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Algernon Charles Swinburne - "Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards"

John M. Coulter - "The North American Species of Cactus, Anhalonium, and Lophophora"

Burroughs - "At the Earth's Core, by Edgar Rice Burroughs"

Maxim Gorky - "Project Gutenberg surfs with a modem donated by Supra."

Proofread by some of the anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteers.

E >> Edgar Rice Burroughs >> Proofread by some of the anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteers.




The interference of the body seemed to enrage the lion.
He shook the inanimate clay venomously. He growled and
roared hideously at the dead, insensate thing, and then
he dropped it and raised his head to look about in
search of some living victim upon which to wreak his
ill temper. His yellow eyes fastened themselves
balefully upon the figure of the girl, the bristling
lips raised, disclosing the grinning fangs. A terrific
roar broke from the savage throat, and the great beast
crouched to spring upon this new and helpless victim.

Quiet had fallen early upon the camp where Tarzan and
Werper lay securely bound. Two nervous sentries paced
their beats, their eyes rolling often toward the
impenetrable shadows of the gloomy jungle. The others
slept or tried to sleep--all but the ape-man. Silently
and powerfully he strained at the bonds which fettered
his wrists.

The muscles knotted beneath the smooth, brown skin of
his arms and shoulders, the veins stood out upon his
temples from the force of his exertions--a strand
parted, another and another, and one hand was free.
Then from the jungle came a low guttural, and the
ape-man became suddenly a silent, rigid statue, with ears
and nostrils straining to span the black void where his
eyesight could not reach.

Again came the uncanny sound from the thick verdure
beyond the camp. A sentry halted abruptly, straining
his eyes into the gloom. The kinky wool upon his head
stiffened and raised. He called to his comrade in a
hoarse whisper.

"Did you hear it?" he asked.

The other came closer, trembling.

"Hear what?"

Again was the weird sound repeated, followed almost
immediately by a similar and answering sound from the
camp. The sentries drew close together, watching the
black spot from which the voice seemed to come.

Trees overhung the boma at this point which was upon
the opposite side of the camp from them. They dared
not approach. Their terror even prevented them from
arousing their fellows--they could only stand in frozen
fear and watch for the fearsome apparition they
momentarily expected to see leap from the jungle.

Nor had they long to wait. A dim, bulky form dropped
lightly from the branches of a tree into the camp. At
sight of it one of the sentries recovered command of
his muscles and his voice. Screaming loudly to awaken
the sleeping camp, he leaped toward the flickering
watch fire and threw a mass of brush upon it.

The white officer and the black soldiers sprang from
their blankets. The flames leaped high upon the
rejuvenated fire, lighting the entire camp, and the
awakened men shrank back in superstitious terror from
the sight that met their frightened and astonished
vision.

A dozen huge and hairy forms loomed large beneath the
trees at the far side of the enclosure. The white
giant, one hand freed, had struggled to his knees and
was calling to the frightful, nocturnal visitors in a
hideous medley of bestial gutturals, barkings and
growlings.

Werper had managed to sit up. He, too, saw the savage
faces of the approaching anthropoids and scarcely knew
whether to be relieved or terror-stricken.

Growling, the great apes leaped forward toward Tarzan
and Werper. Chulk led them. The Belgian officer
called to his men to fire upon the intruders; but the
Negroes held back, filled as they were with
superstitious terror of the hairy treemen, and with the
conviction that the white giant who could thus summon
the beasts of the jungle to his aid was more than human.

Drawing his own weapon, the officer fired, and Tarzan
fearing the effect of the noise upon his really timid
friends called to them to hasten and fulfill his commands.

A couple of the apes turned and fled at the sound of
the firearm; but Chulk and a half dozen others waddled
rapidly forward, and, following the ape-man's
directions, seized both him and Werper and bore them
off toward the jungle.

By dint of threats, reproaches and profanity the
Belgian officer succeeded in persuading his trembling
command to fire a volley after the retreating apes. A
ragged, straggling volley it was, but at least one of
its bullets found a mark, for as the jungle closed
about the hairy rescuers, Chulk, who bore Werper across
one broad shoulder, staggered and fell.

In an instant he was up again; but the Belgian guessed
from his unsteady gait that he was hard hit. He lagged
far behind the others, and it was several minutes after
they had halted at Tarzan's command before he came
slowly up to them, reeling from side to side, and at
last falling again beneath the weight of his burden and
the shock of his wound.

As Chulk went down he dropped Werper, so that the
latter fell face downward with the body of the ape
lying half across him. In this position the Belgian
felt something resting against his hands, which were
still bound at his back--something that was not a part
of the hairy body of the ape.

