"Who are you?" demanded Zora.
"I am Bukula," and Zora at once recognized the name as that of one of
the blacks that Abu Batn had forced to accompany him from the base camp.
"Put out your lantern," whispered Bukula. "The sentry has gone away. I
will come in and tell you my plans."
Zora arose and blew out the candle, and a moment later the two captives
saw Bukula crawling into the interior of the tent. "Listen, Memsahib,"
he said, "the boys that Abu Batn stole from Bwana Zveri are running
away tonight. We are going back to the safari. We will take you two
with us, if you want to come."
"Yes," said Zora, "we will come."
"Good!" said Bukula. "Now listen well to what I tell you. The sentry
will not come back, but we cannot all go out at once. First I will take
this other Memsahib with me out into the jungle where the boys are
waiting; then I will return for you. You can make talk to her. Tell her
to follow me and to make no noise."
Zora turned to La. "Follow Bukula," she said. "We are going tonight. I
will come after you."
"I understand," replied La.
"It is all right, Bukula," said Zora. "She understands."
Bukula stepped to the entrance to the tent and looked quickly about the
camp. "Come!" he said, and, followed by La, disappeared quickly from
Zora's view.
The European girl fully realized the risk that they ran in going into
the jungle alone with these half-savage blacks, yet she trusted them
far more implicitly than she did the Aarabs and, too, she felt that she
and La together might circumvent any treachery upon the part of any of
the negroes, the majority of whom she knew would be loyal and faithful.
Waiting in the silence and loneliness of the darkened tent, it seemed
to Zora that it took Bukula an unnecessarily long time to return for
her; but when minute after minute dragged slowly past until she felt
that she had waited for hours and there was no sign either of the
black or the sentry, her fears were aroused in earnest. Presently she
determined not to wait any longer for Bukula, but to go out into the
jungle in search of the escaping party. She thought that perhaps Bukula
had been unable to return without risking detection and that they
were all waiting just beyond the camp for a favorable opportunity to
return to her. As she arose to put her decision into action, she heard
footsteps approaching the tent, and thinking that they were Bukula's,
she waited; but instead she saw the flapping robe and the long-barreled
musket of an Aarab silhouetted against the lesser darkness of the
exterior as the man stuck his head inside the tent. "Where is
Hajellan?" he demanded, giving the name of the departed sentry.
"How should we know?" retorted Zora in a sleepy voice. "Why do you
awaken us thus in the middle of the night? Are we the keepers of your
fellows?"
The fellow grumbled something in reply and then, turning, called aloud
across the camp, announcing to all who might hear that Hajellan was
missing and inquiring if any had seen him. Other warriors strolled over
then, and there was a great deal of speculation as to what had become
of Hajellan. The name of the missing man was called aloud many times,
but there was no response, and finally the sheykh came and questioned
every one. "The women are in the tent yet?" he demanded of the new
sentry.
"Yes," replied the man. "I have talked with them."
"It is strange," said Abu Batn, and then, "Ibn Dammuk!" he cried.
"Where art thou, Ibn? Hajellan was one of thy men." There was no
answer. "Where is Ibn Dammuk?"
"He is not here," said a man standing near the sheykh.
"Nor are Fodil and Dareyem," said another.
"Search the camp and see who is missing," commanded Abu Batn; and when
the search had been made they found that Ibn Dammuk, Hajellan, Fodil,
and Dareyem were missing with five of the blacks.
"Ibn Dammuk has deserted us," said Abu Batn. "Well, let it go. There
will be fewer with whom to share the reward we shall reap when we are
paid for the two women," and thus reconciling himself to the loss of
four good fighting men, Abu Batn repaired to his tent and resumed his
interrupted slumber.
Weighted down by apprehension as to the fate of La and disappointment
occasioned by her own failure to escape, Zora spent an almost sleepless
night, yet fortunate for her peace of mind was it that she did not know
the truth.
