2

Tarzan, the Jewels of Opar

by Edgar R. Burroughs

2, TARZAN, THE JEWELS OF OPAR by Edgar R. Burroughs
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On the Road To Opar


It was two weeks later that John Clayton, Lord
Greystoke, riding in from a tour of inspection of his
vast African estate, glimpsed the head of a column of
men crossing the plain that lay between his bungalow
and the forest to the north and west.

He reined in his horse and watched the little party as
it emerged from a concealing swale. His keen eyes
caught the reflection of the sun upon the white helmet
of a mounted man, and with the conviction that a
wandering European hunter was seeking his hospitality,
he wheeled his mount and rode slowly forward to meet
the newcomer.

A half hour later he was mounting the steps leading to
the veranda of his bungalow, and introducing M. Jules
Frecoult to Lady Greystoke.

"I was completely lost," M. Frecoult was explaining.
"My head man had never before been in this part of the
country and the guides who were to have accompanied me
from the last village we passed knew even less of the
country than we. They finally deserted us two days
since. I am very fortunate indeed to have stumbled so
providentially upon succor. I do not know what I
should have done, had I not found you."

It was decided that Frecoult and his party should
remain several days, or until they were thoroughly
rested, when Lord Greystoke would furnish guides to
lead them safely back into country with which
Frecoult's head man was supposedly familiar.

In his guise of a French gentleman of leisure, Werper
found little difficulty in deceiving his host and in
ingratiating himself with both Tarzan and Jane Clayton;
but the longer he remained the less hopeful he became
of an easy accomplishment of his designs.

Lady Greystoke never rode alone at any great distance
from the bungalow, and the savage loyalty of the
ferocious Waziri warriors who formed a great part of
Tarzan's followers seemed to preclude the possibility
of a successful attempt at forcible abduction, or of
the bribery of the Waziri themselves.

A week passed, and Werper was no nearer the fulfillment
of his plan, in so far as he could judge, than upon the
day of his arrival, but at that very moment something
occurred which gave him renewed hope and set his mind
upon an even greater reward than a woman's ransom.

A runner had arrived at the bungalow with the weekly
mail, and Lord Greystoke had spent the afternoon in his
study reading and answering letters. At dinner he
seemed distraught, and early in the evening he excused
himself and retired, Lady Greystoke following him very
soon after. Werper, sitting upon the veranda, could
hear their voices in earnest discussion, and having
realized that something of unusual moment was afoot,
he quietly rose from his chair, and keeping well in the
shadow of the shrubbery growing profusely about the
bungalow, made his silent way to a point beneath the
window of the room in which his host and hostess slept.

Here he listened, and not without result, for almost
the first words he overheard filled him with
excitement. Lady Greystoke was speaking as Werper came
within hearing.

"I always feared for the stability of the company," she
was saying; "but it seems incredible that they should
have failed for so enormous a sum--unless there has
been some dishonest manipulation."

"That is what I suspect," replied Tarzan; "but whatever
the cause, the fact remains that I have lost
everything, and there is nothing for it but to return
to Opar and get more."

"Oh, John," cried Lady Greystoke, and Werper could feel
the shudder through her voice, "is there no other way?
I cannot bear to think of you returning to that
frightful city. I would rather live in poverty always
than to have you risk the hideous dangers of Opar."

"You need have no fear," replied Tarzan, laughing.
"I am pretty well able to take care of myself, and were
I not, the Waziri who will accompany me will see that no
harm befalls me."

"They ran away from Opar once, and left you to your
fate," she reminded him.

"They will not do it again," he answered. "They were
very much ashamed of themselves, and were coming back
when I met them."

"But there must be some other way," insisted the woman.

"There is no other way half so easy to obtain another
fortune, as to go to the treasure vaults of Opar and
bring it away," he replied. "I shall be very careful,
Jane, and the chances are that the inhabitants of Opar
will never know that I have been there again and
despoiled them of another portion of the treasure, the
very existence of which they are as ignorant of as they
would be of its value."

