 XVI. The Ivory Raiders Was Erie's warriors marched at a rapid trot through the jungle in the direction of the village? For a few minutes the sharp cracking of guns ahead warned them to haste, but finally the reports dwindled to an occasional shot, ceasing altogether. Nor was this less ominous than the rattle of musketry, for it suggested but a single solution to the little band of rescuers that the illy garrison village had already succumbed to the onslaught of a superior force. The returning hunters had covered a little more than three miles of the five that had separated them from the village when they met the first of the fugitives who had escaped the bullets and clutches of the foe. There were a dozen women, youths, and girls in the party, and so excited were they that they could scarce make themselves understood as they tried to relate to Aziri the calamity that had befallen his people. "'They are as many as the leaves of the forest,' cried one of the women in attempting to explain the enemy's force. "'There are many A-Rabs and countless Manuma, and they all have guns. They crept close to the village before we knew that they were about, and then with many shouts they rushed in upon us, shooting down men and women and children. Those of us who could fled in all directions into the jungle, but more were killed. I do not know whether they took any prisoners or not. They seemed only bent upon killing us all. The Manuma called us many names, saying that they would eat us all before they left our country, that this was our punishment for killing their friends last year. I did not hear much, for I ran away quickly. The march toward the village was now resumed, more slowly and with greater stealth, for Aziri knew that it was too late to rescue. Their only mission could be one of revenge. Inside the next mile a hundred more fugitives were met. There were many men among these, and so the fighting strength of the party was augmented. Now a dozen warriors were sent creeping ahead to reconnoiter. Aziri remained with the main body, which advanced in a thin line that spread in a great crescent through the forest, by the chief side Wachtarzen. Presently one of the scouts returned. He had come within sight of the village. They are all within the palisade, he whispered. Good! said Aziri. We shall rush in upon them and slay them all, and he made ready to send word along the line that they were to halt at the edge of the clearing until they saw him rush toward the village, then all were to follow. Wait! caution Tarzen, if there are even fifty guns within the palisade we shall be repulsed and slaughtered. Let me go alone through the trees so that I may look down upon them from above, and see just how many there be, and what chance we might have were we to charge. It were foolish to lose a single man needlessly, if there be no hope of success. I have an idea that we can accomplish more by cunning than by force. Will you wait, Aziri? Yes, said the old chief. Go! So Tarzen sprang into the trees and disappeared in the direction of the village. He moved more cautiously than was his want, for he knew that men with guns could reach him quite as easily in the treetops as on the ground, and when Tarzen of the Apes elected to adopt stealth, no creature in all the jungle could move so silently, or so completely efface himself from the sight of an enemy. In five minutes he had wormed his way to the great tree that overhung the palisade at one end of the village and from his point of vantage looked down upon the savage horde beneath. He counted fifty A-Rabs and estimated that there were five times as many manuma. The latter were gorging themselves upon food and under the very noses of their white masters preparing the gruesome feast, which is the peace de resistance that follows a victory in which the bodies of their slain enemies fall into their horrid hands. The eight men saw that to charge that wild horde armed as they were with guns and barricaded behind the locked gates of the village would be a futile task, and so he returned to Waziri and advised him to wait that he, Tarzen, had a better plan. But a moment before one of the fugitives had related to Waziri the story of the atrocious murder of the old chief's wife, and so crazed with rage was the old man that he cast discretion to the winds. Calling his warriors about him he commanded them to charge, and with brandishing spears and savage yells the little force of scarcely more than a hundred dashed madly toward the village gates. Before the clearing had been half-crossed the A-Rabs opened up a withering fire from behind the palisade. With the first volley Waziri fell, the speed of the chargers slackened, another volley brought down a half dozen more. A few reached the barred gates only to be shot in their tracks without the ghost of a chance to gain the inside of the palisade, and then the whole attack crumpled and the remaining warriors scampered back into the forest. As they ran the raiders opened the gates rushing after them to complete the day's work with the utter extermination of the tribe. Tarzen had been among the last to turn back toward the forest, and now as he ran slowly he turned from time to time to speed a well-aimed arrow into the body of a pursuer. Once within the jungle he found a little knot of determined blacks waiting to give battle to the oncoming horde, but Tarzen cried to them to scatter, keeping out of harm's way until they could gather in force after dark. "'Do as I tell you,' he urged, and I will lead you to victory over these enemies of yours. Scatter through the forest, picking up as many stragglers as you can find, and at night, if you think that you have been followed, come by roundabout ways to the spot where we killed the elephants today. Then I will explain my plan, and you will find that it is good. You cannot hope to pit your puny strength and simple weapons against the numbers and the guns of the Arabs and the Manuma.' They finally assented. "'When you scatter,' explained Tarzen in conclusion, your foes will have to scatter to follow you, and so it may happen that if you are watchful you can drop many a Manuma with your arrows from behind some great trees.' They had barely time to hasten away farther into the forest, before the first of the raiders had crossed the clearing and entered it in pursuit of them. Tarzen ran a short distance along the ground before he took to the trees. Then he raced quickly to the upper terrace, there doubling on his tracks and making his way rapidly back toward the village. Here he found that every Arab and Manuma had joined in the pursuit, leaving the village deserted except for the chained prisoners and a single guard. The sentries stood at the open gate, looking in the direction of the forest, so that he did not see the agile giant that dropped to the ground at the far end of the village street. With drawn bow the eight-man crept stealthily toward his unsuspecting victim. The prisoners had already discovered him, and with wide eyes filled with wonder and with hope they watched there would be rescuer. Now he halted not ten paces from the unconscious Manuma. The shaft was drawn back its full length at the height of the keen gray eye that sight along its polished surface. There was a sudden twang as the brown fingers released their hold, and without a sound the raider sank forward upon his face, a wooden shaft transfixing his heart and protruding a foot from his black chest. Then Tarzan turned his attention to the fifty women and youths chained neck to neck on the long slave chain. There was no releasing of the ancient padlocks in the time that was left him, so the eight-man called to them to follow him as they were, and snatching the gun and cartridge belt from the dead sentry he led the now happy band out through the village gate and into the forest upon the far side of the clearing. It was a slow and arduous march, for the slave chain was new to these people, and there were many delays as one of their number would stumble and fall, dragging others down with her. Then too Tarzan had been forced to make a wide detour to avoid any possibility of meeting with returning raiders. He was partially guided by occasional shots, which indicated that the Arab horde was still in touch with the villagers, but he knew that if they would but follow his advice there would be but few casualties other than on the side of the marauders. Toward Dask the firing ceased entirely, and Tarzan knew that the Arabs had all returned to the village. He could scarce repress a smile of triumph as he thought of their rage on discovering that their guard had been killed and their prisoners taken away. Tarzan had wished that he might have taken some of the great store of ivory the village contained solely for the purpose of still further augmenting the wrath of his enemies, but he knew that that was not necessary for its salvation, since he already had a plan mapped out which would effectively prevent the Arabs leaving the country with a single task, and it would have been cruel to have needlessly burdened these poor overwrought women with the extra weight of the heavy ivory. It was after midnight when Tarzan with his slow-moving caravan approached the spot where the elephants lay. Long before they reached it they had been guided by the huge fire the natives had built in the center of a hastily improvised Boma, partially for warmth and partially to keep off chance lions. When they had come close to the encampment Tarzan called aloud to let them know that friends were coming. It was a joyous reception the little party received when the blacks within the Boma saw the long file of fettered friends and relatives entered the firelight. These had all been given up as lost forever, as had Tarzan as well, so that the happy blacks would have remained awake all night to feast on elephant meat and celebrate the return of their fellows had not Tarzan insisted that they take what sleep they could against the work of the coming day. At that sleep was no easy matter, for the women who had lost their men or their children in the day's massacre and battle made night hideous with their continued wailing and howling. Finally, however, Tarzan succeeded in silencing them on the plea that their noise would attract the A-Rabs to their hiding place when all would be slaughtered. When dawn came Tarzan explained his plan of battle to the warriors and without demure one and all agreed that it was the safest and surest way in which to rid themselves of their unwelcome visitors and be revanged for the murder of their fellows. First the women and children, with a guard of some twenty old warriors and youths, were started southward to be entirely out of the zone of danger. They had instructions to erect temporary shelter and construct a protecting Boma of Thornbush for the plan of campaign which Tarzan had chosen was one which might stretch out over many days or even weeks during which time the warriors would not return to the new camp. Two hours after daylight a thin circle of black warriors surrounded the village. At intervals one was perched high in the branches of a tree which could overlook the palisade. Presently a manuma within the village fell, pierced by a single arrow. There had been no sound of attack, none of the hideous war cries or vain glorious waving of menacing spears that ordinarily marks the attack of savages, just a silent messenger of death from out of the silent forest. The A-Rabs and their followers were thrown into a fine rage at this unprecedented occurrence. They ran for the gates to wreak dire vengeance upon the foolhardy perpetrator of the outrage, but they suddenly realized that they did not know which way to turn to find the fool. As they stood debating, with many angry shouts and much gesticulating, one