he would have cast aside every other consideration and gone to her
rescue; but being naturally suspicious of the loyalty of all men,
he had persuaded himself that Zora had deliberately deserted him--a
half-hearted conviction that had at least the effect of rendering his
naturally unpleasant disposition infinitely more unbearable, so that
those who should have been his companions and his support in his hour
of need contrived as much as possible to keep out of his way.
And while these things were transpiring, little Nkima sped through
the jungle upon a mission. In the service of his beloved master,
little Nkima could hold to a single thought and a line of action for
considerable periods of time at a stretch; but eventually his attention
was certain to be attracted by some extraneous matter and then, for
hours perhaps, he would forget all about whatever duty had been
imposed upon him; but when it again occurred to him, he would carry on
entirely without any appreciation of the fact that there had been a
break in the continuity of his endeavor.
Tarzan, of course, was entirely aware of this inherent weakness in
his little friend; but he knew, too, from experience that, however
many lapses might occur, Nkima would never entirely abandon any
design upon which his mind had been fixed; and having himself none of
civilized man's slavish subservience to time, he was prone to overlook
Nkima's erratic performance of a duty as a fault of almost negligible
consequence. Some day Nkima would arrive at his destination. Perhaps it
would be too late. If such a thought occurred at all to the ape-man,
doubtless he passed it off with a shrug.
But time is of the essence of many things to civilized man. He fumes,
and frets, and reduces his mental and physical efficiency if he is not
accomplishing something concrete during the passage of every minute
of that medium which seems to him like a flowing river, the waters of
which are utterly wasted if they are not utilized as they pass by.
Imbued by some such insane conception of time, Wayne Colt sweated and
stumbled through the jungle, seeking his companions as though the very
fate of the universe hung upon the slender chance that he should reach
them without the loss of a second.
The futility of his purpose would have been entirely apparent to him
could he have known that he was seeking his companions in the wrong
direction. Wayne Colt was lost. Fortunately for him he did not know it;
at least not yet. That stupefying conviction was to come later.
Days passed and still his wanderings revealed no camp. He was hard
put to it to find food, and his fare was meager and often revolting,
consisting of such fruits as he had already learned to know and of
rodents, which he managed to bag only with the greatest difficulty
and an appalling waste of that precious time which he still prized
above all things. He had cut himself a stout stick and would lie in
wait along some tiny runway where observation had taught him he might
expect to find his prey, until some unwary little creature came within
striking distance. He had learned that dawn and dusk were the best
hunting hours for the only animals that he could hope to bag, and he
learned other things as he moved through the grim jungle, all of which
pertained to his struggle for existence. He had learned, for instance,
that it was wiser for him to take to the trees whenever he heard a
strange noise. Usually the animals got out of his way as he approached;
but once a rhinoceros charged him, and again he almost stumbled upon a
lion at his kill. Providence intervened in each instance and he escaped
un-killed, but thus he learned caution.
About noon one day he came to a river that effectually blocked his
further progress in the direction that he had been travelling. By this
time the conviction was strong upon him that he was utterly lost, and
not knowing which direction he should take, he decided to follow the
line of least resistance and travel down hill with the river, upon the
shore of which he was positive that sooner or later he must discover a
native village.
He had proceeded no great distance in the new direction, following a
hard-packed trail, worn deep by the countless feet of many beasts, when
his attention was arrested by a sound that reached his ears dimly from
a distance. It came from somewhere ahead of him, and his hearing, now
far more acute than it ever had been before, told him that something
was approaching. Following the practice that he had found most
conducive to longevity since he had been wandering alone and ill-armed
against the dangers of the jungle, he flung himself quickly into a tree
and sought a point of vantage from where he could see the trail below
him. He could not see it for any distance ahead, so tortuously did it
wind through the jungle. Whatever was coming would not be visible until
it was almost directly beneath him, but that now was of no importance.
This experience of the jungle had taught him patience, and perchance
he was learning, too, a little of the valuelessness of time, for he
settled himself comfortably to wait at his ease.
