the blackened honor ofa thief and a murderer. Taking his long gun with him, he left thetrail, entering the rank and tangled vegetation which walled it, andcrawling slowly forward on hands and knees he paralleled the trail; butnever for an instant was his body exposed to the rifle of the hiddenassassin. 

Thus Achmet Zek advanced until he had come opposite the dead horse ofhis enemy. The pouch lay there in full view, while a short distancealong the trail, Werper waited in growing impatience and nervousness, wondering why the Arab did not come to claim his reward. 

Presently he saw the muzzle of a rifle appear suddenly and mysteriouslya few inches above the pouch, and before he could realize the cunningtrick that the Arab had played upon him the sight of the weapon wasadroitly hooked into the rawhide thong which formed the carrying strapof the pouch, and the latter was drawn quickly from his view into thedense foliage at the trail's side. 

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

Chuckling to himself, Achmet Zek withdrew a few paces farther into thejungle, for he was as positive that Werper was waiting nearby for achance to pot him as though his eyes had penetrated the jungle trees tothe figure of the hiding Belgian, fingering his rifle behind the boleof the buttressed giant. 

Werper did not dare advance--his cupidity would not permit him todepart, and so he stood there, his rifle ready in his hands, his eyeswatching the trail before him with catlike intensity. 

But there was another who had seen the pouch and recognized it, who didadvance with Achmet Zek, hovering above him, as silent and as sure asdeath itself, and as the Arab, finding a little spot less overgrownwith bushes than he had yet encountered, prepared to gloat his eyesupon the contents of the pouch, Tarzan paused directly above him, intent upon the same object. 

Wetting his thin lips with his tongue, Achmet Zek loosened the tiestrings which closed the mouth of the pouch, and cupping one claw-likehand poured forth a portion of the contents into his palm. 

A single look he took at the stones lying in his hand. His eyesnarrowed, a curse broke from his lips, and he hurled the small objectsupon the ground, disdainfully. Quickly he emptied the balance of thecontents until he had scanned each separate stone, and as he dumpedthem all upon the ground and stamped upon them his rage grew until themuscles of his face worked in demon-like fury, and his fingers clencheduntil his nails bit into the flesh. 

Above, Tarzan watched in wonderment. He had been curious to discoverwhat all the pow-wow about his pouch had meant. He wanted to see whatthe Arab would do after the other had gone away, leaving the pouchbehind him, and, having satisfied his curiosity, he would then havepounced upon Achmet Zek and taken the pouch and his pretty pebbles awayfrom him, for did they not belong to Tarzan?

He saw the Arab now throw aside the empty pouch, and grasping his longgun by the barrel, clublike, sneak stealthily through the jungle besidethe trail along 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 themoment that he obtained his first near view of the scattered pebbles heunderstood the rage of the Arab, for instead of the glittering andscintillating gems which had first caught and held the attention of theape-man, the pouch now contained but a collection of ordinary riverpebbles. 

19

Jane Clayton and the Beasts of the Jungle

Mugambi, after his successful break for liberty, had fallen upon hardtimes. His way had led him through a country with which he wasunfamiliar, a jungle country in which he could find no water, and butlittle food, so that after several days of wandering he found himselfso reduced in strength that he could barely 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 fromthe large carnivora, and by day he still further exhausted his strengthin digging for edible roots, and searching for water. 

A few stagnant pools at considerable distances apart saved him fromdeath by thirst; but his was a pitiable state when finally he stumbledby accident upon a large river in a country where fruit was abundant, and small game which he might bag by means of a combination of stealth, cunning, and a crude knob-stick which he had fashioned from a fallenlimb. 

Realizing that he still had a long march ahead of him before he couldreach even the outskirts of the Waziri country, Mugambi wisely decidedto remain where he was until he had recuperated his strength andhealth. A few days' rest would accomplish wonders for him, he knew, and he could ill afford to sacrifice his chances for a safe return bysetting forth handicapped by weakness. 

And so it was that he constructed a substantial thorn boma, and riggeda thatched shelter within it, where he might sleep by night insecurity, and from which he sallied forth by day to hunt the fleshwhich alone could return to his giant 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 blackwarrior passed. Bloodshot, wicked eyes they were, set in a fierce andhairy face. 

They watched Mugambi make his little kill of a small rodent, and theyfollowed him as he returned to his hut, their owner moving quietlythrough the trees upon the trail of the Negro. 

The creature was Chulk, and he looked down upon the unconscious manmore in curiosity than in hate. The wearing of the Arab burnoose whichTarzan had placed upon his person had aroused in the mind of theanthropoid a desire for similar mimicry of the Tarmangani. Theburnoose, though, had obstructed his movements and proven such anuisance that the ape had long since torn it from him and thrown itaway. 

Now, however, he saw a Gomangani arrayed in less cumbersome apparel--aloin cloth, a few copper ornaments and a feather headdress. These weremore in line with Chulk's desires than a flowing robe which wasconstantly getting between one's legs, and catching upon every limb andbush along the leafy trail. 

Chulk eyed the pouch, which, suspended over Mugambi's shoulder, swungbeside his black hip. This took his fancy, for it was ornamented withfeathers and a fringe, and so the ape hung about Mugambi's boma, waiting an opportunity to seize either by stealth or might some objectof the black's apparel. 

Nor was it long before the opportunity came. Feeling safe within histhorny enclosure, Mugambi was wont to stretch himself in the shade ofhis shelter during the heat of the day, and sleep in peaceful securityuntil the declining sun carried with it the enervating temperature ofmidday. 

Watching from above, Chulk saw the black warrior stretched thus in theunconsciousness of sleep one sultry afternoon. Creeping out upon anoverhanging branch the anthropoid dropped to the ground within theboma. He approached the sleeper upon padded feet which gave forth nosound, and with an uncanny woodcraft that rustled not a leaf or a grassblade. 

Pausing beside the man, the ape bent over and examined his belongings. Great as was the strength of Chulk there lay in the back of his littlebrain a something which deterred him from arousing the man to combat--asense that is inherent in all the lower orders, a strange fear of man, that rules even the most powerful of the jungle creatures at times. 

To remove Mugambi's loin cloth without awakening him would beimpossible, and the only detachable things were the knob-stick and thepouch, which had fallen from the black's shoulder as he rolled in sleep. 

Seizing these two articles, as better than nothing at all, Chulkretreated with haste, and every indication of nervous terror, to thesafety of the tree from which he had dropped, and, still haunted bythat indefinable terror which the close proximity of man awakened inhis breast, fled precipitately through the jungle. Aroused by attack, or supported by the presence of another of his kind, Chulk could havebraved the presence of a score of human beings, but alone--ah, that wasa different matter--alone, and unenraged. 

It was some time after Mugambi awoke that he missed the pouch. Instantly he was all excitement. What could have become of it? It hadbeen at his side when he lay down to sleep--of that he was certain, forhad he not pushed it from beneath him when its bulging bulk, pressingagainst his ribs, caused him discomfort? Yes, it had been there whenhe lay down to sleep. How then had it vanished?

Mugambi's savage imagination was filled with visions of the spirits ofdeparted friends and enemies, for only to the machinations of such asthese could he attribute the disappearance of his pouch and knob-stickin the first excitement of the discovery of their loss; but later andmore careful investigation, such as his woodcraft made possible, revealed indisputable evidence of a more material explanation than hisexcited fancy and superstition had at first led him to accept. 

In the trampled turf beside him was the faint impress of huge, manlikefeet. Mugambi raised his brows as the truth dawned upon him. Hastilyleaving the boma he searched in all directions about the enclosure forsome farther sign of the tell-tale spoor. He climbed trees and soughtfor evidence of the direction of the thief's flight; but the faintsigns left by a wary ape who elects to travel through the trees eludedthe woodcraft of Mugambi. Tarzan might have followed them; but noordinary mortal could perceive them, or perceiving, translate. 

The black, now strengthened and refreshed by his rest, felt ready toset out again for Waziri, and finding himself another knob-stick, turned his back upon the river and plunged into the mazes of the jungle. 

As Taglat struggled with the bonds which secured the ankles and wristsof his captive, the great lion that eyed the two from behind a nearbyclump of bushes wormed 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 couldnot know that the powerful hind paws were gathering close beneath thetawny belly preparatory to a sudden spring, and his first intimation ofimpending danger was the thunderous and triumphant roar which thecharging lion could no longer suppress. 

Scarce pausing for a backward glance, Taglat abandoned the unconsciouswoman and fled in the opposite direction from the horrid sound whichhad broken in so unexpected and terrifying a manner upon his startledears; but the warning had come too late to save him, and the lion, inhis second bound, alighted full upon the broad shoulders of theanthropoid. 

As the great bull went down there was awakened in him to the full allthe cunning, all the ferocity, all the physical prowess which obey themightiest of the fundamental laws of nature, the law ofself-preservation, and turning upon his back he closed with thecarnivore in a death struggle so fearless and abandoned, that for amoment the great Numa himself may have trembled for the outcome. 

Seizing the lion by the mane, Taglat buried his yellowed fangs deep inthe monster's throat, growling hideously through the muffled gag ofblood and hair. Mixed with the ape's voice the lion's roars of rageand pain reverberated through the jungle, till the lesser creatures ofthe wild, startled from their peaceful pursuits, scurried fearfullyaway. 

Rolling over and over upon the turf the two battled with demoniac fury, until the colossal cat, by doubling his hind paws far up beneath hisbelly sank his talons deep into Taglat's chest, then, ripping downwardwith all his strength, Numa accomplished his design, and thedisemboweled anthropoid, with a last spasmodic struggle, relaxed inlimp and bloody dissolution beneath his titanic adversary. 

Scrambling to his feet, Numa looked about quickly in all directions, asthough seeking to detect the possible presence of other foes; but onlythe still and unconscious form of the girl, lying a few paces from himmet his gaze, and with an angry growl he placed a forepaw upon the bodyof his kill and raising his head gave voice to his savage victory cry. 

For another moment he stood with fierce eyes roving to and fro aboutthe clearing. At last they halted for a second time upon the girl. Alow growl rumbled from the lion's throat. His lower jaw rose and fell, and the slaver drooled and dripped upon the dead face of Taglat. 

Like two yellow-green augurs, wide and unblinking, the terrible eyesremained fixed upon Jane Clayton. The erect and majestic pose of thegreat frame shrank suddenly into a sinister crouch as, slowly andgently as one who treads on eggs, the devil-faced cat crept forwardtoward the girl. 

Beneficent Fate maintained her in happy unconsciousness of the dreadpresence sneaking stealthily upon her. She did not know when the lionpaused at her side. She did not hear the sniffing of his nostrils ashe smelled about her. She did not feel the heat of the fetid breathupon her face, nor the dripping of the saliva from the frightful jawshalf opened so close above her. 

