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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE
1 Belgian and Arab
2 On the Road to Opar
3 The Call of the Jungle
4 Prophecy and Fulfillment
5 The Altar of the Flaming God
6 The Arab Raid
7 The Jewel-Room of Opar
8 The Escape from Opar
9 The Theft of the Jewels
10 Achmet Zek Sees the Jewels
11 Tarzan Becomes a Beast Again
12 La Seeks Vengeance
13 Condemned to Torture and Death
14 A Priestess But Yet a Woman
15 The Flight of Werper
16 Tarzan Again Leads the Mangani
17 The Deadly Peril of Jane Clayton
18 The Fight For the Treasure
19 Jane Clayton and The Beasts of the Jungle
20 Jane Clayton Again a Prisoner
21 The Flight to the Jungle
22 Tarzan Recovers His Reason
23 A Night of Terror
24 Home



Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
by Edgar Rice Burroughs



1

Belgian and Arab


Lieutenant Albert Werper had only the prestige of the name
he had dishonored to thank for his narrow escape from
being cashiered. At first he had been humbly thankful,
too, that they had sent him to this Godforsaken Congo post
instead of court-martialing him, as he had so justly deserved;
but now six months of the monotony, the frightful isolation and
the loneliness had wrought a change. The young man brooded
continually over his fate. His days were filled with morbid
self-pity, which eventually engendered in his weak and
vacillating mind a hatred for those who had sent him here--
for the very men he had at first inwardly thanked for saving him
from the ignominy of degradation.

He regretted the gay life of Brussels as he never had
regretted the sins which had snatched him from that
gayest of capitals, and as the days passed he came to
center his resentment upon the representative in Congo
land of the authority which had exiled him--his captain
and immediate superior.

This officer was a cold, taciturn man, inspiring little
love in those directly beneath him, yet respected and
feared by the black soldiers of his little command.

Werper was accustomed to sit for hours glaring at his
superior as the two sat upon the veranda of their
common quarters, smoking their evening cigarets in a
silence which neither seemed desirous of breaking.
The senseless hatred of the lieutenant grew at last into a
form of mania. The captain's natural taciturnity he
distorted into a studied attempt to insult him because
of his past shortcomings. He imagined that his
superior held him in contempt, and so he chafed and
fumed inwardly until one evening his madness became
suddenly homicidal. He fingered the butt of the
revolver at his hip, his eyes narrowed and his brows
contracted. At last he spoke.

"You have insulted me for the last time!" he cried,
springing to his feet. "I am an officer and a
gentleman, and I shall put up with it no longer without
an accounting from you, you pig."

The captain, an expression of surprise upon his
features, turned toward his junior. He had seen men
before with the jungle madness upon them--the madness
of solitude and unrestrained brooding, and perhaps a
touch of fever.

He rose and extended his hand to lay it upon the
other's shoulder. Quiet words of counsel were upon his
lips; but they were never spoken. Werper construed his
superior's action into an attempt to close with him.
His revolver was on a level with the captain's heart,
and the latter had taken but a step when Werper pulled
the trigger. Without a moan the man sank to the rough
planking of the veranda, and as he fell the mists that
had clouded Werper's brain lifted, so that he saw
himself and the deed that he had done in the same light
that those who must judge him would see them.

He heard excited exclamations from the quarters of the
soldiers and he heard men running in his direction.
They would seize him, and if they didn't kill him they
would take him down the Congo to a point where a
properly ordered military tribunal would do so just as
effectively, though in a more regular manner.

Werper had no desire to die. Never before had he so
yearned for life as in this moment that he had so
effectively forfeited his right to live. The men were
nearing him. What was he to do? He glanced about as
though searching for the tangible form of a legitimate
excuse for his crime; but he could find only the body
of the man he had so causelessly shot down.

In despair, he turned and fled from the oncoming
soldiery. Across the compound he ran, his revolver
still clutched tightly in his hand. At the gates a
sentry halted him. Werper did not pause to parley or
to exert the influence of his commission--he merely
raised his weapon and shot down the innocent black. A
moment later the fugitive had torn open the gates and
vanished into the blackness of the jungle, but not
before he had transferred the rifle and ammunition
belts of the dead sentry to his own person.

All that night Werper fled farther and farther into the
heart of the wilderness. Now and again the voice of a
lion brought him to a listening halt; but with cocked
and ready rifle he pushed ahead again, more fearful of
the human huntsmen in his rear than of the wild
carnivora ahead.

