MYSTERY OF THE PAST
LA had breakfasted the following morning, and had sent Dooth with food
for Tarzan, when there came to her a young priestess, who was the sister
of Oah. Even before the girl had spoken La knew that she was an emissary
from Cadj, and that the treachery of which Dooth had warned her was
already under way. The girl was ill at ease and quite evidently
frightened, for she was young and held in high revere the queen whom she
had good reason to know was all-powerful, and who might even inflict
death upon her if she so wished. La, who had already determined upon a
plan of action that she knew would be most embarrassing to Cadj and his
conspirators, waited in silence for the girl to speak. But it was some
time before the girl could muster up her courage or find a proper
opening. Instead, she spoke of many things that had no bearing
whatsoever upon her subject, and La, the High Priestess, was amused at
her discomfiture.
“It is not often,” said La, “that the sister of Oah comes to the
apartments of her queen unless she is bidden. I am glad to see that she
at last realizes the service that she owes to the High Priestess of the
Flaming God.”
“I come,” said the girl, at last, speaking almost as one who has learned
a part, “to tell you that I have overheard that which may be of interest
to you, and which I am sure that you will be glad to hear.”
“Yes?” interrogated La, raising her arched eyebrows.
“I overheard Cadj speaking with the lesser priests,” the girl continued,
“and I distinctly heard him say that he would be glad if the ape-man
escaped, as that would relieve you, and Cadj as well, of much
embarrassment. I thought that La, the queen, would be glad to know this,
for it is known by all of us that La has promised friendship to the
ape-man, and therefore does not wish to sacrifice him upon the altar of
the Flaming God.”
“My duty is plain to me,” replied La, in a haughty voice, “and I do not
need Cadj nor any hand-maiden to interpret it to me. I also know the
prerogatives of a High Priestess, and that the right of sacrifice is one
of them. For this reason I prevented Cadj from sacrificing the stranger.
No other hand than mine may offer his heart’s blood to the Flaming God,
and upon the third day he shall die beneath my knife upon the altar of
our temple.”
The effect of these words upon the girl were precisely what La had
anticipated. She saw disappointment and chagrin written upon the face of
Cadj’s messenger, who now had no answer, for her instructions had not
foreseen this attitude upon the part of La. Presently the girl found
some lame pretext upon which to withdraw, and when she had left the
presence of the High Priestess, La could scarcely restrain a smile. She
had no intention of sacrificing Tarzan, but this, of course, the sister
of Oah did not know. So she returned to Cadj and repeated as nearly as
she could recall it, all that La had said to her. The High Priest was
much chagrined, for his plan had been now, not so much to encompass the
destruction of Tarzan as to lead La into the commission of an act that
would bring upon her the wrath of the priests and people of Opar, who,
properly instigated, would demand her life in expiation. Oah, who was
present when her sister returned, bit her lips, for great was her
disappointment. Never before had she seen so close at hand the
longed-for possibility of becoming High Priestess. For several minutes
she paced to and fro in deep thought, and then, suddenly, she halted
before Cadj.
“La loves this ape-man,” she said, “and even though she may sacrifice
him, it is only because of fear of her people. She loves him
still—loves him better, Cadj, than she has ever loved you. The ape-man
knows it, and trusts her, and because he knows it there is a way.
Listen, Cadj, to Oah. We will send one to the ape-man who shall tell him
that she comes from La, and that La has instructed her to lead him out
of Opar and set him free. This one shall lead him into our ambush and
when he is killed we shall go, many of us, before La, and accuse her of
treachery. The one who led the ape-man from Opar shall say that La
ordered her to do it, and the priests and the people will be very angry,
and then you shall demand the life of La. It will be very easy and we
shall be rid of both of them.”
“Good!” exclaimed Cadj. “We shall do this thing at dawn upon the morrow,
and before the Flaming God goes to his rest at night he shall look upon
a new High Priestess in Opar.”
That night Tarzan was aroused from his sleep by a sound at one of the
doors of his prison cell. He heard the bolt slipped back and the door
creak slowly open upon its ancient hinges. In the inky darkness he could
discern no presence, but he heard the stealthy movement of sandaled feet
upon the concrete floor, and then, out of the darkness, his name was
whispered, in a woman’s voice.
“I am here,” he replied. “Who are you and what do you want of Tarzan of
the Apes?”
