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Chapter 20 Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Dead Return

That night Esteban made his lonely camp beside a jungle trail that wound through the dry wash of an old river bed, along which a tiny rivulet still trickled, according the Spaniard the water which he craved.
The obsession which possessed him that he was in truth Tarzan of the Apes, imparted to him a false courage, so that he could camp alone upon the ground without recourse to artificial protection of any kind, and fortune had favored him in this respect in that it had sent no prowling beasts of prey to find him upon those occasions that he had dared too much. During the period that Flora Hawkes had been with him he had built shelters for her, but now that he had deserted her and was again alone, he could not, in the role that he had assumed, consider so effeminate an act as the building of even a thorn boma for protection during the darkness of the night.

He did, however, build a fire, for he had made a kill and had not yet reached a point of primitive savagery which permitted him even to imagine that he enjoyed raw meat.

Having devoured what meat he wanted and filled himself at the little rivulet, Esteban came back and squatted before his fire, where he drew the pouch of diamonds from his loin cloth and, opening it, spilled a handful of the precious gems into his palm. The flickering firelight playing upon them sent scintillant gleams shooting into the dark of the surrounding jungle night as the Spaniard let a tiny stream of the sparkling stones trickle from one hand to the other, and in the pretty play of light the Spaniard saw visions of the future—power, luxury, beautiful women—all that great wealth might purchase for a man. With half closed eyes he dreamed of the ideal that he should search the world over to obtain—the dream-woman for whom he had always searched—the dream-woman he had never found, the fit companion for such as Esteban Miranda imagined himself to be. Presently through the dark lashes that veiled his narrowed lids the Spaniard seemed to see before him in the flickering light of his camp fire a vague materialization of the figure of his dream—a woman’s figure, clothed in flowing diaphanous white which appeared to hover just above him at the outer rim of his firelight at the summit of the ancient river bank.

It was strange how the vision persisted. Esteban closed his eyes tightly, and then opened them ever so little, and there, as it had been before he closed them, the vision remained. And then he opened his eyes wide, and still the figure of the woman in white floated above him.

Esteban Miranda went suddenly pale. “Mother of God!” he cried. “It is Flora. She is dead and has come back to haunt me.”

With staring eyes he slowly rose to his feet to confront the apparition, when in soft and gentle tones it spoke.

“Heart of my heart,” it cried, “it is really you!”

Instantly Esteban realized that this was no disembodied spirit, nor was it Flora—but who was it? Who was this vision of beauty, alone in the savage African wilderness?

Very slowly now it was descending the embankment and coming toward him. Esteban returned the diamonds to the pouch and replaced it inside his loin cloth.

With outstretched arms the girl came toward him. “My love, my love,” she cried, “do not tell me that you do not know me.” She was close enough now for the Spaniard to see her rapidly rising and falling breasts and her lips trembling with love and passion. A sudden wave of hot desire swept over him, so with outstretched arms he sprang forward to meet her and crush her to his breast.

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Tarzan, following the spoor of the man and the woman, moved in a leisurely manner along the jungle trail, for he realized that no haste was essential to overtake these two. Nor was he at all surprised when he came suddenly upon the huddled figure of a woman, lying in the center of the pathway. He knelt beside her and laid a hand upon her shoulder, eliciting a startled scream.

“God!” she cried, “this is the end!”

“You are in no danger,” said the ape-man. “I will not harm you.”

She turned her eyes and looked up at him. At first she thought he was Esteban. “You have come back to save me, Esteban?” she asked.

“Esteban!” he exclaimed. “I am not Esteban. That is not my name.” And then she recognized him.

“Lord Greystoke!” she cried. “It is really you?”

“Yes,” he said, “and who are you?”

“I am Flora Hawkes. I was Lady Greystoke’s maid.”

“I remember you,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I am afraid to tell you,” she said. “I am afraid of your anger.”

“Tell me,” he commanded. “You should know, Flora, that I do not harm women.”

“We came to get gold from the vaults of Opar,” she said. “But that you know.”

“I know nothing of it,” he replied. “Do you mean that you were with those Europeans who drugged me and left me in their camp?”

“Yes,” she said, “we got the gold, but you came with your Waziri and took it from us.”

“I came with no Waziri and took nothing from you,” said Tarzan. “I do not understand you.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, for she knew that Tarzan of the Apes did not lie.

“We became separated,” she said, “after our men turned against us. Esteban stole me from the others, and then, after a while Kraski found us. He was the Russian. He came with a bagful of diamonds and then Esteban killed him and took the diamonds.”

It was now Tarzan’s turn to experience surprise.

“And Esteban is the man who is with you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “but he has deserted me. I could not walk farther on my sore feet. He has gone and left me here to die and he has taken the diamonds with him.”

“We shall find him,” said the ape-man. “Come.”

“But I cannot walk,” said the girl.

“That is a small matter,” he said, and stooping lifted her to his shoulder.

Easily the ape-man bore the exhausted girl along the trail. “It is not far to water,” he said, “and water is what you need. It will help to revive you and give you strength, and perhaps I shall be able to find food for you soon.”

“Why are you so good to me?” asked the girl.

“You are a woman. I could not leave you alone in the jungle to die, no matter what you may have done,” replied the ape-man. And Flora Hawkes could only sob a broken plea for forgiveness for the wrong she had done him.

It grew quite dark, but still they moved along the silent trail until presently Tarzan caught in the distance the reflection of firelight.

“I think we shall soon find your friend,” he whispered. “Make no noise.”

A moment later his keen ears caught the sound of voices. He halted and lowered the girl to her feet.

“If you cannot follow,” he said, “wait here. I do not wish him to escape. I will return for you. If you can follow on slowly, do so.” And then he left her and made his way cautiously forward toward the light and the voices. He heard Flora Hawkes moving directly behind him. It was evident that she could not bear the thought of being left alone again in the dark jungle. Almost simultaneously Tarzan heard a low whine a few paces to his right. “Jad-bal-ja,” he whispered in a low voice, “heel,” and the great black-maned lion crept close to him, and Flora Hawkes, stifling a scream, rushed to his side and grasped his arms.

“Silence,” he whispered; “Jad-bal-ja will not harm you.”

An instant later the three came to the edge of the ancient river bank, and through the tall grasses growing there looked down upon the little camp beneath.

Tarzan, to his consternation, saw a counterpart of himself standing before a little fire, while slowly approaching the man, with outstretched arms, was a woman, draped in flowing white. He heard her words; soft words of love and endearment, and at the sound of the voice and the scent spoor that a vagrant wind carried suddenly to his nostrils, strange complex of emotion overwhelmed him—happiness, despair, rage, love, and hate.

He saw the man at the fire step forward with open arms to take the woman to his breast, and then Tarzan separated the grasses and stepped to the very edge of the embankment, his voice shattering the jungle with a single word.

“Jane!” he cried, and instantly the man and woman turned and looked up at him, where his figure was dimly revealed in the light of the campfire. At sight of him the man wheeled and raced for the jungle on the opposite side of the river, and then Tarzan leaped to the bottom of the wash below and ran toward the woman.

“Jane,” he cried, “it is you, it is you!”

The woman showed her bewilderment. She looked first at the retreating figure of the man she had been about to embrace and then turned her eyes toward Tarzan. She drew her fingers across her brow and looked back toward Esteban, but Esteban was no longer in sight. Then she took a faltering step toward the ape-man.

“My God,” she cried, “what does it mean? Who are you, and if you are Tarzan who was he?”

“I am Tarzan, Jane,” said the ape-man.

She looked back and saw Flora Hawkes approaching. “Yes,” she said, “you are Tarzan. I saw you when you ran off into the jungle with Flora Hawkes. I cannot understand, John. I could not believe that you, even had you suffered an accident to your head, could have done such a thing.”

“I, run off into the jungle with Flora Hawkes?” he asked, in unfeigned surprise.

“I saw you,” said Jane.

The ape-man turned toward Flora. “I do not understand it,” he said.

“It was Esteban who ran off into the jungle with me, Lady Greystoke,” said the girl. “It was Esteban who was about to deceive you again. This is indeed Lord Greystoke. The other was an impostor, who only just deserted me and left me to die in the jungle. Had not Lord Greystoke come when he did I should be dead by now.”

Lady Greystoke took a faltering step toward her husband. “Ah, John,” she said, “I knew it could not have been you. My heart told me, but my eyes deceived me. Quick,” she cried, “that impostor must be captured. Hurry, John, before he escapes.”

“Let him go,” said the ape-man. “As much as I want him, as much as I want that which he has stolen from me, I will not leave you alone again in the jungle, Jane, even to catch him.”

“But Jad-bal-ja,” she cried. “What of him?”

“Ah”, cried the ape-man, “I had forgotten,” and turning to the lion he pointed toward the direction that the Spaniard had escaped. “Fetch him, Jad-bal-ja,” he cried; and, with a bound, the tawny beast was off upon the spoor of his quarry.

“He will kill him?” asked Flora Hawkes, shuddering. And yet at heart she was glad of the just fate that was overtaking the Spaniard.

“No, he will not kill him,” said Tarzan of the Apes. “He may maul him a bit, but he will bring him back alive if it is possible.” And then, as though the fate of the fugitive was already forgotten, he turned toward his mate.