Mechanically the man's fingers felt of the object
resting almost in their grasp--it was a soft pouch,
filled with small, hard particles. Werper gasped in
wonderment as recognition filtered through the
incredulity of his mind. It was impossible, and yet--
it was true!

Feverishly he strove to remove the pouch from the ape
and transfer it to his own possession; but the
restricted radius to which his bonds held his hands
prevented this, though he did succeed in tucking the
pouch with its precious contents inside the waist band
of his trousers.

Tarzan, sitting at a short distance, was busy with the
remaining knots of the cords which bound him.
Presently he flung aside the last of them and rose to
his feet. Approaching Werper he knelt beside him. For
a moment he examined the ape.

"Quite dead," he announced. "It is too bad--he was a
splendid creature," and then he turned to the work of
liberating the Belgian.

He freed his hands first, and then commenced upon the
knots at his ankles.

"I can do the rest," said the Belgian. "I have a small
pocketknife which they overlooked when they searched
me," and in this way he succeeded in ridding himself of
the ape-man's attentions that he might find and open
his little knife and cut the thong which fastened the
pouch about Chulk's shoulder, and transfer it from his
waist band to the breast of his shirt. Then he rose
and approached Tarzan.

Once again had avarice claimed him. Forgotten were the
good intentions which the confidence of Jane Clayton in
his honor had awakened. What she had done, the little
pouch had undone. How it had come upon the person of
the great ape, Werper could not imagine, unless it had
been that the anthropoid had witnessed his fight with
Achmet Zek, seen the Arab with the pouch and taken it
away from him; but that this pouch contained the jewels
of Opar, Werper was positive, and that was all that
interested him greatly.

"Now," said the ape-man, "keep your promise to me.
Lead me to the spot where you last saw my wife."

It was slow work pushing through the jungle in the dead
of night behind the slow-moving Belgian. The ape-man
chafed at the delay, but the European could not swing
through the trees as could his more agile and muscular
companions, and so the speed of all was limited to that
of the slowest.

The apes trailed out behind the two white men for a
matter of a few miles; but presently their interest
lagged, the foremost of them halted in a little glade
and the others stopped at his side. There they sat
peering from beneath their shaggy brows at the figures
of the two men forging steadily ahead, until the latter
disappeared in the leafy trail beyond the clearing.
Then an ape sought a comfortable couch beneath a tree,
and one by one the others followed his example, so that
Werper and Tarzan continued their journey alone; nor
was the latter either surprised or concerned.

The two had gone but a short distance beyond the glade
where the apes had deserted them, when the roaring of
distant lions fell upon their ears. The ape-man paid
no attention to the familiar sounds until the crack of
a rifle came faintly from the same direction, and when
this was followed by the shrill neighing of horses, and
an almost continuous fusillade of shots intermingled
with increased and savage roaring of a large troop of
lions, he became immediately concerned.

"Someone is having trouble over there," he said,
turning toward Werper. "I'll have to go to them--they
may be friends."

"Your wife might be among them," suggested the Belgian,
for since he had again come into possession of the
pouch he had become fearful and suspicious of the
ape-man, and in his mind had constantly revolved many plans
for eluding this giant Englishman, who was at once his
savior and his captor.

At the suggestion Tarzan started as though struck with
a whip.

"God!" he cried, "she might be, and the lions are
attacking them--they are in the camp. I can tell from
the screams of the horses--and there! that was the cry
of a man in his death agonies. Stay here man--I will
come back for you. I must go first to them," and
swinging into a tree the lithe figure swung rapidly off
into the night with the speed and silence of a
disembodied spirit.

For a moment Werper stood where the ape-man had left
him. Then a cunning smile crossed his lips. "Stay
here?" he asked himself. "Stay here and wait until you
return to find and take these jewels from me? Not I, my
friend, not I," and turning abruptly eastward Albert
Werper passed through the foliage of a hanging vine and
out of the sight of his fellow-man--forever.



24

Home


As Tarzan of the Apes hurtled through the trees the
discordant sounds of the battle between the Abyssinians
and the lions smote more and more distinctly upon his
sensitive ears, redoubling his assurance that the
plight of the human element of the conflict was
critical indeed.

At last the glare of the camp fire shone plainly
through the intervening trees, and a moment later the
giant figure of the ape-man paused upon an overhanging
bough to look down upon the bloody scene of carnage
below.

His quick eye took in the whole scene with a single
comprehending glance and stopped upon the figure of a
woman standing facing a great lion across the carcass
of a horse.

The carnivore was crouching to spring as Tarzan
discovered the tragic tableau. Numa was almost beneath
the branch upon which the ape-man stood, naked and
unarmed. There was not even an instant's hesitation
upon the part of the latter--it was as though he had
not even paused in his swift progress through the
trees, so lightning-like his survey and comprehension
of the scene below him--so instantaneous his consequent
action.