The finality in his tone seemed to assure Lady
Greystoke that further argument was futile, and so she
abandoned the subject.

Werper remained, listening, for a short time, and then,
confident that he had overheard all that was necessary
and fearing discovery, returned to the veranda, where
he smoked numerous cigarets in rapid succession before
retiring.

The following morning at breakfast, Werper announced
his intention of making an early departure, and asked
Tarzan's permission to hunt big game in the Waziri
country on his way out--permission which Lord Greystoke
readily granted.

The Belgian consumed two days in completing his
preparations, but finally got away with his safari,
accompanied by a single Waziri guide whom Lord
Greystoke had loaned him. The party made but a single
short march when Werper simulated illness, and
announced his intention of remaining where he was until
he had fully recovered. As they had gone but a short
distance from the Greystoke bungalow, Werper dismissed
the Waziri guide, telling the warrior that he would
send for him when he was able to proceed. The Waziri
gone, the Belgian summoned one of Achmet Zek's trusted
blacks to his tent, and dispatched him to watch for the
departure of Tarzan, returning immediately to advise
Werper of the event and the direction taken by the
Englishman.

The Belgian did not have long to wait, for the
following day his emissary returned with word that
Tarzan and a party of fifty Waziri warriors had set out
toward the southeast early in the morning.

Werper called his head man to him, after writing a long
letter to Achmet Zek. This letter he handed to the
head man.

"Send a runner at once to Achmet Zek with this," he
instructed the head man. "Remain here in camp awaiting
further instructions from him or from me. If any come
from the bungalow of the Englishman, tell them that I
am very ill within my tent and can see no one. Now,
give me six porters and six askaris--the strongest and
bravest of the safari--and I will march after the
Englishman and discover where his gold is hidden."

And so it was that as Tarzan, stripped to the loin
cloth and armed after the primitive fashion he best
loved, led his loyal Waziri toward the dead city of
Opar, Werper, the renegade, haunted his trail through
the long, hot days, and camped close behind him by
night.

And as they marched, Achmet Zek rode with his entire
following southward toward the Greystoke farm.

To Tarzan of the Apes the expedition was in the nature
of a holiday outing. His civilization was at best but
an outward veneer which he gladly peeled off with his
uncomfortable European clothes whenever any reasonable
pretext presented itself. It was a woman's love which
kept Tarzan even to the semblance of civilization--a
condition for which familiarity had bred contempt. He
hated the shams and the hypocrisies of it and with the
clear vision of an unspoiled mind he had penetrated to
the rotten core of the heart of the thing--the cowardly
greed for peace and ease and the safe-guarding of
property rights. That the fine things of life--art,
music and literature--had thriven upon such enervating
ideals he strenuously denied, insisting, rather, that
they had endured in spite of civilization.

"Show me the fat, opulent coward," he was wont to say,
"who ever originated a beautiful ideal. In the clash
of arms, in the battle for survival, amid hunger and
death and danger, in the face of God as manifested in
the display of Nature's most terrific forces, is born
all that is finest and best in the human heart and
mind."

And so Tarzan always came back to Nature in the spirit
of a lover keeping a long deferred tryst after a period
behind prison walls. His Waziri, at marrow, were more
civilized than he. They cooked their meat before they
ate it and they shunned many articles of food as
unclean that Tarzan had eaten with gusto all his life
and so insidious is the virus of hypocrisy that even
the stalwart ape-man hesitated to give rein to his
natural longings before them. He ate burnt flesh when
he would have preferred it raw and unspoiled, and he
brought down game with arrow or spear when he would far
rather have leaped upon it from ambush and sunk his
strong teeth in its jugular; but at last the call of
the milk of the savage mother that had suckled him in
infancy rose to an insistent demand--he craved the hot
blood of a fresh kill and his muscles yearned to pit
themselves against the savage jungle in the battle for
existence that had been his sole birthright for the
first twenty years of his life.