“Jane,” he said, “Usula told me that you were dead. He said that they found your burned body in the Arab village and that they buried it there. How is it, then, that you are here alive and unharmed? I have been searching the jungles for Luvini to avenge your death. Perhaps it is well that I did not find him.”

“You would never have found him,” replied Jane Clayton, “but I cannot understand why Usula should have told you that he had found my body and buried it.”

“Some prisoners that he took,” replied Tarzan, “told him that Luvini had taken you bound hand and foot into one of the Arab huts near the village gateway, and that there he had further secured you to a stake driven into the floor of the hut. After the village had been destroyed by fire Usula and the other Waziri returned to search for you with some of the prisoners they had taken who pointed out the location of the hut, where the charred remains of a human body were found beside a burned stake to which it had apparently been tied.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the girl, “I see. Luvini did bind me hand and foot and tie me to the stake but later he came back into the hut and removed the bonds. He attempted to attack me—long we fought I do not know, but so engrosses were we in our struggle that neither one of us was aware of the burning of the village about us. As I persistently fought him off I caught a glimpse of a knife in his belt, and then I let him seize me and as his arms encircled me I grasped the knife and, drawing it from its sheath, plunged it into his back, below his left shoulder—that was the end. Luvini sank lifeless to the floor of the hut. Almost simultaneously the rear and roof of the structure burst into flames.

“I was almost naked, for he had torn nearly all my clothing from me in our struggles. Hanging upon the wall of the hut was this white burnoose, the property, doubtless, of one of murdered Arabs. I seized it, and throwing about me ran into the village street. The huts were now all aflame, and the last of the natives was disappearing through the gateway. To my right was a section of palisade that had not been attacked by the flames. To escape into jungle by the gateway would have meant into the arms of my enemies, and so, somehow, I managed to scale the palisade and drop into the jungle unseen by any.

“I have had considerable difficulty eluding the various bands of blacks who escaped the village. A part of the time I have been hunting for the Waziri and the balance I have had to remain in hiding. I was resting in the crotch of a tree, about half a mile from here, when I saw the light of this man’s fire, and when I came to investigate I was almost stunned by joy to discover that I had, as I imagined, stumbled upon my Tarzan.”

“It was Luvini’s body, then, and not yours that they buried,” said Tarzan.

“Yes,” said Jane, “and it was this man who just escaped whom I saw run off into the jungle with Flora, and not you, as I believed.”

Flora Hawkes looked up suddenly. “And it must have been Esteban who came with the Waziri and stole the gold from us. He fooled our men he must have fooled the Waziri, too.”

“He might have fooled anyone if he could have me,” said Jane Clayton. “I should have discovered the deception in a few minutes I have no doubt, but in the flickering light of the campfire, and influenced as I was by the great joy of seeing Lord Greystoke again, I believed quickly that which I wanted to believe.”

The ape-man ran his fingers through his thick shock of hair in a characteristic gesture of meditation. “I cannot understand how he fooled Usula in broad daylight,” he said with a shake of his head.

“I can,” said Jane. “He told him that he had suffered an injury to his head which caused him to lose his memory partially—an explanation which accounted for many lapses in the man’s interpretation of your personality.”

“He was a clever devil,” commented the ape-man.

“He was a devil, all right,” said Flora.

It was more than an hour later that the grasses at the river bank suddenly parted and Jad-bal-ja emerged silently into their presence. Grasped in his jaws was a torn and bloody leopard skin which he brought and laid at the feet of his master.

The ape-man picked the thing up and examined it, and then he scowled. “I believe Jad-bal-ja killed him after all,” he said.

“He probably resisted,” said Jane Clayton, “in which ’event Jad-bal-ja could do nothing else in self-defense but slay him.”

“Do you suppose he ate him?”’ cried Flora Hawkes, drawing fearfully away from the beast.

“No,” said Tarzan, “he has not had time. In the morning we will follow the spoor and find his body. I should like to have the diamonds again.” And then he told Jane the strange story connected with his acquisition of the great wealth represented by the little bag of stones.

The following morning they set out in search of Esteban’s corpse. The trail led through dense brush and thorns to the edge of the river farther down stream, and there it disappeared, and though the ape-man searched both sides of the river for a couple of miles above and below the point at which he had lost the spoor, he found no further sign of the Spaniard. There was blood along the tracks that Esteban had made and blood upon the grasses at the river’s brim.

At last the ape-man returned to the two women. That is the end of the man who would be Tarzan,” he said.

“Do you think he is dead?” asked Jane.

“Yes, I am sure of it,” said the ape-man. “From the blood I imagine that Jad-bal-ja mauled him, but that he managed to break away and get into the river. The fact that I can find no indication of his having reached the bank within a reasonable distance of this spot leads me to believe that he has been devoured by crocodiles.”

Again Flora Hawkes shuddered. “He was a wicked man,” she said, “but I would not wish even the wickedest such a fate as that.”

The ape-man shrugged. “He brought it upon himself, and, doubtless, the world is better off without him.”

“It was my fault,” said Flora. “It was my wickedness that brought him and the others here. I told them of what I had heard of the gold in the treasure vaults of Opar—it was my idea to come here and steal it and to find a man who could impersonate Lord Greystoke. Because of my wickedness many men have died, and you, Lord Greystoke, and your lady, have almost met your death—I do not dare to ask for forgiveness.”

Jane Clayton put her arm about the girl’s shoulder. “Avarice has been the cause of many crimes since the world began,” she said, “and when crime is invoked in its aid it assumes its most repulsive aspect and brings most often its own punishment, as you, Flora, may well testify. For my part I forgive you. I imagine that you have learned your lesson.”

“You have paid a heavy price for your folly,” said the ape-man. “You have been punished enough. We will take you to your friends who are on their way to the coast under escort of a friendly tribe. They cannot be far distant, for, from the condition of the men when I saw them, long marches are beyond their physical powers.”

The girl dropped to her knees at his feet. “How can I thank you for your kindness?” she said. “But I would rather remain here in Africa with you and Lady Greystoke, and work for you and show by my loyalty that I can redeem the wrong I did you.”

Tarzan glanced at his wife questioningly, and Jane Clayton signified her assent to the girl’s request.

“Very well, then,” said the ape-man, “you may remain with us, Flora.”

“You will never regret it,” said the girl. “I will work my fingers off for you.”

The three, and Jad-bal-ja, had been three days upon the march toward home when Tarzan, who was in the lead, paused, and, raising his head, sniffed the jungle air. Then he turned to them with a smile. “My Waziri are disobedient,” he said. “I sent them home and yet here they are, coming toward us, directly away from home.”

A few minutes later they met the van of the Waziri, and great was the rejoicing of the blacks when they found both their master and mistress alive and unscathed.

“And now that we have found you,” said Tarzan, after the greetings were over, and innumerable questions had been asked and answered, “tell me what you did with the gold that you took from the camp of the Europeans.”

“We hid it, O Bwana, where you told us to hide it,” replied Usula.

“I was not with you, Usula,” said the ape-man. “It was another, who deceived Lady Greystoke even as he deceived you—a bad man—who impersonated Tarzan of the Apes so cleverly that it is no wonder that you were imposed upon.”

“Then it was not you who told us that your head had been injured and that you could not remember the language of the Waziri?” demanded Usula.

“It was not I,” said Tarzan, “for my head has not been injured, and I remember well the language of my children.”

“Ah,” cried Usula, “then it was not our Big Bwana who ran from Buto, the rhinoceros?”

Tarzan laughed. “Did the other run from Buto?”

“That he did,” cried Usula; “he ran in great terror.”

“I do not know that I blame him,” said Tarzan, “for Buto is no pleasant playfellow.”

“But our Big Bwana would not run from him,” said Usula, proudly.

“Even if another than I hid the gold it was you who dug the hole. Lead me to the spot then, Usula.”

The Waziri constructed rude yet comfortable litters for the two white women, though Jane Clayton laughed at the idea that it was necessary that she be carried and insisted upon walking beside her bearers more often than she rode. Flora Hawkes, however, weak and exhausted as she was, could not have proceeded far without being carried, and was glad of the presence of the brawny Waziri who bore her along the jungle trail so easily.

It was a happy company that marched in buoyant spirits toward the spot where the Waziri had cached the gold for Esteban. The blacks were overflowing with good nature because they had found their master and their mistress, while the relief and joy of Tarzan and Jane were too deep for expression.

When at last they came to the place beside the river where they had buried the gold the Waziri, singing and laughing, commenced to dig for the treasure, but presently their singing ceased and their laughter was replaced by expressions of puzzled concern.

For a while Tarzan watched them in silence and then a slow smile overspread his countenance.

“You must have buried it deep, Usula,” he said.

The black scratched his head. “No, not so deep as this, Bwana,” he cried. “I cannot understand it. We should have found the gold before this.”

“Are you sure you are looking in the right place?” asked Tarzan.

“This is the exact spot, Bwana,” the black assured him, “but the gold is not here. Someone has removed it since we buried it.”

“The Spaniard again,” commented Tarzan. “He was a slick customer.”

“But he could not have taken it alone,” said Usula. “There were many ingots of it.”