The noise that he heard was little more than an imperceptible rustling,
but presently it assumed a new volume and a new significance, so that
now he was sure that it was someone running rapidly along the trail,
and not one but two--he distinctly heard the footfalls of the heavier
creature mingling with those he had first heard.
And then he heard a man's voice cry "Stop!" and now the sounds were
very close to him, just around the first bend ahead. The sound of
running feet stopped, to be followed by that of a scuffle and strange
oaths in a man's voice.
And then a woman's voice spoke, "Let me go! You will never get me where
you are taking me alive."
"Then I'll take you for myself now," said the man.
Colt had heard enough. There had been something familiar in the tones
of the woman's voice. Silently he dropped to the trail, drawing his
dagger, and stepped quickly toward the sounds of the altercation. As
he rounded the bend in the trail, he saw just before him only a man's
back--by thôb and thorrîb an Aarab--but beyond the man and in his
clutches Colt knew the woman was hidden by the flowing robes of her
assailant.
Leaping forward, he seized the fellow by the shoulder and jerked him
suddenly about; and as the man faced him Colt saw that it was Abu
Batn, and now, too, he saw why the voice of the woman had seemed
familiar--she was Zora Drinov.
Abu Batn purpled with rage at the interruption, but great as was his
anger so, too, was his surprise as he recognized the American. Just
for an instant he thought that possibly this was the advance guard of
a party of searchers and avengers from Zveri's camp, but when he had
time to observe the unkempt, disheveled, unarmed condition of Colt he
realized that the man was alone and doubtless lost.
"Dog of a Nasrâny!" he cried, jerking away from Colt's grasp. "Lay not
your filthy hand upon a true believer." At the same time he moved to
draw his pistol, but in that instant Colt was upon him again, and the
two men went down in the narrow trail, the American on top.
What happened then, happened very quickly. As Abu Batn drew his pistol,
he caught the hammer in the folds of his thôb, so that the weapon was
discharged. The bullet went harmlessly into the ground, but the report
warned Colt of his imminent danger, and in self defense he ran his
blade through the sheykh's throat.
As he rose slowly from the body of the sheykh, Zora Drinov grasped him
by the arm. "Quick!" she said. "That shot will bring the others. They
must not find us."
He did not wait to question her, but, stooping, quickly salvaged Abu
Batn's weapons and ammunition, including a long musket that lay in the
trail beside him; and then with Zora in the lead they ran swiftly up
the trail down which he had just come.
Presently, hearing no indication of pursuit, Colt halted the girl.
"Can you climb?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied. "Why?"
"We are going to take to the trees," he said. "We can go into the
jungle a short distance and throw them off the trail."
"Good!" she said, and with his assistance clambered into the branches
of a tree beneath which they stood.
Fortunately for them, several large trees grew close together so that
they were able to make their way with comparative ease a full hundred
feet from the trail, where, climbing high into the branches of a great
tree, they were effectually hidden from sight in all directions.
When at last they were seated side by side in a great crotch, Zora
turned toward Colt. "Comrade Colt!" she said. "What has happened? What
are you doing here alone? Were you looking for me?"
The man grinned. "I was looking for the whole party," he said. "I have
seen no one since we entered Opar. Where is the camp, and why was Abu
Batn pursuing you?"
"We are a long way from the camp," replied Zora. "I do not know how
far, though I could return to it, if it were not for the Aarabs." And
then briefly she told the story of Abu Batn's treachery and of her
captivity. "The sheykh made a temporary camp shortly after noon today.
The men were very tired, and for the first time in days they relaxed
their vigilance over me. I realized that at last the moment I had been
awaiting so anxiously had arrived, and while they slept I escaped into
the jungle. My absence must have been discovered shortly after I left,
and Abu Batn overtook me. The rest you witnessed."
"Fate functioned deviously and altogether wonderfully," he said. "To
think that your only chance of rescue hinged upon the contingency of my
capture at Opar!"
She smiled. "Fate reaches back further than that," she said. "Suppose
you had not been born?"
"Then Abu Batn would have carried you off to the harem of some black
sultan, or perhaps another man would have been captured at Opar."
"I am glad that you were born," said Zora.
"Thank you," said Colt.