Dawn came at last, but still the man plodded on.
All sense of hunger and fatigue were lost in the terrors
of contemplated capture. He could think only of escape.
He dared not pause to rest or eat until there was no
further danger from pursuit, and so he staggered on
until at last he fell and could rise no more. How long
he had fled he did not know, or try to know. When he
could flee no longer the knowledge that he had reached
his limit was hidden from him in the unconsciousness of
utter exhaustion.

And thus it was that Achmet Zek, the Arab, found him.
Achmet's followers were for running a spear through the
body of their hereditary enemy; but Achmet would have
it otherwise. First he would question the Belgian.
It were easier to question a man first and kill him
afterward, than kill him first and then question him.

So he had Lieutenant Albert Werper carried to his own
tent, and there slaves administered wine and food in
small quantities until at last the prisoner regained
consciousness. As he opened his eyes he saw the faces
of strange black men about him, and just outside the
tent the figure of an Arab. Nowhere was the uniform of
his soldiers to be seen.

The Arab turned and seeing the open eyes of the
prisoner upon him, entered the tent.

"I am Achmet Zek," he announced. "Who are you, and
what were you doing in my country? Where are your
soldiers?"

Achmet Zek! Werper's eyes went wide, and his heart
sank. He was in the clutches of the most notorious of
cut-throats--a hater of all Europeans, especially those
who wore the uniform of Belgium. For years the
military forces of Belgian Congo had waged a fruitless
war upon this man and his followers--a war in which
quarter had never been asked nor expected by either
side.

But presently in the very hatred of the man for
Belgians, Werper saw a faint ray of hope for himself.
He, too, was an outcast and an outlaw. So far, at
least, they possessed a common interest, and Werper
decided to play upon it for all that it might yield.

"I have heard of you," he replied, "and was searching
for you. My people have turned against me. I hate
them. Even now their soldiers are searching for me,
to kill me. I knew that you would protect me from them,
for you, too, hate them. In return I will take service
with you. I am a trained soldier. I can fight, and
your enemies are my enemies."

Achmet Zek eyed the European in silence. In his mind
he revolved many thoughts, chief among which was that
the unbeliever lied. Of course there was the chance
that he did not lie, and if he told the truth then his
proposition was one well worthy of consideration, since
fighting men were never over plentiful--especially
white men with the training and knowledge of military
matters that a European officer must possess.

Achmet Zek scowled and Werper's heart sank; but Werper
did not know Achmet Zek, who was quite apt to scowl
where another would smile, and smile where another
would scowl.

"And if you have lied to me," said Achmet Zek, "I will
kill you at any time. What return, other than your
life, do you expect for your services?"

"My keep only, at first," replied Werper. "Later, if I
am worth more, we can easily reach an understanding."
Werper's only desire at the moment was to preserve his
life. And so the agreement was reached and Lieutenant
Albert Werper became a member of the ivory and slave
raiding band of the notorious Achmet Zek.

For months the renegade Belgian rode with the savage
raider. He fought with a savage abandon, and a vicious
cruelty fully equal to that of his fellow desperadoes.
Achmet Zek watched his recruit with eagle eye, and with
a growing satisfaction which finally found expression
in a greater confidence in the man, and resulted in an
increased independence of action for Werper.

Achmet Zek took the Belgian into his confidence to a
great extent, and at last unfolded to him a pet scheme
which the Arab had long fostered, but which he never
had found an opportunity to effect. With the aid of a
European, however, the thing might be easily
accomplished. He sounded Werper.

"You have heard of the man men call Tarzan?" he asked.

Werper nodded. "I have heard of him; but I do not know
him."

"But for him we might carry on our 'trading' in safety
and with great profit," continued the Arab. "For years
he has fought us, driving us from the richest part of
the country, harassing us, and arming the natives that
they may repel us when we come to 'trade.' He is very
rich. If we could find some way to make him pay us
many pieces of gold we should not only be avenged upon
him; but repaid for much that he has prevented us from
winning from the natives under his protection."

Werper withdrew a cigaret from a jeweled case and
lighted it.

"And you have a plan to make him pay?" he asked.

"He has a wife," replied Achmet Zek, "whom men say is
very beautiful. She would bring a great price farther
north, if we found it too difficult to collect ransom
money from this Tarzan."

