companions from their shelters in time to see an indistinct form leap
the boma and vanish into the darkness. They stood temporarily paralyzed
by fright, listening to the diminishing cries of their comrade.
Presently these ceased as suddenly as they had commenced. Then the
headman found his voice.
"Simba!" he said.
"It was not Simba," declared another. "It ran high upon two legs, like
a man. I saw it."
Presently from the dark jungle came a hideous, long-drawn cry. "That is
the voice of neither man nor lion," said the headman.
"It is a demon," whispered another, and then they huddled about the
fire, throwing dry wood upon it until its blaze had crackled high into
the air.
In the darkness of the jungle Tarzan paused and laid aside his spear
and bow, possession of which had permitted him to use but one hand in
his abduction of the sentry. Now the fingers of his free hand closed
upon the throat of his victim, putting a sudden period to his screams.
Only for an instant did Tarzan choke the man; and when he relaxed his
grasp upon the fellow's throat, the black made no further outcry,
fearing to invite again the ungentle grip of those steel fingers.
Quickly Tarzan jerked the fellow to his feet, relieved him of his knife
and, grasping him by his thick wool, pushed him ahead of him into the
jungle, after stooping to retrieve his spear and bow. It was then that
he voiced the victory cry of the bull-ape, for the value of the effect
that it would have not only upon his victim, but upon his fellows in
the camp behind them.
Tarzan had no intention of harming the fellow. His quarrel was not with
the innocent black tools of the white men; and, while he would not have
hesitated to take the life of the black had it been necessary, he knew
them well enough to know that he might effect his purpose with them as
well without bloodshed as with it.
The whites could not accomplish anything without their black allies,
and if Tarzan could successfully undermine the morale of the latter,
the schemes of their masters would be as effectually thwarted as
though he had destroyed them, since he was confident that they would
not remain in a district where they were constantly reminded of the
presence of a malign, supernatural enemy. Furthermore, this policy
accorded better with Tarzan's grim sense of humor and, therefore,
amused him, which the taking of life never did.
For an hour he marched his victim ahead of him in an utter silence,
which he knew would have its effect upon the nerves of the black man.
Finally he halted him, stripped his remaining clothing from him, and
taking the fellow's loin cloth bound his wrists and ankles together
loosely. Then, appropriating his cartridge belt and other belongings,
Tarzan left him, knowing that the black would soon free himself from
his bonds; yet, believing that he had made his escape, would remain for
life convinced that he had narrowly eluded a terrible fate.
Satisfied with his night's work, Tarzan returned to the tree in which
he had cached the carcass of Bara, ate once more and lay up in sleep
until morning, when he again took up his search for La, seeking trace
of her up the valley beyond the barrier cliff of Opar, in the general
direction that her spoor had indicated she had gone, though, as a
matter of fact, she had gone in precisely the opposite direction, down
the valley.
VIII
THE TREACHERY OF ABU BATN
Night was falling when a frightened little monkey took refuge in a
tree top. For days he had been wandering through the jungle, seeking
in his little mind a solution for his problem during those occasional
intervals that he could concentrate his mental forces upon it. But in
an instant he might forget it to go swinging and scampering through the
trees, or again a sudden terror would drive it from his consciousness,
as one or another of the hereditary menaces to his existence appeared
within the range of his perceptive faculties.
While his grief lasted, it was real and poignant, and tears welled in
the eyes of little Nkima as he thought of his absent master. Lurking
always within him upon the borderland of conviction was the thought
that he must obtain succor for Tarzan. In some way he must fetch aid
to his master. The great black Gomangani warriors, who were also the
servants of Tarzan, were many darknesses away, but yet it was in the
general direction of the country of the Waziri that he drifted. Time
was in no sense the essence of the solution of this or any other
problem in the mind of Nkima. He had seen Tarzan enter Opar alive. He
had not seen him destroyed, nor had he seen him come out of the city;
and, therefore, by the standards of his logic Tarzan must still be
alive and in the city, but because the city was filled with enemies
Tarzan must be in danger. As conditions were they would remain. He
could not readily visualize any change that he did not actually
witness, and so, whether he found and fetched the Waziri today or
tomorrow would have little effect upon the result. They would go to
Opar and kill Tarzan's enemies, and then little Nkima would have his
master once more, and he would not have to be afraid of Sheeta, or
Sabor, or Histah.