of the A-Rabs sank silently to the ground in their very midst, a thin arrow protruding from his heart. Tarzan had placed the finest marksman of the tribe in the surrounding trees, with directions never to reveal themselves while the enemy was faced in their direction. As a black released his messenger of death he would slink behind this sheltering stem of the tree he had selected, nor would he again aim until a watchful eye told him that none was looking toward his tree. Three times the A-Rabs started across the clearing in the direction from which they thought the arrows came, but each time another arrow would come from behind to take its toll from among their number. Then they would turn and charge in a new direction. Finally they set out upon a determined search of the forest, but the blacks melted before them so that they saw no sign of an enemy. But above them lurked a grim figure in the dense foliage of the mighty trees. It was Tarzan of the Apes, hovering over them as if he had been the shadow of death. Presently a manuma forged ahead of his companions. There was none to see from what direction death came, and so it came quickly, and a moment later those behind stumbled over the dead body of their comrade, the inevitable arrow piercing the still heart. It does not take a great deal of this manner of warfare to get upon the nerves of white men, and so it is little to be wondered at that the manuma were soon panic-stricken. Did one forge ahead an arrow found his heart? Did one lag behind he never again was seen alive? Did one stumble to one side, even for a bare moment from the sight of his fellows? He did not return. And always when they came upon the bodies of their dead they found those terrible arrows driven with the accuracy of superhuman power straight through the victim's heart. But worse than all else was the hideous fact that not once during the morning had they seen or heard the slightest sign of an enemy other than the pitiless arrows. When finally they returned to the village it was no better, every now and then, at burying intervals that were maddening in the terrible suspense they caused, a man would plunge forward dead. The blacks besought their masters to leave this terrible place, but the Arabs feared to take up the march through the grim and hostile forest beset by this new and terrible enemy, while laden with the great store of ivory they had found within the village. But worse yet they hated to leave the ivory behind. Finally the entire expedition took refuge within the thatched huts. Here at least they would be free from the arrows. Tarzan from the tree above the village had marked the hut into which the chief Arabs had gone, and balancing himself upon an overhanging limb he drove his heavy spear with all the force of his giant muscles through the thatched roof. A howl of pain told him that it had found a mark. With this parting salute to convince them that there was no safety for them anywhere within the country, Tarzan returned to the forest, collected his warriors, and withdrew a mile to the south to rest and eat. He kept sentries in several trees that commanded a view of the trail toward the village, but there was no pursuit. An inspection of his force showed not a single casualty, not even a minor wound, while rough estimates of the enemy's loss convinced the blacks that no fewer than twenty had fallen before their arrows. They were wild with elation, and were for finishing the day in one glorious rush upon the village, during which they would slaughter the last of their foemen. They were even picturing the various tortures they would inflict, and gloating over the suffering of the manuma, for whom they entertained a peculiar hatred, when Tarzan put his foot down flatly upon the plan. "'You are crazy,' he cried. "'I have shown you the only way to fight these people. Already you have killed twenty of them without the loss of a single warrior, whereas yesterday, following your own tactics which you would now renew, you lost at least a dozen and killed not a single Arab or manuma. You will fight just as I tell you to fight, or I shall leave you and go back to my own country.' They were frightened when he threatened this, and promised to obey him scrupulously if he would but promise not to desert them. "'Very well,' he said. "'We shall return to the Elephant Boma for the night. I have a plan to give the Arabs a little taste of what they may expect if they remain in our country. But I shall need no help. Come, if they suffer no more for the balance of the day, they will feel reassured, and the relapse into fear will be even more nerve-wracking than as though we continued to fright them all afternoon.' So they marched back to their camp of the previous night, and lighting great fires ate and recounted the adventures of the day until long after dark. Tarzan slept until midnight. Then he arose and crept into the Sumerian blackness of the forest. An hour later he came to the edge of the clearing before the village. There was a campfire burning within the palisade. The eight-man crept across the clearing until he stood before the barred gates. Through the interstices he saw a lone sentry sitting before the fire. Quietly Tarzan went to the tree at the end of the village street. He climbed softly to his place, and fitted a narrow to his bowl. For several minutes he tried to sight fairly upon the sentry, but the waving branches and flickering fire-light convinced him that the danger of a miss was too great. He must touch the heart full in the center to bring the quiet and sudden death his plan required. He had brought, besides his bow, arrows, and rope, the gun he had taken the previous day from the other sentry he had killed. Cashing all these in a convenient crotch of the tree he dropped lightly to the ground within the palisade, armed only with his long knife. The sentry's back was toward him. Like a cat Tarzan crept upon the dozing man, he was within two paces of him now. Another instant in the knife would slide silently into the fellow's heart. Tarzan crouched for a spring, for that is ever the quickest and surest attack of the jungle beast, when the man, worn by some subtle sense, sprang to his feet and faced the eight-man. CHAPTER XVII. The White Chief of the Waziri. When the eyes of the black manuma savage fell upon the strange apparition that confronted him with menacing knife, they went wide in horror. He forgot the gun within his hands. He even forgot to cry out. His one thought was to escape this fearsome-looking white savage, this giant of a man upon whose massive rolling muscles and mighty chest the flickering firelight played. But before he could turn Tarzan was upon him, and then the sentry thought to scream for aid, but it was too late. A great hand was upon his windpipe, and he was being born to the earth. He battled furiously, but futilely, with the grim tenacity of a bulldog whose awful fingers were clinging to his throat. Swiftly and surely life was being choked from him. His eyes bulged, his tongue protruded, his face turned to a ghastly, purpley hue. There was a convulsive tremor of the stiffening muscles and the manuma sentry lay still. The eight man threw the body across one of his broad shoulders, and gathering up the fellow's guns trotted silently up the sleeping village street toward the tree that gave him such easy ingress to the palisaded village. He bore the dead sentry into the midst of the leafy maze above. First he stripped the body of cartridge belt and such ornaments as he craved, wedging it into a convenient crotch, while his nimble fingers ran over it in search of the loot he could not plainly see in the dark. When he had finished he took the gun that had belonged to the man, and walked far out upon a limb, from the end of which he could obtain a better view of the huts. Drawing a careful bead on the beehive structure in which he knew the chief A-Rabs to be, he pulled the trigger. Almost instantly there was an answering groan. Tarzan smiled. He had made another lucky hit. Following the shot there was a moment's silence in the camp, and then manuma and A-Rab came pouring from the huts like a swarm of angry hornets, but if the truth were known they were even more frightened than they were angry. The strain of the preceding day had wrought upon the fears of both black and white, and now this single shot in the night conjured up all manner of terrible conjectures in the terrified minds. When they discovered that their sentry had disappeared their fears were in no way allayed, and as though to bolster their courage by warlike actions they began to fire rapidly at the barred gates of the village, although no enemy was in sight. Tarzan took advantage of the deafening roar of this fusilade to fire into the mob beneath him. No one heard his shot above the den of rattling musketry in the street, but some who were standing close saw one of their number crumple suddenly to the earth. When they leaned over him he was dead. They were panic-stricken, and it took all the brutal authority of the A-Rabs to keep the manuma from rushing helter-skelter into the jungle, anywhere to escape from this terrible village. After a time they commenced to quiet down, and as no further mysterious deaths occurred among them they took heart again. But it was a short-lived respite, for just as they had concluded that they would not be disturbed again Tarzan gave voice to a weird moan, and as the raiders looked up in the direction from which the sound seemed to come, the ape-man who stood swinging the dead body of the sentry gently to and fro suddenly shot the corpse far out above their heads. With howls of alarm the throng broke in all directions to escape this new and terrible creature who seemed to be springing upon them to their fear-distorted imaginations the body of the sentry falling with wide sprawled arms and legs assumed the lightness of a great beast of prey. In their anxiety to escape many of the black scales the palisade, while others tore down the bars from the gates and rushed madly across the clearing toward the jungle. For a time no one turned back toward the thing that had frightened them, but Tarzan knew that they would in a moment, and when they discovered that it was but the dead body of their sentry, while they would doubtless be still further terrified he had a rather definite idea as to what they would do, and so he faded silently away toward the south, taking the moonlit upper terrace back toward the camp of the Waziri. Presently one of the A-Rabs turned and saw that the thing that had leaped from the tree upon them lay still and quiet where it had fallen in the center of the village street. Cautiously he crept back toward it until he saw that it was but a man. A moment later he was beside the figure and in another had recognized it as the corpse of the Manuma who had stood on guard at the village gate. His companions rapidly gathered round at his call, and after a moment's excited conversation they did precisely what Tarzan had reasoned they would. Raising their guns to their shoulders they poured volley after volley into the tree from which the corpse had been thrown. Had Tarzan remained there he would have been riddled by a hundred bullets. When the A-Rabs and Manuma discovered that the only marks of violence upon the body of their dead comrade were giant fingerprints upon his swollen throat they were again thrown into a deeper apprehension and despair. That they were not even safe within a palisaded village at night came as a distinct shock to them, that an enemy could enter into the midst of their camp and kill their sentry with bare hands, seemed outside the bounds of reason. And so the superstitious Manuma commenced to attribute their ill luck to supernatural causes, nor were the A-Rabs able to offer