It was grim and terrible work for Doc, who never in all his life had really wanted to kill anyone, nor did he wish to now. It was only stern necessity, induced by the danger that threatened Dick and Gretchen, that impelled him to undertake the grizzly work that he hated with all his heart and soul.
The forest was less dense now as the party advanced, and the undergrowth less thick. The trail led constantly into higher ground, and presently Dick and Gretchen saw hills looming before them.
Blk led them into the mouth of a ravine, which rose steeply upward into the hills. The great trees of the jungle disappeared and, in places, the undergrowth gave way entirely to rock formations that supported no vegetation.
Doc, coming to the edge of the jungle, surveyed the landscape ahead.
In a glance he saw that the trees were too scattered to offer him a continuous trail above the ground, and there were many places where the underbrush was so scant as to afford no sufficient shelter for him. But to the left of the ravine, a gently sloping hogback, strewn with great boulders, seemed to offer him the best chance of concealment and the easiest trail from which he might keep the quarry in view.
Ulp had caught up with his fellows and followed close behind them, as Doc clambered upward among the rocks to the summit of the hogback. Here he found a well marked game trail along which he could move with ease and, presently, he looked down into the ravine upon the little party.
Here was another opportunity. Again his bow twanged and as he dropped behind the concealing shelter of a great boulder, Ulp voiced a horrid shriek and crumpled to the ground.
Gulm was furious, not because Ulp had died, but partially because he had been robbed of an intended sacrifice for The Flaming God and partially because he realized the menace to all of them of this unseen foe, who clung so tenaciously to the rear from where he might pick them off one by one at his leisure—while they were helpless.
"It is the anger of The Flaming God!" he cried. "How much further to the temple site, Blk?"
"We are almost there," replied the guide.
"It is well," growled Gulm. "We must offer a sacrifice to appease the wrath of The Flaming God," and his eyes rested upon Dick.
Gretchen heard and understood. She turned imploringly to her companion.
"Oh, Dick!" she cried, her voice almost a sob. "You must escape at once. There is no time to spare. If ever we reach the temple site, you will be lost."
An arrow, speeding silently, buried itself in Gulm's leg, eliciting a cry of pain and anger. He wrenched the missile from his flesh, his eyes searching the direction from which it had come.
Then, quite unexpectedly, for a moment he glimpsed Doc upon the summit of the ridge, and then the lad stood up, clearly revealed to all of them.
"Don't give up hope, Dick," he shouted, "but look for me tonight. I will try to find a way to get you and Gretchen after dark. Be ready."
"It will be too late then, Doc," cried Gretchen. "If Dick is not saved in the next few minutes, he never will be."
"I will do the best I can," said Doc. Without saying more, Doc immediately fitted another arrow to his bow. He drove it swiftly in the direction of the Oparians and another priest collapsed, clutching at his pierced throat.
In a voice that sounded like the growling of a beast, Gulm issued orders to six of his followers, spurring them to action.
"Don't let that boy get the best of us! Go after him," he cried. "Bring him back to me alive if you can, but bring him back—dead or alive."
Doc was fitting another arrow when he saw the six start swiftly up the steep ravine side. They were close together and offered an excellent target, but suddenly an inspiration seized him. All about him were boulders of different shapes and sizes and in them he saw potential engines of destruction that might be used to accomplish his purpose while conserving his few remaining arrows.
Getting behind a fair sized, rounded boulder, he heaved against it with his shoulder until it gave, and then he guided it over the edge of the ridge directly above the six Oparians, who were ascending to capture or kill him. He did not wait for the boulder to strike them, but immediately seized smaller stones and hurled them down at his foe.
The priests attempted to scramble from the path of the descending boulder, but it had gained such momentum and was falling so rapidly that it was upon them before they could elude it. It struck one of them full in the breast, toppling him backward, crushing him, and then continued to bound down to the bottom of the ravine while the body of its victim, rolling and tumbling, leaped grotesquely in its wake.