Finally the lion lifted a forepaw and turned the body of the girl halfover, then he stood again eyeing her as though still undeterminedwhether life was extinct or not. Some noise or odor from the nearbyjungle attracted his attention for a moment. His eyes did not againreturn to Jane Clayton, and presently he left her, walked over to theremains of Taglat, and crouching down upon his kill with his backtoward the girl, proceeded to devour the ape. 

It was upon this scene that Jane Clayton at last opened her eyes. Inured to danger, she maintained her self-possession in the face of thestartling surprise which her new-found consciousness revealed to her. She neither cried out nor moved a muscle, until she had taken in everydetail of the scene which lay within the range of her vision. 

She saw that the lion had killed the ape, and that he was devouring hisprey less than fifty feet from where she lay; but what could she do?Her hands and feet were bound. She must wait then, in what patienceshe could command, until Numa had eaten and digested the ape, when, without doubt, he would return to feast upon her, unless, in themeantime, the dread hyenas should discover her, or some other of thenumerous prowling carnivora of the jungle. 

As she lay tormented by these frightful thoughts, she suddenly becameconscious that the bonds at her wrists and ankles no longer hurt her, and then of the fact that her hands were separated, one lying uponeither side of her, instead of both being confined at her back. 

Wonderingly she moved a hand. What miracle had been performed? It wasnot bound! Stealthily and noiselessly she moved her other limbs, onlyto discover that she was free. She could not know how the thing hadhappened, that Taglat, gnawing upon them for sinister purposes of hisown, had cut them through but an instant before Numa had frightened himfrom his victim. 

For a moment Jane Clayton was overwhelmed with joy and thanksgiving;but only for a moment. What good was her new-found liberty in the faceof the frightful beast crouching so close beside her? If she couldhave had this chance under different conditions, how happily she wouldhave taken advantage of it; but now it was given to her when escape waspractically impossible. 

The nearest tree was a hundred feet away, the lion less than fifty. Torise and attempt to reach the safety of those tantalizing brancheswould be but to invite instant destruction, for Numa would doubtless betoo jealous of this future meal to permit it to escape with ease. Andyet, too, there was another possibility--a chance which hinged entirelyupon the unknown temper of the great beast. 

His belly already partially filled, he might watch with indifferencethe departure of the girl; yet could she afford to chance so improbablea contingency? She doubted it. Upon the other hand she was no moreminded to allow this frail opportunity for life to entirely elude herwithout taking or attempting to take some advantage from it. 

She watched the lion narrowly. He could not see her without turninghis head more than halfway around. She would attempt a ruse. Silentlyshe rolled over in the direction of the nearest tree, and away from thelion, until she lay again in the same position in which Numa had lefther, but a few feet farther from him. 

Here she lay breathless watching the lion; but the beast gave noindication that he had heard aught to arouse his suspicions. Again sherolled over, gaining a few more feet and again she lay in rigidcontemplation of the beast's back. 

During what seemed hours to her tense nerves, Jane Clayton continuedthese tactics, and still the lion fed on in apparent unconsciousnessthat his second prey was escaping him. Already the girl was but a fewpaces from the tree--a moment more and she would be close enough tochance springing to her feet, throwing caution aside and making asudden, bold dash for safety. She was halfway over in her turn, herface away from the lion, when he suddenly turned his great head andfastened his eyes upon her. He saw her roll over upon her side awayfrom him, and then her eyes were turned again toward him, and the coldsweat broke from the girl's every pore as she realized that with lifealmost within her grasp, death had found her out. 

For a long time neither the girl nor the lion moved. The beast laymotionless, his head turned upon his shoulders and his glaring eyesfixed upon the rigid victim, now nearly fifty yards away. The girlstared back straight into those cruel orbs, daring not to move even amuscle. 

The strain upon her nerves was becoming so unbearable that she couldscarcely restrain a growing desire to scream, when Numa deliberatelyturned back to the business of feeding; but his back-layed earsattested a sinister regard for the actions of the girl behind him. 

Realizing that she could not again turn without attracting hisimmediate and perhaps fatal attention, Jane Clayton resolved to riskall in one last attempt to reach the tree and clamber to the lowerbranches. 

Gathering herself stealthily for the effort, she leaped suddenly to herfeet, but almost simultaneously the lion sprang up, wheeled and withwide-distended jaws and terrific roars, charged swiftly down upon her. 

Those who have spent lifetimes hunting the big game of Africa will tellyou that scarcely any other creature in the world attains the speed ofa charging lion. For the short distance that the great cat canmaintain it, it resembles nothing more closely than the onrushing of agiant locomotive under full speed, and so, though the distance thatJane Clayton must cover was relatively small, the terrific speed of thelion rendered her hopes of escape almost negligible. 

Yet fear can work wonders, and though the upward spring of the lion ashe neared the tree into which she was scrambling brought his talons incontact with her boots she eluded his raking grasp, and as he hurtledagainst the bole of her sanctuary, the girl drew herself into thesafety of the branches above his reach. 

For some time the lion paced, growling and moaning, beneath the tree inwhich Jane Clayton crouched, panting and trembling. The girl was aprey to the nervous reaction from the frightful ordeal through whichshe had so recently passed, and in her overwrought state it seemed thatnever again should she dare descend to the ground among the fearsomedangers which infested the broad stretch of jungle that she knew mustlie between herself and the nearest village of her faithful Waziri. 

It was almost dark before the lion finally quit the clearing, and evenhad his place beside the remnants of the mangled ape not beenimmediately usurped by a pack of hyenas, Jane Clayton would scarcelyhave dared venture from her refuge in the face of impending night, andso she composed herself as best she could for the long and tiresomewait, until daylight might offer some means of escape from the dreadvicinity in which she had witnessed such terrifying adventures. 

Tired nature at last overcame even her fears, and she dropped into adeep slumber, cradled in a comparatively safe, though ratheruncomfortable, position against the bole of the tree, and supported bytwo large branches which grew outward, almost horizontally, but a fewinches apart. 

The sun was high in the heavens when she at last awoke, and beneath herwas no sign either of Numa or the hyenas. Only the clean-picked bonesof the ape, scattered about the ground, attested the fact of what hadtranspired in this seemingly peaceful spot but a few hours before. 

Both hunger and thirst assailed her now, and realizing that she mustdescend or die of starvation, she at last summoned courage to undertakethe ordeal of continuing her journey through the jungle. 

Descending from the tree, she set out in a southerly direction, towardthe point where she believed the plains of Waziri lay, and though sheknew that only ruin and desolation marked the spot where once her happyhome had stood, she hoped that by coming to the broad plain she mighteventually reach one of the numerous Waziri villages that werescattered over the surrounding country, or chance upon a roving band ofthese indefatigable huntsmen. 

The day was half spent when there broke unexpectedly upon her startledears the sound of a rifle shot not far ahead of her. As she paused tolisten, this first shot was followed by another and another andanother. What could it mean? The first explanation which sprung toher mind attributed the firing to an encounter between the Arab raidersand a party of Waziri; but as she did not know upon which side victorymight rest, or whether she were behind friend or foe, she dared notadvance nearer on the chance of revealing herself to an enemy. 

After listening for several minutes she became convinced that no morethan two or three rifles were engaged in the fight, since nothingapproximating the sound of a volley reached her ears; but still shehesitated to approach, and at last, determining to take no chance, sheclimbed into the concealing foliage of a tree beside the trail she hadbeen following and there fearfully awaited whatever 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 theguns ceased, and she heard two men calling to each other in loud tones. Then there was a long silence which was finally broken by the stealthypadding of footfalls on the trail ahead of her, and in another moment aman appeared in view backing toward her, a rifle ready in his hands, and his eyes directed in careful watchfulness along the way that he hadcome. 

Almost instantly Jane Clayton recognized the man as M. Jules Frecoult, who so recently had been a guest in her home. She was upon the pointof calling to him in glad relief when she saw him leap quickly to oneside and hide himself in the thick verdure at the trail's side. It wasevident that he was being followed by an enemy, and so Jane Claytonkept silent, lest she distract Frecoult's attention, or guide his foeto his hiding place. 

Scarcely had Frecoult hidden himself than the figure of a white-robedArab crept silently along the trail in pursuit. From her hiding place, Jane Clayton could see both men plainly. She recognized Achmet Zek asthe leader of the band of ruffians who had raided her home and made hera prisoner, and as she saw Frecoult, the supposed friend and ally, raise his gun and take careful aim at the Arab, her heart stood stilland every power of her soul was directed upon a fervent prayer for theaccuracy of his aim. 

Achmet Zek paused in the middle of the trail. His keen eyes scannedevery bush and tree within the radius of his vision. His tall figurepresented a perfect target to the perfidious assassin. There was asharp report, and a little puff of smoke arose from the bush that hidthe Belgian, as Achmet Zek stumbled forward and pitched, face down, upon the trail. 

As Werper stepped back into the trail, he was startled by the sound ofa glad cry from above him, and as he wheeled about to discover theauthor of this unexpected interruption, he saw Jane Clayton droplightly from a nearby tree and run forward with outstretched hands tocongratulate him upon his victory. 

20

Jane Clayton Again a Prisoner

Though her clothes were torn and her hair disheveled, Albert Werperrealized that he never before had looked upon such a vision ofloveliness as that which Lady Greystoke presented in the relief and joywhich she felt in coming so unexpectedly upon a friend and rescuer whenhope had seemed so far away. 

If the Belgian had entertained any doubts as to the woman's knowledgeof his part in the perfidious attack upon her home and herself, it wasquickly dissipated by the genuine friendliness of her greeting. Shetold him quickly of all that had befallen her since he had departedfrom her home, and as she spoke of the death of her husband her eyeswere veiled by the tears which she could not repress. 

"I am shocked, " said Werper, in well-simulated sympathy; "but I am notsurprised. That devil there, " and he pointed toward the body of AchmetZek, "has terrorized the entire country. Your Waziri are eitherexterminated, or have been driven out of their country, far to thesouth. The men of Achmet Zek occupy the plain about your formerhome--there is neither sanctuary nor escape in that direction. Ouronly hope lies in traveling northward as rapidly as we may, of comingto the camp of the raiders before the knowledge of Achmet Zek's deathreaches those who were left there, and of obtaining, 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 thosewho accompanied Achmet Zek upon his last raid have found his body andcarried the news of his death to the cut-throats who remained behind. It is our only hope, Lady Greystoke, and you must place your entirefaith in me if I am to succeed. Wait for me here a moment while I takefrom the Arab's body the wallet that he stole from me, " and Werperstepped quickly to the dead man's side, and, kneeling, sought withquick fingers the pouch of jewels. To his consternation, there was nosign of them in the garments of Achmet Zek. Rising, he walked backalong the trail, searching for some trace of the missing pouch or itscontents; but he found nothing, even though he searched carefully thevicinity of his dead horse, and for a few paces into the jungle oneither side. Puzzled, disappointed and angry, he at last returned tothe girl. "The wallet is gone, " he explained, crisply, "and I dare notdelay longer in search of it. We must reach the camp before thereturning raiders. "

Unsuspicious of the man's true character, Jane Clayton saw nothingpeculiar in his plans, or in his specious explanation of his formerfriendship for the raider, and so she grasped with alacrity the seeminghope for safety which he proffered her, and turning about she set outwith Albert Werper toward the hostile camp in which she so lately hadbeen a prisoner. 

