A Night of Terror
To Jane Clayton, waiting in the tree where Werper had placed her, it
seemed that the long night would never end, yet end it did at last, and
within an hour of the coming of dawn her spirits leaped with renewed
hope at sight of a solitary horseman approaching along the trail.
The flowing burnoose, with its loose hood, hid both the face and the
figure 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 to
seek her hiding place.
That which she saw relieved the strain of the long night vigil; but
there was much that she did not see. She did not see the black face
beneath the white hood, nor the file of ebon horsemen beyond the
trail’s bend riding slowly in the wake of their leader. These things
she did not see at first, and so she leaned downward toward the
approaching rider, a cry of welcome forming in her throat.
At the first word the man looked up, reining in in surprise, and as she
saw the black face of Abdul Mourak, the Abyssinian, she shrank back in
terror 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 a
dozen black cavalrymen drew up behind their leader, and at Abdul
Mourak’s command one of them started to climb the tree after her she
realized that resistance was futile, and came slowly down to stand upon
the ground before this new captor and plead her cause in the name of
justice and humanity.
Angered by recent defeat, and by the loss of the gold, the jewels, and
his prisoners, Abdul Mourak was in no mood to be influenced by any
appeal to those softer sentiments to which, as a matter of fact, he was
almost a stranger even under the most favourable conditions.
He looked for degradation and possible death in punishment for his
failures and his misfortunes when he should have returned to his native
land and made his report to Menelek; but an acceptable gift might
temper the wrath of the emperor, and surely this fair flower of another
race should be gratefully received by the black ruler!
When Jane Clayton had concluded her appeal, Abdul Mourak replied
briefly that he would promise her protection; but that he must take her
to his emperor. The girl did not need ask him why, and once again hope
died within her breast. Resignedly she permitted herself to be lifted
to a seat behind one of the troopers, and again, under new masters, her
journey was resumed toward what she now began to believe was her
inevitable fate.
Abdul Mourak, bereft of his guides by the battle he had waged against
the raiders, and himself unfamiliar with the country, had wandered far
from the trail he should have followed, and as a result had made but
little progress toward the north since the beginning of his flight.
Today he was beating toward the west in the hope of coming upon a
village where he might obtain guides; but night found him still as far
from 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 the
boma, and to their hideous din was added the shrill neighs of the
terror-stricken beasts they hunted. There was little sleep for man or
beast, and the sentries were doubled that there might be enough on duty
both to guard against the sudden charge of an overbold, or overhungry
lion, and to keep the fire blazing which was an even more effectual
barrier against them than the thorny boma.
It was well past midnight, and as yet Jane Clayton, notwithstanding
that she had passed a sleepless night the night before, had scarcely
more than dozed. A sense of impending danger seemed to hang like a
black pall over the camp. The veteran troopers of the black emperor
were nervous and ill at ease. Abdul Mourak left his blankets a dozen
times to pace restlessly back and forth between the tethered horses and
the crackling fire. The girl could see his great frame silhouetted
against 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 trembled
to the hideous chorus. The horses shrilled their neighs of terror as
they lay back upon their halter ropes in their mad endeavors to break
loose. A trooper, braver than his fellows, leaped among the kicking,
plunging, fear-maddened beasts in a futile attempt to quiet them. A
lion, large, and fierce, and courageous, leaped almost to the boma,
full in the bright light from the fire. A sentry raised his piece and
fired, and the little leaden pellet unstoppered the vials of hell upon
the 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 a
whit the power and vigor of the great body.
Unwounded, the boma and the flames might have turned him back; but now
the pain and the rage wiped caution from his mind, and with a loud, and
angry roar he topped the barrier with an easy leap and was among the
horses.
What had been pandemonium before became now an indescribable tumult of
hideous sound. The stricken horse upon which the lion leaped shrieked
out its terror and its agony. Several about it broke their tethers and
plunged madly about the camp. Men leaped from their blankets and with
guns ready ran toward the picket line, and then from the jungle beyond
the boma a dozen lions, emboldened by the example of their fellow
charged fearlessly upon the camp.
Singly and in twos and threes they leaped the boma, until the little
enclosure was filled with cursing men and screaming horses battling for
their lives with the green-eyed devils of the jungle.
With the charge of the first lion, Jane Clayton had scrambled to her
feet, and now she stood horror-struck at the scene of savage slaughter
that swirled and eddied about her. Once a bolting horse knocked her
down, and a moment later a lion, leaping in pursuit of another
terror-stricken animal, brushed her so closely that she was again
thrown from her feet.
