The Deadly Peril of Jane Clayton
Lieutenant Albert Werper, terrified by contemplation of the fate which
might await him at Adis Abeba, cast about for some scheme of escape,
but after the black Mugambi had eluded their vigilance the Abyssinians
redoubled their precautions to prevent Werper following the lead of the
Negro.
For some time Werper entertained the idea of bribing Abdul Mourak with
a portion of the contents of the pouch; but fearing that the man would
demand all the gems as the price of liberty, the Belgian, influenced by
avarice, sought another avenue from his dilemma.
It was then that there dawned upon him the possibility of the success
of a different course which would still leave him in possession of the
jewels, while at the same time satisfying the greed of the Abyssinian
with 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, Werper
asked for an audience with Abdul Mourak. As the Belgian entered the
presence of his captor the scowl upon the features of the latter boded
ill for any hope which Werper might entertain, still he fortified
himself by recalling the common weakness of mankind, which permits the
most 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 any
fool might know,” he said.
“I can pay for it,” said Werper.
Abdul Mourak laughed loudly. “Pay for it?” he cried. “What with—the
rags that you have upon your back? Or, perhaps you are concealing
beneath your coat a thousand pounds of ivory. Get out! You are a fool.
Do not bother me again or I shall have you whipped.”
But Werper persisted. His liberty and perhaps his life depended upon
his success.
“Listen to me,” he pleaded. “If I can give you as much gold as ten men
may carry will you promise that I shall be conducted in safety to the
nearest English commissioner?”
“As much gold as ten men may carry!” repeated Abdul Mourak. “You are
crazy. Where have you so much gold as that?”
“I know where it is hid,” said Werper. “Promise, and I will lead you to
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 was
preposterous. 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 your
punishment will be?”
“If it is not there I will forfeit my life,” replied the Belgian. “I
know it is there, for I saw it buried with my own eyes. And more—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 the
protection 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 but
five loads you shall have your freedom; but until the gold is in my
possession you remain a prisoner.”
“I am satisfied,” said Werper. “Tomorrow we start?”
Abdul Mourak nodded, and the Belgian returned to his guards. The
following day the Abyssinian soldiers were surprised to receive an
order which turned their faces from the northeast to the south. And so
it happened that upon the very night that Tarzan and the two apes
entered the village of the raiders, the Abyssinians camped but a few
miles to the east of the same spot.
While Werper dreamed of freedom and the unmolested enjoyment of the
fortune in his stolen pouch, and Abdul Mourak lay awake in greedy
contemplation of the fifty loads of gold which lay but a few days
farther to the south of him, Achmet Zek gave orders to his lieutenants
that they should prepare a force of fighting men and carriers to
proceed to the ruins of the Englishman’s DOUAR on the morrow and bring
back the fabulous fortune which his renegade lieutenant had told him
was buried there.
And as he delivered his instructions to those within, a silent listener
crouched without his tent, waiting for the time when he might enter in
safety and prosecute his search for the missing pouch and the pretty
pebbles that had caught his fancy.
At last the swarthy companions of Achmet Zek quitted his tent, and the
leader went with them to smoke a pipe with one of their number, leaving
his own silken habitation unguarded. Scarcely had they left the
interior when a knife blade was thrust through the fabric of the rear
wall, some six feet above the ground, and a swift downward stroke
opened an entrance to those who waited beyond.
Through the opening stepped the ape-man, and close behind him came the
huge Chulk; but Taglat did not follow them. Instead he turned and slunk
through the darkness toward the hut where the she who had arrested his
brutish interest lay securely bound. Before the doorway the sentries
sat upon their haunches, conversing in monotones. Within, the young
woman lay upon a filthy sleeping mat, resigned, through utter
hopelessness to whatever fate lay in store for her until the
opportunity arrived which would permit her to free herself by the only
means which now seemed even remotely possible—the hitherto detested act
of self-destruction.