“No,” said Tarzan, “he could not, and yet it is not here.”

The Waziri and Tarzan searched carefully about the spot where the gold had been buried, but so clever had been the woodcraft of Owaza that he had obliterated even from the keen senses of the ape-man every vestige of the spoor that he and the Spaniard had made in carrying the gold from the old hiding place to the new.

“It is gone,” said the ape-man, “but I shall see that it does not get out of Africa,” and he despatched runners in various directions to notify the chiefs of the friendly tribes surrounding his domain to watch carefully every safari crossing their territory, and to let none pass who carried gold.

“That will stop them,” he said after the runners had departed.

That night as they made their camp upon the trail toward home, the three whites were seated about a small fire with Jad-bal-ja lying just behind the ape-man, who was examining the leopard skin that the golden lion had retrieved in his pursuit of the Spaniard, when Tarzan turned toward his wife.

“You were right, Jane,” he said. “The treasure vaults of Opar are not for me. This time I have lost not only the gold but a fabulous fortune in diamonds as well, beside risking that greatest of all treasures—yourself.”

“Let the gold and the diamonds go, John,” she said; “we have one another, and Korak.”

“And a bloody leopard skin,” he supplemented, “with a mystery map painted upon it in blood.”

Jad-bal-ja sniffed the hide and licked his chops in anticipation or retrospection—which?

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Chapter 18 Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Spoor of Revenge

As Tarzan of the Apes, adapting his speed to that of Jad-bal-ja, made his comparatively slow way toward home, he reviewed with varying emotions the experiences of the past week. While he had been unsuccessful in raiding the treasure vaults of Opar, the sack of diamonds which he carried compensated several-fold for this miscarriage of his plans. His only concern now was for the safety of his Waziri, and, perhaps, a troublesome desire to seek out the whites who had drugged him and mete out to them the punishment they deserved. In view, however, of his greater desire to return home he decided to make no effort at apprehending them for the time being at least.
Hunting together, feeding together, and sleeping together, the man and the great lion trod the savage jungle trails toward home. Yesterday they shared the meat of Bara, the deer, today they feasted upon the carcass of Horta, the boar, and between them there was little chance that either would go hungry.

They had come within a day’s march of the bungalow when Tarzan discovered the spoor of a considerable body of warriors. As some men devour the latest stock-market quotations as though their very existence depended upon an accurate knowledge of them, so Tarzan of the Apes devoured every scrap of information that the jungle held for him, for, in truth, an accurate knowledge of all that this information could impart to him had been during his lifetime a sine qua non to his existence. So now he carefully examined the spoor that lay before him, several days old though it was and partially obliterated by the passage of beasts since it had been made, but yet legible enough to the keen eyes and nostrils of the ape-man. His partial indifference suddenly gave way to keen interest, for among the footprints of the great warriors he saw now and again the smaller one of a white woman—a loved footprint that he knew as well as you know your mother’s face.

“The Waziri returned and told her that I was missing,” he soliloquized, “and now she has set out with them to search for me.” He turned to the lion. “Well, Jad-bal-ja, once again we turn away from home—but no, where she is is home.”

The direction that the trail led rather mystified Tarzan of the Apes, as it was not along the direct route toward Opar, but in a rather more southerly direction. On the sixth day his keen ears caught the sound of approaching men, and presently there was wafted to his nostrils the spoor of blacks. Sending Jad-bal-ja into a thicket to hide, Tarzan took to the trees and moved rapidly in the direction of the approaching negroes. As the distance between them lessened the scent became stronger, until, even before he saw them, Tarzan knew that they were Waziri, but the one effluvium that would have filled his soul with happiness was lacking.

It was a surprised Usula who, at the head of the sad and dejected Waziri, came at the turning of the trail suddenly face to face with his master.

“Tarzan of the Apes!” cried Usula. “Is it indeed you?”

“It is none other,” replied the ape-man, “but where is Lady Greystoke?”

“Ah, master, how can we tell you!” cried Usula.

“You do not mean—” cried Tarzan. “It cannot be. Nothing could happen to her while she was guarded by my Waziri!”

The warriors hung their heads in shame and sorrow. “We offer our lives for hers,” said Usula, simply. He threw down his spear and shield and, stretching his arms wide apart, bared his great breast to Tarzan. “Strike, Bwana,” he said.

The ape-man turned away with bowed head. Presently he looked at Usula again. “Tell me how it happened,” he said, “and forget your foolish speech as I have forgotten the suggestion which prompted it.”

Briefly Usula narrated the events which had led up to the death of Jane, and when he was done Tarzan of the Apes spoke but three words, voicing a question which was typical of him.

“Where is Luvini?” he asked.

“Ah, that we do not know,” replied Usula.

“But I shall know,” said Tarzan of the Apes. “Go upon your way, my children, back to your huts, and your women and your children, and when next you see Tarzan of the Apes you will know that Luvini is dead.”

They begged permission to accompany him, but he would not listen to them.

“You are needed at home at this time of year,” he said. “Already have you been gone too long from the herds and fields. Return, then, and carry word to Korak, but tell him that it is my wish that he, too, remains at home—if I fail, then may he come and take up my unfinished work if he wishes to do so.” As he ceased speaking he turned back in the direction from which he had come, and whistled once a single, low, long-drawn note, and a moment later Jad-bal-ja, the golden lion, bounded into view along the jungle trail.

“The golden lion!” cried Usula. “When he escaped from Keewazi it was to search for his beloved Bwana.”

Tarzan nodded. “He followed many marches to a strange country until he found me,” he said, and then he bid the Waziri good-bye and bent his steps once more away from home in search of Luvini and revenge.

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John Peebles, wedged in the crotch of a tree, greeted the coming dawn with weary eyes. Near him was Dick Throck, similarly braced another crotch, while Kraski, more intelligent or therefore possessing more inventive genius, rigged a small platform of branches across two parallel boughs, upon which he lay in comparative comfort. Ten feet above him Bluber swung, half exhausted and wholly terrified, to a smaller branch, supported in something that approximated safety by a fork of the branch to which he clung.

“Gord,” groaned Peebles, “hi’ll let the bloody lions ’ave me before hi’ll spend another such a night as this, an’ ’ere we are, ’n that’s that!”

“And blime, too,” said Throck, “hi sleeps on the ground hafter this, lions or no lions.”

“If the combined intelligence of the three of you was equal to that of a walrus,” remarked Kraski, “we might have slept in comparative safety and comfort last night on the ground.”

“Hey there, Bluber, Mister Kraski is spikin’ to yer,” called Peebles in fine sarcasm, accenting the Mister.

“Oi! Oi! I don’t care vot nobody says,” moaned Bluber.

“’E wants us to build a ’ouse for ’im hevery night,” continued Peebles, “while ’e stands abaht and tells us bloomin’ well ’ow to do it, and ’im, bein’ a fine gentleman, don’t do no work.”

“Why should I do any work with my hands when you two big beasts haven’t got anything else work with?” asked Kraski. “You would all have starved by this time if I hadn’t found food for you. And you’ll be lion meat in the end, or of exhaustion if you don’t listen to me—not that it would be much loss.”

The others paid no attention to his last sally. As a matter of fact they had all been quarreling much for such a long time that they really paid little attention to one another. With the exception of Peebles and Throck they all hated one another cordially, and only clung together because they were afraid to separate. Slowly Peebles lowered his bulk to the ground. Throck followed and then came Kraski, and then, finally, Bluber who stood for a moment in silence, looking down at his disreputable clothing.

“Mein Gott!” he exclaimed at last. “Look at me! Dis suit, vot it cost me tventy guineas, look at it. Ruined. Ruined. It vouldn’t bring vun penny in der pound.”

“The hell with your clothes!” exclaimed Kraski. “Here we are, lost, half starved, constantly menaced by wild animals, and maybe, for all we know, by cannibals, with Flora missing in the jungle, and you can stand there and talk about your ‘tventy guinea’ suit. You make me tired, Bluber. But come on, we might as well be moving.”

“Which way?” asked Throck.

“Why, to the west, of course,” replied Kraski. “The coast is there, and there is nothing else for us to do but try to reach it.”

“We can’t reach it by goin’ east,” roared Peebles, “an’ ere we are, ’n that’s that.”

“Who said we could?” demanded Kraski.

“Well, we was travelin’ east all day yesterday,” said Peebles. “I knew all the time that there was somethin’ wrong, and I just got it figured out.”

Throck looked at his partner in stupid surprise. “What do you mean?” he growled. “What makes you think we was travelin’ east?”

“It’s easy enough,” replied Peebles, “and I can prove it to you. Because this party here knows so much more than the rest of us we have been travelin’ straight toward the interior ever since the niggers deserted us.” He nodded toward the Russian, who stood with his hands on his hips, eyeing the other quizzically.

“If you think I’m taking you in the wrong direction, Peebles,” said Kraski, “you just turn around and go the other way; but I’m going to keep on the way we’ve been going, which is the right way.”

“It ain’t the right way,” retorted Peebles, “and I’ll show yer. Listen here. When you travel west the sun is at your left side, isn’t it—that is, all durin’ the middle of the day. Well, ever since we ve been travelin’ without the niggers the sun has been on our right. I thought all the time there was somethin’ wrong, but I could never figure it out until just now. It’s plain as the face on your nose. We’ve been travelin’ due east right along.”