"Good boy, Doc!" shouted Dick. "Give them another like that."
The five remaining priests hesitated, warding off the smaller stones that Doc hurled down upon them with their cudgels and their forearms.
They were starting to give back, slowly descending, when Gulm's voice rose up in a mighty bellow.
"Go on! Go on!" he cried. "If you come back without him, you shall be the first to be sacrificed to The Flaming God. Obey your high priest or die."
Knowing that Gulm's command was no idle threat, the five scrambled upward in the face of Doc's barrage until the lad was forced to the realization that some of them, at least, must reach the top, when his capture would be assured.
He sent them a parting arrow and then fled even before he saw its effect, while another priest rolled backward toward the bottom of the ravine. Doc leaped rapidly down the hogback toward the jungle where he knew he might better hope to elude his pursuers among the branches of the great trees.
The four lesser priests followed Doc until the foliage of the forest cut him from their view, and then they halted, grumbling.
"If we go in there after him," said one, "we shall not return alive. He will pick us off with his arrows."
"And if we go back to Gulm, we shall be sacrificed to The Flaming God," said another.
"There are four of us," said a third. "Why should we let Gulm offer us in sacrifice? Who made him high priest? In Opar he was only a lesser priest like us. There are four of us. Let us go back and tell Gulm that the creature escaped, and that before we will permit him to sacrifice any of us, we will kill him."
"Good," said the fourth. "Who is Gulm to be high priest or to take our lives if we do not wish it?"
Thus agreed, the four turned back up the ravine and Doc, relieved, watched them depart.
After they had passed out of sight he descended to the ground and followed them. By following along the bottom of the ravine he hoped to retrieve some of the arrows he had expended, for these were precious indeed, and then he hoped to make is way to the ridge on the right hand side of the ravine, which he had discovered from the summit of the opposite side was better suited to his purposes, since it dropped to the ravine bottom so precipitously that it would be difficult for the sun worshippers to scale it in pursuit of him, thus giving him a better opportunity to attack them in safety.
As the four priests who had succeeded in gaining the summit disappeared in pursuit of Doc, Gulm resumed the march up the steep and rocky gorge.
"Are you going to try to escape, Dick?" asked Gretchen.
The boy shook his head.
"Oh, please to for my sake," she urged.
"No," he persisted. "I could not do it. In the first place there has been no opportunity and if there is we will take it together."
Gretchen shook her head sadly. "I shall never forgive myself," she said.
"It is not your fault, Gretchen, and whatever happens, not one of us is to blame. We have all done our best and if they don't get good old Doc, he may save us both yet."
"I am afraid they will get him," said Gretchen. "These creatures can climb and run like monkeys. I think nothing could escape them."
"Well, good old Doc made them sit up and take notice," said Dick proudly. "If I have to die, at least I shall have that memory to console me."
The gorge had narrowed until there was room for but a single man to pass between its rocky walls and at this point it was necessary t
o climb steeply upward for twenty-five feet over a water-worn formation of stratified limestone, down one side of which splashed a miniature waterfall.
The smooth moist surface of the rocks offered only precarious foot and hand holds. Dick climbed directly behind Gretchen, steadying her as best he could, and helping her.
Finally they reached the top in safety, and as they stood erect again upon level ground, they saw that they were in the mouth of a rudely circular, natural, rockbound amphitheater.
Gulm looked slowly about him. His eyes gleamed with the fires of mad fanaticism. He looked up at the sun and stretched forth his arms.
"Here, O Great and Mighty God of our ancestors," he cried, "we shall dedicate to you the new temple and the new city that shall be raised in your honor, and here, before you hide your face again from the eyes of your people, we shall consecrate this ground as befits the holy purpose to which it shall be dedicated. Have patience with us, God of our fathers. You have waited long, but the time has almost come—you have not long to wait!"
He turned quickly to the lesser priests, who had knelt behind him.
"Quickly," he said, "go and gather stones and raise an altar."