Werper bent his head in thought. Achmet Zek stood
awaiting his reply. What good remained in Albert
Werper revolted at the thought of selling a white woman
into the slavery and degradation of a Moslem harem.
He looked up at Achmet Zek. He saw the Arab's eyes
narrow, and he guessed that the other had sensed his
antagonism to the plan. What would it mean to Werper to
refuse? His life lay in the hands of this semi-barbarian,
who esteemed the life of an unbeliever less
highly than that of a dog. Werper loved life. What
was this woman to him, anyway? She was a European,
doubtless, a member of organized society. He was an
outcast. The hand of every white man was against him.
She was his natural enemy, and if he refused to lend
himself to her undoing, Achmet Zek would have him
killed.

"You hesitate," murmured the Arab.

"I was but weighing the chances of success," lied
Werper, "and my reward. As a European I can gain
admittance to their home and table. You have no other
with you who could do so much. The risk will be great.
I should be well paid, Achmet Zek."

A smile of relief passed over the raider's face.

"Well said, Werper," and Achmet Zek slapped his
lieutenant upon the shoulder. "You should be well paid
and you shall. Now let us sit together and plan how
best the thing may be done," and the two men squatted
upon a soft rug beneath the faded silks of Achmet's
once gorgeous tent, and talked together in low voices
well into the night. Both were tall and bearded, and
the exposure to sun and wind had given an almost Arab
hue to the European's complexion. In every detail of
dress, too, he copied the fashions of his chief, so
that outwardly he was as much an Arab as the other.
It was late when he arose and retired to his own tent.

The following day Werper spent in overhauling his
Belgian uniform, removing from it every vestige of
evidence that might indicate its military purposes.
From a heterogeneous collection of loot, Achmet Zek
procured a pith helmet and a European saddle, and from
his black slaves and followers a party of porters,
askaris and tent boys to make up a modest safari for a
big game hunter. At the head of this party Werper set
out from camp.



2

On the Road To Opar


It was two weeks later that John Clayton, Lord
Greystoke, riding in from a tour of inspection of his
vast African estate, glimpsed the head of a column of
men crossing the plain that lay between his bungalow
and the forest to the north and west.

He reined in his horse and watched the little party as
it emerged from a concealing swale. His keen eyes
caught the reflection of the sun upon the white helmet
of a mounted man, and with the conviction that a
wandering European hunter was seeking his hospitality,
he wheeled his mount and rode slowly forward to meet
the newcomer.

A half hour later he was mounting the steps leading to
the veranda of his bungalow, and introducing M. Jules
Frecoult to Lady Greystoke.

"I was completely lost," M. Frecoult was explaining.
"My head man had never before been in this part of the
country and the guides who were to have accompanied me
from the last village we passed knew even less of the
country than we. They finally deserted us two days
since. I am very fortunate indeed to have stumbled so
providentially upon succor. I do not know what I
should have done, had I not found you."

It was decided that Frecoult and his party should
remain several days, or until they were thoroughly
rested, when Lord Greystoke would furnish guides to
lead them safely back into country with which
Frecoult's head man was supposedly familiar.

In his guise of a French gentleman of leisure, Werper
found little difficulty in deceiving his host and in
ingratiating himself with both Tarzan and Jane Clayton;
but the longer he remained the less hopeful he became
of an easy accomplishment of his designs.

Lady Greystoke never rode alone at any great distance
from the bungalow, and the savage loyalty of the
ferocious Waziri warriors who formed a great part of
Tarzan's followers seemed to preclude the possibility
of a successful attempt at forcible abduction, or of
the bribery of the Waziri themselves.

A week passed, and Werper was no nearer the fulfillment
of his plan, in so far as he could judge, than upon the
day of his arrival, but at that very moment something
occurred which gave him renewed hope and set his mind
upon an even greater reward than a woman's ransom.

A runner had arrived at the bungalow with the weekly
mail, and Lord Greystoke had spent the afternoon in his
study reading and answering letters. At dinner he
seemed distraught, and early in the evening he excused
himself and retired, Lady Greystoke following him very
soon after. Werper, sitting upon the veranda, could
hear their voices in earnest discussion, and having
realized that something of unusual moment was afoot,
he quietly rose from his chair, and keeping well in the
shadow of the shrubbery growing profusely about the
bungalow, made his silent way to a point beneath the
window of the room in which his host and hostess slept.

