8

Tarzan, the Jewels of Opar

by Edgar R. Burroughs

8, TARZAN, THE JEWELS OF OPAR by Edgar R. Burroughs
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The Escape from Opar


Werper was astounded. Could this creature be the same
dignified Englishman who had entertained him so
graciously in his luxurious African home? Could this
wild beast, with blazing eyes, and bloody countenance,
be at the same time a man? Could the horrid, victory
cry he had but just heard have been formed in human
throat?

Tarzan was eyeing the man and the woman, a puzzled
expression in his eyes, but there was no faintest tinge
of recognition. It was as though he had discovered
some new species of living creature and was marveling
at his find.

La was studying the ape-man's features. Slowly her
large eyes opened very wide.

"Tarzan!" she exclaimed, and then, in the vernacular of
the great apes which constant association with the
anthropoids had rendered the common language of the
Oparians: "You have come back to me! La has ignored the
mandates of her religion, waiting, always waiting for
Tarzan--for her Tarzan. She has taken no mate, for in
all the world there was but one with whom La would
mate. And now you have come back! Tell me, O Tarzan,
that it is for me you have returned."

Werper listened to the unintelligible jargon.
He looked from La to Tarzan. Would the latter understand
this strange tongue? To the Belgian's surprise, the
Englishman answered in a language evidently identical
to hers.

"Tarzan," he repeated, musingly. "Tarzan. The name
sounds familiar."

"It is your name--you are Tarzan," cried La.

"I am Tarzan?" The ape-man shrugged. "Well, it is a
good name--I know no other, so I will keep it; but I do
not know you. I did not come hither for you. Why I
came, I do not know at all; neither do I know from
whence I came. Can you tell me?"

La shook her head. "I never knew," she replied.

Tarzan turned toward Werper and put the same question
to him; but in the language of the great apes.
The Belgian shook his head.

"I do not understand that language," he said in French.

Without effort, and apparently without realizing that
he made the change, Tarzan repeated his question in
French. Werper suddenly came to a full realization of
the magnitude of the injury of which Tarzan was a
victim. The man had lost his memory--no longer could
he recollect past events. The Belgian was upon the
point of enlightening him, when it suddenly occurred to
him that by keeping Tarzan in ignorance, for a time at
least, of his true identity, it might be possible to
turn the ape-man's misfortune to his own advantage.

"I cannot tell you from whence you came," he said;
"but this I can tell you--if we do not get out of this
horrible place we shall both be slain upon this bloody
altar. The woman was about to plunge her knife into my
heart when the lion interrupted the fiendish ritual. Come!
Before they recover from their fright and reassemble,
let us find a way out of their damnable temple."

Tarzan turned again toward La.

"Why," he asked, "would you have killed this man?
Are you hungry?"

The High Priestess cried out in disgust.

"Did he attempt to kill you?" continued Tarzan.

The woman shook her head.

"Then why should you have wished to kill him?" Tarzan
was determined to get to the bottom of the thing.

La raised her slender arm and pointed toward the sun.

"We were offering up his soul as a gift to the Flaming
God," she said.

Tarzan looked puzzled. He was again an ape, and apes
do not understand such matters as souls and Flaming
Gods.

"Do you wish to die?" he asked Werper.

The Belgian assured him, with tears in his eyes, that
he did not wish to die.

"Very well then, you shall not," said Tarzan. "Come!
We will go. This SHE would kill you and keep me
for herself. It is no place anyway for a Mangani.
I should soon die, shut up behind these stone walls."

He turned toward La. "We are going now," he said.

The woman rushed forward and seized the ape-man's hands
in hers.

"Do not leave me!" she cried. "Stay, and you shall be
High Priest. La loves you. All Opar shall be yours.
Slaves shall wait upon you. Stay, Tarzan of the Apes,
and let love reward you."

The ape-man pushed the kneeling woman aside. "Tarzan
does not desire you," he said, simply, and stepping to
Werper's side he cut the Belgian's bonds and motioned
him to follow.

Panting--her face convulsed with rage, La sprang to her
feet.

"Stay, you shall!" she screamed. "La will have you--if
she cannot have you alive, she will have you dead," and
raising her face to the sun she gave voice to the same
hideous shriek that Werper had heard once before and
Tarzan many times.

In answer to her cry a babel of voices broke from the
surrounding chambers and corridors.

"Come, Guardian Priests!" she cried. "The infidels
have profaned the holiest of the holies. Come! Strike
terror to their hearts; defend La and her altar; wash
clean the temple with the blood of the polluters."

Tarzan understood, though Werper did not. The former
glanced at the Belgian and saw that he was unarmed.
Stepping quickly to La's side the ape-man seized her in
his strong arms and though she fought with all the mad
savagery of a demon, he soon disarmed her, handing her
long, sacrificial knife to Werper.