Bukula moved silently into the jungle, followed by La; and when they
had gone a short distance from the camp, the girl saw the dark forms
of men standing in a little group ahead of them. The Aarabs, in their
tell-tale thôbs, were hidden in the underbrush, but their slaves had
removed their own white robes and, with Bukula, were standing naked
but for G strings, thus carrying conviction to the mind of the girl
that only black prisoners of Abu Batn awaited her. When she came among
them, however, she learned her mistake; but too late to save herself,
for she was quickly seized by many hands and effectually gagged before
she could give the alarm. Then Ibn Dammuk and his Aarab companions
appeared, and silently the party moved on down the river through the
dark forest, though not before they had subdued the enraged high
priestess of The Flaming God, secured her wrists behind her back, and
placed a rope about her neck.
All night they fled, for Ibn Dammuk well guessed what the wrath of Abu
Batn would be when, in the morning, he discovered the trick that had
been played upon him; and when morning dawned they were far away from
camp, but still Ibn Dammuk pushed on, after a brief halt for a hurried
breakfast.
Long since had the gag been removed from La's mouth, and now Ibn Dammuk
walked beside her, gloating upon his prize. He spoke to her, but La
could not understand him and only strode on in haughty disdain, biding
her time against the moment when she might be revenged and inwardly
sorrowing over her separation from Zora, for whom a strange affection
had been aroused in her savage breast.
Toward noon the party withdrew from the game trail which they had been
following and made camp near the river. It was here that Ibn Dammuk
made a fatal blunder. Goaded to passion by close proximity to the
beautiful woman for whom he had conceived a mad infatuation, the Aarab
gave way to his desire to be alone with her; and leading her along a
little trail that paralleled the river, he took her away out of sight
of his companions; and when they had gone perhaps a hundred yards from
camp, he seized her in his arms and sought to kiss her lips.
With equal safety might Ibn Dammuk have embraced a lion. In the heat
of his passion he forgot many things, among them the dagger that hung
always at his side. But La of Opar did not forget. With the coming of
daylight she had noticed that dagger, and ever since she had coveted
it; and now as the man pressed her close, her hand sought and found its
hilt. For an instant she seemed to surrender. She let her body go limp
in his arms, while her own, firm and beautifully rounded, crept about
him, one to his right shoulder, the other beneath his left arm. But as
yet she did not give him her lips, and then as he struggled to possess
them the hand upon his shoulder seized him suddenly by the throat. The
long, tapered fingers that seemed so soft and white were suddenly claws
of steel that closed upon his windpipe; and simultaneously the hand
that had crept so softly beneath his left arm drove his own long dagger
into his heart from beneath his shoulder blade.
The single cry that he might have given was choked in his throat. For
an instant the tall form of Ibn Dammuk stood rigidly erect; then it
slumped forward, and the girl let it slip to the earth. She spurned
it once with her foot, then removed from it the girdle and sheath for
the dagger, wiped the bloody blade upon the man's thôb and hurried on
up the little river trail until she found an opening in the underbrush
that led away from the stream. On and on she went until exhaustion
overtook her; and then, with her remaining strength, she climbed into a
tree in search of much needed rest.
* * * * *
Wayne Colt watched the shadowy figure approach the mouth of the
corridor where his cell lay. He wondered if this was a messenger of
death, coming to lead him to sacrifice. Nearer and nearer it came until
presently it stopped before the bars of his cell door; and then a soft
voice spoke to him in a low whisper and in a tongue which he could not
understand, and he knew that his visitor was a woman.
Prompted by curiosity, he came close to the bars. A soft hand reached
in and touched him, almost caressingly. A full moon rising above the
high walls that ring the sacrificial court suddenly flooded the mouth
of the corridor and the entrance to Colt's cell in silvery light, and
in it the American saw the figure of a young girl pressed against the
cold iron of the grating. She handed him food, and when he took it she
caressed his hand and drawing it to the bars pressed her lips against
it.
Wayne Colt was nonplussed. He could not know that Nao, the little
priestess, had been the victim of love at first sight, that to her mind
and eyes, accustomed to the sight of males only in the form of the
hairy, grotesque priests of Opar, this stranger appeared a god indeed.