Here he listened, and not without result, for almost
the first words he overheard filled him with
excitement. Lady Greystoke was speaking as Werper came
within hearing.

"I always feared for the stability of the company," she
was saying; "but it seems incredible that they should
have failed for so enormous a sum--unless there has
been some dishonest manipulation."

"That is what I suspect," replied Tarzan; "but whatever
the cause, the fact remains that I have lost
everything, and there is nothing for it but to return
to Opar and get more."

"Oh, John," cried Lady Greystoke, and Werper could feel
the shudder through her voice, "is there no other way?
I cannot bear to think of you returning to that
frightful city. I would rather live in poverty always
than to have you risk the hideous dangers of Opar."

"You need have no fear," replied Tarzan, laughing.
"I am pretty well able to take care of myself, and were
I not, the Waziri who will accompany me will see that no
harm befalls me."

"They ran away from Opar once, and left you to your
fate," she reminded him.

"They will not do it again," he answered. "They were
very much ashamed of themselves, and were coming back
when I met them."

"But there must be some other way," insisted the woman.

"There is no other way half so easy to obtain another
fortune, as to go to the treasure vaults of Opar and
bring it away," he replied. "I shall be very careful,
Jane, and the chances are that the inhabitants of Opar
will never know that I have been there again and
despoiled them of another portion of the treasure, the
very existence of which they are as ignorant of as they
would be of its value."

The finality in his tone seemed to assure Lady
Greystoke that further argument was futile, and so she
abandoned the subject.

Werper remained, listening, for a short time, and then,
confident that he had overheard all that was necessary
and fearing discovery, returned to the veranda, where
he smoked numerous cigarets in rapid succession before
retiring.

The following morning at breakfast, Werper announced
his intention of making an early departure, and asked
Tarzan's permission to hunt big game in the Waziri
country on his way out--permission which Lord Greystoke
readily granted.

The Belgian consumed two days in completing his
preparations, but finally got away with his safari,
accompanied by a single Waziri guide whom Lord
Greystoke had loaned him. The party made but a single
short march when Werper simulated illness, and
announced his intention of remaining where he was until
he had fully recovered. As they had gone but a short
distance from the Greystoke bungalow, Werper dismissed
the Waziri guide, telling the warrior that he would
send for him when he was able to proceed. The Waziri
gone, the Belgian summoned one of Achmet Zek's trusted
blacks to his tent, and dispatched him to watch for the
departure of Tarzan, returning immediately to advise
Werper of the event and the direction taken by the
Englishman.

The Belgian did not have long to wait, for the
following day his emissary returned with word that
Tarzan and a party of fifty Waziri warriors had set out
toward the southeast early in the morning.

Werper called his head man to him, after writing a long
letter to Achmet Zek. This letter he handed to the
head man.

"Send a runner at once to Achmet Zek with this," he
instructed the head man. "Remain here in camp awaiting
further instructions from him or from me. If any come
from the bungalow of the Englishman, tell them that I
am very ill within my tent and can see no one. Now,
give me six porters and six askaris--the strongest and
bravest of the safari--and I will march after the
Englishman and discover where his gold is hidden."

And so it was that as Tarzan, stripped to the loin
cloth and armed after the primitive fashion he best
loved, led his loyal Waziri toward the dead city of
Opar, Werper, the renegade, haunted his trail through
the long, hot days, and camped close behind him by
night.

And as they marched, Achmet Zek rode with his entire
following southward toward the Greystoke farm.

To Tarzan of the Apes the expedition was in the nature
of a holiday outing. His civilization was at best but
an outward veneer which he gladly peeled off with his
uncomfortable European clothes whenever any reasonable
pretext presented itself. It was a woman's love which
kept Tarzan even to the semblance of civilization--a
condition for which familiarity had bred contempt. He
hated the shams and the hypocrisies of it and with the
clear vision of an unspoiled mind he had penetrated to
the rotten core of the heart of the thing--the cowardly
greed for peace and ease and the safe-guarding of
property rights. That the fine things of life--art,
music and literature--had thriven upon such enervating
ideals he strenuously denied, insisting, rather, that
they had endured in spite of civilization.