“Your life is in danger,” replied the voice. “Come, follow me.”
“Who sent you?” demanded the ape-man, his sensitive nostrils searching
for a clue to the identity of the nocturnal visitor, but so heavily was
the air laden with the pungent odor of some heavy perfume with which the
body of the woman seemed to have been anointed, that there was no
distinguishing clue by which he might judge as to whether she was one of
the priestesses he had known upon the occasion of his former visits to
Opar, or an entire stranger to him.
“La sent me,” she said, “to lead you from the pits of Opar to the
freedom of the outside world beyond the city’s walls.” Groping in the
darkness she finally found him. “Here are your weapons,” she said,
handing them to him, and then she took his hand, turned and led him from
the dungeon, through a long, winding, and equally black corridor, down
flights of age-old concrete steps, through passages and corridors,
opening and closing door after door that creaked and groaned upon rusty
hinges. How far they traveled thus, and in what direction, Tarzan could
not guess. He had gleaned enough from Dooth, when the latter brought him
his food, to believe that in La he had a friend who would aid him, for
Dooth had told him that she had saved him from Cadj when the latter had
discovered him unconscious in the deserted boma of the Europeans who had
drugged and left him. And so, the woman having said that she came from
La, Tarzan followed her willingly. He could not but recall Jane’s
prophecy of the evils that he might expect to befall him should he
persist in undertaking this third trip to Opar, and he wondered if,
after all, his wife was right, that he should never again escape from
the toils of the fanatical priests of the Flaming God. He had not, of
course, expected to enter Opar, but there seemed to hang over the
accursed city a guardian demon that threatened the life of whosoever
dared approach the forbidden spot or wrest from the forgotten treasure
vaults a portion of their great hoard.
For more than an hour his guide led him through the Stygian darkness of
underground passages, until, ascending a flight of steps they emerged
into the center of a clump of bushes, through which the pale light of
the moon was barely discernible. The fresh air, however, told him that
they had reached the surface of the ground, and now the woman, who had
not spoken a word since she had led him from his cell, continued on in
silence, following a devious trail that wound hither and thither in an
erratic fashion through a heavy forest choked with undergrowth, and
always upward.
From the location of the stars and moon, and from the upward trend of
the trail, Tarzan knew that he was being led into the mountains that lie
behind Opar—a place he had never thought of visiting, since the country
appeared rough and uninviting, and not likely to harbor game such as
Tarzan cared most to hunt. He was already surprised by the nature of the
vegetation, for he had thought the hills barren except for stunted trees
and scraggy bush. As they continued upon their way, climbing ever
upward, the moon rose higher in the heavens, until its soft light
revealed more clearly to the keen eyes of the ape-man the topography of
the country they were traversing, and then it was that he saw they were
ascending a narrow, thickly wooded gorge, and he understood why the
heavy vegetation had been invisible from the plain before Opar. Himself
naturally uncommunicative, the woman’s silence made no particular
impression upon Tarzan. Had he had anything to say he should have said
it, and likewise he assumed that there was no necessity for her speaking
unless there was some good reason for speaking, for those who travel far
and fast have no breath to waste upon conversation.
The eastern stars were fading at the first hint of coming dawn when the
two scrambled up a precipitous bank that formed the upper end of the
ravine, and came out upon comparatively level ground. As they advanced
the sky lightened, and presently the woman halted at the edge of a
declivity, and as the day broke Tarzan saw below him a wooded basin in
the heart of the mountain, and, showing through the trees at what
appeared to be some two or three miles distant, the outlines of a
building that glistened and sparkled and scintillated in the light of
the new sun. Then he turned and looked at his companion, and surprise
and consternation were writ upon his face, for standing before him was
La, the High Priestess of Opar.
“You?” he exclaimed. “Now indeed will Cadj have the excuse that Dooth
said he sought to put you out of the way.”
“He will never have the opportunity to put me out of the way,” replied
La, “for I shall never return to Opar.”
“Never return to Opar!” he exclaimed, “then where are you going? Where
can you go?”