“Blime,” cried Throck, “that we have, due east, and this blighter thinks as ’ow ’e knows it all.”

“Oi!” groaned Bluber, “und ve got to valk it all back again yet, once more?”

Kraski laughed and turned away to resume the march in the direction he had chosen. “You fellows go on your own way if you want to,” he said, “and while you’re traveling, just ponder the fact that you’re south of the equator and that therefore the sun is always in the north, which, however, doesn’t change its old-fashioned habit of setting in the west.”

Bluber was the first to grasp the truth of Kraski’s statement. “Come on, boys,” he said, “Carl vas right,” and he turned and followed the Russian.

Peebles stood scratching his head, entirely baffled by the puzzling problem, which Throck, also, was pondering deeply. Presently the latter turned after Bluber and Kraski. “Come on, John,” he said to Peebles, “hi don’t hunderstand it, but hi guess they’re right. They are headin’ right toward where the sun set last night, and that sure must be west.”

His theory tottering, Peebles followed Throck, though he remained unconvinced.

The four men, hungry and footsore, had dragged their weary way along the jungle trail toward the west for several hours in vain search for game. Unschooled in jungle craft they blundered on. There might have been on every hand fierce carnivore or savage warriors, but so dull are the perceptive faculties of civilized man, the most blatant foe might have stalked them unperceived.

And so it was that shortly after noon, as they were crossing a small clearing, the zip of an arrow that barely missed Bluber’s head, brought them to a sudden, terrified halt. With a shrill scream of terror the Jew crumpled to the ground. Kraski threw his rifle to his shoulder and fired.

“There!” he cried, “behind those bushes,” and then another arrow, from another direction, pierced his forearm. Peebles and Throck, beefy and cumbersome, got into action with less celerity than the Russian, but, like him, they showed no indication of fear.

“Down,” cried Kraski, suiting the action to the word. “Lie down and let them have it.”

Scarcely had the three men dropped among the long grass when a score of pigmy hunters came into the open, and a volley of arrows whizzed above the prone men, while from a nearby tree two steel-gray eyes looked down upon the ambush.

Bluber lay upon his belly with his face buried in his arms, his useless rifle lying at his side, but Kraski, Peebles, and Throck, fighting for their lives, pumped lead into the band of yelling pigmies.

Kraski and Peebles each dropped a native with his rifle and then the foe withdrew into the concealing safety of the surrounding jungle. For a moment there was a cessation of hostilities. Bitter silence reigned, and then a voice broke the quiet from the verdure of a nearby forest giant.

“Do not fire until I tell you to,” it said, in English, “and I will save you.”

Bluber raised his head. “Come qvick! Come qvick!” he cried, “ve vill not shoot. Safe me, safe me, und I giff you five pounds.”

From the tree from which the voice had issued there came a single, low, long-drawn, whistled note, and then silence for a time.

The pigmies, momentarily surprised by the mysterious voice emanating from the foliage of a tree, ceased their activities, but presently, hearing nothing to arouse their fear, they emerged from the cover of the bushes and launched another volley of arrows toward the four men lying among the grasses in the clearing. Simultaneously the figure of a giant white leaped from the lower branches of a patriarch of the jungle, as a great black-maned lion sprang from the thicket below.

“Oi!” shrieked Bluber, and again buried his face in his arms.

For an instant the pigmies stood terrified, and then their leader cried: “It is Tarzan!” and turned and fled into the jungle.

“Yes, it is Tarzan—Tarzan of the Apes,” cried Lord Greystoke. “It is Tarzan and the golden lion,” but he spoke in the dialect of the pigmies, and the whites understood no word of what he said. Then he turned to them. “The Gomangani have gone,” he said; “get up.”

The four men crawled to their feet. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” demanded Tarzan of the Apes. “But I do not need to ask who you are. You are the men who drugged me, and left me helpless in your camp, a prey to the first passing lion or savage native.”

Bluber stumbled forward, rubbing his palms together and cringing and smiling. “Oi! Oi! Mr. Tarzan, ve did not know you. Neffer vould ve did vat ve done, had ve known it vas Tarzan of the Apes. Safe me! Ten pounds—tventy pounds—anyt’ing. Name your own price. Safe me, und it is yours.”

Tarzan ignored the Jew and turned toward the others. “I am looking for one of your men,” he said; “a black named Luvini. He killed my wife. Where is he?”

“We know nothing of that,” said Kraski. “Luvini betrayed us and deserted us. Your wife and another white woman were in our camp at the time. None of us knows what became of them. They were behind us when we took our post to defend the camp from our men and the slaves of the Arabs. Your Waziri were there. After the enemy had withdrawn we found that the two women had disappeared. We do not know what became of them. We are looking for them now.”

“My Waziri told me as much,” said Tarzan, “but have you seen aught of Luvini since?”

“No, we have not,” replied Kraski.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Tarzan.

“We came with Mr. Bluber on a scientific expedition,” rephed the Russian. “We have had a great deal of trouble. Our head-men, askari, and porters have mutinied and deserted. We are absolutely alone and helpless.”

“Oi! Oi!” cried Bluber. “Safe us! Safe us! But keep dot lion avay. He makes me nerfous.”

“He will not hurt you—unless I tell him to,” said Tarzan.

“Den please don’t tell him to,” cried Bluber.

“Where do you want to go?” asked Tarzan.

“We are trying to get back to the coast,” replied Kraski, “and from there to London.”

“Come with me,” said Tarzan, “possibly I can help you. You do not deserve it, but I cannot see white men perish here in the jungle.”

They followed him toward the west, and that night they made camp beside a small jungle stream. It was difficult for the four Londoners to accustom themselves to the presence of the great lion, and Bluber was in a state of palpable terror.

As they squatted around the fire after the evening meal, which Tarzan had provided, Kraski suggested that they set to and build some sort of a shelter against the wild beasts.

“It will not be necessary,” said Tarzan. “Jad-bal-ja will guard you. He will sleep here beside Tarzan of the Apes, and what one of us does not hear the other will.”

Bluber sighed. “Mein Gottl” he cried. “I should giff ten pounds for vun night’s sleep.”

“You may have it tonight for less than that,” replied Tarzan, “for nothing shall befall you while Jad-bal-ja and I are here.”

“Vell, den I t’ink I say good night,” said the Jew, and moving a few paces away from the fire he curled up and was soon asleep. Throck and Peebles followed suit, and shortly after Kraski, too.

As the Russian lay, half dozing, his eyes partially open, he saw the ape-man rise from the squatting position he had maintained before the fire, and turn toward a nearby tree. As he did so something fell from beneath his loin cloth—a little sack made of hides—a little sack, bulging with its contents.

Kraski, thoroughly awakened now, watched it as the ape-man moved off a short distance, accompanied by Jad-bal-ja, and lay down to sleep.

The great lion curled beside the prostrate man, and presently the Russian was assured that both slept. Immediately he commenced crawling, stealthily and slowly toward the little package lying beside the fire. With each forward move that he made he paused and looked at the recumbent figures of the two ferocious beasts before him, but both slept on peacefully. At last the Russian could reach out and grasp the sack, and drawing it toward him he stuffed it quickly inside his shirt. Then he turned and crawled slowly and carefully back to his place beyond the fire. There, lying with his head upon one arm as though in profound slumber, he felt carefully of the sack with the fingers of his left hand.

“They feel like pebbles,” he muttered to himself, “and doubtless that is what they are, for the barbaric ornamentation of this savage barbarian who is a peer of England. It does not seem possible that this wild beast has sat in the House of Lords.”

Noiselessly Kraski undid the knot which held the mouth of the sack closed, and a moment later he let a portion of the contents trickle forth into his open palm.

“My God!” he cried, “diamonds!”

Greedily he poured them all out and gloated over them—great scintillating stones of the first water—five pounds of pure, white diamonds, representing so fabulous a fortune that the very contemplation of it staggered the Russian.

“My God!” he repeated, “the wealth of Croesus in my own hand.”

Quickly he gathered up the stones and replaced them in the sack, always with one eye upon Tarzan and Jad-bal-ja; but neither stirred, and presently he had returned them all to the pouch and slipped the package inside his shirt.

“Tomorrow,” he muttered, “tomorrow—would to God that I had the nerve to attempt it tonight.”

In the middle of the following morning Tarzan, with the four Londoners, approached a good sized, stockaded village, containing many huts. He was received not only graciously, but with the deference due an emperor.

The whites were awed by the attitude of the black chief and his warriors as Tarzan was conducted into their presence.

After the usual ceremony had been gone through, Tarzan turned and waved his hand toward the four Europeans. “These are my friends,” he said to the black chief, “and they wish to reach the coast in safety. Send with them, then, sufficient warriors to feed and guard them during the journey. It is I, Tarzan of the Apes, who requests this favor.”

“Tarzan of the Apes, the great chief, Lord of the Jungle, has but to command,” replied the black.

“Good!” exclaimed Tarzan, “feed them well and treat them well. I have other business to attend to and may not remain.”