Gretchen grasped Dick's hands and commenced to sob, softly
* * *
CHAPTER TWELVE—THE SACRIFICE
Doc, following cautiously up the bottom of the ravine, watching and listening ahead, lest he run into an ambush, gave no thought to any possible danger that might lurk behind him, and so he neither heard nor saw the silent thing that moved stealthily in his tracks.
With growing horror, Gretchen watched the construction of the altar that the lesser priests were hastily throwing together.
Strewn about the amphitheater were many fragments of flat limestone rock and these the priests were building into an oblong structure, about three feet high, with a more or less level top, four or five feet long and a couple of feet wide, its greater dimension lying due east and west.
During the building of the altar, two priests stood close upon either side of Dick, and now that it was finished, Gulm signaled to bring him forward and he also commanded the girl to approach. The lesser priests arranged themselves in a circle around the altar, at the foot of which stood Gulm.
"Take your place at the head of the altar, Kla," he said to the girl.
When the girl had done as he told her, Gulm nodded to the two priests, who held Dick, whereupon they lifted him to the altar, laying him there upon his back with his head toward the east end, where stood the new La.
One of the two priests who had placed Dick upon the altar stood at his feet to hold him, while the other stood close to Kla and held his arms. At a word from Gulm this one handed Kla his knife.
"It is your first sacrifice," said Gulm, addressing the girl. "A high priestess comes into full power only after her first sacrifice. The moment that the knife had drunk the blood of this creature you become in reality what you have been in name, high priestess of The Flaming God and ruler of the temple and the city that we shall build here. I shall repeat the prayer that later you will learn to repeat and the instant that I raise my hand above my head, you must strike."
"I cannot," said the girl.
"You cannot?" screamed Gulm. "But you will when you know that the fate of a high priestess, who refuses to make an offering to The Flaming God, is far more terrible than the death from which you would save this creature—a futile sacrifice on your part since, if you refuse, both of you shall die."
"What is he saying?" asked Dick in a whisper.
"He wants me to kill you with this knife," said Gretchen.
Dick closed his eyes. "What else did he say?" he asked.
"He said that if I do not kill you, they will kill you and they will kill me also."
Gulm was slowly chanting a long, monotonous prayer.
The priests were kneeling, their foreheads upon the ground.
"Do as he tells you," said Dick. "Doc is risking his life to save us. If we are both killed, it will be in vain. There is no chance for me, and I would rather feel that I am giving my life to save you than that I must die uselessly to gratify their lust for blood."
Gretchen closed her eyes and raised the knife high above her head.
Doc climbed cautiously upward and when he came to the body of Ulp, he stopped and withdrew his arrow from the lesser priest. As he did so, he became conscious, as we sometimes do, of a feeling that he was being watched—that unseen eyes were looking at him. He glanced quickly up the ravine in the direction the four sun worshippers had gone, but he saw no one. Then, he turned around, drawn by a horrid feeling that something was very close behind him.
With difficulty the boy smothered a horror-stricken scream. His knees weakened so that it was with an effort that he remained erect. He seemed to be held in a paralysis of fear that gripped every muscle in his body. He felt the goose flesh rise upon his cold skin, a sickening tremor ran up his spine and it seemed that his hair rose upon end.
Not five feet from him stood a great lion, its round, yellow green eyes peering straight into his.
Doc tried to think of a prayer, but the only one he could remember was "Now I lay me down to sleep," and this he could only think, since his lips were stiff and his throat parched.
The time seemed to stretch to an eternity that the lion stood there glaring at him with those unblinking eyes, yet it was only a moment. Then the beast moved slowly toward him, but even then Doc could not break the spell of terror that held him paralyzed. Nearer and nearer came the dread carnivore. He could feel its hot breath upon his naked body. It rubbed its head against his side and then he felt its hot, rough tongue upon his hand.