Amidst the cracking of the rifles and the growls of the carnivora rose
the death screams of stricken men and horses as they were dragged down
by the blood-mad cats. The leaping carnivora and the plunging horses,
prevented any concerted action by the Abyssinians—it was every man for
himself—and in the melee, the defenseless woman was either forgotten or
ignored by her black captors. A score of times was her life menaced by
charging lions, by plunging horses, or by the wildly fired bullets of
the frightened troopers, yet there was no chance of escape, for now
with the fiendish cunning of their kind, the tawny hunters commenced to
circle about their prey, hemming them within a ring of mighty, yellow
fangs, and sharp, long talons. Again and again an individual lion would
dash suddenly among the frightened men and horses, and occasionally a
horse, goaded to frenzy by pain or terror, succeeded in racing safely
through the circling lions, leaping the boma, and escaping into the
jungle; but for the men and the woman no such escape was possible.
A horse, struck by a stray bullet, fell beside Jane Clayton, a lion
leaped across the expiring beast full upon the breast of a black
trooper just beyond. The man clubbed his rifle and struck futilely at
the broad head, and then he was down and the carnivore was standing
above him.
Shrieking out his terror, the soldier clawed with puny fingers at the
shaggy breast in vain endeavor to push away the grinning jaws. The lion
lowered his head, the gaping fangs closed with a single sickening
crunch upon the fear-distorted face, and turning strode back across the
body of the dead horse dragging his limp and bloody burden with him.
Wide-eyed the girl stood watching. She saw the carnivore step upon the
corpse, stumblingly, as the grisly thing swung between its forepaws,
and her eyes remained fixed in fascination while the beast passed
within a few paces of her.
The interference of the body seemed to enrage the lion. He shook the
inanimate clay venomously. He growled and roared hideously at the dead,
insensate thing, and then he dropped it and raised his head to look
about in search of some living victim upon which to wreak his ill
temper. His yellow eyes fastened themselves balefully upon the figure
of the girl, the bristling lips raised, disclosing the grinning fangs.
A terrific roar broke from the savage throat, and the great beast
crouched to spring upon this new and helpless victim.
Quiet had fallen early upon the camp where Tarzan and Werper lay
securely bound. Two nervous sentries paced their beats, their eyes
rolling often toward the impenetrable shadows of the gloomy jungle. The
others slept or tried to sleep—all but the ape-man. Silently and
powerfully he strained at the bonds which fettered his wrists.
The muscles knotted beneath the smooth, brown skin of his arms and
shoulders, the veins stood out upon his temples from the force of his
exertions—a strand parted, another and another, and one hand was free.
Then from the jungle came a low guttural, and the ape-man became
suddenly a silent, rigid statue, with ears and nostrils straining to
span the black void where his eyesight could not reach.
Again came the uncanny sound from the thick verdure beyond the camp. A
sentry halted abruptly, straining his eyes into the gloom. The kinky
wool upon his head stiffened and raised. He called to his comrade in a
hoarse whisper.
“Did you hear it?” he asked.
The other came closer, trembling.
“Hear what?”
Again was the weird sound repeated, followed almost immediately by a
similar and answering sound from the camp. The sentries drew close
together, watching the black spot from which the voice seemed to come.
Trees overhung the boma at this point which was upon the opposite side
of the camp from them. They dared not approach. Their terror even
prevented them from arousing their fellows—they could only stand in
frozen fear and watch for the fearsome apparition they momentarily
expected to see leap from the jungle.
Nor had they long to wait. A dim, bulky form dropped lightly from the
branches of a tree into the camp. At sight of it one of the sentries
recovered command of his muscles and his voice. Screaming loudly to
awaken the sleeping camp, he leaped toward the flickering watch fire
and threw a mass of brush upon it.
The white officer and the black soldiers sprang from their blankets.
The flames leaped high upon the rejuvenated fire, lighting the entire
camp, and the awakened men shrank back in superstitious terror from the
sight that met their frightened and astonished vision.
A dozen huge and hairy forms loomed large beneath the trees at the far
side of the enclosure. The white giant, one hand freed, had struggled
to his knees and was calling to the frightful, nocturnal visitors in a
hideous medley of bestial gutturals, barkings and growlings.
Werper had managed to sit up. He, too, saw the savage faces of the
approaching anthropoids and scarcely knew whether to be relieved or
terror-stricken.
Growling, the great apes leaped forward toward Tarzan and Werper. Chulk
led them. The Belgian officer called to his men to fire upon the
intruders; but the Negroes held back, filled as they were with
superstitious terror of the hairy treemen, and with the conviction that
the white giant who could thus summon the beasts of the jungle to his
aid was more than human.