“Their bellies shall be filled, and they shall reach the coast unscathed,” replied the chief.

Without a word of farewell, without even a sign that he realized their existence, Tarzan of the Apes passed from the sight of the four Europeans, while at his heels paced Jad-bal-ja, the golden lion.

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Chapter 19 Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A Barbed Shaft Kills

Kraski spent a sleepless night. He could not help but realize that sooner or later Tarzan would discover the loss of his pouch of diamonds, and that he would return and demand an accounting of the four Londoners he had befriended. And so it was that as the first streak of dawn lighted the eastern horizon, the Russian arose from his pallet of dried grasses within the hut that had been assigned him and Bluber by the chief, and crept stealthily out into the village street.
“God!” he muttered to himself. “There is only one chance in a thousand that I can reach the coast alone, but this,” and he pressed his hand over the bag of diamonds that lay within his shirt—“but this, this is worth every effort, even to the sacrifice of life—the fortune of a thousand kings—my God, what could I not do with it in London, and Paris, and New York!”

Stealthily he slunk from the village, and presently the verdure of the jungle beyond closed about Carl Kraski, the Russian, as he disappeared forever from the lives of his companions.

Bluber was the first to discover the absence of Kraski, for although there was no love between the two, they had been thrown together owing to the friendship of Peebles and Throck.

“Have you seen Carl this morning?” he asked Peebles as the three men gathered around the pot containing the unsavory stew that had been brought to them for their breakfast.

“No,” said Peebles. “He must be asleep yet.”

“He is not in the hut,” replied Bluber. “He vas not dere ven I woke up.”

“He can take care of himself,” growled Throck, resuming his breakfast. “You’ll likely find him with some of the ladies,” and he grinned in appreciation of his little joke on Kraski’s well-known weakness.

They had finished their breakfast and were attempting to communicate with some of the warriors, in an effort to learn when the chief proposed that they should set forth for the coast, and still Kraski had not made an appearance. By this time Bluber was considerably concerned, not at all for Kraski’s safety, but for his own, since, if something could happen to Kraski in this friendly village in the still watches of the night, a similar fate might overtake him, and when he made this suggestion to the others it gave them food for thought, too, so that there were three rather apprehensive men who sought an audience with the chief.

By means of signs and pidgin English, and distorted native dialect, a word or two of which each of the three understood, they managed to convey to the chief the information that Kraski had disappeared, and that they wanted to know what had become of him.

The chief was, of course, as much puzzled as they, and immediately instituted a thorough search of the village, with the result that it was soon found that Kraski was not within the palisade, and shortly afterward footprints were discovered leading through the village gateway into the jungle.

“Mein Gott!” exclaimed Bluber, “he vent out dere, und he vent alone, in der middle of der night. He must have been crazy.”

“Gord!” cried Trock, “what did he want to do that for?”

“You ain’t missed nothin’, have you?” asked Peebles of the other two. “’E might ’ave stolen somethin’.”

“Oi! Oi! Vot have ve got to steal?” cried Bluber. “Our guns, our ammunition—dey are here beside us. He did not take them. Beside dose ve have nothing of value except my tventy guinea suit.”

“But what did ’e do it for?” demanded Peebles.

“’E must ’ave been walkin’ in ’is bloomin’ sleep,” said Throck. And that was as near to an explanation of Kraski’s mysterious disappearance as the three could reach. An hour later they set out toward the coast under the protection of a company of the chief’s warriors.

Kraski, his rifle slung over his shoulder, moved doggedly along the jungle trail, a heavy automatic pistol grasped in his right hand. His ears constandy strained for the first intimation of pursuit as well as for whatever other dangers lurk before or upon either side. Alone in the mysterious jungle he was experiencing a nightmare of terror, and with each mile that he traveled the value of the diamonds became less and less by comparison with the frightful ordeal that realized he must pass through before he could hope to reach the coast.

Once Histah, the snake, swinging from a hung branch across the trail, barred his way, and the man dared not fire at him for fear of attracting the attention of possible pursuers to his position. He was forced, therefore, to make a detour through the tangled mass of underbrush which grew closely upon either side of the narrow trail. When he reached it again, beyond the snake, his clothing was more torn and tattered than before and his flesh was scratched and cut and bleeding from the innumerable thorns past which he had been compelled to force his way. He was soaked with perspiration and panting from exhaustion and his clothing was filled with ants whose vicious attacks upon his flesh rendered him half mad with pain.

Once again in the clear he tore his clothing from him and sought frantically to rid himself of the torturing pests.

So thick were the myriad ants upon his clothing that he dared not attempt to reclaim it. Only the sack of diamonds, his ammunition and his weapons did he snatch from the ravening horde whose numbers were rapidly increasing, apparently by the millions, as they sought to again lay hold upon him and devour him.

Shaking the bulk of the ants from the articles he had retrieved, Kraski dashed madly along the trail as naked as the day he was born, and when, hour later, stumbling and at last falling exhausted, he lay panting upon the damp jungle earth, he realized the utter futility of his mad attempt to reach the coast alone, even more fully than he ever could have under any other circumstances, since there is nothing that so paralyzes the courage and self-confidence of a civilized man as to be deprived of his clothing.

However scant the protection that might have been afforded by the torn and tattered garments he discarded, he could not have felt more helpless had he lost his weapons and ammunition instead, for, to such an extent are we the creatures of habit and environment. It was, therefore, a terrified Kraski, already foredoomed to failure, who crawled fearfully along the jungle trail.

That night, hungry and cold, he slept in the crotch of a great tree while the hunting carnivore roared, and coughed, and growled through the blackness of the jungle about him. Shivering with terror he started momentarily to fearful wakefulness, and when, from exhaustion, he would doze again it was not to rest but to dream of horrors that a sudden roar would merge into reality. Thus the long hours of a frightful night dragged out their tedious length, until it seemed that dawn would never come. But come it did, and once again he took up his stumbling way toward the west.

Reduced by fear and fatigue and pain to a state bordering upon half consciousness, he blundered on, with each passing hour becoming perceptibly weaker, for he had been without food or water since he had deserted his companions more than thirty hours before.

Noon was approaching. Kraski was moving but slowly now with frequent rests, and it was during one of these that there came to his numbed sensibilities an insistent suggestion of the voices of human beings not far distant. Quickly he shook himself and attempted to concentrate his waning faculties. He listened intently, and presently with a renewal of strength he arose to his feet.

There was no doubt about it. He heard voices but a short distance away and they sounded not like the tones of natives, but rather those of Europeans. Yet he was still careful, and so he crawled cautiously forward, until at a turning of the trail he saw before him a clearing dotted with trees which bordered the banks of a muddy stream. Near the edge of the river was a small hut thatched with grasses and surrounded by a rude palisade and further protected by an outer boma of thorn bushes.

It was from the direction of the hut that the voices were coming, and now he clearly discerned a woman’s voice raised in protest and in anger, and replying to it the deep voice of a man.

Slowly the eyes of Carl Kraski went wide in incredulity, not unmixed with terror, for the tones of the voice of the man he heard were the tones of the dead Esteban Miranda, and the voice of the woman was that of the missing Flora Hawkes, whom he had long since given up as dead also. But Carl Kraski was no great believer in the supernatural. Disembodied spirits need no huts or palisades, or bomas of thorns. The owners of those voices were as live—as material—as he.

He started forward toward the hut, his hatred of Esteban and his jealousy almost forgotten in the relief he felt in the realization that he was to again have the companionship of creatures of his own kind. He had moved, however, but a few steps from the edge of the jungle when the woman’s voice came again to his ear, and with it the sudden realization of his nakedness. He paused in thought, looking about him, and presently he was busily engaged gathering the long, broadleaved jungle grasses, from which he fabricated a rude but serviceable skirt, which he fastened about his waist with a twisted rope of the same material. Then with a feeling of renewed confidence he moved forward toward the hut. Fearing that they might not recognize him at first, and, taking him for an enemy, attack him, Kraski, before he reached the entrance to the palisade, called Esteban by name. Immediately the Spaniard came from the hut, followed by the girl. Had Kraski not heard his voice and recognized him by it, he would have thought him Tarzan of the Apes, so close was the remarkable resemblance.

For a moment the two stood looking at the strange apparition before them.

“Don’t you know me?” asked Kraski. “I am Carl—Carl Kraski. You know me, Flora.”

“Carl!” exclaimed the girl, and started to leap forward, but Esteban grasped her by the wrist and held her back.

“What are you doing here, Kraski?” asked the Spaniard in a surly tone.

“I am trying to make my way to the coast,” replied the Russian. “I am nearly dead from starvation and exposure.”

“The way to the coast is there,” said the Spaniard, and pointed down the trail toward the west. “Keep moving, Kraski, it is not healthy for you here.”

“You mean to say that you will send me on without food or water?” demanded the Russian.

“There is water,” said Esteban, pointing at the river, “and the jungle is full of food for one with sufficient courage and intelligence to gather it.”

“You cannot send him away,” cried the girl. “I did not think it possible that even you could be so cruel,” and then, turning to the Russian, “O Carl,” she cried “do not go. Save me! Save me from this beast!”