“I am going with you,” she replied. “I do not ask that you love me. I
only ask that you take me away from Opar and from the enemies who would
slay me. There was no other way. Manu, the monkey, overheard them
plotting, and he came to me and told me all that they would do. Whether
I saved you or sacrificed you, it had all been the same with me. They
were determined to do away with me, that Oah might be High Priestess and
Cadj king of Opar. But I should not have sacrificed you, Tarzan, under
any circumstances, and this, then, seemed the only way in which we might
both be saved. We could not go to the north or the west across the plain
of Opar for there Cadj has placed warriors in ambush to waylay you, and
though you be Tarzan and a mighty fighter, they would overwhelm you by
their very numbers and slay you.”
“But where are you leading me?” asked Tarzan.
“I have chosen the lesser of two evils; in this direction lies an
unknown country, filled for us Oparians with legends of grim monsters
and strange people. Never has an Oparian ventured here and returned
again to Opar. But if there lives in all the world a creature who could
win through this unknown valley, it be you, Tarzan of the Apes.”
“But if you know nothing of this country, or its inhabitants,” demanded
Tarzan, “how is it that you so well know the trail that leads to it?”
“We well know the trail to the summit, but that is as far as I have ever
been before. The great apes and the lions use this trail when they come
down into Opar. The lions, of course, cannot tell us where it leads, and
the great apes will not, for usually we are at war with them. Along this
trail they come down into Opar to steal our people, and upon this trail
we await to capture them, for often we offer a great ape in sacrifice to
the Flaming God, or rather that was our former custom, but for many
years they have been too wary for us, the toll being upon the other
side, though we do not know for what purpose they steal our people,
unless it be that they eat them. They are a very powerful race, standing
higher than Bolgani, the gorilla, and infinitely more cunning, for, as
there is ape blood in our veins, so is there human blood in the veins of
these great apes that dwell in the valley above Opar.”
“Why is it, La, that we must pass through this valley in order to escape
from Opar? There must be some other way.”
“There is no other way, Tarzan of the Apes,” she replied. “The avenues
across the valley are guarded by Cadj’s people. Our only chance of
escape lies in this direction, and I have brought you along the only
trail that pierces the precipitous cliffs that guard Opar upon the
south. Across or around this valley we must go in an attempt to find an
avenue across the mountain and down upon the other side.”
The ape-man stood gazing down into the wooded basin below them, his mind
occupied with the problems of the moment. Had he been alone he would not
have come this way, for he was sufficiently confident of his own prowess
to believe that he might easily have crossed the valley of Opar in
comparative safety, regardless of Cadj’s plans to the contrary. But he
was not alone. He had now to think of La, and he realized that in her
efforts to save him she had placed him under a moral obligation which he
might not disregard.
To skirt the basin, keeping as far as possible from the building, which
he could see in the distance, seemed the wisest course to pursue, since,
of course, his sole purpose was to find a way across the mountain and
out of this inhospitable country. But the glimpses he caught of the
edifice, half concealed as it was amid the foliage of great trees,
piqued his curiosity to such an extent that he felt an almost
irresistible urge to investigate. He did not believe that the basin was
inhabited by other than wild beasts, and he attributed the building
which he saw to the handiwork of an extinct or departed people, either
contemporaneous with the ancient Atlantians who had built Opar or,
perhaps, built by the original Oparians themselves, but now forgotten by
their descendants. The glimpses which he caught of the building
suggested such size and magnificence as might belong to a palace.
The ape-man knew no fear, though he possessed to a reasonable extent
that caution which is inherent in all wild beasts. He would not have
hesitated to pit his cunning and his prowess against the lower orders,
however ferocious they might be, for, unlike man, they could not band
together to his undoing. But should men elect to hunt him in numbers he
knew that a real danger would confront him, and that, in the face of
their combined strength and intelligence, his own might not avail him.
There was little likelihood, however, he reasoned, that the basin was
inhabited by human beings. Doubtless closer investigation of the
building he saw would reveal that it was but a deserted ruin, and that
the most formidable foes he would encounter would be the great apes and
the lions. Of neither of these had he any fear; with the former it was
even reasonable to imagine that he might establish amicable relations.
Believing as he did that he must look for egress from the basin upon its
opposite side, it was only natural that he should wish to choose the
most direct route across the basin. Therefore his inclinations to
explore the valley were seconded by considerations of speed and
expediency.
“Come,” he said to La, and started down the declivity which led into the
basin in the direction of the building ahead of them.
“You are not going that way?” she cried in astonishment.
