Robert Gordon Anderson - "Seven O'Clock Stories"

K. (Katie) Langloh Parker (1856 1940) - "Australian Legendary Tales "

Martin van Buren - "State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren"

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell - "Wives and Daughters"

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

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




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

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

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

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

"Did you hear it?" he asked.

The other came closer, trembling.

"Hear what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





24

Home




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"God bless them!" cried Jane Clayton.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Jane Clayton breathed a fervent, "Amen!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why do you laugh?" asked Tarzan.

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.