Like a title flashed upon a screen, a sentence burned suddenly bright in Doc's memory: _"Do not touch him unless he comes and rubs his head against you."_
It was Jad-bal-ja!
Doc's knees gave way entirely and he sat down suddenly upon the hard ground. The golden lion looked at him questioningly and Doc laid his hand upon the beast's mane and buried his face in the great black collar, sobbing.
It was just for a moment that the reaction of the nervous strain he had undergone held him in its grip. Then he gained control of himself and sprang to his feet. Not far away Dick and Gretchen were in danger. The girl had told him that if he were going to save Dick he must do it at once. Perhaps even now it was too late.
"Quick, Jad-bal-ja," he cried, and he turned and started up the ravine at a run.
The golden lion, knowing that he was on the right trail, did not wait for the boy, but leaped swiftly on ahead.
Gulm, chanting his monotonous prayer, approached its end.
Kla was looking at him now, her blue eyes wide in terror, but held by some horrid fascination upon the face of the gnarled high priest.
Suddenly Gulm stopped his monotonous chanting, and raised his hand above his head.
"Strike!" he cried.
"I cannot," wailed Kla.
"Strike, or you die!" thundered Gulm.
"Strike," whispered Dick. "It is the only way."
Suddenly a priest shrieked and pointed, and the others looked and saw a great lion scrambling over the narrow ledge that gave entrance to the amphitheater.
Instantly all was pandemonium.
Only Gulm remembered. "Strike!" he cried. "Strike and appease the wrath of The Flaming God."
The knife fell from the girl's hand as she sank in a swoon beside the altar. The lion bounded forward and the priests scattered, all but the fanatical Gulm. Snatching his own knife from its scabbard, he sprang forward, the blade raised high above his head, its point aimed at the heart of the courageous lad stretched upon the altar.
With a mighty bound, Jad-bal-ja cleared the altar and sacrifice and bore Gulm back to earth. Once, just once, those awful jaws closed upon the face of the high priest and then Jad-bal-ja stood above his kill and looked about him.
At the same instant a voice rang out from the summit of the rocky escarpment surrounding the amphithea
ter and the lion looked in the direction of the speaker and then lay down upon the body of the high priest.
With the agility of an ape Tarzan dropped quickly down the rocky precipice to the bottom of the amphitheater. The lesser priests recognized him and sought to flee, but he called them back in their own tongue, threatening to send Jad-bal-ja among them if they disobeyed. Sullenly they returned and clustered together at one side of the altar—the side opposite that upon which Jad-bal-ja still lay upon the dead body of their leader.
At the sound of Tarzan's voice, Dick had opened his eyes and then sat up. In an instant he saw what had transpired and knew that he was saved. Never in all his life had he seen a more welcome sight than that of the great lion lying at the foot of the altar and the half naked ape-man moving quickly across the amphitheater toward him.
Tarzan's eyes had taken in the entire scene. "Where is Doc?" he demanded.
"Here I am," called a voice, and as Tarzan and Dick looked in the direction from which it had come, they saw Doc crawling over the edge of the rocky threshold of the amphitheater.
"Gee," he cried, "we are all saved, aren't we?"
"Oh, Doc," cried Dick, "I was afraid those fellows who went after you had gotten you."
"I'll say they didn't," said Doc, "You ought to have seen them just now. Jad-bal-ja and I came upon them from behind as they were coming back here after I got away from them, and say you ought to have seen them shin up the sides of that old ravine. They went so fast you could have played checkers on their coat tails, if they had any coat tails."
Tarzan had stopped and raised Gretchen in his arms. She opened her eyes and looked up into his face.
"Who are you?" she cried.
"Do not be afraid," he said, "I am Tarzan of the Apes."
With a little sigh, she closed her eyes and commenced to weep very softly—tears of relief and happiness.
Tarzan turned to the sun worshippers. "This is Tarzan's country," he said. "You may not remain here. If you would live, go back to Opar."
"If we go back to Opar, La will have us killed," said one of the priests sullenly.
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