4

Tarzan, the Jewels of Opar

by Edgar R. Burroughs

4, TARZAN, THE JEWELS OF OPAR by Edgar R. Burroughs
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Prophecy and Fulfillment


Then Tarzan turned his attention to the man. He had
not slain Numa to save the Negro--he had merely done it
in revenge upon the lion; but now that he saw the old
man lying helpless and dying before him something akin
to pity touched his savage heart. In his youth he
would have slain the witch-doctor without the slightest
compunction; but civilization had had its softening
effect upon him even as it does upon the nations and
races which it touches, though it had not yet gone far
enough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly or
effeminate. He saw an old man suffering and dying, and
he stooped and felt of his wounds and stanched the flow
of blood.

"Who are you?" asked the old man in a trembling voice.

"I am Tarzan--Tarzan of the Apes," replied the ape-man
and not without a greater touch of pride than he would
have said, "I am John Clayton, Lord Greystoke."

The witch-doctor shook convulsively and closed his
eyes. When he opened them again there was in them a
resignation to whatever horrible fate awaited him at
the hands of this feared demon of the woods. "Why do
you not kill me?" he asked.

"Why should I kill you?" inquired Tarzan.
"You have not harmed me, and anyway you are already dying.
Numa, the lion, has killed you."

"You would not kill me?" Surprise and incredulity were
in the tones of the quavering old voice.

"I would save you if I could," replied Tarzan, "but
that cannot be done. Why did you think I would kill
you?"

For a moment the old man was silent. When he spoke it
was evidently after some little effort to muster his
courage. "I knew you of old," he said, "when you
ranged the jungle in the country of Mbonga, the chief.
I was already a witch-doctor when you slew Kulonga and
the others, and when you robbed our huts and our poison
pot. At first I did not remember you; but at last I
did--the white-skinned ape that lived with the hairy
apes and made life miserable in the village of Mbonga,
the chief--the forest god--the Munango-Keewati for whom
we set food outside our gates and who came and ate it.
Tell me before I die--are you man or devil?"

Tarzan laughed. "I am a man," he said.

The old fellow sighed and shook his head. "You have
tried to save me from Simba," he said. "For that I
shall reward you. I am a great witch-doctor. Listen
to me, white man! I see bad days ahead of you. It is
writ in my own blood which I have smeared upon my palm.
A god greater even than you will rise up and strike you
down. Turn back, Munango-Keewati! Turn back before it
is too late. Danger lies ahead of you and danger lurks
behind; but greater is the danger before. I see--"
He paused and drew a long, gasping breath. Then he
crumpled into a little, wrinkled heap and died.
Tarzan wondered what else he had seen.

It was very late when the ape-man re-entered the boma
and lay down among his black warriors. None had seen
him go and none saw him return. He thought about the
warning of the old witch-doctor before he fell asleep
and he thought of it again after he awoke; but he did
not turn back for he was unafraid, though had he known
what lay in store for one he loved most in all the
world he would have flown through the trees to her side
and allowed the gold of Opar to remain forever hidden
in its forgotten storehouse.

Behind him that morning another white man pondered
something he had heard during the night and very nearly
did he give up his project and turn back upon his
trail. It was Werper, the murderer, who in the still
of the night had heard far away upon the trail ahead of
him a sound that had filled his cowardly soul with
terror--a sound such as he never before had heard in
all his life, nor dreamed that such a frightful thing
could emanate from the lungs of a God-created creature.
He had heard the victory cry of the bull ape as Tarzan
had screamed it forth into the face of Goro, the moon,
and he had trembled then and hidden his face; and now
in the broad light of a new day he trembled again as he
recalled it, and would have turned back from the
nameless danger the echo of that frightful sound seemed
to portend, had he not stood in even greater fear of
Achmet Zek, his master.

And so Tarzan of the Apes forged steadily ahead toward
Opar's ruined ramparts and behind him slunk Werper,
jackal-like, and only God knew what lay in store for
each.

At the edge of the desolate valley, overlooking the
golden domes and minarets of Opar, Tarzan halted.
By night he would go alone to the treasure vault,
reconnoitering, for he had determined that caution
should mark his every move upon this expedition.

With the coming of night he set forth, and Werper, who
had scaled the cliffs alone behind the ape-man's party,
and hidden through the day among the rough boulders of
the mountain top, slunk stealthily after him. The
boulder-strewn plain between the valley's edge and the
mighty granite kopje, outside the city's walls, where
lay the entrance to the passage-way leading to the
treasure vault, gave the Belgian ample cover as he
followed Tarzan toward Opar.

He saw the giant ape-man swing himself nimbly up the
face of the great rock. Werper, clawing fearfully
during the perilous ascent, sweating in terror, almost
palsied by fear, but spurred on by avarice, following
upward, until at last he stood upon the summit of the
rocky hill.

Tarzan was nowhere in sight. For a time Werper hid
behind one of the lesser boulders that were scattered
over the top of the hill, but, seeing or hearing
nothing of the Englishman, he crept from his place of
concealment to undertake a systematic search of his
surroundings, in the hope that he might discover the
location of the treasure in ample time to make his
escape before Tarzan returned, for it was the Belgian's
desire merely to locate the gold, that, after Tarzan
had departed, he might come in safety with his
followers and carry away as much as he could transport.