any better explanation. With at least fifty of their number flying through the black jungle, and without the slightest knowledge of when their uncanny foment might resume the cold-blooded slaughter they had commenced, it was a desperate band of cutthroats that waited sleeplessly for the dawn, only on the promise of the A-Rabs that they would leave the village at daybreak and hasten onward toward their own land would the remaining Manuma consent to stay at the village a moment longer, not even fear of their cruel masters was sufficient to overcome this new terror. And so it was that when Tarzan and his warriors returned to the attack the next morning they found the raiders prepared to march out of the village. The Manuma were laden with stolen ivory. As Tarzan saw it he grinned for he knew that they would not carry it far. Then he saw something which caused him anxiety. A number of the Manuma were lighting torches in the remnant of the campfire. They were about to fire the village. Tarzan was perched in a tall tree some hundred yards from the palisade, making a trumpet of his hands he called loudly in the A-Rabbed Tongue. Do not fire the huts or we shall kill you all. Do not fire the huts or we shall kill you all. A dozen times he repeated it. The Manuma hesitated. Then one of them flung his torch into the campfire. The others were about to do the same when an A-Rabbed sprung upon them with a stick beating them toward the huts. Tarzan could see that he was commanding them to fire the little fat dwellings. Then he stood erect upon the swaying branch a hundred feet above the ground, and racing one of the A-Rabbed guns to his shoulder took careful aim and fired. With the report the A-Rabbed who was urging on his men to burn the village fell in his tracks, and the Manuma threw away their torches and fled from the village. The last Tarzan saw of them they were racing toward the jungle, while their former masters knelt upon the ground and fired at them. But however angry the A-Rabs might have been at the insubordination of their slaves, they were at least convinced that it would be the better part of wisdom to forego the pleasure of firing the village that had given them two such nasty receptions. In their hearts, however, they swore to return again with such force as would enable them to sweep the entire country for miles around until no vestige of human life remained. They had looked in vain for the owner of the voice which had frightened off the men who had been detailed to put the torches to the huts, but not even the keenest eye among them had been able to locate him. They had seen the puff of smoke from the tree following the shot that brought down the A-Rabbed, but though a volley had immediately been loosed into its foliage, there had been no indication that it had been effective. Tarzan was too intelligent to be caught in any such trap, and so the report of his shot had scarcely died away before the eight men was on the ground and racing for another tree a hundred yards away. Here he again found a suitable perch from which he could watch the preparations of the raiders. It occurred to him that he might have considerable more fun with them, so again he called to them through his improvised trumpet. "'Leave the ivory,' he cried. "'Leave the ivory! Dead men have no use for ivory!' Some of the manuma started to lay down their loads, but this was altogether too much for their avaricious A-Rabs. With loud shouts and curses they aimed their guns full upon the bearers, threatening instant death to any who might lay down his load. They could give up firing the village, but the thought of abandoning this enormous fortune in ivory was quite beyond their conception, better death than that. And so they marched out of the village of the Waziri, and on the shoulders of their slaves was the ivory ransom of a score of kings. Toward the north they marched, back toward their savage settlement in the wild, an unknown country which lies back from the Congo in the uttermost depths of the great forest, and on either side of them traveled an invisible and relentless foe. Under Tarzan's guidance the black Waziri warriors stationed themselves along the trail on either side in the densest underbrush. They stood at far intervals, and as the column passed a single arrow or heavy spear, well aimed, would pierce a manuma or an A-Rab. Then the Waziri would melt into the distance and run ahead to take his stand farther on. They did not strike unless success were sure, and the danger of detection almost nothing, and so the arrows and the spears were few and far between, but so persistent and inevitable that the slow-moving column of heavy laden raiders was in a constant state of panic, panic at the uncertainty of who the next would be to fall, and when. It was with the greatest difficulty that the A-Rabs prevented their man a dozen times from throwing away their burdens and fleeing like frightened rabbits up the trail toward the north, and so the day wore on a frightful nightmare of a day for the raiders, a day of weary but well-repaid work for the Waziri. At night the A-Rabs constructed a rude boma in a little clearing by a river and went in to camp. At intervals during the night a rifle would bark close above their heads, and one of the dozen sentries which they now had posted would tumble to the ground. Such a condition was insupportable, for they saw that by means of these hideous tactics they would be completely wiped out one by one without inflicting a single death upon their enemy, but yet with the persistent avariciousness of the white man the A-Rabs clung to their loot, and when morning came forced the demoralized manuma to take up their burdens of death and stagger on into the jungle. For three days the withering column kept up its frightful march. Each hour was marked by its deadly arrow or cruel spear. The nights were made hideous by the barking of the invisible gun that made sentry duty equivalent to a death sentence. On the morning of the fourth day the A-Rabs were compelled to shoot two of their blacks before they could compel the balance to take up the hated ivory, and as they did so a voice rang out, clear and strong from the jungle, Today you die, O manuma, unless you lay down the ivory. Fall upon your masters and kill them. You have guns, why do you not use them? Kill the A-Rabs and we will not harm you. We will take you back to our village and feed you, and lead you out of our country in safety and in peace. Lay down the ivory and fall upon your masters. We will help you, else you die. As the voice died down the raiders stood as though turned to stone. The A-Rabs eyed their manuma slaves. The slaves looked first at one of their fellows and then at another. They were but waiting for someone to take the initiative. There were some 30 A-Rabs left and about one hundred and fifty blacks. All were armed, even those who were acting as porters had rifles slung across their backs. The A-Rabs drew together. The sheik ordered the manuma to take up the march, and as he spoke he cocked his rifle and raised it, but at the same instant one of the blacks threw down his load and snatching his rifle from his back fired point blank at the group of A-Rabs. In an instant the camp was a cursing howling mass of demons fighting with guns and knives and pistols. The A-Rabs stood together and defended their lives valiantly, but with the rain of lead that poured upon them from their own slaves and the shower of arrows and spears which now leap from the surrounding jungle aimed solely at them there was little question from the first what the outcome would be. In ten minutes from the time the first porter had thrown down his load the last of the A-Rabs lay dead. When the firing had ceased Tarzan spoke again to the manuma, take up our ivory and return it to our village from whence you stole it. We shall not harm you. For a moment the manuma hesitated. They had no stomach to retrace that difficult three days trail. They talked together in low whispers, and one turned toward the jungle, calling aloud to the voice that had spoken to them from out of the foliage. How do we know that when you have us in your village you will not kill us all? He asked. You do not know, replied Tarzan, other than that we have promised not to harm you if you will return our ivory to us, but this you do know, that it lies within our power to kill you all if you do not return as we direct, and are we not more likely to do so if you anger us than if you do as we bid? Who are you that speaks the tongue of our A-Rab masters? cried the manuma spokesman. Let us see all, and then we shall give you our answer. Tarzan stepped out of the jungle a dozen paces from them. Look, he said, when they saw that he was white they were filled with awe, for never had they seen a white savage before, and at his great muscles and giant frame they were struck with wonder and admiration. You may trust me, said Tarzan, so long as you do as I tell you, and harm none of my people. We shall do you no hurt. Will you take up our ivory and return in peace to our village, or shall we follow along your trail toward the north as we have followed for the past three days? The recollection of the horrid days that had just passed was the thing that finally decided the manuma, and so after a short conference they took up their burdens and set off to retrace their steps toward the village of the Waziri. At the end of the third day they marched into the village gate, and were greeted by the survivors of the recent massacre to whom Tarzan had sent a messenger in their temporary camp to the south on the day that the raiders had quitted the village, telling them that they might return in safety. It took all the mastery and persuasion that Tarzan possessed to prevent the Waziri falling on the manuma, tooth and nail and tearing them to pieces, but when he had explained that he had given his word that they would not be molested if they carried the ivory back to the spot from which they had stolen it, and had further impressed upon his people that they owed their entire victory to him, they finally acceded to his demands, and allowed the cannibals to rest in peace within their palisade. That night the village warriors held a big palaver to celebrate their victories and to choose a new chief. Since old Waziri's death Tarzan had been directing the warriors in battle, and the temporary command had been tacitly conceded to him. There had been no time to choose a new chief from among their own number, and in fact so remarkably successful had they been under the eight man's generalship that they had had no wish to delegate the supreme authority to another for fear that what they already had gained might be lost. They had so recently seen the results of running counter to this savage white man's advice in the disastrous charge ordered by Waziri, in which he himself had died, that it had not been difficult for them to accept Tarzan's authority as final. The principal warriors sat in a circle about a small fire to discuss the relative merits of whomever might be suggested as old Waziri's successor. It was Busuli who spoke first. Since Waziri is dead, leaving no son, there is but one among us whom we know from experience is fitted to make us a good king. There is only one who has proved that he can successfully lead us against the guns of the white man, and bring us easy victory without the loss of a single life. There is only one, and that is the white man who has led us for the past few days. And Busuli sprang to his feet, and with uplifted spear and half bent, crouching body commenced to dance slowly about Tarzan, chanting in time to his steps. Waziri, king of the Waziri! Waziri, killer of the amrabs! Waziri, king of the Waziri! One by one the other warriors signified their acceptance