"You will need this," he said, and then from each
doorway a horde of the monstrous, little men of Opar
streamed into the temple.

They were armed with bludgeons and knives, and
fortified in their courage by fanatical hate and
frenzy. Werper was terrified. Tarzan stood eyeing the
foe in proud disdain. Slowly he advanced toward the
exit he had chosen to utilize in making his way from
the temple. A burly priest barred his way. Behind the
first was a score of others. Tarzan swung his heavy
spear, clublike, down upon the skull of the priest.
The fellow collapsed, his head crushed.

Again and again the weapon fell as Tarzan made his way
slowly toward the doorway. Werper pressed close
behind, casting backward glances toward the shrieking,
dancing mob menacing their rear. He held the
sacrificial knife ready to strike whoever might come
within its reach; but none came. For a time he
wondered that they should so bravely battle with the
giant ape-man, yet hesitate to rush upon him, who was
relatively so weak. Had they done so he knew that he
must have fallen at the first charge. Tarzan had
reached the doorway over the corpses of all that had
stood to dispute his way, before Werper guessed at the
reason for his immunity. The priests feared the
sacrificial knife! Willingly would they face death and
welcome it if it came while they defended their High
Priestess and her altar; but evidently there were
deaths, and deaths. Some strange superstition must
surround that polished blade, that no Oparian cared to
chance a death thrust from it, yet gladly rushed to the
slaughter of the ape-man's flaying spear.

Once outside the temple court, Werper communicated his
discovery to Tarzan. The ape-man grinned, and let
Werper go before him, brandishing the jeweled and holy
weapon. Like leaves before a gale, the Oparians
scattered in all directions and Tarzan and the Belgian
found a clear passage through the corridors and
chambers of the ancient temple.

The Belgian's eyes went wide as they passed through the
room of the seven pillars of solid gold. With ill-concealed
avarice he looked upon the age-old, golden tablets
set in the walls of nearly every room and down
the sides of many of the corridors. To the ape-man all
this wealth appeared to mean nothing.

On the two went, chance leading them toward the broad
avenue which lay between the stately piles of the
half-ruined edifices and the inner wall of the city.
Great apes jabbered at them and menaced them; but Tarzan
answered them after their own kind, giving back taunt
for taunt, insult for insult, challenge for challenge.

Werper saw a hairy bull swing down from a broken column
and advance, stiff-legged and bristling, toward the
naked giant. The yellow fangs were bared, angry snarls
and barkings rumbled threateningly through the thick
and hanging lips.

The Belgian watched his companion. To his horror, he
saw the man stoop until his closed knuckles rested upon
the ground as did those of the anthropoid. He saw him
circle, stiff-legged about the circling ape. He heard
the same bestial barkings and growlings issue from the
human throat that were coming from the mouth of the
brute. Had his eyes been closed he could not have
known but that two giant apes were bridling for combat.

But there was no battle. It ended as the majority of
such jungle encounters end--one of the boasters loses
his nerve, and becomes suddenly interested in a blowing
leaf, a beetle, or the lice upon his hairy stomach.

In this instance it was the anthropoid that retired in
stiff dignity to inspect an unhappy caterpillar, which
he presently devoured. For a moment Tarzan seemed
inclined to pursue the argument. He swaggered
truculently, stuck out his chest, roared and advanced
closer to the bull. It was with difficulty that Werper
finally persuaded him to leave well enough alone and
continue his way from the ancient city of the Sun
Worshipers.

The two searched for nearly an hour before they found
the narrow exit through the inner wall. From there the
well-worn trail led them beyond the outer fortification
to the desolate valley of Opar.

Tarzan had no idea, in so far as Werper could discover,
as to where he was or whence he came. He wandered
aimlessly about, searching for food, which he
discovered beneath small rocks, or hiding in the shade
of the scant brush which dotted the ground.

The Belgian was horrified by the hideous menu of his
companion. Beetles, rodents and caterpillars were
devoured with seeming relish. Tarzan was indeed an ape
again.

At last Werper succeeded in leading his companion
toward the distant hills which mark the northwestern
boundary of the valley, and together the two set out in
the direction of the Greystoke bungalow.

What purpose prompted the Belgian in leading the victim
of his treachery and greed back toward his former home
it is difficult to guess, unless it was that without
Tarzan there could be no ransom for Tarzan's wife.

That night they camped in the valley beyond the hills,
and as they sat before a little fire where cooked a
wild pig that had fallen to one of Tarzan's arrows, the
latter sat lost in speculation. He seemed continually
to be trying to grasp some mental image which as
constantly eluded him.

At last he opened the leathern pouch which hung at his
side. From it he poured into the palm of his hand a
quantity of glittering gems. The firelight playing
upon them conjured a multitude of scintillating rays,
and as the wide eyes of the Belgian looked on in rapt
fascination, the man's expression at last acknowledged
a tangible purpose in courting the society of the ape-man.