Creeping silently toward the sentries, a white-burnoosed figure
approached the shadows at one end of the hut. The meager intellect of
the creature denied it the advantage it might have taken of its
disguise. Where it could have walked boldly to the very sides of the
sentries, it chose rather to sneak upon them, unseen, from the rear.
It came to the corner of the hut and peered around. The sentries were
but a few paces away; but the ape did not dare expose himself, even for
an instant, to those feared and hated thunder-sticks which the
Tarmangani knew so well how to use, if there were another and safer
method of attack.
Taglat wished that there was a tree nearby from the over-hanging
branches of which he might spring upon his unsuspecting prey; but,
though there was no tree, the idea gave birth to a plan. The eaves of
the hut were just above the heads of the sentries—from them he could
leap upon the Tarmangani, unseen. A quick snap of those mighty jaws
would dispose of one of them before the other realized that they were
attacked, 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 himself
for the effort, ran quickly forward and leaped high into the air. He
struck the roof directly above the rear wall of the hut, and the
structure, reinforced by the wall beneath, held his enormous weight for
an instant, then he moved forward a step, the roof sagged, the
thatching parted and the great anthropoid shot through into the
interior.
The sentries, hearing the crashing of the roof poles, leaped to their
feet and rushed into the hut. Jane Clayton tried to roll aside as the
great form lit upon the floor so close to her that one foot pinned her
clothing to the ground.
The ape, feeling the movement beside him, reached down and gathered the
girl in the hollow of one mighty arm. The burnoose covered the hairy
body so that Jane Clayton believed that a human arm supported her, and
from the extremity of hopelessness a great hope sprang into her breast
that at last she was in the keeping of a rescuer.
The two sentries were now within the hut, but hesitating because of
doubt 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 their
attack.
Seeing that they stood without advancing, and realizing that,
handicapped as he was by the weight of the she, he could put up but a
poor battle, Taglat elected to risk a sudden break for liberty.
Lowering his head, he charged straight for the two sentries who blocked
the doorway. The impact of his mighty shoulders bowled them over upon
their backs, and before they could scramble to their feet, the ape was
gone, darting in the shadows of the huts toward the palisade at the far
end 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 else
in all the jungle could bear the weight of a grown woman as lightly as
he who held her? She spoke his name; but there was no response. Still
she did not give up hope.
At the palisade the beast did not even hesitate. A single mighty leap
carried it to the top, where it poised but for an instant before
dropping to the ground upon the opposite side. Now the girl was almost
positive that she was safe in the arms of her husband, and when the ape
took to the trees and bore her swiftly into the jungle, as Tarzan had
done 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 roughness
surprised her, but still she had no doubts. Again she called him by
name, and at the same instant the ape, fretting under the restraints of
the unaccustomed garments of the Tarmangani, tore the burnoose from
him, revealing to the eyes of the horror-struck woman the hideous face
and hairy form of a giant anthropoid.
With a piteous wail of terror, Jane Clayton swooned, while, from the
concealment of a nearby bush, Numa, the lion, eyed the pair hungrily
and licked his chops.
Tarzan, entering the tent of Achmet Zek, searched the interior
thoroughly. He tore the bed to pieces and scattered the contents of box
and bag about the floor. He investigated whatever his eyes discovered,
nor did those keen organs overlook a single article within the
habitation of the raider chief; but no pouch or pretty pebbles rewarded
his thoroughness.
Satisfied at last that his belongings were not in the possession of
Achmet Zek, unless they were on the person of the chief himself, Tarzan
decided to secure the person of the she before further prosecuting his
search for the pouch.
Motioning for Chulk to follow him, he passed out of the tent by the
same way that he had entered it, and walking boldly through the
village, made directly for the hut where Jane Clayton had been
imprisoned.
He noted with surprise the absence of Taglat, whom he had expected to
find awaiting him outside the tent of Achmet Zek; but, accustomed as he
was to the unreliability of apes, he gave no serious attention to the
present defection of his surly companion. So long as Taglat did not
cause interference with his plans, Tarzan was indifferent to his
absence.