of Tarzan as their king by joining in the solemn dance. The women came and squatted about the rim of the circle, beating upon tom-toms, clapping their hands in time to the steps of the dancers, and joining in the chant of the warriors. In the center of the circle sat Tarzan of the Apes, Waziri, king of the Waziri! For like his predecessor he was to take the name of his tribe as his own. Faster and faster grew the pace of the dancers, louder and louder their wild and savage shouts. The women rose and fell in unison, shrieking now at the tops of their voices. The spears were brandishing fiercely, and as the dancers stooped down and beat their shields upon the hard-trimmed earth of the village street, the whole sight was as terribly primeval and savage as though it were being staged in the dim dawn of humanity, countless ages in the past. As the excitement waxed, the ape man sprang to his feet and joined in the wild ceremony. In the center of the circle of glittering black bodies he leaped and roared, and shook his heavy spear, in the same mad abandoned that enthralled his fellow savages, the last remnant of his civilization was forgotten. He was a primitive man to the fullest now, reveling in the freedom of the fierce wild life he loved, gloating in his kingship among these wild blacks. Ah, if all good day could day had but seen him then! Could she have recognized the well-dressed, quiet young man whose well-bred face and irreproachable manners had so captivated her but a few short months ago? And Jane Porter, would she have still loved this savage warrior chieftain dancing naked among his naked savage subjects? And Darno, could Darno have believed that this was the same man he had introduced into half a dozen of the most select clubs of Paris? What would his fellow peers in the house of lords have said had one pointed to this dancing giant with his barbaric headdress and his metal ornaments and said, There, my lords, is John Clayton, Lord Grey Stoke! And so Tarzan of the Apes came into a real kingship among men, slowly but surely was he following the evolution of his ancestors, for had he not started at the very bottom? END OF CHAPTER XVII Jane Porter had been the first of those in the lifeboat to awaken the morning after the wreck of the Lady Alice. The other members of the party were asleep upon the thwarts or huddled in cramped positions in the bottom of the boat. When the girl realized that they had become separated from the other boats, she was filled with alarm. The sense of utter loneliness and helplessness which the vast expanse of deserted ocean aroused in her was so depressing that from the first contemplation of the future held not the slightest ray of promise for her. She was confident that they were lost, lost beyond possibility of succor. Presently Clayton awoke. It was several minutes before he could gather his senses sufficiently to realize where he was, or recall the disaster of the previous night. Finally his bewildered eyes fell upon the girl. Jane, he cried, thank God that we are together. Look, said the girl, Dully, indicating the horizon with an apathetic gesture. We are all alone. Clayton scanned the water in every direction. Where can they be? he cried. They cannot have gone down, for there has been no sea, and they were afloat after the yacht sank. I saw them all. He awoke the other members of the party and explained their plight. It is just as well that the boats are scattered, sir, said one of the sailors. They are all provisioned so that they do not need each other on that score, and should a storm blow up they could be of no service to one another, even if they were together. But scattered about the ocean there is a much better chance that one at least will be picked up, and then a search will be at once started for the others. Were we together there would be but one chance of rescue, where now there may be four. They saw the wisdom of his philosophy and were cheered by it. But their joy was short-lived, for when it was decided that they should row steadily toward the east and the continent, it was discovered that the sailors who had been at the only two oars with which the boat had been provided had fallen asleep at their work and allowed both to slip into the sea, nor were they in sight anywhere upon the water. During the angry words and recriminations which followed the sailors nearly came to blows, but Clayton succeeded in quieting them, though a moment later Monsieur Thuron almost precipitated another row by making a nasty remark about the stupidity of all Englishmen and especially English sailors. Come, come, mates, spoke up one of the men, Tomkins, who had taken no part in the altercation. Shootin' off our bloomin' mugs won't get us nothin'—a spider-ear, said afore, we'll all bloody well be picked up anyway, says he. So what's the use of squabblein'? Let's eat, says I. That's not a bad idea, said Monsieur Thuron, and then turning to the third sailor, Wilson, he said, past one of those tins my good man, fetch it yourself, retorted Wilson subtly. I ain't to take no orders from no furriner. You ain't captain of this ship yet. The result was that Clayton himself had to get the tin and then another angry altercation ensued when one of the sailors accused Clayton and Monsieur Thuron of conspiring to control the provisions so that they could have the lions share. Someone should take command of this boat, spoke up Jane Porter, thoroughly disgusted with the disgraceful wrangling that had marked the very opening of a forced companionship that might last for many days. It is terrible enough to be alone in a frail boat on the Atlantic without having the added misery and danger of constant bickering and brawling among the members of our party. You men should elect a leader, and then abide by his decisions in all matters. There is greater need for strict discipline here than there is upon a well-ordered ship. She had hoped before she voiced her sentiments that it would not be necessary for her to enter into the transaction at all, for she believed that Clayton was amply able to cope with every emergency, but she had to admit that so far at least he had shown no greater promise of successfully handling the situation than any of the others, though he had at least refrained from adding in any way to the unpleasantness, even going so far as to give up the tin to the sailors when they objected to its being opened by him. The girl's words temporarily quieted the man, and finally it was decided that the two kegs of water and the four tins of food should be divided into two parts, one half going forward to the three sailors to do with as they saw best, and the balance aft to the three passengers. Thus was the little company divided into two camps, and when the provisions had been apportioned, each immediately set to work to open and distribute food and water. The sailors were the first to get one of the tins of food open, and their curses of rage and disappointment caused Clayton to ask what the trouble might be. Trouble, shrieked fighter, trouble! It's worse than trouble! It's death! This tin is full of coal oil! Hastily now, Clayton and Monsieur Theron tore open one of theirs, only to learn the hideous truth that it also contained, not food, but coal oil. One after another the four tins on board were opened, and as the contents of each became known, howls of anger announced the grim truth. There was not an ounce of food upon the boat. Well, thank God it wasn't the water, cried Tompkins. It's easier to get along without food than it is without water. We can eat our shoes if worse comes to worst, but we couldn't drink them. As he spoke, Wilson had been boring a hole in one of the water-tags, and as Spider held a tin-cup he tilted the keg to pour a draft of the precious fluid. A thin stream of blackish, dry particles filtered slowly through the tiny aperture into the bottom of the cup, with a groan Wilson dropped the keg and sat staring at the dry stuff in the cup, speechless with horror. The kegs are filled with gunpowder, said Spider in low tone, turning to those aft, and so it proved when the last had been opened. Coal oils and gunpowder! cried Monsieur Theron. Sopristi! What a diet for shipwrecked mariners! With the full knowledge that there was neither food nor water on board, the pangs of hunger and thirst became immediately aggravated, and so on the first day of their tragic adventure real suffering commenced in grim earnest, and the full horrors of shipwreck were upon them. As the days passed conditions became horrible. Aking eyes scanned the horizon day and night, until the weak and weary watchers would sink exhausted to the bottom of the boat, and there, rest in dream-disturbed slumber, a moment's respite from the horrors of the waking reality. The sailors, goaded by the remorseless pangs of hunger, had eaten their leather belts, their shoes, the sweat-bands from their caps, although both Clayton and Monsieur Theron had done their best to convince them that these would only add to the suffering they were enduring. Weak and hopeless the entire party lay beneath the pitiless tropic sun, with parched lips and swollen tongues waiting for the death they were beginning to crave. The intense suffering of the first few days had become deadened for the three passengers who had eaten nothing, but the agony of the sailors was pitiful, as their weak and impoverished stomachs attempted to cope with the bits of leather with which they had filled them. Tompkins was the first to succumb. Just a week from the day the Lady Alice went down, the sailor died horribly in frightful convulsions. For hours his contorted and hideous features lay grinning back at those in the stern of the little boat, until Jane Porter could endure the sight no longer. Can you not drop his body overboard, William? She asked. Clayton rose and staggered toward the corpse. The two remaining sailors eyed him with a strange baleful light in their sunken orbs. Feudally the Englishman tried to lift the corpse over the side of the boat, but his strength was not equal to the task. "'Lend me a hand here, please,' he said to Wilson, who lay nearest him. "'What do you want to throw him over for?' questioned the sailor, in a quarrelous voice. "'We've got to, before we are too weak to do it,' replied Clayton. "'He'd be awful by tomorrow, after a day under that broiling sun. Better leave well enough adone,' grumbled Wilson. "'We may need him before tomorrow.'" Slowly the meaning of the man's words percolated into Clayton's understanding. At last he realized the fellow's reason for objecting to the disposal of the dead man. "'Good heavens!' whispered Clayton in a horrified tone. "'You don't mean? Why not?' growled Wilson. "'Ain't we got to live?' "'He's dead,' he added, jerking his thumb in the direction of the corpse. "'He won't care.' "'Come here, Thuron,' said Clayton, turning toward the Russian. "'We'll have something worse than death aboard us if we don't get rid of this body before dark.'" Wilson staggered up menacingly to prevent the contemplated act. But when his comrade, Spider, took sides with Clayton and Monsieur Thuron, he gave up, and sat eyeing the corpse hungrily as the three men, by combining their efforts, succeeded in rolling it overboard. All the balance of the day, Wilson sat glaring at Clayton. In his eyes the gleam of insanity. Toward evening, as the sun was sinking into the sea, he commenced to chuckle and mumble to himself. But his eyes never left Clayton. After it became quite dark, Clayton could still feel those terrible eyes upon him, he dared not sleep, and yet so exhausted was he that it was a constant fight to retain consciousness. After what seemed an eternity of suffering, his head dropped upon a thwart, and he slept. How long he was unconscious he did not know. He