He found the narrow cleft leading downward into the
heart of the kopje along well-worn, granite steps. He
advanced quite to the dark mouth of the tunnel into
which the runway disappeared; but here he halted,
fearing to enter, lest he meet Tarzan returning.

The ape-man, far ahead of him, groped his way along the
rocky passage, until he came to the ancient wooden
door. A moment later he stood within the treasure
chamber, where, ages since, long-dead hands had ranged
the lofty rows of precious ingots for the rulers of
that great continent which now lies submerged beneath
the waters of the Atlantic.

No sound broke the stillness of the subterranean vault.
There was no evidence that another had discovered the
forgotten wealth since last the ape-man had visited its
hiding place.

Satisfied, Tarzan turned and retraced his steps toward
the summit of the kopje. Werper, from the concealment
of a jutting, granite shoulder, watched him pass up
from the shadows of the stairway and advance toward the
edge of the hill which faced the rim of the valley
where the Waziri awaited the signal of their master.
Then Werper, slipping stealthily from his hiding place,
dropped into the somber darkness of the entrance and
disappeared.

Tarzan, halting upon the kopje's edge, raised his voice
in the thunderous roar of a lion. Twice, at regular
intervals, he repeated the call, standing in attentive
silence for several minutes after the echoes of the
third call had died away. And then, from far across
the valley, faintly, came an answering roar--once,
twice, thrice. Basuli, the Waziri chieftain, had heard
and replied.

Tarzan again made his way toward the treasure vault,
knowing that in a few hours his blacks would be with
him, ready to bear away another fortune in the
strangely shaped, golden ingots of Opar. In the
meantime he would carry as much of the precious metal
to the summit of the kopje as he could.

Six trips he made in the five hours before Basuli
reached the kopje, and at the end of that time he had
transported forty-eight ingots to the edge of the great
boulder, carrying upon each trip a load which might
well have staggered two ordinary men, yet his giant
frame showed no evidence of fatigue, as he helped to
raise his ebon warriors to the hill top with the rope
that had been brought for the purpose.

Six times he had returned to the treasure chamber, and
six times Werper, the Belgian, had cowered in the black
shadows at the far end of the long vault. Once again
came the ape-man, and this time there came with him
fifty fighting men, turning porters for love of the
only creature in the world who might command of their
fierce and haughty natures such menial service. Fifty-two
more ingots passed out of the vaults, making the total
of one hundred which Tarzan intended taking away
with him.

As the last of the Waziri filed from the chamber,
Tarzan turned back for a last glimpse of the fabulous
wealth upon which his two inroads had made no
appreciable impression. Before he extinguished the
single candle he had brought with him for the purpose,
and the flickering light of which had cast the first
alleviating rays into the impenetrable darkness of the
buried chamber, that it had known for the countless
ages since it had lain forgotten of man, Tarzan's mind
reverted to that first occasion upon which he had
entered the treasure vault, coming upon it by chance as
he fled from the pits beneath the temple, where he had
been hidden by La, the High Priestess of the Sun
Worshipers.

He recalled the scene within the temple when he had
lain stretched upon the sacrificial altar, while La,
with high-raised dagger, stood above him, and the rows
of priests and priestesses awaited, in the ecstatic
hysteria of fanaticism, the first gush of their
victim's warm blood, that they might fill their golden
goblets and drink to the glory of their Flaming God.

The brutal and bloody interruption by Tha, the mad
priest, passed vividly before the ape-man's
recollective eyes, the flight of the votaries before
the insane blood lust of the hideous creature, the
brutal attack upon La, and his own part of the grim
tragedy when he had battled with the infuriated Oparian
and left him dead at the feet of the priestess he would
have profaned.

This and much more passed through Tarzan's memory as
he stood gazing at the long tiers of dull-yellow metal.
He wondered if La still ruled the temples of the ruined
city whose crumbling walls rose upon the very
foundations about him. Had she finally been forced
into a union with one of her grotesque priests?
It seemed a hideous fate, indeed, for one so beautiful.
With a shake of his head, Tarzan stepped to the
flickering candle, extinguished its feeble rays and
turned toward the exit.

Behind him the spy waited for him to be gone. He had
learned the secret for which he had come, and now he
could return at his leisure to his waiting followers,
bring them to the treasure vault and carry away all the
gold that they could stagger under.

The Waziri had reached the outer end of the tunnel,
and were winding upward toward the fresh air and the
welcome starlight of the kopje's summit, before Tarzan
shook off the detaining hand of reverie and started
slowly after them.

Once again, and, he thought, for the last time, he
closed the massive door of the treasure room. In the
darkness behind him Werper rose and stretched his
cramped muscles. He stretched forth a hand and
lovingly caressed a golden ingot on the nearest tier.
He raised it from its immemorial resting place and
weighed it in his hands. He clutched it to his bosom
in an ecstasy of avarice.

Tarzan dreamed of the happy homecoming which lay before
him, of dear arms about his neck, and a soft cheek
pressed to his; but there rose to dispel that dream the
memory of the old witch-doctor and his warning.

And then, in the span of a few brief seconds, the hopes
of both these men were shattered. The one forgot even
his greed in the panic of terror--the other was plunged
into total forgetfulness of the past by a jagged
fragment of rock which gashed a deep cut upon his head.