It was late in the afternoon of the second day before they reachedtheir destination, and as they paused upon the edge of the clearingbefore the gates of the walled village, Werper cautioned the girl toaccede to whatever he might suggest by his conversation with theraiders. 

"I shall tell them, " he said, "that I apprehended you after you escapedfrom 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 returnto camp with you, to obtain here a sufficient guard, and to ride northwith you as rapidly as possible and dispose of you at the mostadvantageous terms to a certain slave broker whose name he gave me. "

Again the girl was deceived by the apparent frankness of the Belgian. She realized that desperate situations required desperate handling, andthough she trembled inwardly at the thought of again entering the vileand hideous village of the raiders she saw no better course than thatwhich her companion had suggested. 

Calling aloud to those who tended the gates, Werper, grasping JaneClayton by the arm, walked boldly across the clearing. Those whoopened the gates to him permitted their surprise to show clearly intheir expressions. That the discredited and hunted lieutenant shouldbe thus returning fearlessly of his own volition, seemed to disarm themquite as effectually as his manner toward Lady Greystoke had deceivedher. 

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 ofthe camp during Achmet Zek's absence, and again his boldness disarmedsuspicion and won the acceptance of his false explanation of hisreturn. The fact that he had brought back with him the woman prisonerwho had escaped, added strength to his claims, and Mohammed Beyd soonfound himself fraternizing good-naturedly with the very man whom hewould have slain without compunction had he discovered him alone in thejungle a half hour before. 

Jane Clayton was again confined to the prison hut she had formerlyoccupied, but as she realized that this was but a part of the deceptionwhich she and Frecoult were playing upon the credulous raiders, it waswith quite a different sensation that she again entered the vile andfilthy interior, from that which she had previously experienced, whenhope was so far away. 

Once more she was bound and sentries placed before the door of herprison; but before Werper left her he whispered words of cheer into herear. Then he left, and made his way back to the tent of Mohammed Beyd. He had been wondering how long it would be before the raiders who hadridden out with Achmet Zek would return with the murdered body of theirchief, and the more he thought upon the matter the greater his fearsbecame, that without accomplices his plan would fail. 

What, even, if he got away from the camp in safety before any returnedwith the true story of his guilt--of what value would this advantage beother than to protract for a few days his mental torture and his life?These hard riders, familiar with every trail and bypath, would get himlong before he could hope to reach the coast. 

As these thoughts passed through his mind he entered the tent whereMohammed Beyd sat cross-legged upon a rug, smoking. The Arab looked upas the European came into his presence. 

"Greetings, O Brother!" he said. 

"Greetings!" replied Werper. 

For a while neither spoke further. The Arab was the first to break thesilence. 

"And my master, Achmet Zek, was well when last you saw him?" he asked. 

"Never was he safer from the sins and dangers of mortality, " repliedthe Belgian. 

"It is well, " said Mohammed Beyd, blowing a little puff of blue smokestraight out before him. 

Again there was silence for several minutes. 

"And if he were dead?" asked the Belgian, determined to lead up to thetruth, and attempt to bribe Mohammed Beyd into his service. 

The Arab's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, his gaze boringstraight into the eyes of the Belgian. 

"I have been thinking much, Werper, since you returned so unexpectedlyto the camp of the man whom you had deceived, and who sought you withdeath in his heart. I have been with Achmet Zek for many years--hisown mother never knew him so well as I. He never forgives--much lesswould he again trust a man 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 biggerfool than I have imagined. And, if this evidence of my judgment is notsufficient, I have but just now received from your own lips even moreconfirmatory witness--for did you not say that Achmet Zek was nevermore safe from the sins 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. Tellme why you have come back here. Tell me what you want, and, Werper, ifyou still possess the jewels of which Achmet Zek told me, there is noreason why you and I should not ride north together and divide theransom of the white woman and the contents of the pouch you wear aboutyour person. Eh?"

The evil eyes narrowed, a vicious, thin-lipped smile tortured thevillainous face, as Mohammed Beyd grinned knowingly into the face ofthe Belgian. 

Werper was both relieved and disturbed by the Arab's attitude. Thecomplacency with which he accepted the death of his chief lifted aconsiderable burden of apprehension from the shoulders of Achmet Zek'sassassin; but his demand for a share of the jewels boded ill for Werperwhen Mohammed Beyd should have learned that the precious stones were nolonger in the Belgian's possession. 

To acknowledge that he had lost the jewels might be to arouse the wrathor suspicion of the Arab to such an extent as would jeopardize hisnew-found chances of escape. His one hope seemed, then, to lie infostering Mohammed Beyd's belief that the jewels were still in hispossession, and depend upon the accidents of the future to open anavenue of escape. 

Could he contrive to tent with the Arab upon the march north, he mightfind opportunity in plenty to remove this menace to his life andliberty--it was worth trying, and, further, there seemed no other wayout of his difficulty. 

"Yes, " he said, "Achmet Zek is dead. He fell in battle with a companyof 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 aredoubtless marching on this camp, for they were sent by Menelek topunish Achmet Zek and his followers for a raid upon an Abyssinianvillage. There are many of them, and if we do not make haste to escapewe shall all suffer the same fate as Achmet Zek. "

Mohammed Beyd listened in silence. How much of the unbeliever's storyhe might safely believe he did not know; but as it afforded him anexcuse for deserting the village and making for the north he was notinclined to cross-question the Belgian too minutely. 

"And if I ride north with you, " he asked, "half the jewels and half theransom of the woman shall be mine?"

"Yes, " replied Werper. 

"Good, " said Mohammed Beyd. "I go now to give the order for thebreaking 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 accompany us. It isnot well that we be burdened by the women and children, for then indeedwe might be overtaken by the Abyssinians. It would be far better toselect a small guard of your bravest men, and leave word behind that weare riding WEST. Then, when the Abyssinians come they will be put uponthe wrong trail should they have it in their hearts to pursue us, andif they do not they will at least ride north with less rapidity than asthough they thought that we were ahead of them. "

"The serpent is less wise than thou, Werper, " said Mohammed Beyd with asmile. "It shall be done as you say. Twenty men shall accompany us, 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, was aroused by the sound of voices outside her prison, and a momentlater, M. Frecoult, and two Arabs entered. The latter unbound herankles and lifted her to her feet. Then her wrists were loosed, shewas given a handful of dry bread, and led out into the faint light ofdawn. 

She looked questioningly at Frecoult, and at a moment that the Arab'sattention was attracted in another direction the man leaned toward herand whispered that all was working out as he had planned. Thusassured, the young woman felt a renewal of the hope which the long andmiserable night of bondage had almost expunged. 

Shortly after, she was lifted to the back of a horse, and surrounded byArabs, was escorted through the gateway of the village and off into thejungle toward the west. Half an hour later the party turned north, andnortherly was their direction for the balance of the march. 

M. Frecoult spoke with her but seldom, and she understood that incarrying out his deception he must maintain the semblance of hercaptor, rather than protector, and so she suspected nothing though shesaw the friendly relations which seemed to exist between the Europeanand the Arab leader of the band. 

If Werper succeeded in keeping himself from conversation with the youngwoman, he failed signally to expel her from his thoughts. A hundredtimes a day he found his eyes wandering in her direction and feastingthemselves upon her charms of face and figure. Each hour hisinfatuation for her grew, until his desire to possess her gained almostthe proportions of madness. 

If either the girl or Mohammed Beyd could have guessed what passed inthe mind of the man which each thought a friend and ally, the apparentharmony of the little company would have been rudely disturbed. 

Werper had not succeeded in arranging to tent with Mohammed Beyd, andso he revolved many plans for the assassination of the Arab that wouldhave been greatly simplified had he been permitted to share the other'snightly shelter. 

Upon the second day out Mohammed Beyd reined his horse to the side ofthe animal on which the captive was mounted. It was, apparently, thefirst notice which the Arab had taken of the girl; but many timesduring these two days had his cunning eyes peered greedily from beneaththe hood of his burnoose to gloat upon the beauties of the prisoner. 

Nor was this hidden infatuation of any recent origin. He had conceivedit when first the wife of the Englishman had fallen into the hands ofAchmet Zek; but while that austere chieftain lived, Mohammed Beyd hadnot even dared hope for a realization 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 toslay the unbeliever, and take unto himself both the woman and thejewels! With the latter in his possession, the ransom which might beobtained for the captive would form no great inducement to herrelinquishment in the face of the pleasures of sole ownership of her. Yes, he would kill Werper, retain all the jewels and keep theEnglishwoman. 

He turned his eyes upon her as she rode along at his side. Howbeautiful she was! His fingers opened and closed--skinny, brown talonsitching to feel the soft flesh of the victim in their remorselessclutch. 

"Do you know, " he asked leaning toward her, "where this man would takeyou?"

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 she did not reply. She feared lest her knowledge of the ruse thatM. Frecoult was playing upon the Arab might cause her to betray herselfthrough an insufficient display of terror and aversion. 

"You can escape this fate, " continued the Arab; "Mohammed Beyd willsave you, " and he reached out a brown hand and seized the fingers ofher right hand in a grasp so sudden and so fierce that this brutalpassion was revealed as clearly in the act as though his lips hadconfessed it in 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 curledupward, revealing his smooth, white teeth. 

"M. Frecoult?" he jeered. "There is no such person. The man's name isWerper. He is a liar, a thief, and a murderer. He killed his captainin the Congo country and fled to the protection of Achmet Zek. He ledAchmet 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 himyour protector, and he has played upon this to win your confidence thatit might be easier to carry you north and sell you into some blacksultan's harem. Mohammed Beyd is your only hope, " and with thisassertion to provide the captive with food for thought, the Arabspurred forward toward the head of the column. 

Jane Clayton could not know how much of Mohammed Beyd's indictmentmight be true, or how much false; but at least it had the effect ofdampening her hopes and causing her to review with suspicion every pastact of the man upon whom she had been looking as her sole protector inthe midst of a world of enemies and dangers. 

On the march a separate tent had been provided for the captive, and atnight it was pitched between those of Mohammed Beyd and Werper. Asentry was posted at the front and another at the back, and with theseprecautions it had not been thought necessary to confine the prisonerto bonds. The evening following her interview with Mohammed Beyd, JaneClayton sat for some time at the opening of her tent watching the roughactivities of the camp. She had eaten the meal that had been broughther by Mohammed Beyd's Negro slave--a meal of cassava cakes and anondescript stew in which a new-killed monkey, a couple of squirrelsand the remains of a zebra, slain the previous day, were impartiallyand unsavorily combined; but the one-time Baltimore belle had longsince submerged in the stern battle for existence, an estheticism whichformerly revolted at much slighter provocation. 