Night fell, and in the forest Nkima heard a gentle tapping. He aroused
himself and listened intently. The tapping grew in volume until it
rolled and moved through the jungle. Its source was at no great
distance, and as Nkima became aware of this, his excitement grew.
The moon was well up in the heavens, but the shadows of the jungle were
dense. Nkima was upon the horns of a dilemma, between his desire to
go to the place from which the drumming emanated and his fear of the
dangers that might lie along the way; but at length the urge prevailed
over his terror, and keeping well up in the relatively greater safety
of the tree tops, he swung quickly in the direction from which the
sound was coming to halt at last, above a little natural clearing that
was roughly circular in shape.
Below him, in the moonlight, he witnessed a scene that he had spied
upon before, for here the great apes of To-yat were engaged in the
death dance of the Dum-Dum. In the center of the amphitheater was one
of those remarkable earthen drums, which from time immemorial primitive
man has heard, but which few have seen. Before the drum were seated two
old shes, who beat upon its resounding surface with short sticks. There
was a rough rhythmic cadence to their beating, and to it, in a savage
circle, danced the bulls; while encircling them in a thin outer line,
the females and the young squatted upon their haunches, enthralled
spectators of the savage scene. Close beside the drum lay the dead body
of Sheeta, the leopard, to celebrate whose killing the Dum-Dum had been
organized.
Presently the dancing bulls would rush in upon the body and beat it
with heavy sticks and, leaping out again, resume their dance. When the
hunt, and the attack, and the death had been depicted at length, they
would cast away their bludgeons and with bared fangs leap upon the
carcass, tearing and rending it as they fought among themselves for
large pieces or choice morsels.
Now Nkima and his kind are noted neither for their tact nor judgment.
One wiser than little Nkima would have remained silent until the dance
and the feast were over and until a new day had come and the great
bulls of the tribe of To-yat had recovered from the hysterical frenzy
that the drum and the dancing always induced within them. But little
Nkima was only a monkey. What he wanted, he wanted immediately, not
being endowed with that mental poise which results in patience, and so
he swung by his tail from an overhanging branch and scolded at the top
of his voice in an effort to attract the attention of the great apes
below.
"To-yat! Ga-yat! Zu-tho!" he cried. "Tarzan is in danger! Come with
Nkima and save Tarzan!"
A great bull stopped in the midst of the dancing and looked up. "Go
away, Manu," he growled. "Go away or we kill!" But little Nkima thought
that they could not catch him, and so he continued to swing from the
branch and yell and scream at them until finally To-yat sent a young
ape, who was not too heavy to clamber into the upper branches of the
tree, to catch little Nkima and kill him.
Here was an emergency which Nkima had not foreseen. Like many people,
he had believed that every one would be as interested in what
interested him as he; and when he had first heard the booming of the
drums of the Dum-Dum, he thought that the moment the apes learned of
Tarzan's peril they would set out upon the trail of Opar.
Now, however, he knew differently, and as the real menace of his
mistake became painfully apparent with the leaping of a young ape into
the tree below him, little Nkima emitted a loud shriek of terror and
fled through the night; nor did he pause until, panting and exhausted,
he had put a good mile between himself and the tribe of To-yat.
When La of Opar awoke in the tent of Zora Drinov she looked about her,
taking in the unfamiliar objects that surrounded her, and presently her
gaze rested upon the face of her sleeping hostess. These, indeed, she
thought, must be the people of Tarzan, for had they not treated her
with kindness and courtesy? They had offered her no harm and had fed
her and given her shelter. A new thought crossed her mind now and her
brows contracted, as did the pupils of her eyes into which there came a
sudden, savage light. Perhaps this woman was Tarzan's mate. La of Opar
grasped the hilt of Darus' knife where it lay ready beside her. But
then, as suddenly as it had come, the mood passed, for in her heart she
knew that she could not return evil for good, nor could she harm whom
Tarzan loved, and when Zora opened her eyes La greeted her with a smile.
