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Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

E >> Edgar Rice Burroughs >> Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar



Created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska





Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

By Edgar Rice Burroughs





Contents




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





1

Belgian and Arab




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You hesitate," murmured the Arab.

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

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

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

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





2

On the Road To Opar




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





3

The Call of the Jungle




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

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

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

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

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