"Show me the fat, opulent coward," he was wont to say,
"who ever originated a beautiful ideal. In the clash
of arms, in the battle for survival, amid hunger and
death and danger, in the face of God as manifested in
the display of Nature's most terrific forces, is born
all that is finest and best in the human heart and
mind."

And so Tarzan always came back to Nature in the spirit
of a lover keeping a long deferred tryst after a period
behind prison walls. His Waziri, at marrow, were more
civilized than he. They cooked their meat before they
ate it and they shunned many articles of food as
unclean that Tarzan had eaten with gusto all his life
and so insidious is the virus of hypocrisy that even
the stalwart ape-man hesitated to give rein to his
natural longings before them. He ate burnt flesh when
he would have preferred it raw and unspoiled, and he
brought down game with arrow or spear when he would far
rather have leaped upon it from ambush and sunk his
strong teeth in its jugular; but at last the call of
the milk of the savage mother that had suckled him in
infancy rose to an insistent demand--he craved the hot
blood of a fresh kill and his muscles yearned to pit
themselves against the savage jungle in the battle for
existence that had been his sole birthright for the
first twenty years of his life.



3

The Call of the Jungle


Moved by these vague yet all-powerful urgings the
ape-man lay awake one night in the little thorn boma
that protected, in a way, his party from the depredations
of the great carnivora of the jungle. A single warrior
stood sleepy guard beside the fire that yellow eyes
out of the darkness beyond the camp made imperative.
The moans and the coughing of the big cats mingled with
the myriad noises of the lesser denizens of the jungle
to fan the savage flame in the breast of this savage
English lord. He tossed upon his bed of grasses,
sleepless, for an hour and then he rose, noiseless as a
wraith, and while the Waziri's back was turned, vaulted
the boma wall in the face of the flaming eyes, swung
silently into a great tree and was gone.

For a time in sheer exuberance of animal spirit he
raced swiftly through the middle terrace, swinging
perilously across wide spans from one jungle giant to
the next, and then he clambered upward to the swaying,
lesser boughs of the upper terrace where the moon shone
full upon him and the air was stirred by little breezes
and death lurked ready in each frail branch. Here he
paused and raised his face to Goro, the moon.
With uplifted arm he stood, the cry of the bull ape
quivering upon his lips, yet he remained silent lest he
arouse his faithful Waziri who were all too familiar
with the hideous challenge of their master.

And then he went on more slowly and with greater
stealth and caution, for now Tarzan of the Apes was
seeking a kill. Down to the ground he came in the
utter blackness of the close-set boles and the
overhanging verdure of the jungle. He stooped from time
to time and put his nose close to earth. He sought and
found a wide game trail and at last his nostrils were
rewarded with the scent of the fresh spoor of Bara, the
deer. Tarzan's mouth watered and a low growl escaped
his patrician lips. Sloughed from him was the last
vestige of artificial caste--once again he was the
primeval hunter--the first man--the highest caste type
of the human race. Up wind he followed the elusive
spoor with a sense of perception so transcending that
of ordinary man as to be inconceivable to us. Through
counter currents of the heavy stench of meat eaters he
traced the trail of Bara; the sweet and cloying stink
of Horta, the boar, could not drown his quarry's scent--
the permeating, mellow musk of the deer's foot.

Presently the body scent of the deer told Tarzan that
his prey was close at hand. It sent him into the trees
again--into the lower terrace where he could watch the
ground below and catch with ears and nose the first
intimation of actual contact with his quarry. Nor was
it long before the ape-man came upon Bara standing
alert at the edge of a moon-bathed clearing.
Noiselessly Tarzan crept through the trees until he was
directly over the deer. In the ape-man's right hand
was the long hunting knife of his father and in his
heart the blood lust of the carnivore. Just for an
instant he poised above the unsuspecting Bara and then
he launched himself downward upon the sleek back. The
impact of his weight carried the deer to its knees and
before the animal could regain its feet the knife had
found its heart. As Tarzan rose upon the body of his
kill to scream forth his hideous victory cry into the
face of the moon the wind carried to his nostrils
something which froze him to statuesque immobility and
silence. His savage eyes blazed into the direction
from which the wind had borne down the warning to him
and a moment later the grasses at one side of the
clearing parted and Numa, the lion, strode majestically
into view. His yellow-green eyes were fastened upon
Tarzan as he halted just within the clearing and glared
enviously at the successful hunter, for Numa had had no
luck this night.

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