14

Tarzan, the Jewels of Opar

by Edgar R. Burroughs

14, TARZAN, THE JEWELS OF OPAR by Edgar R. Burroughs
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A Priestess But Yet a Woman


At first La closed her eyes and clung to Tarzan in terror,
though she made no outcry; but presently she gained
sufficient courage to look about her, to look down
at the ground beneath and even to keep her eyes open
during the wide, perilous swings from tree to tree,
and then there came over her a sense of safety
because of her confidence in the perfect physical
creature in whose strength and nerve and agility her
fate lay. Once she raised her eyes to the burning sun
and murmured a prayer of thanks to her pagan god that
she had not been permitted to destroy this godlike man,
and her long lashes were wet with tears. A strange
anomaly was La of Opar--a creature of circumstance torn
by conflicting emotions. Now the cruel and
bloodthirsty creature of a heartless god and again a
melting woman filled with compassion and tenderness.
Sometimes the incarnation of jealousy and revenge and
sometimes a sobbing maiden, generous and forgiving; at
once a virgin and a wanton; but always--a woman.
Such was La.

She pressed her cheek close to Tarzan's shoulder.
Slowly she turned her head until her hot lips were
pressed against his flesh. She loved him and would
gladly have died for him; yet within an hour she had
been ready to plunge a knife into his heart and might
again within the coming hour.

A hapless priest seeking shelter in the jungle chanced
to show himself to enraged Tantor. The great beast
turned to one side, bore down upon the crooked, little
man, snuffed him out and then, diverted from his
course, blundered away toward the south. In a few
minutes even the noise of his trumpeting was lost in
the distance.

Tarzan dropped to the ground and La slipped to her feet
from his back. "Call your people together," said Tarzan.

"They will kill me," replied La.

"They will not kill you," contradicted the ape-man.
"No one will kill you while Tarzan of the Apes is here.
Call them and we will talk with them."

La raised her voice in a weird, flutelike call that
carried far into the jungle on every side. From near
and far came answering shouts in the barking tones of
the Oparian priests: "We come! We come!" Again and
again, La repeated her summons until singly and in
pairs the greater portion of her following approached
and halted a short distance away from the High
Priestess and her savior. They came with scowling
brows and threatening mien. When all had come Tarzan
addressed them.

"Your La is safe," said the ape-man. "Had she slain me
she would now herself be dead and many more of you; but
she spared me that I might save her. Go your way with
her back to Opar, and Tarzan will go his way into the
jungle. Let there be peace always between Tarzan and
La. What is your answer?"

The priests grumbled and shook their heads. They spoke
together and La and Tarzan could see that they were not
favorably inclined toward the proposition. They did
not wish to take La back and they did wish to complete
the sacrifice of Tarzan to the Flaming God. At last
the ape-man became impatient.

"You will obey the commands of your queen," he said,
"and go back to Opar with her or Tarzan of the Apes
will call together the other creatures of the jungle
and slay you all. La saved me that I might save you
and her. I have served you better alive than I could
have dead. If you are not all fools you will let me go
my way in peace and you will return to Opar with La.
I know not where the sacred knife is; but you can fashion
another. Had I not taken it from La you would have
slain me and now your god must be glad that I took it
since I have saved his priestess from love-mad Tantor.
Will you go back to Opar with La, promising that no
harm shall befall her?"

The priests gathered together in a little knot arguing
and discussing. They pounded upon their breasts with
their fists; they raised their hands and eyes to their
fiery god; they growled and barked among themselves
until it became evident to Tarzan that one of their
number was preventing the acceptance of his proposal.
This was the High Priest whose heart was filled with
jealous rage because La openly acknowledged her love
for the stranger, when by the worldly customs of their
cult she should have belonged to him. Seemingly there
was to be no solution of the problem until another
priest stepped forth and, raising his hand, addressed
La.

"Cadj, the High Priest," he announced, "would sacrifice
you both to the Flaming God; but all of us except Cadj
would gladly return to Opar with our queen."

"You are many against one," spoke up Tarzan.
"Why should you not have your will? Go your way with
La to Opar and if Cadj interferes slay him."

The priests of Opar welcomed this suggestion with loud
cries of approval. To them it appeared nothing short
of divine inspiration. The influence of ages of
unquestioning obedience to high priests had made it
seem impossible to them to question his authority; but
when they realized that they could force him to their
will they were as happy as children with new toys.