While listening for signs of pursuit, they conversed in low tones, Colt
narrating in detail the events leading up to his capture, though some
of the details of his escape he omitted through a sense of loyalty to
the nameless girl who had aided him. Neither did he stress Zveri's
lack of control over his men, or what Colt considered his inexcusable
cowardice in leaving himself and Romero to their fate within the walls
of Opar without attempting to succor them, for he believed that the
girl was Zveri's sweetheart and he did not wish to offend her.
"What became of Comrade Romero?" she asked.
"I do not know," he said. "The last I saw of him he was standing his
ground, fighting off those crooked little demons."
"Alone?" she asked.
"I was pretty well occupied myself," he said.
"I do not mean that," she replied. "Of course, I know you were there
with Romero, but who else?"
"The others had not arrived," said Colt.
"You mean you two went in alone?" she asked.
Colt hesitated. "You see," he said, "the blacks refused to enter the
city, so the rest of us had to go in or abandon the attempt to get the
treasures."
"But only you and Miguel did go in. Is that not true?" she demanded.
"I passed out so soon, you see," he said with a laugh, "that really I
do not know exactly what did happen."
The girl's eyes narrowed. "It was beastly," she said.
As they talked, Colt's eyes were often upon the girl's face. How lovely
she was, even beneath the rags and the dirt that were the outward
symbols of her captivity among the Aarabs. She was a little thinner
than when he had last seen her, and her eyes were tired and her face
drawn from privation and worry. But, perhaps, by very contrast her
beauty was the more startling. It seemed incredible that she could love
the coarse, loud-mouthed Zveri, who was her antithesis in every respect.
Presently she broke a short silence. "We must try to get back to the
base camp," she said. "It is vital that I be there. So much must be
done, so much that no one else can do."
"You think only of the cause," he said; "never of yourself. You are
very loyal."
"Yes," she said in a low voice. "I am loyal to the thing I have sworn
to accomplish."
"I am afraid," he said, "that for the past few days I have been
thinking more of my own welfare than of that of the proletariat."
"I am afraid that at heart you are still bourgeois," she said, "and
that you cannot yet help looking upon the proletariat with contempt."
"What makes you say that?" he asked. "I am sure that I said nothing to
warrant it."
"Often a slight unconscious inflection in the use of a word alters
the significance of a whole statement, revealing a speaker's secret
thoughts."
Colt laughed good naturedly. "You are a dangerous person to talk to,"
he said. "Am I to be shot at sunrise?"
She looked at him seriously. "You are different from the others," she
said. "I think you could never imagine how suspicious they are. What I
have said is only in the way of warning you to watch your every word
when you are talking with them. Some of them are narrow and ignorant,
and they are already suspicious of you because of your antecedents.
They are sensitively jealous of a new importance which they believe
their class has attained."
"_Their_ class?" he asked. "I thought you told me once that you were of
the proletariat?"
If he had thought that he had surprised her and that she would show
embarrassment, he was mistaken. She met his eyes squarely and without
wavering. "I am," she said, "but I can still see the weaknesses of my
class."
He looked at her steadily for a long moment, the shadow of a smile
touching his lips. "I do not believe--"
"Why do you stop?" she asked. "What is it that you do not believe?"
"Forgive me," he said. "I was starting to think aloud."
"Be careful, Comrade Colt," she warned him. "Thinking aloud is
sometimes fatal;" but she tempered her words with a smile.
Further conversation was interrupted by the sound of the voices of men
in the distance. "They are coming," said the girl.
Colt nodded, and the two remained silent, listening to the sounds of
approaching voices and footsteps. The men came abreast of them and
halted, and Zora, who understood the Aarab tongue, heard one of them
say, "The trail stops here. They have gone into the jungle."
"Who can the man be who is with her?" asked another.
"It is a Nasrâny. I can tell by the imprint of his feet," said another.
"They would go toward the river," said a third. "That is the way that I
should go if I were trying to escape."
"Wullah! You speak words of wisdom," said the first speaker. "We will
spread out here and search toward the river; but look out for the
Nasrâny. He has the pistol and the musket of the sheykh."