So hopeless had seemed her situation to her that Jane
Clayton but stood in lethargic apathy awaiting the
impact of the huge body that would hurl her to the
ground--awaiting the momentary agony that cruel talons
and grisly fangs may inflict before the coming of the
merciful oblivion which would end her sorrow and her
suffering.

What use to attempt escape? As well face the hideous
end as to be dragged down from behind in futile flight.
She did not even close her eyes to shut out the
frightful aspect of that snarling face, and so it was
that as she saw the lion preparing to charge she saw,
too, a bronzed and mighty figure leap from an
overhanging tree at the instant that Numa rose in his
spring.

Wide went her eyes in wonder and incredulity, as she
beheld this seeming apparition risen from the dead.
The lion was forgotten--her own peril--everything save
the wondrous miracle of this strange recrudescence.
With parted lips, with palms tight pressed against her
heaving bosom, the girl leaned forward, large-eyed,
enthralled by the vision of her dead mate.

She saw the sinewy form leap to the shoulder of the
lion, hurtling against the leaping beast like a huge,
animate battering ram. She saw the carnivore brushed
aside as he was almost upon her, and in the instant she
realized that no substanceless wraith could thus turn
the charge of a maddened lion with brute force greater
than the brute's.

Tarzan, her Tarzan, lived! A cry of unspeakable
gladness broke from her lips, only to die in terror as
she saw the utter defenselessness of her mate, and
realized that the lion had recovered himself and was
turning upon Tarzan in mad lust for vengeance.

At the ape-man's feet lay the discarded rifle of the
dead Abyssinian whose mutilated corpse sprawled where
Numa had abandoned it. The quick glance which had
swept the ground for some weapon of defense discovered
it, and as the lion reared upon his hind legs to seize
the rash man-thing who had dared interpose its puny
strength between Numa and his prey, the heavy stock
whirred through the air and splintered upon the broad
forehead.

Not as an ordinary mortal might strike a blow did
Tarzan of the Apes strike; but with the maddened frenzy
of a wild beast backed by the steel thews which his
wild, arboreal boyhood had bequeathed him. When the
blow ended the splintered stock was driven through the
splintered skull into the savage brain, and the heavy
iron barrel was bent into a rude V.

In the instant that the lion sank, lifeless, to the
ground, Jane Clayton threw herself into the eager arms
of her husband. For a brief instant he strained her
dear form to his breast, and then a glance about him
awakened the ape-man to the dangers which still
surrounded them.

Upon every hand the lions were still leaping upon new
victims. Fear-maddened horses still menaced them with
their erratic bolting from one side of the enclosure to
the other. Bullets from the guns of the defenders who
remained alive but added to the perils of their
situation.

To remain was to court death. Tarzan seized Jane
Clayton and lifted her to a broad shoulder. The blacks
who had witnessed his advent looked on in amazement as
they saw the naked giant leap easily into the branches
of the tree from whence he had dropped so uncannily
upon the scene, and vanish as he had come, bearing away
their prisoner with him.

They were too well occupied in self-defense to attempt
to halt him, nor could they have done so other than by
the wasting of a precious bullet which might be needed
the next instant to turn the charge of a savage foe.

And so, unmolested, Tarzan passed from the camp of the
Abyssinians, from which the din of conflict followed
him deep into the jungle until distance gradually
obliterated it entirely.

Back to the spot where he had left Werper went the
ape-man, joy in his heart now, where fear and sorrow had
so recently reigned; and in his mind a determination to
forgive the Belgian and aid him in making good his
escape. But when he came to the place, Werper was
gone, and though Tarzan called aloud many times he
received no reply. Convinced that the man had
purposely eluded him for reasons of his own, John
Clayton felt that he was under no obligations to expose
his wife to further danger and discomfort in the
prosecution of a more thorough search for the missing
Belgian.

"He has acknowledged his guilt by his flight, Jane," he
said. "We will let him go to lie in the bed that he
has made for himself."

Straight as homing pigeons, the two made their way
toward the ruin and desolation that had once been the
center of their happy lives, and which was soon to be
restored by the willing black hands of laughing
laborers, made happy again by the return of the master
and mistress whom they had mourned as dead.

Past the village of Achmet Zek their way led them, and
there they found but the charred remains of the
palisade and the native huts, still smoking, as mute
evidence of the wrath and vengeance of a powerful
enemy.

"The Waziri," commented Tarzan with a grim smile.

"God bless them!" cried Jane Clayton.

"They cannot be far ahead of us," said Tarzan, "Basuli
and the others. The gold is gone and the jewels of
Opar, Jane; but we have each other and the Waziri--and
we have love and loyalty and friendship. And what are
gold and jewels to these?"