They rushed forward and seized Cadj. They talked in
loud menacing tones into his ear. They threatened him
with bludgeon and knife until at last he acquiesced in
their demands, though sullenly, and then Tarzan stepped
close before Cadj.

"Priest," he said, "La goes back to her temple under
the protection of her priests and the threat of Tarzan
of the Apes that whoever harms her shall die. Tarzan
will go again to Opar before the next rains and if harm
has befallen La, woe betide Cadj, the High Priest."

Sullenly Cadj promised not to harm his queen.

"Protect her," cried Tarzan to the other Oparians.
"Protect her so that when Tarzan comes again he will
find La there to greet him."

"La will be there to greet thee," exclaimed the High
Priestess, "and La will wait, longing, always longing,
until you come again. Oh, tell me that you will come!"

"Who knows?" asked the ape-man as he swung quickly into
the trees and raced off toward the east.

For a moment La stood looking after him, then her head
drooped, a sigh escaped her lips and like an old woman
she took up the march toward distant Opar.

Through the trees raced Tarzan of the Apes until the
darkness of night had settled upon the jungle, then he
lay down and slept, with no thought beyond the morrow
and with even La but the shadow of a memory within his
consciousness.

But a few marches to the north Lady Greystoke looked
forward to the day when her mighty lord and master
should discover the crime of Achmet Zek, and be
speeding to rescue and avenge, and even as she pictured
the coming of John Clayton, the object of her thoughts
squatted almost naked, beside a fallen log, beneath
which he was searching with grimy fingers for a chance
beetle or a luscious grub.

Two days elapsed following the theft of the jewels
before Tarzan gave them a thought. Then, as they
chanced to enter his mind, he conceived a desire to
play with them again, and, having nothing better to do
than satisfy the first whim which possessed him, he
rose and started across the plain from the forest in
which he had spent the preceding day.

Though no mark showed where the gems had been buried,
and though the spot resembled the balance of an
unbroken stretch several miles in length, where the
reeds terminated at the edge of the meadowland, yet the
ape-man moved with unerring precision directly to the
place where he had hid his treasure.

With his hunting knife he upturned the loose earth,
beneath which the pouch should be; but, though he
excavated to a greater distance than the depth of the
original hole there was no sign of pouch or jewels.
Tarzan's brow clouded as he discovered that he had been
despoiled. Little or no reasoning was required to
convince him of the identity of the guilty party, and
with the same celerity that had marked his decision to
unearth the jewels, he set out upon the trail of the
thief.

Though the spoor was two days old, and practically
obliterated in many places, Tarzan followed it with
comparative ease. A white man could not have followed
it twenty paces twelve hours after it had been made, a
black man would have lost it within the first mile; but
Tarzan of the Apes had been forced in childhood to
develop senses that an ordinary mortal scarce ever uses.

We may note the garlic and whisky on the breath of a
fellow strap hanger, or the cheap perfume emanating
from the person of the wondrous lady sitting in front
of us, and deplore the fact of our sensitive noses;
but, as a matter of fact, we cannot smell at all, our
olfactory organs are practically atrophied, by
comparison with the development of the sense among the
beasts of the wild.

Where a foot is placed an effluvium remains for a
considerable time. It is beyond the range of our
sensibilities; but to a creature of the lower orders,
especially to the hunters and the hunted, as
interesting and ofttimes more lucid than is the printed
page to us.

Nor was Tarzan dependent alone upon his sense of smell.
Vision and hearing had been brought to a marvelous
state of development by the necessities of his early
life, where survival itself depended almost daily upon
the exercise of the keenest vigilance and the constant
use of all his faculties.

And so he followed the old trail of the Belgian through
the forest and toward the north; but because of the age
of the trail he was constrained to a far from rapid
progress. The man he followed was two days ahead of
him when Tarzan took up the pursuit, and each day he
gained upon the ape-man. The latter, however, felt not
the slightest doubt as to the outcome. Some day he
would overhaul his quarry--he could bide his time in
peace until that day dawned. Doggedly he followed the
faint spoor, pausing by day only to kill and eat, and
at night only to sleep and refresh himself.

Occasionally he passed parties of savage warriors; but
these he gave a wide berth, for he was hunting with a
purpose that was not to be distracted by the minor
accidents of the trail.

These parties were of the collecting hordes of the
Waziri and their allies which Basuli had scattered his
messengers broadcast to summon. They were marching to
a common rendezvous in preparation for an assault upon
the stronghold of Achmet Zek; but to Tarzan they were
enemies--he retained no conscious memory of any
friendship for the black men.