As he approached the hut, the ape-man noticed that a crowd had
collected about the entrance. He could see that the men who composed it
were much excited, and fearing lest Chulk’s disguise should prove
inadequate to the concealment of his true identity in the face of so
many observers, he commanded the ape to betake himself to the far end
of the village, and there await him.
As Chulk waddled off, keeping to the shadows, Tarzan advanced boldly
toward the excited group before the doorway of the hut. He mingled with
the blacks and the Arabs in an endeavor to learn the cause of the
commotion, in his interest forgetting that he alone of the assemblage
carried a spear, a bow and arrows, and thus might become an object of
suspicious attention.
Shouldering his way through the crowd he approached the doorway, and
had almost reached it when one of the Arabs laid a hand upon his
shoulder, crying: “Who is this?” at the same time snatching back the
hood from the ape-man’s face.
Tarzan of the Apes in all his savage life had never been accustomed to
pause in argument with an antagonist. The primitive instinct of
self-preservation acknowledges many arts and wiles; but argument is not
one of them, nor did he now waste precious time in an attempt to
convince 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 had
scarce quitted his lips, and hurling him from side to side brushed away
those who would have swarmed upon him.
Using the Arab as a weapon, Tarzan forced his way quickly to the
doorway, and a moment later was within the hut. A hasty examination
revealed the fact that it was empty, and his sense of smell discovered,
too, the scent spoor of Taglat, the ape. Tarzan uttered a low, ominous
growl. Those who were pressing forward at the doorway to seize him,
fell back as the savage notes of the bestial challenge smote upon their
ears. They looked at one another in surprise and consternation. A man
had entered the hut alone, and yet with their own ears they had heard
the voice of a wild beast within. What could it mean? Had a lion or a
leopard sought sanctuary in the interior, unbeknown to the sentries?
Tarzan’s quick eyes discovered the opening in the roof, through which
Taglat had fallen. He guessed that the ape had either come or gone by
way of the break, and while the Arabs hesitated without, he sprang,
catlike, for the opening, grasped the top of the wall and clambered out
upon the roof, dropping instantly to the ground at the rear of the hut.
When the Arabs finally mustered courage to enter the hut, after firing
several volleys through the walls, they found the interior deserted. At
the same time Tarzan, at the far end of the village, sought for Chulk;
but the ape was nowhere to be found.
Robbed of his she, deserted by his companions, and as much in ignorance
as ever as to the whereabouts of his pouch and pebbles, it was an angry
Tarzan who climbed the palisade and vanished into the darkness of the
jungle.
For the present he must give up the search for his pouch, since it
would be paramount to self-destruction to enter the Arab camp now while
all its inhabitants were aroused and upon the alert.
In his escape from the village, the ape-man had lost the spoor of the
fleeing Taglat, and now he circled widely through the forest in an
endeavor to again pick it up.
Chulk had remained at his post until the cries and shots of the Arabs
had filled his simple soul with terror, for above all things the ape
folk fear the thunder-sticks of the Tarmangani; then he had clambered
nimbly over the palisade, tearing his burnoose in the effort, and fled
into the depths of the jungle, grumbling and scolding as he went.
Tarzan, roaming the jungle in search of the trail of Taglat and the
she, traveled swiftly. In a little moonlit glade ahead of him the great
ape was bending over the prostrate form of the woman Tarzan sought. The
beast was tearing at the bonds that confined her ankles and wrists,
pulling and gnawing upon the cords.
The course the ape-man was taking would carry him but a short distance
to the right of them, and though he could not have seen them the wind
was bearing down from them to him, carrying their scent spoor strongly
toward him.
A moment more and Jane Clayton’s safety might have been assured, even
though Numa, the lion, was already gathering himself in preparation for
a charge; but Fate, already all too cruel, now outdid herself—the wind
veered suddenly for a few moments, the scent spoor that would have led
the ape-man to the girl’s side was wafted in the opposite direction;
Tarzan passed within fifty yards of the tragedy that was being enacted
in the glade, and the opportunity was gone beyond recall.