16

Tarzan, the Jewels of Opar

by Edgar R. Burroughs

16, TARZAN, THE JEWELS OF OPAR by Edgar R. Burroughs
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Tarzan Again Leads the Mangani


Achmet Zek with two of his followers had circled far to
the south to intercept the flight of his deserting
lieutenant, Werper. Others had spread out in various
directions, so that a vast circle had been formed by
them during the night, and now they were beating in
toward the center.

Achmet and the two with him halted for a short rest
just before noon. They squatted beneath the trees upon
the southern edge of a clearing. The chief of the
raiders was in ill humor. To have been outwitted by an
unbeliever was bad enough; but to have, at the same
time, lost the jewels upon which he had set his
avaricious heart was altogether too much--Allah must,
indeed be angry with his servant.

Well, he still had the woman. She would bring a fair
price in the north, and there was, too, the buried
treasure beside the ruins of the Englishman's house.

A slight noise in the jungle upon the opposite side of
the clearing brought Achmet Zek to immediate and alert
attention. He gathered his rifle in readiness for
instant use, at the same time motioning his followers
to silence and concealment. Crouching behind the
bushes the three waited, their eyes fastened upon the
far side of the open space.

Presently the foliage parted and a woman's face
appeared, glancing fearfully from side to side.
A moment later, evidently satisfied that no immediate
danger lurked before her, she stepped out into the
clearing in full view of the Arab.

Achmet Zek caught his breath with a muttered
exclamation of incredulity and an imprecation.
The woman was the prisoner he had thought safely guarded
at his camp!

Apparently she was alone, but Achmet Zek waited that he
might make sure of it before seizing her. Slowly Jane
Clayton started across the clearing. Twice already
since she had quitted the village of the raiders had
she barely escaped the fangs of carnivora, and once she
had almost stumbled into the path of one of the
searchers. Though she was almost despairing of ever
reaching safety she still was determined to fight on,
until death or success terminated her endeavors.

As the Arabs watched her from the safety of their
concealment, and Achmet Zek noted with satisfaction
that she was walking directly into his clutches,
another pair of eyes looked down upon the entire scene
from the foliage of an adjacent tree.

Puzzled, troubled eyes they were, for all their gray
and savage glint, for their owner was struggling with
an intangible suggestion of the familiarity of the face
and figure of the woman below him.

A sudden crashing of the bushes at the point from which
Jane Clayton had emerged into the clearing brought her
to a sudden stop and attracted the attention of the
Arabs and the watcher in the tree to the same point.

The woman wheeled about to see what new danger menaced
her from behind, and as she did so a great, anthropoid
ape waddled into view. Behind him came another and
another; but Lady Greystoke did not wait to learn how
many more of the hideous creatures were so close upon
her trail.

With a smothered scream she rushed toward the opposite
jungle, and as she reached the bushes there, Achmet Zek
and his two henchmen rose up and seized her. At the
same instant a naked, brown giant dropped from the
branches of a tree at the right of the clearing.

Turning toward the astonished apes he gave voice to a
short volley of low gutturals, and without waiting to
note the effect of his words upon them, wheeled and
charged for the Arabs.

Achmet Zek was dragging Jane Clayton toward his
tethered horse. His two men were hastily unfastening
all three mounts. The woman, struggling to escape the
Arab, turned and saw the ape-man running toward her.
A glad light of hope illuminated her face.

"John!" she cried. "Thank God that you have come in time."

Behind Tarzan came the great apes, wondering, but
obedient to his summons. The Arabs saw that they would
not have time to mount and make their escape before the
beasts and the man were upon them. Achmet Zek
recognized the latter as the redoubtable enemy of such
as he, and he saw, too, in the circumstance an
opportunity to rid himself forever of the menace of the
ape-man's presence.

Calling to his men to follow his example he raised his
rifle and leveled it upon the charging giant. His
followers, acting with no less alacrity than himself,
fired almost simultaneously, and with the reports of
the rifles, Tarzan of the Apes and two of his hairy
henchmen pitched forward among the jungle grasses.

The noise of the rifle shots brought the balance of the
apes to a wondering pause, and, taking advantage of
their momentary distraction, Achmet Zek and his fellows
leaped to their horses' backs and galloped away with
the now hopeless and grief-stricken woman.

Back to the village they rode, and once again Lady
Greystoke found herself incarcerated in the filthy,
little hut from which she had thought to have escaped
for good. But this time she was not only guarded by an
additional sentry, but bound as well.