If the European girl was a cause for astonishment to La, she herself
filled the other with profoundest wonder and mystification. Her scant,
yet rich and gorgeous apparel harked back to an ancient age, and the
gleaming whiteness of her skin seemed as much out of place in the heart
of an African jungle as did her trappings in the twentieth century.
Here was a mystery that nothing in the past experience of Zora Drinov
could assist in solving. How she wished that she could converse with
her, but all that she could do was to smile back at the beautiful
creature regarding her so intently.
La, accustomed as she had been to being waited upon all her life by the
lesser priestesses of Opar, was surprised by the facility with which
Zora Drinov attended to her own needs as she rose to bathe and dress,
the only service she received being in the form of a pail of hot water
that Wamala fetched and poured into her folding tub; yet though La had
never before been expected to lift a hand in the making of her toilet,
she was far from helpless, and perhaps she found pleasure in the new
experience of doing for herself.
Unlike the customs of the men of Opar, those of its women required
scrupulous bodily cleanliness, so that in the past much of La's time
had been devoted to her toilet, to the care of her nails, and her
teeth, and her hair, and to the massaging of her body with aromatic
unguents--customs, handed down from a cultured civilization of
antiquity, to take on in ruined Opar the significance of religious
rites.
By the time the two girls were ready for breakfast, Wamala was prepared
to serve it; and as they sat outside the tent beneath the shade of a
tree, eating the coarse fare of the camp, Zora noted unwonted activity
about the byût of the Aarabs, but she gave the matter little thought,
as they had upon other occasions moved their tents from one part of the
camp to another.
Breakfast over, Zora took down her rifle, wiped out the bore and oiled
the breech mechanism, for today she was going out after fresh meat, the
Aarabs having refused to hunt. La watched her with evident interest and
later saw her depart with Wamala and two of the black porters; but she
did not attempt to accompany her since, although she had looked for it,
she had received no sign to do so.
Ibn Dammuk was the son of a sheykh of the same tribe as Abu Batn, and
upon this expedition he was the latter's right-hand man. With the fold
of his thôb drawn across the lower part of his face, leaving only his
eyes exposed, he had been watching the two girls from a distance. He
saw Zora Drinov quit the camp with a gun-bearer and two porters and
knew that she had gone to hunt.
For some time after she had departed he sat in silence with two
companions. Then he arose and sauntered across the camp toward La of
Opar, where she sat buried in reverie in a camp chair before Zora's
tent. As the three men approached, La eyed them with level gaze, her
natural suspicion of strangers aroused in her breast. As they came
closer and their features became distinct, she felt a sudden distrust
of them. They were crafty, malign looking men, not at all like Tarzan,
and instinctively she distrusted them.
They halted before her and Ibn Dammuk, the son of a sheykh, addressed
her. His voice was soft and oily, but it did not deceive her.
La eyed him haughtily. She did not understand him and she did not wish
to, for the message that she read in his eyes disgusted her. She shook
her head to signify that she did not understand and turned away to
indicate that the interview was terminated, but Ibn Dammuk stepped
closer and laid a hand familiarly upon her naked shoulder.
Her eyes flaming with anger, La leaped to her feet, one hand moving
swiftly to the hilt of her dagger. Ibn Dammuk stepped back, but one of
his men leaped forward to seize her.
Misguided fool! Like a tigress she was upon him; and before his friends
could intervene, the sharp blade of the knife of Darus, the priest of
the Flaming God, had sunk thrice into his breast, and with a gasping
scream he had slumped to the ground dead.
With flaming eyes and bloody knife, the high priestess of Opar stood
above her kill, while Abu Batn and the other Aarabs, attracted by the
death cry of the stricken man, ran hurriedly toward the little group.
"Stand back!" cried La. "Lay no profaning hand upon the person of the
high priestess of the Flaming God."
They did not understand her words, but they understood her flashing
eyes and her dripping blade. Jabbering volubly, they gathered around
her, but at a safe distance. "What means this, Ibn Dammuk?" demanded
Abu Batn.
"Dogman did but touch her, and she flew at him like el adrea, lord of
the broad head."