“Then stand aside,” cried Kraski, and as the girl wrenched herself free from the grasp of Miranda the Russian leveled his automatic and fired point-blank at the Spaniard. The bullet missed its target; the empty shell jammed in the breach and as Kraski pulled the trigger again with no result he glanced at his weapon and, discovering its uselessness, hurled it from him with an oath. As he strove frantically to bring his rifle into action Esteban threw back his spear hand with the short, heavy spear that he had learned by now so well to use, and before the other could press the trigger of his rifle the barbed shaft tore through his chest and heart. Without a sound Carl Kraski sank dead at the foot of his enemy and his rival, while the woman both had loved, each in his own selfish or brutal way, sank sobbing to the ground in the last and deepest depths of despair.

Seeing that the other was dead, Esteban stepped forward and wrenched his spear from Kraski’s body and also relieved his dead enemy of his ammunition and weapons. As he did so his eyes fell upon a little bag made of skins which Kraski had fastened to his waist by the grass rope he had recently fashioned to uphold his primitive skirt.

The Spaniard felt of the bag and tried to figure out the nature of its contents, coming to the conclusion that it was ammunition, but he did not examine it closely until he had carried the dead man’s weapons into his hut, where he had also taken the girl, who crouched in a corner, sobbing.

“Poor Carl! Poor Carl!” she moaned, and then to the man facing her: “You beast!”

“Yes,” he cried, with a laugh, “I am a beast. I am Tarzan of the Apes, and that dirty Russian dared to call me Esteban. I am Tarzan! I am Tarzan of the Apes!” he repeated in a loud scream. “Who dares call me otherwise dies. I will show them. I will show them,” he mumbled.

The girl looked at him with wide and flaming eyes and shuddered.

“Mad,” she muttered. “Mad! My God—alone in the jungle with a maniac!” And, in truth, in one respect was Esteban Miranda mad—mad with the madness of the artist who lives the part he plays. And for so long, now, had Esteban Miranda played the part, and so really proficient had he become in his interpretation of the noble character, that he believed himself Tarzan, and in outward appearance he might have deceived the ape-man’s best friend. But within that godlike form was the heart of a cur and the soul of a craven.

“He would have stolen Tarzan’s mate,” muttered Esteban. “Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle! Did you see how I slew him, with a single shaft? You could love a weakling, could you, when you could have the love of the great Tarzan!”

“I loathe you,” said the girl. “You are indeed a beast. You are lower than the beasts.”

“You are mine, though,” said the Spaniard, “and you shall never be another’s—first I would kill you—but let us see what the Russian had in his little bag of hides, it feels like ammunition enough to kill a regiment,” and he untied the thongs that held the mouth of the bag closed and let some of the contents spill out upon the floor of the hut. As the sparkling stones rolled scintillant before their astonished eyes, the girl gasped in incredulity.

“Holy Mary!” exclaimed the Spaniard, “they are diamonds.”

“Hundreds of them,” murmured the girl.

“Where could he have gotten them?”

“I do not know and I do not care,” said Esteban. “They are mine. They are all mine—I am rich, Flora. I am rich, and if you are a good girl you shall share my wealth with me.”

Flora Hawkes’s eyes narrowed. Awakened within her breast was the always-present greed that dominated her being, and beside it, and equally as powerful now to dominate her, her hatred for the Spaniard. Could he have known it, possession of those gleaming baubles had crystallized at last in the mind of the woman a determination she had long fostered to slay the Spaniard while he slept. Heretofore she had been afraid of being left alone in the jungle, but now the desire to possess this great wealth overcame her terror.

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Tarzan, ranging the jungle, picked up the trail of the various bands of west coast boys and the fleeing slaves of the dead Arabs, and overhauling each in turn he prosecuted his search for Luvini, awing the blacks into truthfulness and leaving them in a state of terror when he departed. Each and every one, they told him the same story. There was none who had seen Luvini since the night of the battle and the fire, and each was positive that he must have escaped with some other band.

So thoroughly occupied had the ape-man’s mind been during the past few days with his sorrow and his search that lesser considerations had gone neglected, with the result that he had not noted that the bag containing the diamonds was missing. In fact, he had practically forgotten the diamonds when, by the merest vagary of chance his mind happened to revert to them, and then it was that he suddenly realized that they were missing, but when he had lost them, or the circumstances surrounding the loss, he could not recall.

“Those rascally Europeans,” he muttered to Jad-bal-ja, “they must have taken them,” and suddenly with the thought the scarlet scar flamed brilliantly upon his forehead, as just anger welled within him against the perfidy and ingratitude of the men he had succored. “Come,” he said to Jad-bal-ja, “as we search for Luvini we shall search for these others also.” And so it was that Peebles and Throck and Bluber had traveled but a short distance toward the coast when, during a noon-day halt, they were surprised to see the figure of the ape-man moving majestically toward them while, at his side, paced the great, black-maned lion.

Tarzan made no acknowledgment of their exuberant greeting, but came forward in silence to stand at last with folded arms before them. There was a grim, accusing expression upon his countenance that brought the chill of fear to Bluber’s cowardly heart, and blanched the faces of the two hardened English pugs.

“What is it?” they chorused. “What is wrong? What has happened?”

“I have come for the bag of stones you took from me,” said Tarzan simply.

Each of the three eyed his companion suspiciously.

“I do not understand vot you mean, Mr. Tarzan,” purred Bluber, rubbing his palms together. “I am sure dere is some mistake, unless—“he cast a furtive and suspicious glance in the direction of Peebles and Throck.

“I don’t know nothin’ about no bag of stones,” said Peebles, “but I will say as ’ow you can’t trust no Jew.”

“I don’t trust any of you,” said Tarzan. “I will give you five seconds to hand over the hag of stones, and if you don’t produce it in that time I shall have you thoroughly searched.”

“Sure,” cried Bluber, “search me, search me, by all means. Vy, Mr. Tarzan, I vouldn’t take notting from you for notting.”

“There’s something wrong here,” growled Throck. “I ain’t got nothin’ of yours and I’m sure these two haven’t neither.”

“Where is the other?” asked Tarzan.

“Oh, Kraski? He disappeared the same night you brought us to that village. We hain’t seen him since—that’s it; I got it now—we wondered why he left, and now I see it as plain as the face on me nose. It was him that stole that bag of stones. That’s what he done. We’ve been tryin’ to figure out ever since he left what he stole, and now I see it plain enough.”

“Sure,” exclaimed Peebles. “That’s it, and ’ere we are, ’n that’s that.”

“Ve might have knowed it, ve might have knowed it,” agreed Bluber.

“But nevertheless I’m going to have you all searched,” said Tarzan, and when the head-man came and Tarzan had explained what he desired, the three whites were quickly stripped and searched. Even their few belongings were thoroughly gone through, but no bag of stones was revealed.

Without a word Tarzan turned back toward the jungle, and in another moment the blacks and the three Europeans saw the leafy sea of foliage swallow the ape-man and the golden lion.

“Gord help Kraski!” exclaimed Peebles.

“Wot do yer suppose he wants with a bag o’ stones?” inquired Throck. “’E must be a bit balmy, I’ll say.”

“Balmy nudding,” exclaimed Bluber. “Dere is but vun kind of stones in Africa vot Kraski would steal and run off into der jungle alone mit—diamonds.”

Peebles and Throck opened their eyes in surprise. “The damned Russian!” exclaimed the former. “He double-crossed us, that’s what e’ did.”

“He likely as not saved our lives, says hi,” said Throck. “If this ape feller had found Kraski and the diamonds with us we’d of all suffered alike—you couldn’t ’a’ made ’im believe we didn’t ’ave a ’and in it. And Kraski wouldn’t ’a’ done nothin’ to help us out.”

“I ’opes ’e catches the beggar!” exclaimed Peebles, fervently.

They were startled into silence a moment later by the sight of Tarzan returning to the camp, but he paid no attention to the whites, going instead directly to the head-man, with whom he conferred for several minutes. Then, once more, he turned and left.

Acting on information gained from the head-man, Tarzan struck off through the jungle in the general direction of the village where he had left the four whites in charge of the chief, and from which Kraski had later escaped alone. He moved rapidly, leaving Jad-bal-ja to follow behind, covering the distance to the village in a comparatively short time, since he moved almost in an air line through the trees, where there was no matted undergrowth to impede his progress.

Outside the village gate he took up Kraski’s spoor, now almost obliterated, it is true, but still legible to the keen perceptive faculties of the ape-man. This he followed swiftly, since Kraski had hung tenaciously to the open trail that wound in a general westward direction.

The sun had dropped almost to the western tree-tops, when Tarzan came suddenly upon a clearing beside a sluggish stream, near the banks of which stood a small, rude hut, surrounded by a palisade and a thorn boma.

The ape-man paused and listened, sniffing the air with his sensitive nostrils, and then on noiseless feet he crossed the clearing toward the hut. In the grass outside the palisade lay the dead body of a white man, and a single glance told the ape-man that it was the fugitive whom he sought. Instantly he realized the futility of searching the corpse for the bag of diamonds, since it was a foregone conclusion that they were now in the possession of whoever had slain the Russian. A perfunctory examination revealed the fact that he was right in so far as the absence of the diamonds was concerned.