The two fugitives heard the sound of pursuit diminishing in the
distance as the Aarabs forced their way into the jungle toward the
river. "I think we had better get out of this," said Colt; "and while
it may be pretty hard going, I believe that we had better stick to the
brush for awhile and keep on away from the river."
"Yes," replied Zora, "for that is the general direction in which the
camp lies." And so they commenced their long and weary march in search
of their comrades.
They were still pushing through dense jungle when night overtook them.
Their clothes were in rags and their bodies scratched and torn, mute
and painful reminders of the thorny way that they had traversed.
Hungry and thirsty they made a dry camp among the branches of a tree,
where Colt built a rude platform for the girl, while he prepared to
sleep upon the ground at the foot of the great bole. But to this, Zora
would not listen.
"That will not do at all," she said. "We are in no position to permit
ourselves to be the victims of every silly convention that would
ordinarily order our lives in civilized surroundings. I appreciate your
thoughtful consideration, but I would rather have you up here in the
tree with me than down there where the first hunting lion that passed
might get you." And so with the girl's help Colt built another platform
close to the one that he had built for her; and as darkness fell, they
stretched their tired bodies on their rude couches and sought to sleep.
Presently Colt dozed, and in his dream he saw the slender figure of a
star-eyed goddess, whose cheeks were wet with tears, but when he took
her in his arms and kissed her he saw that she was Zora Drinov; and
then a hideous sound from the jungle below awakened him with a start,
so that he sat up, seizing the musket of the sheykh in readiness.
"A hunting lion," said the girl in a low voice.
"Phew!" exclaimed Colt. "I must have been asleep, for that certainly
gave me a start."
"Yes, you were asleep," said the girl. "I heard you talking," and he
felt that he detected laughter in her voice.
"What was I saying?" asked Colt.
"Maybe you wouldn't want to hear. It might embarrass you," she told him.
"No. Come ahead. Tell me."
"You said 'I love you'."
"Did I, really?"
"Yes. I wonder whom you were talking to," she said, banteringly.
"I wonder," said Colt, recalling that in his dream the figure of one
girl had merged into that of another.
The lion, hearing their voices, moved away growling. He was not hunting
the hated man-things.
XII
DOWN TRAILS OF TERROR
Slow days dragged by for the man and woman searching for their
comrades--days filled with fatiguing effort, most of which was
directed toward the procuring of food and water for their sustenance.
Increasingly was Colt impressed by the character and personality of
his companion. With apprehension he noticed that she was gradually
weakening beneath the strain of fatigue and the scant and inadequate
food that he had been able to procure for her. But yet she kept a
brave front and tried to hide her condition from him. Never once had
she complained. Never by word or look had she reproached him for his
inability to procure sufficient food, a failure which he looked upon as
indicative of inefficiency. She did not know that he himself often went
hungry that she might eat, telling her when he returned with food that
he had eaten his share where he had found it, a deception that was made
possible by the fact that when he hunted he often left Zora to rest in
some place of comparative security, that she might not be subjected to
needless exertion.
He had left her thus today, safe in a great tree beside a winding
stream. She was very tired. It seemed to her that now she was always
tired. The thought of continuing the march appalled her, and yet
she knew that it must be undertaken. She wondered how much longer
she could go on before she sank exhausted for the last time. It was
not, however, for herself that she was most concerned, but for this
man--this scion of wealth, and capitalism, and power, whose constant
consideration and cheerfulness and tenderness had been a revelation
to her. She knew that when she could go no further, he would not leave
her and that thus his chances of escape from the grim jungle would be
jeopardized and perhaps lost forever because of her. She hoped, for
his sake, that death would come quickly to her that, thus relieved of
responsibility, he might move on more rapidly in search of that elusive
camp that seemed to her now little more than a meaningless myth. But
from the thought of death she shrank, not because of the fear of death,
as well might have been the case, but for an entirely new reason, the
sudden realization of which gave her a distinct shock. The tragedy of
this sudden self-awakening left her numb with terror. It was a thought
that must be put from her, one that she must not entertain even for an
instant; and yet it persisted--persisted with a dull insistency that
brought tears to her eyes.