Singly and in twos the searchers who had ridden out
with Achmet Zek upon the trail of the Belgian, returned
empty handed. With the report of each the raider's
rage and chagrin increased, until he was in such a
transport of ferocious anger that none dared approach
him. Threatening and cursing, Achmet Zek paced up and
down the floor of his silken tent; but his temper
served him naught--Werper was gone and with him the
fortune in scintillating gems which had aroused the
cupidity of his chief and placed the sentence of death
upon the head of the lieutenant.

With the escape of the Arabs the great apes had turned
their attention to their fallen comrades. One was
dead, but another and the great white ape still
breathed. The hairy monsters gathered about these two,
grumbling and muttering after the fashion of their kind.

Tarzan was the first to regain consciousness. Sitting
up, he looked about him. Blood was flowing from a
wound in his shoulder. The shock had thrown him down
and dazed him; but he was far from dead. Rising slowly
to his feet he let his eyes wander toward the spot
where last he had seen the she, who had aroused within
his savage breast such strange emotions.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"The Tarmangani took her away," replied one of the apes.
"Who are you who speak the language of the Mangani?"

"I am Tarzan," replied the ape-man; "mighty hunter,
greatest of fighters. When I roar, the jungle is
silent and trembles with terror. I am Tarzan of the
Apes. I have been away; but now I have come back to my
people."

"Yes," spoke up an old ape, "he is Tarzan. I know him.
It is well that he has come back. Now we shall have
good hunting."

The other apes came closer and sniffed at the ape-man.
Tarzan stood very still, his fangs half bared, and his
muscles tense and ready for action; but there was none
there to question his right to be with them, and
presently, the inspection satisfactorily concluded, the
apes again returned their attention to the other survivor.

He too was but slightly wounded, a bullet, grazing his
skull, having stunned him, so that when he regained
consciousness he was apparently as fit as ever.

The apes told Tarzan that they had been traveling
toward the east when the scent spoor of the she had
attracted them and they had stalked her. Now they
wished to continue upon their interrupted march; but
Tarzan preferred to follow the Arabs and take the woman
from them. After a considerable argument it was
decided that they should first hunt toward the east for
a few days and then return and search for the Arabs,
and as time is of little moment to the ape folk, Tarzan
acceded to their demands, he, himself, having reverted
to a mental state but little superior to their own.

Another circumstance which decided him to postpone
pursuit of the Arabs was the painfulness of his wound.
It would be better to wait until that had healed before
he pitted himself again against the guns of the
Tarmangani.

And so, as Jane Clayton was pushed into her prison hut
and her hands and feet securely bound, her natural
protector roamed off toward the east in company with a
score of hairy monsters, with whom he rubbed shoulders
as familiarly as a few months before he had mingled
with his immaculate fellow-members of one of London's
most select and exclusive clubs.

But all the time there lurked in the back of his
injured brain a troublesome conviction that he had no
business where he was--that he should be, for some
unaccountable reason, elsewhere and among another sort
of creature. Also, there was the compelling urge to be
upon the scent of the Arabs, undertaking the rescue of
the woman who had appealed so strongly to his savage
sentiments; though the thought-word which naturally
occurred to him in the contemplation of the venture,
was "capture," rather than "rescue."

To him she was as any other jungle she, and he had set
his heart upon her as his mate. For an instant, as he
had approached closer to her in the clearing where the
Arabs had seized her, the subtle aroma which had first
aroused his desires in the hut that had imprisoned her
had fallen upon his nostrils, and told him that he had
found the creature for whom he had developed so sudden
and inexplicable a passion.

The matter of the pouch of jewels also occupied his
thoughts to some extent, so that he found a double urge
for his return to the camp of the raiders. He would
obtain possession of both his pretty pebbles and the
she. Then he would return to the great apes with his
new mate and his baubles, and leading his hairy
companions into a far wilderness beyond the ken of man,
live out his life, hunting and battling among the lower
orders after the only manner which he now recollected.

He spoke to his fellow-apes upon the matter, in an
attempt to persuade them to accompany him; but all
except Taglat and Chulk refused. The latter was young
and strong, endowed with a greater intelligence than
his fellows, and therefore the possessor of better
developed powers of imagination. To him the expedition
savored of adventure, and so appealed, strongly. With
Taglat there was another incentive--a secret and
sinister incentive, which, had Tarzan of the Apes had
knowledge of it, would have sent him at the other's
throat in jealous rage.

Taglat was no longer young; but he was still a
formidable beast, mightily muscled, cruel, and,
because of his greater experience, crafty and cunning.
Too, he was of giant proportions, the very weight of his
huge bulk serving ofttimes to discount in his favor the
superior agility of a younger antagonist.