Both inside the hut and outside the palisade were indications of the recent presence of a man and woman, the spoor of the former tallying with that of the creature who had killed Gobu, the great ape, and hunted Bara, the deer, upon the preserves of the ape-man. But the woman—who was she? It was evident that she had been walking upon sore, tired feet, and that in lieu of shoes she wore bandages of cloth.

Tarzan followed the spoor of the man and the woman where it led from the hut into the jungle.

As it progressed it became apparent that the woman had been lagging behind, and that she had commenced to limp more and more painfully. Her progress was very slow, and Tarzan could see that the man had not waited for her, but that he had been, in some places, a considerable distance ahead of her.

And so it was that Esteban had forged far ahead of Flora Hawkes, whose bruised and bleeding feet would scarce support her.

“Wait for me, Esteban,” she had pleaded. “Do not desert me. Do not leave me alone here in this terrible jungle.”

“Then keep up with me,” growled the Spaniard. “Do you think that with this fortune in my possession I am going to wait here forever in the middle of the jungle for someone to come and take it away from me? No, I am going on to the coast as fast as I can. If you can keep up, well and good. If you cannot, that is your own lookout.”

“But you could not desert me. Even you, Esteban, could not be such a beast after all that you have forced me to do for you.”

The Spaniard laughed. “You are nothing more to me,” he said, “than an old glove. With this,” and he held the sack of diamonds before him, “I can purchase the finest gloves in the capitals of the world—new gloves,” and he laughed grimly at his little joke.

“Esteban, Esteban,” she cned, “come back; come back. I can go no farther. Do not leave me. Please come back and save me.” But he only laughed at her, and as a turn of the trail shut him from her sight, she sank helpless and exhausted to the ground.

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Chapter 17 Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Torture of Fire

Flora Hawkes and her four confederates, pursued by Luvini and his two hundred warriors, stumbled through the darkness of the jungle night. They had no objective, for, guided entirely as they had been by the blacks, they knew not where they were and were completely lost. The sole idea dominating the mind of each was to put as much distance between themselves and the camp of the ivory raiders as possible, for no matter what the outcome of the battle there might have been, their fate would be the same should the victorious party capture them. They had stumbled on for perhaps half an hour when, during a momentary rest, they heard plainly behind them the sound of pursuit, and again they plunged on in their aimless flight of terror.
Presently, to their surprise, they discerned the glow of a light ahead. What could it be? Had they made a complete circle, and was this again the camp they had been fleeing? They pushed on to reconnoiter, until at last they saw before them the outlines of a camp surrounded by a thorn boma, in the center of which was burning a small camp-fire. About the fire were congregated half-a-hundred black warriors, and as the fugitives crept closer they saw among the blacks a figure standing out clearly in the light of the camp-fire—a white woman—and behind them rose louder and louder the sound of pursuit.

From the gestures and gesticulations of the blacks around the camp-fire it was evident that they were discussing the sounds of the battle they had recently heard in the direction of the raiders’ camp, for they often pointed in that direction, and now the woman raised her hand for silence and they all listened, and it was evident that they, too, heard the coming of the warriors who were pursuing Flora Hawkes and her confederates.

“There is a white woman there,” said Flora to the others. “We do not know who she is, but she is our only hope, for those who are pursuing us will overtake us quickly. Perhaps this woman will protect us. Come, I am going to find out;” and without waiting for an answer she walked boldly toward the boma.

They had come but a short distance when the keen eyes of the Waziri discovered them, and instantly the boma wall was ringed with bristling spears.

“Stop!” cried one of the warriors. “We are the Waziri of Tarzan. Who are you?”

“I am an Englishwoman,” called Flora in reply. “I and my companions are lost in the jungle. We have been betrayed by our safari—our head-man is pursuing us now with warriors. There are but five of us and we ask your protection.”

“Let them come,” said Jane to the Waziri.

As Flora Hawkes and the four men entered the boma beneath the scrutiny of Jane Clayton and the Waziri, another pair of eyes watched from the foliage of the great tree that overhung the camp upon the opposite side—gray eyes to which a strange light came as they recognized the girl and her companions.

As the newcomers approached Lady Greystoke the latter gave an exclamation of surprise. “Flora!” she exclaimed, in astonishment. “Flora Hawkes, what in the world are you doing here?”

The girl, startled too, came to a full stop. “Lady Greystoke!” she ejaculated.

“I do not understand,” continued Lady Greystoke. “I did not know that you were in Africa.”

For a moment the glib Flora was overcome by consternation, but presently her native wit came to her assistance. “I am here with Mr. Bluber and his friends,” she said, “who came to make scientific researches, and brought me along because I had been to Africa with you and Lord Greystoke, and knew something of the manners and customs of the country, and now our boys have turned against us and unless you can help us we are lost.”

“Are they west coast boys?” asked Jane.

“Yes,” replied Flora.

“I think my Waziri can handle them. How many of them are there?”

“About two hundred,” said Kraski.

Lady Greystoke shook her head. “The odds are pretty heavy,” she commented, and then she called to Usula, who was in charge. “There are two hundred west coast boys coming after these people,” she said; “we shall have to fight to defend them.”

“We are Waziri,” replied Usula, simply, and a moment later the van of Luvini’s forces broke into view at the outer rim of the camp-fire’s reach.

At sight of the glistening warriors ready to receive them the west coast boys halted. Luvini, taking in the inferior numbers of the enemy at a glance, stepped forward a few paces ahead of his men and commenced to shout taunts and insults, demanding the return of the whites to him. He accompanied his words with fantastic and grotesque steps, at the same time waving his rifle and shaking his fist. Presently his followers took up the refrain until the whole band of two hundred was shrieking and yelling and threatening, the while they leaped up and down as they worked themselves into a frenzy of excitement that would Impart to them the courage necessary for the initiating of a charge.

The Waziri, behind the boma wall, schooled and disciplined by Tarzan of the Apes, had long since discarded the fantastic overture to battle so dear to the hearts of other warlike tribes and, instead, stood stolid and grim awaiting the coming of the foe.

“They have a number of rifles,” commented Lady Greystoke; “that looks rather bad for us.”

“There are not over half-a-dozen who can hit anything with their rifles,” said Kraski.

“You men are all armed. Take your places among my Waziri. Warn your men to go away and leave us alone. Do not fire until they attack, but at the first overt act, commence firing, and keep it up—there is nothing that so discourages a west coast black as the rifle fire of white men. Flora and I will remain at the back of the camp, near that large tree.” She spoke authoritatively, as one who is accustomed to command and knows whereof she speaks. The men obeyed her; even Bluber, though he trembled pitiably as he moved forward to take his place in the front ranks among the Waziri.

Their movements, in the light of the camp-fire, were all plainly discernible to Luvini, and also to that other who watched from the foliage of the tree beneath which Jane Clayton and Flora Hawkes took refuge. Luvini had not come to fight. He had come to capture Flora Hawkes. He turned to his men. “There are only fifty of them,” he said. “We can kill them easily, but we did not come to make war. We came to get the white girl back again. Stay here and make a great show against those sons of jackals. Keep them always looking at you. Advance a little and then fall back again, and while you are thus keeping their attention attracted in this direction I will take fifty men and go to the rear of their camp and get the white girl, and when I have her I will send word to you and immediately you can return to the village, where, behind the palisade, we shall be safe against attack.”

Now this plan well suited the west coast blacks, who had no stomach for the battle looming so imminent, and so they danced and yelled and menaced more vociferously than before, for they felt they were doing it all with perfect impunity, since presently they should retire, after a bloodless victory—to the safety of their palisade.

As Luvini, making a detour, crept through the concealment of the dense jungles to the rear of the camp while the din of the west coast blacks arose to almost deafening proportions, there dropped suddenly to the ground before the two white women from the tree above them, the figure of a white giant, naked except for loin cloth and leopard skin—his godlike contour picked out by the flickering light of the beast fire.

“John!” exclaimed Lady Greystoke. “Thank God it is you.”

“Sssh!” cautioned the white giant, placing a forefinger to his lips, and then suddenly he wheeled upon Flora Hawkes. “It is you I want,” he cried, and seizing the girl he threw her lightly across his shoulders, and before Lady Greystoke could interfere—before she half-realized what had occurred—he had lightly leaped the protecting boma in the rear of the camp and disappeared into the jungle beyond. For a moment Jane Clayton stood reeling as one stunned by an unexpected blow, and then, with a stifled moan, she sank sobbing to the ground, her face buried in her arms.

It was thus that Luvini and his warriors found her as they crept stealthily over the boma and into the camp in the rear of the defenders upon the opposite side of the beast fire. They had come for a white woman and they had found one, and roughly dragging her to her feet, smothering her cries with rough and filthy palms, they bore her out into the jungle toward the palisaded village of the ivory raiders.

Ten minutes later the white men and the Waziri saw the west coast blacks retire slowly into the jungle, still yelling and threatening, as though bent on the total annihilation of their enemies—the battle was over without a shot fired or a spear hurled.

“Blime,” said Throck, “what was all the bloomin’ fuss about anyhow?”

“Hi thought they was goin’ to heat hus hup, an’ the blighters never done nothin’ but yell, an’ ’ere we are, ‘n that’s that.”