“Why not?” he said. “It is the shortest way across the valley, and in so
far as I can judge our trail over the mountains is more likely to lie in
that direction than elsewhere.”
“But I am afraid,” she said. “The Flaming God alone knows what hideous
dangers lurk in the depths of that forest below us.”
“Only Numa and the Mangani,” he said. “Of these we need have no fear.”
“You fear nothing,” she said, “but I am only a woman.”
“We can die but once,” replied Tarzan, “and that once we must die. To be
always fearing, then, would not avert it, and would make life miserable.
We shall go the short way, then, and perhaps we shall see enough to make
the risk well worth while.”
They followed a well-worn trail downward among the brush, the trees
increasing in both size and number as they approached the floor of the
basin, until at last they were walking beneath the foliage of a great
forest. What wind there was was at their back, and the ape-man, though
he moved at a swinging walk, was constantly on the alert. Upon the
hard-packed earth of the trail there were few signs to indicate the
nature of the animals that had passed to and fro, but here and there the
spoor of a lion was in evidence. Several times Tarzan stopped and
listened, often he raised his head and his sensitive nostrils dilated as
he sought for whatever the surrounding air might hold for him.
“I think there are men in this valley,” he said presently. “For some
time I have been almost positive that we are being watched. But whoever
is stalking us is clever beyond words, for it is only the barest
suggestion of another presence that I can scent.”
La looked about apprehensively and drew close to his side. “I see no
one,” she said, in a low voice.
“Nor I,” he replied. “Nor can I catch any well-defined scent spoor, yet
I am positive that someone is following us. Someone or something that
trails by scent, and is clever enough to keep its scent from us. It is
more than likely that, whatever it is, it is passing through the trees,
at a sufficient height to keep its scent spoor always above us. The air
is right for that, and even if he were up wind from us we might not
catch his scent at all. Wait here, I will make sure,” and he swung
lightly into the branches of a nearby tree and swarmed upward with the
agility of Manu, the monkey. A moment later he descended to the girl’s
side.
“I was right,” he said, “there is someone, or something, not far off.
But whether it is man or Mangani I cannot say, for the odor is a strange
one to me, suggesting neither, yet both. But two can play at that game.
Come!” And he swung the girl to his shoulder and a moment later had
carried her high into the trees. “Unless he is close enough to watch us,
which I doubt,” he said, “our spoor will be carried over his head and it
will be some time before he can pick it up again, unless he is wise
enough to rise to a higher level.”
La marveled at the strength of the ape-man as he carried her easily from
tree to tree, and at the speed with which he traversed the swaying,
leafy trail. For half an hour he continued onward, and then quite
suddenly he stopped, poised high upon a swaying bough.
“Look!” he said, pointing ahead and below them. Looking in the direction
that he indicated the girl saw through the leafy foliage a small,
heavily stockaded compound, in which were some dozen huts that
immediately riveted her surprised attention, nor no less was the
ape-man’s curiosity piqued by what he glimpsed vaguely through the
foliage. Huts they evidently were, but they seemed to be moving to and
fro in the air, some moving gently backward and forward, while others
jumped up and down in more or less violent agitation. Tarzan swung to a
nearer tree and descended to a sturdy branch, to which he lowered La
from his shoulder. Then he crept forward stealthily, the girl following,
for she was, in common with the other Oparians, slightly arboreal.
Presently they reached a point where they could see plainly the village
below them, and immediately the seeming mystery of the dancing huts was
explained.
They were of the bee-hive type, common to many African tribes, and were
about seven feet in diameter by six or seven in height, but instead of
resting on the ground, each hut was suspended by a heavy hawser-like
grass rope to a branch of one of the several giant trees that grew
within the stockade. From the center of the bottom of each hut trailed
another lighter rope. From his position above them Tarzan saw no
openings in any of the huts large enough to admit the body of a man,
though there were several openings four or five inches in diameter in
the sides of each hut about three feet above the floor. Upon the ground,
inside the compound, were several of the inhabitants of the village, if
the little collection of swinging houses could be dignified by such a
name. Nor were the people any less strange to Tarzan than their peculiar
domiciles. That they were negroes was evident, but of a type entirely
unfamiliar to the ape-man. All were naked, and without any ornamentation
whatsoever other than a few daubs of color, placed apparently at random
upon their bodies. They were tall, and very muscular appearing, though
their legs seemed much too short and their arms too long for perfect
symmetry, while their faces were almost bestial in contour, their jaws
being exaggeratedly prognathous while above their beetling brows there
was no forehead, the skull running back in an almost horizontal plane to
a point.