A slight noise attracted Nao's attention toward the court and, as she
turned, the moonlight flooded her face, and the American saw that she
was very lovely. Then she turned back toward him, her dark eyes wells
of adoration, her full, sensitive lips trembling with emotion as, still
clinging to his hand, she spoke rapidly in low liquid tones.
She was trying to tell Colt that at noon of the second day he was to be
offered in sacrifice to the Flaming God, that she did not wish him to
die and if it were possible she would help him, but that she did not
know how that would be possible.
Colt shook his head. "I cannot understand you, little one," he said,
and Nao, though she could not interpret his words, sensed the futility
of her own. Then, raising one of her hands from his, she made a great
circle in a vertical plane from east to west with a slender index
finger, indicating the path of the sun across the heavens; and then
she started a second circle, which she stopped at zenith, indicating
high noon of the second day. For an instant her raised hand poised
dramatically aloft; and then, the fingers closing as though around the
hilt of an imaginary sacrificial knife, she plunged the invisible point
deep into her bosom.
"Thus will Oah destroy you," she said, reaching through the bars and
touching Colt over the heart.
The American thought that he understood the meaning of her pantomime,
which he then repeated, plunging the imaginary blade into his own
breast and looking questioningly at Nao.
In reply she nodded sadly, and the tears welled to her eyes.
As plainly as though he had understood her words, Colt realized that
here was a friend who would help him if she could, and reaching through
the bars, he drew the girl gently toward him and pressed his lips
against her forehead. With a low sob Nao encircled his neck with her
arms and pressed her face to his. Then, as suddenly, she released him
and, turning, hurried away on silent feet, to disappear in the gloomy
shadows of an archway at one side of the court of sacrifice.
Colt ate the food that she had brought him and for a long time lay
pondering the inexplicable forces which govern the acts of men. What
train of circumstances leading down out of a mysterious past had
produced this single human being in a city of enemies in whom, all
unsuspecting, there must always have existed a germ of potential
friendship for him, an utter stranger and alien, of whose very
existence she could not possibly have dreamed before this day. He tried
to convince himself that the girl had been prompted to her act by pity
for his plight, but he knew in his heart that a more powerful motive
impelled her.
Colt had been attracted to many women, but he had never loved; and he
wondered if that was the way that love came and if some day it would
seize him as it had seized this girl; and he wondered also if, had
conditions been different, he might have been as strongly attracted to
her. If not, then there seemed to be something wrong in the scheme of
things; and still puzzling over this riddle of the age, he fell asleep
upon the hard floor of his cell.
With morning a hairy priest came and gave him food and water, and
during the day others came and watched him, as though he were a wild
beast in a menagerie. And so the long day dragged on, and once again
night came--his last night.
He tried to picture what the final ceremony would be like. It seemed
almost incredible that in the twentieth century he was to be offered
as a human sacrifice to some heathen deity, but yet the pantomime
of the girl and the concrete evidence of the bloody altar and the
grinning skulls assured him that such must be the very fate awaiting
him upon the morrow. He thought of his family and his friends at home;
they would never know what had become of him. He weighed his sacrifice
against the mission that he had undertaken and he had no regret, for he
knew that it had not been in vain. Far away, already near the Coast,
was the message he had dispatched by the runner. That would insure that
he had not failed in his part for the sake of a great principle for
which, if necessary, he was glad to lay down his life. He was glad that
he had acted promptly and sent the message when he had, for now, upon
the morrow, he could go to his death without vain regrets.
He did not want to die, and he made many plans during the day to seize
upon the slightest opportunity that might be presented to him to escape.
He wondered what had become of the girl and if she would come again
now that it was dark. He wished that she would, for he craved the
companionship of a friend during his last hours; but as the night wore
on, he gave up the hope and sought to forget the morrow in sleep.