was awakened by a shuffling noise quite close to him. The moon had risen, and as he opened his startled eyes he saw Wilson creeping stealthily toward him, his mouth open, and his swollen tongue hanging out. The slight noise had awakened Jane Porter at the same time, and as she saw the hideous tableau she gave a shrill cry of alarm, and at the same instant the sailor lurched forward and fell upon Clayton. Like a wild beast his teeth sought the throat of his intended prey, but Clayton, weak though he was, still found sufficient strength to hold the maniac's mouth from him. At Jane Porter's scream, Mr. Thuron and Spider awoke, on seeing the cause of her alarm, both men crawled to Clayton's rescue, and between the three of them were able to subdue Wilson and hurl him to the bottom of the boat. For a few minutes he lay there, chattering and laughing, and then with an awful scream, and before any of his companions could prevent, he staggered to his feet and leaped overboard. The reaction from the terrific strain of excitement left the weak survivors trembling and prostrated. Spider broke down and wept. Jane Porter prayed. Clayton swore softly to himself. Mr. Thuron sat with his head in his hands, thinking, the result of his cogitation developed the following morning in a proposition he made to Spider and Clayton. Gentlemen, said Mr. Thuron, you see the fate that awaits us all, unless we are picked up within a day or two, that there is little hope of that is evidenced by the fact that during all the days we have drifted we have seen no sail, nor the faintest smudge of smoke upon the horizon. There might be a chance if we had food, but without food there is none. There remains for us then but one of two alternatives, and we must choose at once. Either we must all die together within a few days, or one must be sacrificed that the others may live. Do you quite clearly grasp my meaning? Jane Porter, who had overheard, was horrified if the proposition had come from the poor ignorant sailor she might possibly have not been so surprised, but that it should come from one who posed as a man of culture and refinement from a gentleman she could scarcely credit. It is better that we die together then, said Clayton. That is for the majority to decide, replied Mr. Thuron, as only one of us three will be the object of sacrifice we shall decide. Miss Porter is not interested since she will be in no danger. How shall we know who is to be first? asked Byler. It may be fairly fixed by lot, replied Mr. Thuron. I have a number of frank pieces in my pocket. We can choose a certain date from among them. The one to draw this date first from beneath a piece of cloth will be the first. I shall have nothing to do with any such diabolical plan, muttered Clayton, even yet land may be sighted, or a ship appear in time. You will do as the majority decide, or you will be the first without the formality of drawing lots, said Mr. Thuron threateningly. Come, let us vote on the plan. I, for one, am in favour of it. How about you, spider? And I, replied the sailor, it is the will of the majority, announced Mr. Thuron, and now let us lose no time in drawing lots. It is as fair for one as for another. That three may live one of us must die, perhaps a few hours sooner than otherwise. Then he began his preparation for the lottery of death, while Jane Porter sat wide-eyed and horrified at thought of the thing that she was about to witness. Mr. Thuron spread his coat upon the bottom of the boat, and then from a handful of money he selected six frank pieces. The other two men bent close above him as he inspected them. Finally he handed them all to Clayton. Look at them carefully, he said. The oldest date is 1875, and there is only one of that year. Clayton and the sailor inspected each coin. To them there seemed not the slightest difference that could be detected other than the dates. They were quite satisfied. Had they known that Mr. Thuron's past experiences of card-sharp had trained his sense of touch to so fine a point that he could almost differentiate between cards by the mere feel of them, they would scarcely have felt that the plan was so entirely fair. The 1875 piece was a hair thinner than the other coins, but neither Clayton nor Spider could have detected it without the aid of a micrometer. In what order shall we draw, asked Mr. Thuron, knowing from past experience that the majority of men always prefer last chance in a lottery where the single prize is some distasteful thing, there was always the chance and the hope that another will draw it first. Mr. Thuron, for reasons of his own, preferred to draw first if the drawing should happen to require a second adventure beneath the coat, and so when Spider elected to draw last, he graciously offered to take the first chance himself. His hand was under the coat for but a moment, yet those quick deft fingers had felt of each coin, and found and discarded the fatal piece. When he brought forth his hand it contained an 1888 Frank piece. Then Clayton drew. Jane Porter leaned forward with a tense and horrified expression on her face as the hand of the man she was to marry groped about beneath the coat. Presently he withdrew it, a Frank piece lying in the palm. For an instant he dared not look. But Mr. Thuron, who had leaned nearer to see the date, exclaimed that he was safe. Jane Porter sank weak and trembling against the side of the boat. She felt sick and dizzy. And now if Spider should not draw the 1875 piece she must endure the whole horrid thing again. The sailor already had his hand beneath the coat. Great beads of sweat were standing upon his brow. He trembled as though with a fit of ague. Allowed he cursed himself for having taken the last draw. For now his chances for escape were but three to one, whereas Mr. Thuron's had been five to one, and Clayton's four to one. The Russian was very patient and did not hurry the man, for he knew that he himself was quite safe whether the 1875 piece came out this time or not. When the sailor withdrew his hand and looked at the piece of money within he dropped fainting to the bottom of the boat. Both Clayton and Mr. Thuron hastened weakly to examine the coin which had rolled from the man's hand and lay beside him. It was not dated 1875. The reaction from the state of fear he had been in had overcome Spider quite as effectually as though he had drawn the fated piece. But now the whole proceeding must be gone through again. Once more the Russian drew for the harmless coin. Jane Porter closed her eyes as Clayton reached beneath the coat. Spider bent wide-eyed toward the hand that was to decide his fate, for whatever luck was Clayton's on this last draw the opposite would be Spider's. Then William Cecil Clayton, Lord Greystoke, removed his hand from beneath the coat and with a coin tight pressed within his palm where none might see it he looked at Jane Porter. He did not dare open his hand. Quick, his Spider! My God, let's see it! Clayton opened his fingers. Spider was the first to see the date and there any knew what his intention was he raised himself to his feet and lunged over the side of the boat to disappear forever into the green depths beneath. The coin had not been the 1875 piece. The strain had exhausted those who remained to such an extent that they lay half unconscious for the balance of the day, nor was the subject referred to again for several days, horrible days of increasing weakness and hopelessness. At length Mr. Thuron crawled where Clayton lay. We must draw once more before we are too weak even to eat, he whispered. Clayton was in such a state that he was scarcely master of his own will. Jane Porter had not spoken for three days. He knew that she was dying. Horrible as the thought was, he hoped that the sacrifice of either Thuron or himself might be the means of giving her renewed strength, and so he immediately agreed to the Russian's proposal. They drew under the same plan as before, but there could be but one result. Clayton drew the 1875 piece. When shall it be, he asked Thuron. The Russian had already drawn a pocket-knife from his trousers and was weakly attempting to open it. Now, he muttered, and his greedy eyes glotted upon the Englishman. Can't you wait until dark? asked Clayton. Miss Porter must not see this thing done. We were to have been married, you know. A look of disappointment came over Mr. Thuron's face. Very well, he replied hesitatingly. It will not be long until night. I have waited for many days. I can wait a few hours longer. Thank you, my friend, murmured Clayton. Now I shall go to her side and remain with her until it is time. I would like to have an hour or two with her before I die. When Clayton reached the girl's side, she was unconscious. He knew that she was dying, and he was glad that she should not have to see or know the awful tragedy that was shortly to be enacted. He took her hand and raised it to his cracked and swollen lips. For a long time he lay caressing the emaciated claw-like thing that had once been the beautiful shapely white hand of the young Baltimore bell. It was quite dark before he knew it, but he was recalled to himself by a voice out of the night. It was the Russian calling him to his doom. I am coming, Miss Arthur, and he hastened to reply. Thrice he attempted to turn himself upon his hands and knees that he might crawl back to his death, but in the few hours that he had lain there he had become too weak to return to Thuron's side. You will have to come to me, monsieur, he called weakly. I have not sufficient strength to gain my hands and knees. Saperisti, muttered monsieur Thuron. You are attempting to cheat me out of my weanings, Clayton heard the man shuffling about in the bottom of the boat. Finally there was a despairing groan. I cannot crawl, he heard the Russian wail. It is too late. You have tricked me, you dirty English dog. I have not tricked you, monsieur, replied Clayton. I have done my best to rise, but I shall try again, and if you will try, possibly each of us can crawl half way, and then you shall have your weanings. Again Clayton exerted his remaining strength to the utmost, and he heard Thuron apparently doing the same. Nearly an hour later the Englishman succeeded in raising himself to his hands and knees, but at the first forward movement he pitched upon his face. A moment later he heard an exclamation of relief from monsieur Thuron. I am coming, whispered the Russian. Again Clayton essayed to stagger on to meet his fate, but once more he pitched headlong to the boat's bottom, nor try as he would could he again rise. His last effort caused him to roll over on his back, and there he lay, looking up at the stars, while behind him coming ever nearer and nearer, he could hear the laborious shuffling and the statorous breathing of the Russian. It seemed that he must have lain thus an hour, waiting for the thing to crawl out of the dark and end his misery. It was quite close now, but there were longer and longer pauses between its efforts to advance, and each forward movement seemed to the waiting Englishman to be almost imperceptible. Finally he knew that Thuron was quite close beside him. He heard a cackling laugh. Something touched his face, and he lost consciousness. Edgar Rice Burroughs The very night that Tarzan of the Apes became chief of the Waziri, the woman he loved lay dying in a tiny boat two hundred miles west of him upon the Atlantic. As he danced among his naked fellow savages, the firelight gleaming against his great rolling muscles, the personification of physical perfection and strength, the woman who loved him lay thin and emaciated in the last coma that precedes death by thirst and starvation. The week following the induction of Tarzan into the kingship of the Waziri was occupied in escorting the manuma of the