"A lioness she may be," said Abu Batn, "but she must not be harmed."
"Wullah!" exclaimed Ibn Dammuk, "but she must be tamed."
"Her taming we may leave to him who will pay many pieces of gold for
her," replied the sheykh. "It is necessary only for us to cage her.
Surround her, my children, and take the knife from her. Make her wrists
secure behind her back, and by the time the other returns we shall have
struck camp and be ready to depart."
A dozen brawny men leaped upon La simultaneously. "Do not harm her! Do
not harm her!" screamed Abu Batn, as, fighting like a lioness indeed,
La sought to defend herself. Slashing right and left with her dagger,
she drew blood more than once before they overpowered her; nor did
they accomplish it before another Aarab fell with a pierced heart, but
at length they succeeded in wrenching the blade from her and securing
her wrists.
Leaving two warriors to guard her, Abu Batn turned his attention to
gathering up the few black servants that remained in camp. These he
forced to prepare loads of such of the camp equipment and provisions
as he required. While this work was going on under Ibn Dammuk's
supervision, the sheykh ransacked the tents of the Europeans, giving
special attention to those of Zora Drinov and Zveri, where he expected
to find the gold that the leader of the expedition was reputed to have
in large quantities; nor was he entirely disappointed since he found in
Zora's tent a box containing a considerable amount of money, though by
no means the great quantity that he had expected, a fact which was due
to the foresight of Zveri, who had personally buried the bulk of his
funds beneath the floor of his tent.
Zora met with unexpected success in her hunting, for within a little
more than an hour of her departure from camp she had come upon
antelope, and two quick shots had dropped as many members of the herd.
She waited while the porters skinned and dressed them and then returned
leisurely toward camp. Her mind was occupied to some extent with the
disquieting attitude of the Aarabs, but she was not at all prepared for
the reception that she met when she approached camp about noon.
She was walking in advance, immediately followed by Wamala, who was
carrying both of her rifles, while behind them were the porters,
staggering under their heavy loads. Just as she was about to enter
the clearing, Aarabs leaped from the underbrush on either side of the
trail. Two of them seized Wamala and wrenched the rifles from his
grasp, while others laid heavy hands upon Zora. She tried to free
herself from them and draw her revolver, but the attack had taken her
so by surprise that before she could accomplish anything in defense,
she was overpowered and her hands bound at her back.
"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded. "Where is Abu Batn, the
sheykh?"
The men laughed at her. "You shall see him presently," said one. "He
has another guest whom he is entertaining, so he could not come to meet
you," at which they all laughed again.
As she stepped into the clearing where she could obtain an unobstructed
view of the camp, she was astounded by what she saw. Every tent had
been struck. The Arabs were leaning on their rifles ready to march,
each of them burdened with a small pack, while the few black men, who
had been left in camp, were lined up before heavy loads. All the rest
of the paraphernalia of the camp, which Abu Batn had not men enough to
transport, was heaped in a pile in the center of the clearing, and even
as she looked she saw men setting torches to it.
As she was led across the clearing toward the waiting Aarabs, she saw
her erstwhile guest between two warriors, her wrists confined by thongs
even as her own. Near her, scowling malevolently, was Abu Batn.
"Why have you done this thing, Abu Batn?" demanded Zora.
"Allah was wroth that we should betray our land to the Nasrâny," said
the sheykh. "We have seen the light, and we are going back to our own
people."
"What do you intend to do with this woman and with me?" asked Zora.
"We shall take you with us for a little way," replied Abu Batn. "I know
a kind man who is very rich, who will give you both a good home."
"You mean that you are going to sell us to some black sultan?" demanded
the girl.
The sheykh shrugged. "I would not put it that way," he said. "Rather
let us say that I am making a present to a great and good friend and
saving you and this other woman from certain death in the jungle should
we depart without you."
"Abu Batn, you are a hypocrite and a traitor," cried Zora, her voice
vibrant with contempt.
"The Nasrâny like to call names," said the sheykh with a sneer.
"Perhaps if the pig, Zveri, had not called us names, this would not
have happened."