As Wayne Colt moved restlessly upon his hard couch, Firg, a lesser
priest of Opar, snored upon his pallet of straw in the small, dark
recess that was his bed chamber. Firg was the keeper of the keys, and
so impressed was he with the importance of his duties that he never
would permit anyone even to touch the sacred emblems of his trust,
and probably because it was well known that Firg would die in defense
of them they were entrusted to him. Not with justice could Firg have
laid any claim to intellectuality, if he had known that such a thing
existed. He was only an abysmal brute of a man and, like many men, far
beneath the so-called brutes in many of the activities of mind. When he
slept, all his faculties were asleep, which is not true of wild beasts
when they sleep.
Firg's cell was in one of the upper stories of the ruins that still
remained intact. It was upon a corridor that encircled the main
temple court--a corridor that was now in dense shadow, since the moon,
touching it early in the night, had now passed on; so that the figure
creeping stealthily toward the entrance to Firg's chamber would have
been noticeable only to one who happened to be quite close. It moved
silently, but without hesitation, until it came to the entrance beyond
which Firg lay. There it paused, listening, and when it heard Firg's
noisy snoring, it entered quickly. Straight to the side of the sleeping
man it moved, and there it knelt, searching with one hand lightly over
his body, while the other grasped a long, sharp knife that hovered
constantly above the hairy chest of the priest.
Presently it found what it wanted--a great ring, upon which were strung
several enormous keys. A leather thong fastened the ring to Firg's
girdle, and with the keen blade of the dagger the nocturnal visitor
sought to sever the thong. Firg stirred, and instantly the creature
at his side froze to immobility. Then the priest moved restlessly and
commenced to snore again, and once more the dagger sawed at the leather
thong. It passed through the strand unexpectedly and touched the metal
of the ring lightly, but just enough to make the keys jangle ever so
slightly.
Instantly Firg was awake, but he did not rise. He was never to rise
again.
Silently, swiftly, before the stupid creature could realize his danger,
the keen blade of the dagger had pierced his heart.
Soundlessly, Firg collapsed. His slayer hesitated a moment with poised
dagger as though to make certain that the work had been well done.
Then, wiping the tell-tale stains from the dagger's blade with the
victim's loin cloth, the figure arose and hurried from the chamber, in
one hand the great keys upon their golden ring.
Colt stirred uneasily in his sleep and then awakened with a start. In
the waning moonlight he saw a figure beyond the grating of his cell. He
heard a key turn in the massive lock. Could it be that they were coming
for him? He rose to his feet, the urge of his last conscious thought
strong upon him--escape. And then as the door swung open, a soft voice
spoke, and he knew that the girl had returned.
She entered the cell and threw her arms about Colt's neck, drawing his
lips down to hers. For a moment she clung to him, and then she released
him and, taking one of his hands in hers, urged him to follow her; nor
was the American loath to leave the depressing interior of the death
cell.
On silent feet Nao led the way across the corner of the sacrificial
court, through a dark archway into a gloomy corridor. Winding and
twisting, keeping always in dark shadows, she led him along a
circuitous route through the ruins, until, after what seemed an
eternity to Colt, the girl opened a low, strong, wooden door and led
him into the great entrance hall of the temple, through the mighty
portal of which he could see the inner wall of the city.
Here Nao halted, and coming close to the man looked up into his eyes.
Again her arms stole about his neck, and again she pressed her lips to
his. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and her voice broke with little
sobs that she tried to stifle as she poured her love into the ears of
the man who could not understand.
She had brought him here to offer him his freedom, but she could not
let him go yet. She clung to him, caressing him and crooning to him.
For a quarter of an hour she held him there, and Colt had not the heart
to tear himself away, but at last she released him and pointed toward
the opening in the inner wall.
"Go!" she said, "taking the heart of Nao with you. I shall never see
you again, but at least I shall always have the memory of this hour to
carry through life with me."
Wayne stooped and kissed her hand, the slender, savage little hand that
had but just killed that her lover might live. Though of that, Wayne
knew nothing.
A great sadness depressed Colt as he passed through the inner wall and
crossed the court to freedom, for he knew that he had left behind him a
sad and hopeless heart, in the bosom of one who must have risked death,
perhaps, to save him--a perfect friend of whom he could but carry a
vague memory of a half-seen lovely face, a friend whose name he did
not know, the only tokens of whom he had carried away with him were the
memory of hot kisses and a slender dagger.