Drawing his own weapon, the officer fired, and Tarzan fearing the
effect of the noise upon his really timid friends called to them to
hasten and fulfill his commands.
A couple of the apes turned and fled at the sound of the firearm; but
Chulk and a half dozen others waddled rapidly forward, and, following
the ape-man’s directions, seized both him and Werper and bore them off
toward the jungle.
By dint of threats, reproaches and profanity the Belgian officer
succeeded in persuading his trembling command to fire a volley after
the retreating apes. A ragged, straggling volley it was, but at least
one of its bullets found a mark, for as the jungle closed about the
hairy rescuers, Chulk, who bore Werper across one broad shoulder,
staggered and fell.
In an instant he was up again; but the Belgian guessed from his
unsteady gait that he was hard hit. He lagged far behind the others,
and it was several minutes after they had halted at Tarzan’s command
before he came slowly up to them, reeling from side to side, and at
last falling again beneath the weight of his burden and the shock of
his wound.
As Chulk went down he dropped Werper, so that the latter fell face
downward with the body of the ape lying half across him. In this
position the Belgian felt something resting against his hands, which
were still bound at his back—something that was not a part of the hairy
body of the ape.
Mechanically the man’s fingers felt of the object resting almost in
their grasp—it was a soft pouch, filled with small, hard particles.
Werper gasped in wonderment as recognition filtered through the
incredulity of his mind. It was impossible, and yet—it was true!
Feverishly he strove to remove the pouch from the ape and transfer it
to his own possession; but the restricted radius to which his bonds
held his hands prevented this, though he did succeed in tucking the
pouch with its precious contents inside the waist band of his trousers.
Tarzan, sitting at a short distance, was busy with the remaining knots
of the cords which bound him. Presently he flung aside the last of them
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 splendid creature,”
and then he turned to the work of liberating the Belgian.
He freed his hands first, and then commenced upon the knots at his
ankles.
“I can do the rest,” said the Belgian. “I have a small pocketknife
which they overlooked when they searched me,” and in this way he
succeeded in ridding himself of the ape-man’s attentions that he might
find and open his little knife and cut the thong which fastened the
pouch about Chulk’s shoulder, and transfer it from his waist band to
the breast of his shirt. Then he rose and approached Tarzan.
Once again had avarice claimed him. Forgotten were the good intentions
which the confidence of Jane Clayton in his honor had awakened. What
she had done, the little pouch had undone. How it had come upon the
person of the great ape, Werper could not imagine, unless it had been
that the anthropoid had witnessed his fight with Achmet Zek, seen the
Arab with the pouch and taken it away from him; but that this pouch
contained the jewels of Opar, Werper was positive, and that was all
that interested him greatly.
“Now,” said the ape-man, “keep your promise to me. Lead me to the spot
where you last saw my wife.”
It was slow work pushing through the jungle in the dead of night behind
the slow-moving Belgian. The ape-man chafed at the delay, but the
European could not swing through the trees as could his more agile and
muscular companions, and so the speed of all was limited to that of the
slowest.
The apes trailed out behind the two white men for a matter of a few
miles; but presently their interest lagged, the foremost of them halted
in a little glade and the others stopped at his side. There they sat
peering from beneath their shaggy brows at the figures of the two men
forging steadily ahead, until the latter disappeared in the leafy trail
beyond the clearing. Then an ape sought a comfortable couch beneath a
tree, and one by one the others followed his example, so that Werper
and Tarzan continued their journey alone; nor was the latter either
surprised or concerned.
The two had gone but a short distance beyond the glade where the apes
had deserted them, when the roaring of distant lions fell upon their
ears. The ape-man paid no attention to the familiar sounds until the
crack of a rifle came faintly from the same direction, and when this
was followed by the shrill neighing of horses, and an almost continuous
fusillade of shots intermingled with increased and savage roaring of a
large 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 he
had again come into possession of the pouch he had become fearful and
suspicious of the ape-man, and in his mind had constantly revolved many
plans for eluding this giant Englishman, who was at once his savior and
his captor.
At the suggestion Tarzan started as though struck with a whip.
“God!” he cried, “she might be, and the lions are attacking them—they
are 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 will
come back for you. I must go first to them,” and swinging into a tree
the lithe figure swung rapidly off into the night with the speed and
silence of a disembodied spirit.
For a moment Werper stood where the ape-man had left him. Then a
cunning smile crossed his lips. “Stay here?” he asked himself. “Stay
here and wait until you return to find and take these jewels from me?
Not I, my friend, not I,” and turning abruptly eastward Albert Werper
passed through the foliage of a hanging vine and out of the sight of
his fellow-man—forever.