The Jew swelled out his chest. “It takes more as a bunch of niggers to bluff Adolph Bluber,” he said pompously.

Kraski looked after the departing blacks, and then, scratching his head, turned back toward the camp-fire. “I can’t understand it,” he said, and then, suddenly, “Where are Flora and Lady Greystoke?”

It was then that they discovered that the women were missing.

The Waziri were frantic. They called the name of their mistress aloud, but there was no reply. “Come!” cried Usula, “we, the Waziri shall fight, after all,” and running to the boma he leaped it, and, followed by his fifty blacks, set out in pursuit of the west coast boys.

It was but a moment or two before they overtook them, and that which ensued resembled more a rout than a battle. Fleeing in terror toward their palisade with the Waziri at their heels the west coast blacks threw away their rifles that they might run the faster, but Luvini and his party had had sufficient start so that they were able to reach the village and gain the safety of the palisade before pursued and pursuers reached it. Once inside the gate the defenders made a stand for they realized that if the Waziri entered they should all be massacred, and so they fought as a cornered rat will fight, with the result that they managed to hold off the attackers until they could close and bar the gate. Built as it had been as a defense against far greater numbers the village was easy to defend, for there were less than fifty Waziri now, and nearly two hundred fighting men within the village to defend it against them.

Realizing the futility of blind attack Usula withdrew his forces a short distance from the palisade, and there they squatted, their fierce, scowling faces glaring at the gateway while Usula pondered schemes for outwitting the enemy, which he realized he could not overcome by force alone.

“It is only Lady Greystoke that we want,” he said; “vengeance can wait until another day.”

“But we do not even know that she is within the village,” reminded one of his men.

“Where else could she be, then?” asked Usula.

“It is true that you may be right—she may not be within the village, but that I intend to find out. I have a plan. See; the wind is from the opposite side of the village. Ten of you will accompany me, the others will advance again before the gate and make much noise, and pretend that you are about to attack. After awhile the gate will open they will come out. That I promise you. I will try to be here before that happens, but if I am not, divide into two parties and stand upon either side of the gateway and let the west coast blacks escape; we do not care for them. Watch only for Lady Greystoke, and when you see her take her away from those who guard her. Do you understand?” His companions nodded. “Then come”, he said, and selecting ten men disappeared into the jungle.

Luvini had carried Jane Clayton to a hut not far from the gateway to the village. Here he had bound her securely and tied her to a stake, still believing that she was Flora Hawkes, and then he had left her to hurry back toward the gate that he might take command of his forces in defense of the village.

So rapidly had the events of the past hour transpired that Jane Clayton was still half dazed from the series of shocks that she had been called upon to endure. Dwarfing to nothingness the menace her present position was the remembrance that her Tarzan had deserted her in her hour of need, and carried off into the jungle another woman. Not even the remembrance of what Usula had told her concerning the accident that Tarzan had sustained, and which had supposedly again affected his memory, could reconcile her to the brutality of his desertion, and now she lay, face down, in the filth of the Arab hut, sobbing as she had not for many years.

As she lay there torn by grief, Usula and his ten crept stealthily and silently around the outside of the palisade to the rear of the village. Here they found great quantities of dead brush left from the clearing which the Arabs had made when constructing their village. This they brought and piled along the palisade, close against it, until nearly three-quarters of the palisade upon that side of the village was banked high with it. Finding that it was difficult to prosecute their work in silence, Usula despatched one of his men to the main body upon the opposite side of the village, with instructions that they were to keep up a continuous din of shouting to drown the sound of the operations of their fellows. The plan worked to perfection, yet even though it permitted Usula and his companions to labor with redoubled efforts, it was more than an hour before the brush pile was disposed to his satisfaction.

Luvini, from an aperture in the palisade, watched the main body of the Waziri who were now revealed by the rising of the moon, and finally he came to the conclusion that they did not intend to attack that night, and therefore he might relax his watchfulness and utilize the time in another and more agreeable manner. Instructing the bulk of his warriors to remain near the gate and ever upon the alert, with orders that he be summoned the moment that the Waziri showed any change in attitude, Luvini repaired to the hut in which he had left Lady Greystoke.

The black was a huge fellow, with low, receding forehead and prognathous jaw—a type of the lowest form of African negro. As he entered the hut with a lighted torch which he stuck in the floor, his bloodshot eyes gazed greedily at the still form of the woman lying prone before him. He licked his thick lips and, coming closer, reached out and touched her. Jane Clayton looked up, and recoiling in revulsion shrunk away. At sight of the woman’s face the black looked his surprise.

“Who are you?” he demanded in the pigdin English of the coast.

“I am Lady Greystoke, wife of Tarzan of the Apes,” replied Jane Clayton. “If you are wise you will release me at once.”

Surprise and terror showed in the eyes of Luvini, and another emotion as well, but which would dominate the muddy brain it was difficult, then, to tell. For a long time he sat gazing at her, and slowly the greedy, gloating expression upon face dominated and expunged the fear that had at; first been written there, and in the change Jane Clayton read her doom.

With fumbling fingers Luvini untied the knots of the bonds that held Jane Clayton’s wrists and ankles. She felt his hot breath upon her and his bloodshot eyes and the red tongue that momentarily licked the thick lips. The instant that she felt the last thong with which she was tied fall away she leaped to her feet and sprang for the entrance to the hut, but a great hand reached forth and seized her, and as Luvini dragged her back toward him, she wheeled like a mad tigress and struck repeatedly at his grinning, ugly face. By brute force, ruthless and indomitable, he beat down her weak resistance and slowly and surely dragged her closer to him. Oblivious to aught else, deaf to the cries of the Waziri before the gate and to the sudden new commotion that arose in the village, the two struggled on, the woman, from the first, foredoomed to defeat.

Against the rear palisade Usula had already put burning torches to his brush pile at half-a-dozen different places. The flames, fanned by a gentle jungle breeze, had leaped almost immediately into a roaring conflagration, before which the dry wood of the palisade crumbled in a shower of ruddy sparks which the wind carried to the thatched roofs the huts beyond, until in an incredibly short period of time the village was a roaring inferno of flames. And even as Usula had predicted the gate swung open and the west coast blacks swarmed forth in terror toward the jungle. Upon either of the gateway the Waziri stood, looking for their mistress, but though they waited and watched silence until no more came from the gateway of village, and until the interior of the palisade a seething hell of fire, they saw nothing of her.

Long after they were convinced that no human being could remain alive in the village they still waited and hoped; but at last Usula gave up the vigil.

“She was never there,” he said, “and now we pursue the blacks and capture some of them, from whom we may learn the whereabouts of Lady Greystoke.”

It was daylight before they came upon a small of stragglers, who were in camp a few miles of the west. These they quickly surrounded, winning their immediate surrender by promises of immunity in the event that they would answer truthfully the questions that Usula should propound.

“Where is Luvini?” demanded Usula, who had learned the name of the leader of the west coast boys from the Europeans the evening before.

“We do not know; we have not seen him since we left the village,” replied one of the blacks. “We were some of the slaves of the Arabs, and when we escaped the palisade last night we ran away from the others, for we thought that we should be safer alone than with Luvini, who is even crueller than the Arabs.”

“Did you see the white women that he brought to the camp last night?” demanded Usula.

“He brought but one white woman,” replied the other.

“What did he do with her? Where is she now?” asked Usula.

“I do not know. When he brought her he bound her hand and foot and put her in the hut which he occupied near the village gate. We have not seen her since.”

Usula turned and looked at his companions. A great fear was in his eyes, a fear that was reflected in the countenances of the others.

“Come!” he said, “we shall return to the village. And you will go with us,” he added, addressing the west coast blacks, “and if you have lied to us—” he made a significant movement with his forefinger across his throat.

“We have not lied to you,” replied the others. Quickly they retraced their steps toward the ruins of the Arab village, nothing of which was left save a few piles of smoldering embers.

“Where was the hut in which the white woman was confined?” demanded Usula, as they entered the smoking ruins.

“Here,” said one of the blacks, and walked quickly a few paces beyond what had been the village gateway. Suddenly he halted and pointed at something which lay upon the ground. “There,” he said, “is the white woman you seek.”

Usula and the others pressed forward. Rage and grief contended for mastery of them as they beheld, lying before them, the charred remnants of a human body.

“It is she,” said Usula, turning away to hide his grief as the tears rolled down his ebon cheeks. The other Waziri were equally affected, for they all had loved the mate of the big Bwana.

“Perhaps it is not she,” suggested one of them; “perhaps it is another.”

“We can tell quickly,” cried a third. “If her rings are among the ashes it is indeed she,” and he knelt and searched for the rings which Lady Greystoke habitually wore.

Usula shook his head despairingly. “It is she,” he said, “there is the very stake to which she was fastened”—he pointed to the blackened stub of a stake close beside the body—”and as for the rings, even if they are not there it will mean nothing, for Luvini would have taken them away from her as soon as he captured her. There was time for everyone else to leave the village except she, who was bound and could not leave—no, it cannot be another.”

The Waziri scooped a shallow grave and reverently deposited the ashes there, marking the spot with a little cairn of stones.

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