Colt had gone farther afield than usual this morning in his search for
food, for he had sighted an antelope; and, his imagination inflamed by
the contemplation of so much meat in a single kill and what it would
mean for Zora, he clung doggedly to the trail, lured further on by an
occasional glimpse of his quarry in the distance.
The antelope was only vaguely aware of an enemy, for he was upwind from
Colt and had not caught his scent, while the occasional glimpses he
had had of the man had served mostly to arouse his curiosity; so that
though he moved away he stopped often and turned back in an effort to
satisfy his wonderment. But presently he waited a moment too long. In
his desperation, Colt chanced a long shot; and as the animal dropped,
the man could not stifle a loud cry of exultation.
As time, that she had no means of measuring, dragged on, Zora grew
increasingly apprehensive on Colt's account. Never before had he left
her for so long a time, so that she began to construct all sorts of
imaginary calamities that might have overtaken him. She wished now that
she had gone with him. If she had thought it possible to track him,
she would have followed him; but she knew that that was impossible.
However, her forced inactivity made her restless. Her cramped position
in the tree became unendurable; and then, suddenly assailed by thirst,
she lowered herself to the ground and walked toward the river.
When she had drunk and was about to return to the tree, she heard the
sound of something approaching from the direction in which Colt had
gone. Instantly her heart leaped with gladness, her depression and
even much of her fatigue seemed to vanish, and she realized suddenly
how very lonely she had been without him. How dependent we are upon
the society of our fellow-men, we seldom realize until we become the
victims of enforced solitude. There were tears of happiness in Zora
Drinov's eyes as she advanced to meet Colt. Then the bushes before
her parted, and there stepped into view, before her horrified gaze, a
monstrous, hairy ape.
To-yat, the king, was as much surprised as the girl, but his reactions
were almost opposite. It was with no horror that he viewed this soft,
white she-Mangani. To the girl there was naught but ferocity in his
mien, though in his breast was an entirely different emotion. He
lumbered toward her; and then, as though released from a momentary
paralysis, Zora turned to flee. But how futilely, she realized an
instant later as a hairy paw gripped her roughly by the shoulder. For
an instant she had forgotten the sheykh's pistol that Colt always left
with her for self-protection. Jerking it from its holster, she turned
upon the beast; but To-yat, seeing in the weapon a club with which she
intended to attack him, wrenched it from her grasp and hurled it aside;
and then, though she struggled and fought to regain her freedom, he
lifted her lightly to his hip and lumbered off into the jungle in the
direction that he had been going.
Colt tarried at his kill only long enough to remove the feet, the head
and the viscera, that he might by that much reduce the weight of the
burden that he must carry back to camp, for he was quite well aware
that his privation had greatly reduced his strength.
Lifting the carcass to his shoulder, he started back toward camp,
exulting in the thought that for once he was returning with an ample
quantity of strength-giving flesh. As he staggered along beneath the
weight of the small antelope, he made plans that imparted a rosy hue
to the future. They would rest now until their strength returned; and
while they were resting they would smoke all of the meat of his kill
that they did not eat at once, and thus they would have a reserve
supply of food that he felt would carry them a great distance. Two
days' rest with plenty of food would, he was positive, fill them with
renewed hope and vitality.
As he started laboriously along the back trail, he commenced to realize
that he had come much farther than he had thought, but it had been
well worth while. Even though he reached Zora in a state of utter
exhaustion, he did not fear for a minute but that he would reach her,
so confident was he of his own powers of endurance and the strength of
his will.
As he staggered at last to his goal, he looked up into the tree and
called her by name. There was no reply. In that first brief instant of
silence, a dull and sickening premonition of disaster crept over him.
He dropped the carcass of the deer and looked hurriedly about.
"Zora! Zora!" he cried; but only the silence of the jungle was his
answer. Then his searching eyes found the pistol of Abu Batn where
To-yat had dropped it; and his worst fears were substantiated, for he
knew that if Zora had gone away of her own volition she would have
taken the weapon with her. She had been attacked by something and
carried off, of that he was positive; and presently as he examined the
ground closely he discovered the imprints of a great man-like foot.