And thus, as Wayne Colt walked across the moonlit plain of Opar, the
joy of his escape was tempered by sadness as he recalled the figure of
the forlorn little priestess standing in the shadows of the ruins.
XI
LOST IN THE JUNGLE
It was some time after the uncanny scream had disturbed the camp of the
conspirators before the men could settle down to rest again.
Zveri believed that they had been followed by a band of Oparian
warriors, who might be contemplating a night attack, and so he placed
a heavy guard about the camp; but his blacks were confident that that
unearthly cry had broken from no human throat.
Depressed and dispirited, the men resumed their march the following
morning. They made an early start and by dint of much driving arrived
at the base camp just before dark. The sight that met their eyes there
filled them with consternation. The camp had disappeared, and in the
center of the clearing where it had been pitched a pile of ashes
suggested that disaster had overtaken the party that had been left
behind.
This new misfortune threw Zveri into a maniacal rage, but there was no
one present upon whom he might lay the blame, and so he was reduced to
the expedient of tramping back and forth while he cursed his luck in
loud tones and several languages.
From a tree Tarzan watched him. He, too, was at a loss to understand
the nature of the disaster that seemed to have overtaken the camp
during the absence of the main party, but as he saw that it caused the
leader intense anguish, the ape-man was pleased.
The blacks were confident that this was another manifestation of the
anger of the malign spirit that had been haunting them, and they were
all for deserting the ill-starred white man, whose every move ended in
failure or disaster.
Zveri's powers of leadership deserve full credit, since from the verge
of almost certain mutiny he forced his men by means of both cajolery
and threat to remain with him. He set them to building shelters for
the entire party, and immediately he dispatched messengers to his
various agents, urging them to forward necessary supplies at once. He
knew that certain things he needed already were on the way from the
Coast--uniforms, rifles, ammunition. But now he particularly needed
provisions and trade goods. To insure discipline, he kept the men
working constantly, either in adding to the comforts of the camp,
enlarging the clearing, or hunting fresh meats.
And so the days passed and became weeks, and meanwhile Tarzan watched
in waiting. He was in no hurry, for hurry is not a characteristic of
the beasts. He roamed the jungle often at a considerable distance from
Zveri's camp, but occasionally he would return, though not to molest
them, preferring to let them lull themselves into a stupor of tranquil
security, the shattering of which in his own good time would have dire
effect upon their morale. He understood the psychology of terror, and
it was with terror that he would defeat them.
* * * * *
To the camp of Abu Batn, upon the border of the Galla country, word
had come from spies that he had sent out that the Galla warriors
were gathering to prevent his passage through their territory. Being
weakened by the desertion of so many men, the sheykh dared not defy the
bravery and numbers of the Galla warriors, but he knew that he must
make some move, since it seemed inevitable that pursuit must overtake
him from the rear, if he remained where he was much longer.
At last scouts that he had sent far up the river on the opposite side
returned to report that a way to the west seemed clear along a more
northerly route, and so breaking camp, Abu Batn moved north with his
lone prisoner.
Great had been his rage when he discovered that Ibn Dammuk had stolen
La, and now he redoubled his precaution to prevent the escape of Zora
Drinov. So closely was she guarded that any possibility of escape
seemed almost hopeless. She had learned the fate for which Abu Batn was
reserving her, and now, depressed and melancholy, her mind was occupied
with plans for self-destruction. For a time she had harbored the hope
that Zveri would overtake the Aarabs and rescue her, but this she had
long since discarded, as day after day passed without bringing the
hoped for succor.
She could not know, of course, the straits in which Zveri had found
himself. He had not dared to detach a party of his men to search for
her, fearing that, in their mutinous state of mind, they might murder
any of his lieutenants that he placed in charge of them and return
to their own tribe, where, through the medium of gossip, word of his
expedition and its activities might reach his enemies; nor could he
lead all of his force upon such an expedition in person, since he must
remain at the base camp to receive the supplies that he knew would
presently be arriving.