"If only poor Mugambi lived," she replied, "and those
other brave fellows who sacrificed their lives in vain
endeavor to protect me!"

In the silence of mingled joy and sorrow they passed
along through the familiar jungle, and as the afternoon
was waning there came faintly to the ears of the
ape-man the murmuring cadence of distant voices.

"We are nearing the Waziri, Jane," he said. "I can
hear them ahead of us. They are going into camp for
the night, I imagine."

A half hour later the two came upon a horde of ebon
warriors which Basuli had collected for his war of
vengeance upon the raiders. With them were the
captured women of the tribe whom they had found in the
village of Achmet Zek, and tall, even among the giant
Waziri, loomed a familiar black form at the side of
Basuli. It was Mugambi, whom Jane had thought dead
amidst the charred ruins of the bungalow.

Ah, such a reunion! Long into the night the dancing and
the singing and the laughter awoke the echoes of the
somber wood. Again and again were the stories of their
various adventures retold. Again and once again they
fought their battles with savage beast and savage man,
and dawn was already breaking when Basuli, for the
fortieth time, narrated how he and a handful of his
warriors had watched the battle for the golden ingots
which the Abyssinians of Abdul Mourak had waged against
the Arab raiders of Achmet Zek, and how, when the
victors had ridden away they had sneaked out of the
river reeds and stolen away with the precious ingots to
hide them where no robber eye ever could discover them.

Pieced out from the fragments of their various
experiences with the Belgian the truth concerning the
malign activities of Albert Werper became apparent.
Only Lady Greystoke found aught to praise in the
conduct of the man, and it was difficult even for her
to reconcile his many heinous acts with this one
evidence of chivalry and honor.

"Deep in the soul of every man," said Tarzan, "must
lurk the germ of righteousness. It was your own
virtue, Jane, rather even than your helplessness which
awakened for an instant the latent decency of this
degraded man. In that one act he retrieved himself,
and when he is called to face his Maker may it outweigh
in the balance, all the sins he has committed."

And Jane Clayton breathed a fervent, "Amen!"

Months had passed. The labor of the Waziri and the
gold of Opar had rebuilt and refurnished the wasted
homestead of the Greystokes. Once more the simple life
of the great African farm went on as it had before the
coming of the Belgian and the Arab. Forgotten were the
sorrows and dangers of yesterday.

For the first time in months Lord Greystoke felt that
he might indulge in a holiday, and so a great hunt was
organized that the faithful laborers might feast in
celebration of the completion of their work.

In itself the hunt was a success, and ten days after
its inauguration, a well-laden safari took up its
return march toward the Waziri plain. Lord and Lady
Greystoke with Basuli and Mugambi rode together at the
head of the column, laughing and talking together in
that easy familiarity which common interests and mutual
respect breed between honest and intelligent men of any
races.

Jane Clayton's horse shied suddenly at an object half
hidden in the long grasses of an open space in the
jungle. Tarzan's keen eyes sought quickly for an
explanation of the animal's action.

"What have we here?" he cried, swinging from his
saddle, and a moment later the four were grouped about
a human skull and a little litter of whitened human
bones.

Tarzan stooped and lifted a leathern pouch from the
grisly relics of a man. The hard outlines of the
contents brought an exclamation of surprise to his
lips.

"The jewels of Opar!" he cried, holding the pouch
aloft, "and," pointing to the bones at his feet, "all
that remains of Werper, the Belgian."

Mugambi laughed. "Look within, Bwana," he cried, "and
you will see what are the jewels of Opar--you will see
what the Belgian gave his life for," and the black
laughed aloud.

"Why do you laugh?" asked Tarzan.

"Because," replied Mugambi, "I filled the Belgian's
pouch with river gravel before I escaped the camp of
the Abyssinians whose prisoners we were. I left the
Belgian only worthless stones, while I brought away
with me the jewels he had stolen from you. That they
were afterward stolen from me while I slept in the
jungle is my shame and my disgrace; but at least the
Belgian lost them--open his pouch and you will see."

Tarzan untied the thong which held the mouth of the
leathern bag closed, and permitted the contents to
trickle slowly forth into his open palm. Mugambi's
eyes went wide at the sight, and the others uttered
exclamations of surprise and incredulity, for from the
rusty and weatherworn pouch ran a stream of brilliant,
scintillating gems.

"The jewels of Opar!" cried Tarzan. "But how did
Werper come by them again?"

None could answer, for both Chulk and Werper were dead,
and no other knew.

"Poor devil!" said the ape-man, as he swung back into
his saddle. "Even in death he has made restitution--
let his sins lie with his bones."

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