Arab raiders to the northern boundary of Waziri in accordance with the promise which Tarzan had made them. Before he left them he exacted a pledge from them that they would not lead any expeditions against the Waziri in the future, nor was it a difficult promise to obtain. They had had sufficient experience with the fighting tactics of the new Waziri chief not to have the slightest desire to accompany another predatory force within the boundaries of his domain. Almost immediately upon his return to the village, Tarzan commenced making preparations for leading an expedition in search of the ruined city of gold which old Waziri had described to him. He selected fifty of the sturdiest warriors of his tribe, choosing only men who seemed anxious to accompany him on the arduous march and share the dangers of a new and hostile country. The fabulous wealth of the fabled city had been almost constantly in his mind since Waziri had recounted the strange adventures of the former expedition which had stumbled upon the vast ruins by chance. The lore of adventure may have been quite as powerful a factor in urging Tarzan of the apes to undertake the journey as the lore of gold, but the lore of gold was there too, for he had learned among civilized men something of the miracles that may be wrought by the possessor of the magic yellow metal. What he would do with a golden fortune in the heart of savage Africa it had not occurred to him to consider. It would be enough to possess the power to work wonders even though he never had an opportunity to employ it. So one glorious tropical morning Waziri, chief of the Waziri, set out at the head of fifty clean-limbed ebb and warriors in quest of adventure and of riches. They followed the course which old Waziri had described to Tarzan. For days they marched up one river across a low divide, down another river, up a third, until at the end of the twenty-fifth day they camped upon a mountain side from the summit of which they hoped to catch their first view of the marvellous city of treasure. Early the next morning they were climbing the almost perpendicular crags which formed the last but greatest natural barrier between them and their destination. It was nearly noon before Tarzan who headed the thin line of climbing warriors scrambled over the top of the last cliff and stood upon the little flat table-land of the mountaintop. On either hand towered mighty peaks thousands of feet higher than the pass through which they were entering the forbidden valley. Behind him stretched the wooded valley across which they had marched for many days and at the opposite side the low range which marked the boundary of their own country. But before him was the view that centred his attention. Here lay a desolate valley, a shallow, narrow valley dotted with stunted trees and covered with many great boulders, and on the far side of the valley lay what appeared to be a mighty city, its great walls, its lofty spires, its turrets, minrets, and domes showing red and yellow in the sunlight. Tarzan was yet too far away to note the marks of ruin. To him it appeared a wonderful city of magnificent beauty, and in imagination he peopled its broad avenues and its huge temples with a throng of happy, active people. For an hour the little expedition rested upon the mountaintop, and then Tarzan led them down into the valley below. There was no trail, but the way was less arduous than the ascent of the opposite side of the mountain had been. Once in the valley their progress was rapid, so that it was still light when they halted before the towering walls of the ancient city. The outer wall was fifty feet in height, where it had not fallen into ruin, but nowhere, as far as they could see, had more than ten or twenty feet of the upper courses fallen away. It was still a formidable defense. On several occasions Tarzan had thought that he discerned things moving behind the ruined portions of the wall, near to them, as though creatures were watching them from behind the bulwarks of the ancient pile, and often he felt the sensation of unseen eyes upon him, but not once. Could he be sure that it was more than imagination? That night they camped outside the city. Once at midnight they were awakened by a shrill scream from beyond the great wall. It was very high at first, descending gradually until it ended in a series of dismal moans. It had a strange effect upon the blacks, almost paralyzing them with terror while it lasted, and it was an hour before the camps settled down to sleep once more. In the morning the effects of it were still visible in the fearful, side-long glances that the Waziri continually cast at the massive and forbidding structure which loomed above them. It required considerable encouragement and urging on Tarzan's part to prevent the blacks from abandoning the venture on the spot and hastening back across the valley toward the cliffs they had scaled the day before, but at length, by dint of commands and threats that he would enter the city alone, they agreed to accompany him. For fifteen minutes they marched along the face of the wall before they discovered a means of ingress. Then they came to a narrow cleft about twenty inches wide. Within a flight of concrete steps worn hollow by centuries of use rose before them to disappear at a sharp turning of the passage a few yards ahead. Into this narrow alley Tarzan made his way, turning his giant shoulders sideways that they might enter at all. Behind him trailed his black warriors. At the turn in the cleft the stairs ended and the path was level, but it wound and twisted in a serpentine fashion, until suddenly at a sharp angle it debouched upon a narrow court across which loomed an inner wall equally as high as the other. This inner wall was set with little round towers alternating along its entire summit with pointed monoliths. In places these had fallen and the wall was ruined, but it was in a much better state of preservation than the outer wall. Another narrow passage led through this wall, and at its end Tarzan and his warriors found themselves in a broad avenue on the opposite side of which crumbling edifices of hewn granite loomed dark and forbidding. Upon the crumbling debris along the face of the buildings trees had grown and vines wound in and out of the hollow, staring windows, but the building directly opposite them seemed less overgrown than the others and in a much better state of preservation. It was a massive pile surmounted by an enormous dome. At either side of its great entrance stood rows of tall pillars, each capped by a huge grotesque bird carved from the solid rock of the monoliths. As the ape-man and his companion stood gazing and bearing degrees of wonderment at this ancient city in the midst of savage Africa several of them became aware of movement within the structure at which they were looking. Dim, shadowy shapes appeared to be moving about in the semi-darkness of the interior. There was nothing tangible that the eye could grasp. Only an uncanny suggestion of life where it seemed that there should be no life, for living things seemed out of place in this weird dead city of the long dead past. Tarzan recalled something that he had read in the library at Paris of a lost race of white men that native legend described as living in the heart of Africa. He wondered if he were not looking upon the ruins of the civilization that this strange people had wrought amid the savage surroundings of their strange and savage home. Could it be possible that even now a remnant of that lost race inhabited the ruined grandeur that had once been their progenitor? Again he became conscious of a stealthy movement within the great temple before him. Come, he said to his Waziri, let us have a look at what lies behind those ruined walls. His men were loath to follow him, but when they saw that he was bravely entering the frowning portal they trailed a few paces behind in a huddled group that seemed the personification of nervous terror. A single shriek such as they had heard the night before would have been sufficient to have sent them all racing madly for the narrow cleft that led through the great walls to the outer world. As Tarzan entered the building he was distinctly aware of many eyes upon him. There was a rustling in the shadows of a nearby corridor, and he could have sworn that he saw a human hand withdrawn from an embrasure that opened above him into the dome-like rotunda in which he found himself. The floor of the chamber was of concrete, the walls of smooth granite upon which strange figures of man and beast were carved. In places tablets of yellow metal had been set in the solid masonry of the walls. When he approached closer to one of these tablets he saw that it was of gold and bore many hieroglyphics. Beyond this first chamber there were others, and back of them the building branched out into enormous wings. Tarzan passed through several of these chambers, finding many evidences of the fabulous wealth of the original builders. In one room were seven pillars of solid gold, and in another the floor itself was of the precious metal. And all the while that he explored his blacks huddled close together at his back, and strange shapes hovered upon either hand, and before them, and behind, yet never close enough that they might say that they were not alone. The strain, however, was telling upon the nerves of the wasiri. They begged Tarzan to return to the sunlight. They said that no good could come of such an expedition for the ruins were haunted by the spirits of the dead who had once inhabited them. They are watching us, O king! whispered Boussouli. They are waiting until they have led us into the innermost recesses of their stronghold, and then they will fall upon us in terraced pieces with their teeth. That is the way, with spirits. My mother's uncle, who is a great witch-doctor, has told me all about it many times. Tarzan laughed. Run back into the sunlight, my children, he said. I will join you when I have searched this old ruin from top to bottom and found the gold, or found that there is none. At least we may take the tablets from the walls, though the pillars are too heavy for us to handle. But there should be great storerooms filled with gold, gold that we can carry away upon our backs with ease. Run on now, out into the fresh air where you may breathe easier. Some of the warriors started to obey their chief with alacrity, but Boussouli and several others hesitated to leave him, hesitated between love and loyalty for their king, and superstitious fear of the unknown. And then, quite unexpectedly, that occurred which decided the question without the necessity for further discussion, out of the silence of the ruined temple there rang, close to their ears, the same hideous shriek they had heard the previous night, and with horrified cries the black warriors turned and fled through the empty halls of the age-old edifice. Behind them stood Tarzan of the Apes where they had left him, a grim smile upon his lips, waiting for the enemy he fully expected was about to pounce upon him. But again silence reigned, except for the faint suggestion of the sound of naked feet moving stealthily in nearby places. Then Tarzan wheeled and passed on into the depths of the temple. From room to room he went, until he came to one at which a rude barred door still stood, and as he put his shoulder against it to push it in, again the shriek of warning rang out almost beside him. It was evident that he was being warned to refrain from desecrating this particular room, for could it be that within lay the secret of the treasure-stores? At any rate the very fact that the strange invisible guardians of this weird place had some reason for wishing him not to enter this particular chamber was sufficient to treble Tarzan's