As the girl's eyes wandered across the trampled jungle clearing, already squalid from the presence of man, she no longer apprehendedeither the nearer objects of the foreground, the uncouth men laughingor quarreling among themselves, or the jungle beyond, whichcircumscribed the extreme range of her material vision. Her gazepassed through all these, unseeing, to center itself upon a distantbungalow and scenes of happy security which brought to her eyes tearsof mingled joy and sorrow. She saw a tall, broad-shouldered man ridingin from distant fields; she saw herself waiting to greet him with anarmful of fresh-cut roses from the bushes which flanked the littlerustic gate before her. All this was gone, vanished into the past, wiped out by the torches and bullets and hatred of these hideous anddegenerate men. With a stifled sob, and a little shudder, Jane Claytonturned back into her tent and sought the pile of unclean blankets whichwere her bed. Throwing herself face downward upon them she sobbedforth her misery until kindly sleep brought her, at least temporary, relief. 

And while she slept a figure stole from the tent that stood to theright of hers. It approached the sentry before the doorway andwhispered a few words in the man's ear. The latter nodded, and strodeoff through the darkness in the direction of his own blankets. Thefigure passed to the rear of Jane Clayton's tent and spoke again to thesentry there, and this man also left, following in the trail of thefirst. 

Then he who had sent them away stole silently to the tent flap anduntying the fastenings entered with the noiselessness of a disembodiedspirit. 

21

The Flight to the Jungle

Sleepless upon his blankets, Albert Werper let his evil mind dwell uponthe charms of the woman in the nearby tent. He had noted MohammedBeyd's sudden interest in the girl, and judging the man by his ownstandards, had guessed at the basis of the Arab's sudden change ofattitude toward the prisoner. 

And as he let his imaginings run riot they aroused within him a bestialjealousy of Mohammed Beyd, and a great fear that the other mightencompass his base designs upon the defenseless girl. By a strangeprocess of reasoning, Werper, whose designs were identical with theArab's, pictured himself as Jane Clayton's protector, and presentlyconvinced himself that the attentions which might seem hideous to herif proffered by Mohammed Beyd, would be 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 MohammedBeyd would not offer, and which the girl would spurn from him with asdeep disgust as she would his unholy lust. 

It was not long before the Belgian had succeeded in convincing himselfthat the captive not only had every reason for having conceivedsentiments of love for him; but that she had by various femininemethods acknowledged her new-born affection. 

And then a sudden resolution possessed him. He threw the blankets fromhim and rose to his feet. Pulling on his boots and buckling hiscartridge belt and revolver about his hips he stepped to the flap ofhis tent and looked out. There was no sentry before the entrance tothe prisoner's tent! What could it mean? Fate was indeed playing intohis hands. 

Stepping outside he passed to the rear of the girl's tent. There wasno sentry there, either! And now, boldly, he walked to the entranceand stepped within. 

Dimly the moonlight illumined the interior. Across the tent a figurebent above the blankets of a bed. There was a whispered word, andanother figure rose from the blankets to a sitting position. SlowlyAlbert Werper's eyes were becoming accustomed to the half darkness ofthe tent. He saw that the figure leaning over the bed was that of aman, and he guessed at the truth of the nocturnal visitor's identity. 

A sullen, jealous rage enveloped him. He took a step in the directionof the two. He heard a frightened cry break from the girl's lips asshe recognized the features of the man above her, and he saw MohammedBeyd seize her by the throat and bear her back upon the blankets. 

Cheated passion cast a red blur before the eyes of the Belgian. No!The man should not have her. She was for him and him alone. He wouldnot be robbed of his rights. 

Quickly he ran across the tent and threw himself upon the back ofMohammed Beyd. The latter, though surprised by this sudden andunexpected attack, was not one to give up without a battle. TheBelgian's fingers were feeling for his throat, but the Arab tore themaway, and rising wheeled upon his adversary. As they faced each otherWerper struck the Arab a heavy blow in the face, sending him staggeringbackward. If he had followed up his advantage he would have hadMohammed Beyd at his mercy in another moment; but instead he tugged athis 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 andwas dashing upon him. Again Werper struck the other in the face, andthe Arab returned the blow. Striking at each other and ceaselesslyattempting to clinch, the two battled about the small interior of thetent, while the girl, wide-eyed in terror and astonishment, watched theduel 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 thetent unarmed, except for a long knife which he now drew as he stoodpanting during the first brief rest of the encounter. 

"Dog of a Christian, " he whispered, "look upon this knife in the handsof Mohammed Beyd! Look well, unbeliever, for it is the last thing inlife that you shall see or feel. With it Mohammed Beyd will cut outyour black heart. If you have a God pray to him now--in a minute moreyou shall be dead, " and with that he rushed viciously upon the Belgian, his knife raised high above his head. 

Werper was still dragging futilely at his weapon. The Arab was almostupon him. In desperation the European waited until Mohammed Beyd wasall but against him, then he threw himself to one side to the floor ofthe tent, leaving a leg extended in the path of the Arab. 

The trick succeeded. Mohammed Beyd, carried on by the momentum of hischarge, stumbled over the projecting obstacle and crashed to theground. Instantly he was up again and wheeling to renew the battle;but Werper was on foot ahead of him, and now his revolver, loosenedfrom its holster, flashed in his hand. 

The Arab dove headfirst to grapple with him, there was a sharp report, a lurid gleam of flame in the darkness, and Mohammed Beyd rolled overand over upon the floor to come to a final rest beside the bed of thewoman he had sought to dishonor. 

Almost immediately following the report came the sound of excitedvoices in the camp without. Men were calling back and forth to oneanother asking the meaning of the shot. Werper could hear them runninghither and thither, investigating. 

Jane Clayton had risen to her feet as the Arab died, and now she cameforward with outstretched hands toward Werper. 

"How can I ever thank you, my friend?" she asked. "And to think thatonly today I had almost believed the infamous story which this beasttold me of your perfidy and of your past. Forgive me, M. Frecoult. Imight have known that a white man and a gentleman could be naught elsethan the protector of a woman of his own race amid the dangers of thissavage land. "

Werper's hands dropped limply at his sides. He stood looking at thegirl; but he could find no words to reply to her. Her innocentarraignment of his true purposes was unanswerable. 

Outside, the Arabs were searching for the author of the disturbingshot. The two sentries who had been relieved and sent to theirblankets by Mohammed Beyd were the first to suggest going to the tentof the prisoner. It occurred to them that possibly the woman hadsuccessfully defended herself against their leader. 

Werper heard the men approaching. To be apprehended as the slayer ofMohammed Beyd would be equivalent to a sentence of immediate death. The fierce and brutal raiders would tear to pieces a Christian who haddared spill the blood of their leader. He must find some excuse todelay the finding of Mohammed Beyd's dead body. 

Returning his revolver to its holster, he walked quickly to theentrance of the tent. Parting the flaps he stepped out and confrontedthe men, who were rapidly approaching. Somehow he found within him thenecessary bravado to force a smile to his lips, as he held up his handto bar their farther progress. 

"The woman resisted, " he said, "and Mohammed Beyd was forced to shoother. She is not dead--only slightly wounded. You may go back to yourblankets. Mohammed Beyd and I will look after the prisoner;" then heturned and re-entered the tent, and the raiders, satisfied by thisexplanation, 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 blanketsbut a few minutes before. The excitement of his encounter withMohammed Beyd, as well as the dangers which he now faced at the handsof the raiders when morning must inevitably reveal the truth of whathad occurred in the tent of the prisoner that night, had naturallycooled the hot passion which had dominated him when he 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 possessedthem, are never entirely eradicated from his character, and thoughAlbert Werper had long since ceased to evidence the slightest claim toeither the one or the other, the spontaneous acknowledgment of themwhich the girl's speech had presumed had reawakened them both withinhim. 

For the first time he realized the almost hopeless and frightfulposition of the fair captive, and the depths of ignominy to which hehad sunk, that had made it possible for him, a well-born, Europeangentleman, to have entertained even for a moment the part that he hadtaken in the ruin of her home, happiness, and herself. 

Too much of baseness already lay at the threshold of his conscience forhim ever to hope entirely to redeem himself; but in the first, suddenburst of contrition the man conceived an honest intention to undo, inso far as lay within his power, the evil that his criminal avarice hadbrought upon this sweet and unoffending woman. 

As he stood apparently listening to the retreating footsteps--JaneClayton approached him. 

"What are we to do now?" she asked. "Morning will bring discovery ofthis, " and she pointed to the still body of Mohammed Beyd. "They willkill you when they find him. "

For a time Werper did not reply, then he turned suddenly toward thewoman. 

"I have a plan, " he cried. "It will require nerve and courage on yourpart; but you have already shown that you possess both. Can you endurestill more?"

"I can endure anything, " she replied with a brave smile, "that mayoffer us even a slight chance for escape. "

"You must simulate death, " he explained, "while I carry you from thecamp. I will explain to the sentries that Mohammed Beyd has ordered meto take your body into the jungle. This seemingly unnecessary act Ishall explain upon the grounds that Mohammed Beyd had conceived aviolent passion for you and that he so regretted the act by which hehad become your slayer that he could not endure the silent reproach ofyour 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 the sentries willcredit any such ridiculous tale?"

"You do not know them, " he replied. "Beneath their rough exteriors, despite their calloused and criminal natures, there exists in each awell-defined strain of romantic emotionalism--you will find it amongsuch as these throughout the world. It is romance which lures men tolead wild lives of outlawry and crime. The ruse will succeed--neverfear. "

Jane Clayton shrugged. "We can but try it--and then what?"

"I shall hide you in the jungle, " continued the Belgian, "coming foryou alone and with two horses in the morning. "

"But how will you explain Mohammed Beyd's death?" she asked. "It willbe discovered before ever you can escape the camp in the morning. "

"I shall not explain it, " replied Werper. "Mohammed Beyd shall explainit himself--we must leave that to him. Are you ready for the venture?"

"Yes. "

"But wait, I must get you a weapon and ammunition, " and Werper walkedquickly from the tent. 

Very shortly he returned with an extra revolver and ammunition beltstrapped about 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 your arms, yourlegs and your head hang limply. Remember that you are dead. "

A moment later the man walked out into the camp, the body of the womanacross his shoulder. 

A thorn boma had been thrown up about the camp, to discourage thebolder of the hungry carnivora. A couple of sentries paced to and froin the light of a fire which they kept burning brightly. The nearer ofthese looked up in surprise as he saw Werper approaching. 

"Who are you?" he cried. "What have you there?"

Werper raised the hood of his burnoose that the fellow might see hisface. 

"This is the body of the woman, " he explained. "Mohammed Beyd hasasked me to take it into the jungle, for he cannot bear to look uponthe face of her whom he loved, and whom necessity compelled him toslay. He suffers greatly--he is inconsolable. It was with difficultythat I prevented him taking 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 thatshe was sure. In an instant he would unmask the deception that M. Frecoult was attempting to practice upon him, and they would both belost. She tried to plan how best she might aid her would-be rescuer inthe fight which must most certainly 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 thatMohammed Beyd had suddenly discovered such remarkably sensitivecharacteristics. 