He was of a morose and sullen disposition that marked
him even among his frowning fellows, where such
characteristics are the rule rather than the exception,
and, though Tarzan did not guess it, he hated the ape-man
with a ferocity that he was able to hide only
because the dominant spirit of the nobler creature had
inspired within him a species of dread which was as
powerful as it was inexplicable to him.

These two, then, were to be Tarzan's companions upon
his return to the village of Achmet Zek. As they set
off, the balance of the tribe vouchsafed them but a
parting stare, and then resumed the serious business of
feeding.

Tarzan found difficulty in keeping the minds of his
fellows set upon the purpose of their adventure, for
the mind of an ape lacks the power of long-sustained
concentration. To set out upon a long journey, with a
definite destination in view, is one thing, to remember
that purpose and keep it uppermost in one's mind
continually is quite another. There are so many things
to distract one's attention along the way.

Chulk was, at first, for rushing rapidly ahead as
though the village of the raiders lay but an hour's
march before them instead of several days; but within a
few minutes a fallen tree attracted his attention with
its suggestion of rich and succulent forage beneath,
and when Tarzan, missing him, returned in search, he
found Chulk squatting beside the rotting bole, from
beneath which he was assiduously engaged in digging out
the grubs and beetles, whose kind form a considerable
proportion of the diet of the apes.

Unless Tarzan desired to fight there was nothing to
do but wait until Chulk had exhausted the storehouse,
and this he did, only to discover that Taglat was now
missing. After a considerable search, he found that
worthy gentleman contemplating the sufferings of an
injured rodent he had pounced upon. He would sit in
apparent indifference, gazing in another direction,
while the crippled creature, wriggled slowly and
painfully away from him, and then, just as his victim
felt assured of escape, he would reach out a giant palm
and slam it down upon the fugitive. Again and again he
repeated this operation, until, tiring of the sport, he
ended the sufferings of his plaything by devouring it.

Such were the exasperating causes of delay which
retarded Tarzan's return journey toward the village of
Achmet Zek; but the ape-man was patient, for in his
mind was a plan which necessitated the presence of
Chulk and Taglat when he should have arrived at his
destination.

It was not always an easy thing to maintain in the
vacillating minds of the anthropoids a sustained
interest in their venture. Chulk was wearying of the
continued marching and the infrequency and short
duration of the rests. He would gladly have abandoned
this search for adventure had not Tarzan continually
filled his mind with alluring pictures of the great
stores of food which were to be found in the village of
Tarmangani.

Taglat nursed his secret purpose to better advantage
than might have been expected of an ape, yet there were
times when he, too, would have abandoned the adventure
had not Tarzan cajoled him on.

It was mid-afternoon of a sultry, tropical day when the
keen senses of the three warned them of the proximity
of the Arab camp. Stealthily they approached, keeping
to the dense tangle of growing things which made
concealment easy to their uncanny jungle craft.

First came the giant ape-man, his smooth, brown skin
glistening with the sweat of exertion in the close, hot
confines of the jungle. Behind him crept Chulk and
Taglat, grotesque and shaggy caricatures of their
godlike leader.

Silently they made their way to the edge of the
clearing which surrounded the palisade, and here they
clambered into the lower branches of a large tree
overlooking the village occupied by the enemy, the
better to spy upon his goings and comings.

A horseman, white burnoosed, rode out through the
gateway of the village. Tarzan, whispering to Chulk
and Taglat to remain where they were, swung, monkey-like,
through the trees in the direction of the trail
the Arab was riding. From one jungle giant to the next
he sped with the rapidity of a squirrel and the silence
of a ghost.

The Arab rode slowly onward, unconscious of the danger
hovering in the trees behind him. The ape-man made a
slight detour and increased his speed until he had
reached a point upon the trail in advance of the
horseman. Here he halted upon a leafy bough which
overhung the narrow, jungle trail. On came the victim,
humming a wild air of the great desert land of the
north. Above him poised the savage brute that was
today bent upon the destruction of a human life--the
same creature who a few months before, had occupied his
seat in the House of Lords at London, a respected and
distinguished member of that august body.

The Arab passed beneath the overhanging bough, there
was a slight rustling of the leaves above, the horse
snorted and plunged as a brown-skinned creature dropped
upon its rump. A pair of mighty arms encircled the
Arab and he was dragged from his saddle to the trail.

Ten minutes later the ape-man, carrying the outer
garments of an Arab bundled beneath an arm, rejoined
his companions. He exhibited his trophies to them,
explaining in low gutturals the details of his exploit.
Chulk and Taglat fingered the fabrics, smelled of them,
and, placing them to their ears, tried to listen to them.

Then Tarzan led them back through the jungle to the
trail, where the three hid themselves and waited.
Nor had they long to wait before two of Achmet Zek's
blacks, clothed in habiliments similar to their master's,
came down the trail on foot, returning to the camp.