desire to do so, and though the shrieking was repeated continuously, he kept his shoulder to the door until it gave, before his giant strength, to swing open upon creaking wooden hinges. Within all was black as the tomb. There was no window to let in the faintest ray of light, and as the corridor upon which it opened was itself in semi-darkness, even the open door shed no relieving rays within. Feeling before him upon the floor with the butt of his spear, Tarzan entered the stygian gloom. Suddenly the door behind him closed, and at the same time hands clutched him from every direction out of the darkness. The eight men fought with all the savaged fury of self-preservation backed by the Herculian strength that was his, but though he felt his blows land and his teeth sink into soft flesh, there seemed always two new hands to take the place of those that he fought off. At last they dragged him down, and slowly, very slowly they overcame him by the mere weight of their numbers, and then they bound him, his hands behind his back and his feet trust up to meet them. He had heard no sound except the heavy breathing of his antagonists and the noise of the battle. He knew not what manner of creatures had captured him, but that they were human seemed evident from the fact that they had bound him. Presently they lifted him from the floor, and half dragging, half pushing him, they brought him out of the black chamber through another doorway into an inner courtyard of the temple. Here he saw his captors. There must have been a hundred of them, short, stocky men, with great beards that covered their faces and fell upon their hairy breasts. The thick matted hair upon their heads grew low over their receding brows and hung about their shoulders and their backs. Their crooked legs were short and heavy, their arms long and muscular. About their loins they wore the skins of leopards and lions, and great necklaces of the claws of these same animals depended upon their breasts. Massive circlets of virgin gold adorned their arms and legs. For weapons they carried heavy knotted bludgeons, and in the belts that confined their single garments each had a long, wicked-looking knife. But the feature of them that made the most startling impression upon their prisoner was their white skins. Neither in colour nor feature was there a trace of the negroid about them, yet with their receding foreheads, wicked little close-set eyes, and yellow fangs they were far from prepossessing in appearance. During the fight within the dark chamber, and while they had been dragging Tarzan to the inner court, no word had been spoken. But now several of them exchanged grunting, monosyllabic conversation in a language unfamiliar to the eight men, and presently they left him lying upon the concrete floor, while they trooped off on their short legs into another part of the temple beyond the court. As Tarzan lay there upon his back he saw that the temple entirely surrounded the little enclosure, and that on all sides its lofty walls rose high above him. At the top a little patch of blue sky was visible, and in one direction through an embrasure he could see foliage, but whether it was beyond or within the temple he did not know. About the court from the ground to the top of the temple were series of open galleries, and now and then the captive caught glimpses of bright eyes gleaming from beneath masses of tumbling hair, peering down upon him from above. The eight men gently tested the strength of the bonds that held him, and while he could not be sure it seemed that they were of insufficient strength to withstand the strain of his mighty muscles when the time came to make a break for freedom, but he did not dare to put them to the crucial test until darkness had fallen, or he felt that no spying eyes were upon him. He had lain within the court for several hours before the first rays of sunlight penetrated the vertical shaft. Almost simultaneously he heard the pattering of bare feet in the corridors about him, and a moment later saw the galleries above fill with crafty faces as a score or more entered the courtyard. For a moment every eye was bent upon the noonday sun, and then in unison the people in the galleries and those in the court below took up the refrain of a low, weird chant. Presently those about Tarzan began to dance to the cadence of their solemn song. They circled him slowly, resembling in their manner of dancing a number of clumsy, shuffling bears, but as yet they did not look at him, keeping their little eyes fixed upon the sun. For ten minutes or more they kept up their monotonous chant and steps, and then suddenly, and in perfect unison, they turned toward their victim with upraised bludgings and emitting fearful howls. The while they contorted their features into the most diabolical expressions they rushed upon him. At the same instant a female figure dashed into the mist of the bloodthirsty horde and with a bludgeon similar to their own except that it was wrought from gold, beat back the advancing men. CHAPTER XXI For a moment Tarzan thought that by some strange freak of fate a miracle had saved him, but when he realized the ease with which the girl had single-handed beaten off twenty gorilla-like males and an instant later, as he saw them again take up their dance about him, while she addressed them in a sing-song monotone which bore every evidence of rote, he came to the conclusion that it was all but a part of the ceremony of which he was the central figure. After a moment or two the girl drew a knife from her girdle and, leaning over Tarzan, cut the bonds from his legs. Then, as the men stopped their dance and approached, she motioned to him to rise. Placing the rope that had been about his legs around his neck, she led him across the courtyard, the men following in twos. Through winding corridors she led farther and farther into the remotor precincts of the temple, until they came to a great chamber in the center of which stood an altar. Then it was that Tarzan translated the strange ceremony that had preceded his introduction into this holy of holies. He had fallen into the hands of descendants of the ancient sun-worshipers, his seeming rescue by a motorist of the high priestess of the sun had been but a part of the mimicry of their heathen ceremony. The sun looking down upon him through the opening at the top of the court had claimed him as his own, and the priestess had come from the inner temple to save him from the polluting hands of worldlings, to save him as a human offering to their flaming deity. And had he needed further assurance as to the correctness of his theory he had only to cast his eyes upon the brownish-red stains that caked the stone altar and covered the floor in its immediate vicinity, or to the human skulls which grin from countless niches in the towering walls, the priestess led the victim to the altar steps. Again the galleries above filled with watchers, while from an arched doorway at the east end of the chamber a procession of females filed slowly into the room. They wore, like the men, only skins of wild animals caught about their waist with rawhide belts or chains of gold, but the black masses of their hair were encrusted with golden headgear, composed of many circular and oval pieces of gold, ingeniously held together to form a metal cap from which depended at each side of the head long strings of oval pieces falling to the waist. The females were more symmetrically proportioned than the males, their features were much more perfect, the shapes of their heads and their large soft black eyes denoting far greater intelligence and humanity than was possessed by their lords and masters. Each priestess bore two golden cups, and as they formed in line along one side of the altar the men formed opposite them, advancing and taking each a cup from the female opposite. Then the chant began once more, and presently from a dark passageway beyond the altar another female emerged from the cavernous depths beneath the chamber. The high priestess thought Tarzan. She was a young woman with a rather intelligent and shapely face. Her ornaments were similar to those worn by her votaries, but much more elaborate, many being set with diamonds. Her bare arms and legs were almost concealed by the massive bejeweled ornaments which covered them, while her single leopard skin was supported by a close-fitting girdle of golden ring set in strange designs with innumerable small diamonds. In the girdle she carried a long, jeweled knife, and in her hand a slender wand in lieu of a bludgeon. As she advanced to the opposite side of the altar she halted and the chanting ceased. The priests and priestesses knelt before her. While with wand extended above them she recited a long and tiresome prayer. Her voice was soft and musical. Tarzan could scarce realize that its possessor, in a moment more, would be transformed by the fanatical ecstasy of religious zeal into a wild-eyed and bloodthirsty executioner who, with dripping knife, would be the first to drink her victim's red, warm blood from the little golden cup that stood upon the altar. As she finished her prayer she let her eyes rest for the first time upon Tarzan. With every indication of considerable curiosity she examined him from head to foot. Then she addressed him, and when she had finished, had waiting as though she expected a reply. I do not understand your language, said Tarzan. Possibly we may speak together in another town. But she could not understand him, though he tried French, English, Arab, Waziri, and as a last resort the mongrel-tongue of the West Coast. She shook her head and it seemed that there was a note of weariness in her voice as she motioned to the priest to continue with the rites. These now circled in a repetition of their idiotic dance which was terminated finally at a command from the priestess who had stood throughout, still looking intently upon Tarzan. At her signal the priest rushed upon the ape-man and, lifting him bodily, laid him upon his back across the altar, his head hanging over one edge, his legs over the opposite. Then they and the priestesses formed in two lines, with their little golden cups in readiness to capture a share of the victim's life-blood after the sacrificial knife had accomplished its work. In the line of priests an altercation arose as to who should have first place. A burly brute, with all the refined intelligence of a gorilla stamped upon his bestial face, was attempting to push a smaller man to second place, but the smaller one appealed to the high priestess who, in a cold peremptory voice, sent the larger to the extreme end of the line. Tarzan could hear him growling and rumbling as he went slowly to the inferior station. Then the priestess, standing above him, began reciting what Tarzan took to be an invocation. The while she slowly raised her thin, sharp knife aloft. It seemed ages to the eight man before her arm ceased its upward progress, and the knife halted high above his unprotected breast. Then it started downward, slowly at first, but as the incantation increased in rapidity, with greater speed. At the end of the line Tarzan could still hear the grumbling of the disgruntled priest. The man's voice rose louder and louder. A priestess near him spoke in sharp tones of rebuke. The knife was quite near to Tarzan's breast now, but it halted for an instant as the high priestess braged her eyes to shoot her swift displeasure at the instigator of this sacrilegious interruption. There was a sudden commotion in the direction of the disputants, and Tarzan rolled his head in their direction in time to see the burly brute of a priest leap upon the woman opposite him, dashing out her brains with a single blow of his heavy cudgel. Then that happened which Tarzan had witnessed a hundred