"I shall go alone, " replied Werper, and he passed on and out throughthe narrow opening in the boma, by which the sentry stood. 

A moment later he had entered among the boles of the trees with hisburden, and when safely hidden from the sentry's view lowered the girlto her feet, with a low, "sh-sh, " when she would have spoken. 

Then he led her a little farther into the forest, halted beneath alarge tree with spreading branches, buckled a cartridge belt andrevolver about her waist, and assisted her to clamber into the lowerbranches. 

"Tomorrow, " he whispered, "as soon as I can elude them, I will returnfor you. Be brave, Lady Greystoke--we may yet escape. "

"Thank you, " she replied in a low tone. "You have been very kind, andvery brave. "

Werper did not reply, and the darkness of the night hid the scarletflush of shame which swept upward across his face. Quickly he turnedand made his way back to camp. The sentry, from his post, saw himenter his own tent; but he did not see him crawl under the canvas atthe rear and sneak cautiously to the tent which the prisoner hadoccupied, where now lay the dead body of Mohammed Beyd. 

Raising the lower edge of the rear wall, Werper crept within andapproached the corpse. Without an instant's hesitation he seized thedead wrists and dragged the body upon its back to the point where hehad just entered. On hands and knees he backed out as he had come in, drawing the corpse after him. Once outside the Belgian crept to theside of the tent and surveyed as much of the camp as lay within hisvision--no one was watching. 

Returning to the body, he lifted it to his shoulder, and risking all ona quick sally, ran swiftly across the narrow opening which separatedthe prisoner's tent from that of the dead man. Behind the silken wallhe halted and lowered his burden to the ground, and there he remainedmotionless for several minutes, listening. 

Satisfied, at last, that no one had seen him, he stooped and raised thebottom of the tent wall, backed in and dragged the thing that had beenMohammed Beyd after him. To the sleeping rugs of the dead raider hedrew the corpse, then he fumbled about in the darkness until he hadfound Mohammed Beyd's revolver. With the weapon in his hand hereturned to the side of the dead man, kneeled beside the bedding, andinserted his right hand with the weapon beneath the rugs, piled anumber of thicknesses of the closely woven fabric over and about therevolver 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 hiscough by one directly outside the tent. Werper was satisfied. A grimsmile touched his lips as he withdrew the weapon from the rugs andplaced it carefully in the right hand of the dead man, fixing three ofthe fingers around the grip and the index finger inside the triggerguard. 

A moment longer he tarried to rearrange the disordered rugs, and thenhe left as he had entered, fastening down the rear wall of the tent asit had been before he had raised it. 

Going to the tent of the prisoner he removed there also the evidencethat someone might have come or gone beneath the rear wall. Then hereturned to his own tent, entered, fastened down the canvas, andcrawled 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 startledexpression upon his countenance; but at the last words of the black asigh of relief escaped his lips and a slight smile replaced the tenselines upon his face. 

"I come, " he called to the slave, and drawing on his boots, rose andwent out of his tent. 

Excited Arabs and blacks were running from all parts of the camp towardthe silken tent of Mohammed Beyd, and when Werper entered he found anumber of the raiders crowded about the corpse, now cold and stiff. 

Shouldering his way among them, the Belgian halted beside the dead bodyof the raider. He looked down in silence for a moment upon the stillface, then he wheeled 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 his ownhand. 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 permittedhimself to be convinced that Mohammed Beyd had indeed killed himself inremorse for the death of the white woman he had, all unknown to hisfollowers, loved so devotedly. 

Werper himself wrapped the blankets of the dead man about the corpse, taking care to fold inward the scorched and bullet-torn fabric that hadmuffled the report of the weapon he had fired the night before. Thensix husky blacks carried the body out into the clearing where the campstood, and deposited it in a shallow grave. As the loose earth fellupon the silent form beneath the tell-tale blankets, Albert Werperheaved another sigh of relief--his plan had worked out even better thanhe had dared hope. 

With Achmet Zek and Mohammed Beyd both dead, the raiders were without aleader, and after a brief conference they decided to return into thenorth on visits to the various tribes to which they belonged, Werper, after learning the direction they intended taking, announced that forhis part, he was going east to the coast, and as they knew of nothinghe possessed which any of them coveted, they signified theirwillingness that he should go his way. 

As they rode off, he sat his horse in the center of the clearingwatching them disappear one by one into the jungle, and thanked his Godthat he had at last escaped their villainous clutches. 

When he could no longer hear any sound of them, he turned to the rightand rode into the forest toward the tree where he had hidden LadyGreystoke, and drawing rein beneath it, called up in a gay and hopefulvoice a pleasant, "Good morning!"

There was no reply, and though his eyes searched the thick foliageabove him, he could see no sign of the girl. Dismounting, he quicklyclimbed into the tree, where he could obtain a view of all itsbranches. The tree was empty--Jane Clayton had vanished during thesilent watches of the jungle night. 

22

Tarzan Recovers His Reason

As Tarzan let the pebbles from the recovered pouch run through hisfingers, his thoughts returned to the pile of yellow ingots about whichthe Arabs and the Abyssinians had waged their relentless battle. 

What was there in common between that pile of dirty metal and thebeautiful, sparkling pebbles that had formerly been in his pouch? Whatwas the metal? From whence had it come? What was that tantalizinghalf-conviction which seemed to demand the recognition of his memorythat the yellow pile for which these men had fought and died had beenintimately connected with his past--that it had been his?

What had been his past? He shook his head. Vaguely the memory of hisapish childhood passed slowly in review--then came a strangely tangledmass of faces, figures and events which seemed to have no relation toTarzan of the Apes, and yet which were, even in their fragmentary form, familiar. 

Slowly and painfully, recollection was attempting to reassert itself, the hurt brain was mending, as the cause of its recent failure tofunction was being slowly absorbed or removed by the healing processesof 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 theniches they had once filled in his past life, nor call them by name. One was a fair she, and it was her face which most often moved throughthe tangled recollections of his convalescing brain. Who was she?What had she been to Tarzan of the Apes? He seemed to see her aboutthe very spot upon which the pile of gold had been unearthed by theAbyssinians; but the surroundings were vastly different from thosewhich now obtained. 

There was a building--there were many buildings--and there were hedges, fences, and flowers. Tarzan puckered his brow in puzzled study of thewonderful problem. For an instant he seemed to grasp the whole of atrue explanation, and then, just as success was within his grasp, thepicture faded into a jungle scene where a naked, white youth danced incompany with a band of hairy, primordial ape-things. 

Tarzan shook his head and sighed. Why was it that he could notrecollect? At least he was sure that in some way the pile of gold, theplace where it lay, the subtle aroma of the elusive she he had beenpursuing, the memory figure of the white woman, and he himself, wereinextricably connected by the ties of a forgotten past. 

If the woman belonged there, what better place to search or await herthan the very spot which his broken recollections seemed to assign toher? It was worth trying. Tarzan slipped the thong of the empty pouchover his shoulder and started off through the trees in the direction ofthe plain. 

At the outskirts of the forest he met the Arabs returning in search ofAchmet Zek. Hiding, he let them pass, and then resumed his way towardthe charred ruins of the home he had been almost upon the point ofrecalling to his memory. 

His journey across the plain was interrupted by the discovery of asmall herd of antelope in a little swale, where the cover and the windwere well combined to make stalking easy. A fat yearling rewarded ahalf hour of stealthy creeping and a sudden, savage rush, and it waslate in the afternoon when the ape-man settled himself upon hishaunches beside his kill to enjoy the fruits of his skill, his cunning, and his prowess. 

His hunger satisfied, thirst next claimed his attention. The riverlured him by the shortest path toward its refreshing waters, and whenhe had drunk, night already had fallen and he was some half mile ormore down stream from the point where he had seen the pile of yellowingots, and where he hoped to meet the memory woman, or find some clewto her whereabouts or her identity. 

To the jungle bred, time is usually a matter of small moment, andhaste, except when engendered by terror, by rage, or by hunger, isdistasteful. Today was gone. Therefore tomorrow, of which there wasan infinite procession, would answer admirably for Tarzan's furtherquest. And, besides, the ape-man was tired and would sleep. 

A tree afforded him the safety, seclusion and comforts of awell-appointed bedchamber, and to the chorus of the hunters and thehunted of the wild river bank he soon dropped off into deep slumber. 

Morning found him both hungry and thirsty again, and dropping from histree he made his way to the drinking place at the river's edge. Therehe found Numa, the lion, ahead of him. The big fellow was lapping thewater greedily, and at the approach of Tarzan along the trail in hisrear, he raised his head, and turning his gaze backward across hismaned shoulders glared at the intruder. A low growl of warning rumbledfrom his throat; but Tarzan, guessing that the beast had but justquitted his kill and was well filled, merely made a slight detour andcontinued to the river, where he stopped a few yards above the tawnycat, and dropping upon his hands and knees plunged his face into thecool water. For a moment the lion continued to eye the man; then heresumed his drinking, and man and beast quenched their thirst side byside each apparently oblivious of the other's presence. 

Numa was the first to finish. Raising his head, he gazed across theriver for a few minutes with that stony fixity of attention which is acharacteristic of his kind. But for the ruffling of his black mane tothe touch of the passing breeze he might have been wrought from goldenbronze, so motionless, so statuesque his pose. 

A deep sigh from the cavernous lungs dispelled the illusion. Themighty head swung slowly around until the yellow eyes rested upon theman. The bristled lip curved upward, exposing yellow fangs. Anotherwarning growl vibrated the heavy jowls, and the king of beasts turnedmajestically about and paced slowly up the trail into the dense reeds. 

Tarzan of the Apes drank on, but from the corners of his gray eyes hewatched the great brute's every move until he had disappeared fromview, and, after, his keen ears marked the movements of the carnivore. 

A plunge in the river was followed by a scant breakfast of eggs whichchance discovered to him, and then he set off up river toward the ruinsof the bungalow where the golden ingots had marked the center ofyesterday's battle. 

And when he came upon the spot, great was his surprise andconsternation, for the yellow metal had disappeared. The earth, trampled by the feet of horses and men, gave no clew. It was as thoughthe ingots had evaporated into thin air. 

The ape-man was at a loss to know where to turn or what next to do. There was no sign of any spoor which might denote that the she had beenhere. The metal was gone, and if there was any connection between theshe and the metal it seemed useless to wait for her now that the latterhad been removed elsewhere. 

Everything seemed to elude him--the pretty pebbles, the yellow metal, the she, his memory. Tarzan was disgusted. He would go back into thejungle and look for Chulk, and so he turned his steps once more towardthe forest. He moved rapidly, swinging across the plain in a long, easy trot, and at the edge of the forest, taking to the trees with theagility and speed of a small monkey. 