"So this is your revenge," asked Zora, "because he reproached you for
your cowardice at Opar?"
"Enough!" snapped Abu Batn. "Come, my children, let us be gone."
As the flames licked at the edges of the great pile of provisions and
equipment that the Aarabs were forced to leave behind, the deserters
started upon their march toward the West.
The girls marched near the head of the column, the feet of the Aarabs
and the carriers behind them totally obliterating their spoor from the
motley record of the trail. They might have found some comfort in their
straits had they been able to converse with one another; but La could
understand no one and Zora found no pleasure in speaking to the Aarabs,
while Wamala and the other blacks were so far toward the rear of the
column that she could not have communicated with them had she cared to.
To pass the time away, Zora conceived the idea of teaching her
companion in misery some European language, and because in the original
party there had been more who were familiar with English than any other
tongue, she selected that language for her experiment.
She began by pointing to herself and saying "woman" and then to La and
repeating the same word, after which she pointed to several of the
Aarabs in succession and said "man" in each instance. It was evident
that La understood her purpose immediately, for she entered into the
spirit of it with eagerness and alacrity, repeating the two words again
and again, each time indicating either a man or a woman.
Next the European girl again pointed to herself and said "Zora." For a
moment La was perplexed, and then she smiled and nodded.
"Zora," she said, pointing to her companion, and then, swiftly, she
touched her own breast with a slender forefinger and said, "La."
And this was the beginning. Each hour La learned new words, all nouns
at first, that described each familiar object that appeared oftenest to
their view. She learned with remarkable celerity, evidencing an alert
and intelligent mind and a retentive memory, for once she learned a
word she never forgot it. Her pronunciation was not always perfect, for
she had a decidedly foreign accent that was like nothing Zora Drinov
ever had heard before, and so altogether captivating that the teacher
never tired of hearing her pupil recite.
As the march progressed, Zora realized that there was little likelihood
that they would be mistreated by their captors, it being evident to
her that the sheykh was impressed with the belief that the better
the condition in which they could be presented to their prospective
purchaser the more handsome the return that Abu Batn might hope to
receive.
Their route lay to the northwest through a section of the Galla country
of Abyssinia, and from scraps of conversation Zora overhead she learned
that Abu Batn and his followers were apprehensive of danger during this
portion of the journey. And well they may have been, since for ages
the Aarabs have conducted raids in Galla territory for the purpose of
capturing slaves, and among the negroes with them was a Galla slave
that Abu Batn had brought with him from his desert home.
After the first day the prisoners had been allowed the freedom of their
hands, but always Aarab guards surrounded them, though there seemed
little likelihood that an unarmed girl would take the risk of escaping
into the jungle, where she would be surrounded by the dangers of wild
beasts or almost certain starvation. However, could Abu Batn have read
their thoughts, he might have been astonished to learn that in the mind
of each was a determination to escape to any fate rather than to march
docilely on to an end that the European girl was fully conscious of and
which La of Opar unquestionably surmised in part.
La's education was progressing nicely by the time the party approached
the border of the Galla country, but in the meantime both girls had
become aware of a new menace threatening La of Opar. Ibn Dammuk marched
often beside her, and in his eyes, when he looked at her, was a message
that needed no words to convey. But when Abu Batn was near, Ibn Dammuk
ignored the fair prisoner, and this caused Zora the most apprehension,
for it convinced her that the wily Ibn was but biding his time until he
might find conditions favorable to the carrying out of some scheme that
he already had decided upon, nor did Zora harbor any doubts as to the
general purpose of his plan.
At the edge of the Galla country they were halted by a river in flood.
They could not go north into Abyssinia proper, and they dared not go
south, where they might naturally have expected pursuit to follow. So
perforce they were compelled to wait where they were.
And while they waited Ibn Dammuk struck.
IX
IN THE DEATH CELL OF OPAR
Once again Peter Zveri stood before the walls of Opar, and once again
the courage of his black soldiers was dissipated by the weird cries
of the inmates of the city of mystery. The ten warriors, who had not
been to Opar before and who had volunteered to enter the city, halted
trembling as the first of the blood-curdling screams rose, shrill and
piercing, from the forbidding ruins.