times before among the wild denizens of his own savage jungle. He had seen the thing fall upon Kerchak and Tublat and Turcos, upon a dozen of the other mighty bull-apes of his tribe, and upon Tantor the elephant. There was scarce any of the males of the forest that did not at times fall prey to it. The priest went mad, and with his heavy bludgeon ran amok among his fellows. His screams of rage were frightful as he dashed hither and thither, dealing terrific blows with his giant weapon, or singing his yellow fangs into the flesh of some luckless victim. And during it the priestess stood with poised knife above Tarzan, her eyes fixed in horror upon the maniacal thing that was dealing out death and destruction to her mortaries. Presently the room was emptied except for the dead and dying on the floor. The victim upon the altar, the high priestess and the madman. As the cunning eyes of the latter fell upon the woman, they lighted with a new and sudden lust. Slowly he crept water, and now he spoke, but this time there fell upon Tarzan's surprised ears a language he could understand, the last one that he would ever have thought of employing in attempting to converse with human beings, the low guttural barking of the tribe of great anthropoids, his own mother tongue, and the woman answered the man in the same language. He was threatening, she attempting to reason with him, for it was quite evident that she saw that he was past her authority. The brute was quite close now, creeping with claw-like hands extended toward her around the end of the altar, Tarzan strained at the bonds which held his arms pinion behind him. The woman did not see. She had forgotten her prey and the horror of the danger that threatened herself. As the brute leap past Tarzan to clutch his victim, the eight-man gave one superhuman wrench at the thongs that held him. The effort sent him rolling from the altar to the stone floor, on the opposite side from that on which the priestess stood, but as he sprang to his feet the thongs dropped from his freed arms, and at the same time he realized that he was alone in the inner temple. The high priestess and the mad priest had disappeared, and then a muffled scream came from the cavernous mouth of the dark hole beyond the sacrificial altar through which the priestess had entered the temple. Without even a thought for his own safety, or the possibility for escape which this rapid series of fortuitous circumstances had thrust upon him, Tarzan of the apes answered the call of the woman in danger. With a little bound he was at the gaping entrance to the subterranean chamber, and a moment later was running down a flight of age-old concrete steps that led he knew not where. The faint light that filtered in from above showed him a large low-sealed bolt from which several doorways led off into inky darkness, but there was no need to thread an unknown way, for there before him lay the objects of his search. The mad brute had the girl upon the floor, and gorilla-like fingers were clutching frantically at her throat as she struggled to escape the fury of the awful thing upon her. As Tarzan's heavy hand fell upon his shoulder the priest dropped his victim and turned upon her would-be rescuer, with foam-flect lips and bared fangs the mad sun-worshipper battled with the tenfold power of the maniac. In the bloodlust of his fury the creature had undergone a sudden reversion to Type which left him a wild beast, forgetful of the dagger that projected from his belt, thinking only of nature's weapons with which his brute prototype had battled. But if he could use his teeth and hands to advantage he found one even better versed in the school of savage warfare to which he had reverted, for Tarzan of the apes closed with him, and they fell to the floor tearing and rending at one another like two bull apes, while the primitive priestess stood flattened against the wall, watching with wide, fear-fascinated eyes the growing snapping beasts at her feet. At last she saw the stranger close one mighty hand upon the throat of his antagonist, and as he forced the brute man's head far back, rain blow after blow upon the upturned face. A moment later he threw the still thing from him, and a rising shook himself like a lion. He placed a foot upon the carcass before him, and raised his head to give the victory cry of his kind, but as his eyes fell upon the opening above him leading into the temple of human sacrifice he thought better of his intended act. The girl who had been half-paralyzed by fear, as the two men thought, had just commenced to give thought to her probable fate now that though released from the clutches of a madman she had fallen into the hands of one whom but a moment before she had been up on the point of killing. She looked about for some means of escape. The black mouth of a diverging corridor was near at hand, but as she turned to dart into it the eight man's eyes fell upon her, and with a quick leap he was at her side, and a restraining hand was laid upon her arm. "'Wait!' said Tarzan of the Apes in the language of the tribe of Kurchak. The girl looked at him in astonishment. "'Who are you?' she whispered. "'Who speaks the language of the first man?' "'I am Tarzan of the Apes,' he answered in the vernacular of the antipoids. "'What do you want of me?' she continued. "'For what purpose did you save me from Thaw?' "'I could not see a woman murdered. It was a half question that answered her. "'But what do you intend to do with me now?' she continued. "'Nothing,' he replied. "'But you can do something for me. You can lead me out of this place to freedom.' He made the suggestion without the slightest thought that she would exceed. He felt quite sure that the sacrifice would go on from the point where it had been interrupted if the High Priestess had her way, though he was equally positive that they would find Tarzan of the Apes unbound with a long dagger in his hand, a much less tractable victim than Tarzan disarmed and bound. The girl stood looking at him for a long moment before she spoke. "'You are a very wonderful man,' she said. "'You are such a man as I have seen in my daydreams ever since I was a little girl. You are such a man as I imagine the forebears of my people must have been, the great race of people who built this mighty city in the heart of a savage world that they might rest from the bowels of the earth, the fabulous wealth for which they had sacrificed their far-distance civilization. I cannot understand why you came to my rescue in the first place, and now I cannot understand why, having me within your power, you do not wish to be revenged upon me for having sentenced you to death, for having almost put you to death with my own hand. I presume,' replied the eight man, "'that you but followed the teachings of your religion. I cannot blame you for that, no matter what I may think of your creed, but who are you? What people have I fallen among? I am law, high priestess of the Temple of the Sun, in the city of Opar. We are descendants of a people who came to this savage world more than ten thousand years ago in search of gold, their city stretched from a great sea under the rising sun to a great sea into which the sun descends at night to cool his flaming brow. They were very rich and very powerful, but they lived only a few months of the year in their magnificent palaces here, the rest of the time they spent in their native land, far, far to the north. Many ships went back and forth between this new world and the old. During the rainy season there were but few of the inhabitants remained here, only those who superintended the working of the mines by the black slaves and the merchants who had to stay to supply their wants, and the soldiers who guarded the cities and the mines. It was at one of these times that the great calamity occurred. When the time came for the teeming thousands to return, none came. For weeks the people waited. Then they sent out a great galley to learn why no one came from the mother country, but though they sailed about for many months they were unable to find any trace of the mighty land that had for countless ages borne their ancient civilization. It had sunk into this sea. From that day dated the downfall of my people. Disheartened and unhappy they soon became a prey to the black hordes of the north and the black hordes of the south. One by one the cities were deserted or overcome. The last remnant was finally forced to take shelter within this mighty mountain fortress. Slowly we have dwindled in power, in civilization, in intellect, in numbers. Until now we are no more than a small tribe of savage apes. In fact the apes live with us and have for many ages. We call them the first men. We speak their language quite as much as we do our own. Only in the rituals of the temple do we make any attempt to retain our mother tongue. In time it will be forgotten, and we will speak only the language of the apes. In time we will no longer banish those of our people who mate with apes. And so in time we shall descend the very beasts from which ages ago our progenitors may have sprung. But why are you more human than the others, asked the man? For some reason the women have not reverted to savagery so rapidly as the men. It may be because only the lower types of men remained here at the time of the great catastrophe while the temples were filled with the noblest daughters of the race. My strain has remained clearer than the rest because for countless ages my foremothers were high priestesses. The sacred office descends from mother to daughter. Our husbands are chosen for us from the noblest in the land. The most perfect man, mentally and physically, is selected to be the husband of the high priestess. From what I saw of the gentleman above, said Tarzan with a grin, there should be little trouble in choosing from among them. The girl looked at him quizzically for a moment. Do not be sacrilegious, she said. They are very holy men. They are priests. Then there are others who are better to look upon, he asked. The others are all more ugly than the priests, she replied. Tarzan shattered at her fate, for even in the dim light of the vault he was impressed by her beauty. But how about myself? Yes, suddenly. Are you going to lead me to liberty? You have been chosen by the flaming God as his own, she answered solemnly. Not even I have the power to save you, should they find you again. But I do not intend that they shall find you. You risk your life to save mine. I may do no less for you. It will be no easy matter. It may require days. But in the end I think that I can lead you beyond the walls. Come. They will look here for me presently, and if they find us together we shall both be lost. They would kill me, did they think that I had proved false to my God. You must not take the risk then, he said quickly. I will return to the temple, and if I can fight my weight of freedom there will be no suspicion thrown upon you. But she would not have it so, and finally persuaded him to follow her, saying that they had already remained in the vault too long to prevent suspicion from falling upon her even if they returned to the temple. I will hide you, and then return alone, she said, telling them that I was long unconscious after you killed Tha, and that I do not know whether you escaped. And so she led him through winding corridors of gloom, until finally they came to a small chamber into which a little light filtered through a stone grating in the ceiling. This is the Chamber of the Dead, she said. None will think of searching here for you. They would not dare. I will return after it is dark. By that time I may have found a plan to effect your escape. She was gone, and Tarzan of the Apes was left alone in the Chamber of the Dead beneath the long dead city of Opar.