His direction was aimless--he merely raced on and on through thejungle, the joy of unfettered action his principal urge, with the hopeof stumbling upon some clew to Chulk or the she, a secondary incentive. 

For two days he roamed about, killing, eating, drinking and sleepingwherever inclination and the means to indulge it occurredsimultaneously. It was upon the morning of the third day that thescent spoor of horse and man were wafted faintly to his nostrils. Instantly he altered his course to glide silently through the branchesin the direction from which the scent came. 

It was not long before he came upon a solitary horseman riding towardthe east. Instantly his eyes confirmed what his nose had previouslysuspected--the rider was he who had stolen his pretty pebbles. Thelight of rage flared suddenly in the gray eyes as the ape-man droppedlower among the branches until he moved almost directly above theunconscious Werper. 

There was a quick leap, and the Belgian felt a heavy body hurtle ontothe rump of his terror-stricken mount. The horse, snorting, leapedforward. Giant arms encircled the rider, and in the twinkling of aneye he was dragged from his saddle to find himself lying in the narrowtrail with a naked, white giant kneeling 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 athis throat, fingers of steel. He tried to cry out, to plead for hislife; but the cruel fingers denied him speech, as they were as surelydenying him life. 

"The pretty pebbles?" cried the man upon his breast. "What did youwith the pretty pebbles--with Tarzan's pretty pebbles?"

The fingers relaxed to permit a reply. For some time Werper could onlychoke and cough--at last he regained the powers of speech. 

"Achmet Zek, the Arab, stole them from me, " he cried; "he made me giveup the pouch and the pebbles. "

"I saw all that, " replied Tarzan; "but the pebbles in the pouch werenot the pebbles of Tarzan--they were only such pebbles as fill thebottoms of the rivers, and the shelving banks beside them. Even theArab would not have them, for he threw them away in anger when he hadlooked upon them. It is my pretty pebbles that I want--where are they?"

"I do not know, I do not know, " cried Werper. "I gave them to AchmetZek or he would have killed me. A few minutes later he followed mealong the trail to slay me, although he had promised to molest me nofurther, and I shot and killed him; but the pouch was not upon hisperson and though I searched about the jungle for some time I could notfind it. "

"I found it, I tell you, " growled Tarzan, "and I also found the pebbleswhich Achmet Zek had thrown away in disgust. They were not Tarzan'spebbles. You have hidden them! Tell me where they are or I will killyou, " and the brown fingers of the ape-man closed a little tighter uponthe throat of his victim. 

Werper struggled to free himself. "My God, Lord Greystoke, " he managedto scream, "would you commit murder for a handful of stones?"

The fingers at his throat relaxed, a puzzled, far-away expressionsoftened the gray eyes. 

"Lord Greystoke!" repeated the ape-man. "Lord Greystoke! Who is LordGreystoke? Where have I heard that name before?"

"Why man, you are Lord Greystoke, " cried the Belgian. "You wereinjured by a falling rock when the earthquake shattered the passage tothe underground chamber to which you and your black Waziri had come tofetch golden ingots back to your bungalow. The blow shattered yourmemory. You are John Clayton, Lord Greystoke--don't you remember?"

"John Clayton, Lord Greystoke!" repeated Tarzan. Then for a moment hewas 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 memorythat had been struggling to reassert itself. The ape-man relinquishedhis grasp upon the throat of the Belgian, and leaped to his feet. 

"God!" he cried, and then, "Jane!" Suddenly he turned toward 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. You followed meto Opar, you stole the jewels which I thought but pretty pebbles. Youare 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 inthe trail a few paces from him. Back of the man were a number of blacksoldiers in the uniform of the Congo Free State. 

"He is a murderer, Monsieur, " continued the officer. "I have followedhim 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 fatewhich had overtaken him even in the fastness of the labyrinthinejungle. Instinctively he turned to flee; but Tarzan of the Apesreached out a strong hand and grasped him by the shoulder. 

"Wait!" said the ape-man to his captive. "This gentleman wishes you, and so do I. When I am through with you, he may have you. Tell me whathas become of my wife. "

The Belgian officer eyed the almost naked, white giant with curiosity. He noted the strange contrast of primitive weapons and apparel, and theeasy, fluent French which the man spoke. The former denoted thelowest, the latter the highest type of culture. He could not quitedetermine the social status of this strange creature; but he knew thathe did not relish the easy assurance with which the fellow presumed todictate when he might take possession of the prisoner. 

"Pardon me, " he said, stepping forward and placing his hand on Werper'sother shoulder; "but this gentleman is my prisoner. He must come withme. "

"When I am through with him, " replied Tarzan, quietly. 

The officer turned and beckoned to the soldiers standing in the trailbehind him. A company of uniformed blacks stepped quickly forward andpushing past the three, surrounded the ape-man and his captive. 

"Both the law and the power to enforce it are upon my side, " announcedthe officer. "Let us have no trouble. If you have a grievance againstthis man you may return with me and enter your charge regularly beforean authorized tribunal. "

"Your legal rights are not above suspicion, my friend, " replied Tarzan, "and your power to enforce your commands are only apparent--not real. You have presumed to enter British territory with an armed force. Where is your authority for this invasion? Where are the extraditionpapers which warrant the arrest of this man? And what assurance haveyou 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 anaked savage, " 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, andI 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 toseize Werper. Tarzan grabbed the Belgian about the waist, and bearinghim beneath his arm as he might have borne a sack of flour, leapedforward in an attempt to break through the cordon. His right fistcaught the nearest soldier upon the jaw and sent him hurtling backwardupon his fellows. Clubbed rifles were torn from the hands of those whobarred his way, and right and left the black soldiers stumbled aside inthe face of the ape-man's savage break for liberty. 

So completely did the blacks surround the two that they dared not firefor fear of hitting one of their own number, and Tarzan was alreadythrough them and upon the point of dodging into the concealing mazes ofthe jungle when one who had sneaked upon him from behind struck him aheavy blow upon the head with a rifle. 

In an instant the ape-man was down and a dozen black soldiers were uponhis back. When he regained consciousness he found himself securelybound, as was Werper also. The Belgian officer, success having crownedhis efforts, was in good humor, and inclined to chaff his prisonersabout the ease with which they had been captured; but from Tarzan ofthe Apes he elicited no response. Werper, however, was voluble in hisprotests. He explained that Tarzan was an English lord; but theofficer only laughed at the assertion, and advised his prisoner to savehis 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 returnmarch toward the Congo Free State boundary commenced. 

Toward evening the column halted beside a stream, made camp andprepared the evening meal. From the thick foliage of the nearby junglea pair of fierce eyes watched the activities of the uniformed blackswith silent intensity and curiosity. From beneath beetling brows thecreature saw the boma constructed, the fires built, and the supperprepared. 

Tarzan and Werper had been lying bound behind a small pile of knapsacksfrom the time that the company had halted; but with the preparation ofthe meal completed, their guard ordered them to rise and come forwardto one of the fires where their hands would be unfettered that theymight eat. 

As the giant ape-man rose, a startled expression of recognition enteredthe eyes of the watcher in the jungle, and a low guttural broke fromthe savage lips. Instantly Tarzan was alert, but the answering growldied upon his lips, suppressed by the fear that it might arouse thesuspicions 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 youdo not understand. Appear to listen intently to what I say, andoccasionally mumble something as though replying in the samelanguage--our escape may hinge upon the success of your efforts. "

Werper nodded in assent and understanding, and immediately there brokefrom the lips of his companion a strange jargon which might have beencompared with equal propriety to the barking and growling of a dog andthe chattering of monkeys. 

The nearer soldiers looked in surprise at the ape-man. Some of themlaughed, while others drew away in evident superstitious fear. Theofficer approached the prisoners while Tarzan was still jabbering, andhalted behind them, listening in perplexed interest. When Werpermumbled some ridiculous jargon in reply his curiosity broke bounds, andhe stepped forward, demanding to know what language it was that theyspoke. 

Tarzan had gauged the measure of the man's culture from the nature andquality of his conversation during the march, and he rested the successof his reply upon the estimate he had made. 

"Greek, " he explained. 

"Oh, I thought it was Greek, " replied the officer; "but it has been somany 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 familiar with. "

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 their words were like the words of this white man. I wish that wehad not found him. He is not a man at all--he is a bad spirit, and weshall have bad luck if we do not let him go, " and the fellow rolled hiseyes fearfully toward the jungle. 

His companion laughed nervously, and moved away, to repeat theconversation, with variations and exaggerations, to others of the blacksoldiery, so that it was not long before a frightful tale of blackmagic and sudden death was woven about the giant prisoner, and had gonethe rounds of the camp. 

And deep in the gloomy jungle amidst the darkening shadows of thefalling night a hairy, manlike creature swung swiftly southward uponsome secret mission of his own. 

23

A Night of Terror

To Jane Clayton, waiting in the tree where Werper had placed her, itseemed that the long night would never end, yet end it did at last, andwithin an hour of the coming of dawn her spirits leaped with renewedhope at sight of a solitary horseman approaching along the trail. 

The flowing burnoose, with its loose hood, hid both the face and thefigure of the rider; but that it was M. Frecoult the girl well knew, since he had been garbed as an Arab, and he alone might be expected toseek her hiding place. 

That which she saw relieved the strain of the long night vigil; butthere was much that she did not see. She did not see the black facebeneath the white hood, nor the file of ebon horsemen beyond thetrail's bend riding slowly in the wake of their leader. These thingsshe did not see at first, and so she leaned downward toward theapproaching rider, a cry of welcome forming in her throat. 

At the first word the man looked up, reining in in surprise, and as shesaw the black face of Abdul Mourak, the Abyssinian, she shrank back interror among the branches; but it was too late. The man had seen her, and now he called to her to descend. At first she refused; but when adozen black cavalrymen drew up behind their leader, and at AbdulMourak's command one of them started to climb the tree after her sherealized that resistance was futile, and came slowly down to stand uponthe ground before this new captor and plead her cause in the name ofjustice and humanity. 

Angered by recent defeat, and by the loss of the gold, the jewels, andhis prisoners, Abdul Mourak was in no mood to be influenced by anyappeal to those softer sentiments to which, as a matter of fact, he wasalmost a stranger even under the most favourable conditions. 

He looked for degradation and possible death in punishment for hisfailures and his misfortunes when he should have returned to his nativeland and made his report to Menelek; but an acceptable gift mighttemper the wrath of the emperor, and surely this fair flower of anotherrace should be gratefully received by the black ruler!

When Jane Clayton had concluded her appeal, Abdul Mourak repliedbriefly that he would promise her protection; but that he must take herto his emperor. The girl did not need ask him why, and once again hopedied within her breast. Resignedly she permitted herself to be liftedto a seat behind one of the troopers, and again, under new masters, herjourney was resumed toward what she now began to believe was herinevitable fate. 

Abdul Mourak, bereft of his guides by the battle he had waged againstthe raiders, and himself unfamiliar with the country, had wandered farfrom the trail he should have followed, and as a result had made butlittle progress toward the north since the beginning of his flight. Today he was beating toward the west in the hope of coming upon avillage where he might obtain guides; but night found him still as farfrom a realization of his hopes as had the rising sun. 

