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 Tarza
n 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 d
isembodied 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."
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar Page 23