As Tarzan stood looking at them he saw another descend one of the ropes
that dangled from the bottom of a hut, and immediately he understood the
purpose of the ropes and the location of the entrances to the dwellings.
The creatures squatting about upon their haunches were engaged in
feeding. Several had bones from which they were tearing the uncooked
flesh with their great teeth, while others ate fruit and tubers. There
were individuals of both sexes and of various ages, from childhood to
maturity, but there was none that seemed very old. They were practically
hairless, except for scraggy, reddish brown locks upon their heads. They
spoke but seldom and then in tones which resembled the growling of
beasts, nor once, while Tarzan watched them, did he see one laugh or
even smile, which, of all their traits, rendered them most unlike the
average native of Africa. Though Tarzan’s eyes searched the compound
carefully he saw no indication of cooking utensils or of any fire. Upon
the ground about them lay their weapons, short javelin-like spears and a
sort of battle-ax with a sharpened, metal blade. Tarzan of the Apes was
glad that he had come this way, for it had permitted him to see such a
type of native as he had not dreamed existed—a type so low that it
bordered closely upon the brute. Even the Waz-dons and Ho-dons of
Pal-ul-don were far advanced in the scale of evolution compared to
these.
As he looked at them he could not but wonder that they were sufficiently
intelligent to manufacture the weapons they possessed, which he could
see, even at a distance, were of fine workmanship and design. Their
huts, too, seemed well and ingeniously made, while the stockade which
surrounded the little compound was tall, strong, and well-built,
evidently for the purpose of safeguarding them against the lions which
infested the basin.
As Tarzan and La watched these people they became presently aware of the
approach of some creature from their left, and a moment later they saw a
man similar to those of the compound swing from a tree that overhung the
stockade and drop within. The others acknowledged his coming with scarce
more than indifferent glances. He came forward and, squatting among
them, appeared to be telling them of something, and though Tarzan could
not hear his words he judged from his gestures and the sign language
which he used to supplement his meager speech, that he was telling his
fellows of the strange creatures he had seen in the forest a short time
before, and the ape-man immediately judged that this was the same whom
he had been aware was following them and whom he had successfully put
off the scent. The narration evidently excited them, for some of them
arose, and leaping up and down with bent knees, slapped their arms
against their sides grotesquely. The expressions upon their faces
scarcely changed, however, and after a moment each squatted down again
as he had been before.
It was while they were thus engaged that there echoed through the forest
a loud scream that awakened in the mind of the ape-man many savage
memories.
“Bolgani,” he whispered to La.
“It is one of the great apes,” she said, and shuddered.
Presently they saw him, swinging down the jungle trail toward the
compound. A huge gorilla, but such a gorilla as Tarzan of the Apes had
never looked on before. Of almost gigantic stature, the creature was
walking erect with the stride of a man, not ever once touching his
knuckles to the ground. His head and face were almost those of a
gorilla, and yet there was a difference, as Tarzan could note as the
creature came nearer—it was Bolgani, with the soul and brain of a
man—nor was this all that rendered the creature startling and unique.
Stranger perhaps than aught else was the fact that it wore
ornaments—and such ornaments! Gold and diamonds sparkled against its
shaggy coat, above its elbows were numerous armlets and there were
anklets upon its legs, while from a girdle about its middle there
depended before and behind a long narrow strip that almost touched the
ground and which seemed to be entirely constructed of golden spangles
set with small diamonds. Never before had John Clayton, Lord Greystoke,
seen such a display of barbaric finery, nor even amidst the jewels of
Opar such a wealth of priceless stones.
Immediately after the hideous scream had first broken the comparative
silence of the forest, Tarzan had noticed its effects upon the inmates
of the compound. Instantly they had arisen to their feet. The women and
children scurried behind the boles of the trees or clambered up the
ropes into their swinging cages, while some of the men advanced to what
Tarzan now saw was the gate of the compound. Outside this gate the
gorilla halted and again raised his voice, but this time in speech
rather than his hideous scream.
[Illustration: “Upon the third day Tarzan shall die beneath my knife”]