It was a dispirited company which went into camp, waterless and hungry, in the dense jungle. Attracted by the horses, lions roared about theboma, and to their hideous din was added the shrill neighs of theterror-stricken beasts they hunted. There was little sleep for man orbeast, and the sentries were doubled that there might be enough on dutyboth to guard against the sudden charge of an overbold, or overhungrylion, and to keep the fire blazing which was an even more effectualbarrier against them than the thorny boma. 

It was well past midnight, and as yet Jane Clayton, notwithstandingthat she had passed a sleepless night the night before, had scarcelymore than dozed. A sense of impending danger seemed to hang like ablack pall over the camp. The veteran troopers of the black emperorwere nervous and ill at ease. Abdul Mourak left his blankets a dozentimes to pace restlessly back and forth between the tethered horses andthe crackling fire. The girl could see his great frame silhouettedagainst the lurid glare of the flames, and she guessed from the quick, nervous movements of the man that he was afraid. 

The roaring of the lions rose in sudden fury until the earth trembledto the hideous chorus. The horses shrilled their neighs of terror asthey lay back upon their halter ropes in their mad endeavors to breakloose. A trooper, braver than his fellows, leaped among the kicking, plunging, fear-maddened beasts in a futile attempt to quiet them. Alion, large, and fierce, and courageous, leaped almost to the boma, full in the bright light from the fire. A sentry raised his piece andfired, and the little leaden pellet unstoppered the vials of hell uponthe terror-stricken camp. 

The shot ploughed a deep and painful furrow in the lion's side, arousing all the bestial fury of the little brain; but abating not awhit the power and vigor of the great body. 

Unwounded, the boma and the flames might have turned him back; but nowthe pain and the rage wiped caution from his mind, and with a loud, andangry roar he topped the barrier with an easy leap and was among thehorses. 

What had been pandemonium before became now an indescribable tumult ofhideous sound. The stricken horse upon which the lion leaped shriekedout its terror and its agony. Several about it broke their tethers andplunged madly about the camp. Men leaped from their blankets and withguns ready ran toward the picket line, and then from the jungle beyondthe boma a dozen lions, emboldened by the example of their fellowcharged fearlessly upon the camp. 

Singly and in twos and threes they leaped the boma, until the littleenclosure was filled with cursing men and screaming horses battling fortheir lives with the green-eyed devils of the jungle. 

With the charge of the first lion, Jane Clayton had scrambled to herfeet, and now she stood horror-struck at the scene of savage slaughterthat swirled and eddied about her. Once a bolting horse knocked herdown, and a moment later a lion, leaping in pursuit of anotherterror-stricken animal, brushed her so closely that she was againthrown from her feet. 

Amidst the cracking of the rifles and the growls of the carnivora rosethe death screams of stricken men and horses as they were dragged downby the blood-mad cats. The leaping carnivora and the plunging horses, prevented any concerted action by the Abyssinians--it was every man forhimself--and in the melee, the defenseless woman was either forgottenor ignored by her black captors. A score of times was her life menacedby charging lions, by plunging horses, or by the wildly fired bulletsof the frightened troopers, yet there was no chance of escape, for nowwith the fiendish cunning of their kind, the tawny hunters commenced tocircle about their prey, hemming them within a ring of mighty, yellowfangs, and sharp, long talons. Again and again an individual lionwould dash suddenly among the frightened men and horses, andoccasionally a horse, goaded to frenzy by pain or terror, succeeded inracing safely through the circling lions, leaping the boma, andescaping into the jungle; but for the men and the woman no such escapewas possible. 

A horse, struck by a stray bullet, fell beside Jane Clayton, a lionleaped across the expiring beast full upon the breast of a blacktrooper just beyond. The man clubbed his rifle and struck futilely atthe broad head, and then he was down and the carnivore was standingabove him. 

Shrieking out his terror, the soldier clawed with puny fingers at theshaggy breast in vain endeavor to push away the grinning jaws. Thelion lowered his head, the gaping fangs closed with a single sickeningcrunch upon the fear-distorted face, and turning strode back across thebody of the dead horse dragging his limp and bloody burden with him. 

Wide-eyed the girl stood watching. She saw the carnivore step upon thecorpse, stumblingly, as the grisly thing swung between its forepaws, and her eyes remained fixed in fascination while the beast passedwithin a few paces of her. 

The interference of the body seemed to enrage the lion. He shook theinanimate clay venomously. He growled and roared hideously at thedead, insensate thing, and then he dropped it and raised his head tolook about in search of some living victim upon which to wreak his illtemper. His yellow eyes fastened themselves balefully upon the figureof the girl, the bristling lips raised, disclosing the grinning fangs. A terrific roar broke from the savage throat, and the great beastcrouched to spring upon this new and helpless victim. 

Quiet had fallen early upon the camp where Tarzan and Werper laysecurely bound. Two nervous sentries paced their beats, their eyesrolling often toward the impenetrable shadows of the gloomy jungle. The others slept or tried to sleep--all but the ape-man. Silently andpowerfully he strained at the bonds which fettered his wrists. 

The muscles knotted beneath the smooth, brown skin of his arms andshoulders, the veins stood out upon his temples from the force of hisexertions--a strand parted, another and another, and one hand was free. Then from the jungle came a low guttural, and the ape-man becamesuddenly a silent, rigid statue, with ears and nostrils straining tospan the black void where his eyesight could not reach. 

Again came the uncanny sound from the thick verdure beyond the camp. Asentry halted abruptly, straining his eyes into the gloom. The kinkywool upon his head stiffened and raised. He called to his comrade in ahoarse whisper. 

"Did you hear it?" he asked. 

The other came closer, trembling. 

"Hear what?"

Again was the weird sound repeated, followed almost immediately by asimilar and answering sound from the camp. The sentries drew closetogether, watching the black spot from which the voice seemed to come. 

Trees overhung the boma at this point which was upon the opposite sideof the camp from them. They dared not approach. Their terror evenprevented them from arousing their fellows--they could only stand infrozen fear and watch for the fearsome apparition they momentarilyexpected to see leap from the jungle. 

Nor had they long to wait. A dim, bulky form dropped lightly from thebranches of a tree into the camp. At sight of it one of the sentriesrecovered command of his muscles and his voice. Screaming loudly toawaken the sleeping camp, he leaped toward the flickering watch fireand threw a mass of brush upon it. 

The white officer and the black soldiers sprang from their blankets. The flames leaped high upon the rejuvenated fire, lighting the entirecamp, and the awakened men shrank back in superstitious terror from thesight that met their frightened and astonished vision. 

A dozen huge and hairy forms loomed large beneath the trees at the farside of the enclosure. The white giant, one hand freed, had struggledto his knees and was calling to the frightful, nocturnal visitors in ahideous medley of bestial gutturals, barkings and growlings. 

Werper had managed to sit up. He, too, saw the savage faces of theapproaching anthropoids and scarcely knew whether to be relieved orterror-stricken. 

Growling, the great apes leaped forward toward Tarzan and Werper. Chulk led them. The Belgian officer called to his men to fire upon theintruders; but the Negroes held back, filled as they were withsuperstitious terror of the hairy treemen, and with the conviction thatthe white giant who could thus summon the beasts of the jungle to hisaid was more than human. 

Drawing his own weapon, the officer fired, and Tarzan fearing theeffect of the noise upon his really timid friends called to them tohasten and fulfill his commands. 

A couple of the apes turned and fled at the sound of the firearm; butChulk and a half dozen others waddled rapidly forward, and, followingthe ape-man's directions, seized both him and Werper and bore them offtoward the jungle. 

By dint of threats, reproaches and profanity the Belgian officersucceeded in persuading his trembling command to fire a volley afterthe retreating apes. A ragged, straggling volley it was, but at leastone of its bullets found a mark, for as the jungle closed about thehairy rescuers, Chulk, who bore Werper across one broad shoulder, staggered and fell. 

In an instant he was up again; but the Belgian guessed from hisunsteady gait that he was hard hit. He lagged far behind the others, and it was several minutes after they had halted at Tarzan's commandbefore he came slowly up to them, reeling from side to side, and atlast falling again beneath the weight of his burden and the shock ofhis wound. 

As Chulk went down he dropped Werper, so that the latter fell facedownward with the body of the ape lying half across him. In thisposition the Belgian felt something resting against his hands, whichwere still bound at his back--something that was not a part of thehairy body of the ape. 

Mechanically the man's fingers felt of the object resting almost intheir grasp--it was a soft pouch, filled with small, hard particles. Werper gasped in wonderment as recognition filtered through theincredulity of his mind. It was impossible, and yet--it was true!

Feverishly he strove to remove the pouch from the ape and transfer itto his own possession; but the restricted radius to which his bondsheld his hands prevented this, though he did succeed in tucking thepouch with its precious contents inside the waist band of his trousers. 

Tarzan, sitting at a short distance, was busy with the remaining knotsof the cords which bound him. Presently he flung aside the last ofthem and rose to his feet. Approaching Werper he knelt beside him. For a moment he examined the ape. 

"Quite dead, " he announced. "It is too bad--he was a splendidcreature, " and then he turned to the work of liberating the Belgian. 

He freed his hands first, and then commenced upon the knots at hisankles. 

"I can do the rest, " said the Belgian. "I have a small pocketknifewhich they overlooked when they searched me, " and in this way hesucceeded in ridding himself of the ape-man's attentions that he mightfind and open his little knife and cut the thong which fastened thepouch about Chulk's shoulder, and transfer it from his waist band tothe breast of his shirt. Then he rose and approached Tarzan. 

Once again had avarice claimed him. Forgotten were the good intentionswhich the confidence of Jane Clayton in his honor had awakened. Whatshe had done, the little pouch had undone. How it had come upon theperson of the great ape, Werper could not imagine, unless it had beenthat the anthropoid had witnessed his fight with Achmet Zek, seen theArab with the pouch and taken it away from him; but that this pouchcontained the jewels of Opar, Werper was positive, and that was allthat interested him greatly. 

"Now, " said the ape-man, "keep your promise to me. Lead me to the spotwhere you last saw my wife. "

It was slow work pushing through the jungle in the dead of night behindthe slow-moving Belgian. The ape-man chafed at the delay, but theEuropean could not swing through the trees as could his more agile andmuscular companions, and so the speed of all was limited to that of theslowest. 

The apes trailed out behind the two white men for a matter of a fewmiles; but presently their interest lagged, the foremost of them haltedin a little glade and the others stopped at his side. There they satpeering from beneath their shaggy brows at the figures of the two menforging steadily ahead, until the latter disappeared in the leafy trailbeyond the clearing. Then an ape sought a comfortable couch beneath atree, and one by one the others followed his example, so that Werperand Tarzan continued their journey alone; nor was the latter eithersurprised or concerned. 