It was night when he halted outside the palisaded
village of the Arab raider. Perched in the branches of
a great tree he gazed down upon the life within the
enclosure. To this place had the spoor led him. His
quarry must be within; but how was he to find him among
so many huts? Tarzan, although cognizant of his mighty
powers, realized also his limitations. He knew that he
could not successfully cope with great numbers in open
battle. He must resort to the stealth and trickery of
the wild beast, if he were to succeed.

Sitting in the safety of his tree, munching upon the
leg bone of Horta, the boar, Tarzan waited a favorable
opportunity to enter the village. For awhile he gnawed
at the bulging, round ends of the large bone,
splintering off small pieces between his strong jaws,
and sucking at the delicious marrow within; but all the
time he cast repeated glances into the village. He saw
white-robed figures, and half-naked blacks; but not
once did he see one who resembled the stealer of the gems.

Patiently he waited until the streets were deserted by
all save the sentries at the gates, then he dropped
lightly to the ground, circled to the opposite side of
the village and approached the palisade.

At his side hung a long, rawhide rope--a natural and
more dependable evolution from the grass rope of his
childhood. Loosening this, he spread the noose upon the
ground behind him, and with a quick movement of his
wrist tossed the coils over one of the sharpened
projections of the summit of the palisade.

Drawing the noose taut, he tested the solidity of its
hold. Satisfied, the ape-man ran nimbly up the vertical
wall, aided by the rope which he clutched in both
hands. Once at the top it required but a moment to
gather the dangling rope once more into its coils, make
it fast again at his waist, take a quick glance
downward within the palisade, and, assured that no one
lurked directly beneath him, drop softly to the ground.

Now he was within the village. Before him stretched a
series of tents and native huts. The business of
exploring each of them would be fraught with danger;
but danger was only a natural factor of each day's
life--it never appalled Tarzan. The chances appealed
to him--the chances of life and death, with his prowess
and his faculties pitted against those of a worthy
antagonist.

It was not necessary that he enter each habitation--
through a door, a window or an open chink, his nose
told him whether or not his prey lay within. For some
time he found one disappointment following upon the
heels of another in quick succession. No spoor of the
Belgian was discernible. But at last he came to a tent
where the smell of the thief was strong. Tarzan
listened, his ear close to the canvas at the rear, but
no sound came from within.

At last he cut one of the pin ropes, raised the bottom
of the canvas, and intruded his head within the
interior. All was quiet and dark. Tarzan crawled
cautiously within--the scent of the Belgian was strong;
but it was not live scent. Even before he had examined
the interior minutely, Tarzan knew that no one was
within it.

In one corner he found a pile of blankets and clothing
scattered about; but no pouch of pretty pebbles.
A careful examination of the balance of the tent revealed
nothing more, at least nothing to indicate the presence
of the jewels; but at the side where the blankets and
clothing lay, the ape-man discovered that the tent wall
had been loosened at the bottom, and presently he
sensed that the Belgian had recently passed out of the
tent by this avenue.

Tarzan was not long in following the way that his prey
had fled. The spoor led always in the shadow and at
the rear of the huts and tents of the village--it was
quite evident to Tarzan that the Belgian had gone alone
and secretly upon his mission. Evidently he feared the
inhabitants of the village, or at least his work had
been of such a nature that he dared not risk detection.

At the back of a native hut the spoor led through a
small hole recently cut in the brush wall and into the
dark interior beyond. Fearlessly, Tarzan followed the
trail. On hands and knees, he crawled through the
small aperture. Within the hut his nostrils were
assailed by many odors; but clear and distinct among
them was one that half aroused a latent memory of the
past--it was the faint and delicate odor of a woman.
With the cognizance of it there rose in the breast of
the ape-man a strange uneasiness--the result of an
irresistible force which he was destined to become
acquainted with anew--the instinct which draws the male
to his mate.

In the same hut was the scent spoor of the Belgian,
too, and as both these assailed the nostrils of the
ape-man, mingling one with the other, a jealous rage
leaped and burned within him, though his memory held
before the mirror of recollection no image of the she
to which he had attached his desire.

Like the tent he had investigated, the hut, too, was
empty, and after satisfying himself that his stolen
pouch was secreted nowhere within, he left, as he had
entered, by the hole in the rear wall.

Here he took up the spoor of the Belgian, followed it
across the clearing, over the palisade, and out into
the dark jungle beyond.