One moment they were laughing and talking together--the
next they lay stretched in death upon the trail, three
mighty engines of destruction bending over them.
Tarzan removed their outer garments as he had removed
those of his first victim, and again retired with Chulk
and Taglat to the greater seclusion of the tree they
had first selected.

Here the ape-man arranged the garments upon his shaggy
fellows and himself, until, at a distance, it might
have appeared that three white-robed Arabs squatted
silently among the branches of the forest.

Until dark they remained where they were, for from his
point of vantage, Tarzan could view the enclosure
within the palisade. He marked the position of the hut
in which he had first discovered the scent spoor of the
she he sought. He saw the two sentries standing before
its doorway, and he located the habitation of Achmet
Zek, where something told him he would most likely find
the missing pouch and pebbles.

Chulk and Taglat were, at first, greatly interested in
their wonderful raiment. They fingered the fabric,
smelled of it, and regarded each other intently with
every mark of satisfaction and pride. Chulk, a
humorist in his way, stretched forth a long and hairy
arm, and grasping the hood of Taglat's burnoose pulled
it down over the latter's eyes, extinguishing him,
snuffer-like, as it were.

The older ape, pessimistic by nature, recognized no
such thing as humor. Creatures laid their paws upon
him for but two things--to search for fleas and to
attack. The pulling of the Tarmangani-scented thing
about his head and eyes could not be for the
performance of the former act; therefore it must be the
latter. He was attacked! Chulk had attacked him.

With a snarl he was at the other's throat, not even
waiting to lift the woolen veil which obscured his
vision. Tarzan leaped upon the two, and swaying and
toppling upon their insecure perch the three great
beasts tussled and snapped at one another until the
ape-man finally succeeded in separating the enraged
anthropoids.

An apology is unknown to these savage progenitors of
man, and explanation a laborious and usually futile
process, Tarzan bridged the dangerous gulf by
distracting their attention from their altercation to a
consideration of their plans for the immediate future.
Accustomed to frequent arguments in which more hair
than blood is wasted, the apes speedily forget such
trivial encounters, and presently Chulk and Taglat were
again squatting in close proximity to each other and
peaceful repose, awaiting the moment when the ape-man
should lead them into the village of the Tarmangani.

It was long after darkness had fallen, that Tarzan led
his companions from their hiding place in the tree to
the ground and around the palisade to the far side of
the village.

Gathering the skirts of his burnoose, beneath one arm,
that his legs might have free action, the ape-man took
a short running start, and scrambled to the top of the
barrier. Fearing lest the apes should rend their
garments to shreds in a similar attempt, he had
directed them to wait below for him, and himself
securely perched upon the summit of the palisade he
unslung his spear and lowered one end of it to Chulk.

The ape seized it, and while Tarzan held tightly to the
upper end, the anthropoid climbed quickly up the shaft
until with one paw he grasped the top of the wall.
To scramble then to Tarzan's side was the work of but an
instant. In like manner Taglat was conducted to their
sides, and a moment later the three dropped silently
within the enclosure.

Tarzan led them first to the rear of the hut in which
Jane Clayton was confined, where, through the roughly
repaired aperture in the wall, he sought with his
sensitive nostrils for proof that the she he had come
for was within.

Chulk and Taglat, their hairy faces pressed close to
that of the patrician, sniffed with him. Each caught
the scent spoor of the woman within, and each reacted
according to his temperament and his habits of thought.

It left Chulk indifferent. The she was for Tarzan--all
that he desired was to bury his snout in the foodstuffs
of the Tarmangani. He had come to eat his fill without
labor--Tarzan had told him that that should be his
reward, and he was satisfied.

But Taglat's wicked, bloodshot eyes, narrowed to the
realization of the nearing fulfillment of his carefully
nursed plan. It is true that sometimes during the
several days that had elapsed since they had set out
upon their expedition it had been difficult for Taglat
to hold his idea uppermost in his mind, and on several
occasions he had completely forgotten it, until Tarzan,
by a chance word, had recalled it to him, but, for an
ape, Taglat had done well.

Now, he licked his chops, and he made a sickening,
sucking noise with his flabby lips as he drew in his breath.

Satisfied that the she was where he had hoped to find
her, Tarzan led his apes toward the tent of Achmet Zek.
A passing Arab and two slaves saw them, but the night
was dark and the white burnooses hid the hairy limbs of
the apes and the giant figure of their leader, so that
the three, by squatting down as though in conversation,
were passed by, unsuspected. To the rear of the tent
they made their way. Within, Achmet Zek conversed with
several of his lieutenants. Without, Tarzan listened.