The two had gone but a short distance beyond the glade where the apeshad deserted them, when the roaring of distant lions fell upon theirears. The ape-man paid no attention to the familiar sounds until thecrack of a rifle came faintly from the same direction, and when thiswas followed by the shrill neighing of horses, and an almost continuousfusillade of shots intermingled with increased and savage roaring of alarge troop of lions, he became immediately concerned. 

"Someone is having trouble over there, " he said, turning toward Werper. "I'll have to go to them--they may be friends. "

"Your wife might be among them, " suggested the Belgian, for since hehad again come into possession of the pouch he had become fearful andsuspicious of the ape-man, and in his mind had constantly revolved manyplans for eluding this giant Englishman, who was at once his savior andhis captor. 

At the suggestion Tarzan started as though struck with a whip. 

"God!" he cried, "she might be, and the lions are attacking them--theyare in the camp. I can tell from the screams of the horses--and there!that was the cry of a man in his death agonies. Stay here man--I willcome back for you. I must go first to them, " and swinging into a treethe lithe figure swung rapidly off into the night with the speed andsilence of a disembodied spirit. 

For a moment Werper stood where the ape-man had left him. Then acunning smile crossed his lips. "Stay here?" he asked himself. "Stayhere and wait until you return to find and take these jewels from me?Not I, my friend, not I, " and turning abruptly eastward Albert Werperpassed through the foliage of a hanging vine and out of the sight ofhis fellow-man--forever. 

24

Home

As Tarzan of the Apes hurtled through the trees the discordant soundsof the battle between the Abyssinians and the lions smote more and moredistinctly upon his sensitive ears, redoubling his assurance that theplight of the human element of the conflict was critical indeed. 

At last the glare of the camp fire shone plainly through theintervening trees, and a moment later the giant figure of the ape-manpaused upon an overhanging bough to look down upon the bloody scene ofcarnage below. 

His quick eye took in the whole scene with a single comprehendingglance and stopped upon the figure of a woman standing facing a greatlion across the carcass of a horse. 

The carnivore was crouching to spring as Tarzan discovered the tragictableau. Numa was almost beneath the branch upon which the ape-manstood, naked and unarmed. There was not even an instant's hesitationupon the part of the latter--it was as though he had not even paused inhis swift progress through the trees, so lightning-like his survey andcomprehension of the scene below him--so instantaneous his consequentaction. 

So hopeless had seemed her situation to her that Jane Clayton but stoodin lethargic apathy awaiting the impact of the huge body that wouldhurl her to the ground--awaiting the momentary agony that cruel talonsand grisly fangs may inflict before the coming of the merciful oblivionwhich would end her sorrow and her suffering. 

What use to attempt escape? As well face the hideous end as to bedragged down from behind in futile flight. She did not even close hereyes to shut out the frightful aspect of that snarling face, and so itwas that as she saw the lion preparing to charge she saw, too, abronzed and mighty figure leap from an overhanging tree at the instantthat Numa rose in his spring. 

Wide went her eyes in wonder and incredulity, as she beheld thisseeming apparition risen from the dead. The lion was forgotten--herown peril--everything save the wondrous miracle of this strangerecrudescence. With parted lips, with palms tight pressed against herheaving bosom, the girl leaned forward, large-eyed, enthralled by thevision of her dead mate. 

She saw the sinewy form leap to the shoulder of the lion, hurtlingagainst the leaping beast like a huge, animate battering ram. She sawthe carnivore brushed aside as he was almost upon her, and in theinstant she realized that no substanceless wraith could thus turn thecharge of a maddened lion with brute force greater than the brute's. 

Tarzan, her Tarzan, lived! A cry of unspeakable gladness broke fromher lips, only to die in terror as she saw the utter defenselessness ofher mate, and realized that the lion had recovered himself and wasturning upon Tarzan in mad lust 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 quickglance which had swept the ground for some weapon of defense discoveredit, and as the lion reared upon his hind legs to seize the rashman-thing who had dared interpose its puny strength between Numa andhis prey, the heavy stock whirred through the air and splintered uponthe broad forehead. 

Not as an ordinary mortal might strike a blow did Tarzan of the Apesstrike; but with the maddened frenzy of a wild beast backed by thesteel thews which his wild, arboreal boyhood had bequeathed him. Whenthe blow ended the splintered stock was driven through the splinteredskull into the savage brain, and the heavy iron barrel was bent into arude V. 

In the instant that the lion sank, lifeless, to the ground, JaneClayton threw herself into the eager arms of her husband. For a briefinstant he strained her dear form to his breast, and then a glanceabout him awakened the ape-man to the dangers which still surroundedthem. 

Upon every hand the lions were still leaping upon new victims. Fear-maddened horses still menaced them with their erratic bolting fromone side of the enclosure to the other. Bullets from the guns of thedefenders who remained alive but added to the perils of their situation. 

To remain was to court death. Tarzan seized Jane Clayton and liftedher to a broad shoulder. The blacks who had witnessed his adventlooked on in amazement as they saw the naked giant leap easily into thebranches of the tree from whence he had dropped so uncannily upon thescene, 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, norcould they have done so other than by the wasting of a precious bulletwhich might be needed the next instant to turn the charge of a savagefoe. 

And so, unmolested, Tarzan passed from the camp of the Abyssinians, from which the din of conflict followed him deep into the jungle untildistance gradually obliterated it entirely. 

Back to the spot where he had left Werper went the ape-man, joy in hisheart now, where fear and sorrow had so recently reigned; and in hismind a determination to forgive the Belgian and aid him in making goodhis escape. But when he came to the place, Werper was gone, and thoughTarzan called aloud many times he received no reply. Convinced thatthe man had purposely eluded him for reasons of his own, John Claytonfelt that he was under no obligations to expose his wife to furtherdanger and discomfort in the prosecution of a more thorough search forthe missing Belgian. 

"He has acknowledged his guilt by his flight, Jane, " he said. "We willlet him go to lie in the bed that he has made for himself. "

Straight as homing pigeons, the two made their way toward the ruin anddesolation that had once been the center of their happy lives, andwhich was soon to be restored by the willing black hands of laughinglaborers, made happy again by the return of the master and mistresswhom they had mourned as dead. 

Past the village of Achmet Zek their way led them, and there they foundbut the charred remains of the palisade and the native huts, stillsmoking, as mute evidence of the wrath and vengeance of a powerfulenemy. 

"The Waziri, " commented Tarzan with a grim smile. 

"God bless them!" cried Jane Clayton. 

"They cannot be far ahead of us, " said Tarzan, "Basuli and the others. The gold is gone and the jewels of Opar, Jane; but we have each otherand the Waziri--and we have love and loyalty and friendship. And whatare gold and jewels to these?"

"If only poor Mugambi lived, " she replied, "and those other bravefellows who sacrificed their lives in vain endeavor to protect me!"

In the silence of mingled joy and sorrow they passed along through thefamiliar jungle, and as the afternoon was waning there came faintly tothe ears of the ape-man the murmuring cadence of distant voices. 

"We are nearing the Waziri, Jane, " he said. "I can hear them ahead ofus. They are going into camp for the night, I imagine. "

A half hour later the two came upon a horde of ebon warriors whichBasuli had collected for his war of vengeance upon the raiders. Withthem were the captured women of the tribe whom they had found in thevillage of Achmet Zek, and tall, even among the giant Waziri, loomed afamiliar black form at the side of Basuli. It was Mugambi, whom Janehad thought dead amidst the charred ruins of the bungalow. 

Ah, such a reunion! Long into the night the dancing and the singingand the laughter awoke the echoes of the somber wood. Again and againwere the stories of their various adventures retold. Again and onceagain they fought their battles with savage beast and savage man, anddawn was already breaking when Basuli, for the fortieth time, narratedhow he and a handful of his warriors had watched the battle for thegolden ingots which the Abyssinians of Abdul Mourak had waged againstthe Arab raiders of Achmet Zek, and how, when the victors had riddenaway they had sneaked out of the river reeds and stolen away with theprecious ingots to hide them where no robber eye ever could discoverthem. 

Pieced out from the fragments of their various experiences with theBelgian the truth concerning the malign activities of Albert Werperbecame apparent. Only Lady Greystoke found aught to praise in theconduct of the man, and it was difficult even for her to reconcile hismany heinous acts with this one evidence of chivalry and honor. 

"Deep in the soul of every man, " said Tarzan, "must lurk the germ ofrighteousness. It was your own virtue, Jane, rather even than yourhelplessness which awakened for an instant the latent decency of thisdegraded man. In that one act he retrieved himself, and when he iscalled to face his Maker may it outweigh in the balance, all the sinshe has committed. "

And Jane Clayton breathed a fervent, "Amen!"

Months had passed. The labor of the Waziri and the gold of Opar hadrebuilt and refurnished the wasted homestead of the Greystokes. Oncemore the simple life of the great African farm went on as it had beforethe coming of the Belgian and the Arab. Forgotten were the sorrows anddangers of yesterday. 

For the first time in months Lord Greystoke felt that he might indulgein a holiday, and so a great hunt was organized that the faithfullaborers might feast in celebration of the completion of their work. 

In itself the hunt was a success, and ten days after its inauguration, a well-laden safari took up its return march toward the Waziri plain. Lord and Lady Greystoke with Basuli and Mugambi rode together at thehead of the column, laughing and talking together in that easyfamiliarity which common interests and mutual respect breed betweenhonest and intelligent men of any races. 

Jane Clayton's horse shied suddenly at an object half hidden in thelong grasses of an open space in the jungle. Tarzan's keen eyes soughtquickly for an explanation of the animal's action. 

"What have we here?" he cried, swinging from his saddle, and a momentlater 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 aman. The hard outlines of the contents brought an exclamation ofsurprise to his lips. 

"The jewels of Opar!" he cried, holding the pouch aloft, "and, "pointing to the bones at his feet, "all that remains of Werper, theBelgian. "

Mugambi laughed. "Look within, Bwana, " he cried, "and you will seewhat are the jewels of Opar--you will see what the Belgian gave hislife for, " and the black laughed aloud. 

"Why do you laugh?" asked Tarzan. 

"Because, " replied Mugambi, "I filled the Belgian's pouch with rivergravel before I escaped the camp of the Abyssinians whose prisoners wewere. I left the Belgian only worthless stones, while I brought awaywith me the jewels he had stolen from you. That they were afterwardstolen from me while I slept in the jungle is my shame and my disgrace;but at least the Belgian lost them--open his pouch and you will see. "

Tarzan untied the thong which held the mouth of the leathern bagclosed, and permitted the contents to trickle slowly forth into hisopen palm. Mugambi's eyes went wide at the sight, and the othersuttered exclamations of surprise and incredulity, for from the rustyand weatherworn pouch ran a stream of brilliant, scintillating gems. 

"The jewels of Opar!" cried Tarzan. "But how did Werper come by themagain?"

None could answer, for both Chulk and Werper were dead, and no otherknew. 

"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. "